Jose Ordovás, PhD, is a world-renowned researcher whose work focuses on developing precision nutrition to prevent and treat age-related chronic diseases, such as heart disease, obesity, and Type-2 diabetes. Dr. Ordovás has received multiple national and international honors throughout his career for his scientific achievements, including the USDA Secretary’s Award. He was connected with TRIBETIC co-founders Dan Donlevie and Suzanne Stites through a mutual colleague who thought Dr. Ordovas might be interested in helping bring the concept into reality. That colleague was right!

While working with physical therapy patients early in his career, TRIBETIC co-founder Dan Donlevie noticed something in common among them: Their injuries were often caused by the fact that they weren’t taking care of themselves—they weren’t eating right or exercising regularly. Based on this observation, he decided to shift his work to the preventative side of healthcare and launched his own personal training business. Focusing on metabolic health, Dan developed personalized plans for his clients and over time, began to develop an intuition about people—how their mindset influences their goals and their ability to achieve them. The concept of preventative care, coupled with specialized coaching tailored to an individual’s mindset, is what led to the development of the TRIBETIC program for people with prediabetes and Type 2 diabetes and metabolic health. Here, Dan talks about his career journey and the personal health diagnosis that threw him for a loop—and led him to the notion of TRIBETIC.

Dan Plews, PhD, is a sports scientist and a top expert in the area of applied heart rate variability (HRV) in athletes. Dr. Plews is passionate about endurance sport and has worked work with more than 30 Olympic and World champions in rowing, kayaking and sailing. His personal passion is Ironman triathlon, and he himself broke the amateur course record at the Ironman World Championships in 8 hours 24 minutes. Plews joined the TRIBETIC team as an advisor. Here, he explains more about how athletes use HRV to help them get into top condition, and how the TRIBETIC combination of HRV with other health markers is a game changer for people with diabetes.

Job Godino, PhD, is an epidemiologist whose work focuses on mobile and wearable technology (e.g., smartphones, accelerometers, and heart rate monitors) that promotes healthy lifestyle changes for the prevention of disease. Dr. Godino met TRIBETIC co-founders Dan Donlevie and Suzanne Stites through a mutual friend and says their vision for TRIBETIC really resonated with him. Seeing the potential to help people around the world, he joined them as a member of the TRIBETIC Advisory Board. Here he talks about how digital health technology has exponentially improved over the past decade, the promise of what’s to come, and why he’s excited about TRIBETIC giving people with Type 2 diabetes an opportunity to take an active role in improving their own health.