Make certain to additionally inspect out the companion podcast to this part alongside Andrew Huberman here.
The longevity movement is current to remain (no pun intended).
Not lengthy ago, taking attention of our health mostly meant following our doctor’s direction and sticking to what our coverage covered. There has continually been a fringe movement of biohackers and crunchy group taking a additional hands-on approach, but that mindset has lone lately moved into the mainstream.
Two things accelerated this shift. The archetypal was the COVID-19 pandemic, which made us acutely conscious of our mortality and the fragility of our health. It exposed the limits of our medicinal scheme and reminded us that a annual bodily doesn’t necessarily average we’re healthy.
The second was ChatGPT. Suddenly everyone could ask questions concerning their health and create awareness of complex medicinal data in uncomplicated English. Today, Americans are taking their health into their own hands, spending additional time, money, and energy on health and longevity.
So what is coming next? To comprehend how group are taking accusation of their health – and what they desire – we surveyed 500 randomly selected consumers in the U.S. on their views concerning everything from peptides to toxins to brain-computer interfaces.
We’re additionally talking to group at the cutting border of health and technology. Our upcoming podcast conversations volition examine how they method their own health and what the remainder of us power study from them. First up, Andrew Huberman walks us through a day in his life, from food and exercise to supplements and sleep.
For founders, this newfound person involvement in health creates an opening. We think several of the biggest opportunities in longevity volition go to companies that assistance group obtain act and oversee their health complete time.
Below, we merge our observations on the longevity market alongside our latest study results to examine anywhere the next awesome companies power be built.
Today, there is no sole location to oversee your healthcare. Your records are scattered throughout doctors’ offices, and getting attention method navigating a mix of phone calls, tolerant portals, pharmacies, and labs.
Companies are racing to build the supreme healthcare residence – an app that knows your medicinal former and records, prescribes your annual labs and imaging, connects to your wearable, and uses AI to assistance you comprehend what’s going on. And whenever you need care, it connects you alongside virtual or in-person clinicians who can prescribe care or execute procedures as needed.
The foremost contenders in this competition have distinct caput starts. Function Health has lab and imaging results that display how our health changes complete time. Oura and WHOOP already have a location in our regular routines. General Medicine and Counsel commencement alongside the capability to provision care. Ferry Health understands the fragmented landscape of anywhere to get insurance-covered care. OpenAI, Anthropic, Amazon, and Apple are construction on ample audiences and products we already use.
The competition is to rotate into the archetypal location a person turns to whenever they need something done for their health. Asking AI a inquiry concerning your health is useful, but arranging the next test, booking the appointment, and making certain the tolerant gets follow-up attention and prescriptions is harder. As AI makes answers and explanation cheaper, value volition migrate to the companies that can fig out the act layer.
If this appears akin “Muse for healthcare,” that’s the idea. There is area to build extremely ample companies about the healthcare needs that generalist AI assistants are improbable to prioritize. The complexity of our healthcare scheme today makes this harder to build, but could additionally create it harder to replace.
We anticipate area for multiple winners. Almost everyone could use this benevolent of help.
The MAHA movement has brought the toxins in our food, water, and mundane products to light, and person willingness to expend on “clean” non-toxic products has grown massively. Just a few years ago, the term “microplastics” was not in our lexicon; now our study revealed that 63% of consumers are conscious of the synthetic particles construction up in our bodies, 35% are concerned concerning them, and the biggest biohackers are trying plasma toggle to eliminate microplastics from their blood.
For consumers looking to decrease mundane exposures, the buying catalog goes way beyond purchasing integrated food into a broader concentration on what we ingest. Our study of Americans revealed many of person alter in this respect. 24% of respondents are swapping to nontoxic cookware, 39% are subbing out synthetic for glass, and 70% are filtering their water.
That mindset extends beyond the galley and into the broader home. Healthmaxxers are purchasing air purifiers (37%), evaluation their homes for mold (18%), switching to organic-cotton garments or bedding (17.5%), and equal purchasing new natural or integrated mattresses (11%). Even EMF emitted by wifi, division phones, and microwaves is on consumers’ radar: 14% stated they are trying to decrease it.
Consumer spending is moving faster than the evidence. People are consenting to pay for harmony of mind, equal whenever the health advantage of a particular acquisition is difficult to measure. In our survey, 62% of respondents stated they would pay additional for products tagged as “non-toxic.” That creates opportunities throughout food, residence goods, and individual care.
GLP-1 receiver agonist medicines (e.g., semaglutide, tirzepatide, orforglipron, and others) have revolutionized health additional than any medication in our lifetimes, transforming attention for diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular health – and the commitment of their benefits keeps growing.
The runaway achievement of this category of approved GLP-1s, expanding comfort alongside at-home self-injection, and loosening regulation have additionally fueled a surge of involvement in another unregulated peptides. Consumers are now experimenting alongside compounds not approved by the FDA that are marketed for recovery, performance, and appearance, including the chase of “looksmaxxing.” For example, BPC-157 is promoted for tissue repair; melanotan II for tanning.
But the market’s enthusiasm to date has outpaced the genuine evidence. Many of these compounds are motionless missing powerful individual data that demonstrates safety and efficacy, and purchasing from unregulated suppliers raises questions concerning what is really in the vial. And during HHS’s most latest guideline eases implementation against licensed pharmacies compounding six peptides under stated conditions, these peptides remain unapproved by the FDA, alongside unresolved questions concerning safety and efficacy. Despite the buzz, the single-digit milliard compounded peptide market is dwarfed by equal a sole FDA-approved peptide: Eli Lilly’s tirzepatide, which generated nearly $44 milliard in revenue under the Mounjaro and Zepbound brands in the archetypal nine months of 2026 alone.
We see the peptide trend unfolding alongside two distinct paths throughout biotech and healthcare. From the biotech side, we foretell growth in the pipeline of rigorous, FDA-regulated peptide narcotics – and expanding enthusiasm from investors seeking to underwrite medicines that not lone encounter the traditional safety and efficacy bars, but could also have huge person appeal. This is an unnatural trend for the biotech sector: narcotics are indicated according to medicinal need, and historically the market has really struggled to acknowledge and treat patients efficiently. Peptide medicines alongside sturdy person drag can create an unusually productive way to patients, and we doubtful this energetic could broaden to another sickness areas, including sleep, skeletal health, and cardiovascular health.
On the attention shipment side, we could see a reiterate of the GLP-1 sequence if additional peptide narcotics display safety and efficacy and acquire mainstream adoption. GLP-1s helped many attention shipment companies grow, but most of the endeavor value accumulated to pharma. Other peptides could prosecute a akin form in attention delivery: first, dedicated prescribing companies may emerge, following the example of Calibrate, Found, and Weekend Health from the GLP-1 wave. Then, existing healthcare companies could add peptide prescriptions to diagram new patients. But as additional companies recommendation the identical drugs, prescribing them could rotate into small of a rivalrous advantage and additional of a assistance patients expect. At that point, offering peptides may matter additional for keeping existing patients from leaving than for attracting new ones.
Cholesterol could rotate into dinner-table conversation for a amazing reason: during bosom sickness is motionless America’s biggest silent killer, there’s quickly expanding evidence that we can comprehend risk, detect sickness at first stages, and intervene alongside medications to not lone forestall but really reverse several of the plaque already in our arteries. This is giving consumers a compelling logic to obtain their bosom health earnestly before a cardiac event.
For LDL – the “bad” cholesterin – the evidence increasingly supports “lower is better,” particularly for group at higher risk. A study published this October established that intensive care shrank plaque in the heart’s arteries by concerning a fifth complete 18 months in group alongside bosom disease. Getting cholesterin into the “normal” range may not be adequate for your individual risk, and medication could provision additional protection.
New treatments could bring cholesterin administration to a wider audience. PCSK9 inhibitors akin Repatha assistance the liver apparent LDL from the blood, but injections, cost, and coverage restrictions have constricted their use. Only 21% of our study respondents knew concerning these drugs. We anticipate that to alter and for these narcotics to act the person zeitgeist as amazement narcotics that lesser cholesterin alongside few flank effects: Lipfendra, the archetypal PCSK9 inhibitor accessible as a regular pill, received FDA endorsement in July 2026.
Evidence additionally supports treating high-risk patients before their archetypal bosom assault or stroke. In group alongside diabetes and no known important artery disease, adding Repatha to existing care lowered the estimated five-year hazard of a archetypal bosom attack, stroke, or death from coronary bosom sickness by 31%.
The next frontier is lipoprotein(a), or Lp(a), an inherited hazard aspect for bosom disease. Roughly one in five group has elevated levels, which are mostly unaffected by nutrition or exercise. U.S. guidelines now propose evaluation Lp(a) at smallest formerly in adulthood. Drugs targeting Lp(a) could provision millions of group a new way to location that risk, but the medicinal advantage of pharmacologic involvement motionless needs to be demonstrated. Novartis’s latest pelacarsen test lowered Lp(a), but unsuccessful to encounter its chief endpoint of reducing cardiovascular events. That said, we’re fairly optimistic concerning another Lp(a) targeting narcotics from Eli Lilly and Amgen now in trials.
Consumers don’t have to delay for the next drug. Knowing your Lp(a) can assistance you decide how aggressively to oversee LDL and another bosom risks. The inquiry to ask: “Given my family former and risk, how low should I try to get my LDL – and would medication assistance me get there?” We see an beginning for companies that nexus evaluation to personalized treatment, assistance patients admission medications, and track their progress. Knowing your numbers is the starting point. The chance is assisting group act on them.
Wearables have rotate into a regular habit for many consumers. In our survey, 54% of respondents use one, and 83% of those users inspect it all day. There’s motionless area to create that habit additional useful: 55% of wearable users say their data has never prompted a behavior alter or a doctor’s visit. What stood out to us is that nearly three in four would deteriorate a second equipment if it measured item new. We anticipate the next motion of wearables to build on that curiosity, giving group additional understanding into their bodies and a clearer awareness of what to do alongside it.
The archetypal motion of wearables, led by Fitbit, got us counting our steps. The next generation – Oura, WHOOP, and Apple Watch – made checking our sleep, bosom rate, and improvement routine.
Today’s third generation is being built to answer additional particular questions concerning our health. Clair is evolving a wearable designed to evaluation hormone patterns without a lifeblood draw. Lumia is construction blood-flow tracking into earrings. These products provision us new ways to comprehend parts of our health that have been difficult to track day to day.
The category leaders are expanding in this direction too: Oura now uses nighttime data to emblem patterns connected to lifeblood pressure and lets users log GLP-1 doses and flank effects alongside their biometric data, assisting them prosecute how their build responds complete time.
Deregulation is aiding this innovation. In January 2026, the FDA updated its broad health policy, clarifying how certain non-invasive wearables can recommendation health insights without medical-device clearance. In June, it closed its alert letter to WHOOP following the business changed its Blood Pressure Insights characteristic and labeling. Oura is additionally offering blood-pressure-related insights as health features. There’s additional area to build here, provided the products remain inside the boundaries of health claims.
The bigger award is a equipment small adequate to deteriorate without thinking concerning it, capable of reliably tracking a much wider range of biomarkers in genuine time. Imagine a non-invasive type of a CGM that measures far additional than glucose. If we get there, we’ll have a basically distinct understanding of what’s happening in our bodies in genuine period and uncomplicated stage trackers volition awareness archaic.
Neurotechnology could open up new ways to enhance health and engage alongside person technology.
Elon Musk’s Neuralink has brought implantable brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) into community view. Its surgically implanted devices already allow medicinal test participants alongside paralysis to authority computers by decoding intended movement from motor cortex activity. The business is additionally evolving innovation intended to reconstruct several ocular awareness for group who are blind by stimulating the brain’s ocular cortex.
Other emerging implantable approaches document from the brain’s exterior without penetrating the underlying tissue, offering possible advantages for safety and long-term use. At UCSF, Dr. Edward Chang’s squad uses high-density electrode arrays placed on the brain’s exterior to document signals throughout multiple brain regions. In 2021, Chang’s squad became the archetypal to decode complete words immediately from the brain action of a individual who was paralyzed and unable to speak. More recently, the identical squad decoded speech and gestures together, showing the capability of a sole implant to assistance the two words and build language.
For another use areas, non-invasive approaches could bring neural interfaces to the masses equal sooner. Companies are construction brain-sensing patches, headbands, or hats alongside electrodes that can awareness the province of the brain and are attempting to peruse it. Companies like Conduit, Alljoined, and Aleph Neuro are approaching neural decoding as a data scaling problem, collecting ample datasets to train AI models that translate weak, noisy signals recorded non-invasively from the brain into content and images reflecting what person is thinking or seeing. One day, we may be capable to communicate ideas immediately to AI agents without archetypal putting them into words. But neurotechnology additionally has “write” applications applicable to health, anywhere wearable devices could go additional than fair study what’s happening in our brains and really alter brain action itself. We’re seeing additional and additional neuro wearable devices coming to market that aim to enhance sleep and concentration through targeted stimulation of the brain or peripheral nerves.
This all appears akin discipline fiction, but we’re betting in our lifetimes, brain-computer interfaces and “wearables” for the brain volition rotate into a genuine person category and part of mundane life. Our study suggests first person interest: 39% would use a non-invasive brain-sensing equipment for sleep, focus, or mood, and 29% for thought-controlled devices, alongside greater involvement among men.
The encouraging indication throughout these six areas is that consumers are prepared to act. They’re seeking out tests, trying new products, and spending their own prosperity on health.
That is the chance for founders: assistance group rotate their involvement in health into item helpful in their lives. Start alongside a issue they attention about, display that the merchandise helps, and create it uncomplicated adequate to keep using. Companies that do that fine can develop alongside their customers as their needs change.
We accept several of the next awesome person health companies volition be built about that relationship. If you’re construction one, we’d affection to comprehend from you.
Special gratitude to Vineeta Agarwala, Julie Yoo, and Zak Doric for their assistance alongside this piece.
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