2576: Personalized Medicine with Dr. Adrijana Kekic

LifeBlood: We talked about the future of personalized medicine, the impact of AI on life and health span, creating a digital twin and the benefits, why it’s prudent to consider all factors impacting your health and wellness, and how to get started, with Dr. Adrijana Kekic, CEO & Founder, Futurome, and Longevity Pharmacist. Listen to learn why you could live longer and better! You can learn more about Dr. Adrijana at Futurome.com https://www.futurome.com/, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dr.adrijanakekic/, and Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrijanakekic/. Want to say “Thanks!” You can buy us a cup of coffee. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lifeblood George’s newest book is available! Get your copy of The Meaningful Few here: https://amzn.to/4qA26X9 Feeling busy but unfulfilled? The Meaningful Few helps you identify what truly matters, eliminate distractions, and live with intention and clarity. Learn more here: https://www.mymeaningfulfew.com/ Thanks, as always for listening! If you got some value and enjoyed the show, please leave us a review here: ​​https://ratethispodcast.com/lifebloodpodcast You can learn more about us at LifeBlood. Live http://lifeblood.live/, Twitter https://twitter.com/ourlifeblood, LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/lifebloodlive, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lifeblood.live/, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNQ9Gc4mMwCHZKUHjbt0-qA and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/lifebloodlive or you’d like to be a guest on the show, contact us at contact@LifeBlood. Live. Stay up to date by getting our monthly updates https://george-grombacher.aweb.page. Copyright LifeBlood 2026.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:43Speaker 01

  Dr. Adriana Kekic is a nationally recognized leader in precision pharmacogenomics and systems-based medicine. She's got over two decades in pharmacology. She's helped implement early programs at the Mayo Clinic and is an award winner for innovation at the Mayo Clinic. Today, she is the founder of Futurome, where she applies integrated genetic, metabolic, and molecular analysis to individuals who look healthy on paper but feel metabolically stuck, fatigued, or inflamed. Welcome to the show, Adriana.

• 1:16Speaker 02

  Thank you so much for having me, George. I cannot wait to jump into this chat.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, excited to have you on. Tell us a little bit about your personal life, some more about your work, and why you do what you do.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  I am originally from former Yugoslavia. I have been here in the States since 98. We had a civil war back home. This is the reason why my family immigrated to the United States. And I now can proudly say that I have lived in the States longer than I have lived back home. I am a pharmacist by training, nutritionist as well. I have a few degrees, but pharmacist and nutritionist. I'm trained in genetics. I've been in the world of pharmacology for the past three decades. I think of pharmacology a little bit different than just pill world, you know, world of pills. I think of it as cellular intelligence in action, or the original CIA, cellular intelligence in action.

• 2:10Speaker 02

  And so for the past decade, I had this great privilege and luck to work at the, you know, leading institution in the world at the Mayo Clinic, where I became one of the nation's first pharmacogenomics clinical pharmacy specialists. It's a mouthful to say a pharmacist trained in genetics, who can personalize treatments for you based on what you inherited from your ancestors, based from your genes. During this time, George, I discovered the world of so-called multiomics. So this is a system biology approach to health. And multiomics is, I mean, we can go deeper into that if there is interest.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  Think of it all really as layers of your biology. Genetics is a foundational layers. What you inherited from your parents and your ancestors can dictate how you look, what diseases you inherit, how long you live, how healthy you're going to be. But we know genetics is not your destiny. It's not end all be all. So we have other layers to us, our biology, like epigenetics, which is what sits on top of your genes, these switches, that basically react to your environment, what you eat, how you move, toxins that you may be exposed to, all of these things will impact your genes. So then you have proteomics, metabolomics, microbiome,

• 3:38Speaker 02

  all of these layers to biology, which is not something that we are currently using either in conventional or functional medicines of today. In 2021, I'll tell you really briefly why I started FutureOm and why I do and believe in what I do right now. And I'm a former martial artist, not professional, just amateur martial artist my whole life. And I, in November 2021, while I was at Mayo, during kind of COVID years. I went back to working out, injured my knee, tore three ligaments. A month later, I was cleared to have a surgery. The day before the surgery, I passed out on my kitchen floor

• 4:19Speaker 02

  and nearly died from something that was preventable, but it was missed. I missed my own symptoms, my physicians missed my own symptoms, and I don't blame any one of them. I downplayed a lot of what I was experiencing, so they would have not known. And to shorten this story, from that knee injury, I developed massive amount of blood clots that traveled through my body from my knee, and they lodged over a month time period to my lungs. And I ended up in ICU, nearly dying. Luckily, I pulled through, I recovered, and I thought, how the heck, in the 21st century, we have somebody like me, you know, trained healthcare professional, miss her own symptoms?

• 5:03Speaker 02

  And how did we all miss on this? And knowing that there is enormous, you know, potential and power from the technologies and testing and all of these things that we do. The problem is, of course, that sort of testing is not available in standard practice today, which is why I decided to go do something about it. And out of that came Futurum, where we do very deep molecular testing, leverage AI-based technology that is called Digital Twin, and then go and detect what's happening at the cellular level years before you end up, or months before you end up with certain condition, disease, and so on, and really put you at the driver's seat of your health through primarily lifestyle interventions. Nutrition, movement, sleep, stress, relational health,

• 5:48Speaker 02

  and our biggest pillar, because of my expertise, is sudsicles. So it can be personalized supplements, not like supplement stack that you go and buy. They're formulated and made for you specifically, for your biology. Peptide stacks, if needed, and I have a whole conversation about peptides, if we wanted to go down that route, and also personalized medical interventions, like medications and so on.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  That's impressive.

• 6:15Speaker 02

  And one other, thank you so much, but really, thank you kindly, but really what I'm saying with all of this is I'm not only a healthcare professional, I am a patient myself who's trying to figure out how do I be at the driver's seat of my health. I do, I want to have agency, not only of my body, but really my longevity, which is how long will I live, but how long will I live healthy? I'm not necessarily concerned living to 200. I want to live, if it's 80 years, I want those 80 years to be in good vitality, physical, cognitive, emotional, spiritual.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  I think that that's something that we all certainly want, and it sounds like technology is getting us a lot closer to that, which is certainly an exciting thing. So the molecular testing and from that you are able to, to create some kind of a twin? Let's just use me as an example. So you, you do a test, you do lots of testing on me, and what, what, what kind of tests are we talking about?

• 7:15Speaker 02

  So, uh, these are not necessarily invasive tests. They typically will require blood work. So when you do standard testing, you will get anywhere between maybe 30 to 50 biomarkers. If you do advanced testing through, say, like function, health, and other platforms that are available out there that you can do on your own, really. You can get 100, 150, 200 biomarkers. They're primarily blood-based. We leverage something similar, so let me just unpack it a little bit. These tests come from different routes. So it can be urine testing, blood testing, microbiome, which would be blood, I mean, bowel movement, poop test, if you will, to look at the health of your gut, variety of different ways.

• 8:00Speaker 02

  That generates so-called big data. So why is that so? Well, it's because we generate thousands of biomarkers from those tests. Our microbiome, and we're not a testing company, so we, we have a very specific number of vetted, if you will, lab partners that we, we'll leverage. To get the testing done. So microbiome, for example, we use research grade metabolomics testing, which looks at the health of your actual cell, is also research grade and so on. So this generates big data, thousands of biomarkers. We use those biomarkers and then we leverage something called AI digital twin, biotwin. So George, if we did the testing for you,

• 8:44Speaker 02

  we would maybe do metabolomics, the microbiome, mitochondria, maybe blood markers to look at your cardiometabolic health, blood pressure, I mean, blood sugar, lipids, inflammation, biomarkers, hormones, all of these things. We can even do. GLP-1s are changing weight loss.

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• 10:01Speaker 02

  Screening, cancer testing, something with a company called Grail or Galary testing. So we then put that on a computer. That computer basically becomes your digital twin. Why is that important? Right now, in conventional and even functional medicine, we guess a lot. Will this work based on this protocol or whatever? We use your digital twin to essentially do two things. One, say what's happening at the cellular level, like really peeking under the hood. And hopefully course correct things that are going to lead to diabetes, cancer, dementia, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune conditions, or even if you have those, we can still course correct in certain ways.

• 10:45Speaker 02

  Then the second thing, we run thousand iterations to say, based on your biology, George, what should you not only eat, but how and when, based on your circadian rhythm and whatnot. Then for a second pillar, movement, how should you actually exercise and what your rest regimen should be, based on what your biology is dictating right now. And same goes for sleep, stress, relational health, and then of course, substances. And so as opposed to sending you to go get your supplements on, you know, certain platform or ship it to you, we say, okay, if we implement this nutrition plan and everything is information, that information does something to your body and vice versa.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  So the food that you're eating should be your medicine, really. So if we implement this nutrition plan and lifestyle plan, what sort of supplementation does George's cells need right now to make sure that number one, we course correct what's going on in the wrong direction? Number two, optimize, meaning whatever is normal is not necessarily optimal. So you can have normal blood work and still not be optimal. And then number three, George, for you would be, well, what is your longevity roadmap in years to come gonna look like based on where you're currently at?

• 12:05Speaker 01

  Well, that is amazing. It's, it's, it sounds like it's kind of the, the height of personalized medicine.

• 12:12Speaker 02

  Yes, indeed.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  And the delivery of it is getting easier and easier.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  We're working hand in hand with artificial intelligence and just technology in general, with obviously your expertise.

• 12:29Speaker 02

  Exactly. Oh, yes. If that's a question, then hard yes. Yes, absolutely. Each time that we do this, you basically get your personalized dashboard. That personalized dashboard is kind of like an app where you have all of these recommendations, so you don't have to memorize and think. You can think of us. I'm very much into racing. I'm a huge Formula One fan and have been since the age of five or six. When I think about what all of this is, it's you being at the driver's seat of your health, driving across windy roads of your life. And so our role is really to be your pit crew. That pit crew enables you to make sure that your tires are in good shape,

• 13:12Speaker 02

  the pressure is good, your engine is running well, oil is there, all of this. You can think of us like that. So basically, what I do to translate that practically is once I meet with you, I will coach you through this on a monthly basis or however frequently or not frequently do you need. And of course, you have our team that supports you through that journey. But the point is to really enable you to be at the driver's seat of your health. Does that mean that, hey Adriana, I need some recommendations on a medication? Or do you think I need a medication and then I engage with your physician? We actually have our universe that we built out where we have specific clinician partners. So be it for stress management, be it for physicians who optimize in hormone replacement therapy,

• 13:57Speaker 02

  oncologists, and so on and so on. So we can basically build a team around you to ensure that you have what you need.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  Which certainly does make all the sense in the world. And I think it's really exciting that it seems like this would have been impossible just a couple of minutes ago, and now here we are. I think that people have always been interested in being healthy. If it's biohacking and now there's just all sorts of different trends that are on the internet that I've never heard of and probably a million things that I'm not familiar with at all. Is there a point where this becomes too much? Is it possible to over-optimize our health?

• 14:40Speaker 02

  Yes, and this is a great question that you ask. Why do I say yes to that? I see this with number of clients who come to seek our guidance. And we work mostly with high-impact individuals, so entrepreneurs, executives, founders, but also a number of athletes. As a matter of fact, a number of racecar drivers, both men and women. We also work with other athletes, be it tennis, golf, whatever that might be. What we see is they often will be focused on that area of their life where they need to perform, be it physical performance, cognitive and physical together or however. So they will zoom in on that to make sure that they can deliver on that.

• 15:21Speaker 02

  We have actually also a couple of marathon runners, folks who really have been doing this for a while. And it's very interesting when we peek under the hood. So they get excellent standard blood work. They don't have diabetes, they don't have blood pressure and whatnot. But when we peek under the hood in terms of their cellular health, we see that their cells oftentimes are struggling to basically ensure that they can do what their ambition is actually tasking them with. So it's a matter of this, what I refer to as a cellular drift, where you're continuously asking your body to do a specific thing, and maybe you're eating in a specific way or not recovering actually in a specific way.

• 16:04Speaker 02

  And after some time, you're going to pay consequence for that amount of work that you're putting in. So yes, eating too much. I think what is clear is that we humans have evolved to be adapted to our environment. Number one. Number two, I think it's also clear that we live in an environment that is so artificial where our biology has not caught up yet, has not evolved yet to be able to deal with microplastics of the world, with toxins, and also how we eat and the stress that we deal with on a daily basis. And so what I'm trying to say in practical terms, what might be great for one athlete or maybe even another athlete in terms of high-protein diet

• 16:49Speaker 02

  Or sauna or cold plunging actually is going to have deteriorating effect to another person. So all of this needs to be personalized. Going above in extreme situations, our biology does not favor for it. Our biology favors kind of state of balance and moderation where cells can do what they need to do. Your mitochondria is going to fry. Mitochondria, I'm referring to them without explaining. Mitochondria, you can think of it like this. Every cell, with the exception of red blood cells, every cell in our human body has an engine. That engine that makes energy is called mitochondria. And if you have extremes in terms of cognitive load, physical load, your mitochondria are going to start to be fried, meaning the engine no longer runs the way that it should.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  So on the outside, I could look like a really healthy, vibrant human being. But on the inside, due to this very, very high performing lifestyle that I have as an entrepreneur or as an athlete, I'm putting too heavy a toll or a tax on my cell, my mitochondria. And so my actual cell health is not as good as I might be looking.

• 17:58Speaker 02

  Yes, and I especially see this, this in folks, in my fellow founders. We just run on all cylinders. You wear so many hats and everybody needs attention from you and so on. And a number of us has also, you know, say like ADHD, attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder, which is not about being hyperactive. For many of us, it's about emotional regulation, time management, and the ability to focus your energy and attention on the task in front of you. And so this, this kind of almost default to multitasking, to get the dopamine hit, which oftentimes low levels.

• 18:49Speaker 03

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• 19:43Speaker 02

  Our daily levels of dopamine is what the issue here is. So you're looking for activities that will spike your dopamine. So you're kind of going. I see enormous consequence to your biology from, you know, doing things that you think are good for you, but in reality, they're not. So I'm not really huge on following trends. I'm really huge on understanding the cells. Our tagline is know your cells, know yourself. Because if you don't know what's happening inside of your cells, how do you know what you need to do to really be able to live the life to your true biological capacity? And biological, I don't mean just like the structural elements of your body, like tissues and whatnot. You are everything, you know, your mind, your soul, all of this is you.

• 20:28Speaker 02

  So you need to create that energy to be able to carry you.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Which makes perfect sense. Know your cells, know yourself. That's, that's very catchy. I think that is, that is excellent and perfectly appropriate.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  So you were, I think, careful to talk about how there's so many interventions and some of the most important ones are diet and exercise, the food you're putting into your mouth, environmental conditions. The answer is not just, but sometimes it is, some kind of a pharmacological intervention of a pill or something like that, but we need to make sure that we're doing everything correctly to ensure as healthy a version of ourselves as we can be. If, in fact, we do find that my cells, my mitochondria, are not doing great. What are, is the solution, all of those things?

• 21:23Speaker 02

  What a great question you ask, because we can go in different avenues. You're kind of served me a full course meal here. So let me give you my three thoughts on that. Number one, do you need to do all of this testing to live healthier life that's going to enable you to expand your health spend, number of years that you live in vitality and good health, and also expand your lifespan, the number of years that you live? The short answer to that, George, is no. The reason is 93% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy. Being metabolically unhealthy means that you have now either developed or you're developing so-called cardiometabolic inflexibility. Think of it like this, high blood sugar,

• 22:07Speaker 02

  high blood pressure, high cholesterol, like that which we typically get on standard test. You can glean into that as well. The problem with the standard test is it's usually a little bit way too, not too late, I should not say that, but it's in later stages of that disease development. We want to catch this earlier on, which is why I'm such a proponent of multi-omic testing. So if you can fix and ensure and protect that you're cardiometabolically healthy, which is through lifestyle, then you know that you're likely are on very good path to living long and healthy. You have expanded your health and also your lifespan. 93% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy. That's

• 22:51Speaker 02

  Basically, virtually, all of us. So, that brings me to the second point. The second point is, can we tackle this with precision? So you're not wasting your energy and your time and your precious, and also your money as well, your precious resources in figuring out what it is that's wrong with me and how do I actually tackle that? That's another reason why I'm such a strong proponent of multi-omic testing, AI-based technologies like a digital twin, because they bring that degree of not only personalization, but precision. Where exactly, why am I developing diabetes or prediabetes or high blood pressure or high cholesterol or autoimmune diseases?

• 23:35Speaker 02

  Or why is my ADHD flaring up? Or whatever that is. And the third thing is this. I travel, I love to travel. I don't know how it is for you, but whenever I have chance, I travel. And when I travel, I love to meet with people who are in their eighth, ninth, and 10th decade. And I ask them what they do. We just traveled to Croatia. I was born in Croatia. We traveled to Croatia a year or two ago. And on this beach, my brother and I met a number of 90-year-olds. They were all wearing Speedo on the beach, playing bocce, just like throwing the ball, playing bocce. So we started the chat with them and asked them, "Hey, what's the secret? You look great. What's the secret to living long and healthy?"

• 24:20Speaker 02

  And basically, they said everything in moderation. And number one thing that came up is just have a strong community. Most of us live in social isolation. Most of us are still trying to figure out what's the meaning to life. They were very clear on what the meaning for life was for them, and they had a very strong social connection. One of my favorite peptides is actually oxytocin, which is something that is released when you have these bonding moments, be it mother to baby, be it in communities and so on. And this is linked to better brain health.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  Well done. I asked a very, very, very large question and you broke it down very succinctly. So thank you so much. Adriana, I feel like we could talk about this for hours and you're obviously have so much, so much subject matter expertise. So I'm looking forward to having you back on. Where can people learn more? How can they, how can they engage with you? How can they engage with Futurome?

• 25:20Speaker 02

  Well, it was my pleasure, George. Thank you so much for having me. How people can find us is very simple. You can go to our website, futurome.com. So F U T U R O M E dot com. You can take your own longevity quiz, just an assessment to see where you're at on your longevity journey, what needs to be optimized. And then secondly, I live and love this world of precision medicine, longevity. So you can find me on Instagram, probably the best place, or LinkedIn. And on Instagram, my handle is D R dot A D R I J A N A K E K I C, Dr. Adriana Kekic. I answer to all the messages myself because I really want to engage with people, to empower them, to be at the driver's seat of their health and not become a biological liability like I almost did.

• 26:06Speaker 01

  Excellent. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did, show Dr. Adriana, I don't know why I almost called you Andrea, but I was able to hold that off at the end.

• 26:18Speaker 02

  I love it. I'll insert.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Show Dr. Adriana your appreciation. Share today's show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas. Go to futurome.com, F U T U R O M E dot com. Take the quiz and just learn more about the opportunities to increase both your health and your lifespan. You can find her on Instagram and LinkedIn as well. I will put all of those in the notes of the show. Thanks again, doctor.

• 26:45Speaker 02

  Thank you, George.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Until next time, remember, do your part by doing your best.

• 26:52Speaker 05

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• 26:53Speaker 06

  My sister had amazing.

• 26:55Speaker 05

  The ideal treatment is.

• 26:56Speaker 03

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