Wellness and fitness centers have seen a massive rise in popularity. Offering various services to biohackers and individuals who simply wish to prioritize their health, they have something that can cater to any individual.
This week, Longevity brings you #TuesdayTrending, where we speak to Dr. Duncan Charmichael and Emilian Popan from Expand Health, a wellness, and fitness center in Sea Point, Cape Town.
Emilian’s Story
While Emilian Popan isn’t a medical doctor, he is bringing incredible changes to the medical industry. He is the CEO of Ilara Health, a company that has helped improve healthcare accessibility to over 500 million people in Africa. His work focuses on providing breakthrough healthcare technologies at a low cost. He talks to us about how he does this through a high-tech point of care, diagnostics, and investing in ventures. With a number of investments prioritizing health care and its accessibility, he is now investing in Expand Health and working with Dr. Carmichael.
Dr. Carmichael’s Story
Dr. Carmichael is the author of the book “Living Younger for Longer”, which focuses on preventative health care. The core of it is aging well, and being proactive in taking care of your health. While Dr. Carmichael is an aesthetic specialist, he has migrated his practice from aesthetics and the longevity of outer appearance to wellness and the longevity of the inside. He shares that while his background is in aesthetic medicine, it is also made up of integrative medicine.
The Importance of Precision Medicine
He shares that the whole idea of functional medicine is to anticipate any illnesses and use this knowledge to create a personalized treatment for individuals. He shares that precision medicine is a direction that the healthcare industry needs to go in. Precision medicine is focused on individual and individual outcomes, as opposed to generalizing healthcare.
Expand Health
The company is defined by two aspects, namely:
- Precision testing: Biological tests that can determine your biological age, and gene tests which can pick up what you may be susceptible to. This helps determine exactly what treatment you need.
- Hormesis: This is defined as an adaptive response of cells and organisms to moderate, intermittent stress. Gene analysis has shown that a bit of stress on the body can stimulate the positive genes and protein enzymes in the body. This is something they are able to provide in a controlled environment with their sophisticated equipment.
Sophisticated Equipment
From opting for ice baths to even swimming in the Atlantic Ocean, there may be a temptation to opt for these to achieve hormesis. However, with its sophisticated diagnostic equipment, Expand Health is able to provide these in a controlled environment, whether it be cryotherapy or infrared therapy.
Democratizing Healthcare
Healthcare can be expensive. Many of these treatments and modalities are typically reserved for upper-income individuals. As something that is close to Emilian’s heart, they aim to ensure accessibility. To tackle this, Ilara Health also provides high-tech, portable diagnostic devices to African communities. They enable point-of-care diagnostics, at a fraction of the cost.
Not Limited To Treating Conditions
The center isn’t limited to people who have health ailments. Emilian shares that some are biohackers or individuals who just want productivity in their health. Essentially, they want to see if anything is wrong, and if they can improve anything. In fact, Dr. Carmichael shares that he would like to see centers like this become a regular part of people’s routines, similar to going to the gym.
Holistic Meets Traditional Healthcare
Expand Health aims to provide holistic approaches to healthcare with the support of medical practitioners. This is what truly sets them apart from other centers. To hear more about the services they offer, who they’re aiming for, and what led the two to collaborate, watch the full video below:
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