Background
Summary of Council decision:
Two issues were investigated, both of which were Upheld.
Ad description
Two ads for Do Health, a health app incorporating a blood testing programme, seen in March 2026:
a. A Facebook post by Dr Chatterjee, a co-founder of Do Health, featured a video of Dr Chatterjee discussing difficulties members of the public experienced trying to access blood tests. He said, “I’ve been talking about things on television, in my books, on my podcast that people would find difficult to actually implement. The lifestyle recommendations, yeah, they could implement. But when I spoke about blood tests, they would say ‘well Dr Chatterjee I can’t do this. I can’t go to my doctor and get that test. I don’t know where I should go’ […] And what I decided to do was think about what are the blood tests that I want to see in myself three times a year? And that’s what people are going to get at Do Health. These are the tests that I want for myself […] I’ve had a father who got chronically unwell, got an autoimmune disease, and was on kidney dialysis for 15 years. I know the impacts of illness on you individually and what it does to the rest of your family. I don’t want that for me. And there is so much science supporting early blood testing, especially if you’re testing the right things. At Do Health, we’re measuring what matters. We’re not over testing. We’re just measuring the key things that we know move the needle. I don’t think this offering is out there […] I honestly believe that this could revolutionise healthcare in the UK”.
Accompanying text read “For 20 years, I’ve been helping people improve their health. Over that time, I’ve learned that knowledge isn’t enough. You already know what’s generally healthy. The challenge is knowing what you specifically need to do, then actually doing it consistently. That’s why I’ve co-founded Do Health: a personalised health companion app, powered by your biology and your lifestyle. Through simple blood tests and an understanding of how you actually live, Do Health helps you: […] Know exactly what your body needs right now […] Get three small, doable actions each week, mapped to my four pillars […] See your progress over time and learn what works for you”.
b. A LinkedIn post by Dr Chatterjee featured the text “So excited to announce my partnership with George Pallis and Voy to create Do Health […] I have long felt that modern healthcare is far too reactive. We wait until people get sick before we get properly involved. But we know what [sic] type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and many other illnesses start many years before people actually get a diagnosis. The future of preventative health care is assessing key biomarkers early and then helping people make manageable changes to their lifestyle based upon what we find. So excited that the first people are going through the Do Health programme right now and are so happy with the service and guidance. I think this is the future of preventative health. Let’s go!”.
Issue
The complainant, a GP, challenged whether the ads misleadingly implied that Do Health’s blood tests could:
1. prevent and diagnose medical conditions, such as autoimmune disease, Alzheimer’s disease and type 2 diabetes; and
2. provide more tailored, specific advice than pre-existing generic advice.
Response
1. & 2. Menwell Ltd t/a Do Health said they offered a personalised health and behavioural change service that used blood tests to provide data on 11 metabolic biomarkers. That data was used alongside lifestyle information to help users make and track healthier changes over time. They said the app supported users to make healthy, informed decisions and did not make clinical diagnoses, recommend medication, or claim to do so.
Do Health said the ads made the claim that awareness of metabolic information, behavioural change over time and healthier living promoted disease prevention. They did not claim that this could be achieved through blood testing alone. They did not believe that their blood tests were presented as giving better advice than generic advice. They said the tests provided data, and that any recommendations were tailored using both biomarker results and users’ own lifestyle information, which made them more personal than general public health advice.
In relation to issue 1, Do Health did not believe the ads implied their blood tests could diagnose or prevent autoimmune disease, kidney disease, Alzheimer’s disease or type 2 diabetes. They said the references to autoimmune and kidney disease in ad (a) appeared solely in Dr Chatterjee’s personal account of his father’s illness and provided background to his interest in preventative healthcare. They did not accept that ad (b) constituted a marketing communication for the purposes of the CAP Code. They said the post was published on Dr Chatterjee’s personal LinkedIn account and comprised a commentary on preventative healthcare and the announcement of a new venture. It did not include a promotional offer, pricing information or direct invitation to purchase. That point notwithstanding, they said consumers would understand the post as commenting on risk, early intervention and lifestyle change, not as claiming that Do Health diagnosed or prevented disease. They stated that there was a distinction between risk identification and making a diagnosis.
In relation to issue 2, Do Health said that their blood tests provided data, rather than advice. They stated their service generated tailored recommendations based on information about an individual user’s biomarkers and personal health information. They therefore believed it was accurate to say that the service offered was more tailored, personal and superior to generic advice available from other sources. They also said preventative healthcare commonly involved testing asymptomatic people, and referred to the NHS Health Check programme as an example of using recognised biomarkers and risk factors to identify opportunities for earlier intervention.
Do Health referred to NHS and public health material to support the broader principle that prevention, earlier identification of risks and healthier lifestyles were established parts of healthcare policy.
Assessment
1. Upheld
Ad (a) featured Dr Chatterjee highlighting the difficulties members of the public faced when trying to access blood tests. He said that he had considered “what are the blood tests that I want to see in myself three times a year?” and stated that those were the tests consumers would receive through Do Health. He then spoke about his father becoming chronically unwell, suffering from an autoimmune disease and requiring kidney dialysis, before stating, “I don’t want that for me. And there is so much science supporting early blood testing, especially if you’re testing the right things”. He went on to state that Do Health was “measuring what matters” and measuring “the key things that we know move the needle”.
We considered that consumers would understand that Dr Chatterjee’s reference to wanting to avoid the serious health problems experienced by his father was directly linked to the benefits of early and regular blood testing, including testing what he described as the “right things”. In particular, the statement “I don’t want that for me” was immediately followed by the claim that there was “so much science supporting early blood testing”. We considered that, in that context, consumers would understand that Do Health’s blood testing was presented as a means of diagnosing serious health conditions at an early stage or finding indicators that such conditions might develop, thereby enabling action to be taken to help delay their progression or prevent them. The references to tests that Dr Chatterjee himself wanted to undertake three times a year, and to Do Health measuring the key things that “move the needle”, further reinforced the impression that the testing could identify information relevant to serious health conditions at an early stage, which could then be acted upon. We therefore considered the ad went beyond an individual giving a personal account and gave the impression that the blood tests offered through Do Health’s service could identify and diagnose serious medical conditions at an early stage, and help prevent them from worsening, including conditions such as autoimmune disease and serious kidney problems. We had not seen evidence from Do Health to substantiate that Do Health’s blood tests could diagnose or help prevent those conditions.
Ad (b) was a post on Dr Chatterjee’s LinkedIn page, in which he announced his partnership in creating the Do Health service. Paragraph I(h) of the Scope of the Code stated that it applied to “advertisements and other marketing communications by or from companies, organisations or sole traders on their own websites, or in other non-paid for space online under their control, that are directly connected with the supply or transfer of goods, services, opportunities and gifts”. We understood that Dr Chatterjee was a co-founder of Do Health. We considered the purpose of the post, which referenced the first people using Do Health who were “so happy with the service and guidance” and referred to the programme as “the future of preventative health” was to promote the service. The post amounted to marketing content for Do Health placed in non-paid for space online under their control, which fell within the scope of the CAP Code.
Ad (b) stated “We wait until people get sick before we get properly involved”, “type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and many other illnesses start many years before people actually get a diagnosis” and “the future of preventative health care is assessing key biomarkers early”. We considered that the references to assessing biomarkers early were expressly framed in the context of “preventative health care”, and were followed by the statement that lifestyle changes could be made “based upon what we find”. We considered consumers would therefore understand that identifying serious health conditions, or indications that they were developing, through Do Health’s blood testing would enable them to take action to help prevent those conditions from developing or progressing. Although the ad referred to lifestyle changes, we considered it gave the impression that lifestyle changes could be made following a diagnosis by Do Health, and that by using the service, consumers could meaningfully address or prevent the named health conditions. We had not seen evidence to substantiate that Do Health’s blood tests could diagnose, prevent or otherwise address conditions such as type 2 diabetes or Alzheimer’s disease.
We understood that Do Health believed the ads referred to risk identification, behavioural change and healthier living, rather than making a diagnosis. However, we considered that both ads linked the blood testing offered by Do Health with serious health conditions in a way that was likely to lead consumers to infer that their service could prevent, detect or otherwise address those conditions. Therefore, because we had not seen any evidence to substantiate that Do Health’s blood tests could prevent and diagnose medical conditions such as those named in the ads, we concluded the ads were misleading.
On that point, the ads breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 12.1 (Medicines, medical devices, health-related products and beauty products).
2. Upheld
Ad (a) stated “Knowledge isn’t enough. You already know what’s generally healthy. The challenge is knowing what you specifically need to do” and said Do Health would help consumers “know exactly what your body needs right now”. The ad contrasted generic health advice with Do Health’s service, and emphasised the role of blood testing, with Dr Chatterjee saying, “I don’t think this offering is out there”. We considered consumers would understand the ad to mean that general health advice was not sufficiently tailored to individuals to allow them to make the most beneficial changes for them, and that there were no other services similar to Do Health’s that offered specific health advice based on the results of blood tests. Ad (b) stated the service would assess “key biomarkers” and help people make manageable lifestyle changes “based upon what we find”. We therefore considered that the ads made an objective claim that Do Health’s service could use blood testing results to provide advice that was more tailored and specific to consumers’ individual needs than general healthy lifestyle advice.
We understood Do Health’s service used each consumer’s own biomarkers and own health information to provide them with healthy lifestyle recommendations, and they believed it was accurate to say they offered more tailored advice than general public health advice. However, we considered the claims in the ads went further than saying the service involved some degree of personalisation. Claims such as “know exactly what your body needs right now” and “what you specifically need to do” implied that the blood tests and associated analysis could generate precise and reliable individual advice, and that this would be more tailored and specific than pre-existing generic advice.
While we understood that the service used each consumer’s own biomarker results and lifestyle information to personalise its recommendations, we had not seen evidence demonstrating that the use of those blood test results enabled Do Health to provide advice that was materially more tailored or specific than pre-existing generic health advice. Because we had not seen evidence to support that impression, we concluded the ads were misleading.
On that point, the ads breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 12.1 (Medicines, medical devices, health-related products and beauty products).
Action
The ads must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Menwell Ltd t/a Do Health not to imply that their blood tests could prevent and diagnose medical conditions, or that their service could provide more tailored, specific advice than pre-existing generic advice if they did not hold evidence to substantiate such claims.
