Supplements have long been seen as a safety net for preventative health. When habits slip, turning to a strategic mix of capsules, powders, liquids and sprays can feel like insurance for your wellbeing. Yet while half of adults put their faith in supplements, the question remains — are we using them blindly? Ask the average person with a well-stocked supplement cupboard why they are taking each product and they may struggle to give a clear answer. Often, supplements become routine rather than being based on informed choices.
A carefully curated supplement stack is no longer seen as the gold standard of preventative healthcare. Instead, a new wave of personalised subscription-based health services is emerging, combining regular blood analysis with tailored health plans built around individual results. According to Dr Rangan Chatterjee, co-founder of Do Health (£249 a year) which launched this Spring, the shift is being driven by a growing demand for personalised data that addresses the root cause of health concerns.
“People don’t just want generic health advice anymore, they want their own data,” he says. “That shift started with wearables, nudging us to move more and sleep better. But there’s a deeper layer of self-knowledge that no step count can reach. Targeted blood testing gets you there. For some, the results are reassuring, confirmation that what they’re doing is working. For others, it’s the wake-up call they didn’t know they needed.” Having the knowledge of what’s happening beneath the surface provides the starting point for small changes that can make a meaningful difference to long-term health.
“People don’t just want generic health advice anymore, they want their own data”
Dr Rangan Chatterjee
The same philosophy underpins CoreVitals (£375 a year), a preventative health membership that combines advanced blood testing, optional full-body MRI scans and personalised clinical support. According to Tristan Shaw, the company’s head of growth, personalised data is key to understanding what works for each individual. “Two people can follow the same diet for six months and have completely different outcomes because one person’s biology simply responds differently to another’s,” he says. “Without data, you have no way of knowing which one you are.”
The premise is simple: most of us only visit a doctor when something feels wrong, yet many diseases develop silently over years, with measurable changes appearing in the blood long before symptoms emerge. Regular testing can help identify those signals earlier.
Services such as Do Health and CoreVitals focus on biomarkers, which are often overlooked in standard GP blood tests. “An example of this is ApoB,” says Chatterjee. “It is considered one of the strongest predictors of cardiovascular disease, yet it is not part of a routine NHS panel. Around 46 per cent of Do Health members have sub-optimal ApoB levels, but many of them would have been told their cholesterol was fine.”
Another benefit lies in building a longitudinal picture of health over time, with regular testing throughout the year to track how multiple biomarkers interact and respond to lifestyle changes.
Once the results are in, members are not left to interpret the data alone. Instead, personalised action plans are built around four key pillars: nutrition, sleep, exercise and stress management.
It’s an exciting time for preventative health. With this new generation of testing-led memberships changing how people think about longevity, the future could be less about treating illness and more about understanding health before problems arise.