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Building in the Mental Health space from 2020-2025 at Modern Health, I saw firsthand the societal shift around Mental Health. I had hundreds of firsthand experiences and it was transformational. Friends, colleagues and family members who previously were skeptical about Mental Health, or didn’t think it applied to them, were now opening up, being vulnerable, and actively seeking care for issues they had ignored for years. Fast forward to today, building in the Gut Health space, I find myself in strikingly similar conversations, as people finally feel safe to discuss their gut issues. These individuals are exploring options like Clarity Health, and are starting to actively seek better care for their gut conditions. To illustrate these similarities between Gut Health today and Mental Health a few years ago, I’ve grouped the path into 3 stages, and included my view on the path forward for Gut Health as we pattern match the two spaces.
Stage 1: Awareness. With 74% of Americans having a GI or gut-related symptom in the past month and 30% of working professionals receiving a GI diagnosis, we have hit the tipping point where Gut Health is now too common to ignore. Google searches for Gut Health have doubled in the last 3 years. Social media is doing what it does best and having fun while de-stigmatizing Gut Health. Across Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and more we see #hotgirlswithIBS, #IBStok and #guttok garnering billions of views. In the last year I have had countless conversations, and I don’t think I have attended a single dinner or social event without someone in the group telling me about their own GI/Gut condition, or having a close family member with one. To be fair, as a founder in the Gut Health space, I tend to attract these types of conversations, but still! Timing – I think we are seeing the mainstream start to transition out of this stage and into stage 2.
Stage 2: Exploration. As folks get more comfortable talking about their gut issues, they are increasingly exploring DIY wellness & health products. We all know someone who has spent the last few years macrodosing kombucha, Poppi soda and probiotics in hopes it will solve their gut issues. Spoiler alert – it won’t. This shows up in the data as well, with Americans spending $15 billion/year on digestive health products. That’s a LOT of prebiotic soda. Interestingly, we are now seeing the shift from DIY wellness to DIY healthcare in the gut space. As folks are looking for better results, they have embraced DIY healthcare and the rise of precision testing to better understand their issues – companies like Function, Superpower, Tiny Health and others. To quantify the impact on gut health – at-home gut microbiome testing is now a $500MM+ per-year industry. Timing – I think the mainstream is in the middle of this stage.
Stage 3 & the path forward: Results. To directly draw the Mental Health parallel here – we saw the rise of Mental Health awareness (stage 1), and then the growth of meditation apps & broad-based provider access (stage 2) and now we’re seeing a focus on high-quality, clinical care & AI-driven outcomes (stage 3). While there is real patient value in all 3 stages, the current focus in the Mental Health space is on clinical and financial results, specifically for clinically diagnosed populations. Connecting that to Gut Health – this is where I think we’re going – a focus on clinical care, and more specifically, clinical care that goes beyond just broad-based access. Care that is personalized, delightful, and drives exponentially better clinical & financial outcomes. It’s the natural next step for mainstream society as they become increasingly aware of and educated on Gut Health, but still lack the symptom relief and clinical results they originally set out to achieve. This is what we're building for at Clarity Health.
A couple closing thoughts, and a caveat, because this is the internet: 1st – Gut Health is going to be an extremely interesting space over the next few years, and we see a ton of opportunity for AI-driven & Agentic care models to transform gut care. Ok fine, that’s probably obvious, since we’re building it. 2nd – This is a deep, complex topic that deserves much more in depth discussion & analysis than my oversimplified summary. We’ll be diving deeper into some of the related sub-topics in the weeks and months ahead. Lastly, none of this is meant to be a knock on any stage 1, 2, or 3 players explicitly or implicitly called out above. They are all positive contributors to the ecosystem as we collectively work to improve healthcare. I mean that – I am so excited about what at-home precision testing is doing for healthcare, and our house is regularly stocked with kombucha and other digestive goodies.
