You might already eat the perfect nutrient-dense diet. Sleep great. Put your body through new and challenging movements. Expertly manage stress, get plenty of sunlight, and live in harmony with nature’s wisdom.
But here’s the thing.
Industrial farming practices have depleted food of precious vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals.
Despite our best efforts, most of us need nutritional support.
Randomly choosing supplements based on media headlines or new podcast interviews can do more harm than good.
Instead, you want a product formulated to meet the needs of your unique body and goals. Something that provides only what you need and adapts with you.
No more walking out of your grocer with a cart full of supplements. Supplements that sit on your shelves and expire long before you get through them.
This new field of smart nutrition finally exists.
One company has nailed this process.
Merging AI, your personal biomarker data, and a real complimentary dietitian to build your optimal customized plan.
In today’s post, I am reviewing Elo Health and why it has become one of my favorite finds of 2022.
What is ELO Health
ELO Health is a lean startup based out of San Francisco. They are pioneering the entirely new “Smart Nutrition” category. By regularly testing your biomarkers and other health data, ELO then adapts custom supplements and nutritional formulas to help you maintain optimal health and slow the biological aging process.
Though Aril Tulla founded it in 2020, it only recently opened its doors to the public in 2022 after raising a $5M seed funding round.
What makes smart nutrition special?
Benefits of Customized Smart Nutrition
Not long ago, nutrition consisted of cookie-cutter “health food” recommendations.
That changed once we began gathering data from the body.
Metabolic typing, microbiome testing through companies like Viome, and symptoms felt post-meal, all i. conclusively show that universal “superfoods” don’t exist.
I, for example, have a microbiome that struggles to breakdown and assimilate:
- Broccoli
- Beats
- Brussel sprouts
- Gren beans
- Cabbage
And many other foods. I can eat them, but I’ll experience bloating, gas, and inflammation. All signs of food intolerance.
ELO’s approach to smart nutrition is three-pronged:
- Personal — our body’s own data determines how they’ll customize our products
- Precise — clinical-grade ingredients, doses, and forms best suited to us
- Proactive — adapts with us, providing exactly what we need
Smart nutrition improves every facet of our health.
Typical benefits include:
- Deeper focus
- Higher performance
- Greater energy
- Slower aging
- Bolstered immunity
- Quality sleep
This is preventative medicine at its finest. They make becoming fully optimized simple.
How Elo Health Works
The Elo process is easy once you’ve gone through it once.
Sign up
When you’re ready to test out Elo, visit their website here. Right now, it’s only available in the USA (not yet in NY) and to iPhone users.
You can use the code NICKURBAN for a 100% free biomarker test and free session with their dietitian.
Then you’ll answer a short questionnaire about your lifestyle and goals.
Complete biomarker test
Every quarter they ship you an at-home biomarker test.
It’s a simple finger prick that collects a few drops of blood. No needles or anything too scary. Unfortunately, blood testing is currently the only way to get these biomarkers.
Once you have your sample, you place it inside the provided pre-paid envelope and drop it at any nearby mailing center (I used my local UPS).
Then you wait.
Meet your Elo health coach
About two weeks later, they’ve finished processing your results. You’ll receive an email and you book time with your coach.
Behind the scenes, their AI ingests your results, and comes up with a list of your ideal supplement ingredients.
You meet your complimentary dietitian who tweaks your plan to match your lifestyle and goals.
Take your personalized supplement
Your curated supplement arrives on your doorstep.
It contains all the ingredients discussed with your coach.
Just follow the included instructions. Then open the app for even more ideas to improve your health.
Track progress and optimize with the app
Elo’s app is packed with useful and personalized information.
The main tabs you’ll use are:
- Messages — contact your coach
- Learn — all the information you need to optimize your health
- Plan — your scores and personal data
You can use the app to add reminders to follow habits that will balance your sub-optimal biomarkers.
This will also show how your biomarkers trend over time. Helping you discover problems before they escalate.
Elo’s app makes staying on track easier.
Test again next quarter
90 days later, your body will have improved significantly.
You repeat the process.
The new biomarker test will reveal new opportunities for improvement.
If your goals or lifestyle changes significantly, your coach will make sure that you’re best situated.
Ingredients in your new formulations will have evolved with your current needs.
The Science Powering Elo’s Recommendations
AI is only as good as the underlying data.
Right now, they’re collecting biomarkers from several sources:
- Blood biomarker sample (using dried-blood spot technology)
- Wearable devices like the Oura ring
- Sleep and mindfulness data from Apple Health
Elo also plans to incorporate data from your genes and epigenome.
Their AI engine is built on research consisting of 3,000+ peer-reviewed studies in humans, across 84+ ingredients.
From there, it selects the ingredients best suited to your biology and tailors your ideal supplement.
The blood biomarkers that Elo tests
Elo plans to upgrade their blood testing as the technology improves.
Right now, Elo measures the following blood markers:
- Hemoglobin A1C
- Total cholesterol
- HDL
- LDL
- Triglycerides
- Cholesterol/HDL ratio
- LDL/HDL ratio
- VLDL
- Homocysteine
- Vitamin B12
- Vitamin D
- Ferritin
They chose each biomarker based on its stability (consistency from one day to the next) and predictive power.
Elo’s supplements
Your test results and coaching call determine the products you receive.
In your product, Elo customizes:
- Active ingredients
- Form of ingredients
- Dosage of ingredients
- Interactions and synergies between ingredients
Their Science team elected the forms of ingredients with the most research and greatest bioavailability.
Everything is then third-party tested for safety, purity, and dosage.
That way you receive exactly what you need without any contaminants.
What Comes With Your Elo Subscription?
If you capitalize on the current offer, you get all kinds of perks for a very reasonable price (basically at cost to them).
Elo’s Early Access Program comes with:
- Quarterly biomarker testing
- Monthly personalized nutrition products shipped to your door
- 24/7 monitoring and coaching
- Quarterly nutrition evaluation with a dietitian
One big bonus is your access to real coaching any time you want. Though you get full 45-minute 1-on-1 sessions every quarter, you can also ask your coach questions any time through the app.
My Experience With Elo Health
I signed up for Elo in a compulsive burst.
I was so rushed that I forgot to take advantage of the free Early Access perks (whoops).
I’m a self-quantification fanatic.
I track everything. All kinds of health optimization biomarkers. I’ve also used many of these biohacking tests and services, so I doubted it would live up to my expectations.
A few days after ordering, I received my kit. Since I don’t train on the weekend, I waited until Monday morning to do the finger prick biomarker test. That gave my body ample time for biomarkers to normalize. I did it fasted, just a few minutes after I did another round of InsideTracker biomarker testing (to compare test accuracy between the two).
Two weeks later, I got my results back. One biomarker needed optimization. Despite consuming tons of nuts, olive oil, and some fish, my HDL could use work.
Elo sent my emails throughout the entire process so I never wondered where I stood in the process. I met my coach, Kelley, to formulate my game plan.
Though I know a lot about this stuff, Kelley thoroughly impressed me.
Most companies just introduce themselves over email or chat and answer a few questions.
We met on Google Meet, and Kelley presented a detailed walkthrough of my results. This was as real of a coaching session as they come.
I already take a boatload of supplements, and there was overlap between my current regimen and Elo’s recommendations, so we heavily customized it.
I asked some difficult questions about neuroendocrinology, and why my SHBG is higher than I’d like (I discovered that from InsideTracker). The questions she couldn’t answer she took back to her team and vowed to get back to me.
I got an incredibly thorough email response to all my unanswered questions and a recap of our conversation!
My supplements arrived today, and so far I have every reason to believe they won’t disappoint.
Tips to Get More Out of Elo
There are a few things I’ve noticed that improve your Elo experience.
Timing. Ask your dietitian when to optimally take your supplements. Certain ingredients matter when you take them. Vitamin D, for example, opposes melatonin. Taking it at night can disrupt sleep. Other ingredients can have a slight sedative effect. If you have these in your packet, you may want to consider evening dosing.
With fat. Some ingredients absorb best when taken with food (particularly fat). Consult your dietitian to determine if anything in your custom formula is fat soluble and should be taken with food.
Track trends. Take each blood test with a grain of salt. Certain biomarkers fluctuate throughout the day, and so a single sub-optimal test might not indicate trouble. What matters most is how your biomarkers change throughout the year.
I will continue to update this as I discover more about Elo.
Optimize Your Health & Performance With Elo
Health and wellness seem complicated because we try to apply generic advice to our highly individualized biology.
We can make it simple by providing exactly what our bodies and minds need.
The entire process starts with gathering data via testing. Otherwise, you’re guessing.
From there, you come up with a plan to support and prioritize the organs and systems most needing support.
Humans do not exist in a vacuum. Most companies doing AI-based smart nutrition forget the vital contextual layer of lifestyle and preferences.
The world’s greatest fish oil supplements, for example, are useless to vegans.
And our most pressing needs change over time.
While I now use and recommend SelfDecode for the most accurate and comprehensive results, you can still get Elo here:
Questions, comments, or concerns regarding Elo Health? Let me know in the comments below!
