How Blockchain Can Be Good for Your Health

Knowing the right things to eat for a healthier life is often challenging. The range of diet plans, restaurants, prepackaged foods and apps to guide consumers can complicate a consumer’s daily experience.

A four-year-old San Francisco-based company, Suggestic, aims to simplify the choices by combining augmented reality with blockchain technology. The “precision eating” app uses artificial intelligence to customize grocery lists and recipes based on users’ health and wellness goals and food preferences. Users can also scan food, menus and ingredients, and an augmented reality feature will suggest nutritional meals that meet individual needs.

Blockchain technology gives users an economic benefit for staying healthy.

Suggestic’s more recent use of blockchain technology will provide a faster, more secure environment for exchanging information. The company sees blockchain as a way of differentiating itself in a crowded field of tech-fueled health and wellness-related tech companies and boosting participation because it creates a more trusted environment.

A Growing Problem

Eating healthier has become an increasing concern amid growing rates of obesity and the diseases that stem from them. Nearly 71 percent of adults 20 and older in the U.S. are overweight or obese, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 9 percent of the U.S. population — about 30 million people — has diabetes, which has been linked to obesity. The American Diabetes Association says people with the disease pay almost $10,000 in diabetes-related healthcare costs. Yet, only about one in 10 adults are getting enough fruits and vegetables in their diet, says the CDC.

The app is based on two main components. One is to put “food as medicine” information closer to the user to simplify the media deluge of conflicting advice, Suggestic Chief Marketing Officer and co-founder Shai Rozen tells ThirtyK. The other is to put data into context, so individual app users can quickly select the best dishes for their own needs from a menu or group of recipes.