The term bio-hacking is thrown around a lot these days, but do you know what this new craze is all about? Chances are you've heard of hacking, activities which seek to compromise digital devices. But what is bio-hacking? Breaking into the code of biology? Is that even possible? The idea seems strange, even if only for the reason that human beings are sentient animals and not robots. Our genetic code is not a binary computer system created by a Bill Gates figure... It's anatomy, biology, chemistry, blood and guts, the mysteries of life... How then do you hack your own biological makeup?

Also known as human augmentation, human enhancement, or "do-it-yourself biology", bio-hacking is a practice which is aimed at bettering your performance, health, and wellbeing. Treating the human body as a kind of machine, bio-hackers use the mentality of regular technical hackers to break into human programming.

Much like regular hackers, bio-hackers attempt to assume control of the machine they've hacked into - the body - and manipulate it for their purposes. However, unlike the often nefarious purposes of traditional hackers, bio-hackers strive to improve the human body, to make it healthier and more optimal.

You don't need a phone booth and an underpants-over-tights suit to be a superhero any more. Today's everyman can become superhuman with just a few simple hacks - or so the bio-hackers say.

Bio-hacking entails augmenting the human body in ways that make it function better and with greater durability. This augmentation can involve new behaviors or even the embedding of technologies into the body - transforming humans into cyborgs. Cyborgs are typically part human, part robot creatures.

As I've argued elsewhere, we are all already cyborgs thanks to the internet of things. The smartphone that so many people carry around everyday connects us to a web of technical information, imbricating contemporary humans in the vast labyrinth of the internet. However, bio-hacking takes this cyborg-ness to the next level. According to Bronwyn Williams, a contributor at Flux Trends:

"Biohackers believe that genetic information and biological enhancements should be democratic and ‘open source’ so that individuals can evolve (organically or inorganically) according to their own intelligent design. They encourage the democratic, DIY technological development of the human race."

Bio-hackers believe that everyone should have access to technology that can alter their bodies in potentially beneficial ways. This is a far more democratic view than that of our current medical system which requires medical practitioners to undergo years of medical training and practice to operate on human bodies.

However, this does beg the question: why would you forgo traditional medicine to have a less experienced individual tamper with your body? Why do people want to hack their bodies? Is it just about playing at being superman?

Many people who've turned to bio-hacking have done so because they feel poorly and have found that traditional medicine has not healed them. Others are more experimental and want to use engineering to gain fuller command over their bodies. Some even want to try and slow down the ageing process. This comes as little surprise in a society obsessed with youth. Just look at how many anti-ageing face creams are on the market or how many people have turned to collagen supplements to supposedly rejuvenate their skin and keep their hair strong and lustrous.

A lot of famous bio-hackers started off as ill individuals. For example, NASA employee, Josiah Zayner, has had health problems for years, and many of his bio-hacks have been attempts at a cure. One of his most famous bio-hacks entailed injecting himself with CRISPR DNA. However, Zayner's attempts at bio-hacking weren't solely motivated but health concerns but also by frustration with the medical system.

The desire to feel better and see how far we can push the body is a common desire. However, while bio-hacking often takes this as its start, a lot of bio-hackers quickly graduate from alternative medical solutions to attempting to become as intelligent and strong as possible for as long as possible.

After all, why stop at being healthy? Why not find peak health? Or the elixir of youth?

Back in the medieval era, alchemists tried transmuting base metals such as lead or copper into silver and gold. They also attempted to procure an elixir that could cure all diseases. For many, this may sound like a crazy, misguided idea of the past.

However, we have managed to extend our life spans greatly since that era and some of today's bio-hackers could very well be considered the alchemists of our time. Take, for instance, Aubrey de Grey, the co-founder of the SENS Research Foundation whose goal is end biological ageing and who claims that the first person to live to the age of 1,000 has already been born. De Grey's foundation attempts to solve seven types of ageing damage, including:

The future that de Grey envisions is one in which people will regularly visit rejuvenation clinics to ward off these seven key issues and extend their lives. Imagine a world in which your cells could be upgraded like the software on your computer!

The foundational philosophy of bio-hacking is that we don't need to accept our bodies' limitations. Rather, we can engineer our way past them, with or without the help of authorities. It's an empowering notion.

Some of the most commonly employed bio-hacks include:

One rather trendy supposed bio-hack is Bulletproof coffee - a high-calorie coffee promoted by Dave Asprey, and intended to replace breakfast. This drink consists of 2 cups of coffee with 2 tablespoons of grass-fed, unsalted butter, and 1-2 tablespoons of MCT oil mixed in a blender. However, Healthline advises against it as it is low in nutrients for a breakfast, high in saturated fat, and may raise your cholesterol levels.

Other trendy bio-hacks include:

But you don't have to get too deep into the latest bio-hack fad to be hacking your bodily code. Practices as quotidian as exercise and taking antidepressants also alter aspects of your body and its functioning and promote improved health.

According to an article by Anelde Greeff in the Sanlam Reality Spring 2020 magazine, one of the latest bio-hack crazes is dopamine fasting.

Dopamine is also vital to conditioned responses, such as addiction. Dopamine fasting requires you to limit the time you spend on high-reward activities such as using your phone or gambling. Thanks the array of exciting apps available on our phones, even the thought of picking up your phone can trigger a dopamine response.

In 2018, the RescueTime app reviewed 11,000 users and found that, on average, people spend 3 hours and 15 minutes on their phones every day! The top 20% of users had a screen time exceeding 4.5 hours per day! And even when people wanted to take a break, they often faced serious anxiety over separation from their phones. These numbers have likely increased with the advent of the pandemic and the extra screen time necessitated by stay-at-home orders.

Dopamine fasting requires you to control both your stimuli and exposure and response prevention. This means putting the dopamine trigger (be that your phone, cigarette pack, or whisky bottle) out of reach or making it difficult to access, and then responding to the impulse to seek it out by not engaging in your usual addictive behavior.

The goal of this kind of bio-hack is not masochism but rather to replace bad habits with better ones. Imagine if instead of spending 2 hours on Instagram every day, you spent those 2 hours reading, learning a new skill, going to the gym, or cooking a nutritious meal? Bio-hacking in this case simply means circumventing your addiction and replacing the addictive activity with something healthier.

There is, of course, an extreme side to bio-hacking. More extreme than drinking buttery coffee in the morning (which already sounds a bit too much for me). Let me introduce the open-source transhumanists. Open-source transhumanists believe in extending human life, health, and happiness with the goal of ending suffering and achieving immortality. These are our 21st century alchemists who modify their bodies with technology, embedding magnets, chips, or computers into their flesh. But, wait, there's more. Meet the grinders, biopunks, vampires, and those I've named the unmentionables.

Grinders are a subset of bio-hackers who embed devices in their bodies. These implants enable them to do anything from opening doors without a handle to monitoring their glucose levels. Grinders are curious about blurring the line between human and machine.

There's also an anarchic subculture of bio-hackers known as Biopunks who use technological body modifications, such as implanting illuminated jewellery into their bodies, for aesthetic purposes.

On the more vampiric side of things, there are people who try blood transfusions with "young blood" (the blood of people younger than them) to promote longevity and youthfulness. In Silicon Valley, people have paid $8,000 a pop to participate in "young blood" trials. Peter Thiel, author of the entrepreneurial guide, Zero to One, has expressed an interest in these crepuscular trials.

Although some limited studies indicate that these transfusions might ward off diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, heart disease, and multiple sclerosis, these claims haven't been definitively proven.

Then, there are faecal transplants... Yes, you read that correctly. People are transferring the stool of a healthy person into the gastrointestinal tract of an unhealthy patient as an attempted bio-hack.

The FDA has not approved this procedure and also reported that two people contracted serious infections with these transplants which contained drug-resistant bacteria. One of the participants in the transplant died - in a clinical trial, never mind an at home experiment. This is definitely a hack to avoid trying at home.

Bio-hacking often involves some kind of supplement routine, from anti-ageing supplements to nootropics or "smart drugs". For instance, Asprey's Bulletproof Diet essentially vilifies certain food groups while promoting expensive Bulletproof products. The scientific backing for a lot of these products is either cherry-picked or very thin.

Clinical trials have shown that mindfulness meditation can help reduce anxiety and chronic pain. However, a lot of alleged bio-hacks are not backed by any scientific research. While some older Finnish men were shown to benefit from frequenting saunas, this study looked at a very small group of people and we shouldn't draw sweeping conclusions from it.

The possible danger lies in those who are desperate for a cure, fed up with the conventional approaches they've taken before, and are ready to try pretty much anything.

Rob Carlson, an expert on synthetic biology and long-time promoter of bio-hacking says that "all of modern medicine is hacking" but that people call others "hackers" as a means of deligitimizing them. This raises a bigger question of who we feel is permitted or qualified to explore new things when it comes to the body, health, and wellbeing. And who is permitted to discuss this in public?

Should this remain the domain of healthcare providers and scientists? Or should we all be free to find new ways to optimize our operating system?

As for me, I don't feel quite ready to become a grinder just yet. I don't even feel ready to try butter in my coffee, or dip my toes into intermittent fasting... I'm perfectly boring and perfectly happy to have the doctors do the tough physiological work for me, at least for now. And much as illness and death can be terrible tragedies, I'm not sure I like the idea of immortality or even permanent youth. It feels too much like a science fiction which quickly turns dystopian.

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