Welcome to today's episode titled "Alcohol Health Monitoring for Women." I'm excited to have Katie Garry, founder of Seek, joining us. Seek is revolutionizing how women monitor their health in relation to alcohol. We'll dive into the founding story of Seek, the unique focus on women's health, key research findings, and practical strategies for lasting change. Stay tuned as we explore how Seek and Sunnyside complement each other in promoting healthier habits.
Want to drink less with no pressure to quit? Go to https://sunnyside.co for a free 15-day trial. -- Listen to Journey to the Sunnyside Podcast: https://bit.ly/4bxCqT3 Subscribe to Sunnyside’s YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/3zuoID4 Sign-up for Sunnyside, the #1 alcohol moderation app: https://bit.ly/3zuNPpv
ABOUT SUNNYSIDE: Sunnyside is the #1 alcohol moderation app that helps you drink less without any shame, guilt, or pressure to quit. Optimize your alcohol habits to achieve benefits like sleeping better, losing weight, feeling more energy, and saving money. We know that an all-or-nothing approach doesn’t work for everyone, so we focus on helping you set your own goals, celebrate small wins, and build a lasting system of accountability. As a result, 96.7% of our members see a big drop in their drinking after 90 days.
Chapters
Welcome to today's episode titled "Alcohol Health Monitoring for Women." I'm excited to have Katie Garry, founder of Seek, joining us. Seek is revolutionizing how women monitor their health in relation to alcohol. We'll dive into the founding story of Seek, the unique focus on women's health, key research findings, and practical strategies for lasting change. Stay tuned as we explore how Seek and Sunnyside complement each other in promoting healthier habits.
Want to drink less with no pressure to quit? Go to https://sunnyside.co for a free 15-day trial. -- Listen to Journey to the Sunnyside Podcast: https://bit.ly/4bxCqT3 Subscribe to Sunnyside’s YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/3zuoID4 Sign-up for Sunnyside, the #1 alcohol moderation app: https://bit.ly/3zuNPpv
ABOUT SUNNYSIDE: Sunnyside is the #1 alcohol moderation app that helps you drink less without any shame, guilt, or pressure to quit. Optimize your alcohol habits to achieve benefits like sleeping better, losing weight, feeling more energy, and saving money. We know that an all-or-nothing approach doesn’t work for everyone, so we focus on helping you set your own goals, celebrate small wins, and build a lasting system of accountability. As a result, 96.7% of our members see a big drop in their drinking after 90 days.
Creators & Guests
Host
Mike Hardenbrook
#1 best-selling author of "No Willpower Required," neuroscience enthusiast, and habit change expert.
What is Journey to the Sunnyside?
"Journey to the Sunnyside" is your guide to exploring mindful living with alcohol, whether you're cutting back, moderating, or thinking about quitting. While Sunnyside helps you reduce your drinking, this podcast goes further, covering everything from mindful drinking and moderation to sober curiosity and full sobriety. Through real stories, expert advice, and practical strategies, we’re here to help you find what works best for your journey.
Mike Hardenbrook is a #1 best-selling author and neuroscience enthusiast, dedicated to helping people transform their relationship with alcohol.
This podcast is brought to you by Sunnyside, the leading platform for mindful drinking. Want to take the next step in your journey? Head over to sunnyside.co for a free 15-day trial.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in our podcast episodes do not necessarily represent those of Sunnyside. We're determined to bring diverse views of health and wellness to our audience. If you are concerned with your drinking, please seek the advice of a medical professional. Sunnyside, this podcast, and its guests are not necessarily medical professionals and the content shouldn't be viewed as medical advice. In addition, we never endorse drinking in any amount.
Mike:
Welcome to Journey to the Sunnyside, the podcast where we have thoughtful conversations to explore the science of habits, uncover the secrets to mindful living, and, of course, inspire your own mindful drinking journey. This podcast is brought to you by Sunnyside, the number one alcohol moderation platform. And if you could benefit from drinking a bit less, head on over to sunnyside.co to get a free 15 day trial. I'm your host, Mike Hardenbrook, published author, neuroscience enthusiast, and habit change expert. Okay.
Mike:
In today's episode, we're gonna talk about alcohol health monitoring for women. And I'm excited to have Katie Gary, founder of SEEK, joining us today. SEEK is looking to revolutionize how women monitor their health in relation to alcohol. So we're gonna dive into that founding story of SEEK, the unique focus on women's health, key research findings, and practical strategies for lasting change. So stay tuned as we explore how SEEK and SunnySide complement each other in promoting healthier habits.
Mike:
Okay. Today, I'm here with Katie Gary. Katie is the CEO and founder of SEEK. And today, she's gonna talk about some really important subjects that I think are all women need to listen to. But I also think that this is really important for all men as well because we have women in our lives that we love and care about and also need to understand the differences between us both.
Mike:
So, Katie, first of all, thanks for coming on.
Katie:
Thank you so much for having me on. I'm so excited to be here, and, really appreciate that intro. It is important for all men to be advocates of women's health and vice versa.
Mike:
Absolutely. It's it's definitely important and for us to understand. And so the first thing I think let's just get into the understanding of what SEEK is. So why don't you give me the story behind SEEK? What inspired you to start this company?
Katie:
Yeah. So I've always been really curious about how alcohol impacted my health. I think it's always been, something that was in the back of my head, but my first kind of alarm bell where I realized that alcohol, could impact your health even if you're not drinking, astronomical amounts of alcohol was, about 8 years ago. I was working at Prevention Magazine, so women's health magazine, and I was literally researching and writing about issues related to women's health. So, was super ingrained kind of in just different studies and, you know, biohacking, if you will, ways to improve your health, specifically preventive health since it was prevention magazine.
Katie:
And so the joke I always say is that I would meal prep chia seed pudding for breakfast. We had yoga in the office, all of that, but I was drinking socially probably about like 14 drinks a week, I would say, at that time, maybe a little bit more, maybe a little bit less, but probably usually a little bit more. And I got blood work back from my doctor, that was a little bit abnormal, and I was like, why would I have some of these abnormal biomarkers? I'm a woman in my early twenties. I'm super healthy.
Katie:
He didn't think that I had, like, an autoimmune condition or anything underlying that I wasn't aware of, and he was like, well, do you drink? And I was like, yeah. I do. But I don't think I drink more than friends, family, coworkers. Kind of my behavior was similar to what I was seeing around me.
Katie:
And he was like, well, it still still could be impacting your health just because of your genetics, you know, the way you metabolize alcohol, but, didn't really have a lot of other information. And so then ever since I would I kind of just left, and I was like, well, that sucks, but I'm not gonna do anything further with this. And then I would just shyly bring it up at different specialist appointments whenever I would have a symptom. Never really got the answers that I wanted. And then, finally, in the beginning of 2023, I was like, I have these micro symptoms in a way that alcohol has impacted my health and life.
Katie:
I finally want to, you know, take a closer look at this. So I tried to take a break from drinking. I made it tried to do dry January. I made it, like, halfway through, and then I was like, I'm not doing this. But then, just that 2 week window gave me some insight into how good that I felt, not just physically, but also just kind of the mental clarity that I have, which was something that was interesting to me.
Katie:
And so then I revisited it a month later in February. Absolutely loved it. And then kind of just, really dug into, you know, research first in relation to kind of just like my physical health and goals about how alcohol impacts our health, but then that kind of spread out into women more broadly and then, came up with the idea for SEEK June 2023 and just essentially hit the ground running.
Mike:
Yeah. I love that. I mean, I think the best products come out of the actual pain point and need that the individual who runs that company because they fully understand it, and it's an actual, solution that solves for it. So let's talk about what that solution is. Can you give us an overview of what SEEK offers and how it helps women?
Katie:
Yeah. So, SEEK is the our core product is the first at home test that measures how alcohol impacts women's health. So the way that that works is we measure biomarkers across core health categories. Yes. Liver, but not just liver.
Katie:
So heart, brain, fertility, menopause, skin, gut microbiome, sleep, really the full gamut. And these biomarkers are the most sensitive to how alcohol impacts your health. So at a baseline level, SEEK is a way to prevent for early prevent alcohol related diseases by identifying early indicators. This is especially important for heart, and liver health since conditions can go undetected for several years before you have a heart attack or before you develop full blown, liver cirrhosis. But more consistently, we're really just a way for women to get more insights into how alcohol impacts their body, make data backed modifications that are specific to them, and their goals.
Mike:
Yeah. That's great. And so, actually, my next question is related to one that I actually had before we even got connected to this. So, there, you know, there's a on Instagram, soberish mom. She was posting about it.
Mike:
Katie also. Her name is Katie. And she she was posting about your company. And so I went and I looked, and I was like, oh, this is really interesting. And as I got into it, I realized, oh, well, this actually isn't for men.
Mike:
This is just for women. And so the question arose is, I wonder why they chose to just focus on women. So maybe you could talk about why you went in that direction.
Katie:
Yeah. So it, I guess started 1, because I was a woman, but 2, a company that kind of, was a big inspiration for me behind SEEK was Modern Fertility. I worked with them on the agency side in 2018. So now fertility testing is so common, so well known. Back then, they were the first company to really say, I believe that women want more information about their fertility even if they don't wanna have a baby yet.
Katie:
So SEEK is really similar in the sense that, our bet is that women want more information about how alcohol impacts their health to make informed decisions even if they don't wanna cut out drinking entirely. So that was kind of, like, the super early inspiration. And then, as I started to, build the product, kind of develop our advisory board, a study came out last, summer from JAMA that said that nearly 15% more women are dying from alcohol related, conditions in the US than ever in history when you exclude pandemic data, which is completely insane. And then, in the beginning of that year, that number has jumped to 35% more women dying of alcohol related conditions in the US and 46%, in the UK. So, there's this urgent need, for women.
Katie:
And then the second piece of that, which I learned pretty quickly, is that women metabolize alcohol differently than men because of how we're made physiologically. This is because we're made with more fat and less water so we can reproduce. So when we drink alcohol, ethanol sits in our body for longer, and our organs are exposed for longer, which makes us more susceptible to alcohol related symptoms in the near term. And by that, I don't just mean hangovers. I mean, persistent anxiety, skin issues, trouble sleeping, things that are kind of just chronic to our health and we have on the days even when we're not drinking or we're not hungover.
Katie:
And then 2, it makes us more susceptible to the most deadly alcohol related conditions down the line, heart disease, liver disease, throat, mouth cancer. We could get into all that, but so, yeah, that's why woman first. Men is, you know, we definitely are you know, don't wanna forget about men and leave out men, but that was why women first.
Mike:
Now that makes total sense. So what are some of the key areas in your research that you're focusing on? Like, what was the starting point when you said, okay. We're gonna go and look at what the differentiator is in the research and what we're gonna focus on and how we're gonna build the product that serves, women in this way. Where where did you guys go with that, and where do you wanna go with that, I guess?
Katie:
Yeah. We obviously when I first started working on SEEK, I'm one woman with one experience. Over 84,000,000 women in the US drink alcohol. And of that number, the majority don't have alcohol usage disorder or some form of alcohol dependence. So they'll likely continue drinking, but also want information about how alcohol impacts their health to lower their risk for symptoms and diseases.
Katie:
So, I paid for some market research early on. I feel like you can only get so much for market research even if you, you know, tailor it in the ways that you really want to. So I interviewed over 50 women to learn about the health areas that they cared about in relation, to drinking and then what they thought could be beneficial in terms of helping them curb their drinking habits, but also kind of just accomplish their health goals, in relation to alcohol. So that's how I built our advisory board, but also how we really decided to laser focus on specific health areas in relation to alcohol. And then from that point, it was really just, you know, the advisers working really closely on piecing together every single study that we could get our hands on about how alcohol impacts the female body, across different health categories, and that's how we slowly built out the test.
Mike:
Yeah. That's great. So one question that comes to mind as you're saying that is, you know, you have your own experience that you did, which in your in your twenties is a little bit surprising, and so I think maybe other people might be surprised at how it's affecting them. Who is who's the candidate for for SEEK? Like, who would be the person that should probably sign up and, you know, are there different levels of, like, yes, you definitely should or maybe this is just something you should think about?
Katie:
Yeah. So I think, it's funny because you start working on a product and you base it on kind of the age you are and where you are in your life. I'm 30, but I would say so far, our customers are, you know, everywhere from in their late twenties to in their sixties. I think that, the only prerequisite for doing SEEK is being a woman who drinks alcohol. The next step would be you're curious about how alcohol impacts your health.
Katie:
And then the 3rd step would be maybe that you wanna make some changes without cutting out alcohol entirely. But I think really just it's, you drink, you're a woman, and you're curious to learn more.
Mike:
Yeah. No. That makes sense. And I think, it's definitely really important for us to know what's going on with blood work because you just really never know until you get it checked. And it's one of those things that's just easy to keep going without actually doing it or skip it or think that nothing is wrong.
Mike:
So I think it's just so so important. So, do you think that, like, providing sorry. What were you gonna say?
Katie:
I was gonna say, and it's so expensive. And,
Mike:
yeah. Expensive. So let's talk let's talk about that. Let's talk about do you address do you address the issue that getting blood work is really expensive and prohibitive for some people?
Katie:
Yeah. So, SEEK's panel, if you were to plug it into a website, if you look up the biomarkers and stuff, it would be up to $1800 at your standard clinic. Our signature alcohol health test is only 134, so it's significantly more affordable. And I think that something usually when it comes to getting blood work because it's so expensive is if you don't have insurance, then it's like you really just do need to pay this insane fee, and then you have no analysis in terms of what these results actually mean. So seek yeah.
Katie:
That was something that was super important to us. We wanted the price point to be as low as possible to make it as accessible as possible.
Mike:
Oh, I love that. Because even when you do have insurance and you go in and, a couple years ago, I went in for a physical, and they decided to add some more tests. And I went in, and guess what? You know? I had, like, a $800 bill on top of what was covered.
Mike:
And so just having that upfront pricing and transparency, I love that part of it because, really, pricing does keep a lot of people out of actually keeping up with their health. And so as I'm thinking about this, do you think that so I think that people can make more informed decisions and better plans based on information. Do you think that providing them with this information enables people to make better choices around their habits, especially with alcohol?
Katie:
Yeah. Absolutely. I think that, kind of those early Google searches and, like, early research that I was piecing together in the notes on my phone, quite literally are what kept me going. I think that, as I dug into it a little bit more, I've learned that it's, you know, 100 and 100 and probably soon to be 1,000 of research and coming to through these different pieces of information that, again, like, become even more and more siloed based on based on your genetics, other lifestyle factors on top of your drinking habits. And so SEEK has kind of, like, cut that process out for women entirely.
Katie:
We pair every biomarker level based on your health goals and drinking habits with, insights that, you know, are proven based on the latest research to help you accomplish whatever your health goals may be. So one piece of that is if you have any abnormal biomarker levels, bringing them back into a healthy range. But I think more importantly, SEEK is really symptoms focused. There is nothing worse than going to a doctor's appointment and being like, okay. Everything is normal.
Katie:
I think, like, an example is cortisol. It's such a hot topic on social media. And so so many women are like, oh, if you're stressed, if you can't sleep, if you have, like, whatever which symptom, you probably have high levels of cortisol. And then so many women will go and get their cortisol tested. It's fine, but they're like, I still feel awful.
Katie:
So I think SEEK is definitely a no gaslighting zone. We're really just there with you to get to the root of the problem, and information that's specific to your body is the starting point to that.
Mike:
Yeah. I love that. And that leads to one of the questions I actually had put here because I always do my homework a little bit here. You know, you see, like, around the behavior change. And how does behavior change impact the biomarkers?
Mike:
Like, how long does it take to see a change, and what do those changes feel like as related to alcohol?
Katie:
Yeah. So, you so our recommendation for which is another reason that we wanted the price point to be so low. Usually, it's like if you do pay that huge high price point for lab work from your traditional, you know, primary care physician, whoever it may be. You're like, okay. I'm only gonna do that once a year.
Katie:
That was insane. So seek it since it is so low, gives you the opportunity to retest, more affordably, but we recommend retesting at least 1 month, after your first test, but up to 3 months. I think that some people really, go into the SEEK experience wanting to do a dry month or really significantly reduce how much they wanna drink and change their drinking habits, they're all in. Whereas others wanna make more slow consistent changes over time, which is why the testing window, I think, you know, kind of gives you the opportunity to personalize the experience to what you want to. But, a huge part of, our product is educating women on the fact that even if you do reduce your drink count by 1 or 2, in most instances, that does make a clinical difference.
Katie:
And so that's something that you can see with retesting. I think, one of my favorite health categories is how alcohol impacts the brain. So I know you're super knowledgeable about and really into too. And I think when I we started working on SEEK, to learn that if you were to get an MRI scan in the beginning of the month, let's say in the beginning of August, you stopped drinking and you're a moderate drinker and then you get another MRI scan, you could see significant reduction in inflammation on your brain, boost in healthy brain cell growth, like huge, massive, like, visible differences. And so, we can't do MRI scans, but we do test different inflammation markers that can indicate, you know, similar things to give you that same sense of progress.
Mike:
That's amazing and not really surprising related to a lot of the research that I've done. And so I'm really interested to learn if anybody is, interested on how SEEK actually works. And so let's say that you you do the testing. How does it work moving forward? Like, how how does the whole process work?
Mike:
Walk me through that.
Katie:
Yeah. So, you go to our website. You take a short quiz which personalizes your test panel. So this is really just dependent on the health areas you wanna learn about in relation to alcohol. From there, we ship you your test kit.
Katie:
It's a small at home test kit, not a new testing mechanism or anything like that. It's the same, kit that Modern Fertility actually uses. You collect your sample at home. It's a finger prick. You ship it out to our lab, and then your results are available within a week.
Katie:
We say packaged in a way that's easy to understand even if you've never gotten lab work done before. And so what that means is we lead with, 1st and foremost, the health areas that you wanna focus on. So let's say a woman comes to us and she's like, I've noticed that a few glasses of wine impact my sleep more than they used to. I want to investigate further. I'm getting a little bit closer to menopause.
Katie:
I know that alcohol can impact symptoms during menopause. I want to dig into that a little bit further, and then maybe she has a family history of breast cancer. So she's like, I know that alcohol can impact my breast cancer risk. Wanna learn more about that as well. And we would lead with sleep, menopause, breast cancer risk, but we would include all of the insights and information there.
Katie:
So the the hope is that you go into the SEEK experience, uncovering something new. We give you the opportunity to print out your results in, a report that your doc doctor will be familiar with. So if you do wanna go back to your primary care physician or a specialist that seeks results, you can absolutely do that as well. And then, we encourage you to retest, based on the modifications that we pair with your biomarker level. So those are drinking modifications that go beyond, just drink count, which is super, super, super important as well, but, insights into the other ingredients in your drinks and how they can be impacting your symptoms.
Katie:
So beers that are more carb heavy versus ones that are higher in antioxidants, things like that kind of is what you'll get with the SEEK results, and then you can implement, you know, any drinking lifestyle modifications that you want to and then track your progress with retesting.
Mike:
Yeah. I love that. I can't help but think that there's some amazing possibilities for synergy between Sunnyside and SEEK because if somebody comes to us and we're all about setting a baseline and tracking and if you wanna you also need to set a baseline based on your health and so that you can track your improvement. So SEEK seems like a very natural transition. And at the same way, if somebody does some testing and starts with SEEK and decide and the prognosis or the or the recommended, route of is to reduce your alcohol, it would make sense for how do I do that?
Mike:
Well, Sunnyside probably could provide that as well.
Katie:
A 100 a 100%. A 100%. I think, like, you know, SEEK, we give you this personalized information that's related to your health, and we help you accomplish some health specific goals, affordably, accessibly. But, when it comes to kind of curbing how much you're drinking, you know, identifying kind of, like, a plan that really works for you, based on your drinking goals, lifestyle, Sunnyside is absolutely perfect. I think when I think back to the early days of when I was first exploring my relationship with alcohol, what really kind of worked for me and made, the lifestyle changes that I was making stick was 1, developing a plan.
Katie:
So I think before, something that was kind of stressing me out about my relationship with alcohol was the fact that I wasn't able to, like I I, 1, I didn't really wanna moderate how much I drank, but, 2, the kicker for me was that I was having a hard time controlling, like, how many days a week I was drinking. So I would be like, okay. I only wanna drink 2 days a week. Would almost never stick to that. Towards the end, of, like, you know, before I started to explore my relationship with alcohol, started working on SEEK.
Katie:
I was drinking probably 5 or 6 days a week, so I really was just and I, like, didn't necessarily wanna cut back. Like, I did, but I didn't. So it's kind of just, like, I think that when, you know, people come to Sunnyside, they're at that same place. They're like, I don't necessarily like how much I'm drinking. I don't wanna cut out alcohol entirely, but I do wanna plan in place to kind of, like, take away that guesswork.
Katie:
And so that's really, really what worked for me. And then the second thing that worked for me was community. I remember when I first, met a friend for dinner, her name is Jenny. And I was like, what do I order? Like, it was so odd not to order wine.
Katie:
She was like a lemonade, a water. And so I think, like, you know, connecting with people who are further along with you and their relationship to kind of like changing their drinking habits, but also people who are in the same place to you is so crucial. And so I think that I, like, absolutely love that those are really the 2 core pieces of Sunnyside's business since, that's what worked for me.
Mike:
Yeah. Definitely planning and execution of that plan. Not just saying to yourself, oh, I wanna drink, you know, only 2 days this week because I know I've done that before, and that never worked. You gotta actually
Katie:
It doesn't even work.
Mike:
You could set the goal, but you gotta have a plan behind it. And and the community is so important also as well. Yeah. Let's get into the future here. So what what predictions do you have?
Mike:
Because I'm sure that you're looking way down the road here. What predictions do you of the future do you have around, like, alcohol consumption and health monitoring? What what feedback do you have around that?
Katie:
Yeah. So I think it's interesting. Something that I'm always curious about has been people compare, alcohol to the next cigarette in the sense that it will become completely in extinct. And I think something that's fascinating about this huge uptick in, like, nonalcoholic drinks and all of that is that we saw this happen with cigarettes, but with Juul's and vapes, which was branded as something that was healthier for us, but it's not healthier for us. But I think what's cool about the nonalcoholic drink alternatives is that, everything that's coming to market for the most case is better for us.
Katie:
We have all these products with these different herbs, natural ingredients, less sugar, you know, like, you know, science backed, it actually is better for us. It's not going from a cigarette to a vape. It's going from alcohol mixed with sugar, carbs, artificial ingredients, all of this crap to something that's gonna make us feel better and support our health long term. So I think that, I'm not sure if we'll ever be in a place where no one ever drinks alcohol, at least in our lifetime. But I do think that as society becomes more health conscious, people are going to consistently want to continue drinking less.
Katie:
I think that anybody that thinks that this is kind of just a fad is gonna be left behind. I think that people are a lot smarter than probably a lot of the, who I mean, I'm so isolated, but, you know, anyone that thinks that we're gonna go back to kind of, like, binge drinking and clubbing and that being more prominent than this this this new culture of health and wellness and drinking mindfully. I think we're not gonna go in the clubbing direction. We are going to go in the mindful drinking direction.
Mike:
Oh, yeah. I I think about you know, you see those, like, 19 I'll probably misquote it. 19 let's just say 19 forties, cover of magazines where it's like a pro athlete with a cigarette and for a cigarette company. And I kinda feel and it looks so ridiculous. And I kinda feel like, you know, 20 years down the line, we'll probably look at athletes that are promoting, you know, vodka or the next new designer tequila as also being equally as ridiculous.
Mike:
So I I totally agree. So, let's go a step further from what that initial question on the future. And so how do you see the technology and potentially health services related to SEEK? And this depends on how much you want to share with us here, to better support women in the future.
Katie:
Yeah. So I think, when it comes to, like, the tech and the science behind SEEK's product and, like, Sunny's side as well, kind of just, like, the larger, industry, I think that we've only scratched the surface, which I'm sure you can agree with. I think on the clinical side, you know, we're just starting to gather this information in an industry that's been, like, hugely lacking information. So when it comes to women's health specifically, women were excluded from medical research until 1993, which is completely insane. You know, we've come a long way since then, but I think that, how alcohol impacts health has historically been an an area that's been under research.
Katie:
So when you combine that with the lack of information about how alcohol impacts women's health at large, we are still pretty behind. So, SEEK is in the final stages of releasing our IRB with UCLA Health. So in terms of, like, furthering research, uncovering more about how alcohol impacts the female body, that's a huge, huge, huge focus for us. And then, like, outside of even, like, what SEEK is slowly starting to do, there are so many other projects, that I'm super excited about. I know that Johns Hopkins, a little bit ago, I read was working on a study that said that they want to understand if, women that are more susceptible to cancer are based on their drinking habits.
Katie:
So I think, when it comes to how alcohol impacts our health, it's odd how some people will drink, see all of these massive health implications, whereas you see these other people who are lifelong drinkers and kind of, like, made it towards the end, my grandma being one of them without, you know, without too many scratches or burns. And so it's like, why is that? How do you know who's more susceptible? I think imagine being able to literally take a test outside of just the BRCA gene and be like, okay, if I drink, I'm more susceptible to alcohol related breast cancer. That's definitely where I am excited to go in the future in terms of science, and it's really, really, really inspiring that the industry wants to go in the same direction.
Katie:
And then I think the second piece is other, lifestyle educational resources about how alcohol impacts the female body. So I think that's anything from, mixology classes with some of our brand partners to educational resources related to alcohol and women's health and lifestyle. So that could be anything from, our sleep adviser, Jennifer, doing webinars on sleep and alcohol, tips to kind of make you sleep better, how to uncover why, if you've made changes to your drinking habits, those aren't sticking, to alcohol and sexual health, to you know, I think a lot of people wanna cut back on drinking, and Sunnyside does a great job at tracking with this, and improve their finances, save money, but then they don't. So, like, what's not sticking? Why are you, you know, stopping drinking but still not saving?
Katie:
So those are just, like, a few of the areas that we're excited about to dig in more.
Mike:
Yeah. I think those sound amazing. It makes me think, how can you have a broader impact? Did you have you thought through maybe is there a lack of education in the mainstream, you know, just with your primary care physician knowing about how alcohol is impacting women specifically, does there is there a a gap in information there, do you feel?
Katie:
So, as of right now, only 2.5 of clinicians do alcohol health screenings. So kind of the existing process that's in place, doesn't really only prioritizes what we think of when we think of severe severe alcohol use disorder, rock bottom. They don't think of people who are drinking, you know, to an extent that could impact their health and lifestyle, but they haven't hit rock bottom. They're just continuing to go on. So that's, like, completely excluded.
Katie:
I don't think that it's because doctors don't care or can't access the information. I think that it's just, that you can only fit so much into a single appointment. So even if you're going to a specialist, there's no kind of end all, be all resource to understand how alcohol impacts your health. That was really the, white space that I saw while I was going through my own health journey. You know, whether it was, like, the OB G way and the dermatologist, I was really trying to dig in, and I just couldn't get the answers I wanted.
Katie:
They didn't have the time. So I think, it's not a matter of not having the information. It's just a matter of the way that the existing health care system is set up.
Mike:
Yeah. No. That makes sense. It seems like there's there's a lot to be done, and I love that you're tackling it. Let me ask you this hypothetical scenario, and this is just coming out of left field.
Mike:
But let's just say we're at a family party, and you're talking to somebody. It's a woman maybe in her forties, and she has a glass of wine. She doesn't she doesn't have a problem, quote, unquote, you know, problem, but is a regular drinker and asks what you do. You do you explain what you do, and she says, should I do that? What would you answer that with?
Katie:
I would say yes. I would say a 100%. I think, yeah. Again, the only prerecord prerequisite to do seek is to be a woman who drinks and wanna learn more about how alcohol impacts your health. I think that, I really like to compare it to the fact that we evolved these different health and fitness trackers to monitor how other areas of our health in general, whether that be, you know, glucose monitors, sugar consumption, heart rate variability, or menstrual cycle, Alcohol should be exactly the same way.
Katie:
It shouldn't be this black box. It shouldn't be this question mark. So I would say if you drink any amount, we should all have preventive care when it comes to our drinking habits, and we should all have resources to kind of, one, sleep better knowing we won't have a surprise diagnosis down the line, since women are more susceptible to alcohol related diseases across every health category, but, 2, just gain a little bit more insight in the near term to make changes, that support our health but also just, make us feel better. I think that, when I first started to change my drinking habits, if I were just going to go into the experience and be like, okay. I've addressing a few of these microsymptoms, it's all good.
Katie:
I don't think that that would have been enough for me to stick to my drinking habits. I really needed what was on the other end of making these changes to my drinking habits to be better. I needed, like, more from the experience, and so SEEK is really focused on, bringing in more of the good, the reasons that you enjoy drinking, while throwing out the bad. So in that process, it's usually less alcohol, but it's completely, in a way that won't make you feel like you're missing out or giving away something. It's you're getting more.
Mike:
What do you say to people? Because I think that people get anxious. They get nervous, and it keeps them from moving forward. So if somebody is maybe on the fence, but maybe they're not moving forward just because of that anxiety of, like, the the what if scenario or maybe something that I what would you say to that?
Katie:
Well, 1st and foremost, I would say that I've been in your shoes. I was so skittish after that first doctor's appointment, and I just was like, I'm never bringing that up again. And then, like, I kind of would probe a little bit during specialist appointments, but it's like you don't, you know, wanna get that judgmental look. You don't wanna get that finger wag or worse. Like, you don't wanna be dismissed.
Katie:
And so I think, the reason that we wanted to do SEEK as an at home test is that you can kind of make it this personal private experience if you want to, but you can loop in your primary care physician if you do want to bring in other people or, which we've we've talked about. Sunnyside has so many incredible resources, especially if you're trying to cut back on drinking, work with Sunnyside drinking coach. So I guess that's what I would say. And then the second thing I would say is that our, results in our alcohol health plans, which is the drinking and lifestyle modifications that we pair with your biomarker levels, are delivered in a really positive encouraging way. So even if a biomarker level is slightly abnormal, it's never going to be a finger wag.
Katie:
It's never going to be, you know, like a death sentence. It's always, you know, really positive. It's, you know, shows insights on, women with similar drinking habits and around a similar age as you, what they were able to accomplish by changing their drinking habits to meet a specific health goal, whether it's improving that biomarker level or addressing a specific symptom. So we like to keep it super positive. It's not scary.
Katie:
It's all kind of just small modifications that you can make, that go beyond drink or don't drink to make you, feel better and feel more informed.
Mike:
It's so helpful and so needed, and I can't help to think that if I was a woman, I, a 100% would be your customer right now. And so, no motives other than I just think your service is amazing. I think and if anybody listening is thinking about doing it or has thought about doing it, should definitely, reach out. And I want to ask you before we go, how can they do that? Where should they go?
Mike:
I know you said you had some great resources, so share away right now.
Katie:
Yeah. So all you need to do is go to seek health test, dot com. And then I would recommend taking the quiz because, one, that's how you can personalize your test panel, but 2, there is a discount code at the end of the quiz.
Mike:
Hey. Even better. Well, Katie, thanks so much for coming on today. It's been amazing. It's really helpful.
Mike:
It's a really important issue that we need to talk about especially related to alcohol, and you have a specialized knowledge base and service that is, you know, providing here for the listeners. So thank you so much for coming on.
Katie:
Thank you so much, Mike. It's been so much fun to be on.
Mike:
This podcast is brought to you by Sunnyside, the number one alcohol moderation platform, having helped 100 of thousands of people cut out more than 13,000,000 drinks since 2020. And in fact, an independent study showed that Sunny Side reduced alcohol consumption by an average of 30% in 90 days. And as one of our members shared, Sunnyside helps me stay mindful of my drinking habits. It's not super restrictive. So if I'm craving a glass of wine with dinner, I just track it and I move on with my week.
Mike:
If you could benefit from drinking a bit less and being more mindful of when and how much you drink, head on over to sunnyside.co to get a free 15 day trial. You'll get access to everything that we offer, including tracking and planning tools, coaching from our experts, a vibrant community of people just like you, and the motivation and advice to stay on track with your health goals, all with no pressure to quit. That's sunnyside
