One gray December morning in Manhattan, I sat in a conference room as a phlebotomist filled eight vials with my blood. She worked quickly, clearly experienced. For her, it was just another day. For me, it was a test—not only of my blood, but of a new kind of medicine.
Superpower gave me its $199 advanced blood panel for free. The offer was simple: over 100 biomarkers, analyzed by software, compared against “optimal” ranges rather than general population averages. No need for a primary care visit or insurance approval. Just results, shown in a polished, easy-to-read interface.
I wanted to find out what these new direct-to-consumer health platforms really offer and what exactly they are selling.
Within a week, I got my results as a downloadable PDF and, more importantly, as an online dashboard. Lipids were shown as percentile rankings. Inflammation markers were grouped into risk categories. Hormones were compared to “performance” ranges. The interface turned a list of lab values into a story: moderate cardiometabolic drift, higher inflammation, and methylation inefficiency. Not a crisis, but not perfect either.
The panel covered a lot: standard chemistry and kidney function; a full lipid profile, including ApoB and Lp(a); hs-CRP for inflammation; homocysteine; thyroid hormones; total and bioavailable testosterone; ferritin; fasting insulin; and vitamins D, B12, and folate. This kind of thorough testing is more common in concierge or functional medicine clinics than in a regular annual physical. That’s partly because doctors only order what’s needed, and insurance often covers even less.
Primary care focuses on clear thresholds: Are you diabetic? Hypertensive? Do you need a statin? These platforms, on the other hand, look at smaller changes. They treat any move away from “optimal” as something to address.
That difference is by design. “The standard annual physical tests a fraction of what we measure,” said Max Marchione, co-founder and CEO of Superpower. “We’re looking at markers like Lp(a) and ApoB that can identify cardiovascular risk 10 to 20 years before a cardiac event. The cancer someone gets at 50 often starts developing at 30. The current system intervenes one to two years before the disease shows up. We’re focused on decades earlier.”
For me, the flagged values weren’t extreme, but they pointed in certain directions. My LDL cholesterol was 149 mg/dL. Triglycerides were 172. ApoB was 123. Lipoprotein(a) was a bit high. My hs-CRP was 5.8, which is above the American Heart Association’s high-risk threshold of 3. (This might have been temporary—I took the test after a weekend with friends and some drinks.) Homocysteine was 20.8. Ferritin was over 480. My HDL was strong at 71. A1c was normal at 5.5. Fasting insulin was modest. I’m 53, active, and not diabetic. Statistically, I’m pretty average.
And that’s the point. Superpower isn’t aimed at people who are sick. It’s for the “optimizing class”—executives, founders, investors, and operators who are willing to spend money for small improvements.
The “protocol” came next—a list of suggested changes. Omega-3 supplements with pro-resolving mediators for triglycerides and inflammation. A methylated B-vitamin complex to lower homocysteine. Electrolyte packs to fix mild sodium issues. Vitamin D with K2 to move levels from just okay to “ideal.” A follow-up panel in 8 to 12 weeks for $598. And most notably, semaglutide at $349 per month to speed up weight loss and lower cardiometabolic risk.
If I followed the entire plan for a year, here’s what it would cost:
• $199 annual membership panel (comped in my case)
• ~$190 per month in supplements
• $349 per month for GLP-1 therapy
• $598 follow-up panel
That adds up to about $6,000 to $8,000 a year, depending on how closely you follow the plan. Multiply that by a growing number of self-pay patients, and the scale of this new market becomes clear. Healthcare spending surpassed $4.5 trillion in 2022, according to CMS. Of that, nearly half a trillion dollars was out-of-pocket spending. Americans already spend over $50 billion annually on vitamins and dietary supplements. GLP-1 drugs—Ozempic, Wegovy, and their successors—are projected by Morgan Stanley to become a $70+ billion global category within a decade. Whole-body MRI startups are charging $2,500 to $3,000 per scan. Direct-to-consumer lab panels are increasingly available from Quest, Labcorp, Function Health, and others, often under $500.
This isn’t fringe medicine. It’s a parallel health economy growing outside the usual insurance system: subscription-based, consumer-focused, and powered by software. You get access to more biomarker data without the hassle of seeing a doctor. Testing is fast. Dashboards pull everything together instead of giving you scattered PDFs. It gives you a sense of control. If you like to manage your own health risks, it can feel empowering.
Marchione sees the relationship as complementary to primary care. “We designed Superpower to work alongside primary care,” he said. “Most physicians have 15 minutes per appointment and limited access to advanced testing. We give them better data to work with. When a patient comes in with longitudinal biomarker tracking, that physician can make more informed decisions.”
My lab results do show some real issues. High homocysteine, a high MCV, and borderline B12 point to a fixable metabolic problem. hs-CRP at 5.8 and ferritin at 483 aren’t just random—they need attention. Losing some weight would probably help my triglycerides, inflammation, and LDL. The platform made these patterns easy to see.
But optimizing isn’t always necessary.
Taking B vitamins can lower homocysteine in your lab results, but studies haven’t consistently shown that it lowers the risk of heart problems. Raising vitamin D from 36 ng/mL to 50 might put you in the “optimal” range, but it doesn’t seem to change overall mortality. Omega-3s do lower triglycerides, but only certain prescription versions have proven to reduce serious outcomes in high-risk people.
And semaglutide, while transformative for many, is not a trivial intervention. It is a prescription drug with side effects, long-term cost considerations, and open questions about durability once discontinued. Under FDA labeling, I qualify—BMI over 27 with risk factors. Under conservative primary care thresholds, lifestyle modification would likely be the first. So why didn’t my doctor recommend all these treatments? Primary care focuses on reducing the risk of major health events, not on perfecting every biomarker.
My A1c is normal. My blood pressure (not included in this panel) isn’t high. HDL is strong. ApoB is up, but not by much. Most guidelines would suggest lifestyle advice and maybe a talk about statins, depending on my 10-year ASCVD risk, not a bunch of supplements and starting GLP-1 therapy.
Superpower aims for tighter numbers. My doctor focuses on preventing heart attacks and strokes. Both approaches make sense, but they have different goals.
There’s also a bigger change happening. For years, medicine has been reactive—you only see a doctor when you have symptoms. These new direct-to-consumer platforms take a different approach: constant monitoring, tracking your biology, and making regular adjustments. It’s like the Apple Watch approach, but now applied to blood tests.
The idea is that catching problems early and keeping biomarkers in check will lower long-term risk. There’s strong evidence for some things, like losing weight, controlling blood pressure, and lowering ApoB. But it’s much less clear if small changes from supplements help people who are only at moderate risk.
For a Worth reader—someone who thinks about spending as a strategy—the real question isn’t whether the data is helpful. It’s whether the return on investment is worth the price. If losing 10 to 15 pounds through a better diet, exercise, less alcohol, and more sleep fixes half the issues, that could lower risk just as much for a lot less money. If semaglutide helps you get there faster and stay on track, maybe it’s worth the cost.
And then there is scale. “At $199 a year, we’re pricing this like a streaming service,” he said. “Our goal is to become the default healthcare system for Americans—150 million members, comparable to Amazon Prime.”
I’m glad I took the test. It made me face my health trends instead of waiting for things to get worse. It also showed me how quickly data can turn into a business opportunity.
The blood draw took five minutes. It took me an hour to go through the dashboard. The choices I make based on it will last much longer. The real question is whether we’re buying longer lives, or just more lab reports to justify our attempt to buy longevity.
