Empowered Patient Podcast

Martin Pytela is a functional medicine expert, metabolic typing coach, and fellow podcaster. He discusses the principles of functional medicine and its focus on finding the root causes of health issues rather than just treating symptoms. Understanding metabolic behavior and how it can affect emotional well-being and overall health highlights the need to better understand the connection between diet and health conditions. Martin emphasizes the need to personalize approaches to health based on individual genetics and endocrine dominance. Martin elaborates, "Functional medicine is a moniker developed to distinguish it from allopathic medicine in the sense that functionals are looking for root causes of things. In the typical medical setting, you are just looking at a symptom, and you address the symptom with some chemicals and let the patient manage or cope with life as is. With functional medicine, you try to find the cause of it and restore health. So, rather than treating symptoms alone, you’re trying to heal the patient." "Early on, they were checking venous blood pH. These days, we can get the same results just by putting forward a questionnaire with 120 multiple-choice questions. And at the end of it, we’re able to tell you what your endocrine dominance is and what your metabolic dominance is. The endocrine dominance, which we identify as the thyroid, adrenal, pituitary, or ovaries in women, will drive how a person will gain weight or lose weight primarily. And then the metabolic dominance, of which we have either the autonomic or the oxidizer, one is the lipo-oxidative the other one is carbo-oxidative dominances. With that we’ll figure out how the pH of the internal body terrain is responding to the food combinations." #MartinPytela #FunctionalMedicine #MetabolicTyping #EndocrineDominance #HolisticHealth #ThePainManifesto Life-Enthusiast.com Download the transcript here 

Patty Hayward, general manager for healthcare and life sciences at Talkdesk, talks about transforming the traditional call center into one that uses AI and large language models to make it easier for patients to get help and free up call center staff to focus on value-added tasks. The technology supports call center agents in their conversations with patients and helps avoid escalations. Outbound messaging prompts patients to take action, reinforcing conversations with call centers to improve patient outcomes.   Patty explains, "Because AI has been around for a long time, we’ve had AI infused in our platform for many years. But these large language models that have come speeding into the market have enhanced how we use AI in such a great way and allowed us to more easily support patients and agents in their journeys. We in healthcare do not make these journeys easy. They’re very complex. There are a lot of things going on, and quite frankly, deployment and training of these models can be really difficult. So these large language models have helped democratize a lot of this AI so that you don’t have to have a full IT staff devoted to doing this, which I think has been great."   "Then there are things you need a human for. A human in the loop is really important in healthcare because of the complexity we discussed. So, being able to support the agents, listening to the conversation, and bringing out things like the next best actions. What should that patient be doing next? How does that go without having to read articles or have tons of tabs behind your call center product or sticky notes all over the screen? I’ve seen this in numerous call centers to help coach those agents to make sure that they’re answering calls correctly. Also, the first time the patient calls, she gets what she needs and is not transferred needlessly." #Talkdesk #GenAI #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #ContactCenter #CallCenter #ValueBasedCare #VBC #PatientExperience #MemberExperience #CustomerExperience #Providers #Payers talkdesk.com Download the transcript here

AJ Tesler, an award-winning producer and director who, along with his wife Jenny, is launching Magnolia’s Guide to Adventuring, a new documentary video series created with support from Acadia Pharmaceuticals, inspired by their daughter Magnolia’s experience with the rare genetic neurodevelopmental disease Rett syndrome. We’re also joined by Dr. Cary Fu, a pediatric neurologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who emphasizes the need for early diagnosis. The video series highlights the adventures children with Rett syndrome can engage in.  While Cary emphasizes the importance of safety and consulting with specialists before pursuing an adventure, AJ and Cary encourage people to recognize the capabilities of children with Rett and focus on what they can do.   AJ explains, "We made a documentary about that experience and those initial steps that we took called Magnolia’s Hope, which is available on iTunes and Amazon streaming, as well as a bunch of other places. And in that documentary, my wife so sagely presents it as we want to make sure that when there’s a cure, she’ll have stories to tell. That’s an inspiring way to think about all of this. Her story does not just have to be about Rett syndrome. It doesn’t have to be about all the things that she can’t do. It can be about all the things that you can do." "Beyond that, it was also about finding families to come along on these adventures with us. Some of the families are adventurous and have tried these things before. Some of them have never done any of these things before. That was part of the creative vision for the entire thing, which was to show that no matter what your disability is, no matter where on the spectrum you are, as long as a doctor says that it’s okay to do these things, then, by all means, there are organizations that can help you do these things." Cary elaborates, "I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily unusual, but I do think that what AJ and Jenny have done with their family is very inspiring. I think families come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. I think the important thing is I encourage all of my families with Rett syndrome to make sure not to allow the diagnosis to define them. To make sure that whatever expectations they had as a family before the diagnosis was made and before they realized that there would be potential limitations and need to make modifications, they should feel free to pursue those things that they wanted, the hopes that they wanted for their child." #RettSyndrome #MagnoliasGuideToAdventuring" #AdventuringWithMagnolia #RettRevealed #AdaptiveSports #AdaptiveAdventures #RareDisease RettRevealed.com Download the transcript here

David Mazzo, President and CEO of Lisata Therapeutics, has a lead program focused on metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. The Lisata CendR Platform and drug certepetide efficiently augment the effects of chemotherapy and immunotherapies in the tumor microenvironment. Based on early findings, the future of cancer treatment may involve combining existing therapies with certepetide to personalize treatment for most solid tumors. David explains, "At Lisata, we're developing therapies to combat a challenging problem in the medical field today, which is the effective treatment of solid tumors. Solid tumors are very difficult to treat for two very simple reasons. On the one hand, these tumors generate a layer of cells around them that acts as a physical barrier. It's called the tumor stroma, and it prevents the penetration of many anti-cancer medicines into the tumor, which is why you often don't get the kind of results that one would expect." "The other obstacle these tumors present is that they generate or express a tumor microenvironment that is immunosuppressive, which helps the tumor hide from your innate immune system. It helps it not respond very well to externally administered immunotherapies. When you combine these two challenges, you end up with a set of diseases that remains an enigma in medical science today."   "So our therapy at Lisata called certepetide, our lead product, actually combines the ability to target and penetrate tumors more effectively for co-administered anti-cancer drugs with the ability to modify the tumor microenvironment, making it more immunoreceptive and therefore more likely to respond to your immune system and immunotherapies."  #Lisata #Oncology #Cancer #SolidTumors #Immunotherapies #TumorMicroEnvironment lisata.com Download the transcript here

John Incledon, President and CEO of Hisamitsu America, the makers of Salonpas, has seen enormous growth in the acceptance of over-the-counter topical pain management options since introducing the Salonpas analgesic patch in the US market 37 years ago. This growth is partly due to television ads featuring doctors touting the benefits of Salonpas for mild to moderate nerve-related and muscle-related pain and the sampling program that aims to get doctors and patients to try out the products.   John explains, "Topical medications have only been around since the 1960s, with the introduction of the first OTC monograph by the FDA. Salonpas itself was formally introduced to the United States in 1987, so we’ve been around some 37 years or so as a brand in this country. And so, it’s been a challenge. I’ll give you a couple of fun facts: 85% of US households have a pill form of an OTC pain reliever in their house, and 30% have a topical analgesic of any sort, a cream, a roll-on, or a patch. So, there’s a great disparity there. Pills remain a modality, topicals are up and coming, and I think the horizon for them is excellent." "Topicals work locally, at least OTC topical analgesics. You can wear patches and things intended to be systemic, but in this category and the products we’re talking about, they’re not. They’re intended basically just to work below the surface of the skin. There are pain receptors that certain actives will trigger to help minimize the pain. However, they’re not intended to get into the bloodstream, so by working locally and acting locally, they’re generally safer than systemic analgesics."   "We have basically two mechanisms of action in our products. One is anesthetic-based and uses lidocaine, and lidocaine is going to be most appropriate to the extent that you can diagnose this if your source of pain is from aggravated nerves. So if your lower back pain is tending to move outward, say, from the spine, you want to use an anesthetic to treat that, and so, a lidocaine-based product would be best." "If it’s purely muscle-related, then you’re better off with our alternative formulas, which include menthol, methyl salicylate, and camphor. Methyl salicylate is an aspirin derivative, so it’s categorized as a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory but topically applied, as opposed to systemically." #Salonpas #Hisamitsu #GoodMedicine #ItsGoodMedicine #PainManagement #OTC #OvertheCounterDrugs #TopicalAnalgesics us.hisamitsu Download the transcript here

Dr. Doug Newton is the Chief Medical Officer at Rula Health, a tech-enabled provider group that offers therapy, psychiatry, care coordination, and other supportive behavioral health services with a whole-person approach. Mental health disorders are diagnosed and managed using a combination of sound clinical judgment and measurement-informed care, which involves using patient-reported data and other objective measures. Normalizing mental health and using objective measures can help doctors bring up the topic with people of all ages to develop a personalized plan to maintain good physical and psychological health.  Doug explains, "We do know that the behavioral health crisis was exacerbated by COVID. Still, unfortunately, for most demographic groupings, it was already starting before the pandemic hit.  Using adolescents as an example, because I’m a child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist by training, I saw this trend, so I looked at the data. We saw that was already a problem for kids, adolescents, and adults, where the rates of depression and anxiety were going up, as well as despair, as well as suicidal ideation - and, unfortunately, completion - were going up prior to COVID. It went up even further with COVID. We’re seeing, unfortunately, either continued or slightly increased in the years post-COVID as well."   "The next component is, okay, great, let’s get people to equitable and quick quality care. That’s been harder. And so I do think that telehealth has allowed us to do that. I think it’s allowed more equitable care across rural and urban areas. It’s allowed providers and patients to find one another in a way we haven’t been able to before. And that’s great. I think the next frontier is making sure that we are providing the right care, and we can measure ways of providing the right care to that person. Highly personalized outcomes-based care is the frontier that we’re going into next, and that’s going to be critical." #RulaHealth #BehavioralHealth #MentalHealth #YouthMentalHealth #MentalHealthAwareness #MeasurementInformedCare #COVID Rula.com Download the transcript here

Professor Sir Peter Donnelly, Founder and CEO of Genomics plc, aims to use cutting-edge polygenic risk scores to identify inherited DNA mutations and genetic predispositions that could lead to common diseases. In partnership with the MassMutual life insurance company, Genomics offers a voluntary test that provides personalized risk measures and advice about conversations with clinicians. If the policyholder stays healthy longer, the insurance company will get paid more premiums before paying out to survivors. Win-win all the way around. Peter explains, "Until a few years ago, if I had the entire DNA sequence from a 40-year-old who’s currently healthy, I’d have learned something interesting and medically actionable in maybe 1% or 2% of cases. That’s because genetics has played into medicine through diseases where there’s a single change in our DNA, called a mutation, which often stops a crucial gene from working. Think cystic fibrosis or Huntington’s disease. Those are conditions that are individually serious. They’re rare individually, thankfully, and actually, they’re collectively rare. And so until a few years ago, and now still very much the case, genetic testing was about looking for those needles in haystacks, those one or two single places that caused a problem." "Now, if I have genetic information from a 40-year-old who’s healthy, I learn something medically useful in about 70% of cases. So, that massive change from 2% to 70% is because we can now measure the genetic component of risk for all of the common diseases, as I said, for heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer, or prostate cancer." "What we’ve learned is that for any one of those diseases, if we take heart disease as an example, there’s not one gene that matters for heart disease. There aren’t two genes. There are a million or more places in our DNA individual positions in our DNA, which affect someone’s risk of heart disease. And we’ve now got large enough data sets and clever enough algorithms to measure those places and combine the information to get an overall summary for someone of their genetic predisposition to heart disease."  #Genomics #Genetics #PRS #PolygenicRiskScores #DrugDiscovery #Biopharma genomicsplc.com Download the transcript here

Oren Nissim, CEO and Co-Founder of Brook Health focuses on loneliness and its impact on individuals with chronic conditions, especially when access to support is limited. Societal stigma and guilt associated with chronic conditions often contribute to loneliness, which can include depression, lack of agency, and a sense of being alone. Brook Health provides nonjudgemental support to patients with chronic diseases using a combination of human interaction with health coaches and technology to help patients manage their conditions.   Oren elaborates, "I think that people who live at home with a condition need great support, and the reality is that they don’t always have access to great support. Even if they do have great support, they still go home and have to live with it themselves - it drives people to feel lonely. I can tell you from my personal experience that I’ve been living with diabetes for a very long period of time, and the reality is that living with a chronic condition is a very lonely thing to do." "It’s interesting that you raise that because society, for a long period of time, has been characterizing having a chronic condition like diabetes or hypertension as you’re not taking good care of yourself. "You should avoid this. You should have a better way to manage yourself." The reality is that for most people who have contracted these conditions, nobody chose to be there. And so, by virtue of that type of conversation, you end up feeling, "Oh, I’m not responsible enough. I haven’t done what I should have done. I could do better, and I should do better." Very penalizing thoughts, and society judges people in this way. And, of course, that leads to loneliness as well. Again, we don’t want to be celebrating our failures outside. It’s not easy to do." #BrookHealth #RemotePatientMonitoring #Loneliness #MentalHealth #BehavioralHealth #PublicHealth #ChronicDisease #AI  Brook.ai Download the transcript here

Kent Wakeford, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Form Bio,  a company that provides computational solutions to scientists who are focused on cell and gene therapy to accelerate drug discovery and development, reduce costs, and ultimately make treatments more affordable for patients. Form Bio's in silico platform utilizes computational biology tools, bioinformatics, machine learning, and AI to process large amounts of open source data to provide insights to scientists to help them solve critical challenges. They are committed to supporting the rare and ultra-rare disease community and offer their tools to patient advocacy groups for free. Kent explains, "There are a lot of bumps. The production, scaling up, and cost of gene therapies are major obstacles to their widespread success. As we’ve seen in small molecule, target identification is one of the key challenges, and there’s been a lot of breakthroughs in AI, and computational analysis that have helped scientists find those targets." "In cell and gene therapy, it’s different. It’s a little bit easier to find the gene of interest that you want to try and work on. Still, it is harder to design and ultimately develop the gene therapy that can scale, have limited immunotoxic impact, and provide the therapeutic outcome at the right place and strength in the body." "Training a platform is one of the most critical areas for an AI or a computational company. Our team of incredible AI scientists from some of the greatest academic labs went out and pulled together all the available data in the open-source market. And to be honest, there’s a lot, but it’s not that helpful when you’re trying to get very specific scientific outcomes." "And so, we partnered with a number of leading academic institutions where we commissioned and paid for scientific research that produced data that we can then train models on. We looked at specific genes of interest for major therapeutic areas and then looked at all the regulatory elements to understand the different interactions. We can understand if you were to change one element of this, what happens to the rest of the therapeutic? What happens to expression, what happens to tropism, what happens to the packaging and manufacturability of that drug?" #FormBio #AI #ML #ComputationalBiology #DrugDiscovery #ClinicalTrials #DrugDevelopment #CellTherapy #GeneTherapy #RareDiseases formbio.com  Download the transcript here

Ram Krishnan, CEO of Valant, works with therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and nurse practitioners in the outpatient behavioral healthcare environment, which has significant unmet needs that can be addressed with technology. Scaling a mental health practice differs from other medical practices due to the frequency of visits and the need for individualized care with the most effective therapist. Virtual visits and telehealth are helping providers bridge the gap between physical and mental health, and generative AI is showing promise in diagnosing and maintaining behavioral health.  Ram explains, "This has been a market that has evolved over the last 25 years because so much has changed with our overall perception of the value and importance of mental health. This is a market that was primarily rarely covered by insurance, and employers rarely demanded coverage for their employees. Therefore, it was a cash-based business for most of its existence." "But over the last ten years, as the stigma for mental health has started to fade, and people are more outspoken about mental health challenges that they’re facing, whether it’s celebrities or athletes, it’s just made its way to the forefront. So employers, first and foremost, have begun to demand that the payers offer their services, and that’s where it starts. Payers then, in turn, begin to look for coverage. Now you have a market that was built for cash working its way into the insurance model. Finding itself subscale, they are now looking to build to scale so that it can have the systems and structures required to be able to swim into the larger waters of the US healthcare system with the insurance and payer process. And so, you have a lot of practices that have a lot of catching up to do with respect to adopting technology, and quite frankly, just process."  #Valant #MentalHealth #BehavioralHealth #BehavioralHealthEHR #PracticeManagement #PatientPortal #Telehealth Valant.io Download the transcript here