About
Who am I?

I am a “generation X”, Barcelona-based trilingual (English, Spanish  and Portuguese) certified integrative nutrition health coach, plant-powered athlete, plant-based nutrition and genomics expert with 20-plus peer-reviewed publications in various high-impact journals, such as Nature and Science.

Having been at the forefront of scientific research for many years, with a track record of publications at the highest impact journals my purpose is to guide individuals attain their best-self based on the most up-to-date and strongest science-driven evidence for the specific changes that can make the biggest positive impact tailored to their individual condition and goals. 

I am a lifelong learner and world traveler who has lived in nine countries and visited more than fifty. I am a McGill University (Canada) Microbiology & Immunology graduate (BSc & MSc), I hold a Genomics/Computational Biology MSc from the University of Manchester (UK) and a project management certification from the University of Berkeley (USA). Furthermore, I hold a nutrition certificate from eCornell and after half a decade of helping people improve their nutrition and increase their physical activity I officially started health-coaching part-time a few months after enrolling in the highly reputable nutritional health coaching program of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN, New York, USA), which I completed in April of 2021. 

I’ve had a lifelong passion for most things related to personal fitness, sports, nutrition, anti-aging research and healthy living in general and I have strived to keep up-to-date on the latest scientific knowledge on these topics over the years. I am also a strong believer that an optimal nutrition and lifestyle have immense weight on extending one´s healthy lifespan and improving overall wellness.

Life changing events

In 2015, my mother, a person still full of vitality and in her mid 60s was diagnosed with an aggressive early-onset Alzheimer’s-type dementia and subsequently I found out that I am a carrier of two copies of the ApoE4 allele meaning that I have 12x-19x higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s in the course of my life than the general population. Almost concurrently another close family member was hit with a stage IV colon cancer diagnosis. These are both terrible conditions with an overwhelming impact on the patients and their families and at this difficult juncture of my life, I started delving deeply into science behind the role of nutrition and lifestyle in the development, prevention and management of chronic diseases. This led me to come across an ever-increasing body of scientific evidence suggesting that diseases such as colon cancer or Alzheimer’s can often be avoided or at the very least greatly delayed by taking appropriate measures.   

Eventually I decided to use all my accumulated scientific analytic “know-how” to help people achieve their best-self and through effective prevention strategies avoid eventually being victims of what are often largely preventable lifestyle-related diseases and behaviors that lead to premature aging. With that purpose in mind, I officially started health coaching a selected group of individuals on a part-time basis with excellent results, which spurred me on to recently move towards a full career change.

Life changing events

In 2015, my mother, a person still full of vitality and in her mid 60s was diagnosed with an aggressive early-onset Alzheimer’s-type dementia and subsequently I found out that I am a carrier of two copies of the ApoE4 allele meaning that I have 12x-19x higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s in the course of my life than the general population. Almost concurrently another close family member was hit with a stage IV colon cancer diagnosis. These are both terrible conditions with an overwhelming impact on the patients and their families and at this difficult juncture of my life, I started delving deeply into science behind the role of nutrition and lifestyle in the development, prevention and management of chronic diseases. This led me to come across an ever-increasing body of scientific evidence suggesting that diseases such as colon cancer or Alzheimer’s can often be avoided or at the very least greatly delayed by taking appropriate measures.   

Eventually I decided to use all my accumulated scientific analytic “know-how” to help people achieve their best-self and through effective prevention strategies avoid eventually being victims of what are often largely preventable lifestyle-related diseases and behaviors that lead to premature aging. With that purpose in mind, I started health coaching a selected group of individuals on a part-time basis with excellent results, which spurred me on to recently move towards a full career change.

Volunteering
My mother’s Alzheimer’s disease also motivated me to start collaborating with a Spanish NGO dedicated to Alzheimer’ prevention research (Foundation Pasqual Maragall) by raising awareness for the importance of scientific research in the prevention of this terrible condition (for example through this TV interview – in Spanish) as well as funds (more than US$4,100) through athletic endeavors such as the Cappadocia UltraTrail and the “Goggins Challenge” (running 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 hours). Furthermore and to further raise awareness for this terrible condition I was on a daily exercising streak (no rest days) for 581 days from March 17th 2020 (the beginning of the Covid-19 restrictions in Spain) to Oct 19th 2021. In the meantime I also logged more than 8,250 running kms since the early 2020 Covid-19 pandemic started.
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