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Your support makes all the difference.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nRead more<\/span><\/svg><\/span><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nK<\/span>ayla Barnes-Lentz starts off her day at 5:30 a.m. with an oral routine: brushing, flossing, tongue-scraping, WaterPik, and once a week oil-pulling \u2014 an Ayurvedic practice that refers to swishing oil around in the mouth for 15 minutes \u2014 with an ozonated olive oil. Then she does light therapy with both a red light and a blue light \u2014 \u201cthe red light reduces inflammation in the gums. The blue light is for whitening\u201d \u2014 and has a big glass of water with electrolytes. After that, \u201cI sit down on PEMF (Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Therapy) for about 25 minutes,\u201d she says, which is \u201clike grounding on steroids\u201d. First used by veterinarians to try and heal broken legs in horses, a PEMF machine, which Barnes-Lentz has in her house alongside a host of other biohacking technology, generates a magnetic field that many believe is good for healing injuries and targeting inflammation. Consumer-grade machines cost about $2,000.<\/p>\nDuring the time she\u2019s attached to the PEMF machine, Barnes-Lentz does \u201cbrain training, meditation, a little bit of prayer\u201d and \u201cgratitude practice\u201d. It\u2019s a good time to fit in this routine because electronics can\u2019t be used around the magnetic interference of PEMF, so she takes time \u201csetting my mind before the day sets it for me\u201d. And then she gets morning sun \u2014 she lives in LA, so it\u2019s \u201cpretty much sunny all year around\u201d \u2014 which takes 10 minutes on a bright day and up to 30 if it\u2019s cloudy. <\/p>\n
Then she has a \u201cprotein coffee,\u201d which is \u201can all-organic biodynamic coffee\u201d mixed in with \u201ccolostrum\u201d (yes, the early liquid from the first days of breastfeeding, although the source is bovine rather than human), \u201corganic vitamins, five grams of creatine, collagen and peptides\u201d. <\/p>\n
That coffee sets her up nicely for the gym. \u201cI do work out between five to six days per week at the gym,\u201d she says. \u201cSometimes I do modified workouts at home if I have a bit of a busy schedule. But in my training regime, I really am focusing on all areas of longevity. So we want to talk about strength things like compound lifts, so squats, dead lifts.\u201d Although she\u2019s only in her early 30s, she\u2019s already planning for perimenopause and menopause, strengthening the bones and the muscles surrounding them so her body is in peak shape when it begins to experience those hormonal changes. She also does VO2 max cardiovascular training on an AI power fitness bike ($500), a walk in the hills with her husband, and a comprehensive stretching routine.<\/p>\n
Following the workout, she\u2019ll sit down and take a look through her biometrics. Barnes-Lentz wears an Oura ring \u2014 a piece of health tech beloved by biohackers, which is worn on the finger like any other ring but tracks sleep and physical activity, and costs around $400 \u2014 and has a number of other trackers in her home, including a bioelectrical impedance scale. Each week she\u2019ll do a deep dive into \u201clung health, blood pressure, my body composition \u2014 so that\u2019s weight, but also muscle mass and bone density,\u201d as well as \u201cmy sleep score \u2014 deep sleep, REM sleep \u2014 all of my general biometrics\u201d.<\/p>\n
Once she\u2019s done with the biometrics, she jumps in the sauna. Her sauna has red light therapy built into it, so she can do both at the same time (to install one in your house, prices start at $2,000.) Depending on where she is in her menstrual cycle, she\u2019ll then either do cold therapy (while in the follicular phase) or simply take a shower (bleeding week) and get ready for breakfast. Her breakfast \u2014 with ingredients all sourced from the notoriously expensive LA grocery store Erewhon, where the average weekly grocery shop costs about $500 \u2014 incorporates all the food groups, with an emphasis on fermented foods (\u201cat the moment I\u2019m doing a fermented carrot sauerkraut\u201d.) She\u2019ll often have eggs and lentils, along with broccoli or sprouts, and some kale salad with avocado and extra-virgin olive oil. At the end, she has a coconut yoghurt with Zen basil seeds \u2014 \u201cit\u2019s like half your daily fiber in two tablespoons\u201d \u2014 and blueberries, walnuts and hemp seeds.<\/p>\n
At that point, she starts work for the day. Her work station is set up with a host of technological biohacking paraphernalia, which she uses while she\u2019s working at her laptop \u2014 a NanoVi, which delivers pure oxygen through a nasal cannula; the PEMF again; a hair cap that she affixes to her head and that delivers red light therapy directly to her follicles, as part of her \u201chair protocol\u201d; another gadget that delivers \u201cintranasal photobiomodulation,\u201d i.e. shines red light upwards into the nose as \u201cred light therapy for the brain\u201d; and a LYMA Laser for her skin \u2014 all while sitting in her orthopedic Anthros chair. Every 90 minutes, she\u2019ll get up to exercise, either on the walking pad in her living room or outside (\u201cI typically get minimum 10,000 steps a day, but usually it\u2019s more like 12,000.\u201d) Unsurprisingly, none of this tech comes cheap, either. The NanoVi Exo is priced at $14,250 and most intranasal devices start at $500. A LYMA Laser starter kit is priced at $2,695, with monthly refills costing $149. The Anthros chair is a relative steal at $2,000. And all the while, a $2,000 Jaspr air purifier whirs in the background.<\/p>\n
Barnes-Lentz\u2019s work involves putting together her \u201cFemale Longevity Optimization\u201d plan, a five-day course with daily newsletters that provides daily information about biohacking to over 300,000 subscribers and costs $200 a year. In the interest of transparency, she shares her labs publicly on her website. With one click, you can view everything from her dental X-rays to the results of a stool sample taken to profile her gut microbiome. There are brain scans, ovarian follicular analyses, and images of her coronary arteries. Her height and weight (5ft 8in, 123.4 pounds) and fat mass percentage (18%) are shared publicly too. Her daily newsletters \u2014 with subjects like \u201cOptimize your mid day routine!\u201d and \u201cStem cells for longevity!\u201d \u2014 include YouTube how-to videos with thumbnails of her and her husband, Warren, California-photogenic, leaning in to kiss each other lightly while dressed in artfully loose, monochrome shirts and pants.<\/p>\n
After a few hours of work \u2014 including three walking breaks \u2014 Barnes-Lentz goes into her hyperbaric chamber, a pressurized oxygen chamber (for a home unit, you\u2019re looking at between $7,000 and $20,000), and increases or decreases the pressure according to how much stress her body can take, again according to her menstrual cycle. Then she\u2019ll start making dinner, usually organic fish and vegetables with whole grains. She\u2019s very particular about what she eats, increasingly so: \u201cI make every single meal, and I live in LA but there\u2019s only one place that I\u2019ll even eat at, at this point. I don\u2019t go out to restaurants.\u201d<\/p>\n
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open image in gallery<\/span><\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>Kayla Barnes-Lentz inside her hyperbaric oxygen chamber (Kayla Barnes-Lentz)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nBarnes-Lentz and her husband go for another walk in the hills \u2014 50 minutes \u2014 and when they get back, it\u2019s sunset, so all the lights in the house are changed from blue to red. They\u2019re in bed by 8.30pm, every night.<\/p>\n
If you think her daily routine has little room for spontaneity, you\u2019d be correct. But Barnes-Lentz doesn\u2019t care about that. \u201cI feel best having a nice routine,\u201d she says. Once a month, she\u2019ll have friends over for dinner, but they come at 4.30pm so she can still make her 8.30 bedtime. \u201cI think my friends love doing all this stuff, too,\u201d she adds. \u201cLike, they’re obsessed with coming over and doing my hyperbaric oxygen chamber or like, I’ll put them on a bio-impedance scale at my dinners, or I\u2019ll be passing around a grip strength tester.\u201d What\u2019s she missing, really, she wonders? Going out late and drinking alcohol? \u201cI think it\u2019s a little bit self-harm-ish to be going out late and be drinking an obscene amount of alcohol,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019ve called it normal, but you really are harming yourself on a pretty frequent basis if that\u2019s how you\u2019re living.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barnes-Lentz didn\u2019t grow up this way. She was raised in a fairly unhealthy environment, she says, and her family aren\u2019t quite as enthusiastic about her routine as her friends. \u201cI remember years ago when I had a Dexcom glucose monitor on, my mom was like: Oh my gosh, how did you get diabetes? You’re so healthy! And I’m like: No, I didn’t get diabetes. I’m doing this to check my blood sugar because I want to, you know? And she said: That is absolutely insane.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coming out of a low-income, all-American childhood, Barnes-Lentz knew \u201cI would have to optimize my biology to really build the dream life that I wanted, which by the way I now have.\u201d It took a lot of work and a lot of experimentation. And over five years, she\u2019s trialled a lot of different technologies. After the wildfires in California last year, she had two-and-a-half liters of plasma removed from her body in an effort to filter out the toxins her body had accumulated from the low air quality (\u201cYou make new plasma within 24 to 48 hours,\u201d she says, adding that she thinks of it \u201ckind of like an oil change\u201d for your car.) And she was convinced to have a hyperbaric chamber installed in her house after she saw how her biometrics jumped up from the data on her Oura ring once she stepped inside one.<\/p>\n
Barnes-Lentz, who is 34, and her husband, Warren Lentz, 38, have been consistent in one claim: they are aiming to live for over 150 years. Their carefully constructed protocols certainly work for them. Barnes-Lentz in particular has been putting in a lot of work to make sure that they are made appropriate for their gender \u2014 building in extra meditation and extra sleep time for women, for instance, and changing sauna temperatures and oxygen pressure according to menstrual cycles rather than using one set metric like men do. <\/p>\n
Even if some of it is the placebo effect, then, what\u2019s the harm?<\/p>\n
The harm we didn\u2019t anticipate<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n Dr. Jason Kovacic is an internationally acclaimed cardiologist, executive director of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Sydney, Australia, and professor of medicine in cardiology at Mount Sinai in New York. Over the past few years, he says, he\u2019s become more and more aware of the biohacking trend \u2014 and more worried about what it might mean for those who practice it to the extreme.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it’s pretty clear there’s not one real leader in the field, whether ice bars or barometric pressure, sauna, nutrients, supplements, juicing \u2014 there’s a proponent of all of these things and more,\u201d he says. A surprising amount of people, he adds, have expressed an interest in testing since the extreme biohacker Bryan Johnson appeared on The Kardashians <\/em>in February. People are experimenting widely in pursuit of longevity, all with the sense that it just can\u2019t hurt. That, Kovacic says, is a misguided assumption.<\/p>\n\u201cIt starts with taking a multivitamin a day. If you are getting a healthy, well-balanced diet and you don’t have any specific metabolic issues that are leading to specific vitamin or deficiencies, there’s actually very little evidence to say that a multivitamin tablet will be helpful,\u201d he says. \u201cBut the flip of that is one multivitamin tablet a day, over the counter in a pharmacy, is extremely unlikely to be harmful. So in that situation, I don’t have a problem with my patients taking a multivitamin a day. Then from there, it gets more complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n
One patient he recently heard about had moved from a multivitamin to taking excessive amounts of vitamin B6, and ended up with peripheral neuropathy \u2014 where the peripheral nerves, which connect the brain and the spinal cord, are damaged or destroyed \u2014 as a result. <\/p>\n
\u201cThen you get to things like hyperbaric oxygen,\u201d Kovacic says, \u201cwhich can be quite expensive for people that are buying these chambers, getting oxygen tanks delivered \u2014 you know, it’s a lot of money and I think the data supporting hyperbaric oxygen, for example, is really patchy at best. I mean, there’s a couple of papers suggesting that telomere length is longer and that that may be the case. But it’s a massive jump \u2014 a massive, massive jump \u2014 to go from \u2018you’ve got longer telomeres in a small group of highly selected people in one or two clinical studies\u2019 \u2014 it’s a massive adjunct going from that to saying you’re going to live longer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Longer telomeres are central to biohacking, mentioned frequently in pretty much every piece of biohacking literature, from newsletters to websites to physician-adjacent medical clinics. Telomeres \u2014 which are endcaps on pieces of DNA and protect it from damage \u2014 have been thought for a while to be key to extending life. A number of studies have drawn an association between longer telomeres and longer lifespan. And that seems to make sense, because a lot of DNA-damaging habits \u2014 like smoking \u2014 shorten your telomeres. Your cells get shorter and shorter each time they replicate, until eventually they simply die. The telomeres keep them around longer, which logically should be a good thing. People with shorter telomeres often appear, through various internal tests, to have an older \u201cbiological age\u201d than their actual age.<\/p>\n
The aim behind things like hyperbaric oxygen and strictly regulated diets is to lengthen those telomeres. A Mediterranean diet rich in legumes and whole grains does, indeed, seem to lead to longer telomeres.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, studies done in the past two years have poured some cold water on the telomere theory. Despite flying in the face of what is understood, some people with very short telomeres seem to have very long lives. A 2023 study suggests that those with very long telomeres might actually be keeping their cells around far too<\/em> long, allowing cancerous tumors and other catastrophic mutations to proliferate. The fountain of youth might actually be poisoned.<\/p>\n\u201cWhat we don’t know is what are the off-target effects of things like hyperbaric oxygen,\u201d says Kovacic. \u201cThat have a whole bunch of other changes \u2014 blood viscosity, blood clotting, and other things that we just don\u2019t know about in the endocrine and immune systems.\u201d There have been many, many studies where something like telomere length \u201clooks fantastic,\u201d he adds, \u201cbut then we actually then do a big trial and say: Does it save lives? Does it stop heart attack, stroke, and death? The answer is actually no, it goes in the opposite direction because there’s off-target effects we didn’t anticipate.\u201d<\/p>\n
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open image in gallery<\/span><\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>Kayla Barnes-Lentz works out every day, concentrating mainly on strength training while also making time for cardio (Kayla Barnes-Lentz)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nNot only do people fail to think about those unexpected effects, but they also sometimes seek to cash in on \u201cbiohacking\u201d techniques that are downright dangerous. When I asked Kovacic about the plasma removal therapy that Kayla Barnes-Lentz says she undertook after the California wildfires, he\u2019s especially concerned. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it’s unethical to take her money to give that kind of a therapy, to be honest,\u201d he says. \u201cThere’s no data to support it. And taking off two liters of plasma \u2014 that’s a massive drop in blood volume. It depends a bit on the technical details of how they did that, but that volume of plasma removal could be dangerous. They may have done a plasma exchange, they may have taken plasma off and given back saline or another solution, but \u2014 especially in the context of an acute wildfire \u2014 there’s no data to support that removing two liters of plasma to take out toxins is going to be beneficial.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018There, there, honey, it\u2019s menopause\u2019<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n In a polished, red and white building on Union Street in San Francisco and another in wealthy Palo Alto stand the two Biohackr Health clinics, state-of-the-art facilities run by the founding team of Dr. Lori Bluvas MD \u2014 a San Francisco-based OB-GYN \u2013 and Dr. Lauren Greenberg, a plastic surgeon with a clinic on Stanford\u2019s campus who specializes in breast and facial surgery. What began as a drop-in center that focus on anti-ageing and IV therapies has bloomed into a business that offers emerging treatments and regimens to a broad clientele aimed at improving cognitive, physical and sexual health.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that both of us, when we got to be women of a certain age, became very interested in all of this because of medicine, but also because of what was happening to ourselves,\u201d says Greenberg. \u201cAnd there’s really kind of this void. I have found that so much of the biohacking world feels like snake oil to me.\u201d <\/p>\n
Coming from the medical world themselves, Greenberg and Bluvas knew two things: firstly, that women are often ignored and their issues are often downplayed by doctors; and secondly, that medicine in the U.S. is a capitalist practice often tainted by sales and marketing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just went to my national plastic surgery meeting and everyone is trying to get me to carry their skin cream,\u201d Greenberg says, as one example. \u201cThey show me pictures before and after. I don’t always know when the \u2018after\u2019 picture is taken. Is it the same light filter? And if it’s making skin better, show me the biopsy. Show me the histologic biopsy where you show me that the collagen and elastin is thickened, because all of these multimillion-dollar companies have that test. And if they can’t show it to me, it’s because it didn’t show what they wanted it to.\u201d There are \u201c20 million companies\u201d who turn up to such medical conferences to sell to doctors, she says, and they throw exciting-sounding buzzwords like \u201cexomes\u201d (another biohacker beloved) and \u201cregenerative medicine\u201d around while often trying to manipulate their actual findings. Even for seasoned physicians, it\u2019s a lot to wade through.<\/p>\n
Bluvas concurs: \u201cI’ve had sales reps come to my office talking about how great this or that blood pressure medicine is. But I will look at their research and the average age of their person will be 67 years old or 72 years old, you know, and it\u2019s only a tiny portion of women. You know, I’m an OB-GYN, so my patients I’m treating with blood pressure are 15 years younger and all women\u2026 They will present it to me as the best new high blood pressure medicine under the sun. \u2018Oh, we have great studies to back it.\u2019 I’m like: Yeah, great studies in a very narrow demographic, you know, not great studies for [a woman] who\u2019s 36 years old. \u2026 I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I mean, we’re a capitalist society. These companies are here to sell us things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because medical research is so behind in terms of showing outcomes for women, Greenberg and Bluvas do their own deep-dives into new treatments in their areas of expertise. It\u2019s something they think is especially important, considering the Trump administration\u2019s latest attacks on anything perceived to fall under the umbrella of DEI.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a friend who’s in OB-GYN at Stanford, and she has a bunch of grants, and if the word \u2018woman\u2019 is in the grant, it now gets unfunded,\u201d says Greenberg. \u201cAnd she’s at Stanford<\/em> and it has already happened to her. Going forward, being able to kind of research this, I think, is going to be impaired. And in my dream state for Biohackr, we will do some studies which may not be quite as scientific, as we’re not funded, but we do have a large patient base and [we can] try to again bring some science to this area of things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\n<\/p>\n
open image in gallery<\/span><\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>LED light therapy is commonly offered in biohacking clinic (Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nGreenberg and Bluvas aren\u2019t surprised that women in particular have started expressing such interest in the biohacking space in the past few years. \u201cI think you’ve seen such an explosion because a lot of women who are very empowered and intelligent hit menopause and went to their doctors, and their doctors said: \u2018There, there, honey, it’s menopause, and you need to just deal with it,\u2019\u201d says Greenberg. \u201cAnd we were like: \u2018No. There needs to be a better way.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
That\u2019s especially urgent, she adds, considering that menopause now takes up between a third and a half of a woman\u2019s life: \u201cIf you go through menopause when you’re around 51 and you live to be 86, it is that amount of your life. And so it used to be that people didn’t live that long past menopause. So I don’t think that this was so much of a factor, or they weren’t as active. They weren’t working, they weren’t traveling and hiking Mount Kilimanjaro when they were 70, which they are now\u2026 [In the United States], we live longer, but we aren’t healthy at the end of our lives. So how can we improve that? And then to do that, you can’t start when you’re 70. You have to start when you’re 40 and 50.\u201d<\/p>\n
Biohacking is a nascent practice, however, and it\u2019s open to abuse. I ask Bluvas and Greenberg about colostrum, one of the main ingredients in Kayla Barnes-Lentz\u2019s morning coffee. Colostrum is an immune-rich, high-fat liquid that all mammals make in the early days immediately after giving birth, a kind of \u201csuper-milk\u201d. Humans make it for their children, of course, but the popular supplements take it from cows.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe benefits of colostrum are the antibodies that come over, for human people and human babies,\u201d says Bluvas. \u201cObviously, that’s not going to be able to cross species. So in terms of the immunology benefits of colostrum, you sort of don’t get that.\u201d There might be something in the concentrated fats, she says, but she\u2019s skeptical.<\/p>\n
What both Bluvas and Greenberg are enthusiastic about, however, is creatine \u2014 \u201cwhich every post-menopausal woman and every man over 50 should be on\u201d \u2014 and testing for NAD levels. Levels of NAD \u2014 molecules that are essential for molecular energy production \u2014 tend to decline as we age and are therefore touted as \u201csigns of your biological age\u201d in biohacking circles. At the Biohackr offices, blood spot tests are taken for NAD levels, and other scans and bloodwork are suggested according to one\u2019s family history (Greenberg\u2019s father died young, from a sudden heart attack at 52, so she keeps on top of her cardiac panel.) Along the way, they\u2019ve done some experimentation with their own numbers and had some surprising results. When Bluvas went through early menopause, she began experiencing joint pain. Much to her surprise, testosterone pellets alleviated it. <\/p>\n
Refusing to wait for a problem<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n Hang around biohackers long enough and you\u2019ll hear the term \u201clongevity escape velocity\u201d. This is the idea that at some point in the near future, advances in medical science and biotechnology will happen fast enough that they can extend human life expectancy by more than one year for every year that passes. In other words, if you can stay healthy and relatively youthful, new treatments and technologies might emerge quickly enough to keep extending your life faster than you’re aging. From a biohacking perspective, this means using diet, supplements, wearable tech, and experimental therapies now to slow aging as much as possible in the hope of reaching that tipping point. If you can just keep chasing health until we reach \u201cescape velocity,\u201d goes the theory, you might be able to live forever: you\u2019re the rocket ship blasting up out of the atmosphere that can actually escape the earth\u2019s orbit and power through into outer space.<\/p>\n
This is how biohacking fundamentally differs from traditional medicine, even when it\u2019s being practiced by medical doctors: \u201cTraditional medicine waits for you to have an issue,\u201d says Greenberg. \u201cYou have high blood pressure, you have diabetes, and then you treat it \u2014 as opposed to saying: Ooh, this has been trending in a bad direction. You’re pre<\/em>-pre-diabetic.\u201d<\/p>\nBiohacking tech can now put people more in tune with their bodies than they ever were before, she adds: \u201cYou can do a continuous glucose monitor, which I’m obsessed with, and you can see what spikes you. And it turns out that’s very individual. So I’ve done it, [clinic lead nurse] Atousa has done it, and when I did it, rice sends me through the roof, oatmeal sends me through the roof. Bread is relatively better for me. Pasta is relatively better for me. So in my head, before I had done this, those were all equivalencies. And if you\u2019d said, you know, eat a tortilla or eat steel-cut oats, I would’ve for sure said the oats are better for me. And it isn’t, for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Everyone at the Biohackr clinic practices what they preach. Atousa Habibi, who is a registered nurse with broad experience across the medical spectrum and has also worked as an aesthetician, is the one who, in her own words, is \u201cboots on the ground, who sees the patients and brings them in and starts the whole process of the biohacking\u201d. When she had her NAD levels tested, she says, her numbers were \u201cclinically deficient, the lowest of the low\u201d. That was a shock for her.<\/p>\n
Habibi brought biohacking to her 80-year-old mother after she moved into the clinic. \u201cShe had a full hysterectomy at the age of 52,\u201d she says, \u201cand I just saw her suffering. She went from the liveliest mom to\u2026\u201d Her voice cracks with emotion. \u201cYou know, it makes me emotional thinking about it because I’m like: If she had this help years ago \u2014 20, 30 years ago \u2014 how would she be now at 80?\u201d<\/p>\n
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open image in gallery<\/span><\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>The Oura ring is a particularly beloved piece of biohacker tech (Alex Lee)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nOne big issue is that studies done into hormone replacement therapy for postmenopausal women have been few and far between, and some recent findings were flawed. \u201cThere was a Women’s Health Initiative study back in the year 2000, which basically pooh-poohed hormone replacement for postmenopausal women, for 20 years,\u201d says Greenberg. \u201cAnd it turns out it was a very flawed study.\u201d <\/p>\n
On top of that, blanket pronouncements about how postmenopausal women should be treated led to failings at the individual level \u2014 including for Habibi\u2019s mother. \u201cPeople were so focused on breast cancer and how hormone replacement as you get older can increase your breast cancer risk,\u201d Greenberg continues. \u201cExcept for Atousa\u2019s mom, when you don’t have a uterus, you don’t have to do progesterone \u2014 and estrogen only actually decreases your breast cancer risk\u2026 And so if someone doesn’t have a uterus, they should probably be on estrogen because it’s going to decrease their breast cancer risk, and it’s going to help their bone health, lower the risk of dementia by 60%. It’s going to help their heart, help their skin.\u201d Considering that this was a \u201cknown fact\u201d before the study, according to Greenberg, it does seem particularly upsetting that Habibi\u2019s mother never received such advice from her own doctor in the immediate aftermath of her hysterectomy. It certainly underlines how, for men, biohacking might be about escape velocity, but for women, it often might simply be about leveling the playing field.<\/p>\n
How to age backwards<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n A host of studies in the past 10 years have shown in clear terms how underserved women have been by traditional medicine. We know that women with chronic pain issues are left in more severe pain and for longer than their male counterparts. Across the board, women are left longer without a diagnosis for their serious health condition. And we know that the general perception of what health issues look like \u2014 for instance, a heart attack, which often comes with \u201catypical\u201d symptoms for women such as nausea and sudden jaw pain \u2014 are heavily weighted toward the male experience.<\/p>\n
But Greenberg and Bluvas want to aim higher than leveling the field, and they believe women are owed that individual attention. They\u2019ve seen the results themselves. \u201cI’ve done some testing [with multiple pieces of tech] just to see, you know, how am I aging? And when they tell me what my biologic age is, it tends to be 10 to 11 years younger than my age,\u201d says Greenberg. \u201cAnd they all are consistently saying that. It is fabulous. And like, yay me. But also, it\u2019s telling me that there’s something about what we are doing that is making a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven’t done a very good job as a global planet in looking after women as we should have,\u201d says Dr. Jason Kovacic, the cardiologist. \u201cAnd I think what we’re seeing with biohacking is that women want to have all the same level of treatments and outcomes and benefits from healthcare that men have enjoyed. And as we know, the clinical trials, clinical trial data, drug therapies and so on have been skewed towards men’s health rather than women’s health over the last 50 years as a sort of modern era of medicine has come about. And women want what they’re entitled to, which is the same sort of benefits from the healthcare system.\u201d<\/p>\n
His \u201cbiggest concern about biohacking,\u201d however, is that too many people pursue it as a hobby while ignoring the elephant in the room. \u201cThere is an abundance of robust data,\u201d he says, \u201cand I think nobody will argue with that. A healthy diet, regular exercise, healthy body weight, well-controlled cholesterol, optimal blood pressure, optimal glucose control and avoidance of diabetes, not smoking, and getting the right amount of sleep \u2014 there is an abundance of evidence for all of those things, those eight things. Life’s essential eight, we call them. And what I worry about is biohacking shifting our attention away from these critical eight factors, when there is proven data to support the importance of these factors. And I do get concerned that people are paying inordinate amounts of money for all sorts of biohacks when they haven’t got these eight fundamental things optimally set up in their own life.\u201d<\/p>\n
When he talks to patients about these issues, he adds, \u201cI’m very aware of people that are not getting the right amount of sleep or they’re a bit overweight, or they still occasionally socially smoke or whatever, that are still investing money in biohacking. And it’s just wrong to be putting your faith into unproven therapies and ignoring the proven fundamentals.\u201d<\/p>\n
An erosion of trust in medicine \u2014 partly driven by genuine concerns about discrimination, and partly by the rise of nefarious narratives such as the anti-vaxxer movement \u2014 has led to an uptick in people\u2019s interest in \u201chacking\u201d their own bodies. And then, of course, there\u2019s social media, its obsession with looking much younger than your years, and a volatile political environment in which people are desperate to regain some kind of control over their personal situation. When Kayla Barnes-Lentz first got into biohacking, she was \u201cshocked\u201d that her doctor had simply dismissed some of her most fundamental health concerns and hadn\u2019t even told her that telomere tests and gut microbiome analyses were available.<\/p>\n
Barnes-Lentz knows that most people won\u2019t have access to a personal sauna or the ability to install a hyperbaric oxygen chamber in their home. But she says she wants people to know \u201cthat you can get incredible results with just free or low-cost practices.\u201d Most of what she does is still dependent on closely following Kovacic\u2019s \u201cessential eight\u201d. <\/p>\n
She\u2019s still interested in the cutting-edge, hacky, self-experimental side, too, though. That\u2019s partly because she\u2019s simply an enthusiast in the space \u2014 and partly because she knows women are still waiting for research, so she\u2019d like to get ahead of it while she\u2019s still young. Studies take a long time, and a lot of us don\u2019t have the time to wait for medicine to right all its wrongs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve been using hyperbaric [oxygen] because we know it is great for brain health,\u201d she says, as an example, \u201cbut I’m excited about the studies for fertility there. We know that it helps improve sperm quality, but the studies for women are still undergoing.\u201d She smiles a gently ironic smile. \u201cI mean, imagine that, right?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story. The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it. Your support makes all the difference. Read more Kayla Barnes-Lentz starts off her day at 5:30 a.m. with an oral routine: brushing, flossing, tongue-scraping, WaterPik, and once a week oil-pulling \u2014 an Ayurvedic practice that refers to swishing oil around in the mouth for 15 minutes \u2014 with an ozonated olive oil. Then she does light therapy with both a red light and a blue light \u2014 \u201cthe red light reduces inflammation in the gums. The blue light is for whitening\u201d \u2014 and has a big glass of water with electrolytes. After that, \u201cI sit down on PEMF (Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Therapy) for about 25 minutes,\u201d she says, which is \u201clike grounding on steroids\u201d. First used by veterinarians to try and heal broken legs in horses, a PEMF machine, which Barnes-Lentz has in her house alongside a host of other biohacking technology, generates a magnetic field that many believe is good for healing injuries and targeting inflammation. Consumer-grade machines cost about $2,000. During the time she\u2019s attached to the PEMF machine, Barnes-Lentz does \u201cbrain training, meditation, a little bi…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}