Health Optimization Medicine · Charlotte, NC
Health Optimization Medicine in Charlotte
I am Daniel Tagge, MD, a board-certified family physician and North Carolina’s first physician fully certified to practice Health Optimization Medicine. HOMe is the clinical methodology inside my concierge longevity practice: a formal definition of health, and a method for interpreting your physiology over time, on top of standard medical assessment rather than in place of it. Care begins with a free call. If it fits, care begins with the Precision Health Assessment, and in the Charlotte metro the first visit happens in your home.
The methodology
A definition of health, and a method for working toward it
Medicine is precise about disease. It has been less precise about health, which is usually defined as the absence of disease. Health Optimization Medicine begins by defining it: an optimal physiologic state characterized by the absence of disease plus the balance of anabolic and catabolic processes in the body according to where you are in the life cycle. In plain terms, your body is always building and breaking down, the right balance changes across a lifetime, and health is that balance held well.
The method follows from the definition. Measure the information most likely to change a decision, starting with what you already have. Interpret it longitudinally, in the context of your history, your goals, the clinical evidence and standard medical assessment. When something meaningful is off and the evidence supports acting, intervene, reassess and refine.
Two limits keep it honest. The absence of disease does not mean every aspect of your physiology is where it should be. And a hypothesis about what could be optimized is not, on its own, a justification to treat.
The framework
The seven pillars of HOMe
Health Optimization Medicine organizes physiology into seven interacting systems. They are a map for interpretation, not a checklist of tests: which of them is measured, and how deeply, is decided for each patient.
Metabolism & Metabolomics
The small molecules the body produces as it makes energy and repairs itself: one view of what is happening biologically now, used when it adds to standard laboratory medicine.
Mitochondria & Cellular Energy
How cells make energy, and how that capacity relates to fatigue, performance and recovery.
Chronobiology
Circadian rhythm and its influence on hormones, metabolism, sleep and recovery.
Gut-Immune Health
Digestion, the microbiome, the gut barrier and the immune activity that sits alongside them.
Exposomics
The cumulative environmental load a person carries: diet, chemicals, metals, light and the rest, considered where it is relevant.
Epigenetics
How environment, behavior and exposure influence which genes are expressed over a lifetime.
Evolutionary Medicine
The physiology humans evolved with, read against the environment we live in now, as a lens for interpretation.

Written by
Daniel Tagge, MD
Board-certified family physician and founder of Tagge Health. Certified in Health Optimization Medicine.
About Dr. TaggeThe seven pillars
Every biological system I read
HOMe is built on seven biological pillars. Each one has its own page, written for the people I treat.
Longevity
How I practice longevity medicine
The healthspan goal, the upstream lens, and the seven systems that guide how I read physiology over time.
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Health Optimization Medicine
The clinical framework the practice works from. Measure, compare, balance across seven biological systems.
Explore this topicPillars
Metabolism & Metabolomics.
Urinary organic acids read the upstream patterns of energy production, neurotransmitter balance, detoxification, and recovery.
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Mitochondria & Cellular Energy.
Mitochondria produce most of the energy every other function depends on. Aspects of that function can be assessed, and much of it responds to how you live.
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Gut-Immune Health.
The gut microbiome interacts extensively with immune, metabolic, and gastrointestinal physiology. Read the ecosystem as one system.
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Evolutionary Medicine.
Your biology was shaped by an environment that differs from the one you live in. Much of chronic disease can be read, in part, as that mismatch. This is the lens I read every other pillar through.
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Chronobiology.
Every hormone, immune function, and metabolic process runs on a circadian schedule. The disruption is measurable, and the consequences are systemic.
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Exposomics.
The cumulative environmental load a person carries can matter for physiology. Some of it can be measured, and I assess it when your history says it is relevant.
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Epigenetics.
The methylation cycle is the dial your environment turns. I read where it is stuck.
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Common questions about Health Optimization Medicine
Start here
Want this applied to your own physiology?
You start with a free call: a brief conversation about what you are looking for and whether we are a good fit. After the call, if we are a good fit, we begin with the Precision Health Assessment, and ongoing care as my patient can follow.
Home visits in the Charlotte metro; virtual across North Carolina.