According to the World Health Organization, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) account for nearly 60% of deaths in India, with conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension leading the charge. The financial burden of these diseases on India’s healthcare system is estimated to exceed USD 6 trillion by 2030.
To explore how India can leverage personalized wellness solutions, driven by advancements in genomics, AI, and technology, Dr. Asawari Savant from Elets News Network (ENN) spoke to Sajeev Nair, Founder and Chairman of Vieroots Wellness Solutions & Author of ‘The Making of A Super Human’ Book, a leader in personalized healthcare and wellness, about the future of preventive healthcare and its potential to transform the nation’s health landscape.
As the healthcare landscape evolves from reactive treatments to proactive prevention, what do you think are the main challenges in scaling up preventive healthcare solutions across India?
The first thing to note is that this evolution from reactive treatments to proactive prevention is already underway and irreversible, as it is the need of the hour, and numerous medical studies are confirming the power and superiority of proactive prevention. The main hindrance faced in scaling this evolution is the mainstream medical community’s continued focus on reactive treatments. They can’t be blamed, as their hands are full with delivering reactive treatments, often on an emergency basis. Better patient awareness will change this.
With advancements in genomics and AI, how do you envision the future of personalized health solutions transforming the way healthcare is delivered in India and globally?
Almost on a weekly basis, more genetic variants responsible for causing one or more lifestyle diseases are being discovered. For example, until 2005, medical science knew of only three variants causing type 2 diabetes (T2D). Then came the Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS), and by 2018, geneticists had discovered dozens of such T2D variants. By 2022, this number had exploded to over 500 variants! Likewise, for hundreds of lifestyle diseases. Personalized solutions like Vieroots Eplimo can manage this complexity only through advancements in AI.
Chronic lifestyle diseases are on the rise in India. In your opinion, how can the widespread adoption of preventive health measures help reduce the long-term burden on healthcare costs?
At Vieroots, we have a slogan that conveys the affordability of preventive methods versus reactive treatments: ‘Wellness is way more affordable than illness.’ For instance, expenses for a reactive treatment plan for heart disease include costs for ICU, angioplasty, stents, and, most probably, half a dozen daily pills for life—totalling lakhs in one-time costs and thousands monthly. In contrast, a few thousand invested one-time in a preventive plan like Vieroots ‘Optimize My Heart’ is way more affordable and less risky.
What role do you think the government should play in supporting the growth of preventive healthcare solutions, especially in areas like genetic testing and personalized wellness?
The obvious role that our governments at various levels can play is spreading awareness about proactive prevention and not relying solely on highly expensive reactive treatments that come into play only after medical disasters have struck. When governments release advisories, people listen, as is the case with the recent digital scams. Secondly, the central government can direct and facilitate the inclusion of preventive methods into health insurance. It will also help health insurance firms.
With the rapid evolution of the health-tech sector, what are the key trends you foresee in the next 5 to 10 years? How important will personalized wellness be in this growth?
Personalized wellness will dominate the market, as seen in the growth of health wearables like smart rings, continuous glucose monitors, smartwatches, etc., which will grow exponentially. The demand for health super apps is also increasing, and this trend will gather exponential pace. The demand will be highest for solutions that work like a seamless ecosystem. We are seeing this kind of heightened interest in our Trigr super app and the Trigr ecosystem of wearables like smart rings and CGM.
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Educating the public about the benefits of personalized wellness solutions is crucial. What steps can the healthcare industry take to increase awareness and trust in genetic-based health insights and prevention?
Educating the public should be complemented by spreading awareness among the medical community as well. Health-tech-like genomic solutions can be disruptive to the medical community, but it need not be so; rather, it can add immense value to their services. From our example, we have taken doctors into confidence, and many doctors, clinics, and hospitals who put their patients’ interests first are our active partners for solutions like Vieroots Eplimo.
How does Vieroots ensure that its wellness solutions are user-friendly and accessible, especially given the complexity of genetic and metabolic data?
While the underlying technologies like genomics and AI are complex and formidable, we have taken care to present their insights in the most user-friendly form. Apart from delivering printed reports when needed, the Eplimo system has been implemented as a smartphone app for iOS and Android. Secondly, our Human Performance Optimization (HPO) solutions like ‘Optimize My Weight’ and ‘Optimize My Heart’ come with the services of a Certified Lifestyle Coach for the 90-day duration of the program, ensuring handholding and thus improving results.
Vieroots offers personalized wellness solutions by integrating genetic and metabolic insights. How do you ensure that these programs are effectively tailored to meet the unique health needs of each individual?
Both genetic and metabolic data are highly personalized inputs about an individual. While the genetic data of a person includes the genetic variants that are responsible for eventually causing any of hundreds of lifestyle diseases in that person, their metabolic data provides insights that confirm or reject the probabilities from their genetic data. Hence, false positives are rare in our Eplimo results, and this provides our team with a sharp focus on suggesting highly effective, personalized lifestyles.
How does Vieroots incorporate emerging technologies like AI and IoT into its wellness programs to provide continuous monitoring and actionable health insights to users?
As I mentioned earlier, if not for the AI-driven data analytics used by our team of geneticists and doctors, it would not have been possible for Vieroots to suggest truly personalized, research-validated, and highly effective lifestyle changes spanning diet, nutrition, supplements, exercise, yoga, breathwork, meditation, stress management, etc., for each client. We use IoT-based technologies for running the Trigr family of health wearables and for integrating them with the Trigr super app and Eplimo.
How can strategic collaborations—whether with government bodies, industry players, or healthcare institutions—help Vieroots enhance the efficiency and scalability of its solutions?
To scale genomic solutions like ours, it is obvious that we need to collaborate with government bodies, insurance firms, hospitals, etc. Government support is most needed in including lifestyle modifications as a legitimate preventive method that deserves reimbursement from health insurance schemes. Select developed countries that have included lifestyle modifications in health insurance are reaping rich dividends—for patients, insurance firms, and their economies.
What are some of the key innovations or future initiatives that Vieroots is focusing on to expand its impact in the field of personalized healthcare and wellness? Are there any plans on the horizon that you’d like to share?
The integration of Trigr health wearables with our genomic solutions like Eplimo is an immediate plan to expand the impact of our solutions. We have started rolling out the Vieroots Biohack Centres which offer clinical biohacking services like pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) therapy, red-light therapy, cryotherapy, infrared saunas, nutritional IVs, etc. We also have an R&D pipeline of supplements that will continue the success of our anti-ageing formulations like NAD Complex and MITO Complex.
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