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HerbalEGram: Volume 8, Number 5, May 2011
Integrative Medicine Pioneer Joe Pizzorno Launches SaluGenecists Database
Editor’s note: This article was revised from the original at 11:00 am CST on May 6, 2011.
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There is a surfeit of web-based resources on nutrition and natural medicine, and a comprehensive review would be highly time-consuming and well beyond the scope of this article. If one were to seek an interactive database that could help customize nutritional and dietary supplement guidance for the individual user, one database would certainly stand out—the SaluGenecists Database (www.salugenecists.com).
Joe Pizzorno, ND, is a leading integrative medicine and science-based natural medicine expert. He is a co-founder and founding president of Bastyr University (now President Emeritus) and has co-authored several editions of The Textbook of Natural Medicine (Churchill Livingstone, 2006) and is the editor of Integrative Medicine: A Clinician’s Journal.
Dr. Pizzorno has been fine tuning SaluGenecists since he conceived of the idea more than a decade ago. SaluGenecists is a vastly multilayered, sophisticated database that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to guide individuals in restructuring their health in a comprehensive/holistic manner.
Dr. Pizzorno, who among his many affiliations is also an ABC Advisory Board member, said he and his team designed SaluGenecists on the most basic level in order to help people understand how they can achieve a better state of health, maintain their wellbeing over time, and the possible causes of any present illnesses (J. Pizzorno, oral communication, February 15, 2011). The database “is at last nearly marketplace-ready,” said Dr. Pizzorno.
Matt Brignall, ND, director of health science at SaluGenecists, began working with Dr. Pizzorno 9 years ago as part of a project to make an AI module that would offer guidance to physicians in a complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) residency at a cancer clinic (M. Brignall, e-mail, March 3, 2011). After the specific AI model for this database was demonstrated as operational in the clinic environment, Dr. Pizzorno and Dr. Brignall used the same programming platform to create a more comprehensive intake process across various preventive health applications.
In the development of the database, Dr. Brignall said they worked with a team composed of naturopathic doctors, nutritionists, technology experts, researchers, pharmacists, educators, and many other professionals. The SaluGenecists Advisory Board is comprised of PhDs, MDs, experienced experts in nutritional and functional medicine and business development, and healthcare business experts. The spectrum of knowledge and skills provided by these diverse experts has contributed to the range and depth of the SaluGenecists system. According to the SaluGenecists website, Dr. Pizzorno and his team are “passionate about delivering evidence-based health guidance to help increase the daily function and quality of life of people throughout the world.”1
The design of the AI database model, which was provided by a PhD mathematician with a background in AI technologies, began with a platform that was based on the health and biochemical makeup of the average American. This platform makes a set of baseline health predictions based on reliable public health statistics (e.g., 27% of Americans have hypertension, 33% will have an osteoporosis-related fracture in their lifetime), and as the user enters more information, each of these predictions is modified until the population estimates are replaced with actual user data. After answering initial questions, the user’s responses allow “smart branching” within the system to new questions which are “increasingly targeted and differentiating.”2 Although SaluGenecists contains an estimated 1500 questions, database users are often prompted to answer about only 100 of those. The questions become progressively detailed based on answers to former questions. Once this process is complete, the product is a unique picture of the user's enzyme function, nutritional status, organ function, future health risks, and so on.
After SaluGenecists has made the dysfunction model of the user’s entire body, it then matches those underlying physiological dysfunctions to relevant recommendations for intervention. The health interventions at this time include diet changes, lifestyle interventions, nutritional supplements, and botanicals. Currently, the SaluGenecists team has accumulated approximately 400 total intervention possibilities within the database.
The SaluGenecists AI technology has been modeled into 3 formats: one intended for doctor/healthcare professional use, one for their patients, and another for consumers. According to Dr. Pizzorno, the practitioner version contains the most insight into the intelligence system. The patient version of the database is “very complete,” he said, and the doctor and patient can look at and access the same data in order to maximize the technology.
Dr. Brignall said the database’s newest application is designed for health providers and allows both doctor and patient to store information in a secure and shared health record. The physician can easily change the variables on the patient, whereas the patient accesses a user-friendly version (that contains layperson language) and allows them to change their “stats.” However, only practitioners have the ability to change the lab results within the system.
Dr. Brignall said SaluGenecists is kept regularly updated with the newest research information, and it allows the system’s users to have consistent access to the research basis of whichever application is in the interface.
SaluGenecists’ Healthcare Interventions
A guided tour of the physician version of the database reveals that the intake process is positioned along the left hand side of the system screen, while the middle portion of the screen contains color-coded menus containing such topics as the user’s diet, toxic exposure, stress level, daily habits, and general lifestyle. The prolific database asks (the consumer/patient) specific, individualized questions regarding such information as his/her history of disease and health and conditions in his/her family history. SaluGenecists is not a linear system, Dr. Pizzorno said—no matter what order is used to respond to questions, the system updates continuously as they are answered, along with suggestions for usage of dietary supplements (including botanicals). The database also provides users with an extensive diet analysis and the percentage of probability that specific supplements will benefit their condition and overall health. Dr. Pizzorno said there are 15,000 logic elements within the system.
Based on information provided by the person accessing the database, SaluGenecists is able to formulate a comprehensive, physiological blueprint of the user/individual, and then present definitive probabilities and risks of that person’s developing specific diseases or conditions in his or her lifetime if his or her current health and habits remain the same (e.g., this woman has a 74% chance of developing diabetes in her lifetime, as well as endocrine and digestive problems.) This blueprint that the system creates, as prompted by the user, allows individuals to acquire information about their “unique metabolic and functional needs, ranked by probability and their potential impact on health.”2
The personal recommendations are then formulated into a PDF that is provided for the practitioner; this PDF not only summarizes recommendations, but outlines key ways for patient to improve health, offers supplement suggestions, how to use them and why, and explains what toxins to avoid and why (based on patterns of dysfunction, as discovered through the question series). SaluGenecists also advises the user on particular lifestyle/dietary changes it deems advisable or even necessary, including suggestions for specific foods and recipes that are pulled from a website called World’s Healthiest Creations, created by the SaluGenecists team as an integral part of the database. According to Dr. Pizzorno, the World’s Healthiest Creations site is accessed by about 1.1 million users a month.
The Use of Evidence-Based Research
As the SaluGenecists system forms a more comprehensive picture of an individual’s underlying causes of ill-health, it also informs users which prescription drugs and over-the-counter (OTC) medications they should not take (or combine), the adverse effects of any drug/medication, and which natural therapies they can use to mitigate the effects of OTC and prescription drugs. It also warns of possible interactions of drugs and natural products (e.g., smokers should not take beta carotene), and then goes on to explain the reasons why.
Quality research studies are noted and cited, and links to the studies are provided; the studies and their abstracts are made available to all users. According to Dr. Pizzorno, 30,000 medical research studies are cited within the system. The system is completely secure, he said, and every intervention is backed with extensive research and listings of that research; it contains detailed research over the particular supplements, remedies, and natural therapies it suggests. For example, Dr. Pizzorno said that one third of database users who experience recurring migraine headaches have experienced some relief of symptoms through using a proprietary butterbur (Petasites spp.) root extract. However, if a user suffering from migraine headaches were not experiencing a specific symptom of migraine headaches, then butterbur would not be of any use to them therapeutically. The same goes for all other conditions, diseases, and recommended botanicals within the database. The genomics listed in the database exist, Dr. Pizzorno said, to assist further in fostering understanding over how the person’s body is functioning, where it is dysfunctional, and to what degree. The highly specified nature of SaluGenecists is evidence of Dr. Pizzorno’s belief that “the best way to treat patients is to focus on treating and healing the person, not the disease.”
The botanical interventions recommended through the application are based on an up-to-date and evidence-based research evaluation, said Dr. Brignall, so users can feel confident that the suggestions are based on something more substantial than claims, such as "this herb is for the heart." Users will be able to read about the complex physiological mechanisms that trigger the recommendation to stand out. Additionally, Dr. Brignall said the developers of SaluGenecists take very seriously the potential for botanicals to interfere with conventional medicines.
“Assuming the user has entered in their medications appropriately, we'll look at potential interactions, to include cytochrome p450 reactions, like those seen with St. John's wort [Hypericum perforatum],” he said.
SaluGenecists in the Marketplace and Future
Currently, 13,000 employees and 20 companies use SaluGenecists, said Dr. Pizzorno, and the biggest company using the database is Devry University, an organization with more than 90 locations that offers online, associate, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees from 5 academic colleges. The SaluGenecists database will be released online soon, and he said he hopes all practitioners and professionals within the integrated medicine community will use the technology and (maximize) its tools.
According to Dr. Pizzorno, the past marketing of the database to healthcare practitioners for use within their practice was “not commercially successful.” However, more physicians now have computers in their offices, he said, and the database will once again be marketed to them shortly.
EcoMii, a website focused on natural health, environmental politics, organic cooking, and green living, has already released a consumer version of the database, said Dr. Brignall. According to Dr. Pizzorno, EcoMii will use advertising revenue generated through the site, rather than charging users. The SaluGenecists team also maintains a blog on EcoMii. According to Dr. Brignall, when consumers access SaluGenecists through EcoMii, certain aspects of it will remain free, but in order to acquire access to the entire database, consumers will have to pay a fee of $25 a year.
Dr. Brignall said that in the recent past, the SaluGenecists team launched different limited-use versions of their sophisticated database system with various consumer websites. They have also been active in some corporate wellness programs, where companies use the SaluGenecists applications to attempt to control healthcare costs.
Dr. Brignall said that in the next year, he foresees the SaluGenecists team working on 2 major projects. They first plan to integrate their AI engine with a medical records application that allows charting and data entry to be kept simple. Secondly, they plan to “greatly expand” their corporate wellness applications and offerings and structure them around behavior change, as well as include new social networking features.
Dr. Pizzorno said the database has the potential to significantly help practitioners to understand their patients better and in a more holistic manner. Demos of both the consumer and professional versions of the database can be accessed online at the SaluGenecists website.
—Christina Korpik
References
1. Who we are. SaluGenecists, Inc. website. Available at: www.salugenecists.com/who.htm. Accessed May 2, 2011.
2. Tools & services. SaluGenecists, Inc. website. Available at: www.salugenecists.com/tools.htm. Accessed May 2, 2011.
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