Join us as we explore a critical question: What if the solution to America's number one killer isn't in the pharmacy, but in the kitchen? Today's guest is Dr. Elizabeth Klodas, a Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins-trained cardiologist who founded Step One Foods after realizing that doctors, including herself, weren't addressing the most powerful intervention for heart disease diet.
Elizabeth Klodas, MD, Founder & Chief Medical Officer, Step One Foods
Megan Antonelli, Chief Executive Officer, HealthIMPACT Live
00:00:00 Intro: Welcome to digital health talks. Each week we meet with healthcare leaders making an immeasurable difference in equity, access and quality. Hear about what tech is worth investing in and what isn't as we focus on the innovations that deliver. Join Megan Antonelli, Jenny Sharp and Shahid Shah for a weekly no BS deep dive on what's really making an impact in healthcare.
00:00:30 Megan Antonelli: Hey everybody, welcome to Health Impact Live digital health talks. This is Megan Antonelli, and today we're exploring a question that should matter to every health system executive. What if the solution to America's number one killer isn't your farm, isn't in your pharmacy, but it's in your kitchen? One of our favorite topics food is medicine. We are excited to have our guest, Doctor Elizabeth Klodas, Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Step One Foods. Doctor is trained at Mayo Clinic and Hopkins. She spent two decades as a preventative cardiologist before she confronted an uncomfortable truth. Most doctors, including herself, were never asking patients about diet. The one intervention that could rival pharmaceuticals. So I'm excited to have Doctor Klotz here today to talk about her company and what she's doing with step one Foods. Hi, doctor. How are you?
00:01:20 Elizabeth Klodas: Hi. Great to be with you, Megan. Pleasure. I'm so excited.
00:01:24 Megan Antonelli: So excited to chat. I know you were recently at health, um, which is, you know, one of our our favorite events to go to for digital health. And as I said, food is medicine has been an area that we've been covering quite a bit, uh, both at Health Impact our, our conference as well as on, on the show. So um, but one of the main reasons why I'm having you here is you are a female founder, and we have a long history of of interviewing female founders here. So I'd love to hear your founders story around step one.
00:01:55 Elizabeth Klodas: Oh, well, thanks. Um, thanks for having me. Um, you know, I. you know, I'm an accidental entrepreneur. I did not go to medical school ever imagining I would be a female founder of anything. Um, I went, but I did go to medical school with. With the goal of curing people, right. Of really helping them heal. And I, you know, you said I trained at Mayo, Johns Hopkins. I mean, it was fourteen years of post-high school education. It's a long road to become a cardiologist. And I left those institutions so excited and so idealistic. I was going to do it. I, you know, I was so well prepared to cure heart disease. And yet what I was taught to do and I followed, and I followed my teachings. Right. Um, is, you know, high cholesterol. Here's a pill, high blood pressure. Here's two pills, you know, blockage, here's a stent. But no matter how many drugs I put my patients on, no matter how many stents got implanted, you know, nobody looked better. Nobody felt better. In fact, especially when it when it came to the medications, most, you know, most patients or a lot of my patients are telling me, like, you know, all the stuff you've put me on has just made me feel worse, you know? And there were no cures, just a never ending revolving door of follow up visits. And I would tell you about five years into practice, I was like, this is not what I signed up for. And and I'm not sure what got into me on that one day, but I, you know, patient came, they were sitting and were going through their labs, which were perfect. Right. Their list of medications, which was long. And I said like, well, what do you eat? And what they told me was shocking on a couple of levels. You know, number one is what they were actually eating, which was like, oh my gosh, you know, no wonder you're on so many medications. These drugs have to work really hard to overcome what you're doing inadvertently, right? No one goes out of their way to eat in, you know, in, in a fashion that is actually counteracting their care. People just don't realize that they're doing that. They're trying their best. But the second thing, which was even more shocking to me, they said, like, you know, no one's ever asked me that before. No doctor has ever asked me that before. I'm like, wait a second. Like, I'm a cardiologist. I am way down the care stream, right? People have typically seen multiple other physicians before seeing me. And. Wait, no one asked you about what you eat, right? And so then I started asking patient after patient, it was the same thing over and over and over again. And I'm looking around like, wait a second. I have discovered, you know, this completely unknown area of, you know, therapeutic intervention. And to be clear, I'm I'm not a food scientist by, you know, pre-training before going before going to medical school. You know this I'm just a foodie. I've always enjoyed cooking And you like. Wait. My patients are not eating the way I'm eating. And so I started reading up on this. Right. And and again, none of this is a discovery I made. We know. We know what to eat. There's so many studies. They're so consistent. We just don't do it right. So, okay, I sent patients to dietitians. I sent them, you know, I gave them pamphlets. Cookbooks. Here's a website. Here's, you know, here's all these resources. And here was the amazing thing that people who did it, it was astonishing. Medications list shrank, diagnoses were melting away. My patients were becoming non patients. This was the very first time I was affecting cures. My problem was I could count those miracles on one hand. To do this right is hard. It's really hard. You have to know what you're doing, or you have to make a huge commitment to, like, completely change, you know, change, your your nutrition habits. And so I thought like, well, wait a second. My patients will take a pill twice a day. What if I create something that is like just closes the main nutrition gaps? Again, not a secret. We don't get enough fiber. We don't get enough of the right fatty acids. We don't get enough plant sterols, which are natural plant components that help lower cholesterol because we don't eat enough fruits and vegetables and we don't get enough antioxidants. Okay, there are clear, clear gaps in people's diets, and they affect, you know, ninety five percent of the US population. Okay, what if I just try to close some gaps? Okay. I'm just going to do that with two little servings of food a day. And like let's get you started. That was step one foods. And when we initially introduced this like I expected like people would feel a little bit better right. Like maybe their, you know, bowel movements would be better because they're they're eating more fiber. But what started happening was, again, beyond my wildest dreams. I mean, people were reporting that their LDL cholesterol dropped thirty nine points. Thirty nine points. That is a statin medication level effect. And, um, and so I said, like, what did you do? Did you become a vegan? Like, did you start running marathons? Like, no, I just did what you told me, like two, two servings of this food a day, which is there. So. And and there are foods that people eat already. Right. It's an instant oatmeal. It's a bar. It's a smoothie mix. It's, you know, it's it's again, people are familiar with these foods, except they have been formulated for health, for health, to build health. That is the North Star behind step one foods. Right. So every ingredient chosen for a, you know, for for a purpose. Um, no weird fillers, no additives. Right. Um, and every serving of every product meant to truly impact those those metabolic, those nutritional deficiencies. So at least five grams of fiber, at least a gram of omega three of omega three fatty acids, at least a gram of plant sterols, the antioxidant equivalent of a couple of servings of of fruits or vegetables. Right. And all from real ingredients. So chia, flax, walnuts, almonds again, all the things we know we should be eating but don't. Right. Because it's hard. How do I like how do I add chia to my diet? Okay I'm going to make it easy for you right. And so this is this is the idea. Just two small essentially snacks a day, right. Kind of instead of what you're eating already because there's only so much room in our stomach. So it naturally displaces something else. And people were seeing statin level cholesterol reductions. And this is where we did something that no other company has done and that I'm super proud of. And that is we did a randomized controlled clinical trial because I'm a scientist. Right. I know that the reports that we're getting are, you know, could all just be the outliers, right? Here's a handful of people that had amazing results and everybody else had nothing. Right. It's like, okay, we have to really look at this. Right. So we worked with Mayo Clinic, University of Manitoba, randomized case controlled clinical trial in a free living population. This was not a rigged study where, you know, people were, you know, held in a lab and every morsel of food was controlled, right. It was like, okay, here, here's a box of food. Choose whatever you want out of this. Eat it twice a day and we'll check your cholesterol before and after. Oh, and then we'll repeat this with similar foods from from the grocery store that you might think are better for you. Right. So again, this was not us versus Cheetos. This was us versus, you know, an instant Quaker oatmeal and a, you know, and and bare naked granola and actually even inshore smoothie mix, right? Like foods that people would think like this is this shouldn't be bad, right? And what we found was after thirty days, the control foods did nothing. Our foods lowered LDL cholesterol on average. That's the bad cholesterol by nine percent, nine percent in thirty days with this tiny food intervention in a free living population. Okay. If I lower the average LDL of the US population by nine percent, I finally dethroned heart disease as our number one killer. This is an incredible public health impact. But what was super exciting to me is in those in the in those patients that or those subjects that, that were, that were, that were tested, there were people that had close to forty percent LDL reductions. Again, statin level effects with food. Food in thirty days. Wow. Right. And if you're someone. Sorry. And if you're someone who can't take, can't take statins, there are people who who develop side effects from these things. Or you don't want to like, this is like I'm forty. Like, maybe, you know, I'm looking at fifty years of a drug. Maybe I'd like to see if adjusting, you know, what I eat makes an impact, you know? Or if you're not at goal, despite maximum tolerated doses like this is a no brainer. And again, you don't have to devote your entire life to this. You can test it in thirty days. Am I a responder or not? Responder. So it's super, super exciting. So we have so we're true food as medicine.
00:11:29 Megan Antonelli: Yeah I love it. I mean, and what I think is so great about the message and what I'm hearing is that it's not so much about what they're eating. It's what they're not eating that you're supplementing. Right. Um, so tell us a little bit about what does this what what do the step one foods look like. Is it is it all bars and shakes and and, um, the oatmeal packets is.
00:11:52 Elizabeth Klodas: Yeah. So yeah. So these are all, um, like, again, very familiar foods. There's, you know, six different types of bars. There's, um, you know, an instant oatmeal. There's an instant pancake pancake mix. There's a there's a smoothie mix, there's the sprinkle, which is like a raw ground granola. There's a nut butter. So things that, you know, people are already eating, you know, again, just present just, you know, formulated in a way that builds health as opposed to does nothing or supports, you know, disease. Right. Um, and everything is in single serves. So it's super easy. A lot of it is foods you can eat on the go because people are busy, right? I mean, I'm busy myself. I don't I don't have time to, you know, make an elaborate, you know, breakfast in the morning. So I just, you know, I've got my oatmeal or I put the sprinkle on yogurt and I'm like, I'm good to go. And what's great is because these are real foods that are, you know, whole and of super high quality. You know, they keep you full. You feel good when when you eat these foods. Right. And and so a lot of the, you know, a lot of the things that, that make eating for health difficult because they, you feel deprived or limited, right? It's like, no, I'm not taking over your stomach. I'm just getting you to do something simple a couple of times a day. Oh, and it tastes good. Oh, and it's convenient. Oh, and it's easy, right? And you don't have to think about it. And and it's just it's all you don't have to count points. You don't have to look at calories. It's just like, just just do this. Yeah. And we're talking a little bit earlier, you know, about education. Education is super important. And part of what we do as a company I write a weekly blog. There's a lot of educational content, you know, that is behind this company. And, and that's and that's that we offer to, to our customers and frankly, for free. Do you have to be our customer? You can come to our website and and read all the blogs. But but it's you know but I really believe in like you can educate educate educate but educate. Education without action is just a wish, right? And so what we do is like we're the action. Okay. And now we're going to teach you, you know what else you can do. How to expand beyond this. And my greatest like I would think my greatest accomplishment is that number one I'm put out I'm out. I'm put out of work as a cardiologist because what I treat need not exist. Eighty percent of heart disease, again, which is our number one killer, is completely preventable, which is shocking. I mean, that should be shocking to everyone. We spend so much money on heart disease and it shouldn't exist. So that's number one. Number two is that you don't even need step one, that what people are choosing, what is available in the grocery marketplace, you know, that you go into a grocery store and it's not a land you know. It's not aisles and aisles of landmines, right? It's just whatever you put in your cart, it's good for you. And it builds health and it's just easy. But right now, you know, we're we're the little we're the little engine that can and we're leading. You know, we've got our flag and we're marching forward. And we hope everyone follows.
00:15:07 Megan Antonelli: Right. I mean, we've been hearing I mean, I think like between the Blue Zones diet and kind of the, you know, the world has been educated on it, but yet the healthcare system hasn't really changed around it. And I do think, you know, whether it's the Mediterranean diet or how we've kind of communicated this to patients. Uh, the first path is always statins. You know, where even though you say.
00:15:33 Elizabeth Klodas: Well, the, the the system is set up to treat disease, that's what it's set up for. It is not set up for prevention or building health. That is not that is not our training. That is not the payment model, right? That is that is not the, you know, like the only people who seem to want to be, you know, to, to build health are patients and nothing around them is actually helping that. Right? The food environment is broken. Insurance doesn't really care, you know, because you're not going to be with them for very long. So your long term health is of no interest to them. What's of interest to them is how much you cost them today. Right. And and pharmaceutical companies. Right. They love it. They have an endless, you know, they have an endless, you know, bucket of needs that need to be addressed with, with drugs. And look, and I'm not anti-drug. I prescribe medications all the time. They have a role, but they should be the complementary medicine. Right? Like, not the court. We have it backwards. We have it backwards. The core is how we live our lives, how we sleep, how we nourish our bodies, how we exercise. Right? That is true medicine. All this other stuff is complimentary.
00:16:47 Megan Antonelli: Right? And as you look at that and has as this has changed. So I mean, what I thought was exciting at health was there was, you know, they had the food as medicine Pavilion. There were, you know, folks like Kroger. There were lots of different companies representing the movement. And then at the same time, of course, there were the pharmaceutical companies on on the show floor as well. And I actually I had gone to health and then I went to Aha Scientific Sessions where of course the GLP ones are, you know, all over the place at that conference as those drugs come into this, um, how do you see this kind of changing that? And I mean, I think, you know, in terms of that, even where the interest in the food is medicine movement is going, that the GLP one is almost part of that. So what do you see as kind of the trajectory for this, both for, for patients as well as kind of the the industry as a whole where the incentives are, you know, not well aligned.
00:17:44 Elizabeth Klodas: And so, you know, there's no look GLP one are going to change medicine and they're going to change medical care. They have a very broad impact. And we're learning right. We're we're just we're just tip of the iceberg of understanding all the things these drugs can do, which is exciting. It should also be scary, right. Like, you know, we make GLP one ourselves. I mean naturally in response to food. But but this is what happens. We eat and we get this surge of GLP one. Then it returns back down, we eat, it surges, comes back down. What these drugs do is this right? It never comes down. Which is like which is why they're so effective in terms of appetite suppression, food noise. Right. Modulating insulin release. There's, you know, addictive behaviors. There's a lot of things that that it does. But what else does this do right? What other dominoes are we tripping up and I hope, I mean, so far, you know, it's not looking bad, but. But we didn't understand that statins increase the risk of developing type two diabetes until we were, you know, had prescribed this stuff for thirty years, right? So, so again, I always I always take drugs with, with a little, with plenty of caution because we're doing something that our bodies are not used to. Right. So be gentle, gentle, gentle. Have. Having said that, what I think GLP ones do is provide us with this unbelievable opportunity for a reset in, you know, on the part of patients. Right. Like you can okay, wait. I'm you know, I can eat differently and I can lose weight and I, I feel okay, right. How can I then translate this to, to keep going off the drug. Right. And that's going to that's going to require a lifestyle change. I mean frankly, you know, and I, you know, if people did exactly what they do on GLP one on their own without the drug, they'd lose as much weight, right? It's not it's not the drug that's making them lose weight. It's the fact that they that they've changed how they're eating. You know what what they're doing. So if they could do it without that, that would be, you know, the best. But it's hard in this food environment. So so one is relearning what those dietary patterns need to be for the long haul. But number two is what I hope it does, is that it creates an economic pressure on the food environment to change. It has to change, you know, making, you know, Oreos into smaller cookies. So because we're, you know, we can't eat as many cookies because we're not hungry anymore because we're on GLP one, that's not the solution. The solution is, you know, can we, you know, expand the, you know, can we expand the breadth and availability of products that are actually helping people stay off these medications, not need them? Right. We shouldn't we're not we were not born ozempic deficient. We are not. Our cholesterol is not high because we, you know, we don't have enough Lipitor. Like there's a cause, right? We have to always address the root cause. Because if we don't address the root cause, we'll cure nothing. We'll cure nothing. These will be lifelong drugs. And again, I'm I'm a little I'm a little worried about that. I prescribe them, but I'm just.
00:21:20 Megan Antonelli: You know, I mean, I think it's a really it's really interesting. And I think what I've always thought is the, the best outcome or the best possible outcome for them is certainly not that the whole country is on them for the rest of their lives, which seems to be the trajectory we might be on right now.
00:21:33 Elizabeth Klodas: But it's unsustainable, right? It's unaffordable. Like we can't do it.
00:21:37 Megan Antonelli: But should that, you know, should we change paths as as a You know, more intelligent and evolved society that the the right way is that the amount that it teaches us, right, that it isn't. You know, that it teaches us that some people are responsive to this, that they need this and that. There are, you know, that there are ways to kind of manage that, that aren't necessarily being dependent on a shot every week. But but something else that that helps, but also the that the foods themselves change. And so we're, I'm reading about uh, restaurants that are changing their, their food offerings because people want food that doesn't make them sick. You know, when they're on ones. But that that is also true, you know, outside of GLP ones. Right. So these sort of lower fat, higher fiber, more vegetables, all of the things that we're trying to put back into the diet that people don't respond negatively to when they are on GLP one, going into restaurants that eventually maybe the mass, uh, food industry would also, um, begin to take Take some of the less addictive elements of food, or some of the more addictive elements of food out of them, and we would be eating more healthy food and a deeper understanding of the food as medicine concept. Right? Um, you know, and that food is health, and it should be our first line of defense in all of this. So, um, I know recently, uh, the white House has, you know, selected step one for a challenge to end hunger and build healthy communities. Um, tell us a little bit about that program and what you guys are doing, kind of on a broader scale, um, in some of these initiatives.
00:23:14 Elizabeth Klodas: Yeah. So, you know, this is it's actually, um, it turned out to be harder than than I thought. You know, um, and this is I would say this is kind of a telltale and endemic of, of this entire ecosystem and, and effort because a lot of people talk about it and I would say including the federal government, they they talk, talk, talk, but they actually don't do and um, and so we're trying on a small scale. We had grandiose ideas that we would, you know, have this, this partnership that we could put forward and, you know, and help many, many, um, first responders across the country. It's turned out to be something that that is becoming more local, because ultimately that that effort felt like it was more talk than than action. I'm really sad to say that because I really, really wanted like we were capable of making this difference, but we can't do it just, you know, completely on our own. So anyway, um, the, the I am very passionate about this. So I see first responders in my clinical practice as part of a wellness program. And so I'm involved in the screening part. Right. So I see all their lab work. I see coronary calcium scans and and calcium coronary calcium scans are scans. People can have to look for early signs of atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis buildup of plaque in heart arteries. And it's it's a wonderful test. It's not fail safe, but it's a it's a wonderful test. And if you see calcium build up in your heart arteries, the only reason why calcium is there is because you have some atherosclerosis. And kind of the higher the more calcium you have, the the worse the kind of, the more extensive the the process is. So, you know, what I would tell you is the lab work on, um, first responders is is shocking even to me in their twenties. These, you know, these these men and women, they're healthy in, you know, on lab work in their thirties. Problems are starting to show up in their forties. They're metabolically sick in their fifties. It's like, oh my God, this is this is a ticking time bomb. The average age for a heart attack in law enforcement officers is forty seven. It's forty seven. That's twenty years earlier than the average US population. It it is. It's heartbreaking. Right. So we're seeing calcium scores that are out of this world. You shouldn't have any calcium in your thirties. The highest score so far that I've seen in a thirty year old law enforcement officer was eight hundred and fifty six. Yeah. That is you know, that would be considered, you know, something that maybe an eighty year old might, might have like.
00:26:09 Megan Antonelli: So now, I mean, in this, you know, sort of probably a layperson's question, is it I mean, that makes me think that stress is a huge part of that and that, you know.
00:26:19 Elizabeth Klodas: All of it. Of course it's stress. It's it's actually relative lack of activity. Right? We think of, you know, I mean, when, when they when they go in into their, into their careers, they're fit, they're strong. They're young. Right. As time goes on. Well, they spend a lot of time sitting there actually. not like working out all the time. They're sitting in their cars. They're sitting behind desks. Right? The stress is unbelievable, which doesn't help them make good decisions just in general about about their health. Right. Comfort food really comes into play. And they're you know, they're they're eating poorly is is the bottom line. And and so there's a lot of obesity. There's a lot of, you know, type two diabetes, pre-diabetes, insulin resistance, cholesterol profiles are, you know, again, really, really sad. Um, but there's, you know, but there's something we can do. So we are trying to introduce these foods into their, you know, into their, their programs and, and and also, you know, obviously earlier intervention with medications. I mean, I'm putting, you know, thirty year olds on statins, which is like, wow, you know, you typically don't do that unless they have something like familial hypercholesterolemia, which is like super high cholesterol, you know, from the time they're born, like a genetic, you know, issue with cholesterol management, but I'm. This is not for familial hypercholesterolemia. This is for early advanced atherosclerotic disease.
00:27:46 Megan Antonelli: Yeah. And have you. What about with kids at all? Have you tried?
00:27:49 Elizabeth Klodas: So I'm a I'm an adult cardiologist, so I don't see the pediatric population. But but the truth is, you know, this process, this buildup of plaque in our arteries, this thing that is so preventable, it starts in childhood, in, you know, in, in autopsy studies where they've looked at, you know, these tragic deaths, whether it's accidents or, you know, cancers or whatever, where they've done autopsies on children. The beginnings of plaque are there. They're, you know, in in Korea and Vietnam, um, soldiers that were killed during battle, they, they found, you know, some with advanced atherosclerosis. Those those are those are young men in their twenties. It this starts early and, you know, and it's preventable. And and the biggest driver. Yes, exercise is important. Not smoking is important. But if you're going to do one thing, it's change the food. Change the food. Because food drives so many of the risk factors that, you know, that culminate in heart disease, right? High cholesterol, no diet related high blood pressure. Diet related. Excess weight. Diet related insulin resistance. Prediabetes. Type two diabetes. Diet related. Poor diet. Diet related. Okay. Five of the major risk factors for heart disease. And there's only seven modifiable modifiable ones. So five of them. The other one is smoking inactivity right. Five are related to food. So if you change what you eat you have such a broad impact on your health trajectory. And guess what? Food drives you know, helps drive cancer. Food helps drive dementia, right? Food helps drive inflammatory disorders. Arthritis. Inflammatory bowel disease. Food is so central to everything and we are not using it to its full potential. And you know, the fact that, frankly, I am the only food as medicine company that has, you know, like food, not not supplements, not drinks. Right. But like food, food that you eat that has clinical data behind it and is and is, you know, formulated to impact health that that were it it's it's it's remains shocking to me. Right.
00:30:05 Megan Antonelli: Right. And I mean it it continues I mean, we talk about this a fair amount. But in terms of, you know, why that research doesn't get done and how it gets done. So for you, for your for step one, how did you go about kind of getting that clinical research done? Was it all was it entirely self-funded. You know.
00:30:25 Elizabeth Klodas: Yeah. So so there's you know the reason. Yeah. Yeah. So well the reason why, you know, pharma has, you know, has the corner on this is number one. They have a patentable product at the end which can be protected. Right. Number two they can charge a lot for you know, for for what they have, you know, for what they have um studied. So, so there's a big economic and, you know, um, economic kind of advantage for, for pharma, for food. You know, you can't really patent food, right? Number one, number two is your your profit margins are very slim, right. It's not you can make a pill for five cents and sell it for one thousand dollars. Right. Like that's not that's that's that's not the economics. Um, so it's very expensive to to and, you know, it's expensive to do a trial. And again in the financial rewards are not there. But I did this not because I had a patentable product or, you know, or because this I could jack up the prices of, of my foods. You know, there's still I mean, they cost like bars you'd buy in the grocery store. Um, but but they are. But it was important to me this was because if I'm, you know, I'm I'm a physician. I you know, my goal is to help heal people. This is not a, you know, empty promise. This is something that that was super, super important to me. And we got help. We could not have done this on our own. Of all the supporters, we got actually a government grant from the province of Manitoba, and it's because we use some Canadian ingredients in our products because they're just very interesting. And in terms of their nutrient composition, again, whole real foods. Saskatoon berries. Right. So we have we have a specific saskatoon berry producer that, that, that um, you know, that that supplies us with this. And they happen to grow up in, in Manitoba. We also use some pinto beans and things from there. So anyway, it was it just and they were very interested in, you know, boosting their, their agricultural, you know, um, sector. So it was like we were at the right place at the right time, but we couldn't have done it without them. And honestly, it took forever. I mean, this was a five year effort to get this clinical trial done, like from enrolling the patients IRB. Right? I mean, you have to go through the same regulations as if you were doing a drug as if you were doing a procedure right. It is incredibly complicated and very, very, um, you know, prohibitive, you know, from a from a time and effort perspective to do this so I can understand why other food manufacturers haven't done it. But then I would say, like, well, we should make it easier to do. Right? You've this is this is a system that is created around pharma which, which I understand that's that's, you know, where all the protections need to be because we're, you know, we're we're putting, you know, unknown substances into people. Right? I was putting oats into people. Why. Right. Like, you know, why do why do I need to jump through the exact same hoops as someone who is creating a novel drug that that our bodies have never been exposed to, right. Like this. It was. The whole thing is, you know, there's so many things that are broken that. Right, right, that need to be here.
00:33:50 Megan Antonelli: And I think, I mean, there's there are so many things and it is it's this sort of systemic part of, of the system that is misaligned. It's the sick care system. It's the payment models. It's the incentives. I love that you found the financial, you know, incentive or backing, you know.
00:34:07 Elizabeth Klodas: And willing partners, right. That were that were willing to kind of do this like okay, we're not going to, you know, overcharge you. We're not going to, you know, overdo this. And I, you know, having trained at Mayo Clinic, I had lots of goodwill down there and so I could work with people I knew, you know, University of Manitoba, that was, you know, kind of that relationship was smoothed by, by the government. So we it was like everyone was kind of on the same mission together. And that was really, really helpful. But but it you know, it was a big undertaking, way bigger than I thought it was going to be.
00:34:39 Megan Antonelli: Yeah. Tell me a little like so what's next. So we've done the clinical study. We see the results. Yeah, we know it's there. Um, are you in the process of, you know, when you're looking at is it a consumer based, are you looking to get, you know, you want physicians to prescribe it? Do you want to be a part of the healthcare system, you know, hospitals to to kind of be offering it as their, uh, platform? What is the what's your next step there?
00:35:06 Elizabeth Klodas: So, you know, when we started and, you know, people thought I was crazy, right? Like what? You're going to tell people to sprinkle something on their yogurt and that's like going to help them. I'm like, yeah. And so, you know, when I started this food as medicine was something people talked about. They never actually Thought about, like they couldn't, you know, kind of, um, envision it as an actual intervention, right? It's theoretically we all talk about it, but how do you actually do it? Okay. So I'm actually doing it. Um, and, and I would say when I started the, the, the reception from the medical community to a food based solution was basically zero. I mean, it was it was it was not something that people were willing to look at. I think as we are continually sort of coming up against, you know, brick walls with medications, like at some point they can only do so much. And it's because, again, you have to address the root cause of why we need them in the first place. The medical community is becoming far more accepting of this. So yes, to your point, I. I am working hard to spread the word not just to individuals, you know, online who are and we're we're primarily a direct to consumer brand. We're an e-commerce company. Our products are not in stores. And this is all to, you know, make sure that that we can deliver our foods at the lowest possible cost to people, because once you put them on grocery store shelves, right, there's you add all these layers of cost on and we want to keep those, you know, we want to keep those as low as possible. So um, so anyway, but but we are really getting, you know, traction now with dietitians who are, you know, again, seeing the same thing like I can teach you to, to do all this. But here, just start here and we'll go backwards, you know, so you don't need this anymore. But let's let's just get you an early success, right? So a lot more a lot more interest from the dietitian community. Very receptive. Clinicians are starting to come on board. So so there's you know I'm I'm seeing the percolation of a movement, which is super exciting. But but it will only be as successful as pharma, which is where it should be if it gets paid for the way pharma gets paid for, right? Like it is crazy. The you know the statin, right? It costs nothing. It costs nothing. You're a lot for a lot of people. Copay is zero, right? To eat in a way so you don't need the statin. No one's paying for that right. So we are you know we're allowing allowing is the wrong word. But we are turning a blind eye to the fact that people are eating in a way that is driving their cholesterol up. And we're just like, okay, I'm not going to pay attention to that. I'm not going to do anything about that, but I am going to pay for the drug that makes your numbers look normal, right? I mean, it's it is it is completely messed up. And it has to change. It has to.
00:38:18 Megan Antonelli: I will say. That. I mean, you know, we started talking about this topic a few years ago. It has evolved, I mean, and the and the It. Climate and temperature of it is going up. Right. People are interested. But again, just, you know, because healthcare is one slow to change. But to the systems that are in place keep keep the systems in place. Right.
00:38:38 Elizabeth Klodas: Sclerotic. Yeah.
00:38:39 Megan Antonelli: Just by inertia. Um, but at the American Heart Association, where there was, you know, many a GOP one, uh, booth, there was also a food as medicine pavilion, you know, and that was the first year. So I think that, you know, we're seeing it come through probably, you know, to some degree, the demands of the physicians, the clinicians are calling for it. Um, it was not perhaps as crowded as some of the other booths, but, you know, it's getting there, right. And so how do we make that happen? What we do to put it, you know, put this conversation, I mean, both at the beginning, you know, whether how you do it at schools with, with kids. I mean, we've had, um, you know, the folks from real on here on, on the show, um, you know, to educate kids about the importance of this, but then take it all the way through so that we are, you know, using food, making sure food is the first path, you know, as opposed to, you know, the never.
00:39:35 Elizabeth Klodas: I'm a firm believer that the that the entire solution is, you know, can be can be addressed with home economics, bring home economics classes back real home economics right where you learn frankly even how to garden a little and you know how to how to, you know, budget for, you know, for food for for how to not waste it, how to, you know, use every part of the chicken, right. Like, we can do this, we can do this. And and it would be a huge, huge impact that I mean, that's the the long term solution. I know there's a lot of discussion about training doctors to, you know, in food. I it's great. It's great. The problem is by the time you have the I mean it takes a lot like fourteen years. Remember, it took fourteen years to train me to be a cardiologist. Okay. By the time you turn over enough cardiologists that you have, you know, people kind of more like me who are very comfortable talking about nutrition. And they've, you know, I'm self-taught, but, you know, that have been taught the things that I've, that I've self, you know, self taught. I mean, it's going to be a generation plus you know, and people need solutions today. So I don't know there's like this whole there's this whole bridge that needs to be built. But it requires, it requires, you know, it takes a village, it takes a village. It takes everyone to kind of say, hey, this is important. We should, you know, we can we can do this, and we and and we can have an impact.
00:41:08 Megan Antonelli: Yeah. And the you know, the opportunity I mean, we talk also about sort of the technology of this, of how to give people the sort of easier interventions. I think when I think about kind of when we talked about social determinants of health and how would physicians be taking that data and to act on it when they're so busy and overwhelmed that maybe some of the tools that are out there, whether it's, you know, the AI scribes we talk about so often and health coaches and even, you know, sort of between the mind and body connection ways to educate people using that technology. But we always sort of end on a positive, on a hopeful note. So tell us, tell us when you think about kind of what is working, what's positive, what are what are you most excited about? As we, uh, look to it's kind of crazy, but this year is coming to a close as we look to twenty twenty six and beyond.
00:41:57 Elizabeth Klodas: Yeah. So, you know, look, step one foods has been the most professionally, you know, exciting, satisfying thing I have ever done. I love my practice. I love seeing patients. You know, it is it is something that is that is core to me. But I have impacted so many lives, you know, through through this, um, through this endeavor. And so we are continuing to grow. We are adding new products. So, you know, kind of giving people more choice. And then honestly, my goal is to keep going. Like I've, you know, I have um, I've done I think, you know, a lot with cholesterol, but there's so many other conditions that can benefit from the right nutrition support. And that's that's where I'm going next. Like my my next passion is I'm going to reverse type two diabetes because I can because I know it's possible. Right. We can do this with with food. Um, so I my, my positive view of everything is like, look what one person, one person has accomplished. And I'm sure I as I, you know, as, as this is aired and other people listen like there's there's probably many, many people in the audience who are like me who want to do this, like go do it, go do it. There is no end. This is, you know, here's food, here's drugs, and look at all this white space in between. And it's begging to be filled. And and I think we are finally at a point where multiple, multiple entities are waking up to the fact that this white space needs to be filled, it needs to be filled, and it needs to be encouraged to be filled. And I can't wait to see what that looks like. And again, I am my my dream is that I will be put out of work as a cardiologist. That's my that's my flag that I planted. So I love that.
00:44:01 Megan Antonelli: And I think it's so you know, I do think there's so much almost, you know, low hanging fruit, if you will, if people would just take that low hanging fruit and eat it, we would, we would solve lots of problems and do that. But I love that. Well, thank you so much for joining us, doctor. It's so exciting to see, you know, the work that you're doing at step one Foods and how it relates to the industry as a whole. For our audience, please. Um, you know, go to step one foods com. You can try it today. I am going to, that's for sure. Um, and you know, I think, uh, there's, uh, as doctor mentioned, uh, materials and, and information on the blog and things that you can, um, get to learn and educate yourself. And please share this episode with your colleagues and friends. Um, and of course, uh, come back and listen to our new, uh, Food as Medicine series, as well as the female founder series that this will be a part of for Health Impact Live. Thank you so much, doctor.
00:45:00 Elizabeth Klodas: Thank you so much for having us. It was a joy to speak with you.
00:45:03 Megan Antonelli: This is Megan Antonelli signing off.
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