HOW TO BIOHACK YOUR BODY

The buzzword of Silicon Valley, Biohacking is essentially the practice of changing our chemistry and our physiology through science and self-experimentation. The point being to leverage every means possible — genetic, emotional, psychological, biochemical, spiritual — towards a specific goal: usually that of peak performance (and in some cases, immortality). It can be as simple as implementing lifestyle and dietary tweaks that improve the functioning of your body, or as drastic as implant technology and genetic engineering (both of which, if we believe the hype, are coming to a store near you in the next decade or so). The possibilities appear to be endless, but is biohacking really all it is cracked up to be?

For decades, the solution to aging has seemed merely years away, and historically people have always been fascinated with the concept of immortality, accomplishment and having the secret edge. In fact, in 1615 a German doctor suggested that ‘the hot and spiritous blood of a young man will pour into the old one as if it were the fountain of youth’, and in 1924, physician and Bolshevik Alexander Bogdanov took this proclamation to heart and began ‘young-blood’ transfusions, and a fellow-revolutionary commented that ‘he seems to have become seven, no 10, years younger’. Unfortunately for Bogdanov, he then injected himself