Sami Inkinen
Appearances
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
By the way, I'll add here, I think Krisma mentioned the IUH trial, so Indiana University Health and data, which is that when we started Virta, obviously, we use telemedicine and nutrition to achieve these results. And when you use telemedicine and nutrition, you don't need FDA approval. It's not a new molecule that we are developing, a new drug.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
But we made this what at the time, this was 2015, seemed like a crazy risky bet. That is, we started a five-year prospective clinical trial with practically no funding for the company. And most of my investors were sort of from the tech world and they were rolling their eyes and saying, are you crazy? You're gonna spend five years doing a clinical trial.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
Now with hindsight, it is one of the best things that we've ever done. And obviously we keep publishing data and we have other trials in the works, but the reason it was such a good move at the time is one, Obviously, we've attracted people like Griezmann to join the company who say, hey, I want to know if this actually works. Is this safe? What's the sustainability?
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
And I don't want to hear white papers and marketing materials and be like, show me the hard data. Is it peer reviewed? And I can go through. So that's kind of the one reason. But then the second reason is, which I didn't appreciate coming from outside of health care. paradigms, even in light of new data, change very slowly. Very, very slowly. Like you, Mark, mentioned, oh, diabetes is reversible.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
Well, guess what? If we go and poll 1,000 average or random providers, you know, Harvard trains, Stanford train, you name it, I don't know what percentage would still say, yeah, no, no, type two diabetes, it's chronic, progressive, you can't reverse it.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
So even in light of data, it's honestly, it has taken and still have to work very hard to change the conventional wisdom that many of these, most of the metabolic diseases are reversible and using our data to That's the language of most scientists and clinicians. But even with the data, you know, it's hard work.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
Exactly.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
Maybe I'll jump, Krisma, first, give the non-MD, non-medical doctor view now that I've observed 100,000 plus patients and 10-year journey, and maybe the listeners who are less clinically minded can... can get a few data points there and then I'll hand it over to you.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
Well, first, Mark, indeed, the results that we deliver, I sort of jokingly, although this holds true, these days say that Virta nutritionally delivers Ozempic-like results without the drug. Like those are the outcomes that we deliver. And as you mentioned, 12% average body weight loss, and not just for six months, 12% at one year, sustained at two years, and we'd follow patients out to five years.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
So the results are very strong. And as you mentioned in type two diabetes context, insulin is usually thought as sort of the last hope drug, hypoglycemic agent for type two diabetes. Well, at two years, from start to two years, 80% of all insulin, inverter care is eliminated, which again is kind of unheard of because usually the dose goes up 10, 12% year over year.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
This is 80% of the total dose at start is eliminated on a population level, which is insane. And I think the percentage of people who are completely off is somewhere in the same ballpark. I actually don't remember that number on top of my head, but it is very high.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
And as you said, 60%, what we call diabetes reversal rate that one year, which does mean that you are completely off of diabetes specific medications and your blood sugar is in a normal range. And There's a lot of societal debate like, how do we get the insulin price lower and lower and lower? I always say, guess what's better than a lower insulin price?
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
It's eliminating the need for insulin in type 2 diabetes context. Obviously, type 1 is a different disease. Back to the treatment. I'll give you the layman's verse and first. Well, first I should say, nutrition is freaking hard. It is freaking hard.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
Obviously, we've had diet and exercise programs for the last three, four decades, and practically all of them have failed to deliver sustained results. And sometimes I say, you know, my background in physics, that getting nutrition right is harder or can be harder than nuclear physics, or at least in light of the last three, four decades. But here's a couple of cornerstones why Virta works.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
So number one, You have to be able to use nutrition to eliminate unnecessary hunger and cravings. So eliminate unnecessary hunger and cravings. Because if the nutrition program is based on sort of willpower and hunger, willpower always runs out, usually latest at the wedding photo. Like it runs up. And so that's one cornerstone of what Virta does.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
When we use nutrition, we help our patients or counsel them to eat to satiety and as much sort of real food as possible.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
Exactly. And obviously, mathematically, that can hold. But again, if it's a mathematical exercise, when the willpower runs out, which it does, again, at the wedding photo, whatever the milestone is, then weight regains. So that's on a nutritional side. I'll say one more thing around nutrition, which is We have to, and this is what we do, we individualize more or less to the N equals one.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
And I'll give you a silly example, but often this is lost in translation in diet programs. So if you're a vegetarian coming to Virta by identity or religion or that, that is your thing. And we tell you to eat bacon and eggs for breakfast, guess what? We lose you immediately. Also, the other way around, like we work with one large Fortune 500 company. We work with U.S. foods.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
There's a lot of truck drivers, and these are mostly men. And so they're used to like burgers and meat and stuff. If we tell them, and obviously this is stereotypical, but if we tell them, okay, it's steamed spinach for the rest of your life, guess what? Again, we lose you immediately. So we have to do a lot of individualization.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
And so that's on the nutrition side and Krisma can go into more details, but those are some of the cornerstones. And then on a care delivery, I'll just mention that as you said, Mark, even with the best protocol, best nutrition, best nutrition science, if it's here's what to do, see you in three months, guess what?
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
It's like telling to a driver on a car, okay, just hold on to your steering wheel and keep going. Guess what? First corner and you're gonna drive to the forest off the road. So it's the same thing with nutrition. So the care delivery model that we have, it's basically daily monitoring daily interaction.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
So when you hit the first corner, which could be, I don't know, kid's birthday party, or maybe there's like a death in family, or you lose a job, something emotionally really hard to overcome, we're there to help you and guide you. And so that wasn't possible without telemedicine. And now obviously with telemedicine, it's, you know, chronic disease is 24-7, care better be and support
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
better be 24-7 too. So that's kind of a little bit of, on a high level, the nutrition piece and then combining with this 24-7, more or less 24-7 support that we can deliver that has allowed us to deliver those results. But maybe Griezmann, you can add a little bit nuance to the kind of nutrition piece and how that's different from...
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
I would also add that we haven't published this. Actually, we published some, but We actually have very interesting dose response data. So pharmaceutical companies usually do what they have to do, like a dose response study. So here's the molecule. You add more of that molecule and then see what happens in terms of safety and in terms of outcomes.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
And obviously you can then tease out the correlation and causation, like, oh, more of this acetaminophen, the less you have pain and whatnot. We actually have very interesting dose response data to carbohydrate restriction and seeing what happens to weight, glycemic control and getting off the meds.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
And I guess the punchline is the more insulin resistant you are, the more of that dose, the better is basically without sharing all of our secrets. But it's fascinating because we literally have dose response curves and it kind of tells us tells the story.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
The other thing I wanted to add, Mark, when I listened to you and I was thinking those patient outcomes and what you had seen, if I wasn't, if I did not have the 10 year history of building Virta and seeing exactly the same results now with 100,000 plus Americans, I would still be like, oh, I'm sure nutrition can work, but
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
come on, these are the grandfather who was 100 pounds overweight and then ran a marathon. We always hear these stories. Like, oh, it's a one anomaly, one out of a million. But I think really what the world needs to hear, this is individuals, business decision makers, policy decision makers, scientists, is that These results are systematically possible. Absolutely systematically possible.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
And this idea that we have 200 million sick American adults, metabolically unhealthy, and the best we can do is manage symptoms with medications is ridiculous. It is so ridiculous. And so we really have to get the message across that there is a way, nutritionally, you don't have to be a superman or superwoman. ordinary person, there's a systematic way to achieve those results.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
Obviously, it's a distribution. Some are hugely successful in terms of moderately successful, but that message hasn't broken through yet. And it has to. And that's why I'm grateful to be on this podcast too, because it's ridiculous. There's no other way out of this metabolic health mess. GLB once in tap water is not going to solve this mess.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
Yeah, absolutely. And first, upfront, I want to say that this may sound like, oh, this guy is so anti-pharmaceutical. No, I'm a physicist by training. I believe in science. I believe in Western medicine and also these GLP-1 drugs. you know, first one was, I think in America approved for treating type two diabetes 2005. And it's a tool in a toolkit.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
It is a tool in a toolkit for type two diabetes and in some cases for obesity. So I just want to be very clear. And obviously Virta, Our providers practice evidence-based medicine. So anything I say next isn't going to be like, oh, you know, drugs are bad in all cases. No, that is not the case. But to answer your question specifically, and this is all data that's published in peer reviews.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
So if anyone wants to sort of double check, you can go to VirtaHealth.com and slash research and find out published in peer review results. But indeed. So what we've been able to show is that as we run our nutrition program, among our patients, the following things either improve or get reversed. Obviously, type 2 diabetes. So that's glycemic control. So blood sugar comes down. Hypertension.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
So blood pressure comes down. Inflammation comes down. So this is CRP, C-reactive protein, a white blood cell count. And we also have an unpublished paper looking at 16 inflammation proteins of which almost all improve, which is unheard of, better than Humira. That's unpublished, so that's a caveat. Depressive symptoms improve. Sleep apnea improves, so it gets reversed. Knee pain goes down.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
Cardiovascular disease risk markers and 12-year cardiovascular risk. goes down, kidney and liver function improves. So we looked at EGFR and we can't really say that we can, it would be a little bit overreaching to say we reverse kidney disease, but we have shown that we improve kidney function and same with liver function. So when you look at these broad spectrum metabolic health improvements.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
It's basically the same list that the GLP-1 manufacturers are now showing, that we either improve or reverse. And we've already published this data. So what can we conclude? Again, I'm not the medical doctor here, so maybe Krisma can kind of cover me up here a little bit. But basically what we can show is
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
It is possible to achieve the same broad metabolic health improvements as DLP once may or may not, nutritionally, 100% nutritionally. Therefore, It is not the exogenous molecule that is achieving these results alone because it's possible to achieve the same results nutritionally. Now we can still debate the mechanism. Is it all about the weight loss or are there other things in play?
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
And our hypothesis is there are other things in play, but again, such as information, reduce information. But we can achieve the same things nutritionally. Which I think, again, is a very important message to be heard because in the next year and two, there's going to be headlines. Oh, GLP-1s now improve the eighth new thing. And the answer is, guess what? Nutrition improves all those things.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
And then finally, I will say, again, there's a place for these trucks. GLP-1 is a tool in a toolkit. But I think this statement holds true, which is, We don't know the short, the midterm and the long-term side effects of exogenous drugs, but we know the side effects of healthy food. Guess what? Happier, better, longer life.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
Like healthy food. It's tough to say like, what's bad about that? Not much.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
Yeah, there's a lot of sort of societal debate, like how do we get the insulin price lower and lower and lower? And I always say, guess what's better than a lower insulin price? It's eliminating the need for insulin in type 2 diabetes context. Obviously, type 1 is a different disease.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
Yeah, I would add there, Mark, that the nutrition science and the care delivery model, and the third piece that I think has been behind Virta's, what I might call early success and impact, is the business model. And it may sound like MBA talk, but this is a very, very important thing because if you don't have the right business model, you can't get anywhere in US healthcare.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
And so our business model is very, very rare in U.S. healthcare in that it is a true win, win, win. So what we do is VirtaCare is 100% free. No, I'm not joking. 100% free for the individual patient. So that's a win for the patient. But then the payer that we work with, which is either self-insured employers like Fortune 500 companies like UPS or United Airlines or U.S.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
Foods, like we work with nearly 500 large employers and then health plans like Brazil, California, Humana and some government entities. So the payer pays for the treatment. But here's the best part. Like you said, they save a lot of money, so they pay less for
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
than they save so that's the second win so it's very rare in u.s healthcare usually it's like oh this is a beautiful new molecule big molecule large molecule or like a specific cancer treatment say um And then it's million-dollar treatment or $100,000 treatment. And then there's this trade-off. Okay, clearly it's going to improve, save human lives, but can we afford to cover?
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
But in a case of reversing chronic disease like type 2 diabetes, we literally go to a large employer, again, like US Foods has been applying for a long time. And we say, guess what? We can reverse diabetes, make your employees happy and more productive. and you make money in the process, and this is safe, here's the evidence published, period. What is there not to like?
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
You make money and you save lives and families and improve lives for your employees, like high five. And I'm not saying it's been easy. We work with, I think, 530 customers so far. it's still hard. But so anyways, I just wanted to highlight that if people listen like, oh, it's intensive care model and this must be some concierge thing that's gonna cost 50,000 a year. No, it's free for you.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
And so when you combine those things, the outcomes through nutrition and care delivery and then a business model that honestly, to me, feels like a win-win-win, that has allowed us to scale pretty fast. And I always say this very openly because I want others to copy this.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
We need more innovation in healthcare like this that isn't, oh, here's the million-dollar miracle cure for this thing, and then everyone's fighting who's going to cover it.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
Yeah, well, first of all, Mark, thank you so much for having us here. And I feel... not completely adequate to answer the question because I'm the only non-MD on this call. So Dr. Shetty, Krisma here, and you, but let me try.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned that people struggle with metabolic disease and nutrition 100%. And I guess, you know, I mentioned I'm a triathlete and entrepreneur, this and that. So I just want to say, I hear you, I see you, I can empathize with you. And I say this because 100% of the patients that come to Virta, which again, now is more than 100,000 Americans,
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
They have tried somewhere between three and 15 different diet programs or different times, and they failed every single time. So if somebody is listening and say like, well, I've tried everything and I've failed. I just want to say, I see you. I hear you. You're not alone. That is the story of practically every single person. American struggling metabolic disease. You haven't failed.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
I think the right message is the program or the diet failed you. The program or the diet failed you. And I say this with high degree of conviction because that is the case. And there is a way to help you succeed. When you have the right support and the right nutrition science, you can succeed. But this is the story of everyone. I've tried five things. I failed. I'm a loser. I'm a failure.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
You are not a failure. The program has failed you. You haven't failed.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
Yeah. So, and I wanted to say that just to kind of contrast that I actually- I do come outside of healthcare. So I'm a physicist by training, started my career in a nuclear power plant. So that's my only claim to fame for scientific thinking. But indeed, I was outside of healthcare.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
And the very dire picture that you so eloquently painted, Mark, about the massive numbers of type 2 diabetes and obesity and metabolic disease. Effectively,
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
you know 10 to 20 percent of people minority in america adults are what you might call metabolically healthy so almost everyone is is metabolically unhealthy so so the diet picture that you painted that's kind of how i saw the world as well if you had come to me about a decade ago And if you had come to me and say, hey, let's go and solve diabetes and obesity, this is solvable.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
And I should just, I'm very optimistic and not just speaking my own book, given the growth that we've seen from, you know, 20 payer clients early 2020 and now 520 plus clients, this message of we can save lives, improve lives, and you make money in the process. Even if you don't care about the humans, you just want to make money, you should cover, pay for Virta-like treatments.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
I'm actually very optimistic that the growth and positive impact on human lives will continue. On the product and behavior change side, I'll just add one more thing. In addition to what Chris mentioned, just trusting the patient. And internally, we use this term that at best, we are co-pilots on your journey towards better health. We are co-pilots. We're not the captain.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
We're not the boss telling you. We are co-pilots. So just trusting the patient is so important. The second thing I wanted to mention, obviously, everything we do is telemedicine. We use AI. It's like software and tech, DNAs. is at the core as much as sort of patient safety and clinical and nutrition science.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
But the way we use software is to empower our clinicians, so providers and coaches, so that they have more time for what we call powerful care moments to drive results This human connection, real human connection between the patient and our clinicians is very, very important.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
And there's a reason why I, as a CEO, we have close to 1,000 employees, but I write handwritten notes, not to everyone, every day, but to many people. I will never have AI write those. It's not my assistant who writes those. Guess why? Because I care. But because the whole point of the thing is that I personally write the note
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
and the address and the envelope and send it to you as a note of appreciation. It's the same thing in our care. Yes, we can use AI. Yes, we can use software to automate the simple logistical things that provide you support. But there's a point in time where this human connection makes all the difference, 100% difference.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
And we don't want to lose that, even if AI technically could deliver all the bits and messages and pictures and whatnot.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
Again, about 10 years ago, I would have rolled my eyes and laughed you out of the room.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
I literally would have rolled my eyes and laughed you out of the room. And the reason is I was a pretty high-performing endurance athlete. And while I was building my previous company, which was a tech company called Trulia, I did a lot of triathlons and even got to a point where I won the world championships in triathlon in my age group. And I always thought, well, I'm a healthy guy.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
I don't have to worry about the things that people in the middle of America have to worry about. And let's face it, blame yourself. You eat too much. You can control what you eat. And if you eat too much, probably develop type 2 diabetes and obesity. So how do you solve that? You bottle willpower. Like, I can't help with that. So this was my thinking. And I'm embarrassed.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
I'm honestly, truly embarrassed to say this. This was my thinking.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
Exactly. So, so finally, like, you know, how did I become a co-founder and now CEO of Virta Health here now almost a decade later? Well, it turns out despite my, you know, winning and running triathlons and staying lean, I discovered that I was on my way to type two diabetes myself, and I already had pre-diabetes. And so this was around 2011. And I honestly, I was pissed.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
I was surprised, pissed and frustrated. I said, what the heck? I'm not one of those people. Like I'm not one of those people.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
And I should say, fortunately, you know, I got very curious. I was like, what the heck's going on here? And I got lucky that through reading and reaching out to a lot of people, I met a number of scientists, but particularly Dr. Stephen Finney and
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
Dr. Jeff Volek, who had done research over three decades about metabolism and how the body metabolizes carbohydrates and fat and so forth, and met these gentlemen, scientists, and basically learned two things very briefly. One, I was obviously completely wrong. Diabetes and obesity, it's a metabolic disease.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
It's not a personal choice that you wake up one Monday and say, hey, I'm just going to eat too much today. develop type two diabetes. So that was one I was wrong. And then the second thing was kind of what you Mark said earlier, which is that these conditions, despite the conventional wisdom are reversible nutritionally.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
Type two diabetes, obesity are systematically reversible nutritionally. If you know how to manipulate nutrition. And I became convinced both through personal experience and reading all this published research that it indeed is is possible. And so I'm not going to go too much wrong about this was 2014. And I said, Hey, this is incredible. If you can use nutrition in that way,
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
maybe I can help with my tech and entrepreneurial background and figure out a care delivery mechanism, how we can get this into the hands of millions and millions of people. And yeah, we started Virta Health now, it's almost 10 years ago.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
And we have this a little bit of a crazy mission, reverse type two diabetes and obesity in 1 billion people, reverse type two diabetes and obesity in 1 billion people. And yeah, here we are 10 years later and we can go into details. How's it going? But yeah, Yeah, that's how I became an accidental healthcare entrepreneur.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Blood Sugar Chaos: How to Take Back Control & Reverse Diabetes | Virta Health
And honestly, it's been the most rewarding journey in my professional career so far.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Reversing Diabetes Naturally: The Science Big Medicine Ignored
I would also add that, uh, we haven't published this. Um, actually we published some, but, uh, We actually have very interesting dose response data. So pharmaceutical companies usually do what they have to do, like a dose response study. So here's the molecule, you add more of that molecule and then see what happens in terms of safety and in terms of outcomes.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Reversing Diabetes Naturally: The Science Big Medicine Ignored
And obviously you can then tease out the correlation and causation, like, oh, more of this acetaminophen, the less you have pain and whatnot. We actually have very interesting dose response data to carbohydrate restriction and seeing what happens to weight glycemic control and getting off the meds.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Reversing Diabetes Naturally: The Science Big Medicine Ignored
And I guess the punchline is the more insulin resistant you are, the more of that dose, the better is basically without sharing all of our secrets. But it's fascinating because we literally have dose response curves and it kind of tells us tells the story.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Reversing Diabetes Naturally: The Science Big Medicine Ignored
The other thing I wanted to add, Mark, when I listened to you and I was thinking those patient outcomes and what you had seen, if I did not have the 10-year history of building Virta and seeing exactly the same results now with 100,000 plus Americans, I would still be like, oh, I'm sure nutrition can work, but
The Dr. Hyman Show
Reversing Diabetes Naturally: The Science Big Medicine Ignored
come on, these are the grandfather who was 100 pounds overweight and then ran a marathon. We always hear these stories. Like, oh, it's a one anomaly, one out of a million. But I think really what the world needs to hear, this is individuals, business decision makers, policy decision makers, scientists, is that these results are systematically possible. Absolutely systematically possible.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Reversing Diabetes Naturally: The Science Big Medicine Ignored
And this idea that we have 200 million sick American adults, metabolically unhealthy, and the best we can do is manage symptoms with medications. is ridiculous. It is so ridiculous. And so we really have to get the message across that there is a way, nutritionally, you don't have to be a superman or superwoman. ordinary person, there's a systematic way to achieve those results.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Reversing Diabetes Naturally: The Science Big Medicine Ignored
Obviously, there's a distribution. Some are hugely successful in terms of moderately successful, but that message hasn't broken through yet. And it has to. And that's why I'm grateful to be on this podcast too, because it's ridiculous. There's no other way out of this metabolic health mess. GLP once in tap water is not going to solve this mess. No.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Reversing Diabetes Naturally: The Science Big Medicine Ignored
Yeah, absolutely. And first, upfront, I want to say that this may sound like, oh, this guy is so anti-pharmaceutical. No, I'm a physicist by training. I believe in science. I believe in Western medicine. And also these GLP-1 drugs, You know, first one was, I think in America approved for treating type two diabetes 2005. And it's a tool in a toolkit.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Reversing Diabetes Naturally: The Science Big Medicine Ignored
It is a tool in a toolkit for type two diabetes and in some cases for obesity. So I just want to be very clear. And obviously Virta, our providers practice evidence-based medicine. So anything I say next isn't going to be like, oh, you know, drugs are bad in all cases. No, that is not the case. But to answer your question, Specifically, and this is all data that's published in peer reviews.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Reversing Diabetes Naturally: The Science Big Medicine Ignored
So if anyone wants to sort of double check, you can go to VirtaHealth.com and slash research and find out published in peer review results. But indeed, so what we've been able to show is that as we run our nutrition program, among our patients, the following things either improve or get reversed. Obviously type two diabetes, so that's glycemic control. So blood sugar comes down.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Reversing Diabetes Naturally: The Science Big Medicine Ignored
Hypertension, so blood pressure comes down. Inflammation comes down. So this is CRP, C-reactive protein, a white blood cell count. And we also have an unpublished paper looking at 16 inflammation proteins of which almost all improve, which is unheard of, better than Humira. That's unpublished, so that's a caveat. Depressive symptoms improve. Sleep apnea improves, so it gets reversed.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Reversing Diabetes Naturally: The Science Big Medicine Ignored
Knee pain goes down. cardiovascular disease risk markers and 12-year cardiovascular risk goes down. Kidney and liver function improves. So we looked at EGFR and we can't really say that we can, it would be a little bit overreaching to say we reverse kidney disease, but we have shown that we improve kidney function and same with liver function. So when you look at these
The Dr. Hyman Show
Reversing Diabetes Naturally: The Science Big Medicine Ignored
broad spectrum metabolic health improvements. It's basically the same list that the GLP-1 manufacturers are now showing, that we either improve or reverse. And we've already published this data. So what can we conclude? Again, I'm not the medical doctor here, so maybe Krisma can kind of cover me up here a little bit. But basically what we can show is
The Dr. Hyman Show
Reversing Diabetes Naturally: The Science Big Medicine Ignored
It is possible to achieve the same broad metabolic health improvements as DLP once may or may not, nutritionally, 100% nutritionally. Therefore, It is not the exogenous molecule that is achieving these results alone, because it's possible to achieve the same results nutritionally. Now we can still debate the mechanism. Is it all about the weight loss or are there other things in play?
The Dr. Hyman Show
Reversing Diabetes Naturally: The Science Big Medicine Ignored
And our hypothesis is there are other things in play, but again, such as information, reduce information. But we can achieve the same things nutritionally. Which I think, again, is a very important message to be heard because in the next year and two, there's going to be headlines. Oh, GLP-1s now improve the eighth new thing. And the answer is, guess what? Nutrition improves all those things.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Reversing Diabetes Naturally: The Science Big Medicine Ignored
And then finally, I will say, again, there's a place for these trucks. GLP-1 is a tool in a toolkit. But I think this statement holds true, which is, We don't know the short, the midterm and the long-term side effects of exogenous drugs, but we know the side effects of healthy food. Guess what? Happier, better, longer life.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Reversing Diabetes Naturally: The Science Big Medicine Ignored
Like healthy food. It's tough to say like, what's bad about that? Not much.