“The GLP-1 trend has just [suddenly] come upon us, but it has opened up so many gaps in services where personalized nutrition is the perfect fit for those who are on the treatment, those who are coming off the treatment, and for health maintenance,” said the CEO and founder of Qina, “I think personalized nutrition fits into everything.”
Speaking to Nikki Hancocks, NutraIngredients Europe Editor, after her appearance at the Active Nutrition Summit last month (June 23-25), Abrahams noted a lack of research into exactly what GLP-1 medication users need to help them reach their daily nutritional requirements but early evidence suggests there are several major nutritional gaps in diets.
The nutritional needs will be completely different for each consumer, plus they will each experience different side effects, making it an ideal opportunity for personalized services to fill the gap.
“Not only in terms of nutrition but it’s the holistic approach to exercise, supporting people with behaviour change, food literacy, the psychology that comes with shopping and preparing meals, and what happens when you want to come off,” Abrahams continued.
“I think personalized nutrition is the perfect service to be offered to everyone thinking about going onto it.”
Combining datasets and services
She noted a recent Harvard Business Review outlining the top ten reasons people were using GenAI in 2024 and 2025 revealed ‘healthy living’ had jumped from 75th to tenth spot, showing how consumers are clearly trusting AI to provide day-to-day health and lifestyle advice.
“It’s moved on from being a cute tool to create cat images. It’s now understood to be a useful tool and people are creating their own meal plans, their own exercise plans…for day-to-day choices, it makes life easier.”
Whilst free AI platforms will ‘undoubtedly’ eat into opportunities for paid-for personalized nutrition services, Abrahams said the future lies in companies combining different datasets to provide something far more personalized and far superior to the generic services.
She argued that with many personalized services losing their customers by month six, there’s a clear need for better consumer support and more focus on the ‘human’ element that paid-for services could provide.
She noted the interesting trend in the US, whereby companies are partnering retailers to better access, support and impact consumers.
“It’s the human element in combination with the AI that will help people with adherence and engagement and create better longitudinal data to be able to innovate.
“I believe it will involve developing a new ecosystem where companies can collaborate. There needs to be new reimbursement or support that will enable users to get the support they need and buy solutions at an affordable price.”