Ep 40 - What is Bio-hacking?

Curious about bio-hacking and how it can transform your well-being? I break bio-hacking down into four key components that can truly enhance your health.

I explore the power of testing—think genetics and hormones, the foundations of our body. I introduce you to wearables that track everything from sleep patterns to daily activities.

I also reveal training techniques like HIIT and breathwork, which go beyond physical fitness to boost overall well-being. And for addressing specific health concerns, I offer strategies like fasting and cold exposure.

High Activation Bio-hacking Retreat in the UK, led by medical experts. Ready to elevate your health? Check out https://dralkapatel.com/retreat/ for all the details. This episode is a treasure trove of insights, providing actionable ways to embark on your bio-hacking journey.

For more information about this episode head to https://dralkapatel.com/podcast-health-hacktivators/

To read the blogs that accompany the show and for even more focused health hacks, head to https://dralkapatel.com/blog/

Do you know your LQ? Find out how high your lifestyle ranks. Take the LQ test to find out your score here: https://dralkapatel.com/lq-test/

Youth & Earth exclusive offers: https://www.awin1.com/cread.php?awinmid=20509&awinaffid=229509&ued=https%3A%2F%2Fyouthandearth.com%2F

Discover A Hidden Health-Hacking Code That Unlocks Your Phenomenal Potential for an Outstanding Healthspan, Lifespan and Wealthspan.

Find out what most other Doctors don’t tell you, with cutting-edge health-hacktivating advice from Lifestyle Medicine Doctor, GP and Longevity Expert Dr Alka Patel.

Featuring candid conversations with celebrities, influencers and industry icons, hear the real-life stories of what it takes to be healthy, wealthy, and wise in today’s world.

It’s time to join the Strategic Self-Care Revolution and experience the profound effect this will have on your personal and professional success.

Take back control and get ready to live longer, younger, and stronger.

Podcast Transcript

PLEASE NOTE these transcripts are auto-generated and may not be wholly accurate.

Dr Alka Patel (00:00.522)

Hi, hey, and hello health activators. Today I'm talking about biohacking. Now of course this whole show, as you know, is based on biohacking. So today what I wanted to do was share with you a short episode to really clarify what biohacking is, because I haven't done that so far. And I want to give you even more ways to apply biohacking into your life and explain its relevance in today's world, and also the potential that it holds as well. So let's get going. To start things off then,

What is biohacking? Well, here's my definition. Biohacking is the principles, practices, and processes of taking ownership of your health. That's it. The principles, practices, and processes of taking ownership of your health. It's about getting right into your control center. So that's the hacking bit, and then taking over control of your biology. So that's the bio bit.

your biology, your physiology, your psychology, neurology, your anatomy, your metabolism, your biochemistry. It's about taking control of how you're made and how you function. And what does biohacking do? What does it do? Well, it gives you a way to create what I call biosynergy. What's biosynergy? Well, biosynergy is that harmonious integration of your body and your brain and your beliefs where...

collectively, their interplay through your biology creates a greater whole, where every system in your body is connected, is synergized. And remember, nothing heals alone, hurts alone, or works alone in your body. And what is crucially important, I believe, with biohacking, is that it's centered around your bio individuality. So it's about applying a very individual approach to your health.

which is where it really differs from a much more common medical approach to health. You see, medicine on the whole is based on a population-based approach to health, the greatest good for the greatest number of people. So if you're not feeling great and you have a constellation of symptoms, say, and you go and see your doctor, you will of course get an individual diagnosis based on your individual symptoms and your individual tests, for example, but the advice that then follows in terms of

Dr Alka Patel (02:25.558)

what to do next. The advice that follows is much less individualised and more general, more generic based on research and studies. So for example, if you're diagnosed with high blood pressure, general advice is to take medication and eat less salt. If you're diagnosed with diabetes, say, then general advice is to take medication and eat less sugar.

You see, there's a problem with general advice, is that, well, it might not apply to you. It might not be relevant to you. So I've seen many, many patients, for example, that will find that, for example, no matter how much they minimize their salt intake, they just can't get their blood pressure down on them. No matter how much they minimize their sugar intake, cut out sugar, just can't improve their diabetes. And this is where taking ownership.

of your health starts to truly matter so that you can then take an individual, personalized and much more precise approach to your health through biohacking. Because that is what biohacking does. It allows you to get an even deeper level of personalized data about you combined with this amazing, amazing time of technological advancements that we're living in that we get to be alive in and then utilize that to make decisions about your health with.

precision. So let's then get into how you can apply biohacking principles and processes for getting right into your control center for taking over control of your biology so that you can then create biosynergy with all the systems in your body working together in a precise way that responds to your bio individuality. How do you do this? Well, I like to think of biohacking as having four components, so four applications, and these are

testing, tracking, training, and treating. Testing, tracking, training, and treating. So testing them. What is testing? Testing is a, well, it's a very core biohacking process, and it very simply involves assessing various aspects of your body to get insights into your health and into your performance. And tests are usually, as you'll know, based on body fluids, so blood,

Dr Alka Patel (04:46.242)

urine, stool, saliva. They're the usual body fluids that tests are based on. And the breadth now of what it is possible to test, well, it's just getting broader and broader. So to give you a few examples of tests and whereby hacking fits, what about firstly genetic testing? Now we finished unraveling the human genome 20 years ago, and now at our fingertips, we can test individual.

DNA. Testing your individual DNA gives you so much information about how you're designed, how for example, your body is designed to metabolize nutrients. You can find that out by testing your DNA and then use that information to your advantage. So there was a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. This was in 2016. And it found that if you follow a genetically tailored diet.

then you're more likely to experience greater weight loss compared to following a non-tailored diet. So this is just one example of the utility of having genetic testing so that then you can use the results to adjust your diet to match your genetic profile to benefit your health. So for example, if your genes suggest that you've got a lower tolerance for carbohydrates, then for you personally, reducing your carb intake and increasing healthy fats and proteins,

would be much more important than if you showed a higher tolerance for carbohydrates, in which case zoning in on your carbs may not be the most important priority for you. Another test then, another test is to test your hormone panel, test your hormones for energy optimization because hormones do play a very crucial role in energy and mood and testing your hormones is what can help you identify imbalances. Now we produce how many

50 hormones that we know about each with very distinct functions, very distinct effects on the body. They control metabolism, they control growth and development and your stress response and your reproductive functions and so many other things. So I mean there's so many examples I could give you. Here's a few insulin for example it's produced by your pancreas and regulates your blood sugar levels by allowing your cells to take up glucose from your bloodstream. There's cortisol,

Dr Alka Patel (07:09.538)

Cortisol is produced by your adrenal glands and we often refer to it as a stress hormone. And what cortisol does is it plays a part in your response to stress. So it helps to regulate your metabolism, regulates your immune response, regulates your blood pressure as well. There's thyroid hormones, T3, T4. They're produced by the thyroid gland and what they do is again, they regulate metabolism and energy production and overall growth as well.

Reproductive hormones, you'll have heard of estrogen, progesterone, so they're produced primarily in ovaries, in females, and they play a very, very key part, of course, in reproduction and cycles, mental cycles as well as having key roles in metabolism as well. Testosterone as well, produced by testes in males and in smaller amounts by ovaries. In the females, they're responsible for...

male sexual development, also energy and metabolism in both males and females as well. We've got a could go on growth hormone made by your pituitary gland, stimulates cell reproduction, stimulates regeneration in the brain. We've got melatonin produced by your pineal gland, and that's what helps regulate your sleep wake cycles, your circadian rhythms. Leptin produced by fat cells, they have a role in regulating your appetite, and again, your metabolism to make sure you've got sufficient.

energy stores and this is just a few, there's so many more hormones and so with this really vast array of functions, what's really important is to know which hormones to test, which is why when it comes to biohacking, yes it is centred around taking individual ownership of your health, but I believe it needs to be done with a doctor by your side for sure. A doctor who has expertise in

Biohacking. And there are a lot of directed consumer tests now available, which is useful, but you've got to understand what you're testing, why you're testing, and also how to interpret your results, which goes beyond any printout report that comes with the test, which is why I come back to saying biohack with a doctor who is expert in these processes and principles by your side. Okay.

Dr Alka Patel (09:30.078)

More tests, another important test, one that I love, is testing your gut microbiome for your digestive health. So your gut health has a profound influence on so many aspects of your body, and I'm not talking just about digestion, but also things like mood and memory, for example, and what testing does, testing your gut microbiome will then help support your decisions about food choices, for example, which...

pre-biotic rich foods to have or probiotics or fermented foods that you will helpfully be able to incorporate into your diet to promote a healthy gut. And when it comes to testing then overall, I'll outline a few, when it comes to testing for most of my clients what I love to focus on is what I call the big five. The big five tests.

that I know will get you ahead in your health. I call this my Get Ahead Accelerator, A-H-E-A-D, which includes tests related to your age, hormones, ecosystem, anabolism, and DNA. So those are my big five tests. That's one component of biohacking, which is testing. Another component, another component is the practice of tracking. So what does tracking involve? Well, tracking involves

continuously monitoring different metrics and different parameters related to your body's performance and physiology, usually using devices, using tech. And these are insights that I find totally invaluable for guiding biohacking efforts and really helping you to make data-driven decisions. So let me give you some examples of the sorts of things that you can track. Number one,

track your HRV, your heart rate variability. So what your HRV is, I've mentioned it many times on this show previously, your HRV is a measure of the variation in time between your successive heartbeats. So it's not your heart rate, it's the time in between your heartbeats. And there's a lot of research on HRV now, one published in the Frontiers in Neuroscience Journal, and that showed how tracking HRV

Dr Alka Patel (11:41.666)

can provide insights into your stress levels and the overall function of your autonomic nervous system. So that's your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. So one tip here is to invest in a wearable device that tracks your HRV accurately, and then use that data to then identify patterns in your stress levels and adjust your stress modulation techniques accordingly. So...

things like practicing mindfulness or deep breathing exercises at the right time aligned with your data. What else can you track? Another crucial, very crucial parameter to check is sleep. Now I've lost count of the number of people that I meet every single week who tell me, I can't sleep and I've tried everything, right? So many people feel that. And that's because there is so much generic sleep advice out there.

And week after week, I meet people who follow this advice, which is good advice, sleep in a dark room, make sure it's quiet, keep the temperature of your room cool. People that find that they're doing all of this, but despite doing it, their sleep remains disrupted. And that's where sleep tracking comes in. That's where it becomes so crucial. So you can see exactly where you need to intervene without guessing. So you can sleep in a quiet, dark room.

If your personal trigger to waking up in the middle of the night is because your body temperature goes up, then it stands to reason that no amount of darkness will help you stay asleep because what you need to focus on is your body temperature. And this is where personal sleep data really is so helpful in pinpointing exactly what you need. And another of my favorite trackers, another of my favorite trackers is glucose tracking. So...

Just like pedometers changed the way we walked by measuring our step count, I believe that continuously case monitors, CGMs, are changing the way we eat by measuring our sugar count. And look, we all have such different responses to the same food, so there's no point having carte blanche generic advice about what to eat and what not to eat. There's no point banning carbs from your house. Find out first what your personal response is.

Dr Alka Patel (14:01.026)

to different foods and use a CGM continuously because tracking is the best way to do this. Tracking really is a game changer for health. Using devices I have found is so, so useful. And when it comes to tracking, again, for most of my clients, I send them at least five devices to track their health goals. And I call this my target goal game changer. So that includes devices that give you data on GeoALS,

oxidation, arteries, light and sleep, five critical areas of data that I believe are important to track. Okay, so we've talked about testing, tracking, third component to biohacking is training. So what do I mean when I talk about training? Well, training involves implementing targeted, repetitive interventions to enhance very specific aspects of your physical and your mental performance. So things like

exercise routines and cognitive practices. So a couple of examples for you here as well, something like HIIT training, high intensity interval training, that involves very short bursts of intense exercise, followed by brief periods of rest. And again, lots of studies around this study in the Journal of Obesity in 2019 showed that HIIT more effectively improves cardiovascular

Dr Alka Patel (15:28.542)

other forms of exercise. So to biohack your cardiovascular fitness, train your body to incorporate HIIT workouts into your routine. Things like starting with a 20-minute session, alternating between intense bursts of exercise and then rest or low intensity activity. So that's training through HIIT. Another training technique is through breathwork. So breathwork is very much about...

controlled breathing patterns that then influence your physiological and your emotional states. So getting into a training routine that involves breathwork is very beneficial for many things, stress modulation, anxiety management, simple technique for breathwork, breath training is four to six breathings. So that's in for a breath of six counts and out for a breath of...

sorry, in for a breath of four counts and out for a breath of six counts. And if you repeat that six times, then you slow your breath down to less than six breaths a minute, that's a target number. It's a very simple way to hack your nervous system, to activate your parasympathetic nervous system, P for parasympathetic, P for peaceful, and switch off your sympathetic nervous system, S for sympathetic, S for.

stressful. So breath work training really does allow you to take control of your nervous system and this is something that you can train through biohacking. Another training practice mindfulness. Mindfulness is all about raising your awareness, raising your sensory awareness, increasing your presence. So this is something else that you can hack through biohacking and through training as

Dr Alka Patel (17:22.582)

testing, we've talked about tracking, we've talked about training. Fourth component is treating. So treating is about using biohacking strategies to address very specific health concerns or health conditions that you may want to address. And again, I believe this is absolutely vital to do with medical guidance by your side, with a doctor by your side.

So let me give you some examples of how to use biohacking as a treatment modality. So for example, one way to treat tiredness might be through fasting. Now this might sound counterintuitive, but intermittent fasting, which involves cycling between periods of eating and fasting does increase energy levels. So if you start with a 12 hour fasting window and then...

gradually extend that to 16 hours, you can find that your energy levels are increased. Your tiredness is lifted. And it is a fantastic longevity hack as well. But fasting, intermittent fasting can also carry risk for some people in some contexts. Again, important to do this with medical advice as well. Another biohack that is useful, one to treat recurrent infections. This is where cold exposure.

So if you're somebody who keeps on getting infections, have you thought about using cold exposure as a biohack? So cold exposure, I mean, things like cold showers or ice baths, what it does is it stimulates, it bolsters your immune system and your immune function. So a good place to start here might be just with 30 seconds of cold water at the end of your regular shower and then gradually increasing the duration. Again, not suitable for everybody.

but amazing benefits if it is right for you. Another biohack, something like perhaps treating acne. You might look at red light therapy for this. So what red light therapy involves is exposure to red or near infrared light. And what that does is it promotes skin health and tissue repair. So again, begin with short sessions, five, maybe 10 minutes of exposure to red light therapy. And notice that...

Dr Alka Patel (19:39.362)

positive benefit that the effects on your skin. So the possibilities here for applying biohacking, they really do continue to expand. And the most important thing is to also keep your mind expanded. Stay open to possibilities because there is more and more that was once considered unconventional that is becoming more conventional. I mean, things like

Meditation and mindfulness, for example, they were once seen as very esoteric practices associated with spiritual traditions, but now they're becoming and have become much more widely accepted as tools for stress reduction and emotional health. Probiotics, the idea of consuming live microorganisms for health benefits, really, you want me to ingest bacteria? That seemed unconventional at some point. Today,

Probiotics are a staple in gut health and immune system discussions. And what about exercise? Believe it or not, the idea of exercise as medicine was not always widely accepted. Physical activity used to be thought of as optional rather than a very fundamental aspect of health. So unconventional becomes conventional. And there might be many things that you'll hear in biohacking conversations that

might seem unconventional or radical to you right now. Cryonics, for example, freezing your body with the hope that future advancements in medical tech might revive you. Now, that might be considered as highly speculative at present, but what future breakthroughs in nanotechnology are on the horizon? Or genetic engineering and CRISPR technology. So what CRISPR technology allows

you to do is to manipulate your DNA sequences. And yes, some biohackers are exploring this idea of using genetic modifications to potentially extend lifespan by targeting genes associated with aging. Now, again, this concept is largely in the realm of speculation, and there's lots of ethical debate around this and high regulation, but the possibilities are here. Or...

Dr Alka Patel (22:02.19)

plasma infusion of young blood, infusing yourself with young blood. Speculative, controversial, unconventional.

So now what about you and your biohacking journey? Where are you at? Where are you at right now? Well, an important thing to do is really to start with a question to ask yourself, what's my goal here with biohacking? What do I want? Because that's an important question to answer in order to understand which of these principles and processes might be the most relevant for you to start with. It might be that you want

life extension, longevity, you might want to live as long as possible, or maybe you've got a diagnosis that you want to reverse, or perhaps you want to optimise your energy levels. The important thing is to know your goal, to be clear about your aim, and then look at those components of biohacking that I've highlighted, testing, tracking, training, treating, and look at which processes and practices are going to support you to reach that goal.

And I'm going to say this again, my advice is always is to hack with a doctor by your side because there are always safety elements to be aware of when biohacking. And there's this whole realm of science to understand and explore and enjoy together as well, which is why I am super, super excited to tell you about me launching UK's first ever, UK's first ever doctor.

led biohacking retreat. So excited UK's first ever doctor led biohacking retreat and I'm doing this because I want you to experience some of these biohacking practices that I've mentioned firsthand in a safe connected space with a doctor by your side. That's what I want for you. So this retreat is called Hacktivation and what we'll be doing during it is live testing.

Dr Alka Patel (24:08.186)

and tracking and you'll be training your physiology and we'll be zoning in to what you specifically want to treat and target. So all of those biohacking principles and processes will be utilizing in practice. This is a really immersive event. I would love, love to see you there. I'd love to meet you in person. So all the details are on my website. I'll pop the link in the notes, dralkapatel.com forward slash retreats.

And I'm, well, I'm keeping this a small close event at the moment. And the reason for this is so that you can be fully connected, so that you can be fully immersed in both the science and the art of biohacking. So please, please don't miss out on your place. Take a look at the details, dralkapotel.com and email me if you have any questions, you know how to get hold of me, either through the socials at dralkapoteluk or email me through retreats at dralkapotel.

I am super, super excited about this, about the biohacking retreat, hacktivation, and I look forward to meeting you there. So in the meantime, stay curious, stay discerning, and keep pushing the boundaries for a longer, healthier life. And I wish you a health hacktivating day.