My experience with bio-hacking

Martin Kremmer  |  Jan 2020

2024년 1월 17일 shadowing 완료

 

 

 

TED Talker/연자

Martin Kremmer 

Biohacker, App Maker, 

Founder of Danish Biohacking Community

 

Have you ever visited your doctor and felt like he or she didn't take your concerns seriously or have you ever felt

worn out for more than just a few days? Well, I have. And right now you're probably wondering what's that thing on

this year. What you see in the screen up there is my real-time stress levels. The app is measuring my heart rate coherence. It's a technique that originated from NASA's discovery of heart rate variability back in the 70s. Green is good, blue's okay, red means my body is ready to run away from a tiger. And guess what? When your body is ready to run away from a tiger all the time, you burn up. So, join the next couple of minutes while I continue my talk and

we're gonna try to lower my physiological stress levels simply by changing my breathing.

 

What you see on the screen up there is one of the reasons that I'm here today. I'm here to tell you about the world of biohacking. I'll scratch the surface on how much you can actually improve your body and mind by challenging your own mindset and use tools and techniques that are far more sustainable than the advice you'll get from your average doctor.

 

During the day, and sometimes at night, I'm a digital architect who's made a career out of reducing friction in business processes. That might be a bit geeky, but I have an awesome job. However, it belongs to my story that I faced a burnout back in 2011 and 12. Now, I didn't talk a lot about it at that time, but since my face was often red like a tomato and my scalp was dry and itchy, it was kind of obvious that there was something not right. So, I went to see my doctor several times and he kept renewing my prescription for ulcer medication and when my energy was reached a critical low point he suggested I should try antidepressants despite the fact that I was not at all depressed. I had a thriving life and career, I was traveling the globe, I just lacked energy. So, the one day in 2012, I was somewhere over the Atlantic and my life changed completely. In a five-minute radio interview, I heard the term biohacking for the first time. Fueled by this deep scientific curiosity, I've since spend thousands of hours submerged in this fascinating world called the human body. Speaking of my body, not too bad.

 

What I've realized is that we've been programmed to think it is the norm to outsource our health to the public sick 

care system. No offense to the many great people that work in the system; it's not their fault. In fact, many of them are victims of the system that they represent: the average doctor is handling 52 patients per day, some as many as 80. And the combination of a doctor with five to 10 minutes to take care of us and our own desire to get a quick fix for our problems explains why we, for instance, prescribe addictive sleep medication instead of looking at the obvious sleep disturbing factors in the environment around us. Sartre says too much blue light at night suppressing the sleep hormone melatonin. Or, when we get a stomach acid reflux, heartburn, we shut down the fire by killing the acid production with medication. Well, guess what? That reflux was your body trying to tell you to slow down and change your diet. Many people have simply lost the connection with their bodies and they're just cruising around on this pill-popping autopilot without worrying about the warning lamps that are screaming right at them. We systematically kill off all the signals that are usually early indicators of unhealthy imbalances in our bodies and I believe this is part of the reason why we continue to see a rise in stress and the many dreaded lifestyle diseases that we fear later in life so, let's instead into the world of biohacking, the art and science of living an optimal life with optimal health now.

 

You may think that I probably got some bizarre implants somewhere under my skin, telling me when to sleep and when to eat, and when to take a dump. But, I'm sorry I'm gonna have to disappoint you. But, I do have a cool app for that last part, though. You see, contrary to the image often portrayed by the media, the vast majority of the biohacking movement today is deeply rooted in what is natural to the human body. We seek to use data and technology to calibrate our bodies to a more natural and resilient state. So, how does this work?

 

Well, I like to call it: that you are becoming the CEO of your own health. CEOs are accountable to their course; they have systems set up around them; they use data-driven dashboards and benchmarking to optimize the business outcome. Biohackers are no different. We're using data to understand the complex body that we have, the systems. We run tests to check and see what we set out to correct is heading in the right direction. You see, once we begin to grasp that our health is not a black box but a collection of processes, then we can begin to understand and optimize or as we say hack these, and when this is done consistently over a period of time, you will slowly become 

the best possible version of yourself. So, how do you become the CEO of your own health?

 

Well, let's start by looking at the human blueprint, our DNA. Today, more than 20 million people have used DNA testing services and let me tell you, we are well beyond the fun facts, like does my pee smell when I eat asparagus? We now know that our lifestyle choices and the environment that we live in determines the expression of our genes. We call this epigenetics and it means that even though your parents didn't give you the best genes you're not doomed. So, let's take a look at two of the more interesting findings that I came across when looking at my own DNA. After I was done being surprised that I was seven times more likely to become bald than the average person, I moved on to the more nasty stuff. Firstly, I realized that I have a defect in what is known as the mother effing gene. In short, this means that one of my body's most vital metabolic processes is down regulated with 75%. Next I discovered that I have a higher risk of developing early onset Alzheimer's than most of you. Great. The gene is responsible for this. It's also true for my body's ability to properly break down fats. So, now what if left unchecked , this could potentially lead to catastrophic outcome in the long run and to make matters worse. At the time I  discovered this, I've been following a high-fat diet for three years. I did so because I was inspired by this social media health guru and I did so without knowing about my problem of breaking down the types of fat that I was eating.

 

so I'm curious how many of you have tried to follow one of the latest health trends on social media? You see, show your hands. yeah quite a few. I figured it's tempting right? The point is we are all unique and there's no one-size-fits-all. So, when we exposed to any of the health trends out there, we need to ask ourselves "is this relevant for me?" You can do serious harm to your biochemistry if you don't pay attention just like I did. You see there is a downside to this promise of optimization that we come across our social media. Because our brains are born lazy. We have 

a cognitive bias towards recognizing patterns that are memorable and easy to adopt and marketeers know this. So, how do we navigate in this world of exploding amounts of information and promises? On the one side you have doctors who claim there's not enough evidence for them to take the risk to give you advice which may have adverse effects and on the other side you have cracy biohackers who armed with their genetic blueprinted biomarkers claim to have found what is optimal for them but who's right? The pioneer who is seeking to understand and optimize the root cause, or the doctor who's trained to spot and treat symptoms that's the first line of defense? We are living in a world where our doctors give advice based on scientific averages often established seven to ten years ago. If I ask the typical scientists to research what are the optimal levels of vitamin b12 for an adult, well, scientists will change that question to how much vitamin b12 should the average adult take. And if you fall outside that average, well, then parts of the pharma industry get thrilled because that means you're either depressed, suffer from general fatigue or hopefully both. Obviously I'm joking on that last point. Where am i? I hope you get the picture that one our doctors 

define as normal it's in most cases merely average and if we decide to live in this comfortable, vacuum, and fear knowledge and allow decisions to be made for us, we miss out on a lot. So, in my case, knowing my DNA made it clear to me I needed to act on the potential defects in my genes. Why? because according to emerging research , the combination of the two genes I have just mentioned makes an excellent cocktail for cardiovascular disease, cardiovascular disease it's even called overtime.

 

So, how did I know what to do next? Well, luckily my friends, the future of self diagnostic services online is blooming in the wake of the many bio-hackers that demanded this type of service. So, just like going online and ordering a new shirt, I can go online and order any test that I like. What you see on the screen there is my homocysteine level over time. Homocysteine is a so-called silent inflammation marker closely tied to this mother-effing gene I talked 

about and when my new online doctor friend saw the spike in the chart up there, he said you need to call me now. 

When I showed this to my Danish doctor, she said "I've never heard that before.I don't even think we can test for that, but don't worry you look young and healthy." and I go, yeah, "but what about that rash that I recently got here on my chest. Where did that come from?" She said "I don't know but I have a cream that can treat that." It turned out all I needed to do was to reintroduce more vitamin b12 and folate in my daily stack of supplements. And, voila, my levels came down and my rash went away. This was just one example of many insights that I gained when proactively looking at my health status. The point is the democratization of health care services is coming fast. It's going to be relatively cheap and in my view, we should use the knowledge we can get already now because the lack of knowledge is a lack of power.

 

So, let's reflect for a second, a CEOs of our own health. We now know that there are tools we can use to ensure the operations is running smoothly, but how do we make sure that we are building life lasting habbits? when I first started changing my diet I quickly got my energy back there, my ulcer went away. Ironically, I had so much energy at the end of the day I started working longer hours and I felt I could do with less sleep. Great! I did awesome for some time, but after a while my newfound energy levels were replaced with periods of moodiness and fatigue. So, I went from an unhealthy life with stress to a healthy life with stress. Brilliant! The absence of disease and symptoms is not health. Optimal health is a journey, not a destination. It's a constant balance between what is driving us and what is draining us at all levels in our bodies. So, I started tracking my stress to figure out what might be draining me and using the app I showed in the beginning for instance I quickly realized how much stress it generates in

us when we get fired up in traffic and we start yelling at the person right in front of us. That's breaking, yes. I'm guilty of that. That's a form of stress even though we know they can't hear us

 

Instead, I learned how to put a smile on my face and breathe properly while standing in line collecting new energy

instead of expending it, rushing through security, same deal though, when listening to a long TED talk. Similarly, I started delving into the science of sleep and I understood that there's a lot of factors that influence whether or not we have a good night's sleep so I started tracking my sleep quality and I took note of my daily habits good and bad still, some bad left yes, and it quickly turned out that I was sleeping much better if I had an early dinner then I slept with earplugs in a cold and pitch-black room. Crucial, yet simple hacks, when you're living a busy life like you all do . So, why did I decide to talk about optimal nutrition, stress and sleep today, Well, these are the most impactful areas that you can begin to optimize now and doing so will give you the energy in life to do more on equally important aspects such as social activities, love and fitness. Now, I have shared my story and my journey will continue. But, there are lots of other health and lifestyle challenges out there that you can begin to overcome with the biohackers mindset so it is my hope that you will all start to dip your toes like CEOs in this world of targeted and quantifiable self optimization or biohacking as we call it. It is my hope that you will all start to challenge your doctors to be better investigators and not just treat your symptoms.

 

Don't be a slave of these eerie shared averages and don't listen blindly to advice on social media. Honor your unique self and use the tools and services that are already out there. Take a step into the future and start to define your own new norm.

Thank you for listening.

Words&phrases/어휘공부

• geeky: boring and not fashionable. a geeky-looking guy in glasses
• pill-popping: taking pills, especially when this is a habit or when the pills are illegal drugs
• take a dump  : to poop
• Epigenetics : the study of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work 
• effing : used for emphasis or to express annoyance. some movies are so effing awful, they're hilarious.
• one-size-fits-all :  suitable for everyone or every purpose. a one-size-fits-all approach to education
• pitch black : If it is pitch black, there is no light at all. I get up at 4am when it's still pitch black outside.
• dip a/your toe in : to start very carefully to do or become involved in something that you are not experienced at