5 Healthyish Things, including drinking straight from the Vitamix

This graph showing obesity rates dropping after literal decades of trending upwards blew up on X last week because, well, big, if true. Assuming the Financial Times is right, this is basically the first time ever we’re seeing a promising shift in our health crisis and this is most likely thanks to GLP-1s.

I’d love to pretend this is because health and wellness is finally being taken more seriously and truly gone mainstream, but the truth is health and wellness really hasn’t managed to move the needle much on obesity. It’s felt unrelenting and inevitable that we’ll reach more people in this country being obese than not. 

Well, think again. GLP-1s are selling like hotcakes (er, hotcakes you aren’t hungry for). An estimated 12% of adults have tried them, and 6% are currently (!) taking them. The speed at which this drug has been picked up is astronomical and it suggests a world in which, yeah, maybe GLP-1s have changed the trajectory of obesity. And, if that’s the case, this graph suggests they may have a dramatic impact on health care costs beyond what we could have imagined. While we’re obviously not going to fix our toxic food system or our broken healthcare space with just GLP-1s, I’m heartened that these terrible numbers may be turning around.

The only thing more amazing than the potential of GLP-1s is how little it seems we understand why they work. Not knowing exactly why something works is true of more medicine than you’d think (see: Acetaminophen, antidepressants, even anesthetics/anesthesia drugs). For more on what we do and don’t know about how GLP-1s work, read this great article from Astral Codex Ten. It’s fascinating!

For example, Ozempic and its relatives are large molecules that work in the brain—except, large molecules usually can’t get past the protective blood-brain barrier. Scientists are still figuring out how and why this drug is an exception that gets through. 🤯

Anyway, we’re still getting the full GLP-1 picture, and there’s obviously more to discover. Not all of the hype will stick. But add that we don’t fully understand how GLP-1s work to the list of ways they’re incredible.

Unlike most people (any people?), I drink straight from my Vitamix almost every day at lunch. There, I said it. A few people have seen me do this on Zoom and seemed surprised, but hey—it’s efficient, it’s effective, and it’s easy to clean. No extra dishes! I don’t understand why more people don’t do this—and if you or anyone else on the planet does, please let me know so I can build my Vitamix drinker community. 😂

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, you’re probably wondering what I’m drinking from the blender. I’m confident I’ve perfected the lunchtime protein smoothie, rotating between bases of frozen strawberry and cashew, peanut butter and banana, and cherry and pistachio. A key ingredient is this organic shredded coconut from my fave Nuts.com, just saying. Maybe if enough of you promise to drink directly from your Vitamix, I’ll share the recipes… 

Private equity roll-ups have never been more popular in healthcare. Roll-ups basically mean buying up a bunch of smaller companies in the same industry (think: A 10-clinic primary care group and another 5-clinic group across the street), merging them into a single entity, then applying economies of scale (synergy!) and streamlined processes to reduce costs and increase profits. PE usually does this to flip it to someone else in a few years. That sounds like good business, doesn’t it? Well, maybe not everything gets better when squeezed… 

In healthcare, this drive to greatly increase profit often comes at the great expense of patients and employees. For example, as more and more ERs get acquired by PE firms, doctors are trying to adjust to reduced hours and incentives for quick response times that generally result in less personalized patient care. PE-acquired hospitals make the job more about checking off to-do lists as quickly as possible, and less about providing great care to people who need it… which may work short-term to increase profits, but for how long? 

Private equity in healthcare isn’t going anywhere any time soon. So what’s the solution? Well short term-ism is basically always bad for aligning incentives. So I’m thrilled to see more new models like MSOs emerging. The right answer is probably somewhere in the middle because while you could argue PE is an extreme version of capitalism trying to extract the last dollar out of the health care equation, you could also argue the current system is too bureaucratic and messy. To me, the key is striking a balance where the “business” of healthcare improves and waste is removed, doctors are incentivized to work hard but still work well, and patients get the highest quality care. Don’t hold your breath for this, though.

Next weekend I’ll be flying to Vegas to attend the digital health conference HLTH. In my experience, HLTH is unquestionably the go-to conference of the year in the space and one of the rare, excellent conferences worth the trip (and its expenses). Its founder, Jon Weiner, is a friend and legend. Basically everyone attends the same happy hours at the same hotel bars every year, sponsored by whoever just raised the most venture capital. It’s a great way to stay top of mind with my network, catch up with founder & investor friends, and make new ones. And you don’t even really need a badge, just show up and try to join the right events. (Shout out to Health Tech Nerds, an incredible community that makes it easy to know where to go.)

I’d make a point of attending HLTH regardless, but this year part of my mission is to start spreading the word about Healthyish Content, effectively my secret health content & SEO agency. I didn’t intend to start one, but enough consulting and advisory clients have asked me to “just do it for us” and so I’ve put together the best content marketing talent I know and started offering “best answer on the Internet” quality articles as a service. I often say content is the most cost-effective form of marketing and time and time again that proves true.   

Anyway, Healthyish Content works primarily with digital health & healthcare co’s to diversify their acquisition strategy through 5x articles every month that are: 

1. Exhaustive & Comprehensive (this is table stakes)

2. Interesting & Engaging (think brand voice, design, embedded social media) 

3. Unique & Differentiated (think the company's experts, patient/user stories, and more)

Plus, Healthyish Content builds the article's marketing plan into the article production itself—including the influencers, thought leaders, groups, associations, partners, and more that become stakeholders more likely to link to and share the article once it's out. That’s the playbook I’ve built over 15 years and it hasn’t failed yet. 

If you’re interested in hearing more (see my LinkedIn for some recent examples) and are going to be at HLTH, let me know. And either way, I’d love to see you there!