For Research Purposes Only
Why consumer wellness is breaking out the lab A. Atherton (2026)
Note to Readers
This piece reflects observations about emerging consumer behavior and market dynamics and is not medical guidance. It is not intended to recommend or encourage experimentation with peptides, nicotine, hormones, or any other intervention. Health outcomes are highly individual and require professional oversight. The goal here is to explore where consumer wellness is headed, not to tell anyone what they should do with their body.
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Over the past decade, healthcare has undergone the same shift we’ve seen in media and finance: tools once reserved for institutions are now being used directly by consumers. What began with wearables and health scores, has evolved into open experimentation. Consumers are no longer satisfied with observing their bodies; they want to optimize them. We want to looksmaxx, youthmaxx, and push towards peak physical performance, appearance, and mental clarity.
AI has radically lowered the cost of getting clear answers. You can describe your symptoms, ask a model to synthesize what’s happening, and scan Discord servers and Telegram chats full of people running similar experiments. People are now creating parallel systems that sit alongside the medical system. Today, much of this is happening without medical supervision, and the implications are still emerging.
I believe we are at an especially interesting inflection point. Advances in AI, from interpretation to drug discovery, are lowering barriers across the stack just as trust in traditional gatekeepers continues to erode. Consumers are already voting with their wallets: Korean skincare, largely outside FDA approval, is now mainstream in the U.S. Categories like peptides, hormones and the recontextualization of molecules like nicotine aren’t fringe trends, but early signals of mass behavior change. Wellness is becoming faster, more iterative, and more consumer-driven than institutional healthcare can accommodate alone.
For founders, this opens an extraordinary opportunity to build businesses that don’t just treat illness, but reimagine what living well actually means. This is what it looks like when consumer wellness breaks out of the lab.
Peptides and the Rise of Precision Wellness
Peptides are short chains of amino acids that regulate hormonal and metabolic activity in the body. Their appeal lies in precision: peptides function as targeted biological signals.
This isn’t new. As E. Thomas et al. note, the 1950s marked a pivotal moment with the introduction of hormone-derived peptides such as corticotropin, which stimulates cortisol production and was used to manage inflammation and stress. But the modern inflection point came decades later with GLP-1s, among the most successful therapeutic peptides in history.
Like it's peptide predecessor insulin, GLP-1s quietly did something profound: they normalized self-injection at scale. Millions of consumers now administer weekly injections at home. This wide-spread adoption has expanded the category potential to a number of exciting new use cases. The future of peptides is unlikely to center on a single blockbuster molecule. Instead, interest is fragmenting across highly specific outcomes to improve: sleep, cognition, tissue repair, mood, libido, even tanning. BPC-157 is marketed for injury recovery. GHK-Cu is a copper peptide associated with collagen production. 🔗 Peptide Cheat Sheet
Much of this demand is currently served through an opaque grey market. Peptides are often purchased online from overseas suppliers with limited transparency around sourcing or quality. They typically come in small vials priced between $60 and $250, with some manufacturers already experimenting with proprietary branded peptide blends . This hints at where the category is headed once regulation and infrastructure catch up.
At the same time, many consumer-market peptides are overpromised and under-proven. The Milkshake Study is frequently referenced by scientists in relation to the peptide space. The 2011 study by Dr. Alia Crum found that a person's mindset significantly changes how their body physiologically responds to food. Participants who believed they were consuming an indulgent, high-calorie milkshake experienced a faster drop in the hunger hormone ghrelin compared to those who believed they were drinking a "sensible" shake, despite consuming the exact same shake. This is where placebo and biology overlap. For founders, that gap is the opportunity. Demand is real and behavior is already established. What’s missing is a consumer-grade layer of trust, which could simply be US-made peptides with transparent supply chains and regulated manufacturing.
But the real question is form factor. Injections dominate today because that’s how the category entered the mainstream, but they’re unlikely to be the endpoint. Nasal sprays, transdermal patches, oral formats, and next-generation delivery systems could dramatically expand the addressable audience, turning peptides into daily wellness infrastructure.
I think the startups that will win here won’t just sell molecules. They’ll borrow the branding, distribution, and cultural fluency of consumer wellness, while operating with expectations closer to medicine in terms of precision and responsibility.
Nicotine Beyond Smoking
Nicotine occupies a strange place in consumer wellness because it has long been conflated with smoking. For most of the twentieth century, nicotine was inseparable from tobacco, and tobacco was rightly associated with cancer and serious disease. Over time, the distinction between the compound and its delivery collapsed. Nicotine became shorthand for harm.
That distinction is now being reconsidered. Smoking rates are down sharply across developed markets, and vaping, after a rapid rise, has begun to lose cultural momentum. Consumers are becoming more literate about where harm actually comes from. Tobacco combustion is carcinogenic. Nicotine itself is not. As delivery formats shift away from cigarettes and vapes, the question is whether nicotine’s reputation can evolve with them.
At low doses and without withdrawal dynamics, research suggests nicotine can enhance certain aspects of cognitive function. Outside the lab, consumers are already experimenting. Some use nicotine to support focus or suppress appetite. Others treat it as a functional alternative to energy drinks during long shifts or demanding workdays. In these contexts, nicotine looks less like a vice and more like a mild, intentional stimulant.
What makes this reframing possible is product design. Slow-release formats change the experience, emphasizing steadier cognitive effects rather than sharp spikes. A new wave of startups is beginning to treat nicotine the way modern wellness brands treat caffeine or supplements: prioritizing purity, precise dosing, and thoughtful ritual. It is not hard to imagine a Goop-like nicotine brand with clean ingredients, elegant packaging, and clear positioning around use and intent, rather than addiction or excess.
Outcomes will vary, as they do across all of frontier wellness. What matters is the broader signal. When molecules are separated from legacy delivery systems and reintroduced through consumer-first design, categories can be rebuilt. Nicotine is an early example of how reputation, science, and behavior can be reorganized. For founders, it offers a glimpse of how much surface area still exists between chemistry and culture.
Hormone Optimization Goes Mainstream
Alongside peptides and nicotine, hormone optimization is moving from the margins to the mainstream. What was once framed as niche and ‘only for women’ is now being embraced by both sexes as a lever for long-term health, performance, and longevity. Growth hormone–related compounds and testosterone therapy are increasingly discussed outside clinical settings as tools for supporting energy, recovery and metabolic health. Telehealth has accelerated this shift by lowering access barriers, but much of today’s hormone care remains surprisingly generic.
Women, in particular, have long understood how profoundly hormones shape daily life. Cycle tracking has normalized the idea that energy, mood, and focus fluctuate in predictable ways depending on where hormone levels sit. Yet most hormone replacement therapies are still delivered as static prescriptions, with limited personalization and infrequent feedback.
People feel better when they understand what is happening in their bodies and can respond in real time. The opportunity is to rethink hormone care as a personalized system rather than a generic prescription. Highly personalized therapies paired with AI-driven software companions can adapt dosing and integrate medical oversight over time. This is how hormone optimization moves from one-size-fits-all to truly individualized care.
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We’re entering a genuinely exciting moment. Founders with strong consumer instincts, working in close partnership with medical professionals, can take compounds and molecules that have long lived in labs and clinics and repackage them as accessible, well-designed consumer products. Paired with software and AI-assisted protocols, these tools can move from occasional interventions to part of everyday life. If you're building in this space get in touch - I'd love to hear from you.