After overcoming a chronic condition and embarking on an extreme marathon challenge, Lorena Puica left her job in finance to launch an innovative health platform
When Lorena Puica was told she needed to have her thyroid removed at the age of 27, she decided to see if she could avoid such invasive measures by changing her lifestyle. A super-achiever with five degrees, a published book and a successful career in investment management, working at director level for Morningstar and Octopus Investments, Puica was responsible for £2.2 billion and a team of portfolio managers at an impressively young age. But she had pushed her health to its limit in pursuit of her ambitions.
‘I began suffering from stress, anxiety, insomnia and neck pain – the health problems many busy people complain of – and I just carried on, thinking this was normal,’ she says. When Puica finally went to see a GP, he was shocked by how imbalanced her hormones were and she was prescribed hormone replacement therapy, but five years later her condition had worsened.
‘I consulted several doctors but none of them offered any advice other than surgery. That was when I decided to take charge of my own health,’ Puica says. She switched to a plant-based diet and started a consistent daily meditation, yoga, massage and acupuncture. ‘Within seven days of changing my diet, I noticed the quality of my sleep improved significantly. Lack of sleep impairs our ability to make decisions. When you are grounded, calm and relaxed, you can see around problems.’
After embracing this new integrated lifestyle, Puica weaned herself off the hormone therapy and two years later her blood tests came back healthy. ‘It was great to see the tests reflected how I was feeling,’ she says. ‘My quality of life improved in ways I could not imagine.’
Soon after, a friend told Puica about a new charity challenge – to run seven marathons across seven continents in seven days. An active participant in extreme sports prior to her health issues, it offered the perfect opportunity for Romanian-born Puica to put her restored health and fitness to the test. ‘I thought, great. If I survive this then I really am healthy.’ It took the team 10 days, because landing the plane in Antarctica took three attempts, but they did it, breaking two world records in the process.
The accomplishment marked a turning point, not only in her health, but in her career too. ‘During the challenge I had a lot of time to reflect. I asked myself: What am I good at? What do I love doing? What does the world need? Where can I have an impact? That’s when I decided to leave my day job to start a health-tech company.’
The result is iamYiam – a global sustainable health platform, launched in October 2016, that cross-references an individual’s genetic and lifestyle data with the latest academic research. ‘The concept behind iamYiam was to design the fastest possible way for people to reach their maximum health potential, and stay healthy, by giving guidance on how to optimise a way of life.’
The highly personalised healthcare plan analyses the individual’s predisposition to certain foods, activities and illnesses and gives advice on how to use this information to improve health.
In a TEDx talk given by Puica in 2017, she shared her formula for success: ‘If I’m very clear about my goal, and I bring together the most state-of-the-art data, tools, technology, insight and people, I can make almost anything happen.’
