What Is Biohacking? with Melissa Young, MD

Podcast Transcript

John Horton:

Hello, and welcome to another Health Essentials Podcast. I'm John Horton, your host.

Many people think of their body as a machine. Like any machine, the belief is it can be tinkered with to try to optimize performance. That's the idea behind a movement known as biohacking, where folks use tricks pulled from science to try to improve their health and live better and longer. Some of these biohacks are pretty simple, others seem positively futuristic. We're going to explore this form of do-it-yourself biology today with functional medicine specialist Melissa Young, a regular guest on our podcast. Dr. Young is one of the many experts at Cleveland Clinic who visit every week to break down current health trends. With that, let's enter the world of biohacking and see where it leads us.

Welcome back to the show, Dr. Young. I always know we're in for an interesting and even mind-bending chat when you're on the schedule.

Dr. Melissa Young:

It's always a pleasure to be a guest. Thank you.

John Horton:

One of the things I love is our conversations always seem to cover rather unique approaches that people take in their quest for wellness, but I've got to be honest, some of this stuff sounds like absolute science fiction.

Dr. Melissa Young:

I agree with you. I think some of it's pretty basic; though, still cutting-edge at the same time. But some of it is more like science fiction for sure.

John Horton:

Well, everyone's willing to try new stuff and sometimes, get a little crazy with it.

Dr. Melissa Young:

Indeed, indeed.

John Horton:

Well, that leads us right into our topic today, which is biohacking. In reading up on this movement, I found it really hard to get my arms around this whole concept, given how broadly it can be defined. If we can, let's start with just a simple explanation as to what biohacking represents.

Dr. Melissa Young:

Sure. Biohacking is the art and science of maximizing a human performance by hacking our biology. I think, simplicity-wise, it's making intentional changes in lifestyle, our environment, our body, to maximize our mind, body and emotional health.

John Horton:

You're just looking for a way to control your body by changing the environment around you and even inside you.

Dr. Melissa Young:

Absolutely. Biohackers are really looking to optimize not only performance, but optimize their health, and are looking for these — they call them hacks — to be able to do that. I think, more and more, we're seeing some interesting … that may be helpful in optimizing mind, body, emotional health, but also performance. It's actually very exciting and cutting-edge.

John Horton:

Now, what kind of stuff can you use this for? I mean, I saw weight loss would be one thing, but what other sort of things?

Dr. Melissa Young:

Yeah. I think there's things to help with weight loss, metabolism and insulin resistance, mood, so various aspects of these hacks can help our physiology. We can talk about some of those specifics as well.

John Horton:

It sounds like … go through all parts of the human experience here. Let's start down this winding road with some basic examples of biohacking that seem pretty common in mainstream. I guess, things like intermittent fasting or light therapy would be examples.

Dr. Melissa Young:

Absolutely. Intermittent fasting may be helpful in lowering blood sugar, helping with insulin resistance and weight loss, lowering inflammation, used quite widely. We could talk about some of the pros and cons of that a little point later. Light therapy — often used especially in winter months, and we're here in Northeast, Ohio, so may be helpful with mood, especially in a little bit of energy if used during those times. We can also use light therapeutically, where we want to decrease blue light in the evenings, mostly from our electronics. But of course, we have light everywhere that comes into the home, even from the outside that we'd want to minimize. And then, bright light therapy in the mornings can help reset our circadian rhythms, so we can use that in two ways. There's high-intensity interval training for decreasing body fat, perhaps increasing muscle mass in performance. There's cryotherapy, which is cold therapy. A lot of mixed studies there, but a lot of the professional sports teams are using that for increasing performance, decreasing exercise muscle pain. Meditation, mindfulness — there's a lot now that's out there that's available that is hitting mainstream.

John Horton:

Yeah. Well, that's what I was going to say. Everything you mentioned seems so common and just things that people just do but you don't necessarily think of it as biohacking. What makes those actions, those things that you just adopt, what makes them a biohacking thing?

Dr. Melissa Young:

I think the way people are approaching their use of wanting to optimize their health, optimize performance, makes them a hack.

John Horton:

It's just a different way of looking at it. If you do intermittent fasting, you're thinking, "OK, I'm controlling my food intake and doing this." You think of it just in that physical action. But biohacking is looking at it more from what it's doing to you internally and what it means for your body.

Dr. Melissa Young:

Exactly. Everyone now, or so many people now, are wanting to optimize their health, and as more information is becoming available on some of these modalities that may be helpful in regulating blood sugar, optimizing sleep, metabolism, muscle mass, they're using it in that way. I would say probably most people don't necessarily think of it as a hack. There are, I think, bigger groups that are really focusing intensely on optimizing performance, but certainly, you can look at it in both ways, just the layperson wanting to do their best for their health. And then, there are really people who are optimizing performance and health that I think are using these as “hacks.”

John Horton:

This is why, as I said at the start, it's so hard to get your hands, arms around this because even ... I've got my coffee right here. — drinking caffeine in the morning, it's something so many of us do. In a way, that's kind of a biohack, too, right? Using caffeine for that little surge that you get.

Dr. Melissa Young:

Absolutely. Most people don't quite realize caffeine is a drug. Yes, there are some benefits physiologically to caffeine. Most of us have our caffeine and coffee, so we could say coffee, so absolutely. They don't necessarily realize they're using it in a beneficial way. As long as we're not exceeding maybe four or five cups a day — not so healthy once you get up around that amount.

John Horton:

All right. Well, we won't talk about how much coffee I consume in a day because I'm worried I'm going to fall.

Dr. Melissa Young:

We'll come back to that later.

John Horton:

Yeah. We can do that offline, I think.

When taking supplements, which I know a lot of people do, too, does that fall under the umbrella of biohacking?

Dr. Melissa Young:

It can. It certainly can. Especially for the biohackers, things like nootropics are a focus.

John Horton:

Well, what are nootropics?

Dr. Melissa Young:

Nootropics, yes, are supplements to enhance cognitive ability, mental performance, focus. They'll also perhaps use adaptogens that help with energy and resilience, as well as vitamins and minerals and things like that, but nootropics are probably one of the biggest focus.

John Horton:

Those are just all those pills or supplements that we take in hoping that you're going to get this little boost, whether it's energy or you said cognitive function. I mean, you see all this stuff on the bottles, which what it says it might do. I feel like this is where we start getting into that murky ground with where there's some truth behind it and where it starts getting into a little just hopefulness as to what it might do.

Dr. Melissa Young:

Yes, absolutely. I work a lot with dietary supplements with my patients, but I also have so many come in that they're taking 50 supplements or using things without a lot of science behind it. I think that we do want to look at is, is there science behind the use of certain supplements for particular symptoms in particular? When we think about regulation of supplements by the FDA, there shouldn't be any health claims or claims to cure disease on labels. That's not the appropriate use of supplements. But nonetheless, both traditional use … and we talk about how some modalities and supplements have been used for hundreds of years in certain traditions, that, clinically, we know have a benefit and we're learning about the science more and more, but we want to be cautious because there's too many false or inflated claims about supplements.

John Horton:

It sounds like the more they promise on the bottle, the more skeptical you should be about whether you should take it.

Dr. Melissa Young:

Yes. I worry a little bit also about direct-to-consumer advertising on TV with all these inflated claims, so absolutely.

John Horton:

Yeah. Everyone's looking for that magic pill. I mean, that's been, I think, the quest for all of time.

Dr. Melissa Young:

Well, and it is interesting when we think about integrative and functional medicine of really looking at the whole person, the root cause of disease or imbalance, and people still want a pill, more the reductionistic approach or thought process to medicine. One pill's not going to do it. Now, they certainly may have some benefit, but it's really looking at health from a broader view of the whole person.

John Horton:

Well, you had mentioned the pill, which is what we were talking about with, what was it, nootropics?

Dr. Melissa Young:

Nootropics, yeah.

John Horton:

Nootropics, sorry. Let's jump from that to nutrigenomics. My vocabulary is just growing by the minute here today.

Dr. Melissa Young:

It's exciting.

John Horton:

It is. I love learning stuff. But nutrigenomics is another big part of biohacking and that just involves trying to use nutrition to alter your genes and what's going on inside, right?

Dr. Melissa Young:

Absolutely. Nutrigenomics is so exciting. It gives people the ability to choose what they eat or, in particular, also what they don't eat, like the standard American diet, to turn on and off genes. If we're eating a whole foods diet, colorful polyphenols in our plants that we're eating, we're turning on genes that help with lowering inflammation, among other things. Unfortunately, if we're eating the wrong foods, we're turning on genes for inflammation that increase risk of disease. We have control by our food choices to turn on and off genes. It's incredible.

John Horton:

I love the way you just said that because that's something I don't think people connect with their food choices, that you have control over what you're eating and, more than that, how your body is responding and what it's going to do.

Dr. Melissa Young:

Absolutely, and it's not all genetics. We hear so much about family genetics, but we can control some of that related to our lifestyle choices and especially our food choices. We think about it in functional medicine as food is information. Food is medicine, for sure, but food is information. I always tell people, what information do you want to feed your body and your genes? Do you want to feed them a whole foods, colorful, beautiful plant-based diet, or do you want all the processed “Frankenfoods”?

John Horton:

Well, my genes are definitely getting a mixed education because they do get some of that good stuff, but also, they get a little of the other, too, so something else ... when our dietitian is on, we talk about that frequently. We're working on my diet.

Dr. Melissa Young:

Well, nobody's perfect. That's important to know as well.

John Horton:

Now, we're going to take a turn into that futuristic stuff we had talked about, which is grinder biohacking, which really sounds like a much more aggressive approach that involves things like chemical injections and high-tech implants. To be honest, it just all sounds a little dicey.

Dr. Melissa Young:

I think we need to be very cautious, and I had ever had not really been familiar with say the grinder biohacking or the grinder movement. It's interesting, I'll give you a short definition. It's strongly associated with body modification practices and implantation often of these kinds of cybernetic devices, as you were saying, injections of chemicals or changing gene sequencing. They're working toward this philosophy of transhumanism, the belief that technology can further be worked on to evolve the human race beyond its current capabilities, so this is … I wonder if, in 10 years, we'll say some of this might've been more cutting-edge and we will see more of this, but right now, I think there are ethical and medical concerns. I don't really know that all the people who are doing some of these practices understand how that's going to affect their body or there could be permanent problems or damage down the line, so I think here, we need to be really cautious and see what the future holds for this. But right now, I think it's really more let's wait and see.

John Horton:

It sounds a little trippy and it sounds almost comic book. All I can think of with that is Spider-Man and the Green Goblin. You don't want to mess with these chemicals, experimenting with chemicals inside your own body.

Dr. Melissa Young:

I agree with you. I mean, I think this has the potential of really more extreme danger and impact on the body that, again, ethically, medically, what is going to happen to your body in using these unproven therapies at this point in time.

John Horton:

To circle back to where we started, this is what makes talking about biohacking just so interesting and just so ... it covers so much. It's hard to believe that, in this one realm, you go from just intermittent fasting, which is so common, to implanting things and chemical injections. I mean, it's just such a huge universe that we're talking about, but I guess that's what makes it so fascinating.

Dr. Melissa Young:

Well, I agree. Medicine is progressing all the time. We'll see the outcome of this in the future, but I think as well, most people, or so many people, are not doing the basic sort of things they can do to optimize their health for themselves. Starting with simplicity, an overnight fast, 12- to 14-hour intermittent fast, and choosing the right foods, as we said, to optimize your genetics and optimizing your sleep — these are things that I think people should be focusing on, that we know generally are very safe and probably have quite a bit of benefit as we're learning more and more.

John Horton:

When you look at it from that angle and you said these safe, simple things we can do, it sounds like then, biohacking in that form is really rather safe and worth trying just to improve your own health and how your body is working.

Dr. Melissa Young:

I agree. Starting slowly, depending on where you are to a particular point in time. We think about intermittent fasting, I think generally very safe. We should all most likely have an overnight fast anyway. Certainly, people with — especially Type 1 diabetes — but diabetes or other health conditions should ask their physician if it is safe for them. But for the average person, that overnight fast actually might and does have a lot of benefit.

John Horton:

Even some of the other things you had mentioned, using light therapy, I take it, sound therapy, music. I mean, there's all these things that will fit in if you just look at them from this different angle as to what it's doing to your body, I guess, on the inside.

Dr. Melissa Young:

Yes. Music therapy, for sure, very safe and impacts the brain and nervous system. There's different types of light therapy. The top one I think about is using the light box therapy in winter months. Something like that for people with bipolar disorder would not be appropriate, but for mild depression and seasonal depression, it's great. There's red light therapy now that I think still has mixed research outcomes but seems to decrease inflammation if it's used per the directions on the box of the lights, I think, generally, is very safe. These are things that people can start with to improve their physiology and improve how they feel, their physical, mental, emotional well-being.

John Horton:

When you get to the bottom line of this whole thing, I feel like that's the strongest part of biohacking, is that it's asking you to think about how your body works and what you can do to make it work better.

Dr. Melissa Young:

I agree. I think, in this search, people are really learning more about their bodies and what will help them be healthier and feel better and perform better. That's always a good thing, and hopefully, having these good discussions with your medical providers as well so you get a good dialogue on their experience with the medical literature, what's good for you, but absolutely.

John Horton:

It sounds like if you're going to try even some of these smaller things that we had talked about, it's always good to bounce them off of your healthcare provider just to make sure you're not interfering with maybe some other treatment you have or doing something that might undermine your condition.

Dr. Melissa Young:

Yeah. I think if someone is healthy, doesn't have any significant medical diagnoses, it's very safe to try a lot of these things. But for those people who have a diagnosis or taking medicine, yes, I would definitely talk to your medical provider about that therapy for you.

John Horton:

Well, Dr. Young, you have lived up to your reputation as a fabulous guide through these new health trends. Before we kind of part ways, is there anything else you'd like to add about biohacking and what it can or can't do for people?

Dr. Melissa Young:

I think, start with the basics. Nutrition is foundational, sleep is foundational. I think tracking sleep quality and quantity can be helpful. Whole foods diet with an overnight fast can't do anything but improve health. We didn't talk at all about some of the technology for tracking progress, tracking different aspects of health like your sleep and heart rate variability related to stress. Those things are not essential but actually may be helpful in learning your physiology and what things improve that physiology.

John Horton:

I didn't even think about how much that does fit in because I have one of this little tracking watch that you get heart rate and sleep time and all that stuff. I got to say, it's fascinating when you start looking at it because you do start thinking of your health in a different way and really start looking at what you can do to impact it.

Dr. Melissa Young:

Yeah, I agree. I mean, it really brings to the forefront for someone, "All right. Well, maybe I could do better on this and what are some techniques to move me in that direction? How can I track my progress?" I think for motivation, for understanding how your physiology is improving, for some people, I think that can be very helpful.

John Horton:

Well, Dr. Young, I am out of props. I've used my coffee mug, I've used my watch now, so I think that's a sign that we're at the end of our chat here. Thank you again for coming on, and I can't wait to talk to you next time.

Dr. Melissa Young:

It's always a pleasure, and I can't wait as well. Thank you.

John Horton:

Bye-bye.

At its most basic level, elements of biohacking may have some merit, but be cautious before venturing too far into experimental concepts that involve putting chemicals or equipment into your body.

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Speaker 3:

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