Nutrition. We all know it’s one of the keys, if not the main key, to longevity. Only exercise is of comparable importance. If you want to live long and you want to live healthily, you have to get your nutrition right. Easier said than done, of course, when nutrition is such a complex topic and there’s so much contradictory advice out there. Perhaps AI can help.
Heali seems to think so, as do the backers who have allowed it to amass $3 million in seed funding. It seems simple enough in concept, using AI to provide personalized dietary recommendations, but when you realize it can provide specific advice based on the requirements of more than 200 different medical conditions, it doesn’t seem so easy.
What foods do you need to eat if you have gastrointestinal problems? Presumably something easy to digest and that’s not going to cause additional irritation. What if the issue is neurological? Which foods are going to best support the brain? And what if the condition is autoimmune? You’re going to need to avoid the foods that your body attacks like they’re an enemy disease.
Providing meal plans that suit each different kind of condition, based on the most reliable evidence available, is a major undertaking. Heali’s platform also helps you track your diet and can even scan products on a shelf or in a menu so you can find out the relevant nutritional information. It’s all done with the help of a massive database containing details on millions of food products and a huge range of recipes, the data from pertinent and high-quality scientific studies (all peer-reviewed) and the analytical power of Heali’s clinical grade AI.
The results from Heali’s beta period have even earned praise from the CDC. One trial focused exclusively on irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), which can cause pain, bloating and trouble with your bowel movements, and for which one of the main treatments is to adjust your diet to try to avoid triggering symptoms. Use of the Heali app led to patients reporting a 2x improvement in their symptoms and a 2.6x boost to their overall quality of life.
Hopefully, the new funding will allow Heali to make its app available to more people, along with additional features such as 1:1 health coaching based on a CDC recognized approach and even meal kit delivery.
