Gen Z Fired Their Doctors (And Other Signs the Apocalypse Is Here)
Plus: Whoop wants your blood, invisible wearables, and why we might have gotten longevity all wrong.
Hello everyone,
I'm a little delayed this week with the newsletter, but in exciting news, I've announced my next venture - a new kind of ai lab making health more personalized, social and fun, called In Search Of. You can check out the website and our advisors here.
Now, onto the chaos.
The Great Primary Care Divorce
Do we need a PCP? Plot twist: I don't have one, and apparently neither does 1 in 4 adults in the US. When you zoom in on Gen Z, 2 in 5 have either never had one or straight-up ditched the traditional doctor model, preferring to consult Dr. TikTok instead.
This isn't just rebellious behavior, it's a seismic shift. As education and technology hand more advocacy power to people over their health, it's not just where they buy that's changing, but who they listen to. With $12 trillion in spending power by 2030, brands better start paying attention to this reality. Zach wrote a great post breaking this down here.
The question isn't whether this is good or bad, it's already happening. The real question is: what comes next when everyone becomes their own health CEO?
Whoop Goes Full Blood Mode
Whoop launched blood biomarkers, which is interesting for reasons that go beyond the obvious. Per my prior post, insights and coaching will ultimately win over tracking, and pairing your daily wearable data with actual blood work? That makes all the sense in the world.
It's also a clear signal that we're entering the data consolidation era. Torch (from ex-Forward Health folks) is another example of this trend. While data aggregation matters for consumer sanity, aggregation alone isn't a winning strategy. I'm patiently waiting to see how Whoop leverages these insights rather than just hoarding more numbers.
The real test: can they turn this mountain of data into something that actually changes behavior, or will it just become another dashboard to ignore? Mohammed wrote an interesting POV on it here.
The Invisible Wearable Revolution
Speaking of wearables, the invisible ones are emerging. Last week I talked to Scott Hickle, founder of Throne - “Whoop for your poop”. (Genius) branding aside, the concept of using computer vision to measure microbiome health and hydration is actually... brilliant.
This represents something bigger: the shift from wearables you remember to wear to ambient monitoring that just happens. We're moving from "did you charge your ring?" to invisible trackers all around us.
Your Environment Is Quietly Killing You
Ambient wellness is quickly establishing itself as an important category, and frankly, it's about time. We're finally learning how much our environment impacts our health, which is somewhat frustrating since it's largely outside our direct control (unlike obsessively checking your sleep score at 6 AM).
MoldCo just raised $8M. Goodhome and Lightwork Home are also worth watching. If you're looking to clean up your water situation - whether shower or drinking - RORRA is emerging as the new gold standard. I also wrote about bedroom environment optimization in my prior post here.
The uncomfortable truth: you can optimize your sleep, diet, and exercise all you want, but if your air is trash and your water is questionable, you're fighting with one hand tied behind your back.
This is why I absolutely love this - spend money to fix your environment, and then forget about it.
The Organ-Specific Aging Breakthrough
Finally, this one REALLY caught my eye. While scientists keep arguing about which biomarkers best predict longevity, a new study is shifting focus from the traditional 12 hallmarks of aging to something more precise: organ-level aging differences.
Why this matters: we might soon be able to identify the specific organ driving your individual aging process (think brain, heart, liver) and focus lifestyle interventions accordingly. This could end the exhausting "optimize everything" approach that has everyone trying to biohack their way to immortality.
Let's be honest: optimizing everything isn't sustainable, and it's probably making us all a little crazy. The promise of personalized, organ-specific interventions? That's the kind of precision medicine that could actually change how we think about aging.
One of our advisors, Anant, wrote about this paradigm shift here.
When You Poke the Medical Bear
Lastly, I did a post arguing the role AI will play in transforming the role of a doctor and... let's say it did not land with the doctors community. But most consumers loved it, so give it a read and let me know what you think!
Some recent studies are showing that AI is getting better than doctors in diagnosis, while the doctors argue with me that diagnosis is not where we need help (I bet to disagree). But my key point is that AI can fit the in between visit care - and that can completely change the patient doctor relationship.
Sometimes the most important conversations are the ones that make people uncomfortable. Like any other industry, the big divide between the best doctors and mediocre ones will be ability to leverage AI. Curious your thoughts!
That's this week's roundup. As always, my DMs are open for thoughts, disagreements, and the occasional conspiracy theory about why your smartwatch is definitely judging your life choices.
Every week, this newsletter makes the case that health optimization doesn't have to feel like homework.
Congrats on your new endeavor! I’m excited to check it out.