# The Problem

Chronic disease is exploding and traditional healthcare is not keeping up with the rising costs associated to managing chronic disease.  It still takes over a decade to bring new drugs to market (Mullard 2014). Moreover, it can take up to 30 years for a treatment to become standard of care. For people with serious health conditions, that wait time can feel cruelly long.

The wellness & betterment industry has grown rapidly to address the current frustration in healthcare developments. People are finding information online from many sources and starting to take matters into their own hands.&#x20;

The challenge with online sources of information is it’s hard to know what to believe and who to trust. Take Amazon, the primary marketplace for health & wellness products. Amazon, today is riddled with products that have significant safety and efficacy concerns (Smoller 2020). A few google searches on ‘buying Amazon fake reviews’ will quickly highlight the healthy ecosystem of fake review providers servicing product manufacturers.

**Without real world efficacy data, we cannot credibly determine what is 'better'.**&#x20;

Mullard, A. New drugs cost US$2.6 billion to develop. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery. December 2014.\
<https://www.nature.com/articles/nrd4507>

* Amazon’s supplement business was $95B in 2019, yet their Amazon choice recommendations are riddled with safety and efficacy concerns

  [https://drnealsmoller.com/blog/the-amazon-supplement-wake-up-and-shake-up](https://drnealsmoller.com/blog/the-amazon-supplement-wake-up-and-shake-up/)/
