Prof. Dr. Kai Simons, the founder and CEO of Lipotype, is one of the most inspiring Lipotype team members, dedicated to lipid research and promoting public health. As passionate as he is about lipids, he is equally committed to healthy lifestyles. That’s one of the reasons he continues to stay healthy and encourages a healthy lifestyle to the Lipotype team as well. Do you want to know about his sustainable healthy habits and leadership skills alongside his scientific accomplishments? Today, we’re sharing Kai’s healthy lifestyle and his secrets to building teams.
Kai’s Thoughts on Public Health Today
“Our welfare and quality of life depend on how we live, how we eat, and how we exercise and move,” Kai says. Since 1900, the average life expectancy of the world has steadily increased. However, life expectancy in the U.S. ranks near the bottom among wealthy nations in OECD countries, and today, it is even decreasing, despite the U.S. spending the most on healthcare in the world.
According to Kai, one of the reasons is the rise of unhealthy foods and drinks such as ready-made food, fast food, and sugary beverages. The problem is that these foods contain corn syrup and fructose. High-fructose corn syrup disrupts lipid metabolism, and this imbalance can lead to serious health issues over time.
Western vs. Mediterranean Diet
The Western diet, high in energy-dense foods and long-chain saturated fatty acids (LCSFAs) like palmitic acid, promotes an increase in harmful ceramide levels in tissues and circulation. Fructose can also elevate the production of these harmful ceramides by increasing hepatic lipogenesis. In contrast, the Mediterranean diet, which is rich in monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) and omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), helps lower lipotoxic ceramide levels by improving mitochondrial function, metabolic flexibility, and reducing inflammation.
Healthy Habits Kai Follows All Day
Kai’s secret to staying healthy isn’t complicated, but it’s about being consistent. If you look at his daily routine, you’ll see healthy habits that have become second nature. Every morning, he starts his day with 13 minutes of gymnastics in bed as soon as he wakes up. Then, he does 40 push-ups. Of course, instead of driving, he walks to work! Based on his own tracking, he takes around 10,000 steps a day. The most surprising part is that he has kept this up for more than 30 years.
A Wide Range of Hobbies
He also emphasizes the importance of life outside of work. He spends a lot of time on hobbies he is passionate about. He enjoys skiing, tennis, soccer, and reading. Reading is one of the things that shaped him. He describes himself as an avid reader, and he read around 20 novels last year. To enrich his cultural life, he is also going to movies, concerts, and the theater. Of course, he shares these experiences with his life partner, his fantastic wife Carola.
Soccer is one of the activities Kai enjoys to maintain his strength and energy. For him, the game is not about winning. His football friends are all much better players than he is and very ambitious, which leads to injuries that Kai tries to avoid. He focuses on staying fit and active so that he can not only work but also spend time with family and friends.
Kai’s Advice for Staying Healthy
As someone who follows the Mediterranean diet, he warns about the dangers of ultra-processed foods.
“Try to eat homemade food, not frozen pizzas. These ultra-processed foods not only contain too much fructose but also taste enhancers and additives that are not good for you. Be careful about your diet and what you eat. Secondly, exercise is key. You don’t need to do much. If you are not exercising, try something simple, such as biking or walking almost every day. It will help your body to stay fit. When you get older, it is more difficult to start exercising. It’s much easier to build up habits early and add more later. You certainly need more discipline to stay fit when you get older.”
Inspiring Lipotype’s Growth Through Optimism
At Lipotype, four out of the five founder members are still here. When Kai received the question about the secret to building lasting teams, he instead brought up another question: “How do you live your life, both your private side and professional side?”. Then he shared his own answer. “An optimistic view of life helps you.” At first, optimism may seem unrelated to leadership, but after listening to his thoughts, it becomes clear why it’s important. He has learned that people matter, and building strong teams requires authenticity and openness. For him, that means sharing his optimism. Also, enthusiasm helps. Without that enthusiastic positive outlook, he couldn’t have built a company and inspired those around him.
Leadership comes naturally to Kai. He loves connecting with people, sharing ideas, and turning those ideas into reality. All of these keep him energized and alive. He said,
Kai says:
“If I had stopped after retirement, closed my lab, and stopped doing research at the Max Planck Institute, I would not be in the shape I am today.”
Dr. Kai Simons
Founder/CEO
Lipidomics For A Better Life
For more than 60 years, Kai has explored medicine, vitamins, cell membranes, vaccines, and lipids. So why is he getting so deeply immersed in lipidomics? There are compelling reasons behind his fascination. Kai explained it this way:
“When I was working on vitamin B12, I made an important observation about the way the vitamin was taken up into the circulation. The vitamin B12–intrinsic factor complex has to be taken up from the intestine to enter the intestinal cell, leave the cell, and pass through the membrane once more into the bloodstream. How can a protein-vitamin complex pass through the membrane, the lipid bilayer? This process intrigued and made me interested in cell membranes and ultimately led me to lipids.
Lipids are a huge and important group of molecules, important for our well-being. Since our cells and body fluids contain thousands of different lipid molecules, they cannot be ignored. The lipid raft concept explains part of this diversity, but there is, of course, more to it. Measuring hundreds or thousands of lipids provides us with better insights into our metabolism and health. There are still so many exciting discoveries about lipids to be made. That is why lipidomics is such a fascinating field, underexplored yet extremely important.”
