Dr. Noura Abul-Husn - 23andMe's Total Health: the Integration of AI and Genetics

[00:00:02] Hey friends, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness and wellness industry podcast for over five years and running. I'm your host, Eric Malzone, and I have the honor of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. If you like the show, we'd love it if you took three minutes of your day to leave us a nice, supportive review wherever you consume your

[00:00:28] podcast. If you're interested in staying up to date with the future of fitness, go to futureoffitness.co to subscribe and get weekly summaries dropped into your inbox. Now onto the show. Hey friends, it's Eric Malzone. I want to do a special introduction to this interview with Dr. Noura from

[00:00:50] 23andMe because this was recorded on January 17th of 2025 on March 23rd, 2025, just a few days before this publishes. There was an announcement at 23andMe that they are initiating voluntary chapter 11 processes. So what does this mean? Well, they're a big brand. They've been around for a while. They're a pioneer in the space, but there's a lot of data, right? So what happens to all that user data as

[00:01:16] they sell this off? And if you have used 23andMe in the past, I would urge you to go look at their website and find more information about how you can access and delete your data if you want. I would encourage you to do that. And it's going to be a very interesting case for us to follow because as wearable data and all this consumer wellness data and health data becomes more ubiquitous in the market, what do we do with all the data? And the privacy now has become front page news. So

[00:01:43] enjoy the interview, but please have that in mind and do a little bit of research and enjoy the conversation. Thank you. Hey friends, this episode of the future of fitness is proudly brought to you by TeamUp. Since launching in 2012, they've consistently had one mission, facilitate the best customer experiences with the most cutting edge solution for franchises, studios, gyms, and boxes. At its core, TeamUp is

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[00:04:21] exercise, visit eGym.com. That is E-G-Y-M.com. All right, we are live. Dr. Nora, welcome to the future of fitness. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. Yeah, what a treat. You know, I get to record these on Friday morning and I feel like by the weekend I'm smarter than I was when I woke up on Friday. And,

[00:04:45] you know, someone like you on the show, you know, the science of genomics and you say genomics or genomics? How do you pronounce it? Genomics. Genomics. Okay. Yes. I'm already learning. There's a lot to talk about. Like, wow. Like what a dynamic field to be in as far as technology and science and as it starts to really become, you know, available to so many more people. You know, I was telling you prior to recording, I think within our industry, if you're going to be providing a really high level

[00:05:14] service for, you know, precision wellness or, you know, high up your personalized fitness and wellness, like this is going to be table stakes very soon. And it's very exciting. And it's like the future that I thought was coming many years from now, it seems to be here now. So I don't know. We'll see where this takes us, but I have a lot of questions for you, doctor, is what I'm trying to say. Yeah. I completely agree. And I think, you know, we have this conversation today and if we talked

[00:05:40] again in a week or two, we'd be having a different conversation because it's such a rapidly evolving field. Yeah. That's wild. Well, let's start with this. As I always do, I would love to hear your background, kind of how you got to be where you're at with 23andMe at a very senior high level position. And then we'll, we'll take it from there. Yeah. So I'm, I'm Nora Abelhassan. I am by background, a physician scientist, an MD PhD, who has spent a lot of my career really thinking about

[00:06:09] how do you bring scientific advances into clinical care? And I specialize in internal medicine and medical genetics. And so those are the things, the fields that I really focus on, which are really adult medicine in general and the field of genetics. And that is one that has been undergoing tremendous change. And that I think is really relevant to this conversation today, because

[00:06:36] even when I was training and thinking about medical genetics as a specialty, that was something that was relatively small, very specific use cases where genetic testing was being used to solve a problem, figuring out a diagnosis for a rare disease, mostly in children, some other interesting emerging

[00:07:00] utility in cancer, and, and just specific areas where genetics was making sense in the clinical world. Meanwhile, on the research and scientific side, advances in genomics, as we've been talking about, have just been increasingly coming out. And that science has just not even scratched the surface of being translated into human health and wellness. And so that's what makes me really excited. So I spend most

[00:07:29] of my career thinking about the interplay of genetics and health, and where does this fit into the healthcare space. And then, and as part of that, spent a lot of time in the academic world, leading genomic medicine, most recently at Mount Sinai in New York City. And I've been a 23andMe for a couple of years now, thinking about this from a different lens, and bringing genomic insights to millions of consumers

[00:07:59] has opened up an opportunity to really tell people what steps they can take using those insights to optimize their health and well-being. And that's my primary focus today. Yeah, it's it. That is an interesting switch. I mean, you went from, you know, you know, plant-in-sensitive areas, a surgical approach in many ways, right? Like, hey, here's a specific problem. Let's see if we can solve it to just this mass journal. So when you say like looking at through a different lens, like, how did you do that? Like, what, how did you have to shift your

[00:08:29] mindset, your, your, the way you approach things, the way you digest information, like, yeah, what were the shifts in your practice in order to change the lens? Yeah, when I started thinking about genetics and its space in medicine, we were at a point where genetic testing has been available for decades now. And you could, you could really uncover certain truths using that type of technology. The technology

[00:08:55] advanced very quickly, and the costs decreased very quickly. And then the research started to pick up, because you're now able to apply genetic testing in spaces you never thought of before. And what I mean by that is that some of my research and many others since then, was starting to show that if you took a population, a random, randomly selected population, and you screened them for genetic insights, you were

[00:09:24] going to find that every one of us has important genetic information pertaining to their health in some way. And we're just walking around with, you know, our genes telling a story that would otherwise be uncovered, because that's not the way that the testing was applied in healthcare. And once I started to understand how much potential there was for genetic testing to uncover insights that could then be used

[00:09:54] to prevent disease, to keep people healthy, that became, you know, that was my light bulb. Like, I wanted to do that. I want genetic testing and genomic data to benefit all people, because with that knowledge, you're empowered to stay healthy and to keep from getting sick. And so it really was that. It was all of these things happening in this space. And, you know, the research that I was doing informing

[00:10:24] this type of population level screening that could enable preventive measures that were personalized to each human. I love it. I love it. You know, it's always been, this happens so much anecdotally, right? It's like, you'll see like someone who's like 95 and, you know, they drink a half a bottle of wine and maybe they smoke cigarettes or they smoke cigarettes for their whole life, but yet they're seemingly just

[00:10:54] doing great. Right. And then you see someone who did all the right things from a lifestyle factor, right? Like worked out all the time. And then, you know, they, they end up croaking at age like 65, right. Or, or earlier. And it happens all the time is everyone's like, ah, it's just genetics. And we just say that, but we don't really know what that means. And now I feel like we're entering an age where like, we can actually define very well, like why that may be happening. You know, the nature

[00:11:20] versus nurture thing, is it the lifestyle, is it the genes and other factors? So I guess one of the big questions I have for you, doctor, is like, and you've already covered a bit of the past, but when you look at like the past and the present and the future of genomic testing for like consumer populations, like maybe walk us through a little bit, you know, what, where it's at. And then the question I have for you now is kind of where, where do you think we're at in that spectrum of time?

[00:11:45] Where it's at is that people understand that their, their genes, their genetics have meaning to them, whether it's to tell them about their ancestry or their relationships with other people or their health. I do think there's much more knowledge among the general population about our genetics. And I

[00:12:08] think 23andMe played a major role in that in bringing complex data when it comes to genetic insights into the consumer world in a way that was very understandable. And we can now engage, you know, at a cocktail party around our genetic information and share those insights in a way that you really couldn't 20 years ago. So, so there is that baseline knowledge. And so that starts to advance how it

[00:12:37] gets used because like it or not, healthcare is, is going to be impacted by external pressures, including what consumers are interested in, what they've heard about. When you have genetics in the news all the time and your patients, if you're a physician are asking you like, does this apply to me? Those are pressures that will influence how medicine is practiced. And so everything is related

[00:13:04] in many ways. We are not today in a place where every person is going to have access to a genetic test in healthcare. That's just not our reality today. I do think that is going to be our reality. And it's not far from now where every one of us will have access to genetic testing because there is an

[00:13:28] understanding of the role that that plays in every person's life and how it can be used to improve health, optimize health, prevent disease, tailor treatment to improve health outcomes. Yeah. I love it. Can you give us Dr. Nour, maybe it's like a, a typical case of how genetics has influenced, you know, an individual's life. Like no, just knowing the test, doing the testing, applying the right lifestyle changes, or just having the knowledge and you know how that shifted someone's

[00:13:57] life. I think I'll give two examples because I think the use cases are really different today. And, you know, in, in healthcare, if someone has a cancer, let's say a breast cancer, they are recommended to get genetic testing. That's clinical genetic testing to understand, is there an underlying genetic reason for their cancer? And does that knowledge guide their next steps for treatment

[00:14:27] of cancer? And that is a type of precision, precision medicine that is practiced and it has shown to be beneficial. If I know, you know, you have a type of breast cancer and that you are also someone with a BRCA2 variant, BRCA variant that we, we sometimes say, I'm going to manage that cancer differently than I would

[00:14:51] otherwise. And so that type of knowledge is always increasing. And there are many examples of that. Now, I'll give a different example of someone who enters genetic testing, not because they had a health problem to begin with, but because they are curious, because they are interested in being an active participant in their own health journey. And what that means is they want to consume knowledge. And we do

[00:15:17] live in a world where we have a lot of knowledge available to us. We wear smart watches and rings, and we have our smartphones and all of these things that are enabling us to consume a lot of data. And there are people who are more and more interested in that. And genetics really can play a big role in that picture. And so if you're someone who's curious about your health, and you choose to purchase your own genetic testing kit to inform you about your health, you may find a host of things. And now,

[00:15:48] this information is new. It's net new knowledge. You really perhaps had no reason to suspect that you were at elevated likelihood of prostate cancer because you don't have a family history of that or of heart disease, because that's just not on your mind, because you're healthy and you're active and you're doing all the things, like you said, that you're meant to be doing to stay healthy. But then

[00:16:12] you're offered these insights. And what we can tell you now is that based on your genetic profile, for a host of common conditions, I mentioned heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease, others, whether you're an average likelihood as a general population to have that condition in your lifetime, or are you more likely to? And if they're more likely to, now that's still just data you're consuming.

[00:16:40] I don't know how helpful that is on its own. But what we've done, which I think is incredibly important, is tie that information with recommendations for what you should do next. And where the science is most exciting to me now is in that next phase of, okay, I can tell you all kinds of genetics-related health information, but if that doesn't empower you to do something differently that's going to benefit your

[00:17:09] health, I don't think I've done my job yet. And so that's where we are now. And, you know, you started off before the session talking about baseball innings, and I'm not a baseball person, but that's the next one. Are there four? I think there are four. That fourth inning is going to be synthesizing all of the

[00:17:32] information that genomics can bring, also putting together all the other data from biomarkers, from wearables, et cetera, and tying that to very clear personalized recommendations that have personal benefit to each person. Yeah. It's really interesting. As I've been in this line of work for

[00:17:59] a little while, we're in the what now phase, and I'll explain what I mean by that. Like, you know, when wearable data first started coming out, people got their Fitbit, you know, their Apple Watch, things like that. And as a gym owner and coach, people would come in and during our consultations be like, okay, this is great. What now? Like, what do I do with it? Right? I do this much step. This is sleep. You know, what, what's the context? Like, what's the direction that I get? How does it

[00:18:26] become valuable? It was just kind of information data thrown at consumers. And, you know, I'm sure even in the early stages of genetic testing, when people just want to do it to find out, like, you know, am I part Native American? You know, like, that was basically what most people want to know, right? And then, but the information wasn't contextual. But we're getting into the space, even like I have my aura ring, and they do a really good job, I think, of how they take the data and make it presentable to people and make it useful and make suggestions in kind of a kind,

[00:18:56] gentle way as well. So it's, I feel like that that's where we're now where we're in this phase of like taking the data and make it contextual and individualized for each consumer. And it seems like that's, that's where you guys are at to a 23andMe. Yeah, that's exactly right. And this was a clear ask from customers. They were seeing all of this exciting new information. And we're wondering,

[00:19:21] well, what do I do? Tell me what to do with that. And the truth is, if you were going to take your genetic health reports to your primary care doctor to, you know, doctors that you know, who treat you for to treat you when you're sick with a cold or whatnot, most physicians today don't know what to do with that type of genetic information, because they haven't been trained to bring that into clinical

[00:19:47] decision making. And, you know, I'm a trained medical geneticist, there are very few of us. And like I said, the field is kind of specialized in a different way, like weird as genetic testing as value. So what I'm talking about is now everyone having their genetic insights as part of their healthcare journey. And for that, you need expertise, you need personalized recommendations to be provided.

[00:20:15] So we do a lot of that at 23andMe. And that's part of the mission I feel very strongly about is expanding genomics knowledge across medical specialties, across all health and disease in every person, every stage of their life, every demographic can benefit from genetic information, as long as we know what it means, know how to interpret it, and use that interpretation to guide next steps.

[00:20:44] So it feels like, you know, if we talk about the baseball inning, like the inning that we're focusing on right now is how do we take high end expertise that's generally contained within a human like yourself, right? I had a conversation recently with Dan Garner, who's doing Vitality Blueprint with Dr. Andy Galpin, same thing, this guy's reviewed thousands of blood tests, right? So how do we take, you know, very experienced, educated minds and now start to leverage that

[00:21:10] expertise across globally? And I presume that's the role of artificial intelligence, more specifically algorithms. Maybe you can touch on that. Like how is the technology driving the accessibility of expertise? Yeah. And the beauty of the genomics world is that it has been intricately tied to machine learning,

[00:21:34] artificial intelligence for a long time, because by virtue of genomic data being massive amounts of data, we've had to learn to leverage those tools to make sense of it. And to be able to say, these are variants that are associated with this condition, but not this one. And to this extent, you know, that type of research has always been leveraging AI technology. And so what that means is

[00:22:03] that we're ahead of the curve, we know how to already bring in the right tools to do something different, which is what you're talking about, to scale the knowledge. And a lot of it is really going to rely on what is out there in the world, you know, what insights can we glean from clinical

[00:22:24] practice today? So what I mean by that is we already in healthcare use clinical risk to make decisions on who to screen for cancer, who to start on medication, at what point and at what frequency would you do those things? And so you can establish parallels when you understand the genetic risk results that

[00:22:47] that data is showing us. You can say, well, based on this genetic profile, this person is at a certain elevated risk that matches a different type of clinical risk. Maybe it's based on weight or cholesterol levels. And we already use that to guide our decision making. Can we apply that to the genetics now? And there's more and more of that coming. And, you know, it's not just us. This is a

[00:23:13] very exciting field of research, like clinical genomics and translational genomics, really bringing the science into clinical care. So you can, you can draw those parallels and you can make very smart decisions now based on genetics and the way that you would practice medicine prior to that. Translational genomics. I like that. That's really, uh, that struck me. So give us some insights,

[00:23:38] please, doctor, on 23andMe, the total health. So that seems like that that's the solution that you guys are putting in the market in its current form to, to address all of the, I guess, goals that you have that you talked about. So what's different about that? What's new about it? What's, uh, what's new about it is a few things that we've touched on earlier. We talked about, can you screen a population for genetic insights that would help them, uh, optimize our health, live longer, healthier lives.

[00:24:06] And that really forms the basis of total health. So we have a sequencing test that queries genes that are known to be actionable in, in somebody's genome. And what that means is that those are genes that are known to be linked to health conditions for which there are available interventions today to reduce your

[00:24:30] risk of ever having that disease or to help us detect it as early as possible in order to tailor and manage that disease to our best extent and realize the best outcomes for a person. And so that, that really is, uh, the, the new and exciting part of total health is navigating somebody's genome in a way that's going to screen them for things that are actionable. Now this already sits on top of all

[00:24:56] of the other insights that 23andMe has been providing. For example, those, those elevated likelihoods for common diseases that we can draw insights around. And then in addition to that, total health customers will have access to advanced cardiometabolic testing, lab tests that are enabling us to tell someone what their status is today. Your, your DNA or germline genetic information

[00:25:23] is telling us your roadmap of your life. It's, it's the blueprint. And then what I want to know is, where are you at today? Uh, you know, is your cholesterol high is, uh, you know, are these other biomarkers out of place? We use those biomarkers to also inform on your biological age. That's a very interesting, relatively new concept. It's telling us, you know, we all have a chronological age.

[00:25:47] Are your organs telling a different story? Is your biological age younger or older than your chronological age? And if it's older, why is that? Is it your liver? Should we be paying special attention to your cardiovascular health? Those are very exciting insights. And when we have our own model to, to develop those and, and now we can tell people where, you know, you're, you're 40, but your

[00:26:13] biological age is telling us that you're 47. These are the liver enzymes that are out of range. And maybe we should focus some attention on how to bring that back. And then all of this. So how do you navigate all of that information? I mentioned also that you need expertise. And so we have a medical group that has specific unique training in genetics. And it's not about being a medical geneticist. It's

[00:26:40] about bringing genetics into clinical decision-making, using genetics to inform next steps and personalized recommendations. And that access to expertise is, is unique because it is really hard to find in the, in the traditional healthcare world. Oh yeah. Yeah, it absolutely is. And so walk me through the customer experience here. So I go to the website, 23andme.com forward slash total dash

[00:27:07] health, right? I'm looking at it. I sign up like what, what happens next? How, what's the, what's the phases of the journey? Phase one is you get a saliva kit sent to your home and that's how we do genetic testing. It's based on saliva. So you spit into a tube, you package it up and mail it. And then you, yeah, it's amazing. And then you start to get your results and you, like I mentioned, we, we have an

[00:27:32] exome sequencing test as part of total health. So that is something that only total health customers will have access to. That's going to really query a set of genes that are very actionable and important to have knowledge about. And then all of the other insights, including about your genetic weight, your muscle composition, your propensity towards heart disease and diabetes, all of the things that 23andme has to offer. You get those insights, you get access to blood labs. So you have

[00:28:00] to schedule a blood draw at a phlebotomy center to get those labs as part of that picture. And then you get a consultation with a clinical expert. And those are the clinicians that I mentioned who have been specifically trained to provide genomics informed care. And that consultation can be relatively long

[00:28:25] for some people because there's a lot to digest. And so the goal is to provide each customer with a comprehensive risk assessment. Take all of those different inputs from the genetics, from the blood markers, your biological age, your personal and family history, and then give you that risk assessment

[00:28:46] tied to it, very importantly, your personalized prevention plan. The goal of this program is to enable customers to be those active participants in their own health journey. And that is primarily a prevention journey as much as possible. We want to catch people before they're sick and prevent you from getting sick in the first place wherever we can. And so that's really that there's a lot that

[00:29:13] happens in a few short weeks. And then there is continuous access to those clinicians with any questions, anything that comes up. You do labs again, six months later. Again, we want to see, do your biomarkers change? Does your biological age change based on changes that you've made in your lifestyle or anything else that's been recommended? And you continue that journey. Got it. So this is a, it's,

[00:29:39] it's a nice blend of product and service that you guys are providing for the consumer. And it's, is it ongoing? Like after the initial phase that you invest in, is it a subscription that kind of moves forward and then you have ongoing access? Is that the way it works? Yes, exactly. Exactly. And, and, you know, this is again, an area that's so evolving and what, what I do, what my team does is really keep an eye on the science, uh, that translational genomics lens. We want to know

[00:30:08] when are there new insights we can bring into the product? And so we were continuously developing new health reports that we put out and, uh, and those customers benefit from those, the new knowledge that's gained. Yeah. Awesome. You know, asking as like an advocate for, you know, the, uh, the fitness and wellness industry, not necessarily healthcare, the things that get me excited about this is like,

[00:30:33] it allows us to, uh, work outside of scope of practice to benefit for, you know, benefit from, you know, really specific insights that our clients maybe want to invest in. Now, is there, I'm going to rephrase this question. So right now the big buzz within the fitness industry is that, you know, we're, we're starting to be positioned at the forefront of healthcare. Like we can have a lot more conversations with our clients and we, we have a lot of people coming

[00:31:00] through our doors at health clubs and gyms and, you know, online coaching and programming and things like that. Like we do, we talk to people about their general health, probably more than anybody really. And we're just starting to realize like, wow, there's actually a lot of opportunity there. Do you see, like, how do you see, or have you thought about how the gym health club coaching industry trainer industry can really start to position themselves at the forefront of healthcare using tools like this? Is that, do you think it's possible? Is it doable? Are we, are we chasing the

[00:31:29] right thing? I do. I absolutely do. What's so interesting about how we interact with healthcare today is that, you know, if you're somebody who wants to focus on staying healthy, staying fit, preventing disease, living longer, it's really on you as an individual and, you know, your gym membership, you're paying for it more, well, maybe some lucky people have their employers who are

[00:31:56] providing that. It's not part of your health plan. And that's because healthcare is designed to manage illness, to treat people who are sick. And that's a major focus of traditional healthcare today. So anything that's upstream of that, that's focusing on prevention and health and wellness is today, unfortunately, mostly the individual's, you know, not problem, but opportunity to solve on their

[00:32:24] own. So I'm not surprised when you say that you're having more conversations with people about their health than anyone else, because that's, you know, by design, that's how healthcare is. If they're not suffering from an acute illness or chronic condition that needs to be managed, and they really want to talk about nutrition and fitness and, you know, other health and wellness opportunities, there's not a

[00:32:52] huge place for that yet in traditional healthcare. So can genetics be and genomics be brought into the picture? Absolutely. Because what we can do today, which makes me really excited, is now use an interplay between genomics and lifestyle data to start to be a lot more specific about how your lifestyle changes,

[00:33:17] which lifestyle changes are going to be best for you. And what I mean by that is, we know there's more and more published data on this that for someone with a certain genetic risk profile versus others, if we look at weight, that a greater number of steps are going to be needed to either maintain weight or lose weight for someone based on their genes. How do you start to translate that into insight? So we

[00:33:43] started to do that. And for example, I am somebody whose genetic weight profile shows that I am most likely from maintaining a certain level of activity and not being sedentary than other interventions like nutrition or exercise. I mean, those things are all important, right? But if I wanted to pick one thing,

[00:34:08] it's January, people are still working on resolution. So if I wanted to pick a resolution to start off 2025, maybe it should be stand up more. Use that standing desk of yours. And I'm often on these calls. And so that's in my mind, because I have now understood that I am somebody based on my genetics, based on data

[00:34:31] from millions of people like me, who've had different lifestyles, I can tell people what would work best for them. And that is extremely powerful. Because telling people that they should eat better and exercise more, it doesn't work. And there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of feeling of like,

[00:34:55] of trials and resolutions that end up in failure. So how do we give tangible, informed decision making opportunities to people? Yeah. I mean, this time of year, Dr. Nora for the fitness industry is, it's exciting and also bewildering at the same time. It's like we get all these people coming in, and then we see them kind of die off in the next month. And every year yet, we have to be prepared

[00:35:22] for the push, right? And we have to, you know, all of us have everything lined up, because they're coming. But then they kind of like, and it seems to get like, I don't know, every year I was in the industry, it seemed to get pushed back a little bit later every year. Yeah, it used to be January 4th, boom, right? And then it turned into like, second week of January, then it was like, no, it's like the first week of February is kind of like, but anyway, I digress. I think it's super interesting. And what I from from my industry perspective, too, is that when you start off

[00:35:50] a relationship with a client, with this type of data, this type of personalization, it completely changes the dynamic of the relationship, because you're sitting down, right? You're looking over things that are objective, qualitative or quantitative, right? And you can sit there and have a different kind of conversation besides like, Dr. Nora, I'm Eric, I'm the expert, this is what you're going to do, right? No, you sit down and be like, hey, this is you, Dr. Nora, like this is

[00:36:18] your profile, we're going to work with it, and it's going to be personalized, and we can check back on it. And we're a team here, right? Like this is our blueprint. I think that's really important, like, not just from the data and the capabilities of what we can do, but how we work with clients that walk in our doors. I think it's a really, really valuable thing. And I agree. I think health is a partnership, wealth, wellness is a partnership. And you know,

[00:36:41] I said this before, if, if I can achieve someone's ability to feel like they are truly a shared participant in their own health journey, because they are empowered with this knowledge, I feel like I've done something really good. Yeah. Yeah. Well said. Perfectly said. I want to know, and you may not have a formulated opinion on this yet, but I'm going to ask you since

[00:37:04] I got you. GLP-1s in that whole category. Have you formulated an opinion? Is it good? Is it bad? Is it somewhere in the middle? Where are you with that? Because our industry tends to get really excited about it at first. And then of course, very polarized about it. I tend to oscillate back and forth between whether it's good or bad. It's a couple of things that fundamentally irk me about it, but I see potential. But I also know that human behavior is really hard to change. I don't like because someone's taking a shot, they're obviously going to walk into the gym and want to lift a bunch

[00:37:33] of weights and do all the fitnessy things. Right. So for you personally, like how do you feel about GLP-1s right now at this phase? Are you optimistic? Are you concerned both? I'm, I, I, I don't think it's super binary for me. I'm more optimistic than anything else. I do think what has changed a lot, which I am grateful and happy to see is that there's a shift from, you know, the blame game. And, and I would say like, that's, that's really important. People

[00:38:01] feeling disempowered is never going to be helpful to them. And so are we, we're offering more options to deal with a condition, obesity or being overweight. And that's, that's amazing. That's really, really important. I always say the same thing about genetics, like don't blame your genes, know your genes and understand what they have to say about you, but don't blame them because that's,

[00:38:27] it's not useful to do that. So with GLP-1s, we're in a very interesting, exciting phase where we've seen that these are medications that can really do a lot. And I'm, I don't just mean when it comes to weight, like there's emerging evidence that these might be wonder drugs that are going to help prevent all

[00:38:51] kinds of other conditions, weight related or not. I think time will tell. The science is really very, very exciting, very fast moving. We don't know a lot about genomics and its role in GLP-1s. And, you know, I've spoken with physicians who are experts in obesity medicine, who are prescribing GLP-1s, and they'll say, I mean, I have patients and you see the weight disappear. And it's amazing how

[00:39:19] quickly it works and they can maintain it. And then you have someone who looks the same to me, same weight profile, maybe same demographics and doesn't work for them. And wouldn't it be nice to know and to be able to understand what is going to work, what dosing is going to work and for how long, how do you take people off the medication? Can you? So many unanswered questions. I do think

[00:39:45] the genomics, that genomics is going to inform some of these, not everything, but there is a role for genomics in understanding this, this world of GLP-1s as well. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's really interesting insights, especially coming from the kind of the purview of genetics, right? And how those two interplay. I've never quite, I've never quite heard that, that angle before. It's really interesting. I think one thing, and we're still, we're doing

[00:40:13] research on this. It's early days, but I think we're going to find a lot of interesting things. And, and my goal with that is really going to be how to improve how we use these incredible medications moving forward. Yeah. Awesome. You know, I think with, with genetics and any kind of very powerful piece of technology come down the pipe, there's also things that people are concerned

[00:40:38] about, right? I know data security is a big one. Like what, where's my genetic data going? Like, what are people going to be able to use it with? That that's one, but I guess you personally, is there anything about the fast progression of this technology in this world that you're in genomics that gives you a little bit of pause? Is there any concerns that you have that maybe misused or anything like that? Like in, in, in the, in non-good players hands?

[00:41:04] Yeah. I think, you know, data privacy is extremely important and considerations around that are always going to be top of mind. We live in a data world. We are constantly sharing information and, you know, there are bad actors that could potentially be out there to misuse it. So how do we offer the, the most rigorous data privacy and security measures? And that's something that we think about all the time and are really very committed to. Misuse of genomic information, you know,

[00:41:34] when I think about it more from a health perspective, it's, it's about misunderstanding genomics. And I think there's still a lot of education that's needed both to the lay public and to, you know, to consumers, but also to the medical world so that everyone is really using the right terminology. And when we talk about genetics, there used to be an understanding that your genes were

[00:42:00] deterministic, that, you know, you, when you have a finding that that is an absolute, it is binary, you will have, you know, a condition at the end of it. We know so much more now, and there's really all these different shades of nuances that enable us to understand genetic health information in a different way. And part of what I would love to make sure happens is that, that there's more education

[00:42:28] around that so that people do know that when they find out something about their genome, that it's not that black and white. It doesn't mean you are going to have cancer. For the most part, I mean, there are, there are exceptions to that, but for the most part, there are things that you can do. And so having that knowledge firsthand, I think it has, is really empowering. Yeah. Great answer. So, uh, this is a fun one. I like to ask towards the end of interviews, but

[00:42:57] I guess I was restricted to a certain age group, like people under 50, myself barely getting the gear. I presume you're significantly younger than me. If we play our cards, right. We leverage the technologies available. We manage our lifestyle. How long do you think we can have a solid health span into the future? I've heard some people in the show say 130, right? Maybe longer. I've heard that, you know, in the next five to 10 years, we're going to have astronomical breakthroughs in

[00:43:23] longevity science. Like what do you, what do you think? What would you, what would you bet on if you're a betting person? Uh, I think if I, if I were a better betting person, I do think we are going to see an increase in, in lifespan and health span. I mean, health span to me is much more important. Who wants to live an extra 20 years, but be unhealthy and sick and like, you know, all of those things that's not, that's not ideal. You want quality of life too. So, you know,

[00:43:51] are we going to see that change in 10 years? Unlikely to see significant changes, but is the next generation, are our kids going to live to be a hundred and above that? I think that's entirely possible. What makes me really excited is there is this focus more on prevention and prevention is tied very tightly to health span, right? Uh, and you hear a lot of people talking about this now. And I think that longevity is one buzzword, but really the way we should be thinking about it is,

[00:44:19] you know, that healthy optimization of, of life. And, and it's not, you know, I love obviously genetics and genomics. I love that. That means a lot to me. It's not all about that. What I'm very excited about is to see us focusing on exposures more too, and what are unhealthy exposures that we should be really trying to eliminate from our futures, from our children's futures. And I think that that's going to make a huge difference and, you know, processed foods and plastics and things like that.

[00:44:48] Uh, those are, those are all key. So I'm hopeful. I'm optimistic. I'll say a hundred, uh, you know, in the, in, in our lifetime, I think we could see people like getting closer to that and our kids. Is it 120? Yeah, maybe. Crazy. Right. Crazy. The future is now doctor. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining me. Uh, the, the last question I always ask is how can we help you as an industry? And what I

[00:45:15] mean by that is, you know, if, if people are going to reach out to you, I want to connect with you, what would you like to hear from them about? What's, what's most important? What are the challenges we can help with? One of the things I love that question. I do think, uh, I, I love to read our customer care, you know, feedback from customers and people ask about specific things. Like, do you have a report on this gene, on this health condition? Uh, if there are things that are interesting,

[00:45:41] let us know, because there are people like me and folks on my team who are looking at that. And, and sometimes we're like, we, could we do that? Let's look in our data. Is there something genetic to say about this? We're always looking for more to do and try to be really responsive to our customers. And so absolutely reach out and, and tell us what you'd like to see more of. And, uh, what's the best place for people to get, get to you?

[00:46:08] If you go to 23andme.com and, uh, and want to do what I just said, there's a customer care link. That's very easy to navigate. Um, so that's probably the easiest we also have, you know, you can also see 23andme on social media and certainly reach out that way. Yeah. Well, thank you for, for joining me. This has been a very enlightening. Like I said, I, over the last 45 minutes, I think I got a tiny bit smarter. Uh, maybe, maybe, but it's,

[00:46:34] it's been an absolute pleasure. And, uh, yeah, if there's anything we can do as an industry, just, just let me know. And ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Nora. Thank you so much, Eric. Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone. And I hope you enjoyed this episode of future of fitness. If you did, I'm going to ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show, wherever you listen to it. iTunes, Spotify, CastBox,

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[00:47:30] or you can simply get in touch with me as I love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much. This is Eric Malzone and this is the future of fitness. Have a great day.