While most medical experts have traditionally focused on treating diseases and issues once they arise, Opt Health has chosen to take a proactive, rather than a reactive, approach to the field of medicine. Aimed at transforming men’s health, and as a result their quality of life and longevity, the telehealth platform promotes preventive medicine above all else. To learn more about the aging process, how Opt Health approaches it, and more, we caught up with Dr. Graham Simpson, Opt’s Medical Director. As an expert in anti-aging, sexual rejuvenation, and cardiometabolic disease, he’s a wealth of knowledge on both the platform and what the future of health could look like.
Q: How does Opt Health operate, and what makes it stand out in the medical field?
Dr. Simpson: Healthcare up until now has been a very reactive model, Opt Health’s goal is to move this to a proactive model. Proactive medicine includes four P’s. The first is personalized—in other words it’s personalized to you. Through a collection of environmental, genetic, and lifestyle factors, we can then predict where men are going to run into problems long before something like a heart attack strikes. And if we can predict, we can prevent. And that’s really the goal; we want to prevent and optimize your well-being. The final P is the participatory relationship with clients. It’s not a top down thing, it’s very much a mentorship and partnership in how we move clients in a continuous way towards optimizing their health.
Q: Who is the Opt Health program for?
Dr. Simpson: We want to be your go-to to get the latest evidence-based men’s health information. Firstly, for men experiencing any type of sexual dysfunction, we have a variety of therapies available with a very high success rate. Secondly, Opt Health is for men who are experiencing insulin resistance or any cardiometabolic diseases—high blood pressure, cardiac disease, obesity, diabetes, cognitive impairment—we can halt and often reverse a lot of these diseases.
Q: What is the onboarding process like with Opt Health? What does it consist of?
Dr. Simpson: The Opt Health program is very simple, there are three steps. Step one is we measure you. The measurement consists of a good history, some anthropomorphic measurements, and finally a series of lab tests. Once we have this data, we work out your “Opt Score,” which will tell us where along the continuum from wellness to illness you stand. Step two is we mentor you. We coach you through our very scientific practices, which are evidence based from our physicians and coaches. We are there for you as your partner, to continually optimize you throughout the process. The third step is we monitor you. We use subjective and objective data to see how you’re moving in this continuum. Together with our app and dashboard, we can look at a lifetime of health data and make sure we’re continually slowing down your biological age.
Q: How do you differentiate between biological and chronological age?
Dr. Simpson: Chronological age is the age you are born with, while biological age can be very varied, and we can move the biological clock backwards.
Q: What distinguishes the Opt Health approach to health and wellness?
Dr. Simpson: Unlike traditional medicine, which is very much a symptom-focused, and often a drug-focused approach, we are much more interested in getting to the root cause of a person’s problem. In order to do that we use an integral approach.
Q: What benefits can clients realistically expect from joining Opt Health?
Dr. Simpson: Because of the integrative nature of our program, you can expect physical, emotional and mental improvements. For instance, during andropause, which is like the male equivalent of menopause, many men lose their joie de vivre, experience a decrease in muscle mass due to a dip in testosterone, and an increase in irritability. We can help with weight loss, an increase in energy, cognitive function, sexual function, and even on the mental level due to stress-related issues we help with. The program looks at all lifestyle factors and tracks all changes and progress on a regular basis.
