From a cup of caffeine to the exact shade of your veggie, from how much and what kind of exercise you should be getting to whether broccoli is doing you more harm than good, the age of personalized food, exercise, and medicine is here.
“That’s the best thing that can happen and it’s a solution that will ultimately help people live longer,” says Sajeev Nair, co-founder and president of Vieroots Wellness Solutions.
Founded in 2019 by Sajeev and co-founder Adityanarayan, Bangalore-based health technology startup Vieroots Wellness Solutions has pioneered the Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered mobile app and ‘Personalized Epigenetic Lifestyle Modifications’ ( EPLIMO).
“Our goal is to healthily transform the lives of millions of people through EPLIMO by 2025,” says Sajeev.
“As COVID-19 made people realize that they need to take charge of their own health, they started looking for tools and processes to do so. EPLIMO arrived on the market on time as a solution to their search”, he adds.
“EPLIMO makes it convenient for users to access genetic and metabolic reports and personalized lifestyle modifications suggested by our platform’s medical and genetic experts along with online counseling,” he says.
With the option to store health care records for quick reference and locate nearby doctors, EPLIMO puts everything at the fingertips of its users.
As COVID-19 altered the dynamics of health and healthcare, bringing with it various technological interventions, the pandemic has also induced long-term change in consumer behavior and attitudes, redefining relationships with the body and the mind.
The previous approach to “reactionary medicine,” as Sajeev calls it, visiting a doctor only in times of illness, has been constantly changing due to a rapid shift to slow, sustainable living and a holistic transformation in style choices. of life.
The shift is toward long-term solutions and, as Sajeev calls it, an early adoption of “preventive medicine/preventive health care.”
In fact, according to the Indian market research firm, Numb Research, India’s 443 million millennials spend an average of Rs 4,000 per month on health and wellness products and services..
This is validated by EPLIMO’s 5,000+ active user base, a “constantly growing” tribe.
More than 200 lifestyle coaches and more than 500 wellness consultants are on board with Vieroots.
DNA’s Journey to Metabolic Assessment
“At one point, I used to take a lot of nutritional supplements and exercise a lot, but I soon learned that not everything is for everyone. I’ve learned that some of these supplements can do more harm than good, while some of the exercises can actually kill you. And that was a great revelation,” recalls Sajeev.
“In 2005, when I went to the US, I came across a concept called nutrigenomics (also known as nutritional genomics, the term is widely used to define the relationship between nutrients, diet, and gene expression), which is mainly in decoding nutritional aspects. based on genomics,” he says.
In 2003, the Human Genome Project It was completed.
Sajeev soon learned that one would be able to decode the body’s various nutritional requirements based on DNA.
Hailing from Kerala, serial entrepreneur Sajeev, a well-known wellness evangelist and one of India’s earliest biohackers, was already working on his wellness business at the time.
the author of The creation of a superhuman, Sajeev experienced on himself some of the DIY ‘biohacks’ or personalized lifestyle modifications that he came to understand through his research.
His experiments aligned with sentiments of “youth living” and Vieroots’ stated mission: to enable people to realize the true potential of their body and mind, and make informed lifestyle modifications to harness the bounty of life. enlarged human life, but also to live fuller, healthier and longer lives.
“Around 2016-17, I started to get more interested in a space called human longevity and peak performance, especially since I’m a peak performance coach myself. So maximizing human performance or enhancing human potential has always been my passion,” she shares.
When she began cultivating the “long, healthy, full lives” space, she soon discovered how it was intrinsically connected to personalized health.
personalized health manual for life
Typically, a client is given a kit that allows them to take 2ml of their saliva, and the sample is collected upside down and sent to the genomics lab. The lab then decodes one’s DNA and tests it through the metrics of 250 different health conditions.
The DNA Report Card allows the user to receive a wealth of information: from their risk of lifestyle diseases such as diabetes and autoimmune diseases, to how minerals and vitamins are absorbed into their cells, and the generativity of their structure. musculoskeletal
However, Vieroots soon realized that this was not enough.
Just imagine when you visit a good doctor for a certain condition or illness. Sometimes they ask questions seemingly unrelated to the sleep cycle, etc. To a layperson, it may seem unrelated, but Sajeev explains that these are deeper questions directly related to one’s body and health. For example, whether one is sleeping well or not is also a determining factor of one’s digestive function.
Vieroots curated a quiz of 70 metabolism-related questions, preloaded on its mobile app, EPLIMO. When a user visits the website, they are directed to the application, and when they download the application, the user is directed to answer these questions.
The questionnaire is designed to generate data and information on 250 health conditions and is correlated with DNA data obtained from genomic evaluation.
Sajeev gives an example: Suppose if you look at a genomic report, an individual might genetically have a higher risk of lactose intolerance. To address the issue of lactose intolerance, the suggested recommendation should be ‘no dairy products’. However, once you read more of the report, you may find a higher risk for lower calcium concentrations, and the stated recommendation would be to “eat more calcium-rich foods like milk.”
The correlation is missing; the report is only based on condition-by-condition parameters. EPLIMO claims to provide a “highly accurate” recommendation by correlating the various conditions using the power of ML and AI.
Sajeev describes the personalized health bulletin as an “operations manual for the rest of your life,” since the genomic data never changes.
The Wellness Consumer Tribe
“The good thing is that our target audience is very well defined; They are health conscious people. We only target people who are already health conscious, but make mistakes. For example, people who need to make informed decisions, whether it’s exercise or diet,” Sajeev explains.
So far, the number of app downloads is 5,500, with Tier I comprising 70-80% and Northeast comprising up to 20%. The average age profile of the user base is between 25 and 55 years old.
The entire EPLIMO process, including advice and preparation, costs Rs 30,000 plus tax.
Vieroots has trained wellness or “lifestyle” coaches with a background in life sciences. Some of them are dietitians and professionals who have taken courses in biotechnology. They all work on commission to generate and support sales.
The ‘lifestyle trainers’ undergo a two-month course, for which Vieroots has affiliated with the Indian Association of Functional Medicine.
The entire process takes between four and six weeks, from the delivery of the genomic kit to the counseling session. The last virtual counseling session is carried out in addition to the manual of personalized epigenetic lifestyle recommendations in PDF format that the user receives in the application.
“The goal is to empower people to take charge of their own health,” says Sajeev.
Speaking of the challenges, Sajeev explains: “The first name that comes to a user’s mind when we talk about healthcare is the doctor. And yet, you usually visit a doctor when you’re sick. Also, most doctors don’t have the time or the bandwidth to research preventive health care, because they’re too busy working on diseases.”
“In the case of autoimmune diseases, the only medicine available is immunosuppressants. Some genomic reporting findings have revealed that for some people, ‘nightshade vegetables’, such as tomatoes and potatoes, have an adverse effect. And interestingly, it was observed that when these people stopped consuming them, their autoimmune disease, which they had suffered from for years, also remitted, ”he adds.
Sajeev says that there are no direct competitors or services like EPLIMO. However, he names some of the major players in the “personal genomics market” in India: MayMyGenome, Genebox and Medgenome.
Start-up with boot follows the direct-to-customer revenue model.
“We completed a full financial year this year on March 22 and secured Rs 14.8 crore with close profitability. We have two sources of income: one is a service and the second is our nutritional supplements,” says Sajeev.