How Tulah Clinical Wellness Turns One-Week Resets Right into a Means of Life

It was a nagging numbness in his left hand that modified all the things for Faizal Kottikollon. The Dubai-based businessman had lengthy been a yoga devotee with a penchant for headstands. And that, a number of involved medical doctors ultimately concluded, was the issue. Years of overzealous inversions had compressed his vertebrae, damaging his nerves so severely that dangerous, main surgical procedure gave the impression to be the one answer. 

Kottikollon, then in his late 50s, resolved to search out one other reply. He discovered it, he hoped, in Ayurveda, a holistic medical system practiced extensively in Kerala, the Indian state the place he was born and raised. There, he was prescribed brimhana, or tissue regeneration, utilizing a bolus remedy created from goat meat blended with rice, milk, and spices. “Through the skin pores, this goat protein goes inside the body—inside the nerves—and leaves the RNA of the goat protein, which regenerates our dead nerves,” he explains. Ayurveda, he provides, holds that the goat meat is the closest chemical analogue to human flesh. “Within three cycles of treatment, the cervical issue was solved. I had three M.R.I.s taken subsequently—it was completely gone.”

That expertise turned the seed of the concept will quickly open to the world, and which Kottikollon is sharing completely with Robb Report: Tulah Clinical Wellness, his entrant within the booming longevity market. 

Kottikollon’s strategy diverges sharply from Silicon Valley’s mannequin, usually outlined by prescription-heavy biohacking and evangelized by the likes of Bryan Johnson. Instead, Tulah emphasizes integration, pairing standard diagnostics akin to M.R.I.s and bloodwork with complementary therapies drawing from Ayurveda, Vedanta, and different conventional techniques. “Longevity is becoming a buzzword, but today a lot of biohacking is happening at the top level without understanding the foundations correctly,” he says. “Everybody wants to live longer, but using chemicals to do it is not the right way of looking at life and longevity. We need to make sure that you’re mentally and physically both in good condition until you’re 90 to 100 years old.”

He is aiming squarely at an ultra-high-net-worth clientele. When Tulah opens later this yr, stays will price as much as $2,700 per particular person per evening, inclusive of all therapies and meals.

More intriguing, although, is the technique underpinning Tulah’s rollout, which upends the blueprint deployed by most operators on this sector. Kottikollon doesn’t envision company arriving for an annual weeklong retreat solely to return to day by day life unchanged. Rather, he desires the expertise to supply an ongoing framework, woven into how folks reside, lengthy after they go away the property. To help that ambition, he’s investing closely: The 30-acre 65-suite residential clinic within the hills of northern Kerala—an estimated $100 million undertaking—will function the mom ship for a worldwide community of satellite tv for pc areas. He plans to open as many as 40 services over the following decade, starting with Dubai later this yr, adopted by Tokyo and London.

He actually has the expertise—and the capital—to gamble on such a undertaking. Kottikollon earned his fortune in 2011, promoting a stake in his valve firm, ETC, for $400 million. He later pivoted to building with KEF Infra, a modular-building agency producing prefabricated colleges, malls, and hospitals. One of these initiatives, the revolutionary Meitra Hospital in Kerala’s Calicut, helped encourage Tulah’s built-in ethos. “Today, health care is more of a reactive medicine,” he says. “Covid made me really go into the concept of prevention,” Kottikollon explains of the acute points that India throughout the pandemic. It was hit, in fact, not solely by the primary wave, however turned the worldwide epicenter of the second wave a couple of months later. This expertise triggered his resolve to put money into what he believes is a really efficient new health-care mannequin.

Health and self-discipline, he notes, have been ingrained early. His father, Peekay, was an enthusiastic weight lifter who earned the title of Mr. Kozhikode in Kerala. Kottikollon says that he “inculcated, at a very young age, that I should be disciplined and work out. I don’t drink or smoke and have always been into health and wellness.” Still, the transfer to create Tulah was a daring departure from the mainstream industrial companies on which he had constructed his fortune.

For the campus design, he employed architect Wisam Al Lami, emphasizing flowing, curved kinds impressed by Zaha Hadid’s work. “You’ll never see a sharp corner in Tulah,” he says. “The mind is much calmer when you see a river flowing, and it’s like that.” He additionally spent 5 years creating a customized water-cooling expertise that retains inside temperatures at 70 to 72 levels Fahrenheit with out chemical coolants. The campus is densely forested, and the anchor of the advanced is the Sonorium, which Kottikollon claims is the world’s largest sound-healing dome.

Clinically, Tulah can be formidable. The facility will home M.R.I.s, C.T. and M.T.I. scans, I.C.U. beds, and working rooms. Blood-work outcomes can be prepared inside hours relatively than days, and endogenomic testing can be performed each at consumption and discharge to reveal measurable well being affect. Tulah will adhere to the identical protocols because the F.D.A.—exozomes can be out there, for instance, however not stem-cell remedy—and the chief of medical companies is Dr. Ravi Parihar, an orthopedic surgeon who educated in India in addition to the U.Okay.

“All the investigation will be done by modern science,” Kottikollon explains. “But the solution will mostly come from the Eastern way of doing things.” Was it more durable to influence Eastern practitioners to embrace allopathic protocols or vice versa? “Western-medicine doctors,” he laughs, “because their ego is higher.” At Meitra, he notes, he educated medical doctors in each techniques. He additionally touts a 2023 research of fifty sufferers handled there, evaluating integrative care with purely Western protocols over a 12-week interval. Among different findings, complete ldl cholesterol markers for the integrative group fell by 28 %.

Tulah can even provide its personal signature practices. “Clinical yoga,” developed by B. Okay. S. Iyengar, capabilities as a musculoskeletal self-discipline. “It’s where we work on the spine, because the spine is where our seven energy centers are lying, the seven chakras,” Kottikollon says. “So once the spine is aligned, what clinical yoga does is, if your body is aligned correctly and strong, your mind works much clearer.” The clinic has additionally patented its Vichy bathe mattress, which makes use of warmth, sound, vibration, and stress to use 40 completely different Ayurvedic therapies. It is, he says, the perfect shorthand for Tulah’s hybrid strategy. Follow Ayurvedic rules intently sufficient, he provides, and a wholesome lifespan of 120 needs to be achievable.

Everybody desires to reside longer, however utilizing chemical compounds to do it’s not the precise means of taking a look at life and longevity.

Patients should keep for at the very least one week, although longer visits are inspired. After 48 hours of consumption testing, personalised packages are designed and shared. Most company, he expects, will arrive with persistent lifestyle-related points like his personal, akin to diabetes or musculoskeletal ache. Kottikollon is cautious to emphasize what Tulah isn’t: He isn’t making a haven for anybody eager to dismiss Western therapy for, say, most cancers and as an alternative go for a completely various plan. He says his focus stays on rehabilitation for way of life ailments and musculoskeletal points. “And it’s clearly demarcated what we can and cannot do.”

The actual differentiator could also be what occurs after company go away Tulah. The clinic has developed a proprietary algorithm, the Tulah Life Index, which aggregates metrics starting from intestine well being to muscle mass right into a single rating out of 100. Sixty and above, he says, is strong. The accompanying app integrates with wearables just like the Oura Ring and Apple Watch, offering tailor-made suggestions and steady monitoring. The knowledge can be supported by the community of Urban Tulah hubs that may replicate most companies supplied in Kerala, apart from in a single day lodging. The first Urban Tulah, a hybrid social membership and wellness heart, will open in Dubai later this yr on a membership mannequin (month-to-month dues are but to be decided). Members will are available for checkups, wholesome meals, and talks from specialists in numerous fields. London, Germany, and Singapore could possibly be subsequent. “I’ve been to all the major wellness resorts in the world,” Kottikollon says. “You feel better when you’re there, but you go back to the old lifestyles. Tulah tech was developed for the follow-up to happen.”

The technique has drawn plaudits from leaders within the longevity house. Dr. Sabine Donnai, founding father of London-based Viavi, lauds Tulah’s integrative protocols whereas noting that many standard wellness retreats are sometimes efficient just because company disengage from stress. “The impact I see for most people? It’s the being away,” she says. “You do not reset your physiology during a week, and there is no follow-through. We’ve looked for that everywhere, and nobody actually has that hub and the spokes where you can keep on going for remeasuring, redoing, follow-up treatments.” She does sound a notice of warning round natural therapies, the place Ayurveda sometimes insists on just-picked freshness for max efficacy. (“Clinical protocols follow Ayurveda’s yukti principle, using dried or extract-based equivalents when effective,” a Tulah spokesperson informed Robb Report. “And each Urban Centre includes a micro-apothecary to prepare treatments requiring genuinely fresh botanicals.”)

California concierge doctor Jordan Shlain, founding father of Private Medical, is cautiously optimistic. “We’re at the peak of the hype cycle for longevity,” he says, whereas welcoming Tulah’s emphasis on continuity of care. “Longevity centers help you recognize there’s hard work to do, not while you’re there but every day, or most days.” Still, he warns towards “performative wellness,” citing flashy diagnostics that lack scientific grounding. “It’s not proven tech, but big fancy machines [that] spit out colorful graphs, maybe saying you gotta stop eating this or that. But based on what?” Ayurveda, he notes, is completely different. “There’s proof it lowers your inflammation while you’re there, but a lot of it is psychological in nature. It’s a window of what your life could be like if you created the habits around it.”

Others are extra skeptical. Brad Inman, the real-estate entrepreneur–turned–longevity guru who based Livelong Media questions whether or not Kottikollon’s sources can maintain a worldwide community. He argues that franchising could be extra be extra viable. “These high-end clinics are harder to sell and harder to service. But considering how hot longevity is… some smart, well-financed people in venture capital or private equity could make this happen.” He additionally doubts the enchantment of main metropolis areas like London. “It’s not like we’re all living the longevity dream every day, even if we try to,” he provides, suggesting that resort locations akin to St. Barts would extra readily lure company with each the time and the inclination for follow-up checkups.

Kottikollon, although, stays undeterred. He believes that after company see, really feel—and clinically confirm—the outcomes, they may commit. Days at Tulah, he explains, start and finish with communal rituals: a daybreak gathering within the forest, the place company ring a small bell because the solar rises, and a night lamp-lighting ceremony at sundown. “People have to be taught about longevity, that it’s not just about biohacking,” he says. “It’s about looking inwardly, you know, a holistic approach to the body and mind.” Just don’t overdo the headstands.

Top: You’ll battle to discover a sharp edge or laborious nook right here—Tulah’s strategy to structure is distinctly sinuous and natural, as this rendering exhibits.

Authors

• Mark Ellwood

  British-born, NYC-based Mark Ellwood is Robb Report’s editor-at-large. He has lived out of a suitcase for many of his life, protecting luxurious in all its kinds the world over. Among his favourite…

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