What is Optimal?
An overview of who we are and what we do.
Last updated
An overview of who we are and what we do.
Last updated
Last updated: May 16, 2024
Conflicts to declare: None. Please remember to consult with a healthcare provider prior to undertaking any of the protocols available here.
Optimal is a members-only service that helps individuals to optimize their performance and longevity.
Our approach to is substantially different from the standard primary care model.
A standard family doctor exists to diagnose, investigate, treat, and prevent disease. That is to say—it is a disease-centred model.
Our approach is different.
Instead of centering our care model exclusively on disease, we look at things in terms of a more fulsome view of full-stack human optimization.
In the context of health, optimization comes down to two things:
Extending human healthspan and lifespan (longevity) by way of an intensive, high-resolution focus on primary prevention over and above the typical template of advice that gets offered ("eat well, sleep, exercise, etc.").
Increasing human performance in cognitive and physical domains - without having to exclusively rely on biologically costly pharmaceutical interventions or supplements that have a very poor evidentiary basis for actual efficacy.
Our superpower is our core feedback loop—the ability to offer biomarker testing to check whether or not your efforts at optimization are working or not.
In a typical primary care scenario, the goal of your primary care provider is to keep your biomarkers outside of the the "abnormal" zone—and that's it. While this is a vital (and heroic) role within the context of our existing healthcare system, our already-overwhelmed public healthcare system does not have sufficient resources to provide much in the way of "bonus" optimization beyond keeping you "out of the red."
The lens of human optimization has a different strategy altogether.
Instead of settling for high-normal/borderline or "average" metrics, we want to aim for the best possible metrics aimed at improving healthspan, lifespan, and human performance.
For people who are dedicated to being their best possible selves, that's where we come in.
Our protocol coaches provide individualized assessments and feedback to assist you in shifting your biomarkers into a more optimal range, and in so doing, achieve the concomitant benefits in longevity and performance.
By "full-stack," we mean to address multiple layers of human optimization:
VO2max (Cardiorespiratory fitness) optimization.
Dietary optimization.
Supplement optimization.
Heat exposure optimization.
Natural testosterone optimization.
Sleep and circadian health optimization.
Long-term ASCVD risk optimization.
Long-term metabolic health optimization.
And so on.
Optimal does not currently provide any of the following services:
We do not replace your family doctor. Our lab-testing panels are intended to locate normal but otherwise-suboptimal biomarkers—not to diagnose or detect an underlying disease. In the event that we identify an abnormal lab value with our lab-testing, you will be referred to a provider in our primary-care follow-up protocol.
We do not prescribe medications. While our PHC-NP's do have the authority to prescribe medications, we do not offer pharmaceutical treatments through our existing membership model.
We are currently working on providing the following services:
DEXA scans for body composition analysis.
VO2max testing in an exercise laboratory setting.
Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) for dietary optimization (determining your glucose and insulin response to various
An individualized meal delivery service with portions and calories titrated to your individual needs.
An in-person clinic service for more comprehensive baseline assessments with more tests and more biomarkers.
