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The Digital Executive
Shaping the Future of Health with AI and Evidence-Based Care with Ro Huntriss | Ep 1046
00:14:05
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Welcome to Coruscant Technologies, home of the Digital Executive Podcast. Welcome to the Digital Executive. Today's guest is Ro Huntress. Ro Huntress is an award winning registered dietitian, author and nutrition Expert with over 13 years of experience spanning clinical practice, private consulting and international health tech. She specializes in weight management, metabolic health, gut health and women's health, bringing a science backed, compassionate approach to nutrition. As Chief Nutrition Officer at Simple, Ro leads a team of dietitians, doctors and scientists to utilize the latest evidence based strategies and innovations to support millions of people to reach their health and weight loss goals. She also spearheads research initiatives to validate Simple's effectiveness. Ro's work has been published in several key medical and scientific journals and frequently contributes to major media outlets including Forbes, Cosmopolitan Insider, Good Housekeeping, Women's Health and Men's Health. Well, good afternoon Ro, welcome to the show.
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Hi Brian, thank you so much for having me.
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Absolutely. I appreciate you making the time. Based out of London, England today as I do my podcast out of Kansas City, so five hours from Greenwich. Meantime, I appreciate you jumping on at this time of the day. Ro, jumping into your first question here. With over 13 years in nutrition, including clinical practice, private consulting and health tech, what inspired your journey into dietetics?
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So where it came from really is I did quite a lot of sport when I was younger so I was just really interested in kind of like health and fitness in general. And that took me to my first degree which was food science and nutrition. And really it was the nutrition part that really fascinated me because I started to understand the associations between nutrition and health and really started to understand its power. And then I was introduced to the concept of dietetics which I think takes nutrition up a level because there I learned how nutrition can be utilized to not just to prevent disease but also to treat and manage it in cases as well. So it really started to blow my mind as to the, as to the power really of nutrition and I've done various things in my career but nutrition has always been the center point and I feel that it's quite a good, wholesome center point because it always feels that you're doing something for the greater good.
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That's awesome. I appreciate you sharing. And of course being in sports, athletics, you know, in your early age probably influenced a big part of this which you had mentioned and I think that's totally awesome. And you've got a diverse background including that clinical practice and health tech. I'm been in technology, my or healthcare many many years myself in the tech Space. So I really appreciate people in this area. Ro, as a chief nutrition officer at simple, you lead a team of dietitians, doctors and scientists. How do you ensure evidence based strategies are effectively integrated into the app to support users health and weight loss goals?
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So I think the really important thing is when you're developing health technologies that you do it responsibly. You know, everything that we do is evidence based and you know, there's no fad in sight. And I think that's really important because sometimes, oh, you know, fads might, something a bit out there might be exciting. That's not what we're trying to, to achieve here. In terms of the dietary interventions that we offer, the goal of our users is predominantly weight loss and we therefore utilize a number of just evidence based but simple habits for people to focus on to help them to get to their goal. So the main driver of weight loss in our product at the simple app is a variety of intermittent fasting that's called time restricted eating whereby users will consume their calories within a certain time period. And we don't do anything too restrictive here. It can be as gentle as a 1212 protocol. So that's eating within a, and consuming calories within a 12 hour window and then abstaining for the rest up to something like an 18:6. So consuming calories within that six hour window. And with that we see it as being a really successful weight loss intervention and people can really tailor it to their needs. But one thing with intermittent fasting is that people can often just focus on when they eat and not necessarily what they eat. And nutrition, you know, it's important to me, but it is really important to us as a company as well that users also consider their nutrition and what they are eating within this eating window. So we have a nutrition score that takes into consideration calorie density that obviously guides the weight management part. But it looks at nutrients such as protein, fiber, unsaturated fats, your saturated fats, sugar, sodium, et cetera, just to ensure that the quality of the nutrition is where we want it to be as well. And then we also encourage gentle movement and also hydration and all of these things in terms of the nutrition and the activity, hydration, these are all influenced by just international clinical and health guidelines. And as you say, we've got a team of dietitians, doctors, other kind of like behavioral scientists and us as dietitians, we have supported patients on their weight management journeys and doctors have supported their patients as well. So us as dietitians, we understand what A patient really wants and what, what they need and what may be problematic for them. So that's the influence that we've been able to have on the design of the product features and the user journey. And equally in terms of the doctors that we have on board as well, you know, they're thinking about things from a safety perspective, you know, ensuring that things are effective, but ensuring that things are safe as well. And where we like to make a big difference is the utilization of tech and the utilization of AI to basically make the journey as simple, as easy to follow as possible. So we have our AI coach, we have AI food image recognition, AI workouts, AI feedback summaries. And this is also kind of like tied into like behavior change techniques because there's the things that people maybe know that they should do, but really it's the behavior change techniques that helps them to get there. So we use things like goal setting and action planning and feedback on behavior prompts in the form of push notifications, gamification. But again, we do this all with the user at the center of this. And also, you know, I mentioned behavioral scientists as well. They're a really important part to play in this because we really need to think about how can we move people's behaviors from A to B and do it in a way in that the user is at the center of that the intervention is going to be effective, it's going to be safe, and we're going to get them there. So. So, yeah, it's a really, really well thought out way in which we develop our app.
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B
Thank you, Ro. I appreciate that. And I like how you're doing this responsibly. Evidence based, no fads, safe, effective. And you've got a whole team behind you of dietitians, doctors and scientists. But I really like the tech part. You talked about using the app leveraging tech and AI to make it simple to help be their coach and their guide. So I appreciate that. And Ro, next question. As the author of Deliciously Healthy Fertility, what key nutritional advice would you offer to individuals looking to optimize their fertility through diet?
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Yeah, so this is another aspect of nutrition that I work in. And to be honest, it's one that I'm really grateful to have found because, you know, for a long time this sector was kind of ignored a little bit. But now, you know, we understand the power and the influence of nutrition in supporting fertility. So we know that for both men and women, because it's important to consider both the right nutrition can improve chances of conception and reduce the time that it takes to get there. And when we're looking at a foundational dietary approach, generally what we're looking for is something like the Mediterranean diet. And a reason why is because it's anti inflammatory and also it's full of antioxidants. And both inflammation and oxidative stress can negatively influence fertility. So somebody starting on a fertility journey and they want to start paying attention to these things, a really good place to start is with the Mediterranean diet that is characterized by the inclusion of whole grains, plenty of colorful fruits and vegetables, legumes, nuts and seeds, extra virgin olive oily fish, and then really to be minimized in terms of foods such as red meat and sugars. So kind of like, you know, as we'd expect that nice healthy dietary foundation to be. And for me, where fertility nutrition gets really quite exciting and appealing is it can get really specific. So if somebody was to see a fertility dietitian in clinic, for example, they may come. It may just be a general, I'm experiencing infertility, but it may be for the male partner, I've got a low sperm count. It may be for the couple that we're experiencing recurrent miscarriage. So for example, if a male was to come in and then with low sperm count, then we'd be looking at specific strategies such as, and certain nutrients are associated with improved outcomes. So say for example, with sperm counts, vitamin B12, omega 3, coenzyme Q10, lycopene, they are all associated, their intake is associated with a higher sperm count. So we would tackle those kind of angles. And for something like with recurrent miscarriage, for example, we would look at blood tests such as ensuring that vitamin D and vitamin B12 levels are where they should be, that there's adequate folate intake. And that's both from diet, but also from supplements as well. And we'd look at, to ensure that the diet is kind of like suitable for pregnancy. And what I mean by that is when people are pregnant, they follow certain guidelines which helps to ensure that the pregnancy lasts a term. But people don't often start following this until maybe six or eight weeks when they know that they are pregnant. But we will actually consider the time at which somebody could be physiologically pregnant. And then at that point that would be when we start to introduce these strategies. So as you can see, it gets quite technical as we go into the detail, but it's a really, really fascinating but powerful field to work in.
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That's amazing. There's a lot that goes into that, of course, and you certainly Shared a lot for our audience today. But I like how there is a place now for fertility. And really you're focusing on that because we know that through good nutrition improves fertility and speeds up that process. I, like you highly recommend the Mediterranean diet. I think that's interesting. And obviously men and women both have different health needs, but vitamins are also a big part of that as well. So thank you. And Ro, last question of the day. Given your experience in both clinical settings and digital health technologies, how do you see the role of technology evolving in personalized nutrition and patient engagement?
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The biggest thing for me really is the AI coaching capacities and the utilization of LLM so large language models and translating this into health coaching. Because I think, you know, when people think about personalized nutrition, they may think about like nutrigenomics, so eating as per your DNA or the gut microbiome and then eating as per that continuous glucose monitors and adjusting your intake based on your glucose measures. But really, if we look at these things, are they likely to have a big influence on weight management and weight loss, for example? And really, I think potentially not. But I think what could have a much bigger impact is AI coaching. And now what we're starting to see, as I mentioned before, most people understand the activity that they need to do, the foods that they should be eating more of, the foods that they should be eating less of. But really the key is actually enabling people or helping them to be able to do this. And the vast majority of us don't have access to a coach or a dietitian or other health care professional. 24, 7. And now what these, what AI health coaching is enabling is exactly that 24, 7 access to a coach that is knowledgeable, that is human like, that can offer support, accountability, and really be there every step of the way. And I mean, even now, you know, where we are in terms of the human like nature of even the text ability of an AI coach is fantastic. But where we're moving to next is voice calls. So, you know, very soon we'll be in a place where a user will be able to call the coach and have conversations which will feel, as I say, you know, even, even more human like. And the coach can even call the user at times where they feel an intervention or a conversation may be necessary or may be helpful. So, yeah, I think it's a very, very exciting time. And you know, in the past 18 months to two years since these technologies have been available, we've seen a huge shift in advancement in terms of what coaching apps like simple are able to offer.
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Thank you so much Robert. That's amazing. Of course we focus on tech here on the podcast but I like how you're integrating technology, AI coaching, neutronics, et cetera into what you do here as a nutrition coach. I like the fact that this AI coaching has really come to light in the last couple of years has immense potential. Obviously that 247 availability when you can't always get a human at that time. I want to highlight something that I thought was really cool is if there's a time that during a case of intervention, for example that the voice can actually call the client or the patient in that case and that's I think that's awesome. It's only going to get better over time. So I appreciate your insights here Ro. It was such a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
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Thanks so much for having me Brian.
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Bye for now.