From Reactive to Proactive: How Marqi Medical is Reimagining Preventive Health

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Here's our host, Dr. Joseph Casciani.

Well, hello to everyone joining us today. You're listening to the Living to 100 Club Podcast, and I'm your host, Dr. Joe Casciani. I'm passionate about helping people embrace psychologically healthy aging, staying positive, finding purpose, and making the most of all the years we're given, no matter what challenges come along. This podcast is part of a larger mission I call Living to 100 Network, which brings together 3 powerful tools: these podcasts, our Better, Longer, and Happier card deck series, and the Living to 100 Community, a place to connect, learn, and thrive together. To learn more, visit my website livingto100.club for these podcasts and blogs, and join our group forum at livingto100.community. Thanks for being part of this program. Let's dive into today's conversation. In today's episode, we explore how Marquis Medical is shifting the focus of healthcare from reactive treatment to proactive prevention. Founder Xavier Serrano Joseph Casciani shares how his background in health insurance and a personal family crisis inspired him to launch a concierge-style longevity platform targeting high-achieving executives. By integrating advanced diagnostics, genomics, wearable tech, and continuous data monitoring, Marquis Medical helps clients detect risk factors early. And make lifestyle changes before symptoms appear. First, a little background. Xavier Serrano is CEO of Marquis Medical, where he leads the development of AI-driven health solutions focused on personalized preventive care. With a background in digital health and diagnostics, Xavier works closely with clinicians and technology partners to deliver actionable insights that optimize individual health and longevity. Xavier, welcome to our program today.

Thank you so much. Oh my gosh, that was a heck of an introduction. I feel like we can just take a break and we already, we already got it all on the table.

We covered a lot of ground already. That's right. Well, we're going to cover some more in our, in our conversation here. So tell us what, what led you to create Marquis Medical? Was there some defining moment for you that sparked this vision?

Yeah, I've been in the insurance and healthcare industry now for about 2 decades. And in 2020, my dad nearly passed away from a widowmaker heart attack. And that was the moment that really led me to have just an eye-opening moment that we weren't expecting because my father was someone who has exercised regularly, seeing his doctor regularly, is in good physical shape, exercising. And, you know, just weeks prior, he had actually visited his doctor and he had said how great he was doing, how great his panels were. Yet a few weeks later, he nearly dies from a heart attack.

Yeah. Wow. Wow.

So that was, that was the moment that led me to the realization that I can't wait for someone to figure out how to be more proactive. I have the experience and knowledge working in the health insurance industry, working with insurance actuaries, chronic disease management programs, wellness programs, where I knew that a program could be built where we can introduce advanced diagnostics and early detect and prevent chronic diseases from ever happening.

Yeah. Yeah. By using the latest technology, the latest information, trying to kind of collate all that information for the individual and put all the pieces together and come up with a picture of where the person is functionally, medically. Yeah.

Yeah. That, that's right. Just getting down to, you know, root cause, uh, medicine, uh, functional medicine and like you, like you mentioned, just using the latest technologies available, whether it's genomics, advanced imaging, wearable devices, or advanced labs. You know, the technology exists, but there's so much red tape with insurance that doctors aren't able to practice real medicine.

Sure, sure. Unless they're getting into the concierge medicine where they're doing it privately, because using the current treatment plans and all those CPT codes that are very limiting for treatment, it's hard to really stay in advance kind of prevention plan mindset. Yeah, so your Marquis Medical really relies on these labs, advanced labs, genomics, and wearables. Can you walk us through what a what a typical client experience is like? What is that? What's involved?

Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, we sort of have a whole process around how we get people from, you know, where they're at to where they want to be, uh, looking at their goals and really looking at what their predispositions might be. So we, we call it the Marquis Method, and it's a 6-part program. It starts with the medical intake, getting their historical health records all uploaded into our system. Then we do a di— a very thorough, up to 43,000 data point diagnostics, everything from labs, imaging, genomics, wearables. And all that information is fed into our health intelligence engine, which we call MedIQ. MedIQ analyzes all this information for causality and correlation between diseases with our proprietary datasets, which is, you know, very expansive. Much, much, much more built out than anything you could do on, you know, ChatGPT or anything like that. And, and then what comes out is Blueprint. And Blueprint is the health recommendations. So not just, hey, here's your predisposition, here's your potential risk for, for the future. Sometimes, 5% of the time, we actually find life-threatening illnesses such as cancers, heart disease. You know, some people are days away from a heart attack or, you know, stage 2 or 3 with no symptoms. These are all healthy individuals. And more importantly, what it tells you is how to prevent and extend your healthspan. And that program is reviewed by your doctor in conjunction with a coach and the member. And that, that blueprint is followed, uh, for a 12-month period. So just like you can't go to the gym one time a year and get healthy, we're going to the doctor sometimes one time a year and expecting to have better results. You need that accountability. You need multiple touch points throughout the year, multiple labs and data sets that tell you whether you're progressing or declining in your health.

Well, that's a powerfully sophisticated program, it sounds like. I mean, to gather all that information and then come up with some diagnostics, some useful, accurate, evidence-based diagnostics. I mean, that's, that's, um, that's really sounds like a breakthrough in kind of medical science, medical technology. Yeah. So how do you— I mean, these 40,000 data points, that's all from their history and all the other techniques that you use, the different assessment tools that you use. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. Yeah. And then it also comes up with this blueprint for here's where you are and here's how to stay healthy down the road. Yeah. Yeah. How do you happen to— I know you started when we first talked, you told me you target more of the executives as clients and maybe organizations, employees. What's your thinking there? Why are you focusing on that target audience?

Yeah, well, we need our beachhead that we're going to concentrate on for individuals who are highly motivated financial means to put a program like this in place. So the, the elite performing executives are perfect for, for our audience because they understand that mental resilience and mental aptitude equals better business results, right? There are plenty of examples where we know that when a CEO takes time off to deal with a health issue, the decline of the company is, is pretty significant. It's not just the CEO, it's the entire executive.

I see. Sure, sure.

So it just makes sense to start there. We built an insurance program, so it'd be covered by a company-sponsored supplemental insurance program. So we had to work within the confines of insurance. Insurance is going to maybe cover 10% of what we're doing, right? Preventative stuff. But they don't see a lot of value in whole genome sequencing. They don't see a whole lot of value in scanning pre-symptomatic, even though we know that 1 in 7 healthy individuals who go through our program have a clinically actionable and potentially life-threatening illness if not attended to in the next 12 to 24 months.

Wow. Yeah. Hmm. So how responsive is this population to their, you know, your recommendations for preventive healthcare?

Well, I think that's the other reason why we chose this as our beachhead is these individuals are typically highly motivated to extend their healthspan and promote optimal mental resilience. Executives are 4 times more likely to have a stress-related, uh, disease. And, uh, we think that with our program, we can early identify and many times reverse some of those symptoms through some of our protocols and, uh, treatment options that we have available. So they've been very receptive, you know. I would say that at least 90% of our members are following through and are really dedicated.

Wow.

You know, there's always, there's always one in, in every group. So yeah, sure, some people are like, hey, I know this is important, but I've got other things to attend to. Which, as much as we try to say, hey, look, you got to put the oxygen mask on yourself first before everyone else, not, not everyone adheres to that.

Yeah, well, um, As you know, I'm a psychologist, and I, I understand the science of behavior change and how difficult it is to change behavior, especially, you know, well-ingrained behaviors. And telling a person, hey, you need to stop smoking, or you need to lose 15 pounds, easy to say but doesn't work most of the time, just from that prescription, just from that kind of direction. Do you come across that? I mean, weight loss is, is huge. That's a major healthcare problem for the US. And I can see where patients are told that frequently. You need to lose a little weight. Does that happen?

That happens all the time.

Yeah.

And you're absolutely right. You getting someone from understanding to doing to outcomes is, is a journey. And, and that's why we call, we call our, our program, you know, Longevity Journey. We're, we're working first with good data, right? It's, it's easy to say, hey, something might happen to you if, if you don't stop doing this thing. But if you have data saying, hey, look, your, your father had this disease, you have a genetic predisposition, here are your blood biomarkers, here are your imaging data points, and it's all lining up. We are— our system is predicting that you're going to have a cardiac event in the next 12 to 24 months. That's different than just saying this might happen to you. We have 90% probability that something like that could occur. Predictive model is typically a good wake-up call, but even that's not enough. And, and that's why we have a 12-month program with accountability, with ongoing monitoring, with ongoing testing, blood biomarkers, coaching, and a physician. And, and I believe that's the, that's the key to success for most people, where they're just not getting that at your typical, you know, healthcare provider.

Yeah, it's like having a partner. When we try to do some exercise programs, if we have somebody that we always walk with or always run with or always exercise with, it's more reinforcing. So tell me about the role of the coaches. What, what's, how do they fit into the program? They work alongside the client along with the physician and the other results and the biomarker changes. What, what role does the coach have? How does that play out?

Well, it's a, it's an accountability partner. And it's someone who's understanding their why and giving the encouragement that a parent might give their child and saying, hey, I know you can do this, Joe. I believe in you. I know this goal is important to you because of X, Y, and Z, and really helping guide you. And, and what Blueprint does is it provides that very granule step-by-step changes. You know, for example, if you want someone to have better sleep, right? What do they, what does a doctor say? Eat better, sleep better, and exercise. But they don't actually give you the, the tools to get from where you are to where you want to be on a very micro level, from down to shopping lists, down to sleep, uh, your sleep regimen, night before, consistency sleeping throughout the week, getting off of your phones, you know, an hour before you go to sleep, putting yourself in the right place. Because if you don't do all these things, you're never going to wake up at 5:30 because you were up all night. And there's no way that you can possibly get— have that great day, get that good quality of sleep. But we're tracking it. When we're doing all the things to get you and put you to a place to succeed, that's the real results.

Okay, sure. So for example, with sleep, you offer really good sleep hygiene approaches. The coach will help to provide that granular information and where they need to be, where they are now, and where they need to be tomorrow and a month from now. So that seems really key that you have that close look, that close observer, that motivator, that person that helps to say, okay, you're knocked down, let's get back up, right? You're knocked down 7 times, you get up 8. So whatever it is, and that's, I think that's, you know, from my background in mental health, that's the difference. That's what's going to make a difference because you have that person that's kind of holding their hand and making sure they get over those hurdles. Yeah, yeah, interesting. So what do you think is the future of, uh, longevity medicine? I mean, you're talking a lot about prediction and helping people make better decisions about their future, more informed decisions. Here's the, here's the results of all this testing we did. You're helping them make more informed decisions, but what What, what do you think is the future of longevity medicine? How does Marquis Medical fit into that future?

You know, that's, that's a really good question. I think it's gonna be more AI-driven. As AI evolves, it's come a long way just in the last 18 months. We couldn't do what we're doing now today. There just wasn't enough capacity. The memory issues and the, they call it hallucinations that AI was having were super problematic for us 18 months ago where now we're not dealing with those issues. We learned to overcome those and we built our own datasets and our own predictive modeling and reference ranges. So if you think about what, where this is heading in the next 5 years, it's going to be more of that. You know, the, the best doctor in the world today knows about a fraction of 1% of what an AI healthcare model does. So if you know that, and we can build in, we're in the process of building in the AI into our app. You know, who are you going to go to first? Your doctor, which we have those, you can go to those. Or would you go and get the answer real quick with all of your health information, all of your food sensitivities, all of your blood biomarkers, all of your imaging data? Because for you and me, we go, oh, we— I just, you know, slept on my back wrong and I'm having these issues. But for the AI goes, no, you know what, something on your, on your MRI, which wasn't a problem before, you know, 12 months down the road and with the exercise regimen that you're currently doing, you're probably lifting too heavy and you might have a slipped disc. And you and I would have just ignored it for, you know, 6 months until it got chronic. But the AI was smart enough to capture that. And, and that goes across the board. So I'm, I'm very hopeful and excited about the advancements in AI, particularly in medicine, because it can, it can clear up a lot of the red tape from, from an insurance standpoint, from a medical standpoint, and just give us a much better quality of life at a fraction of the cost.

Oh, that's great. That's a great answer. Thank you. I agree 100% that AI is way beyond even the best physicians, the best specialists. And I mean, they're, they're already great, but what AI can do and pull together information that that physician has never seen before or heard before and can access databases around the world that, right. He or she has never been able to access, right?

The best, the best read physician, you know, reads 10, 20 articles a month. AI can access all of them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. In less than a minute. I mean, I'm a firm believer in AI. I use it all the time in my work. Yeah, good discussion. So how do you think Models like yours can work with other community efforts. I mean, my Live Me to 100 Club is all about longevity and educating and helping people stay inspired and motivated. How do you think Marquis Medical can work alongside some organizations like mine or other, you know, others too? What, what's the, what's the collaboration model look like, do you think?

Well, well, we're, we're all about empowering the world's efforts from a reactive to a proactive healthcare, and, and living to 100+ is certainly one of our core values and visions for the future of our health. So we have a number of different resources that are available at no cost to different organizations that we partner with. We have partnership with Vistage. Worldwide largest peer-to-peer advisory group in the country, in the world, actually.

Yeah.

So we could partner with organizations like yourself to provide talks on different longevity methods or technologies that may help you live to 100+. Certainly having the right mindset is a huge, huge factor. I'm sure you know the work on, on Blue Zones.

Sure.

Community and mindset can, can, can do for somebody, especially post-traumatic instance or event in their, in their lives. But we also want to make sure that we're catching things early for, from a medical standpoint, understanding your genetic predispositions, having that advanced imaging protocols, especially if we're deemed high risk and just getting people more informed on what these health KPIs are, health key performance indicators are, so that they can live to 100 in their best health.

Yeah, yeah. It sounds like you're adopting kind of B2B and B2C. I mean, business to consumer, your clients, and educating one-on-one or in groups, but business to business. I think that's the future to me. Science and medicine and healthcare, where groups can partner with one another, that collaboration from one business to another, because you extend your reach, of course, and you bring your skills to the other organization, the other organization brings its skills. So it's that B2B model. I think that, I mean, that's what I'm, I see as the future of improving healthcare because individuals can do it. But when you reach out and connect with others and partner with others, that's stronger. Yeah. Yeah. Great. So what's the, what's the final takeaway for today's audience, Xavier? What, what do you hope they'll remember from this conversation?

I hope they can remember to be diligent about knowing their health key performance indicators. You know, we, we, we track our budget, uh, we track our, our steps, we track our sleep. You know, there's, there's a lot of health-related key performance indicators that we all should be tracking. Uh, so if they can pick up one key performance indicator I would say the number one would be to know your calcium score. I think every individual should know their calcium score like they know their credit score. It is the number one indicator of a heart-related disease, cardiovascular disease, and it can be tracked as easily as doing a scan and, you know, spending $500, even if insurance doesn't pay for it. Get that done, especially if you're higher risk. Once you understand if you're higher risk, you can actually reduce the likelihood of a cardiac event by up to 90% by just knowing that. And it's the number one killer in America. One in every four people in America die from heart disease, mostly via heart attack.

So these, these KPIs, key performance indicators, there are, some that stand out like calcium levels, some that stand out, we should always be aware of and know what direction we're heading in. So that means periodic reviews, periodic assessments. Any other indicators that you recommend we be aware of?

I'll give you, I'll give you 2 more.

Yeah.

So I'll give you a whole genome sequencing. So understand your predispositions.. And the way I describe this one is, is kind of like getting a survey for all your, all your community, everyone around your house that was built in the same time by the same builder and saying, what went, what happened to your house? You know, do you have a, do you have a door handle that doesn't work in the back? Do you have a pipe that went out? Do you have a sprinkler system that went out? If the likelihood of 8 of your neighbors they're in close proximity of you having the same problems, you should probably at least be made aware of it and catch things early before they become chronic. Before you— that leaky faucet, your upstairs bathroom turns into a broken pipe, turns into a, a huge flood in your home. Well, you just went from a $200 to $300 fix to a $10,000 to $20,000 $1,000.

Yeah.

So if you can get ahead of certain things by understanding your predisposition, your genetic, um, by, uh, your genetic, uh, mutations that you may have, that can be a huge, uh, advantage, uh, in particular for your BRCA1 and 2, which a very high probability of prostate breast cancer, other cancers.

Yeah. So is that the third one? The, the BRCA?

So that is, that is still part of the, part of the genomic sequencing.

Okay. So you said there were 3. One more.

Yeah. So one more would be a brain MRI. So a brain scan in combination with a cognitive assessment can, can, one of the, one of the biggest things. So a lot of people say, I don't care about cancer. I don't care about heart disease. It doesn't impact me. I'll go when I go. But when we start talking about dementia and Alzheimer's and looking at that, you know, that scares people. That, that, because if most of us probably know somebody who had this, and it's, it's probably one of the most traumatizing things to see a loved one who you've known your entire life for, you know, if you're young, you know, 20, 30 years, if you're older, 50, 60, 70 years and then not know who you are. That's something that really stays in your head. And then to think that you could do that for your loved ones, your children, your grandchildren, that tends to drive change. And, you know, a good combination of, again, knowing your genetic predisposition, ApoE your, your brain scan and your cognitive assessment will give you early indicators. And again, more importantly, through Blueprint and our edIQ health intelligence engine, exactly what to do to extend your healthspan and cognitive abilities.

That's why they're called key indicators, right? I mean, they're really important. Now, brain MRI is not cheap, right? Can people do à la carte screening through Marquis Medical, or is it a total package?

It's a total package, but we do have, you know, lower, more approachable packages for individuals. If we get groups of people, we can play with the the different protocols to make it more—

I see. Sure. Well, it sounds like a great program. It sounds like a very important, significant role to, as a contributor to staying healthy. And we're, that's what we're all about, right? Longevity. And we don't start in our 90s. We start in our 50s and 60s. We start earlier. We start, I mean, it's hard to think about longevity when you're starting out in your 70s or 80s, right? Start out—

what, what, what you did the decade before is going to greatly impact the decade after.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And if you want to get really ahead of it, what you're doing in your 20s and 30s is going to greatly impact your, you know, 40s, 50s, right? So it's, it's all, it's all connected, you know. It's never too late to start, uh, you know. If you started doing something today you'd be amazed how fast you can, you can change your trajectory of your healthspan by just putting in some programs. We see it all the time with people who are addicts and they're bad to their bodies for decades. And as soon as they stop, yes, maybe your baseline is down here, but now you went from being at 20% to 40%. You just doubled your, your output. And then maybe the next year you double it again. So it's, you know, we're, we're living longer every day. And, and I think that healthspan is, is a very important topic.

Yeah.

It's not about just living longer, it's about living better longer.

Yeah. Reduce that gap between lifespan and healthspan. I mean, that gap is too big. So when one is closer to the other, that, that makes a big difference. Yeah. Yeah, well, that's huge. That's huge. Uh, kudos to you, Xavier, for pulling this together and making this all work. So help our listeners understand how they can learn more about Marquis Medical. What's your website?

Our website is marquimedical.com. That's a unique spelling of Marquis, M-A-R-Q-I medical.com. Uh, they can find us on LinkedIn. Social medias, Facebook, Instagram. We're all over the place.

Okay. And if they're interested or they may be affiliated with some company or organization or as an employer, they can contact someone at the website and get more information.

That's right. That's right. And we have a lot of resources for folks. If any of any either your organization or other organizations, we can certainly go over the 10 KPIs that will save your life and your business. So that's one of the talks that we're doing right now. We have a free health risk assessment on our website and we have about 100 articles on longevity and healthspan that people can read and empower themselves. So we have a lot of free resources available and I encourage people to like take a look at—

well, Good content. That's, uh, that's part of the game, educating. Yeah, staying, staying informed. Yeah, good stuff. Well, thanks. That, um, looks like we're out of time for today, Xavier. Before we wrap up, I just want to remind my listeners to visit my website for my blog library and podcast library, livemeto100.club. Visit my new community for connection, livingto100.com. Community, and the community exclusive invitation to events, live webinars, access to our private group dedicated to successful aging. And if you're part of a senior living community, don't miss my Better, Longer, and Happier card deck series. That's at livingto100.solutions. 12 engaging modules, a powerful tool for promoting wellness, personal growth, and meaningful conversation. Xavier, thanks so much for being a guest on our program today.

It was an absolute pleasure. Thank you.

Okay, and thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. Hope to see you next time.