What's The Hot...

By Elaine W. Teague

Gone are the days when monitoring your health meant keeping a thermometer in the medicine cabinet and having the occasional showdown with the bathroom scale. The rising temperature of sales in the self-health industry makes it clear: Wellness-oriented consumers are taking an increasing array of health matters into their own hands. What's leading the trend? A billion-dollar boom in self-diagnostic products, with sales predicted to double to $2.8 billion over the next four years, according to international marketing, consulting and training company Frost & Sullivan.

Today's innovative, easy- to-use home testing kits and mail-in laboratory services offer cholesterol or blood pressure checks, screen for many forms of cancer, predict ovulation more accurately, and even provide paternity or HIV testing. In part a backlash against rising health-care costs, consumers are eschewing mainstream medical venues in favor of self-testing's convenience, cost- effectiveness and confidentiality.

Offered through drug stores, mail order and, of course, the Internet, self-care products give consumers a sense of control over their own health and well-being--and afford attuned entrepreneurs an opportunity for healthy profits.

This article was originally published in the January 1999 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: What's The Hot....