Personalized Lifestyle Intervention and Functional Evaluation Health Outcomes SurvEy: Presentation of the LIFEHOUSE Study Using N-of-One Tent–Umbrella–Bucket Design

Abstract

The working definition of health is often the simple absence of diagnosed disease. This common standard is limiting given that changes in functional health status represent early warning signs of impending health declines. Longitudinal assessment of functional health status may foster prevention of disease occurrence and modify disease progression. The LIFEHOUSE (Lifestyle Intervention and Functional Evaluation-Health Outcomes SurvEy) longitudinal research project explores the impact of personalized lifestyle medicine approaches on functional health determinants. Utilizing an adaptive tent–umbrella–bucket design, the LIFEHOUSE study follows the functional health outcomes of adult participants recruited from a self-insured employee population. Participants were each allocated to the tent of an all-inclusive N-of-one case series. After assessing medical history, nutritional physical exam, baseline functional status (utilizing validated tools to measure metabolic, physical, cognitive, emotional and behavioral functional capacity), serum biomarkers, and genomic and microbiome markers, participants were assigned to applicable umbrellas and buckets. Personalized health programs were developed and implemented using systems biology formalism and functional medicine clinical approaches. The comprehensive database (currently 369 analyzable participants) will yield novel interdisciplinary big-health data and facilitate topological analyses focusing on the interactome among each participant’s genomics, microbiome, diet, lifestyle and environment.

A Sedentary and Unhealthy Lifestyle Fuels Chronic Disease Progression by Changing Interstitial Cell Behaviour: A Network Analysis

“…Understanding the network of interacting factors that influence health may contribute to the new concept of whole person health that encompasses interconnecting factors across physiological, psycho-social and environmental domains (Langevin, 2022). Understanding that interstitial cells throughout your body are either working to maintain your health or are starting to dysregulate and undermine your health may enable a more proactive approach to wellness, consistent with current trends in participatory and personalized medicine (Hood and Auffray, 2013;Topol, 2019;Lamb, et al, 2022).…”

Exploring human biology with N-of-1 clinical trials

“…In fact, such studies often make use of samples from a single individual or strain of mice and so, from a biological standpoint, they are, by their nature, assuming that insights from a single individual can shed light on very general biological questions. There are many recent examples of N-of-1 studies, which we will not review exhaustively here (Gabler et al 2011;Nikles et al 2022;Samuel et al 2022;Kronish et al 2018), but rather simply emphasize that they are growing in number and sophistication (Lamb et al 2022;Phyland et al 2022;Kim et al 2019). The third is that the execution of N-of-1 trials focusing on important physiologic endpoints can be greatly enhanced with emerging digital health-based monitoring devices (such as the Apple watch and continuous glucose monitors), survey instruments made available through smart phone apps, and largely pain-free and convenient methods for obtaining https://doi.org/10.1017/pcm.2022.15 Published online by Cambridge University Press blood, urine, stool and saliva samples (Izmailova, Wagner, and Perakslis 2018;Enderle, Foerster, and Burhenne 2016).…”

Genetic Biomarkers of Metabolic Detoxification for Personalized Lifestyle Medicine

“…We next explored the association of the genetic variants presented herein with functional biomarkers of detox metabolism within the Lifestyle Intervention and Functional Evaluation-Health Outcome Survey (LIFEHOUSE), a real-world pragmatic clinical trial (PCT) conducted at the Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Center (PLMC) by Metagenics Inc. The study design and protocol have been described in detail previously [63]. Briefly, LIFEHOUSE utilizes an "N-of-1" and a Tent-Umbrella-Bucket design to define functional markers of health and to model interventions facilitating the adaptation of personalized lifestyle medicine recommendations in an employee health population.…”