The Quantified Body

Today's episode is about practical tools that we can use to improve our biology and how we can track those results to make sure we are getting the right answers. This episode can serve as an important source of information about N=1 experiments and biohacking. N=1 experiments involve a single subject and they are entirely capable of providing statistical inferences about the efficacy or side-effects of treatments specifically on that subject alone. The aim of this episode is to provide very practical tips that are really accessible to you. Some of the topics covered are the Bulletproof diet, intermittent fasting, and the impact of oxaloacetate supplements. "So ...

Recently, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) or the non-invasive targeting of weak direct current (DC) to specific brain regions has received media attention. Among the scientific research community, tDCS has been a subject of great interest owing to its usage ease, relative inexpensiveness, and encouraging research results on a range of functions. Studies have seen tDCS accelerate learning, reduce symptoms of dementia, and improve attention in those with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Understandably, a coinciding rise in the DIY community has also prompted an increase in consumer devices available for home use in hopes of mimicking tDCS's potential neuroenhancement ...

Is Heart Rate Variability the best biomarker of the time to track our longevity? In this episode we look at why HRV may be the best way to track how well you are aging and the bets being placed on it in Silicon Valley to drive innovation in anti-aging and longevity research. Previously we've looked at using HRV for training and recovery, stress management, and tracking hormesis. If you are new to biohacking, HRV is an easy economical way to start tracking. All one needs is a heart rate strap and phone app. The activity around HRV in Silicon Valley ...

Today our bodies, particularly our bones, are burdened with one to two thousands times the level of lead that our ancestors carried. As recently as seven hundred years ago (prior to the industrialized age) human skeletal remains contained very low levels of lead. Once the earth’s crust was disturbed through mining, much higher levels of lead were released into our food and air. In a previous episode, Episode 13, we looked at the burden imposed by the heavy metal mercury on the body. Today we will discuss Heavy Metals Part II: Lowering Your Lead Burden. Problems associated with a heavy ...

According to a 2015 consumer wearables report, 1 in 10 Americans has a fitness tracker. Yet there have been various media reports questioning the accuracy of these devices. Today we talk about whether the accuracy of fitness trackers matters; upcoming research trends; and, the most important question, even if they are accurate, are fitness trackers serving their purpose? Are they getting us moving by holding us accountable? With the help of our expert, Dr. Greg Welk, we discuss the complexities involved in making a device to quantify movement. We will also explore the findings of Dr. Welk’s 2014 ...

Micro-nutrient deficiencies are prevalent today, and prevent our biology from functioning optimally by limiting its activity. The most common and most severe micro-nutrient deficiency for most of us is Magnesium. A hundred years ago we were able to get five hundred milligrams per day of Magnesium. Today we get closer to two hundred milligrams per day because of changes in food nutrient composition and diet that we'll discuss today. The impacts can be subtle and long term, to severe and immediate. As Magnesium has an important role in over 300 enzymes throughout the body, it can effect performance and health ...

Is some aspect of mitochondrial damage behind cancer? If so, can this theory help us take control of cancer via tactics such as yearly or more frequent "7 day water fasts". When we think about death, cancer is often what we think of first. If you're like me, most, if not all, of the deaths affecting you personally in your life may have been due to cancer. Part of what makes a cancer diagnosis so devastating is that it's mechanisms – how it works, where it comes from, how we can treat it effectively, how we can track it's development, ...

This week’s podcast is about the rising movement for quantifying our lives beyond just health and body. The Quantified Self  is about self-knowledge through self-tracking and extends our awareness about what’s happening in our lives, how we’re spending our time, and pretty much anything related to our daily living. In 2007 Ernesto Ramirez joined with Wired Magazine’s Kevin Kelly and Gary Wolf to create this organization, made up predominantly of individuals with a passion for managing their lives. The society has grown from its San Francisco roots to about 90 groups meeting regularly worldwide. Many of the devices we ...

A walk-through of a practical framework designed to achieve what most of us believe is impossible - completely eliminate aging. Learn about the 7 ways we age, and how scientists are trying to design tools to repair each one of them. Today is our first episode on aging. Longevity is a subject close to my heart, and I’ve been following the career of this episode's guest for many years. Dr. Aubrey de Grey is a visionary and general strategist in the field of longevity and anti-aging. He applies the concepts of planning, investment, and risk management to the science of aging ...

Toxins negatively impact our health, longevity and performance in a variety of ways. Today we look at one of the most important toxins all of us are exposed to in today’s environment - mercury. It finds its way into our bodies in many ways: through our dental amalgams, the fish we eat, and vaccines, to name a few. Essentially, we are looking at quantifying your mercury burden and detoxification. What is the impact on our biology, across the different systems and organs? How do we remove this toxin from our bodies once it’s there, and what data metrics can we ...

Functional medicine is a framework for tackling health issues and an approach to optimizing health that contrasts sharply with today's "standard of care" medicine model. In this episode we look at assessing the body via the functional medicine framework and your detoxification system. Where "standard of care" excels at dealing with acute health crises, like car accidents injuries and deadly pathogens and infections, functional medicine has grown to tackle primarily chronic health issues. The argument for a future where we turn increasingly to functional medicine is that: where traditional medicine seeks to manage disease (e.g. pharmaceutical therapy or surgery), functional medicine ...

Today we're looking at HRV- endurance training, adrenal fatigue, and future app developments. If you didn't listen to it, in Episode 1 we primarily looked at resistance training, or weight training. Today we also look at some scenarios where the HRV metric can be confounded where an increase in it is not good, how it can be used to identify possible adrenal fatigue and how to improve its accuracy by combining it with Resting Heart Rate and qualitative measures. Today's guest is Simon Wegerif who founded ithlete, the first HRV app company, which appeared 5 years ago in 2009. ...

A different philosophy: Leverage highly time efficient workouts to increase strength, build lean mass, promote cardiovascular performance and provide longevity benefits. In 2009 I found my time getting swallowed up by the demands of my career job while starting my own business on the side and trying to keep to my crossfit workout program (which I dearly loved). I barely had any time or energy to socialize or get anything else done. More worryingly my performance in my workouts was going down - not up. I found myself getting more and more tired during and after workouts, having to hold ...

A couple of cutting edge and very relevant quantified body topics today- quantifying the microbiome and the state of crowd science We’re looking at the microbiome, which you probably have seen is the big new topic in the health media and news the last few years. Research is increasingly relating differences in our microbiomes to a range of disease conditions, primarily chronic and gut related ones. If you’re already buying the probiotics or prebiotics in the health store - the reason you’re doing that, is for the microbiome. But what, if anything, do the probiotic and prebiotic products do for us? ...

What is it that makes our bodies stronger? Gives them greater longevity? Greater resilience to disease? Greater performance? The strange answer to this is that often something that harms us, stresses us, is what ends up making us stronger. The process is known as "hormesis" and applies to pretty much everything we can think of. Low doses of all types of stressors can make us better by stimulating us to adapt - exercise, emotional stress, radiation, natural pesticides found in plants - also known as phytonutrients and so on. When the dose is too high it proves to do ...