Lose It! releases DNA-based weight loss app embodyDNA

By Jeff Lagasse
02:21 pm
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Weight loss app Lose It!, which boasts 30 million users and more than 50 million pounds lost, has launched embodyDNA, a DNA-based weight loss plan that personalizes results using an interactive app-based interface.

Lose It! developed embodyDNA, which offers customized recommendations on food and beverage consumption and physical activities, in collaboration with Helix, a personal genomics company, that has just launched what it touts as the first online marketplace for DNA-powered products.

For $188.99, interested users can go to embodydna.com and order a kit, which involves a saliva sample. When they mail in the sample, Helix reads their DNA and Lose It! translates the data into insights, delivering them to the user directly in the Lose It! app along with personalized weight loss, nutrition, fitness and food sensitivity recommendations.

embodyDNA also identifies patterns in users’ Lose It! history and provides feedback on their recorded behaviors, using the data to concoct ways in which people can tweak their daily habits to reach their weight loss goals.

Lose It! CEO and cofounder Charles Teague said nearly two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, which represents the potential for prominent market share for the company’s new offering.

This isn’t the company’s first foray into personalized apps geared toward nutrition and weight maintenance. Last year, Lose It! launched Snap It, a tool that uses machine learning to identify food and corresponding nutritional information from a photo.

“The Helix marketplace thrives on offering a robust and diverse selection of products like embodyDNA, which have tremendous personal utility to consumers, and in turn increase the overall utility of personal genomics in everyday life,” said Justin Kao, co-founder and senior vice president of Helix.

In addition to embodyDNA, the Helix marketplace will host a range of DNA-powered products focused on health, fitness, nutrition, family, ancestry and entertainment. The Helix marketplace can be accessed at www.helix.com.

In October 2017, Helix announced several partnerships: The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, National Geographic and ExploraGen will collaborate to deploy Helix’s genetic-testing service, which is powered by DNA sequencing giant Illumina. Additionally, the company secured an investment from Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, and the company also recently announced a partnership with genetic information company Invitae.

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