60,000 miles of opportunity. This is where it began.
I have spent my career translating complexity – the molecular signals inside a blood vessel wall, the unfolding of a surgical crisis for a family who didn’t expect to be there, the noise of health information that reaches people long before they see a doctor. The common thread is not the subject matter. It is the act of making something difficult clear enough to act upon.
Underneath that, always, is the same instinct: things can be better. Cells can be returned to health. Systems can catch what they currently miss. People can be given what they need to make real decisions about their own lives – not instructions but understanding.
That is the core of 60khealth.
I am Kathryn Howe, MD PhD. Vascular Surgeon. Scientist. Founder of 60khealth.
During my grief, it felt as though I was at a personal and professional crossroads. It took a long time, but I eventually realized I could no longer be the kind of physician I wanted to be within neurosurgery. Changing specialties meant leaving my training family and finding a new path. I have been lucky to be supported along the way, but it was still a long and tough journey.
What I found was vascular surgery – operating on diseased blood vessels and running a laboratory researching how disease forms in our blood vessel walls causing stroke and heart attack. You can imagine my reaction when, as a vascular surgeon, I received a call that my mother had suffered a stroke and was in intensive care, out of the country. In some ways, our family was catapulted back in time – for something that could have been prevented. Her stroke was directly caused by undiagnosed diabetes.
I have now seen how disease unfolds from every angle: in the lab, in the operating room, and at the bedsides of my own family. The technical skill to treat these events is real and hard-won. But the more important question – why they happen at all, and what could have stopped them – is one that clinical medicine, by design, is not structured to answer first.
What I had, that most people who reach this conclusion do not, was twenty years of relevant science.
A PhD examining how the gut epithelium — the barrier between the body and the outside world — responds to chronic inflammation, and how those signals travel systemically. Neurosurgery training that deepened my understanding of the brain's regulation of multiple systems. And a research career mapping how vascular endothelial cells communicate distress long before disease becomes visible on any scan.
The gut. The brain. The blood vessel wall. These are not three separate systems. They are in constant conversation. Understanding that conversation — at the molecular level, in human tissue, in living patients — is the scientific basis of 60khealth.
Ancient practices – breathwork, stillness, deliberate recovery – are not alternatives to science. They are the science our body already knows. It’s time to listen. These interventions have measurable effects on autonomic regulation and ultimately, on the endothelium we want to protect. By regulating stress and inflammation, we can shift the environment our blood vessels operate in – toward health rather than disease. The mechanisms are real. The evidence is growing.
Prevention grounded in vascular biology and real data. A framework that connects daily choices to what is actually happening inside your blood vessels — where wearable metrics, lab markers, and lived experience are all legitimate inputs, and where people are treated as partners capable of handling the actual evidence.
The goal is not to replace your doctor or your existing care. It is to give you the biological foundation and the daily habits that make every interaction with your healthcare system more productive. Your primary care provider remains your long-term partner. 60khealth is designed to strengthen that partnership – giving you the biological insights to join the conversation at another level.
I share my story with you to connect and show the foundation upon which 60khealth was built. These insights uniquely stem from my understanding of the connection between our gut, nervous system, and the 60,000 miles of blood vessels necessary for every aspect of health. Insights also come from living through loss – preventable and unpreventable – meaning I see the difference between what can be changed, what cannot, and what falls into the territory of balanced risk.
This brings me to the last point. I believe life is also about taking balanced risks and recognizing that there must be joy along the way. It's different for each of us. For some, it might be about taking a thoughtful approach to risk during adrenalin sports and activities – as I do for mountaineering, surfing, and motorcycle riding – or simply acknowledging and then deciding to indulge with our favourite food or drink, as we all do. It's crucial that we enjoy life along the way.
Prevention built on deprivation ignores our humanity. Knowing the difference between what actually moves the needle and what is just health noise is what makes a healthy, full life possible. That distinction is built into everything 60khealth does.
If any of this resonates, we would love to hear from you.
The program design at 60khealth is shaped by two perspectives that are rarely found together.
My husband, Cameron Foster, brings 20 years of coaching experience across rugby, mixed martial arts, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and hockey, alongside an engineering mind that translates complex principles into things people can actually do. His role is not to simplify the science — it is to make it liveable. That distinction matters.
