Diabetes at lower BMI
SA users should be screened for diabetes starting at BMI 23, not 25 (ADA 2024). Masala Health flags screening prompts at the SA threshold, not the default.
Health, calibrated
for South Asians.
South Asians develop heart disease 5–10 years earlier, get diabetes at lower BMI, and carry genetic risk factors that standard screening misses. Masala Health is a personal health tracker built around the evidence — and turned into a daily plan you can actually follow, for you, your kids, and your aging parents.
Securely syncs with your Apple Health, MyChart. Ask questions, get insights.
Why this exists
The numbers your doctor uses weren't measured on you.
Most American screening guidelines were calibrated on a mostly European-ancestry population. South Asians develop cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes earlier, at lower BMI, through different metabolic pathways — and the MASALA Study at UCSF and Northwestern has spent fifteen years documenting how. Masala Health uses that evidence to calibrate what you see.
Cardiovascular events 5–10 years earlier
SA users have higher coronary calcium at every age band vs other US ethnic groups (MASALA Study, Kanaya 2014). Baseline CAC screening prompts begin at 35 in SA users (AHA Volgman 2018).
Lp(a) — fixed at birth, rarely tested
Lp(a) is a genetic risk factor for heart attack and stroke. It's stable through life, and 20–25% of any population is elevated. AHA, ACC, and NLA recommend testing once in adulthood. Most South Asians never have. Masala Health prompts it.
- AHA Scientific Statement on CVD in South Asians (Volgman et al., 2018)
- NLA Lipoprotein(a) Update (2024)
- ADA Standards of Care (2024) — SA screening at BMI ≥23
- WHO Asian BMI cutoffs (2004)
- MASALA Study (UCSF + Northwestern), 2010 – present
- ESC SCORE2 with SA risk-calibration multiplier (2021)
The thresholds and prompts here are grounded in named guidelines and named studies — we don't make up clinical claims. Masala Health is not a medical device and is not a substitute for clinical care.
From numbers to a plan
A flagged number is a starting point, not a verdict.
Knowing your ApoB runs high for a South Asian body is the first half. The second half is a plan you can actually do tomorrow. Masala Health turns your verified findings into a short daily checklist — movement, nutrition, recovery — and reshapes it around the day you're actually having.
Your labs become today's checklist
Low iron — common in South Asian diets — shows up as "Get some iron today," with a meal picker that pulls from a desi, vegetarian-aware recipe corpus. Add the meal and the item ticks itself. Movement and recovery work the same way.
The day adapts to your real life
A short night reshapes the day. An elevated glucose reading adds a post-meal walk. A logged Apple Health workout fills the movement ring on its own. Tell it "knee's sore, swap the run" in plain words and tomorrow's plan adjusts — identifiers redacted before anything leaves your device.
A weekly reset, and your clinician stays in the loop
Each week the plan retires what you've outgrown so it never nags. And any time, you can hand your doctor a clean PDF of your plan and your numbers — so the person accountable for your care actually has the picture.
Train
A strength coach that writes the program — not a template.
Most fitness apps hand you a fixed template and leave the thinking to you. Masala Health's coach reads your recent training and recovery alongside the same SA-calibrated labs and body-composition the rest of the app already tracks, then writes a weekly strength program around your goal — and rewrites it every week from what you actually log.
Zero setup
Three quick choices — goal, days per week, equipment — each prefilled from your data and skippable. Tap once and the coach builds the rest. No spreadsheets, no program design.
No templates — it adapts
The program is generated for your body and history, not pulled off a shelf. A short night, a sore knee, or a logged workout reshapes what's next. Tell it "swap the run" in plain words and next week adjusts.
Grounded in your record
The coach sees the same labs and body composition as the rest of the app, so your training and your metabolic numbers pull in the same direction. Already follow a program? Bring it over and the coach takes it from there.
Open data
The evidence layer, opened up.
We're assembling the South Asian thresholds and reference ranges behind Masala Health into Open Masala — one machine-readable, cited, evidence-graded dataset, free for developers, health teams, researchers, and LLMs.
Status
In private beta.
Masala Health is in private beta on iPhone (iOS 26). Priority access for South Asian users and families. It's on-device by default — your records stay on your iPhone, encrypted at rest by iOS. Leave an email; we'll be in touch when the next slot opens.
We'll only email you about beta access. No newsletter, no list rentals, no third-party tracking.