A Few Minutes with… Precision Nutrition Expert Dr. Jose Ordovás
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! Dr. Ordovas quickly saw the “sweet spot” that TRIBETIC occupies, which is the intersection of data-driven insights about individual health with the technology that allows a person to make sustainable behavioral changes and thereby improve their health. Here, he talks more about the exciting momentum surrounding precision nutrition and why TRIBETIC is uniquely positioned to transform the way people living with Type 2 diabetes can manage the disease.
Q: You were one of the founders of precision nutrition back in the nineties. Why did you and your colleagues feel nutrition research needed a shift in approach?
Dr. Ordovás: The pinnacle of nutrition research can be traced back to its golden era a century ago, when it predominantly revolved around the discovery of vitamins and their related deficiencies, such as the scurvy caused by Vitamin C deficiency, or rickets due to Vitamin D deficiency. During this time, the solution was straightforward: supplement your diet with the lacking vitamin, Vitamin D or Vitamin C, for instance, and the associated ailment would be resolved.
However, as time marched on and societies, particularly in developed nations, evolved, the primary nutritional concerns also changed. The focus shifted from addressing deficiencies to grappling with chronic diseases, but the research model remained frozen in its past paradigm. Nutrition advice continued to be dispensed on a generalized basis, much like it was in the era of vitamin discovery. Typical suggestions included consuming specific quantities of carbohydrates, fats, or proteins, regardless of individual health circumstances or needs.
This blanket approach proved unsatisfactory over time, as it became increasingly clear that nutritional needs varied greatly from person to person. This prompted the advent of precision nutrition, a novel and more holistic approach designed to tailor nutritional advice to each individual's unique situation and requirements.
Q: What is current precision nutrition research focused on?
Dr. Ordovas: We have embarked on the largest precision nutritional studies ever, both in the US and in Europe, investing millions of dollars over the next few years. Our goal is to have predictive algorithms that will be able to tell us from the time a person is born: This is what you should eat, and when, and what you want to leave out of your diet because it may not be good for you. The timing of when you eat is important because when you eat affects how your insulin responds and that can affect how you sleep, which can affect your physical activity and your mental health, etc. It’s all inter-related. Our hope through this large-scale research is that very simple things will provide 95% of the information we need to keep people healthy throughout their lives.
Q: Can you talk a little bit more about how personalized medicine is transforming the way people with Type 2 diabetes are managing the disease?
Dr. Ordovas: First let me say that there are many avenues that lead to people ending up with diabetes. One is because they are genetically predisposed. Another is because of their lifestyle—not only nutrition, but also if they have a sedentary lifestyle. Also, things that may not seem to be related, such as mental health, could also influence physical health and nutritional choices. Because diabetes is very complex, the multifactorial approach of precision medicine is necessary. Precision nutrition is trying to tease out for each individual, why that person developed diabetes, or why they may be at very high risk of developing diabetes. And from there we can take a more holistic approach to treating them rather than just saying okay, let’s just give them this drug or let's just have them follow this diet, which may or may not work.
Q: What is the evidence-based science that supports TRIBETIC?
Dr. Ordovás: Diabetes has been approached primarily from the nutritional perspective and from the pharma perspective. Where TRIBETIC enters the game is they take into account the research that shows that things like physical activity affects insulin response to the foods we eat, and the importance of sleep in terms of how we handle insulin sensitivity. If you have poor sleep during the night, then you wake up and eat breakfast, your glucose may have an exaggerated response. There is a very clear connection between the need for good sleep hygiene and managing diabetes. The TRIBETIC program is incorporating these science-based factors together, along with nutrition.
“With TRIBETIC, there is personalized nutrition as well as the capacity to personalize physical activity to get the best out of each person.” —Dr. Jose Ordovás
Q: TRIBETIC uses real-time measurements so people know what’s going on and can make changes accordingly.
Dr. Ordovás: That’s right. Having real-time measurements and being able to react to those measurements is key. You could have so many other expensive technologies applied to you, but are they practical? TRIBETIC is the sweet spot in which you get a lot of information and can be proactive in terms of recommendations, without being a burden on the person. Because one of the things we know from conducting interventional studies is the more burden you put on the individual, after a while, they get tired and less compliant with the program. The sweet spot with TRIBETIC is that yes, they’re monitoring themselves, but it's non-invasive—it’s not in his or her mind all the time. It just becomes routine. My recommendation to [TRIBETIC co-founders] Dan and Suzanne has always been “easy does it”—not to complicate things because we have enough complication in our lives. If you make things easy, then people will follow.
Q: How is TRIBETIC different from other programs that are on the market for people with diabetes?
Dr. Ordovás: With TRIBETIC, there is personalized nutrition as well as the capacity to personalize physical activity to get the best out of each person. Because some people are larks, some people are owls, and each one of us has different preferences about what we like to do in terms of physical activity. The TRIBETIC approach also provides coaching, so they really interact with a customer. I think the customer needs that—a feeling of real interaction.
So that’s at the heart of why TRIBETIC is different. And Dan Donlevie, because he personally knows what it’s like to have diabetes, and he knows the importance of physical activity to manage that, to have that foundation of understanding is a very different aspect of the program.
And finally the other thing that’s different about TRIBETIC is it's not a closed system. It can easily incorporate additional factors as the science and research becomes available in the coming years.
Q: Do you think the TRIBETIC program will be especially attractive to women with Type-2 or who are pre-diabetic?
Dr. Ordovas: When it comes to the studies that we have, there is no doubt, it’s always 70% women and 30% men, because that motivation is much more present in women. So women will gravitate to TRIBETIC, no matter what. But in addition, women will like TRIBETIC’s holistic approach, since it’s not only about your glucose, but also considers who you are and provides feedback that you can actually act on.
Q: You’re very optimistic about the potential of TRIBETIC.
Dr. Ordovás: Unfortunately, the rate of people being diagnosed with diabetes is not going to go down anytime soon. So the potential customer base for TRIBETIC is huge, and because of the complexities of diabetes that I mentioned, there’s a need for a personalized program like this. But I should be clear—there is no economic reward for me. I believe in the concept and I believe in the goodwill and honesty of the founders. I love the simplicity and the holistic approach they’ve taken. I see startups all the time that make it in the short term because of smoke and mirrors, and pretty soon they just blow into pieces and disappear. TRIBETIC is based on honest, good science and that’s why I believe it has such strong potential.