Virta Health, a company aiming to safely and sustainably reverse Type 2 diabetes without medications or surgery, today announced an innovative partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to provide new hope for Veterans living with the condition.
Veterans are particularly affected by Type 2 diabetes. An estimated 25% of Veterans have the disease, a rate more than double the national average.
Comorbidities such as obesity, depression, and heart disease are also common. More than one million Veterans are living with the condition.
Virta Health offers for a monthly subscription the following services:
- Continuous medical supervision: A Virta Provider acts as your personal health specialist, and will coordinate as needed with your primary care provider.
- Personalized dietary guidance and health coaching
- Supplies you will need including a bodyweight scale that uploads data to the Virta app automatically, a blood pressure cuff for some patients, and a meter with glucose and ketone strips, lancets, and swabs.
- Biomarker tracking and curated resource
- Membership to a private patient community
The new pilot program will offer 400 Veterans access to the Virta Treatment, with the goal of helping Veterans improve metabolic health while simultaneously reducing dependence on diabetes medications.
“Partnering with community providers facilitates a more comprehensive approach to care,” comments VA secretary Robert Wilkie. “Many Veterans have Type 2 diabetes and it is strongly linked to obesity, so we are excited to explore Virta Health’s approach to tackling this debilitating and costly condition.”
Virta’s approach shows significant promise in reducing the use of diabetes medications, which can relieve the economic burden of the disease.
In peer-reviewed clinical trial results, 94% of patients who completed one year of the Virta Treatment eliminated or reduced insulin use. Additionally, 60% of patients reversed Type 2 diabetes.
The Virta Treatment improved markers of cardiovascular disease risk, too, including blood pressure, obesity, and inflammation.
“This partnership underscores VA’s commitment to pursuing creative approaches that can make transformational improvements in Veterans’ health,” says Sami Inkinen, Virta Health co-founder and CEO. “Our treatment outcomes and virtual care delivery model accessible to Veterans in all 50 U.S. states complement existing VA services, creating the exciting possibility to bring renewed health to the millions of Veterans living with Type 2 diabetes.”
Virta’s approach—delivering individualized nutrition therapy via continuous remote care—is well-suited for the geographically-distributed veteran population.
Via mobile devices, Virta provides near real-time access to board-certified physicians and health coaches, who oversee the delivery of personalized treatment plans.
Virta’s technology and care protocols enable the rapid lowering of blood sugar and restoration of metabolic health, and subsequent deprescription of diabetes medications by Virta medical providers. Virta can provide 24/7 remote care wherever a patient resides in the U.S.
For more information on the Virta Treatment, visit www.virtahealth.com. Veterans interested in partnership background and eligibility criteria can go to www.virtahealth.com/veterans. Organizations interested in non-monetary partnering with VHA can go to https://www.va.gov/healthpartnerships/.
Source:
- Virta Health. Virta Health Partners with U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to Help Veterans with Type 2 Diabetes. (2019, May 17). Business Wire. Retrieved: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190516005299/en