How Virta Health is Reversing Chronic Disease | Sami Inkinen - E438

Low Carb MD Podcast

Drs. Brian Lenzkes & Tro Kalayjian

Medicine, Mental Health, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 13 April 2026

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sami Inkinen is the co-founder and CEO of Virta Health, a leader in reversing metabolic disease through nutrition, technology, and expert support. Inspired by his own experience with prediabetes, he has helped scale Virta to serve over 100,000 members nationwide. A former Trulia executive and endurance athlete, Sami once rowed 2,750 miles from California to Hawaii to raise awareness about sugar and metabolic health.

In this episode, Dr. Tro and Sami talk about…

(00:00) Intro
(03:13) Sami's personal health journey and career journey that led him to the founding of Virta Health
(08:32) How Sami went from being a successful entrepreneur to focusing his efforts on metabolic health
(18:29) Virta's approach to reaching people and the world with metabolic freedom
(30:07) How Virta uses AI to help people reverse disease
(36:52) Outro

For more information, please see the links below. Thank you for listening!

Links:

Please consider supporting us on Patreon: https://www.lowcarbmd.com/

Sami Inkinen:

Virta Health: https://www.virtahealth.com/
X: https://x.com/samiinkinen
Website: https://www.samiinkinen.com/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samiinkinen/

Dr. Brian Lenzkes:

Website: https://arizonametabolichealth.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrianLenzkes?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author

Dr. Tro Kalayjian:

Website: https://toward.health
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DoctorTro
IG: https://www.instagram.com/doctortro/

Toward Health App

Join a growing community of individuals who are improving their metabolic health; together.

Get started at your own pace with a self-guided curriculum developed by Dr. Tro and his care team, community chat, weekly meetings, courses, challenges, message boards and more.

Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/doctor-tro/id1588693888

Google: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.disciplemedia.doctortro&hl=en_US&gl=US

Learn more: https://toward.health/community/

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Low Carb MD Podcast. No one is beyond help. No one is beyond hope.
0:07.2	Nothing said on the Low Carb MD podcast is medical advice. Please consult your own doctor before making any lifestyle changes.
0:20.2	Welcome to the Lowcarb MD podcast.
0:22.8	I am so excited about today.
0:24.8	I actually have one of my personal heroes, somebody who's really paved the way in metabolic health and metabolic medicine.
0:33.1	And he's a visionary and he's not a clinician, which makes him even more appealing and even more
0:40.3	of an inspiration to me. We have an amazing guest here. It's Sami Inkanin, sorry. And he is the
0:50.4	chief executive officer and a founder of Verda Health.
0:55.9	And if you've been living under a rock and you don't know what Verda Health is, Verda
1:01.0	Health started, and certainly he can tell the story of Verda better than I can, in 2017,
1:08.4	with some of the most biggest giants in metabolic medicine, Volick, Finney,
1:16.6	and of course the late Sarah Hallberg, and they have plowed the way helping over 100,000
1:24.7	people reverse their chronic disease, and their newest updated mission, I believe, is one, a target of one billion people to be
1:34.3	disease, metabolic disease free, which includes obesity and diabetes.
1:38.3	Their publications in chronic disease reversal, type 2 diabetes, obesity, even GLP tapering, depression, and soon-to-be data
1:50.4	on mortality is been an inspiration to me and other people in the field. And I know none of this
2:00.6	would be possible without somebody
2:04.3	who understands medicine, who understands metabolic health, and who has gone through the journey
2:11.6	himself, who found himself pre-diabetic despite being an amazing triathlete and Ironman athlete. So, you know, I can't imagine
2:21.7	what it would be like to, you know, grow a company like Trulia, sell it to Zillow, you know,
2:29.0	be an Iron Man athlete, all to find that you have pre-diabetes, and I'm guessing that's where the story starts.
2:35.4	So, I mean, I appreciate you coming on. I know you're really busy, and I just want to let you know
	...

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