He gained a bunch of weight, had a personal crisis, and then underwent a transformation by, he says, hacking his biology - just as he’d like others to do with Habit. As many personal health gurus have done, CEO Neil Grimmer wrote at Medium about the health epiphany that led him to start the company. Habit, headquartered in the Bay Area, is just the latest variation on this theme.

Our groundbreaking DNA test will change the way you think about fitness and nutrition forever.' Another company, Nutrigenomix, offers to help you 'Eat According to Your Genes.' (The emphasis is mine.) (Yes, they mean all of us.) The website for DNAFit, for example, opens with: 'Let's talk about you. (More on this later.)Ī number of entrepreneurs have seized on this dream and are trying to develop diets plans tailored especially to you. And leading nutrition researchers have argued that we will eventually move away from the 'one-size-fits-all' approach to food toward more individualized eating plans. Researchers have for years been interested in how different people respond to different foods - and why some people absorb certain essential nutrients better than others do. While many of the companies trying to commercialize personalized nutrition - or 'nutrigenomics' - are new, the idea has been around for a while. As Lund University genetic epidemiologist Paul Franks put it, 'The concept is probably not quite ready for public consumption.' Habit thinks your genes can tell you if need you to eat more proteinīefore diving into what Habit does, let’s back up for a moment. 'We still don’t have the ability to accurately predict the most healthy diet for an individual … with or without the use of genomics,' said Rasmus Nielsen, a geneticist at the University of California Berkeley.

Researchers who work in this area told me there’s a huge gap between what we actually know about nutrition genomics and what companies like Habit claim to offer. When I started to poke around, however, my skepticism about Habit - and the other direct-to-consumer personalized nutrition programs out there - grew. Who wouldn’t want to know themselves at the 'cellular level,' to 'eat better, feel better, be better,' as the Habit introductory video promises? The food giant Campbell Soup was certainly sold, investing $32 million into the company. For more money, you can purchase meals shipped directly to your home, as well as customized eating plans.Īt first glance, the concept is appealing - an individualized, paint-by-numbers food program for optimal health. In exchange for $299 and samples of your blood and saliva, you get reams of raw data about how your body responds to different foods, access to the Habit app, and a session with a certified dietitian. Habit is peddling a 'personalized nutrition' service. Theranos tried (and failed) to democratize blood testing, the Apple Watch vowed to get people exercising ( despite evidence to the contrary), and a company called Habit wants to fix our diets. There's no end to Bay Area startups floundering with their promises to revolutionize health.

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