Remember the slogan of the youth of the 1960s? Sex, drugs, rock and roll! Many representatives of that generation left our world long ago: realizing their perky slogan, they actually set in motion the mechanism of self-destruction and did not live to old age. Today's young people seem to have drawn conclusions and changed their point of view. Health and longevity is the new goal. And the most advanced means to achieve it is biohacking. But is it reliable?
Science cannot - we can
Representatives of the fashion trend rely on advanced technologies. And these technologies are now so advanced that they allow you to invade the molecular structure and thereby actually reconfigure the body. Unlike ordinary adherents of a healthy lifestyle (healthy lifestyle), biohackers are ready to take advantage of all the latest scientific advances and "blow up" the biological program from the inside. Our cells are doomed to disease, aging and death. So don't let this happen! Let's take and "hack" the system! It doesn't matter that science has not yet found the right ways to avoid disease and death and is not able to improve the human body! We ourselves with a mustache! Science cannot - we can …
And so, for example, in March 2015, biohackers demonstrated how you can endow a person with night vision. Representatives of the independent organization "Science for the Masses" published on their website the results of the experiment conducted on the volunteer. A solution was dropped into the man's eyes - an analogue of chlorophyll, which is used to treat some eye diseases. And within an hour, the subject began to see in the dark like a cat! The effect lasted for several hours.
Prick yourself
Biohacking can be called a folk community. People of all professions share randomly acquired knowledge with each other - often for free. Inject yourself - so and so, just for this buy this and that. And that's it! True, such specialists as Josiah Zeiner still prefer to take money for their developments. Do you know what he came up with? A 36-year-old biochemist from California has created a DNA editing kit at home on his knees! The former NASA employee took the CRISPR genome-editing technology as a basis and proposed a way to build muscle. To get his homebrew recipe to attract buyers, Zeiner publicly experimented on himself last October. In front of the users of the World Wide Web, he injected an innovative tool into his left forearm. And now in about six months it will be clearhow it will work. Of course, Zeiner does not expect any crazy results from a single injection, but he still hopes for some gene changes. During the experiment, he voiced his dream: “I want to help people genetically modify themselves. And I hope that there will come a time when anyone can come to some place like a tattoo parlor and order a set of DNA, for example, to build muscle or change hair color."
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Tablets, tablets …
Biohacking has been around for ten years. However, in our country, a surge of interest in this area arose after a long and detailed article by entrepreneur Sergei Fage, who works in Silicon Valley, appeared on the Web at the end of last year. She caused a lot of emotions from readers - both positive and negative. More than a thousand comments, in which there are either "thanks" for the valuable advice, or skepticism about the author's mental health.
In his article, Sergey outlined the principles of his lifestyle and proclaimed his goal - to always feel good and live a long time. And then he explained: “Every year I will invest more and more money in optimizing my health, which ultimately will allow me to earn more money and move this cycle forward …” In a word, if you want to be healthy and rich - be it!
So, adhering to his current methodology, Sergei hopes to make it to 120 years. And there further "with regenerative medicine, gene therapy, nanotechnology, by 2040-2050, there will be every opportunity to live forever."
True, some do not consider Sergei to be a pure biohacker. Rather, an advanced supporter of healthy lifestyle. What is he doing at this stage of technology development? And here's what: he eats right, sleeps for the prescribed time, works out in the gym, meditates and - drinks handfuls of pills! His pill diet includes dozens of drugs, which he swallows through the system: some in the morning, others in the evening. Among them there are both seemingly harmless dietary supplements and serious medicines. These are drugs for diabetics, people with manic-depressive psychosis, growth hormones, antidepressants, thyroid hormones, and more. Sergey claims that he began to feel much better than before. And before he came to grips with his health, he was pretty naughty: “I was nervous, unsure of myself, sometimes introverted, had problems with being overweight, concentrating,mood swings, anger management, delayed reaction and other things that many of us face. True, at the same time he managed to graduate from Stanford University, found several technology companies and, as a result, even move to Silicon Valley. But who knows, maybe it was the measures that he took to get rid of his health problems that played an important role here.
How is my microbiome?
Sergei decided to take the bull by the horns five years ago and, before interfering with the biosystem with the help of pills, he conducted a full examination of his body. It cost him 200 thousand dollars. However, what an examination it was! They checked everything that was possible - insulin sensitivity, hormones, ketones, microbiomes, toxins, athletic ability, fat, mercury, and whatnot. It turned out that Sergei's body is generally healthy. True, one genetic factor for future heart disease is not very good. But soon there will be breakthrough drugs that will reduce the risk factor to nothing, Sergey is sure. The only thing that seriously upset him was the low testosterone content. But pill measures were taken, and now in this part he, as they say, does not get better. His dream is to implant a device on himself,which could regulate testosterone levels depending on the situation: “Want to negotiate aggressively? Switch yourself to the appropriate mode through your iPhone."
Sergei claims that such detailed examinations should be carried out regularly in order to monitor the state of his body and correct it in time. Now, at the actual age of 32, his body works like a 22-year-old. And Sergey is sure that this is the result of his current lifestyle, including the constant intake of pills.
Don't do as I do
As you can see, being a biohacker is troublesome. After all, taking such care of your body requires time, effort, perseverance and, importantly, money. A real advanced biohacker cannot do without expensive examinations and consultations of the coolest specialists. Otherwise what's the point? If you want to get healthier with the help of the most advanced technologies - pay! In this connection, they are already talking about social consequences: as a result, the gap between the rich and the poor will only grow. A person with big money will be able to buy health for himself and earn new money with renewed energy, while the poor, alas, will become completely decrepit and impoverished. Sergei himself agrees with this point of view, summing up: “I have nothing to offer here. I just point out that this will be a bigger problem than the current mess with social justice.”
Sergei is lucky: he has a lot of money to pay both for examinations and for the services of doctors who decode these examinations and give recommendations on taking medications. And poor biohackers mostly use the Internet. There they find recipes for "breaking" DNA, and from there they write out the names of the drugs. And then they ask each other: how many pills do you swallow - five, ten, fifteen a day? We must pay tribute to Sergei Fage: he insists on that in every possible way. so that people do not copy his behavior, because everyone's organisms are different, and what is good for Sergei may be bad for someone else. However, many will still do what is not necessary - that is, they will start drinking all the drugs that Sergei carefully listed in his article. At the same time, the responsible doctors do not get tired of repeating: you must not take medicine haphazardly!In addition, several different drugs at once! This is fraught with serious side effects. Many medications do not work well with each other or are simply not suitable for a specific person. And the effect of "harmless" dietary supplements, in essence, has not been studied. And if you also inject yourself with an untested drug …
So, it is still unknown what the American Aaron Treivik died of. In May of this year, the body of a 28-year-old biohacker was found in a spa, swimming in a salt-water capsule pool. He is known to be the head of a biotech company that develops new drugs. Shortly before his death at a conference in Texas, Traivik announced that his company had come up with a herpes vaccine. And then he pulled down his pants and in public on stage injected it into his leg …
Elena GALANOVA
