Let me tell you my story on how I came to discover Preventative Medicine and how this has profoundly changed my life.
As a highly competitive sports practitioner, student and later entrepreneur in the tech space, I have been educated to live by the “work hard, play hard” philosophy. Always go the extra mile. Always push myself further beyond my limits. Sleep as little as possible, “I’ll sleep when I’ll be dead”, “sleep is for lazy people”. Just as my prefered actor Arnold Schwarzenegger said, 8 hours of sleep was unacceptable for me, I had to “sleep faster” 🙂 My diet was like anyone else’s among my fellow entrepreneurs, fast food, pizza, irregular lunch and dinner hours. Alcohol at will during parties. Sweet desserts at the end of every meal. When I was practicing physical activity, I always pushed harder, further, longer, until complete exhaustion. My mental state was a highly alert one, on a permanent basis. Phone calls, SMS, Whatsapp messages, people throwing problems at me all the time. When a milestone was reached, nomatter how major it was, there was no time for celebration, I needed to move on to the next one.
Long story short, I had the “perfect life” of a tech entrepreneur. And you know what? It seemed to pay off, it seemed to work, it seemed to confirm that this was the secret recipe for success. Playing high stakes allowed me to fundraise. To increase revenue. To hire more people. To galvanize my sales teams. To meet the goals I set myself. No goal was unreachable for me with such an energetic approach. Yes there were some minor glitches, but nothing serious. Dandruff in my hair. Eczema on my skin. Catching flu frequently. But nothing to worry about, right? If this is the price of success, I was happy to pay it. After some smaller but increasingly successful milestones, I sold my last startup to a big US public corporation. I had worked like crazy, and succeeded at everything, I was wealthy, married, 2 children, living in one of the best places on Earth (Aix-en-Provence, South of France), beautiful home, nice car. At 40, I was on top of the world, or so I thought.
Because I had sold my company and had plenty of time, I started to read about Human Longevity and Preventative Medicine, more as a distraction than as a real predefined interest. One thing leading to another, just to have fun, I ended up doing blood labs and lots of other tests (DNA sequencing, blood labs, epigenetic clocks, a DEXA scan, wearing CGMs, VO2max measurement, MHR, HRV, etc…). But I ended up finding out about myself was not funny at all. As a matter of fact, as I was about to confirm with 2 medical doctors specialized in Longevity and Preventative Medicine, it was even pretty alarming:
- My glucose levels were sky high, placing me in the category of a prediabetic (fasting glucose level 100-105 mg/dl). It was later confirmed that my OGTT was above the normal levels, my HBA1C was higher than normal, and I had a genetic predisposition towards Diabetes type 2.
- My general inflammation was the one of a 74 year old man. Indeed GlycanAge allow to test for just exactly that.
- I had predisposition towards late onset neuro-degenerative diseases, and with my glycemic profile I was going right into that at warp speed.
- My kidneys had a somewhat low capacity to filter uric acid. Not clinically ill, but definitely on the low side of the bell curve.
I thought of myself as a perfectly healthy person, and this diagnosis stroke me hard because it was so at the opposite of the image I had about me. I was lucky to find the truth about the real state of my health, because at 40 the body is still young and can recover from a tremendous amount of damage. But had I continued on the same trend, I would have been diabetic in 5 to 10 years. My levels of stress would have continued to trigger extreme levels of inflammation through my body. My immune system would have become weaker and weaker against all diseases, benign or not (cancer, influenza, common flu), spending more and more time being sick.
This was an awakening call for me, a moment of extreme lucidity, a revelation. Had I not changed my lifestyle profoundly, during the 2nd half of my life, I would have become unable to take advantage of what I had earned during the 1st half of it. I absolutely had to change.
So day after day, I worked hard to adopt a more healthy-friendly lifestyle. These are the longevity principles I live by now:
- At home, I don’t eat sugar anymore. Nada. Zero. As an exception, I still take cake or other desserts when in town or travelling – which happens pretty rarely.
- I don’t eat foods that have more that 10% carbs.
- When I have a meal, I first eat the fibers, then proteins and fats, and at the end eventually, an unprocessed fruit (with fibers to slow down the glucose absorption).
- I’m taking 2g of proteins / kg / day – which amounts to roughly 150g for me, by taking Pure Whey Isolate.
- I strive to drink 3L of water / day (not easy I admit)
- I measure my HRV, so when my body expresses fatigue, I just lower my activity intensity down (both mentally and physically).
- I’m practicing a mix of Running, HIIT, pilates/gymnastics/yoga for my joints, and strength exercices
- I strive to sleep at least 7 hours / night (not easy I admit)
Since I started applying the aforementioned measures, my life changed significantly for the better:
- my HRV was at 20ms-30ms, now it is at 60ms
- my dandruff dissappeared completely, so did the skin problems I had
- my flu and influenza are way less frequent, and go away in 2 or 3 days, compared to 2 or 3 weeks before
I’m still investigating new ways of improving my health even more (Rapamycin and Metformin are on my list, but more on that in another blog post). I was lucky enough to discover Preventative Medicine when it was not too late for me. Make no mistake, Preventative Medicine not only about preventing, but it is also about personnalisation. For each one of us, the overall health diagnostic and measures will be different, and will work more or less quickly and with more or less efficiency, depending on your genome, your age, and a myriad of other factors. Do not consider my example as a playbook for your own situation, most likely it won’t fit your personal situation!
After making these discoveries about my body, I realized there were roughly 3 billion people on Earth who were 40 or older, and who needed help with staying healthy as long as possible. Offering them a convenient service to take care of their long term health became the goal of my life. This is how Ikare was born.
If you feel strong and healthy, then you’re in good health right? What could be wrong in such a situation ? Well, not so fast … The body is a wonderful machine, it adapts to tremendous amounts of stress and pressure on the short term, but by doing so, it uses up resources that won’t be available later in life when you’ll desperately need them. And by that time, it will be too late, because irreversible damage has occured to certain subsystems of your body.
Act now, before it’s too late! Plan and act long term, and keep your vitality at 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and even 100 years old! The future belongs to the ones who prepare themselves for it.