INSIGHTS
August 17, 2026

Nutrition’s second act

As GLP-1 use climbs, patients need more nutrition guidance—and that job keeps getting more complicated. There’s the rise of protein-maxxing to guard against muscle loss, duller taste perception, disappearing “food noise,” a growing aisle of “GLP-1 friendly” foods (a completely unregulated food label), and GI side effects severe enough that two-thirds of users who develop them quit the drug. Despite all that, many GLP-1 users receive little or no dietary advice.

One key problem: demand for nutrition expertise is rising just as its supply gets tighter. The clinical nutrition workforce meant to provide this expert guidance is buckling under $80K-$150K in credentialing debt against a $77K mean salary, even as new CMS mandates just doubled the hospital population requiring a dietitian-led malnutrition assessment. Telehealth should be the obvious multiplier here—one dietitian, patients anywhere—but state-by-state licensure still remains a barrier (and an interstate compact intended to address this won’t go into effect until 2027). Digital health companies like Nourish, Fay, and Berry Street built virtual nutrition infrastructure years ago. The challenge now is figuring out how to stretch scarce nutrition expertise even further.

Nutrition is one piece of the broader infrastructure play that Rock Health Capital sees defining the second GLP-1 investment cycle. While the first wave of companies aimed to solve for access, the next opportunity lies in helping patients stay on therapy (e.g., nutrition guidance) and achieve lasting health outcomes. Which makes U.S. News & World Report—yes, the college-ranking site—launching its first-ever ratings of GLP-1 telehealth platforms a noteworthy marker of where the market is. The front door is mature enough to rank. The opportunity ahead is everything that happens after a patient walks through it.

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