By Daniel Herman, founder at Bio-Synergy.
If 2020 taught us anything, it is to look after our health. In 2021 and beyond, individuals will be doing everything they can to mitigate illnesses, eat nutritiously and improve their general wellbeing.
Since the pandemic, we’ve learned that everyone’s immune systems operate differently, and individual susceptibilities may arise in particular areas of our bodies more than others. While the last year has seen a surge in demand for supplements to relieve any generic worries or stresses around potential illnesses, the overarching trends suggest that the next few years in the health and wellbeing sector are very much geared towards personalisation and connected fitness.
Amid difficulty comes opportunity, and in looking ahead to the future, Bio-Synergy have recently launched the world’s first combined DNA & Epigenetic testing kit that provides individuals with tailored health, performance and lifestyle advice based on their specific genetic makeup.
To put into layman’s terms, DNA testing establishes an individual’s genetic profile and how it can affect one’s fitness, nutritional and general wellness habits, while Epigenetics testing examines one’s behaviour and lifestyle choices and analyses how that can influence our bodies. By combining the two, the test can tell you whether you are predisposed through your own genetic profile to certain health deficiencies or sensitivities, or if your lifestyle may be contributing to these.
Even if the test exposes more deficiencies than expected, in this case knowledge is power, and the results will show you how to play on your strengths, be more efficient and try and maximise any performance goals. Knowing which vitamins or minerals you are deficient in, for example, can help you adjust your diet and better plan your pre- and post-workout meals, in the same vein that discovering you might be genetically more at risk to Type 2 diabetes can steer you away from any fatty, salty, or sugary foods.
Ultimately, Bio-Synergy’s DNA and epigenetics testing can help improve a whole range of aspects of your lifestyle, from nutrition to recovery, muscle health, mental health, you name it… and what’s more, any insights gathered from the data can also be used alongside activity trackers and on-line platforms, such as L1VE and Peloton.
We’re living in a world nowadays where the landscape has completely shifted. Everything is becoming more accessible from the comforts of our own home and remote testing has even become more prevalent in today’s society, with the Covid-19 at-home testing kit being a key demonstration of this. The DNA & Epigenetics testing kit is another prime example of this, with data and advice feeding into your mobile phone through an app.
The ease at which this information can be fed back to the consumer is testament to the rise of advanced technology we’ve witnessed over the last decade. We’ve taken those advancements to create something that we can implement into our everyday lives to improve our health and wellbeing, and, that’s easily accessible to the customer, and that’s where I suspect we’ll see new trends emerge in the coming years.
About the expert
Daniel Herman is the founder of award-winning UK sports nutrition and wellbeing brand, Bio-Synergy. In 1997, Bio-Synergy was founded out of a passion for fitness and a desire to create the first clean, effective and high-quality range of sports nutrition, to support the goals of professional athletes and fitness enthusiasts to fuel their performance and make it happen.