How to Become Younger, According to a Biohacking Expert
Dave Asprey claims he is at least 11 years younger than his calendar age. He is confident that you too can start Benjamin Button-ing it with a little biohacking.
Asprey, who is an entrepreneur, bestselling author, and devout biohacker, spoke with Robb Report‘s editor-in-chief Paul Croughton at House of Robb during Austin’s South by Southwest about how we can improve our health to increase our longevity. The famously frank and perennially disruptive 50-year-old is resolute in the fact that we can extend human life. He claims he ages at 72 percent the rate of average people, in fact.
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Asprey wasn’t always a picture of health, though. At age 23, he weighed 300 lbs and started living life with the “accelerator pushed all the way down,” by his own admission. By age 26, he had made $6 million working at a Silicon Valley company that held Google’s first servers but his brain just stopped working.
“No one knew what was wrong with me,” he recalls. “And no matter how much I exercised, I couldn’t lose weight. And I said I’m going to have to fix this. If I can hack the internet—and I really am a computer hacker—why can’t I hack this?”
After a transformative trip to Tibet in 2004, Asprey created a recipe for the now-famous butter-spiked Bulletproof coffee, which is said to boost energy, enhance mental clarity, and support weight loss. At roughly the same time, biohacking began to take off. (It is now a $10 billion to $63 billion industry.) Asprey started by creating his own health hacks for weight loss, increased mental and physical performance, and longevity, before making it possible for others to try to age backward through Upgrade Labs.
The company, which has 27 locations opening around the U.S. and Canada right now, gives members access to cutting-edge equipment that can improve muscle tone, brain power, and cellular health. “You come in, and we use medical-grade technology and AI to tell you what to do to get the results you want for longevity, or for cognitive enhancement, or for these other things,” he explains.
But how does one even measure age? Asprey says there are 10 variables you can measure, such as response time or the flexibility of arteries. Examining the DNA methylation pathway, or “true age,” is the most scientifically validated way, according to Asprey. “We can look at that and say, ‘How does this compare to most people?’ and we can say, ‘Oh, your tissues are younger or older than your actual age.’ We couldn’t do this 10 years ago,” he adds.
The company can also tell you the percentage of your liver fat and your organ fat—the most dangerous fat that “makes you old,” says Asprey—and then help you to get rid of it. Essentially, the AI system selects which interventions might move your metabolism in the right direction, from practices like intermittent fasting to technologies such as red light therapy and lymphatic drainage.
Being told your most important objectives rather than having to decide them for yourself means you can be more effective in the least possible time. “I work out 20 minutes a week, and I’m ripped,” Asprey says with a smile. “And it’s because they have AI helping me not because I work hard.
Aspery is also a big proponent of flexibility. He believes it is beneficial to periodically engage in intermittent fasting, but acknowledges that you can overdo it. “It [intermittent fasting] is a scalpel just like the keto diet,” he says. “I want people to know if I eat this way, I’m going to feel amazing. And if I eat this way, I’m going to lose weight or I’m going to gain muscle. It turns out, sometimes skipping breakfast is a good idea, but not always.” Similarly, CrossFit probably isn’t what your body needs every day. It’s important to switch things up.
To that end, Asprey sets aside two hours in the morning to do something to improve himself. It helps he has a whole Upgrade Labs in his house, with what he calls “crazy things” like hyperbaric and cryo chambers and an infrared sauna. He might also do neurofeedback, breathwork, or meditation.
“The idea is to set aside a window and do something,” he explains. “It doesn’t have to be the same thing. Making it rigid means you will fail. If you have two hours, and what you did that day is you made yourself a double espresso, good for you.” Two hours a day to knock a decade off your age sounds like a good trade.
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