YOUR medical checkup cleared you for not having any disease yet you feel like you are not your best self. As far as you know, you have quite a healthy regimen – you take your daily multivitamins, have regular exercise and a good amount of sleep, but still you feel like there’s something amiss. You wake up with bouts of lethargy, wanting to hit the snooze button for another 5-minute round… You could be thinking: “There must be something lacking from my regimen, or could my doctor have missed something – or worse, could this just be a product of my mind?” So where do you go for the answers to these questions then when your long-time family doctor has already told you there is nothing to worry about.
Take heart. There are specialists that now focus on assessing your health, and not just your disease. After all, health should not only be measured by the absence of an illness but it should be also measured by how healthy you actually feel.
Located on the 8th floor of a busy office building in the heart of BGC is LifeScience Center for Health and Wellness, a cozy boutique clinic. This unassuming facility, in its welcoming space and with friendly staff, has a track record of 7 years of performing Preventative Medicine, now more commonly referred to as Functional Medicine, and is a thought leader in this practice.
“In 2009, my friends broached to me the idea of putting up a wellness facility where healthy people can come and further optimize their health. They shared how this is common practice in most 1st world countries and how they would like it to be accessible to Filipinos without having to go abroad. We also recognized how the norm here has mostly been that we see a doctor when we are already sick or when we take notice of the onset of symptoms of being ill,” shares Michael Angelo Genato, the CEO of LifeScience.
Genato said opening LifeScience the year after helped shape this industry and educate people on health optimization and disease prevention. “The owners and I realized how we were complementing the trends in health and wellness at that time. People started going outdoors more — biking, jogging, running marathons and joining triathlons. People generally started getting more active and picking up the desire for healthier lifestyle.”
LifeScience benchmarks health with a matrix of 6 determinants in order to understand whether an individual is truly healthy. Each patient undergoes three steps to fully understand his/her profile. And it begins with an in-depth personalized consultation session where the medical practitioner gathers insight from the patient’s personal health goals, medical history and current lifestyle. The initial conversation with the patient gives the LifeScience doctor the idea of what diagnostic tests he could consider in order to gain a deeper understanding of the patient’s body and identify system imbalances that may need to be restored. Known to be among the best in the industry, LifeScience has partnered with only the most reputable laboratories in the world to give clients access to cutting edge diagnostic tests such as gene mapping. The results of the consultation and diagnostic tests give the comprehensive profile of the patient’s current health status. The center then designs a customized program that can be applied to his daily routine and guides him to a more sustainable approach towards his/her specific health goal.
“Here at the center, the key to optimal health is understanding one’s unique biological system—that’s his/her genetic makeup interacting with the environment which one is exposed to”, Genato said.
The center caters to patients who belong anywhere in the Illness-Wellness spectrum, meaning those who are healthy but want to be healthier, from those that may be experiencing early signs of a disease to those who are already battling a chronic illness. Some come in to seek a second or third opinion on their existing treatment. Basically, anyone looking for more holistic, proactive and sustainable approach on their health can be a client at the center.
“Our approach requires commitment and a will to change one’s lifestyle. Most of the diseases that fall upon us are lifestyle related, therefore, lifestyle changes must happen. It’s about being more proactive, and not just waiting for you to feel sick before you act on your health. When we were young, our parents would religiously bring us to the doctor for check-ups, to take a preventive stance against diseases. This commitment needs to be applied moreso as we age!”
More than the number of patients, Genato says they measure themselves differently. Their metrics are based on the results demonstrated by the improvements in the lives of their clients. Here they can truly say, it’s not about quantity but about quality they get to provide.
“We’ve spent a great deal of time studying and travelling for the last 7 years. We have gone to many countries learning from the best in the industry. We work hand in hand with the medical science experts themselves, who tirelessly share their expertise. My job here is to basically strategize the business based on the wealth of information and the expertise we receive. And the heart of this business lies in its directors whose commitment and drive towards our vision continuously put us ahead of our game,” Genato concluded.
LifeScience is truly changing perspectives, demystifying old truths, and challenging our habits with regard to our health. At least now, the conversation is about how to be healthier, and not just about how to avoid sickness.