#220 Genetics and Environ-Toxin Testing - Thomas Olivier, CEO of Omnos.me

Siim Land (0:00)

Welcome to the Siim Land Podcast. My name is Siim Land, and our guest today is Thomas Olivier. Thomas is a registered NutriGenomics Practitioner from the UK. He is also the CEO of Omnos, which is a DNA analysis platform that incorporates different medical tests to give you lifestyle assessments and recommendations.

In this episode, we talk about genetic testing, and Thomas is also going to walk you through my lab results. I took my DNA test as well as the organic acids test that look at your environmental toxin load in the body and whether or not something is out of balance. Omnos also has a free questionnaire that you can try to start understanding your health better. If you want to try out all the tests Omnos provides, like the organic acids test, hormones test, genetic test or microbiome test, then head over to omnos.me and use the code SEEM for a 10% discount. That's siim at omnos.me.

Thomas, welcome to the show.

Thomas Olivier (0:57)

Thank you very much, very pleased to be here.

Siim Land (1:00)

Yeah, we met first at the Biohacker Summit like a few weeks ago, and you run a very interesting app that is involved with the genetics and tests. So how did you get involved with that kind of a field?

Thomas Olivier (1:15)

Do you want the short or long version? Let's go with the short version, but my background is called science, and the idea of when I was coaching athletes. The idea I had was, I'm talking about, you know, almost 15 years ago now, but to look at them a bit like we would look at a formula one, or how I was always fascinated as a kid with the NASA, for example, how they have this control tower with all those people working on computers to send a rocket. And we're actually a lot more complex than rockets.

And the idea for me was after experiencing and, you know, doing different things, it was actually in terms of conditioning them, the programming and everything, realizing that actually what was working for some was not necessarily working for others, and the response were different. And I started testing as well, certain biomarkers who did the most obvious inflammation, this sort of thing, looking at the recovery markers.

But really what, again, it would be a different outcome. So I went digging into the genetic aspects of things. And this is where I found the lab, first in South Africa, to look at the genetic aspects of, you know, all those different genes involved in fitness. At the time, there was not so many or there was already a lot, but not not enough research, I would say. So maybe you could come up with something with 25 genes to look at someone. Then you can do a lot more.

But it was a really good start already. And I got very excited about trying to deal into someone's bio-individuality to get the best personalized program possible for them. And it was making a difference. And they were very pleased to find out that actually, yes, I understand I've got this talent, but all the other athletes have. But when you start doing the extra mile of really personalized things to you, having the optimal recovery plan, the optimal training plan based on your genetics and nutrition, it was already something that was making a difference in terms of the performance. But also for athletes, something that is very important is the peace of mind in the sense that, OK, well, maybe I'm doing the right thing now to avoid injuries and all that sort of thing. But then realizing what it was, I mean, all those genes and more I was studying and getting into it, got involved in true genomics, there were a lot of different course around it, became in true genomics practitioners, a practitioner looking at again all those different genes, expressions, and also the interaction between genes and lifestyle, I quickly realized as well, that actually what I was doing was great for athletes, but it was also the same genes that were involved in making people, you know, not making the right decision or not, based on their genetic and could lead to all the, you know, diseases, so the four big killers, let's say, dementia, type two diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, and realizing that actually all those information are not yet accessible to anyone, in the sense that you really need to pay a lot of money and be an athlete. I mean, that's not the case anymore, but that was the case 15 years ago, to have access to all this.

Cutting the long story short, started a company, got very involved in educating trainers and PT's on using testing, then got out of this company. Again, this is another story, but started a company that has been successful, but I exited and also very interestingly, it allowed me to really have a look at more of an overall view, your helicopter view of, okay, fitness is one thing, and genetic is one thing, but what else, right? So you need the data point from your lifestyle, you need data point from your biomarkers, and actually, how do you make them all work together and have a trajectory, a story about someone based on all those data points and how they interact within each other? So it was a second big mission because it's a hell of a lot of work, but this is what I started to do with Jane Smart, that was the first platform that you were uploading your 23andMe data, at least in the UK, to give you personalised life hacks based on the organised barrows of priority and also with questionnaires that will give you information about your lifestyle. And I created a Jane Smart Academy which was educating practitioners and health professionals how to use all this within their practice and then starting in the quest of connecting the dots between all those data points.