What Is Biohacking?
Biohacking sounds like a scary word that conjures images of invasive medical procedures and dystopian futurism. It’s been the plot device to several episodes of Netflix’s sci-fi anthology series, Black Mirror.
Vox defines it as one branch of transhumanism, a movement centered around transcending the human experience using modern science.
What does transhumanism mean?
Mark O’Connell, the author of To Be a Machine, describes transhumanists as,
“[People] Transhumanists [who] want to be stronger and faster; they want to be cyborgs. And they want to solve the problem of death.”
So, biohackers want to be cyborgs?
Not exactly.
While you do hear about nurses installing RFID/NFC chips in their hands, not all biohacking requires such extremes.
At their core, biohackers simply use science and technology to better understand and optimize their bodies.
Why is it called “hacking”?
“Hacking” is not meant to mean anything negative, especially in Silicon Valley. It’s a colloquial term to describe “shortcuts” or “optimizations” in all facets of life in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Drew Endy, biohacker and bioengineering professor at Stanford, shares this constructive view of the term. Endy tells PBS,
“I come from a tradition where hacking is a positive term, and it means learning about stuff by building, and trying to make things and seeing what happens.”
Due to the more technology-focused business sector of Silicon Valley, it’s not uncommon for engineers to start a new buzzword like “biohacking.”
Serge Faguet, the founder of Tokbox and Mirror AI, believes people in Silicon Valley generally have a technical mindset. Faguet tells The Guardian,
“…they think of everything as an engineering problem.”
But who started calling it “biohacking”?
Elizabeth Matsangou from The New Economy believes the term earned its etymological source with the introduction of Rob Rhinehart’s meal-replacement drink, Soylent.
Rhinehart, a Silicon Valley engineer, designed Soylent to optimize the work lunch experience.
Built for those who tend to forego their lunch hour for more productive gains, Soylent provides a quick, nutritious meal in a bottle that can be consumed simultaneously while working.
Despite Soylent’s reputation as a “lunch optimizer,” their company serves a bigger purpose.
Their mission page reads,
“To make complete, sustainable nutrition accessible, appealing, and affordable to all.”
Soylent’s main goal is to democratize nutrition, breathing the same biohacking spirit of democratizing science.
When did this whole “biohacking” trend start?
Biohacking is philosophically nothing new. It’s taken many forms over the centuries of human civilization. You could consider the witch doctors of old cultures as a form of biohacking, using natural herbs and medicines to improve stamina or virility.
Biohacking is just the latest fashionable phrase to describe our obsession with improving our bodies.
How did biohacking become mainstream?
It certainly helps that famous tech celebrities participate in the movement.
Jack Dorsey, CEO of Square, is a self-proclaimed biohacker. Dorsey experiments with caloric restrictions like intermittent fasting, eating only one meal a day.
Dorsey claims the fast gives him better mental clarity. In a profile on CNBC, Dorsey quotes,
“During the day, I feel so much more focused…You have this very focused point of mind in terms of this drive.”
Dorsey is a prime example of why biohacking is so popular. In its essence, biohacking is a form of empowerment, bringing back a measure of control for your health.
But what makes it different from general health practices is that anyone can be a biohacker. There are no PhDs required to be one. It breaks down the institutional barriers built around Western medicine and harks back to the spirit behind traditional home remedies.
Who are some other famous biohackers I would know?
For better or for worse, there aren’t any certifications or authorities that make you a biohacker. Anyone who claims to be a biohacker simply is one. Here are some famous self-proclaimed biohackers you might know:
Dave Asprey
Also known as the “father of biohacking,” Asprey is the founder of the Bulletproof enterprise.
Bulletproof vaulted its namesake from its flagship product, Bulletproof Coffee — a blend of coffee, grass-fed unsalted butter, and MCT (medium-chain triglycerides). Proponents of the blend claim that the drink boosts cognitive performance and triggers weight loss through ketosis.
Asprey is unofficially credited to be the pioneer of mainstream biohacking.
Tim Ferriss
Ferriss is known for his focus on lifestyle optimizations. Initially getting his start with the best-selling book, 4-Hour Workweek, a book about hacking your productivity, Ferris didn’t take long to branch out his lifestyle optimizations to author his follow-up work, 4-Hour Body, a book full of biohacks.
Ferriss continues work on his podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, a long-form interview-based format that centers on positive tactics on improving overall wellbeing.
Ben Greenfield
Greenfield is a human performance consultant who runs a viral fitness and nutrition website, bengreenfieldfitness.com.
Greenfield is a serious athlete — former collegiate tennis player water polo player, volleyball player, 13-time Ironman triathlete, and professional obstacle course racer.
Greenfield is a coveted public speaker and host of several podcasts such as Ben Greenfield Fitness show, Endurance Planet, Get-Fit Guy, and Obstacle Dominator. He talks about multiple topics such as aging, fitness, nutrition, and biohacking as the primary subject matter of his shows.
Josiah Zayner
Zayner is a biohacker most famously known for his livestream stunts injecting CRISPR, a genetic modification kit. He also received a lot of notoriety for his attempt at performing an at-home fecal transplant to treat his gastrointestinal issues.
Zayner is one of the most polarizing figures in the biohacking community, labeled as a dangerous stuntman and FDA naysayer. Despite his extremism, he’s one of the most qualified biohackers in the limelight, holding a BA in plant biology, an MSc in cell and molecular biology, and a PhD in biophysics.
Why do people biohack today?
Biohacking has several subcultures that look a lot like the several sects of Christianity.
For example, grinders are a subculture of biohacking described as medical punk. They are the anti-establishment fringe of the biohacking community. Famously known for implanting magnets and RFID chips underneath the skin, grinders are careful to call their procedures “body modifications” akin to piercing.
Mr. Tibbetts, the host of Grindfest — an annual festival of grinders, tells The New York Times,
“You should be taking action. That’s kind of our ethos.”
One of these grinders is Michael Laufer, the de facto leader behind Four Thieves Vinegar. Laufer is famous for publishing a DIY manual on making your own EpiPencil, a $35 alternative to the more expensive EpiPen.
Laufer tells The New York Times that he believes they are transcending capitalism.
While grinders give the pharmaceutical industry the proverbial middle finger, Josiah Zayner is just a biohacker fed up with the slow process of getting science to the public.
Most notably famous for his livestream injecting CRISPR DNA encoding into his arm, Zayner is like a biohacking stuntman.
In an interview transcribed in The Atlantic, Zayner expresses,
“I usually think of biohacking as biohackers doing things that are hard or impossible to do inside the system.”
Zayner is better described as a social activist who wants to democratize science. He wants to liberate our ability to use modern discoveries in the present rather than years later after it’s gone through all the regulatory bodies.
Zayner argues,
“One of my biggest problems with academic and medical science is you read lots of these papers. Lots of stuff, we cured X or we did X, but it won’t be available to the general public for 10, 20, 30, 40 years. To me that seems ridiculous.”
Grinders and Zayner believe in different things. But all biohackers follow one central idea: to use science to take some measure of control of your body.
Dave Asprey, founder of Bulletproof Coffee and unofficial “father of biohacking,” reflects this control language in his own definition.
Asprey defines biohacking on his website:
“To change the environment outside of you and inside of you so you have full control of your biology, to allow you to upgrade your body, mind and your life.”
You can understand the sentiment of frustration behind these biohackers, but swearing off the FDA sets a dangerous precedent. Regulations are much needed tools to help protect us.
Is biohacking a form of alternative medicine?
Not in the conventional sense.
Alternative medicine has become synonymous with things like acupuncture or homeopathy. Biohacking is far from traditional eastern medicine practices. But it’s not exactly medicine.
It’s more like science-juiced alternative therapy.
For example, Tim Ferriss, author of the book, Tool of Titans, contracted Lyme disease and began intermittent fasting and a ketogenic diet to help alleviate some of the fatigue associated with the condition.
Likewise, Dave Asprey suffered from brain fog and was significantly overweight, hitting the scale at 300 pounds. He tried a healthier diet and exercise on the advice of his doctor but felt miserable doing it. Asprey tells The Guardian,
“So it was the desperation of, ‘For God’s sake, none of this crap works’ — that’s what really got me motivated.”
Asprey adopted his own Bulletproof Diet, inspired by studying the effects of Tibetan yak butter tea. He was able to improve his focus and shed weight.
There are different types of biohacking.
Biohacking comes in many forms. The three most popular types are nutrigenomics, DIY biology, and grinders.
Nutrigenomics
Nutrigenomics is the study of food and its effect on gene expression. Followers of the principle focus on refusing our genetic predisposition as a fixed, unchangeable physical identity.
When it comes to the relationships between food and genes, most people think of it as a one-way relationship — that our genes affect our diet, but never the other way around.
But save for any hormonal irregularities, followers of nutrigenomics believe your diet can change your genes, heralding diet as the one measure of preventative care to quell your genetic predisposition. They are truly accepting the mantra, “you are what you eat,” on the most microscopic level.
The idea also feeds into a more progressive form of healthcare focused on preventative care rather than treatment.
But where do they get such confidence that changing your diet can make the biggest impact on your genes?
Nutrigenomics established its fast-growing roots after the launch of the Human Genome Project in the 1990s. Mapping out our genes meant that we could adjust our diet, tailored specifically to work around our genetic predispositions. This is also known as “personalized nutrition.”
The science of personalized nutrition is murky at best, but the field is growing and posits an interesting approach to using modern gene testing kits as part of your nutritional basis.
As the cost of these testing kits becomes cheaper, access to your genetic map in relation to your diet will only get more accessible.
Pretty soon, everyone will have their genetic map on their smartphones, making gene-tailored eating a daily part of our lives.
Forward, a platform that uses genetic testing as part of your patient file, has already started using some of this technology to re-orient the outpatient experience with primary care physicians.
DIY biology
DIY biology started as a movement consisting of people with advanced degrees trying out their experiments in the non-controlled environment of their homes. These biohackers use structured experiments to conduct their biohacks. It is often colloquially called “garage biology.”
But eventually, the movement started adopting more egalitarian principles, believing that advanced degrees should not be a barrier for people to run experiments on their own. Ideally, the only requirement to be a DIY biologist is the simple interest of science — an idea that strikes the utopian visionary behind every scientist.
To put it plainly, the ethos of DIY biologists is to foster open access to resources that can help monitor our health and environment.
The rise in DIY biology directly correlates to the rise in technology and the cheaper access to that technology — the smartphone being the epicenter of the ideology.
Nearly everyone and their moms have a supercomputer in their pocket, which addresses a huge hurdle that was ever-present before the rise of smartphones.
DIY biologists want everyone to know that anyone has the ability to be an amateur scientist, catering to a hobbyist community.
Where supporters of nutrigenomics want genetic information to be a service we all routinely use in our doctor’s appointments and nutrition plans, DIY biologists want to take out the middle man, giving daily pedestrians the scientific tools to map out their own DNA for themselves.
One of these tools is a PCR device, a laboratory tool used to amplify small segments of DNA. It allows people to study their own DNA in much finer detail.
Wondering how to extract your own DNA? A simple set of DIY instructions from Popular Science may be all you need.
Luckily, the price of biotechnology continues to get cheaper, but the cost-access is only part of the solution. The other is simplicity — how do we make biotechnology simple enough so that the Average Joe can use it without needing formal training or an advanced biology degree?
Grinder
The popular images of sci-fi and cyberpunk identities of biohacking can give credit to a small underground group of biohackers called “grinders.” In fact, the mislabeling of biohackers as solely grinders can be attributed to the popular website, https://biohack.me, the home of the grinder movement.
Grinders are most notoriously known for their extreme body modifications, closely akin to body piercings. They are very careful not to call them surgeries in hopes of mitigating the spotlight from federal regulators.
If you hear about a person installing a chip or magnetic implant in their body, they probably follow the cultural norms of a grinder.
Grinders also tend to have anti-establishment rhetoric in their motivations. Members of the movement speak particularly of their desire to be free of the profit-oriented capitalist environment that federal regulators and Big Pharma have played in healthcare.
In many ways, grinders speak similarly of their pursuit of democratizing health as DIY biology enthusiasts, albeit with a more anarchical flair.
Outside of their more “cyberpunk” appearance, the main difference between grinders and other biohackers is the strong desire to be a cyborg. As opposed to followers of nutrigenomics who hope to modify their existing biology, grinders seek to enhance their bodies with implanted technology.
Amongst the number of biohacking groups, grinders tend to experiment with some of the riskiest methods of biohacking.
Garnering the most attention in the media, some might argue that grinders give the biohacking community a bad name. But their ethos is very much the same as the wider community; they just tend to play with the boundaries of safety more than other groups.
What are some extreme forms of biohacking?
Extreme forms of biohacking practices typically follow the most desperate. These individuals are like-minded with Zayner, grown weary of the slow but assured process of FDA regulations.
But desperation comes in many forms. Individuals like Asprey and Ferriss turned to biohacking simply because they were ill. In a way, you can understand and empathize with them. When modern medicine provides little relief, what other options do you have?
And for individuals who are much more pressed for time due to their advanced age or deteriorating condition, extreme forms of biohacking can be worth the risk, given the stakes. The boldness of these individuals wouldn’t be far from a cancer patient trying experimental drugs.
However, others simply do because they can. Their boldness is often tied with immense wealth. And the desperation of their plight lives deep within their very human desire to cheat death.
For example, The Sun describes Peter Thiel, PayPal founder, as an example of someone who is looking to achieve eternal life through extreme forms of biohacking.
Thiel uses parabiosis, the practice of injecting blood transfusions of teenagers into his veins.
The procedure became so popular among the wealthy elite of Silicon Valley that a young start-up firm called Ambrosia built a business on the idea, offering transfusions for $8,000 at a time.
Similarly, Elon Musk’s company Neuralink is developing technology to install brain implants. CNBC reports that in the long-term, Musk claims that the technology could allow humans to download their brains into a robot or another human after they die, essentially accomplishing immortality.
Another example from Gizmodo reports a team of biohackers called Science for the Masses successfully induced temporary night vision by injecting chlorophyll analog, or Ce6, a type of chemical found in deep-sea fish.
Is biohacking dangerous?
It depends on the kind of biohacking. The more extreme versions tend to have greater risks.
For example, the risks behind young donor plasma infusions carry serious public health concerns. The FDA issued a statement cautioning consumers against receiving young donor plasma, stating that “there is no proven clinical benefit of infusion of plasma from young donors…”
Likewise, ophthalmologists strongly advise against trying Ce6 in your eyes, noting that a single application can cause retinal hemorrhaging and central retinal vein occlusion.
Is there any real science behind biohacking?
Biohacking isn’t all experimental science. Many forms of biohacking have strong scientific evidence behind their methods.
For example, meditation is technically a form of biohacking as it is an external practice that can optimize the mind for better function. Meditation has years of evidence behind its claims.
A meta-analysis review, the highest weight of evidence, published in The Journal of Work, shows how mindfulness meditation reduces stress, anxiety, and depression.
You don’t need to make yourself into a human guinea pig in order to be a biohacker. Several biohacking interventions that use strongly-supported human-based research.
Look for several human clinical studies behind interventions. The safest bets are always ones with systematic reviews and meta-analyses, also known as the study of studies.
6 Simple Ways to Start Biohacking Today
1. Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting, or IF, is an eating pattern where you only eat during very specific time intervals in a day. Although the long-term benefits are unclear, some suggest fasting could be a path to longevity based on biomarkers studied in the lifespan in rodents, flies, yeast, and worms.
For example, a clinical trial published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that alternate-day fasting could potentially provide the effect of lowering insulin levels, allowing your body to burn fat more efficiently.
2. Elimination Diets
Experimenting with what you eat can be just as telling as to when you eat.
Elimination diets are the exercise of experimenting with the absence of certain foods, pinpointing and recording your physiological response once the food is reintroduced. This can help you understand your body’s sensitivity to certain ingredients.
As obvious as it sounds, changes in your diet can make a big impact on the productivity and wellbeing of your day. You may discover that you have a gluten sensitivity you didn’t know about.
In fact, experimentation with food elimination is the basis of the low FODMAP diet.
3. Sleep Optimization
Sleep is the most restorative activity you can do for your body. While you are asleep, your body releases repair enzymes that “clean up” from the day. And anyone can attest to how much a bad night’s rest can affect your productivity for the next morning.
Reducing blue light during your wind-down period, using sleep masks, and identifying clues to your sleep disturbances with apps like SleepCycle are just some of the more routine ways to optimize your sleep.
4. Cold Therapy
Do you have an uncle that swears by the cold shower in the morning? There might be some truth to the habit.
Cold showers can increase your circulation as your body increases blood flow to your vital organs from the shock.
It may even help with immunity. A clinical trial published in the journal PLOS One showed a statistical reduction of self-reported sicknesses with subjects who routinely participated in cold showers.
5. Health Tracking
You can’t forget the Scientific Method behind the lifestyle of being a biohacker. Tracking your data is just as important as the intervention method itself.
Using technology such as blood tests, heart rate monitors, step counters, temperature monitors, or simple habit trackers on your smartphone is just one of many ways to track your progress.
But don’t be limited by the technology you have on hand. A simple paper journal to track mindfulness and habits might be all you need. It was good enough for Leonardo Da Vinci, at least.
6. Coffee
Biohacking can be as simple as drinking a cup of coffee to improve your productivity. Coffee is one of the most heavily studied cognitive enhancers on the market. But the timing of your perfect cup of Joe can be just as crucial.
Drinking coffee a few minutes before your workout can optimize your performance. And cutting off caffeine after 2pm can help diminish the half-life, the amount of time it takes for something to leave the body.
How do I become a biohacker?
There are no PhDs, advanced degrees, or certifications required to be a biohacker. If you want to use modern science to take better control of your health, you are one. A biohacker is a self-proclaimed title that has no boundaries. Your curiosity for modern science is the only thing needed to be eligible.
Want more? Download my free biohacking guide available here.
