Are you a biohacker? If you only track your weigh-ins and workouts – you are not. If you take it a step further to track every step you have climbed and even your REM cycle you are almost there but not quite. Biohackers believe in experience-based learning. They collect their personal data and compare day to day changes by performing self experiments to see how their bodies react. Biohackers use that data to tweak their biological processes in hopes of making them more efficient. If you are into biohacking, then you’ve probably heard the name Dave Asprey and are at least a little familiar with his signature product Bulletproof Coffee, which is made with grass-fed butter and Brain Octane, a trademarked oil extracted from coconuts. But what is not as well advertised is the quantified self-movement that Asprey is a part of, a group of people who obsessively collect data about their lives in order to learn more about their behavior, and potentially change it. While that might sound incredibly niche and geeky, this type of self-tracking has actually become pretty mainstream. (Think of all the FitBits, smartwatches that log heart rates and smartphone apps that count footsteps you see these days).
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The New York Times Magazine wrote an article this past weekend about Asprey and the biohacking movement, the use of self-tracking insights to tweak exercise routines and eating habits to yield a better you. In it, Asprey claims that through biohacking, he not only lost 100 pounds, but he boosted his I.Q. more than a dozen points and lowered his biological age – as well as developed his multi-million dollar Bulletproof empire.
ForMen Disclaimer: Self-tracking to find better and faster ways to improve your health or looks is something we support, but it’s important to recognize that many of these approaches have no broad0based scientific evidence to back up these claims.
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On Asprey’s own biohacking:
[Asprey’s] blue-blocker shades rested on the table next to him. (He believes the glasses protect his circadian rhythm from the glow emitted by his phone’s screen.) All morning, he came off as hyperfocused and articulate, able to speak in complete (and compelling) paragraphs about his esoteric health interests. But he was also in constant motion — crossing and uncrossing his legs, adjusting his posture and clearing his throat. Eventually, he revealed that before our meeting, he dosed himself with a cocktail of substances to enhance his cognitive function. He’d wanted to be as alert as possible for the day, which included our interview and setting up for his annual Bulletproof biohacking conference. In addition to his regular daily supplements, he ingested a milligram of nicotine to improve his focus. The jitteriness was apparently worth it.
In all, Asprey says, he has spent more than $300,000 over 20 years on this self-funded research. He talks about himself almost as a lab rat, or as a monkey that was shot into space and returned intact, bearing data to share. But, with his background in computer science, he also fancies himself a hacker — someone who endlessly manipulates a complex system, troubleshooting and looking for vulnerabilities to exploit.
On how Asprey developed Bulletproof coffee:
In 2004, as part of his campaign of self-improvement, Asprey went to Tibet to study meditation. On a trek in the Himalayas, he began to feel the effects of altitude sickness. At a local guesthouse, he was served a cup of tea mixed with yak butter, which he found to be revitalizing and energizing. After returning home, he tried to make his own version, and eventually landed on the recipe he sells today — almost.
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On Asprey’s Bulletproof Biohacking Conference in Los Angeles:
There were samples of Fat Water, a new Bulletproof sports drink infused with a certain fatty acid that Asprey believes the body processes into energy more efficiently than it does glucose. There were Bulletproof-branded supplements, like glutathione, an antioxidant that Asprey says helps detoxify the body. I narrowly missed the cricket brownies smeared with colostrum icing — the crowd descended on them as soon as they were set out. I watched a woman drip a tincture made from deer antlers on the eager tongue of a slim and handsome attendee. I rolled my eyes at a hypnotist putting a woman into a trance, and then, hours later, the same hypnotist talked me into taking an injection of vitamins labeled simply a ‘‘shine shot.’’ (He had taken one, too.)
On extreme biohackers:
Seven months earlier and about two hours away, in Tehachapi, a much more extreme clique of biohackers gathered to share the recent discoveries from their world at a gathering called GrindFest. These are the real transhumanists, the kind of people who implant magnets under their skin and embed microchips in their bodies to replace key cards. Asprey’s ethos is not so dissimilar — he wants to push humanity past its biological limits — but his sell is a little more palatable: We need only think of our bodies as hardware in order to improve upon them.
What the naysayers have to say:
There are more than a few nutritionists who are dubious of Asprey’s bold claims. It’s hard not to be — there’s little research outside his own that backs them up. Asprey’s diet advises against calorie counting. It is also high in fat. Marion Nestle, an author and professor of nutrition and public health at New York University, is among those skeptical of what Asprey is selling. ‘‘I don’t know any diet, exercise or healthful-living shortcuts,’’ she wrote in an emailed exchange. ‘‘We all want to live forever, and if changing one thing in our diets can do that, we can all hope. The success of the dietary-supplement industry is best explained by wish-fulfillment fantasies.’’
The author’s takeaway:
Fad diets persist because they are seductive, and offer the promise of unlocking a better you by following a few simple rules. And Asprey’s pitch couldn’t be more epistemologically fashionable: A/B testing, hacking and data analysis have already provided us with many novel insights and conveniences.
Curated article from:
NY Times Magazine
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