The pandemic and parenthood hasn’t been great for either my eating habits or my activity level—not to mention the two month grandparent visit when we brought Mirren home.
Here’s my approach to my snacks: “I finished off this candy too fast. I can’t ever buy it again.”
Here’s my father-in-law’s approach to my snacks: “I saw that you finished off the candy so I ran out and bought you some more.”
So, it wasn’t too surprising when I got back my results from Base (a subscription data-driven personal health company also in the BBV portfolio) that my cholesterol, particularly by LDL (bad cholesterol) had ticked up to the point where I needed to do something about it. There are cholesterol issues in my family, too—which I don’t actually think is nearly as genetic as our love of cheese and ice cream, but still concerning.
My general approach to healthy habits has been to poke around the interwebs for ideas and see what I think I can integrate into my lifestyle that is backed by actual science. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when the numbers didn’t really move that much the next time around.
Luckily, that’s when I met Culina Health—a new startup whose seed round Brooklyn Bridge Ventures co-led with Healthworx, the investment arm of CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Culina is a personalized nutrition platform powered by registered dietitians to help patients prioritize the way they want to live. What I realized when I was googling around for ideas, I was missing the actual expertise on how to integrate these ideas into my diet—the right amounts of various supplements that would make a difference, which ones have actually shown solid scientific evidence, etc.—not to mention an honest conversation about which habits I was likely to stick with given my behavior patterns.
Plus, they make insurance-covered nutrition care accessible. As it turns out, I’m covered by my insurance for a certain number of annual visits with a registered dietician. The fact that it’s a registered dietician is key. The extra schooling and certification required to be an RD is significant—and it’s this level of expertise that an insurance company is willing to foot the bill for, which they won’t do for someone who is a nutritianist. Credientialling is key in the insurance market.
Within 60 days, I dropped my LDL from 144 to 58!! I’ve also been able to raise my HDL by 70%—all without any drastic changes to my diet.
Interestingly, my HDL, while improving, is still stubbornly low, thanks to a totally random Alpha-1 antitrypsin (AAT) deficiency that I only knew about from 23andMe. I never knew about the potential connection until I spoke to my Culina RD about it.
There’s not a lot of research on it, but there’s some and it’s a strong theory considering what I eat.
That was a fun science rabbit hole to go down and we’re doubling down on addressing that issue in my diet because of it. Working with a trained medical professional is a next level experience for me—and not something I ever would have considered.
That’s one of the things I love about Culina is how impactful it can before a wide variety of customers.
It worked amazingly for me, but its also for people living with chronic conditions, and especially GI and autoimmune ones, whose care can be daunting. Getting symptoms under control while balancing lab testing, specialists, nutrition, lifestyle modifications, and medication is overwhelming. Culina can work next to your existing care providers as part of your care team.
Insurance companies realize that for both these expensive chronic care patients and for me as well, making diet changes as a strong positive ROI for healthcare costs both in the near and longer term.
I didn’t have my daughter Mirren until I turned 41 and so I’m doing everything I can to make sure I’m thinking about my long term health.
I’m a big believer that it starts with diet—and Culina has taught me that the internet article on “Five Ways to Lower your Cholestoral” isn’t a real healthcare plan. That’s why I didn’t give the details on how I did it—because you’re not me. You don’t have the same family history, habits, or medical history. You should speak to a registered dietician about your unique situation, especially when you’ve already paid for such a visit through your health insurance, but you’re probably not taking advantage of it.
I couldn’t be more excited to work with Steven and Vanessa on this company. I’ve known Steven for almost a decade from his days at NYU helping to run their incubator programs—where Brooklyn Bridge Ventures had its first office at 20 Jay Street. They’re a great complimentary team as Vanessa has been a visible presence in the dietician and food centered healthcare community—and Culina is a tech driven leveling up of the practice she had already started. They’ll be adding more and more tech to the platform over time that can make the experience both scalable for the company and more data driven for the consumer.
Visibility matters here in multiple ways as she is also the fifth Black female founder that BBV has backed—and clearly healthcare outcomes for her own personal community are front and center among the areas that need significant improvement in how they are addressed.
So whether you know someone dealing with chronic care that needs support around their diet or whether you’re just looking to take your own food inputs as seriously as you do everything else in your medical life, check out Culina.
