I get asked for health recommendations a surprising amount for someone who’s not a doctor. Specifically, people ask me about the labs they should get, supplements to take, foods to avoid, functional movement help… pretty much anything you can imagine. 

I mostly haven’t had great answers. It’s hard to find a good functional medicine doctor, hard to understand what labs you should take, and hard to suggest supplements and movement routines that are likely to make an impact without deeply understanding someone’s health journey. 

More than that, staying on top of your health is hard. I know almost nobody who does an annual checkup, and only my most health-obsessed friends do anything like annual bloodwork or regularly work with a functional medicine doctor. 

Why? For one, it’s confusing as hell. Finding a functional medicine doctor (FMD) in the first place ain’t easy, getting 12 different tests done is challenging, and interpreting then tracking results aren’t fun. 

The last time I went to see a functional medicine doctor, she gave me 5 different blood draws I had to do (in various states of being fasted or not), 2 stool samples, 1 urine sample collection… all which I had to schedule myself with Quest or other various diagnostic companies. 

It was a nightmare. And that didn’t even include the separate scans I scheduled (MRI, CAT) around cancer prevention, each of which required more scheduling and running to random office parks that offered the service. 

In this confusing quagmire of labs, tests, doctors, and lifestyle recommendations, I think there’s an interesting opportunity. 

What if, rather than having everyone be their own researcher, nurse, and doctor… what if you could create an all-in-one annual checkup for people who wanted to improve and optimize their health? I’m imagining a high-end, performance-oriented modern health checkup where you can get all your labs and checkups done in just a few days, in a luxurious, beautiful location. A place where people who care about their health can go annually and get all their labs done, adrenals checked, discuss diet and aging, evaluate movement patterns, and leave after 1-2 days with a full understanding of their health and a plan to improve it over the next year. 

I suspect there’s demand for something like this. The Mayo Clinic executive health program does over $100M in revenue per year and is geared towards older executives making sure they don’t die of cancer. However, the program is rather old-fashioned: it requires a visit to Jacksonville or Minneapolis (where the Mayo Clinic is located), and mainly focuses on early cancer detection, but doesn’t touch performance optimization for longevity. 

Personally, I’d love for this to exist. I’m more neurotic about my health than most people I know, and even I would love a place where I could go for a few days to make sure I’m functioning at a high level, have no concerning health trends, and where I could get recommendations on optimizing performance.

Because this is something I want, I’m planning to pull together a mini version of the above retreat sometime this fall. I’ll be sure to keep everyone here posted as it comes together!