Scientists agree that most obesity is multifactorial and caused by a complex web of interrelated biological, psychological and environmental factors. Considering the complexity of the processes through which people gain weight, and the extreme difficulty most experience in changing their behaviors and habits to lose it, corporate health programs need to use every tool in the toolbox. This includes genetics.

Genes influence healthy behaviors

Genes contribute to a variety of factors that lead to unhealthy lifestyles and obesity. This happens directly (by influencing how the body uses and stores energy) and indirectly (by influencing specific habits and behaviors).

Geneticists at Newtopia continue to perform exhaustive reviews of the scientific literature to identify consistent associations between candidate genes and relevant traits or behaviors that can be accompanied by actionable recommendations for the development of healthy behaviors and habits. To date, we have selected four genes to test for and incorporate into our habit change experience:

• MC4R (the appetite gene), which regulates how quickly a person feels full after eating
• DRD2 (the cravings gene), which influences reward-seeking behaviors such as the consumption of high-carb foods or alcohol, or emotional eating, in order to trigger the release of dopamine
• FTO (the fat gene), which influences how a person metabolizes fat
• BDNF (the resilience gene), which creates a protein associated with vulnerability to stress

Genetic testing supports the development of actionable recommendations that fit each individual’s specific needs. It’s why Newtopia is exploring new genes to further enhance and demystify our behaviors around sleep and activity.

How behavior genetics works in practice

Let’s take an example of a typical participant in a corporate health and well-being program. Maria is 52 years old, has a BMI of 28 (she’s 5 foot 5 inches tall and weighs 168 pounds) and has one health condition — high cholesterol, for which she’s taking a statin medication. She also has a family history of type 2 diabetes, so she’s been told to be mindful of her weight and lifestyle.

Her goals are to lose 18 pounds (to normalize her BMI to 25), reduce her diabetes risk, improve her cholesterol profile (and possibly get off the statin), and increase her energy and overall self-confidence.

Maria opts into the genetic testing component of the experience and provides a saliva sample using a simple cheek swab. Her test results show that she has variations of three of the four relevant genes — the appetite gene, the cravings gene and the fat gene.

Maria’s coach incorporates this information into her hyper-personalized habit change experience, addressing her delayed sense of feeling full with recommendations such as drinking a glass of water before a meal, filling her plate and immediately putting away the leftovers, and eating more slowly and mindfully to allow her brain to catch up to her stomach. He also helps her identify her triggers for emotional eating and suggests coping mechanisms such as calling a friend or engaging in healthier behaviors like going for a walk to help relieve stress. People with Maria’s variant of the fat gene respond better to a high-protein diet and higher-intensity exercise, so her coach works with her to develop a sustainable diet that is 40% protein, 30% carbs and 30% fats and helps her build up to exercising at 70%-80% of her maximum heart rate.

Enabling precision lifestyle medicine

This precision lifestyle medicine approach works. Research we recently presented to the American Society of Human Genetics highlights the measurable impact of including genetic testing in a corporate lifestyle-intervention program. At the end of 12 months, program participants who had opted into the genetic testing component had achieved 25% greater weight loss (an average of 4% versus 3.2%). They also had 1.3 times higher odds of meeting the critical weight loss threshold of 5% of body weight, which not only results in significant health benefits, but comes with a sharp reduction to the corporate health plan costs.

In some cases, the superior outcomes associated with genetic testing are due not only to the greater precision of the habit change interventions themselves but also to the increase in engagement triggered by the new knowledge. Many people who have given up trying to lose weight after too many unsuccessful efforts find the genetic information liberating. It gives them permission to stop blaming themselves for their weight struggles, leading to increased motivation and a stronger commitment to try again.

Not everyone will feel comfortable using their genetic information in this way, so it’s important to allow participants the opportunity to opt in at a later date — after they’ve established a trusted relationship with their Inspirator (health coach), for example. It’s also important to emphasize that the testing is about behavior genetics; this is aimed at helping people achieve their goals more quickly, not identifying predisposition to diseases. And, of course, all providers and labs must comply with the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act — so employers and health insurers will not have access to the test results.

Increasing the odds of success

Studies suggest that in some people, genetics may account for up to 80% of the predisposition to be overweight. Genetic predisposition is not destiny, though. People can change their habits and their future. Identifying the genetically influenced physiological mechanisms that push people to overeat, for example, can enable the creation of a more effective plan to counter those influences through behavior change.

Although genes are just one factor in the complex healthy lifestyle and weight-management equation, the science, and the outcomes both suggest that taking genetic influences into account can help increase the likelihood that corporate health program participants will be able to achieve meaningful, sustainable lifestyle and improvement that leads to long-term improvements in health.

The post How Genetic Testing Helps to Streamline Weight Loss appeared first on Medika Life.

Even those not dealing with illness or the loss of loved ones have often faced financial pressures, isolation, and the impossible task of juggling caregiving and professional responsibilities. Remote work, while bringing a welcome increase in flexibility, has also allowed our jobs to intrude even further on our personal lives, leading to rising stress, languishing and burnout.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the share of U.S. adults reporting symptoms of anxiety disorder and/or depressive disorder rose from 11% in the first half of 2019 to more than 40% in January 2021.

Employers living through this Great Resign period recognize the growing issue, and many are looking for support systems — beyond employee assistance programs and mental health care coverage designed to address more severe situations — that can preemptively help their workers before serious problems emerge. In most cases, fortunately, it’s not necessary to reinvent the wheel. With a few tweaks, a robust corporate well-being program can enable employees to improve their physical and mental health.

Following are three tips for incorporating a greater mental health focus into your employee well-being program.

1. Solicit employee input

Regular anonymous pulse surveys can give you a big-picture view of your organization’s overall mental health climate and help you identify any workplace culture issues that may be affecting employee morale and mental health. (It goes without saying that appropriate reporting structures are required for any type of harassment, discrimination, or other toxic behavior, but you’ll also want to know about potential lower-level stressors that don’t rise to the seriousness of requiring a formal complaint.)

In addition to executing periodic surveys, you should seek out input from individuals to make sure their specific concerns are being addressed. One way to do this is to incorporate well-being into the standard employee review process. Broadening the discussion beyond individual job performance to include questions about whether the employee feels valued and heard, and whether the organization’s well-being benefits are meeting their needs, can both demonstrate that the company cares about its people and help improve future benefit offerings.

2. Address lifestyle health issues that diminish well-being

Mental and physical health are inextricably linked, and sustainable improvements can’t be achieved with a siloed approach. For example, stress and anxiety can lead to lost sleep, emotional eating, substance use, and other unhealthy behaviors that ultimately lead to physical ailments, and conversely, addressing the unhealthy lifestyle choices that lead to chronic conditions such as obesity, hypertension, and diabetes can have a considerable impact on mental health and well-being.

So to fully support mental health, a well-being program must help employees develop long-term positive lifestyle habits that will lead to significant improvements in physical health.

A good mental health measurement component to use in your well-being program is the National Institutes of Health’s PROMIS (Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System). Newtopia, for example, uses PROMIS measures for resilience, mood, anxiety, sleep, and energy in its personalized habit change programs alongside the tracking of more traditional factors such as exercise and nutrition.

3. Take advantage of virtual tools

Most of us have grown accustomed to turning to our smartphones for solutions, so it’s not surprising that many people are embracing apps — for meditation, mindfulness and relaxation, for example — to improve their mental health as well. When a human connection (or a trained mental health professional) is needed, many companies are offering their employees virtual therapy and counseling sessions, either from emerging digital-only providers or from traditional providers who have embraced telehealth during the pandemic.

These types of virtual tools are convenient and accessible, but it’s important to remember that they are most effective when they’re incorporated into a holistic whole-person care support program that comprehensively addresses physical, emotional, and mental well-being, rather than simply offering employees a grab bag of individual solutions that they can pick and choose from.

A win-win

The mental and emotional scars of the pandemic will likely get worse before they get better, and last long after employees return to the office. Incorporating mental health into your company’s well-being program can help your employees thrive and achieve their potential. It’s a win-win investment that leads not only to enhanced individual health and happiness but to greater organizational effectiveness thanks to reduced burnout, higher productivity, and improved retention.

The post 3 Tips for Incorporating Mental Health Into Your Corporate Well-Being Program appeared first on Medika Life.

Six in 10 American adults have a chronic disease, and a significant percentage of these conditions could be prevented with lifestyle change. Studies suggest that up to 90% of type 2 diabetes, 80% of coronary artery disease, 70% of stroke and 70% of colon cancer are potentially preventable through a reduction in five key lifestyle risk factors: unhealthy diet, inadequate physical activity, overweight, smoking and excess alcohol consumption.

Considering the unhealthy habits many of us picked up during the pandemic (decreased exercise, increased snacking, heavier drinking), compounded by stress and loss of sleep, we can expect a further surge in chronic disease — and the associated personal and financial costs.

How are we going to address this growing problem before it overwhelms our health care system, our economy, and our ability to compete and lead the world by the power of our example?

A lack of primary prevention

Much of the problem lies in the expectation that our existing health care infrastructure is going to solve this problem. Physicians don’t have the training or time to create personalized habit-change plans and ensure that patients follow them, nor are they adequately reimbursed for practicing lifestyle medicine.

While medical education is shifting to incorporate more behavior-change best practices into curricula, most physicians — aside from the key role they play in preventive screenings and identifying patients at risk — continue to focus on sick care rather than on keeping healthy people healthy.

The lack of primary prevention and consistent support for incremental habit change for healthy people represents a massive structural hole in our health care system and our society in general. And it’s a hole that physicians cannot and should not be expected to fill on their own.

The one-on-one personal coaching needed to help individuals achieve long-term successful habit change requires greater frequency of contact than is possible with typical health provider relationships, and although behavior change clearly results in long-term cost savings, it does not fit the fee-for-service model that most providers still operate under.

An opportunity for insurers and payers

The savings do, however, represent an opportunity to introduce the needed paradigm shift via insurers and corporate payers, who currently bear a large share of the cost of managing expensive chronic conditions once they have developed.

The front line in this battle should not be when patients are in the hospital dealing with symptoms, but much earlier — before unhealthy habits have had a chance to negatively affect people’s health.

Insurers and payers certainly recognize the value of promoting a healthier workforce, and they frequently offer preventive health programs for their members and employees. However, traditional health improvement and prevention efforts tend to be one-size-fits-all curriculum-oriented programs — modeled on our learning and education system — that rely on participants’ own motivation to find what works for them and stick with it. Unfortunately, it’s human nature to look for quick-fix solutions, particularly when it comes to lifestyle change and losing weight.

Many people give up if they don’t see the results they want right away. Traditional efforts also rely heavily on willpower, which is rarely enough when it comes to the complex issue of weight loss. An effective plan must also take into account a wide range of individual circumstances and characteristics, including the person’s medical history, genetics, social determinants, personality, intrinsic goals, readiness to change, and many other factors.

Habits are by definition cultivated over time, and sustainable behavior change requires one-size-fits-one coaching and support — in the context of a trusting personal relationship — to build confidence in making small incremental changes and keep individuals engaged, motivated and accountable over the long term. Fortunately, support for habit change is a role that lends itself well to a virtual environment, with telehealth coaching sessions complemented by smart remote monitoring tools such as fitness trackers and smart scales, along with the right gaming and curated social health community. This makes participation more convenient and accessible for employees while reducing costs for payers.

A new partner in health

In short, support for habit change is a task best suited to a new and different type of health specialist that insurers and payers can partner with to overcome lifestyle-related chronic disease. Just as there are many physician and allied health subspecialties that address the diverse aspects of diagnosis and treatment of various illnesses and health conditions, we should look to embrace a new (and virtual) front line of healthy habit change providers that can address primary prevention and effective habit change — working with and alongside physicians and the existing “sick care” infrastructure.

It’s time to fill that structural gap. The health of our families, neighbors, and country is at stake

The post Treating Lifestyles . The Structural Gap in Patient Care appeared first on Medika Life.

His mission has its roots in personal loss; his father died of cancer at a young age. When Jeff discovered that the cancer was largely a result of lifestyle choices, it demonstrated how unhealthy behaviors go unaddressed until it is too late to intervene.

It led to the realization of how backward our traditional health care system has become: it’s really a reactive sick care system that treats people after they’ve already become sick, rather than a proactive health care system that works to keep people healthy and prevent illness through primary prevention.

Jeff’s belief in the critical importance of prevention led him to establish several innovative health care startups prior to founding his current company, Newtopia, a tech-enabled habit change provider that helps health insurers prevent disease and save costs through sustainable habit change instead of late-stage condition management.

As Jeff says:

Health care providers often offer patients lifestyle-related platitudes — eat healthier, exercise more, get more sleep, reduce stress — but they are not trained or incentivized to take the time to really get to know their patients and their unique needs and work with them to make the daily choices that will build new, incremental healthy habits. So how do we make sure that these recommendations actually turn into change in people’s lives? A new front door and front line is required. Changing and stacking habits requires both a hyper-personalized approach (taking into account factors such as genetics, medical history, social determinants of health, behavioral profile and personal preferences, for example) and a strong human connection supported by technology to ensure inspiration, build confidence and accountability..

Jeff is committed to helping health insurers re-envision their investment in health and realize the greater returns of creating pro-health and pro-wellbeing workplace cultures. By addressing the unhealthy life choices that are a major risk factor for many noncommunicable diseases –
including obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke – health insurers can proactively intervene to change the trajectory of chronic disease development, saving lives and reducing costs.

According to Michael Palmer, the former Chief Innovation and Digital Officer at Aetna, and current Newtopia Board member:

Jeff proved his solution works – for Aetna he netted out over $1,500/year in medical cost savings per member per year, kept over 70% of them engaged to achieve their goals, and materially reduced risk of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease for a large percentage of our at-risk people. We even co-published the results of a randomized controlled trial – and Aetna would only put our stamp of approval on a solution that is proven safe, effective and economically beneficial. In addition to finding the secret sauce of personalized habit change, Jeff has built an inspiring team of health coaches, technologists and habit change gurus who will likely change the trajectory of healthcare for good.

Prior to founding Newtopia in 2008, Jeff was co-founder and chief operating officer of Cleveland Clinic Canada, a collaboration between the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and Canyon Ranch, and Canada’s leading destination for preventive health and lifestyle management; co-founder and chief operating officer of Life Screening Centers Inc., a cancer screening and prevention company; and co-founder and head of operations of Genetic Diagnostics Inc., an early-stage biotechnology company commercializing a new genetic diagnostic testing platform. 
 
Jeff holds a joint Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration from York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School and Schulich School of Business in Toronto. He received his bachelor’s degree from Western University in London, Ontario. 

If you’re interested in the push to create a more sustainable approach to health care, Jeff is someone you’ll want to have on your radar. If you’d like to connect with him, you can do so via the links below.

Getting in touch with Jeff

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