CHANGE THE GAME

PREVENTIVE HEALTHCARE START-UPS ARE SPREADING A TRANSFORMATIONAL MESSAGE-FITNESS, GOOD HEALTH AND LIFESTYLE CHOICES CAN LEAD TO LESS ILLNESS. AND CONSUMERS ARE LAPPING IT UP, CREATING A TREND THAT COULD ALTER INDIA'S HEALTHCARE TRAJECTORY

- NEETU CHANDRA SHARMA

“PREVENTION IS BETTER than cure.” In the 16th century, Dutch philosopher Desiderius Erasmus coined the immortal phrase that today manifests the business model of a spurt of start-ups focussed on preventive healthcare. The core message: stay fit, eat healthy, live healthy, and show diseases the door, especially non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardiovascular diseases (heart attack, stroke), chronic respiratory diseases (lung cancer, cystic fibrosis), diabetes, etc. If you have a consistently unhealthy diet, don’t exercise, or you smoke or drink, you are at greater risk of attracting these diseases, big killers all.

What should you do? Well, you would know that answer. But what you may not know is: the right food to eat, right exercise for you, right lifestyle habits. A burgeoning segment of the population wants to know these facts, and act on them, forming a community of sorts that has become a big market for business. And start-ups such as Cult.fit, HealthifyMe, Fitterfly, Pristyn Care and Mfine, among many others, are jumping in with an array of experts from fitness maestros to dieticians and gadgets such as fitness trackers and health-monitoring devices to help you do what is right for you. Backed by big money from venture capitalists and snazzy tech-led platforms, these start-ups offer a multitude of solutions that are pumped up through cool marketing campaigns.

Experts believe that such preventive healthcare start-ups have the potential to mitigate India’s burden of NCDs with their innovations and technology-led solutions. “Preventive health tech start-ups can certainly play a role in mitigating the disease burden in the country,” says Dr Anoop Misra, Chairman of Fortis-CDOC hospital in Delhi. “Patients are also more aware about their health and are using several app-based services to monitor their basic health parameters.”