Dr. Will Cole on LYMA's A-list laser fans, ID² gut powder and the science of longevity.
Dr. Will Cole already uses the LYMA Laser in his own longevity stack. On The Art of Being Well, he gets the full story on LYMA's new ID² gut powder - and why the laser has quietly become an A-list beauty staple.
Dr. Will Cole is one of the most recognizable names in functional medicine. He's best known for his New York Times bestselling books (Intuitive Fasting, Gut Feelings, Ketotarian, and The Inflammation Spectrum) and his chart-topping podcast The Art of Being Well. So when he invites a founder onto his show, it's usually because they've built something that has earned his attention - and the science holds up.
This time it was LYMA's founder, Lucy Goff. The conversation was diverse and covered an array of topics from celebrities to skin and LYMA’s latest product launch, a first-of-its-kind gut powder.
The A-list open secret
Ask Lucy who's using the LYMA Laser, and the answer reads like a roll call of A-listers - Dr. Cole among them,
She was at the launch of Martha Stewart's skincare line in New York, watching an editor from WWD interview Martha and Courteney Cox on stage. Martha was asked which technology she uses. "Well, I love the LYMA," she said, "and I use it hanging upside down." Courteney Cox turned to her: "Oh wow, you use a LYMA Laser? I use a LYMA Laser every day." Then Martha spotted Lucy in the audience. "Oh look - there's Lucy. She's the founder."
"It was a real pinch-me moment," Lucy says. "I'm just astounded at who's got one."
The beauty professionals got there first: Joanna Czech, the facialist behind some of the most photographed faces at the Met Gala, was initially an early skeptic. "I don't believe in lasers. I don't believe in damaging skin," she told Lucy, before agreeing to one test: if the laser stopped her summer pigmentation in the Hamptons, they'd talk in September. The message came back in mid-September. "Okay, I'll speak to you now. I've not got any pigmentation, and everyone's asking me what I've done to my skin." She became the first professional to adopt the LYMA Laser in America.
But the A-list glow is only part of the story. LYMA has built a line of products: the Laser, the Supplement, Skincare and now ID² - each one grounded in science, evidence and real innovation. And the product Lucy was most eager to talk to Dr. Cole about was the newest of them.
Enter ID²
What Lucy really wanted to get into was the gut.
LYMA's newest launch is ID², a gut powder created by Professor Paul Clayton, the longevity scientist behind every LYMA formulation. He refers to ID² as his most ambitious work to date. And it deliberately disrupts the gut industry.
"So much of the gut industry is focused on probiotics," Lucy explains. The LYMA view is that the more important work is done by prebiotic fibers, the food that nourishes your gut's own beneficial bacteria. It's far better to create your own probiotic than to ingest it."
The twist is in the engineering. Most prebiotic supplements, Lucy argues, lean on one or two fibers: inulin, FOS, that only act in certain stretches of the gut. ID² is built with prebiotic fibers in a range of lengths designed to be active across all four sections of the colon, not just one. Around that sits what Lucy calls a "superstructure" of vitamins and minerals, not mega-dosed, but blended to mirror the ratios Paul Clayton observed in the diets of the world's longest-living populations. The final piece is a high dose of omega-3, formulated alongside polyphenols intended to act as its delivery system.
It's an approach based on a system - each ingredient supports another - rather than a single hero ingredient, and Lucy is its own best case study. Six months in, she describes more energy, better regularity, and noticeably less bloating. "I would never have considered wearing a pair of jeans that I'd still have buttoned at three o'clock in the afternoon," she laughs. As Dr. Cole describes it: food for the gut garden.
There's a bigger argument underneath it. "Two hundred years ago, we were eating about 20 grams of prebiotic fiber" a day, Lucy notes - far more than the modern diet delivers. ID², in her framing, is there to help close that gap.
The original idea: the LYMA Supplement championed by perimenopausal women
Before the gut powder, there was the LYMA Supplement -and it's still at the heart of what LYMA does.
The thesis is what Lucy calls "the hidden category of supplementation": patented, peer-reviewed ingredients, each dosed at the level the research actually used, and each built with delivery systems designed to survive the stomach and reach the bloodstream. The example she likes to focus on is turmeric. Generic turmeric, she argues, doesn't do much; many "liposomal" versions are mostly carrier system. LYMA uses HydroCurc, a form engineered so that far more of what you swallow is the active compound.
The Supplement was built around the interplay of sleep, stress, and skin and women in perimenopause are its biggest champions. They are looking for support beyond what HRT alone can give them. "It's getting that balance right," she says. "If you can't sleep, you're stressed; if you're stressed, you can't sleep."
The laser that is also a staple in Dr Will Cole’s longevity routine
The LYMA Laser is the product the celebrities were talking about and the one Dr. Cole keeps in his own longevity routine. He told Lucy he's noticed the difference since he's been consistent with it: "My face is just clearer. People notice." It's a household habit, too, he let slip that his wife is a devoted fan.
Then, mid-conversation, he put Lucy on the spot and asked her to check he was actually doing it right. He'd been second-guessing himself: when he visits Joanna Czech, she glides the laser over his face in elaborate swirls, and he wasn't sure whether he should be copying that at home. No need, Lucy reassured him. Joanna uses the swirling motion to help her own skincare actives absorb and to boost circulation as part of a full treatment. At home, the protocol is simple. Switch it on, hold it over each section of skin for three minutes, move on: forehead, cheek, cheek, neck. Around fifteen minutes a day, every day.
So what makes it different? It's FDA-cleared, and it uses near-infrared light at 808nm, a wavelength with a deep body of research behind it. The distinction Lucy keeps drawing is between laser and LED. They can share a wavelength, but laser light is monochromatic, coherent and polarized in a way LED isn't, which is what lets it work below the skin's surface rather than only at the top. "If you want to light up a room with a laser, good luck to you," she says. "You're just going to get one beam that goes down."
The philosophy she's proudest of is what the laser doesn't do. Much of the cosmetic industry, she argues, works by deliberately damaging the skin to provoke a collagen response. The LYMA Laser is designed as a zero-damage device: "sensationless," cold by the time the light leaves the lens. The before-and-afters she shares - her own knees among them - speak to smoother, firmer, more youthful-looking skin over a course of consistent use. Individual results, of course, vary.
Why LYMA exists: for the tens of thousands of women who write in
The origin story is one Lucy has told before, and she tells it briefly to Dr. Cole.
After the traumatic birth of her daughter, she developed septicaemia and spent weeks in intensive care. Recovery was slow, and she felt dismissed. Lucy was repeatedly told she was being dramatic when she knew something was wrong. It was a chance meeting in Geneva, with the Oxford academic Professor Paul Clayton, that introduced her to the formulation she credits with helping her feel like herself again. That experience - being underserved by both the pharmaceutical and the supplement worlds - is the reason LYMA exists. Said Lucy: “What really brings me down to earth - and I often think about this - is why I started LYMA. I started it to change lives. And actually, to hear from the tens of thousands of women who get in contact with us every day to say how LYMA has changed their life - that’s what really resonates with me. Because I just remember that moment when I felt so helpless and nothing was really serving me. That’s the reason I started LYMA - to help people like me who needed a solution to feel their best again”
You can learn more at lyma.life.
Editorial note: LYMA's Supplement and ID² are dietary supplements. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. The LYMA Laser is FDA-cleared for its specified indications. Individual results vary.
