Doctor Amino Acid

Dr Aydin Duygu is a medical doctor specialized in Family Medicine and holding a master degree in Biomedical Engineering.

Dr Aydin Duygu is a former clinical research manager with the multinational life science companies Celgene and Abbott.

Dr Duygu is a published author in the field of amino acid research and he is the operator of Dr Amino Acid Clinics in London and Istanbul where predictive, preventive and personalized medicine is applied.

MedCity, UK endorsed him as Innovator in Digital health/Medical technology with the statement of “Dr Aydin Duygu has pioneered a technique and evidence-based algorithm to undertake comprehensive human amino acid profiling and thereby provide personalised supplementation unique to the needs of an individual client."

Dr Duygu gained the UK Innovator visa and established Amino Acid Science Limited at Imperial College I-HUB, an R&D company studies on amino acid analyses and amino acid treatments.

 1. The prevalence of Lifestyle-related diseases such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases increase very fast and current medical approach is not sufficient to reduce the global health and economic burden of such diseases

2. We have developed a solution to alleviate the burden of such diseases by taking advantage of the predictive features of amino acid analysis and preventive features of amino acid  therapies with minimal intervention.

3. This is an innovative service in the linking of personalised analytical profiling of multiple amino acids in a human sample to a personalised supplement uniquely tailored to deficiency/excess/absorption profile of that individual.  

Obesity and type 2 diabetes are important cause of mortality, morbidity, and health-system costs in the world and now considered as pandemic although they are non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs).  The global burden of NCDs is high, with 41 million deaths per year, equivalent to 71% of all deaths globally. Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) account for the majority of NCD deaths, with 17.9 million people per year.

Insulin resistance and obesity are the main pathophysiological base of the development of type 2 diabetes and CVDs. Early detection, screening and management of high-risk individuals are essential to prevent obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes and CVDs induced by them. Therefore, standardized biomarkers capable of predicting such diseases years before their onset is an unmet need.  Early prediction opportunity of diseases provides a reasonable time to prevent them with effective and easily applicable approaches that don’t require costly treatments.

Amino acid concentrations are strongly predictive for the future insulin resistance, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases almost 10 years before disease onset. Moreover, amino acid therapies have potential to prevent and/or treat such diseases.

Therefore, the specific problem we solve is to identify high-risk individuals for the most prevalent diseases related to lifestyle and provide patient-specific targeted therapies.

We have developed a new technique and evidence-based algorithm to undertake comprehensive human amino acid profiling, and thereby provide personalised supplementation or diet unique to the needs of an individual who suffers from lifestyle-related chronic disease or who are at risk.

Amino acid analysis is not used as a routine clinical test in adults because current laboratory reports don’t provide a clinical assessment opportunity due to not including amino acid indices as biomarkers.  We have created a software as a comprehensive diagnostic and predictive tool in order to distinguish healthy, risky or diseased individual with the help of amino acid biomarkers which are automatically generated by software. These biomarkers are capable of to predict or diagnose insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, obesity, CVDs years before their onset.  According to software data, a tailor-made free form amino acid blend is provided to prevent risk, or as a metabolic therapy for already established diseases. 

The community we work with is people who are at risk for the most common chronic diseases related to lifestyle, and people who already have these diseases. Such diseases cause premature death, disability, and economic loss and generally attributed to ageing, unhealthy diets, sedentary lifestyles and obesity.

Obesity and type 2 diabetes are good examples of how patients are unable to change their lifestyle and benefit less from treatments once the disease is established. With our solution, people can have the chance to learn the risk almost 10 years before, and thereby easily adapted to preventive lifestyle changes, and reached to targeted preventive treatments. It is also used to find out how people with established diseases are prone to complications.

Our model is successful to discriminate risky individuals for such diseases with minimal intervention and lower physical burden on individuals since it requires only a single blood sample. We then provided customized amino acid therapies. Customized amino acid therapy promotes weight loss and weight maintenance.  Further, it improves glucose homeostasis, increases energy expenditure, and can preserve lean body mass. 

Lifestyle-related chronic diseases have spread widely not only in high-income countries, but also in many low- and middle-income countries over recent decades.

The major problem with the current healthcare approach is to make more efforts to develop effective treatments, but less effort to develop preventive approaches. Therefore, only 1% of the global health funding goes towards preventing these diseases.

In the era of patient-specific targeted therapies, our solution is one of the most effective ways to combat the burden of such diseases and can raise awareness of the importance of prediction and prevention in chronic diseases.

As a family physician, my main objective is to prevent diseases rather than treatment.  However, current screening tools can only distinguish already established diseases, but not future risks. So, finding an effective preventive strategy against lifestyle-related diseases was a challenge for me. Because obesity, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases are at epidemic dimension in Turkey, the UK and other countries.

Currently, a person is diagnosed as insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes when established blood markers are higher than their cut-off values.  However, it is evident that the process of such diseases begins almost 20 years before clinical symptoms.  Eight years ago, I questioned whether something in the blood had changed before the blood glucose level reached the threshold of diabetes, and I have searched the medical literature.

I have found high-level evidence that amino acids can predict most diseases years before their onset, and amino acid therapies have the ability to reduce the disease risk and progress to complications. We used the data searched in the literature to create a solution in terms of analysis and treatment, and then we transformed it into a clinical tool through a software. We also established a customized supplement manufacturing facility. 

We currently serve with this project in Turkey and in the UK to prevent lifestyle-related diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and CVDs.  In Turkey, the rate of increase in prevalence in last 12 years is 90 % for diabetes and 40 % for obesity.  According to Lancet 2016, The disease causes roughly 60 000 deaths every year, and consumes almost a quarter of the country’s health-care expenditure. In the UK, over 4 million people is currently living with diabetes. Heart and circulatory diseases cause 27% of all deaths in the UK.

The burden of not taking action against such diseases will be enormous not only in diagnosis and treatment costs, but also in early deaths. Therefore, an early diagnostic and predictive tool, and effective preventive approaches are urgent needs for lifestyle-related diseases.  

We are passionate about expanding our project as much as possible, as we have developed a system by integrating scientifically proven diagnostic and predictive method with a preventive approach.

Prediction opportunity of disease ten years before symptoms onset give a reasonable time to prevent diseases with effective and feasible lifestyle changes and customized amino acid therapies. 

As a committed team, we are among few scientists having the expertise to interpret amino acid profiling and translate it to designing customized free form amino acid supplements as a metabolic therapy.  We are operating through two clinics and two R&D companies established in Istanbul and London that entirely focused on amino acid analysis and amino acid treatments.

With our eight years of experience, we have evaluated more than 3000 plasma amino acid profiling of various health conditions. We manufactured more than 10000 customized premixes.

We have already submitted the manuscript describing the amino acid analysis software we developed to a very prestigious medical journal.

Dr Aydin Duygu as team leader is a medical doctor specialized in Family Medicine and holding a master degree in Biomedical Engineering.  He is a former clinical research manager with the multinational life science companies Celgene and Abbott.

Dr Duygu is a published author in the field of amino acid research.  

MedCity, UK endorsed him as Innovator in Digital health/Medical technology with the statement of “Dr Aydin Duygu has pioneered a technique and evidence-based algorithm to undertake comprehensive human amino acid profiling and thereby provide personalised supplementation unique to the needs of an individual client." 

As a Software Engineer in our team, Professor Adem Karahoca is very experienced in using the adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system, data mining and developing artificial intelligence algorithm.

Our team also has skilled chemists to prepare customized mixtures according to the receipts and to ensure product stability. 

In this project, we have created a unique service by integrating different facilities, and creating software that provides us an amino acid management system. Almost every step of this solution was a challenge because none of the steps was previously in clinical use.

The first obstacle was to find a laboratory that analyses blood amino acids via LC-MS/MS method in Turkey and in the UK.  We encouraged the laboratory which covers majority of the country, and connected it to laboratories that can analyse blood amino acids via LC-MS/MS method which is the most advanced technology.

The second obstacle was the absence of amino acid profiling interpretation method. Therefore, we searched the literature and reviewed almost all amino acid index studies and created our software in a clinical research setup that is finally submitted to the medical journal.

As a third obstacle, there wasn’t a manufacturing company that accept to manufacture our customized products, as the formula for each patient changed. For this reason, I had to establish a personalized supplement manufacturing laboratory in teknoparkistanbul.

By solving all these challenges, we have transformed all obstacles into a feasible service recognized by the UK as an innovation in medical technology.  

While working as a medical and clinical research manager at Abbott, I designed a national, multi-center, observational, prospective photographic atlas study in subjects who are treated with Tumor Necrosis Factor Inhibitors (Anti TNFs) in patients with psoriasis (NCT01126619).

Since dermatological problems were visible, I thought that the response to treatment could be evaluated with photographs. However, there was no consensus in dermatology clinics in Turkey about clinical photographing. Therefore, it was almost impossible for universities to accept to participate in such a clinical trial.

To conduct this study, I followed an extraordinary strategy by demonstrating a leadership ability.  As the project leader and study designer, I enabled the sponsor company to establish a fully equipped clinical photograph studios in 30 university hospitals and to train 60 dermatologists from each university on how to take standard clinical psoriasis photographs and use them for clinical assessment.

With this project, dermatology clinics had the same high standard studios (cameras, curtains, positioning equipment and underwears, etc). Trained dermatologists continued to train new dermatologists about clinical photographing.  An atlas exhibiting the visual evidence of the effects of Anti TNFs in psoriasis has been created for the training of dermatologists. 

Amino acid analysis is not frequently used in the clinical setting for adults, despite numerous clinical studies exhibiting the predictive and preventive value of amino acids for type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, obesity and cardiovascular diseases. The main reason why amino acid analysis is not taken into account in the clinical setting is that current amino acid profiling cannot help distinguish physiological and pathological conditions unless amino acid levels change as seen in childhood metabolic diseases

On the other hand, amino acid treatments have been documented to be significantly effective in a variety of diseases without safety concerns. As with vitamins and minerals, the use of amino acids for therapeutic purposes is not routine.

With an innovative approach, we created a new service by linking of personalized analytical profiling of multiple amino acids in a human sample to a personalized supplement uniquely tailored to deficiency/excess/absorption profile of that individual. 

We this project:

• We have transformed the amino acid analysis, which is frequently used in clinical studies, into an evidence-based predictive health assessment tool for lifestyle-related chronic diseases in clinical settings. The amino acid profiling model we developed can help determine various health conditions with minimal intervention.
• We used this analysis to formulate tailored free form amino acids which have scientifically proven efficacy on health and disease-related parameters.

Both steps are important transformation in amino acid analysis and amino acid supplementation model that create a new dimension of performance.