We are all obsessed with lowering our cancer risk. A veritable army of companies is equally fixated with trying to make money off that obsession. 

Every week, I’m pitched two or three new products, services or technologies that promise to lower your risk. There are companies focused on DNA sequencing, dietary patterns, physical activity, and hundreds of other places. There are scans, monitors, blood work, and even one company that wants to dunk me in a water tank head first. 

Some of the promises are small. They promise only to lower your risk. Some of the promises, like curing cancer, are too good to be true. It can feel nearly impossible to figure out which of these companies is proven – or at least shows promise – and which of these companies is full of crap.

So, over the last few weeks, I went out on the road to figure out who is trying to police the entrepreneurs, scientists, biohackers, and others making promises to cancer patients and survivors about their health. 

The best two ideas I’ve seen come from an old business and a new one. Let's explore two ideas for policing these companies, starting with an established industry.

Insurance is just probabilities. The price of your life insurance policy is based on one sole factor: When your insurance company expects you will die. This is based on what has happened with a pool of other people of similar health, age and other factors. 

And life insurance companies want you to live longer. The longer you live, the more times you will pay monthly premiums. This means that you and your life insurance company are fully aligned. 

Given that alignment, it’s no surprise to learn that actuarial teams inside many of the major insurance companies are evaluating all of this new technology that promises to make you healthier. If new technology or innovation changes the math on your life expectancy, they need to know about it immediately. 

At John Hancock, they are looking at it all. And the results of what Hancock has learned make up the foundation of its Vitality program. 

Vitality, launched about ten years ago, provides direct health education and support to Hancock customers. In addition, as a member, you get points for certain health activities, which you can then use to get discounts or free services to live even healthier. 

So, where does Vitality and Hancock actually think it can make you healthier and what is it ignoring? Remember: The companies’ bottom line is at stake here if they get this wrong. 

Initially, Vitality was really focused on rewarding basic physical activity, healthy eating, and regular check-ups. More recently, as Vitality has expanded and Hancock has insured more cancer survivors, the company has chosen some partners. 

Among them, Vitality now offers GRAIL’s Galleri test, a liquid biopsy test that can screen for 50 types of cancers. It looks for the material shed by tumors in your bloodstream and retails for close to $1000. The test is not approved by the FDA but is particularly popular at Hancock. 

Vitality also offers Prenuvo’s whole-body MRI scan, as well as rewards that can go towards Nutrisense’s continuous glucose monitoring technology and Function Health, a lab testing membership company. 

“It’s about improving your own mortality curve,” says J.J. Bowman, vice president of market solutions at the Boston-based insurance company.

The other fascinating idea comes from Lindsay O’Neill-O’Keefe.

Lindsay’s life changed when she was hit by a car while pregnant with her third child. The driver backed into her open car door and kept reversing, crushing her and sending her into early labor.

From there, both her health and her unborn baby’s began to decline in ways that were hard to explain.

As she recovered, Lindsay was prescribed medication considered safe during pregnancy. Her daughter was born healthy but later developed low muscle tone, potentially linked to the drug. Lindsay herself became increasingly fatigued and lived with chronic pain. It took years and several misdiagnoses before she learned she had dual autoimmune disorders.

Steroids didn’t help, but a food inflammation test did.

“I removed certain foods and was immediately better,” she says.

That discovery reshaped her entire path. After twenty years in technology and artificial intelligence, Lindsay became a Harvard certified culinary medicine chef and made it her mission to understand how behavioral, nutritional, and physical practices can optimize health.

Today she runs Wellness Eternal, an efficacy and media company, and hosts The Optimize W(e) Podcast, where she explores evidence-based approaches to longevity and wellness.

Her newest project, The Biohacking Index, is a resource for rating wellness or biohacking tools. Think of it like Yelp!, where users can rate particular companies in real time. She believes the project will bring accountability to an industry that can be difficult to navigate. 

Even FDA-approved treatments require a second layer of verification to ensure safety and results. Take hyperbaric oxygen therapy, an FDA approved yet potentially risky treatment without proper oversight. One company highlighted by Lindsay is Oxygen Health Systems, whose chambers are trusted by the New York Yankees and Inter Miami FC. They deliver, install, and train every user to guarantee efficacy and safety - yet remain largely under the radar of both professionals and consumers.

The goal of the index is to combine verified data with community feedback so people can make smarter decisions about their health.

The big cancer story this week was about a new study from Mass General Brigham, which linked ultraprocessed foods to higher rates of colorectal cancer at a younger age.

Ultraprocessed foods are those frozen pizzas we heat up in the fridge or those fruit bars we hand our kids for snacks. They make up about half of our diet in this country by some estimates.

And yes, you should eat less of them. Not because they increase your colorectal cancer risk, but because they increase all of your risks. My friend at The Wall Street Journal Andrea Petersen has been reporting on this for years and consider me converted.

Still, it is really hard to do. If you are having trouble getting started, here’s her primer.