How Truemed Is Incentivizing Americans to Invest in Prevention

Justin Mares (Truemed) on redirecting HSA/FSA dollars to prevention — and why crop subsidies, not laziness, made America sick

• US spends ~$100B on crop subsidies (corn/soy/wheat), making soybean oil artificially cheap — average American now gets 20% of calories from it, historically anomalous.
• Truemed lets qualifying patients spend tax-free HSA/FSA dollars on gym memberships, sleep aids (Eight Sleep, Peloton, Momentous, Life Time Fitness), and healthier food via telemedicine letter of medical necessity.
• Framing: if China deployed a bioweapon causing 75% obesity, US would treat it as national security emergency — current chronic disease crisis is equivalent, ignored.
• Coca-Cola spent $140M influencing US nutrition guidelines over 15 years; big food outfunds NIH on nutrition science 11-to-1.
• Monsanto spent tens of millions lobbying for a legislative rider shielding glyphosate liability — $14B in cancer damages already awarded against it.
• US has 60–80K chemical compounds banned in EU; EU requires pharma-level safety testing before novel chemicals enter food supply, US uses self-reported ‘GRAS’ designation.
• Peptides: non-patentable, cheap, early signals show energy/libido/inflammation/gut benefits — Mares predicts they’ll be ‘exceptionally disruptive’ to pharma despite needing more research.
• Ketogenic diet resolves symptoms in many schizophrenia, epilepsy, and bipolar cases — ‘metabolic psychiatry’ massively underfunded vs. talk therapy.
• Ozempic without fixing diet causes protein/micronutrient deficiency long-term; GLP-1s useful jumpstart but not a cure-all.
• Ray Peat (‘Peating’) community — high sugar via fruit/honey, maximize metabolism — is Mares’s current contrarian diet interest, producing better biomarkers after 10+ years low-carb/paleo.

Guests: Justin Mares (Truemed CEO, Kettle & Fire founder), Erik Torenberg (a16z General Partner) · 2026-02-04 · Watch on YouTube