Metabolic syndrome requires regular check-ups and appropriate lifestyle changes. The digital clinic Holifya supports patients throughout this journey.
High blood sugar, rising blood pressure, cholesterol above the limit, an increasing waist circumference: taken individually, these seem like manageable problems, but when they appear all at once they become the warning signs of metabolic syndrome. Not a sudden emergency, but a condition that builds up over time, when unhealthy habits become entrenched and meet an often overstretched healthcare system. The problem is that the signals are frequently picked up too late, and the therapeutic response is fragmented. This is where solutions like Holifya come in — one of Italy's first digital clinics dedicated to metabolic health. Its goal is to transform what is often episodic medical management into a structured and continuous care pathway: remote patient intake, integrated diagnostics, and a constant direct line to specialists.
In Italy, the data speak for themselves: among people aged 18 to 69, only 7 per cent of Italians meet the recommended five daily portions of fruit and vegetables (Passi, the national surveillance system), while in 2023, according to Istat, 46.3 per cent of people over 18 were overweight and almost 12 per cent were living with obesity.
On the diabetes front, the 2024 Parliamentary Report counts nearly 4 million people with type 2 diabetes — around 6 per cent of the population — alongside an estimated share of as yet undiagnosed cases. And approximately 30 per cent of people present at least three altered parameters that constitute metabolic syndrome.
If we broaden our view to Europe, the picture is no different: according to Eurostat, in 2022 more than half the adult population of the European Union fell into the categories of overweight or obesity. With numbers like these, we cannot speak of an individual problem — this is a matter of public health, with enormous economic and social costs.
Metabolic syndrome requires regular check-ups, therapeutic adjustments, and gradual changes to daily habits. Holifya was created to meet this need with a hybrid model: entirely online, but with a constant medical presence. It begins with real clinical data — a consultation with specialists, blood tests, medical history, metabolic parameters — to build a personalised plan that integrates nutrition, physical activity, and pharmacological therapy.
Care is diagnosis. It is guidance. It is continuity. It is someone who stays by the patient's side even after the prescription has been written.
Holifya
On this foundation, an algorithmic system also comes into play, using the data to personalise the care pathway: it does not make decisions in place of the doctor, but helps to better calibrate therapeutic choices, optimise care, and improve adherence over time. There is another dimension too: the data collected — in aggregated and anonymised form — become valuable for clinical research and for building prevention models increasingly grounded in real cases, not only controlled studies.
In other words, Holifya does not offer a method for "losing weight", but a guided, human and accessible pathway for taking care of one's health. A pathway in which patients are not left alone to face test results, prescriptions, and changes to manage on their own.
Over the past two years, Glp-1 receptor agonist drugs (such as semaglutide and tirzepatide) have become the focus of public debate: effective in managing type 2 diabetes and obesity, they are nonetheless very expensive and are often used without an appropriate medical prescription. Within a care pathway like Holifya's, they return to their original function — therapeutic tools to be prescribed only when clinically indicated and under close supervision. The aim is to avoid prescribing inappropriateness which, beyond being dangerous for health, generates waste and strain on the system.
There is another aspect that makes Holifya's approach noteworthy: sustainability. Metabolic health has economic, social and even environmental repercussions. As highlighted by the EAT-Lancet Commission report, published in The Lancet, dietary choices have a direct impact not only on health but also on the environment. Diets rich in plant-based foods — such as legumes, wholegrains, fruit and vegetables — are associated with a lower risk of metabolic diseases and, at the same time, with a lower environmental footprint compared with dietary patterns based on high consumption of red meat, added sugars, and ultra-processed products.
Models like Holifya could also represent an important lever for a more sustainable healthcare system: by reducing unnecessary emergency department visits, late-stage complications and wasted resources, it would be possible to ease an economic burden that today rests on everyone's shoulders. And then there is the social dimension: millions of people today struggle to find care pathways that are truly compatible with their daily lives, especially when managing a condition becomes continuous and demands organisation, time and expertise.
Making care more structured is extremely important, but it is not enough. Real prevention also depends on awareness: knowing that eating primarily ultra-processed foods has consequences, that a sedentary lifestyle weighs as heavily as smoking, that certain signals — such as high blood sugar or blood pressure above the threshold — must be taken seriously before they become chronic.
Models like Holifya go beyond prescriptions: it is concrete support on nutrition, physical activity and stress management, with a team that stays by the patient's side. Technology, in this sense, makes medicine closer, more understandable and more present in people's daily lives.
