Biohacking is “biological experimentation done to improve the qualities or capabilities of living organisms” outside of traditional medicine. Dave Asprey coined the term more than a decade ago. His name is even included in the Merriam Webster dictionary, next the term biohacker.
Asprey’s goal is to live until ‘at least’ 180-years-old, and he spends his life working towards that and teaching others how to as well via interviews on his podcast The Human Upgrade, books (his latest is Smarter Not Harder), Upgrade Labs springing up around the country, (the most recent opened last month in Austin!), an annual biohacking conference (this year’s late May in Dallas) 40 Years of Zen, a company he founded that has four patents in neuroscience, and for the elite, $100,000/year mentorship collective the Apollo Group. Asprey invited Austin Lifestyle to where he lives in Austin (after setting up a house here just shy of two years ago) to check out his million-dollar home biohacking lab and share ways he suggests people invest in their health to live longer, healthier and happier.
Why did you move to Austin?
There were several things I was looking for: One, I wanted a vibe of excitement about the future. This is something that was present in Silicon Valley when we built the Internet the way it is today and we were hopeful we were changing the world and making it a better place. I feel like that vibe is present in Austin in a way it's not in Silicon Valley anymore. And I lived on a small farm in Canada for 15 years and wanted some sunshine and people. There are tons of awesome people in Texas and the hospitality is amazing. I'm also from the Southwest originally, so it just feels like home.
What do you like most about Austin?
I like the culture, the people are welcoming and it’s just generally fun. There's a lot of places in the world you can go to, like the Bay Area, where you're never going to know your neighbors and people don't really talk to you. There's a unique combination of friendly and polite here that you just don't see in a lot of the world, so I really like the vibe here. I also like that it's got the traditional conservatism of Texas along with some of the craziness of Austin, so it's not too homogeneous.
How did you become the father of biohacking?
I started the biohacking movement in 2011. I’d been thinking about it for almost 10 years, how to bring longevity people like me, neuroscientists, professional athletes, people into consciousness, Navy Seals and astronauts all together to figure out how we can get control of our own bodies so that we can do the things we want to do, whether it's run fast or climb really well or live really long or just be at peace.
How did you become a longevity person?
I learned the longevity industry from people in their 80s when I was in my 20s. I was learning from them because I was pretty sick. I had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and arthritis and pre-diabetes in my 20s and I weighed 300lbs. When I recovered, I wanted to give back and I needed a name for longevity that was accessible because if you're 25, do you really care about living forever? No, you care about getting a raise and getting a date. Those are core biological things, but biohacking is about being in charge of yourself, and this is something that all humans want, you can be a grandmother or a hard-charging hedge fund manager, it doesn't matter, we all want to be in charge ourselves. So, that was what was behind it. People call me the Father of Biohacking because I wrote the definition. In 2018, Webster's Dictionary added biohacking as a new word in the English language and my name is in the online dictionary. I also started the first biohacking conference, which is now in its 10th year.
What was the tipping point for you to take control of your health when you were in your 20s and 300lbs?
I had a couple of tipping points. One of them was I had three knee surgeries by the time I was 22-years-old. I was obese and had arthritis and after the second knee surgery, I decided I was going to lose the weight. I never want to have another knee surgery. So, I went to the gym six days a week for 90 minutes/day for 18 months straight, no matter what – it didn't matter if I was sick, whether I was studying or had work, it was my top priority every day. And I went on a low-fat, low-calorie diet. After 18 months, I still had a 46-inch waist and I still weighed 300lbs. Then I decided to do something very risky. I played laser tag. It was the first time I decided to try lateral movement - and I blew my knee out again. I had to have another knee surgery. I was so mad! In fact, my most recent book is kind of my revenge. I spent 702 hours in the gym without losing weight! And, even though my muscles were big, my knee wasn't stable. Now I'm six percent body fat, I'm in incredible shape and I spend 20 minutes a week working out.
I’d also started getting profound brain fog. I was in Silicon Valley, my career had taken off and I couldn't remember anything. I actually bought disability insurance when I was 26! My career was going up and to the right, but the reality was, my career was growing because my brain was so screwed up that if I didn't talk all the time, I couldn't pay attention. So, I would be the guy who talked in meetings so much they eventually would give me a promotion. I got to the point of desperation, so I started hanging out with people in their 80s who had reversed their age and were more energetic and had better brains than I did and they taught me their secrets. So, I became an expert in longevity before it was cool, because I saw it happen in front of me.
What is the single biggest change you made that had the biggest impact?
The single biggest thing that I did to change was when I was going to Wharton Business School for my MBA. I was going fail out and I thought something was wrong with my brain. So, I went to see Dr. Daniel Amen to get a brain scan and learned I had toxin-induced brain damage. I thought to myself, ‘Thank god, I have a hardware problem, I can heal this.’ Before, I just thought I was dumb or I just wasn't trying hard enough. Just knowing I had a hardware problem and deciding I was going to fix myself, was a major turning point for me.
You've spent close to $2 million doing all kinds of tests, which do you recommend for different budgets?
At the very low end, if you were to get your C-reactive protein and your Homo-16 levels tested, those are going tell you whether you have the two most dangerous kinds of inflammation, and if you get those under control your chances of feeling good and living a long time go up dramatically. After that, a thyroid test, which tells you if your body is making enough electricity and heat to be at full power as human being. It’s often off. The one after that would be a sex hormone panel that measures testosterone, estrogen and progesterone. By the way, everyone is low on testosterone right now because of the things that we've allowed in our skincare products, in our environment with plastics and things like that. For instance, 20-year-olds today have a third the level of testosterone of someone 30 years ago and it’s affecting our fertility as a species. Knowing where your energy hormones and testosterone, which is a hormone of desire - in the bedroom, but also desire to make a difference in the world – is important. If you know you don’t have inflammation, have enough energy and have enough testosterone to be a happy, joyful, functional human being, which is important for men and women at different levels, you're pretty much in a sweet spot.
What's your total cost for all that going to be?
If you order it yourself and online, it's probably in the neighborhood of $500.
What do you think about the Pronovo MRI scans?
I like it because it detects 500 kinds of cancer, early stage, and a whole bunch of other health things you're unlikely to know about. If you’re walking around with a stage one cancer, you're not going to know it, but they will, and then you can treat it. And treating stage one cancers is pretty easy.
So, I believe in doing a whole-body MRI test, like a Prenovo, every couple of years if you can afford it, It's about $2500.
This is the 10th anniversary of your annual biohacking conference, how exponentially has it grown?
The first conference was 100 people at a bar in San Francisco. Now I'm expecting about 3000 people. It’s grown and grown and next year we’ll probably have to find a way to fit another 1000 people.
Why do people go to the conference?
Because they get to try the technology and they get to meet other people who are interested in taking control of themselves so that they’re happy and don't have stress and can be a peace and can have energy and live a lot longer. The community is the big win for me.
At your house you have a sauna, cold-plunge, hyperbaric chamber and more. What would you recommend people invest in if they can?
The first thing to invest in is something that's going to give you a daily signal for how well you did the night before, that's usually either a Whoop or an Oura sleep and fitness tracker. Don't worry about the fitness side, it's not that important, it's the sleep tracking. It’s going to tell you how good of a job you did getting sleep last night. It's going tell you how recovered your nervous system is, and just based on that one number, called your readiness score, it’s going to tell you if you want to take it easy today, or if those three glasses of wine last night really did ruin your sleep.
How many supplements do you take a day?
I take 150 supplements on an average day.
You’ve said they're not one size fits all, but are there any supplements that everybody should probably take?
There are two universal supplements. One of them is Vitamin Dake, and you can find the information on that at VitaminDake.com. The other one is Minerals 101, a broad spectrum mineral supplement that covers all the major minerals.
You started Bulletproof Coffee nearly 15 years ago and now have Danger Coffee. What was the evolution?
I’ve been off the Bulletproof Board of Directors and not working with them for about three years. It’s a company I built and can always be my baby, but I don't have any control over what they're doing. Danger Coffee came about because I wanted a higher standard for toxicity where I could really measure more toxins with all the stuff that I've learned. I also wanted to add really high-dose trace minerals. You’re getting a large dose of broad-spectrum trace minerals every time you drink Danger Coffee.
Why is it called Danger Coffee?
Because who knows what you might do. You just feel so good, like you could do anything.
What’s your morning routine?
I wake up at 7ish and I have my thyroid medication that needs to be on an empty stomach. I wait 20 minutes for it to absorb and then I have my espresso made with Danger Coffee. Sometimes I put butter and MCT in it, sometimes I wait to do that until later. Then I choose a biohack to do, sometimes the infrared sauna, then a cold plunge in the backyard, sometimes whole-body vibrations, sometimes I’ll use the AI cheat machine and sometimes I'll do the AI bike, but it's always a brief period of that, because it doesn't take very long to get the benefits of those things. And, quite often I'll just sit down in the front room and I'll put on headphones and do 40 Years of Zen. That's actually my favorite. It's a half-hour of just crazy good meditation. Then I'm good to go.
What is 40 Years of Zen?
It’s a neuroscience company based in Seattle where people come and spend five days doing intense neuro-feedback journeys, kind of like going to a psychedelic place, but you don't need psychedelics, you just need to be shown what your brain is doing and it causes you to have the same brain states as someone who's meditated for decades every day. It's just very fast meditation.
I have all the gear for that at home of course, so I do that on myself. That's one of the reasons I can do the things I can do, because I've spent six months of my life with electrodes on my head. That's multiple lifetimes of meditation.
You say you want to live to at least 180?
Today our best is 120. If that’s our current best, maybe we can do 50 percent better over the next 130 years. Today, the amount of knowledge we have about biology doubles every 72 days and it's accelerating. No human, no doctor, no researcher can know everything that we know, but you can plug it all into AI it will help you figure out what you need to know really fast. We have more tools than ever before. This stuff I have in my house, yes it's a million dollar biohacking lab, but it would have cost $50 million to do this 20 years ago. The costs are coming down.
Quick Fire
Cryotherapy or Cold plunge? Cryotherapy
Infrared sauna or traditional sauna? Infrared sauna.
Which Human Upgrade Podcast guest has left the biggest impression?
There are two who come to mind. One is Eric Kendall, a Nobel Prize winner who discovered neural plasticity, because he was 94-years-old when I interviewed him and he was so fit and focused and sharp and excited and just inspiring.
What would be your last meal? Grass-fed, grass-finished ribeye served rare, and since it's my last meal and I'm not going to have to deal with the consequences of it, I’m having a huge piece of cheesecake, some really good dark chocolate, and an espresso.
Where do you buy meat in Austin? Holy Cow or Central Market
Favorite restaurant in Austin? The Well, and Kimble Musk is opening a restaurant here I’m really excited about, The Kitchen downtown.
If you could have one superpower, what would it be? I already have lots of them but probably the most interesting one would be Wolverine's regenerative stuff, just because I'm planning to live until at least 180, and if a truck hits me, I would really, really like the truck to fall in half instead of me.