15 Biohacks to Improve Your Health, Cognition, and Lifespan in 2022

You’ve made a disciplined effort to hone your networking and professional skills. But have you given your health the same priority? Cognitive function is intimately tied to your health, so don’t let either take a backseat in the new year. Consider adopting one or more of the 15 ideas below to protect your most important asset.

Author’s note: I receive a small commission when you purchase recommended products on Amazon through the provided links. As evidenced by the photo at the end of this article, I have purchased and use every product that I recommend.

Health & Wellness Testing

Peter Drucker, a management consultant and influential author, advocated for quantitative business metrics when he famously said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” Why would your health be an exception? Consider the following actions in 2022:

15.??Take the Galleri multi-cancer early detection test. Illumina CEO Francis deSouza and CTO Mostafa Ronaghi are demonstrated visionaries and savvy executives, so when Illumina announces it is acquiring one of its spinouts for $8 billion, as it did with GRAIL earlier this year, you should pay attention. GRAIL has developed a multi-cancer early detection test, called Galleri, that can detect more than 50 types of cancer in a sample of your blood. The test can identify cancers with 99.5% overall specificity (i.e., false positive rate of 0.5% or only 5 in 1000 people) and 76% sensitivity (i.e., a 24% false negative rate). Moreover, when cancer is detected, the test can determine the cancer signal origin (i.e., tissue or organ) 89% of the time. This test requires a physician’s prescription, but AgelessRx will help coordinate an online screening with a prescriber, which is included in the $1,250 test cost as of the time of this writing. Depending on your risk factors, your insurance may cover all or part the test if it is ordered through your primary physician.

14.??Determine your biological (i.e., epigenetic) age. Think you have a healthy lifestyle? Now you can prove it. Steve Horvath, UCLA professor of human genetics and biostatistics, discovered that chemical modifications to your DNA, specifically methylation patterns, can be used to predict age. As you might expect, some people have methylation patterns suggesting that they’re aging faster than their chronological (i.e., calendar) age, and some, slower than their chronological age. The epigenetic clock appears to be sensitive to body mass index, diet, exercise, alcohol and nicotine usage, and many other known health factors. Importantly, people whose biological age is greater than their chronological age are at higher risk of mortality. Several tests are currently available, which range in price from $99 to $499, and none require a doctor’s prescription: MyDNAge, TruMe Labs TruAge Explorer, Elysium Index, TruDiagnostic TruAge, EpiAging USA Biological Age, and Muhdo DNA Transform. I use MyDNAge, but all of these tests are based on the same concept. Whichever test you choose, make sure to stick with the same one for repeat testing to determine changes in your rate of biological aging, and use these data to determine if your health interventions are working! Studies have shown that epigenetic age can actually be reversed in humans (1, 2).

13.??Sequence all of the DNA in your genome. The Human Genome Project began in 1990 and was completed in 2003 at a cost of about $2.7 billion, of which, about $500 million was required to produce the “finished sequence” of the first human genome (>95% genome coverage at ~99.99% accuracy). Today you can sequence your genome at 30x coverage (i.e., each position in your 6.4 billion base pair genome is read 30 times on average to ensure accuracy) for $550 through Dante Labs. Included in this price are several high-quality reports. No physician’s prescription is required, and you are likely to learn things that explain existing health conditions and predict future health issues.

12.??Monitor your blood pressure and glucose levels. There’s a reason that blood pressure monitors and glucose sensors are sold over the counter at your local drug store: they provide you with valuable health info without requiring a medical professional to administer the test or interpret the results. You don’t need to wait until your next annual exam to find out if you have high blood pressure or pre-diabetes. If your blood pressure isn’t less than 120/80 and your fasting blood sugar isn’t less than 100 mg/dL, then you can start working on that today! Fortunately, these metrics can usually be improved quickly with simple dietary and lifestyle changes, and seeing the improvements can be motivational.?Several glucose sensors can also measure ketone levels with a different test strip, which may also be of interest to you. I use the Precision Xtra glucose sensor with glucose and ketone test strips and the Alcedo blood pressure monitor. I have found that both of these instruments give accurate and reproducible results. For those who want more data, concierge physician and entrepreneur Dr. Molly Maloof recommends the Levels continuous glucose monitor.

11.??Get an annual doctor’s exam and bloodwork. This one needs no explanation. Make sure to fix any issues and avoid waiting another year to find out if you succeeded or not.

Dietary Interventions

There are few things more dangerous to your health than consuming the Standard American Diet, which has a fitting acronym, SAD. One need look no further than our Type 2 diabetes epidemic and growing waistbands to understand that we’re eating ourselves to death. Thanks to our evolutionary survival instincts, we crave calorie-dense foods high in carbohydrates and fat, and to the peril of our modern selves, we find these low-fiber offerings in abundance everywhere we turn.

10.??Consider time-restricted eating (i.e., short-term fasting) or intermittent fasting. As we age, various cells in our bodies reach their maximum number of cell divisions, known as the Hayflick limit. While some of these cells die, others persist in a zombie-like state and secrete inflammatory molecules that dramatically accelerate the aging of neighboring tissues. Our bodies are adept at clearing these zombie “senescent” cells in a process called autophagy, which means “eating self,” but autophagy is inefficient when we are in a nutrient-rich state, such as in our current three-meals-a-day-with-snacks dietary paradigm. Benefits abound when these fasting approaches are studied in rodent models, including in the brain, though there have been fewer studies in humans. Nevertheless, benefits to obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancers and neurological disorders have been shown, and importantly, intermittent fasting has been found to be safe and effective in humans for weight control. Senolytics, a new class of drugs being developed to specifically target senescent cells, are in development, and exciting results have been obtained in mice. But until these drugs are shown to be safe and effective in humans, fasting and autophagy are your best bet.

9.??????Eat more plants while moderating meat consumption. Most of us think of the food we consume as being broken down and used for energy. But when we eat red meat, we ingest a complex sugar molecule called N-glycolylneuraminic acid (Neu5Gc), found on the surface of cells that make up red meat, that is not broken down.?Rather, our bodies “reuse” this molecule by attaching it to the surface of our human cells, where it doesn’t belong. Because Neu5Gc is foreign, our immune system generates antibodies against it and then attacks these now-foreign-looking human cells, inducing a chronic state of systemic inflammation that can lead to cancer.

Dr. David Sinclair, a Harvard professor who studies aging and author of Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To, recommends replacing excess consumption of red meat with “stressed out” plants. He believes herbivores and omnivores (plant eaters) evolved to be responsive to plant stress molecules that signal difficult conditions for the plant and potentially an impending food shortage for the plant eater. Sensitivity to these plant stress signals would have been advantageous to the plant eater because it could develop adaptations that help it survive an impending famine before it occurred, in a process called xenohormesis. Sinclair postulates that some of these beneficial adaptations are associated with genomic and mitochondrial DNA repair and maintenance through activation of enzymes known as sirtuins, which has been shown to improve longevity across diverse organisms. Stressed plants tend to be grown under less-than-ideal conditions (e.g., your backyard or small organic farm), have insect damage or other wounds, and may be highly pigmented as a defensive response to light stress.

8.??????Drink matcha (Japanese green tea). This is another favorite of David Sinclair because the tea leaves are purposely stressed by growing them in the shade for two weeks prior to harvest. Maybe it’s the xenohormetics or maybe it’s something else, but in any case, green tea drinkers appear to live about 15 months longer than their non-tea-drinking counterparts. And if you’re a habitual coffee drinker, replacing all or some of your coffee with green tea will help reduce caffeine consumption on an equal volume basis. But don’t give up the coffee altogether, as it reduces all-cause mortality with as little as 1 cup or as much as 8 cups per day! I drink Jade Leaf ceremonial matcha tea, which is farm direct from Japan and is organic, but any matcha ceremonial (as opposed to culinary) tea should offer similar benefits. Matcha consists of whole tea leaves that are finely ground and consumed as part of the tea rather than steeped.

Lifestyle & Exercise

7.??????Do high-intensity interval training (HIIT). We’re all short on time. So there’s nothing better than a study showing that one minute of intense exercise in sedentary individuals (3 intervals of 20 seconds high intensity; 10 minutes total, which includes warm up, recovery, and cool down) allowed them to achieve the same measurable cardiometabolic benefits of a more traditional 50 minute cardio workout. Hear about it in the author’s own words.

6.??????Do resistance training. In the words of Mark Rippetoe, author of Starting Strength and renowned strength coach, “Strong people are harder to kill than weak people and more useful in general.” While you may not be worried about surviving a physical attack, strength (especially handgrip strength) has been shown to be inversely correlated with all-cause mortality. If being less likely to die isn’t good enough, consider doing it for better insulin sensitivity, higher bone density, higher resting metabolic rate, and to prevent frailty.

5.??????Improve your oral hygiene. Doubling down on your oral health can pay dividends to your general health. There is strong evidence that a common pathogen in gum disease, Porphyromonas gingivalis, may be the causative agent of Alzheimer’s disease. If you haven’t visited your dentist in the last six months, consider making an appointment. And if you haven’t made the switch to an electric toothbrush yet, price is no longer an excuse. The Philips Sonicare DailyClean 1100 is extremely affordable at $25, and it offers a two-minute timer with quadrant pacing, all of the features that you actually need. Hate alcohol mouthwash? Technology has progressed considerably in the alcohol-free mouthwash category. Crest now offers Crest Pro-Health Clinical, which contains an ingredient, cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC), that is highly effective at removing plaque and addressing gingivitis (a mild form of gum disease). As a word of caution, it can alter the way some people perceive taste for a short time after use. If you struggle with cavities, you might be surprised to learn that 3M’s PerioMed, the same stannous fluoride oral rinse for which your dentist upcharges you, is available over-the-counter and can be used daily. Finally, give your partner a break from that disgusting aligner/retainer/night guard that you don’t clean nearly as much as you should. I use and recommend Dentibrite Cleaning Crystals, which remove biofilm, disinfect, and freshen your dental appliance in a five-minute soak. In full disclosure, I formulated the product, but there are hundreds of Amazon reviews supporting its efficacy!

4.??????Meditation. In addition to having a positive impact on stress coping and anxiety, meditation appears to slow the rate of aging as measured by the epigenetic clock discussed above. If traditional meditation is not your cup of tea, the Oculus Quest 2 virtual reality headset has a popular guided meditation app called Tripp, which I enjoy immensely.

Drugs and supplements

3.??????Consider taking metformin or berberine. In what universe does a cohort of Type 2 diabetics outlive a control cohort of non-diabetics matched for age, gender, smoking, and clinicals status? The evidence is mounting that metformin is an anti-aging drug in humans, and a Targeting Aging with Metformin (TAME) clinical trial is underway to resolve the question. You can learn more in Dr. Peter Attia’s podcast with TAME trial leader Dr. Nir Barzilai, author of Age Later, and rapamycin expert Dr. Joan Mannick. For many, including me, the safety profile of metformin is good enough and the data already sufficiently convincing to begin taking metformin to extend health span and lifespan. AgelessRx can get you set up with a telemedicine appointment and prescription for $25 per month. Note that metformin can increase risk of vitamin B12 deficiency, so you will likely want to supplement with B12 or a multivitamin. If getting a prescription for metformin sounds too extreme, consider the supplement berberine, which may offer similar benefits to blood sugar and lipid levels without affecting vitamin B12 levels.

2.??????Consider taking a probiotic. While the benefits of probiotics in healthy individuals have not been widely established, certain strains do seem to offer benefit.?For example, L. reuteri ATCC PTA 6475, which is sold by BioGaia under the tradename Osfortis, is an anti-inflammatory strain isolated from the breast milk of a Finnish woman. It has been shown to colonize the human gut and to reduce losses in bone density in the ELBOW clinical trial. Furthermore, it has been shown to restore youthful serum testosterone levels in aging mice. Interestingly, the strain expresses a broad-spectrum antibacterial compound known as “reuterin” that can kill both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. As a word of caution, however, one research group has convincingly shown that reuterin antibacterial activity is due its chemical interconversion to acrolein, a known cytotoxin and genotoxic mutagen. However, the same group also shows that acrolein appears to react with carcinogenic heterocyclic amines, which are introduced into the gut through consumption charred meat, so a low-level of acrolein could be beneficial for meat eaters if it inactivates heterocyclic amines. Further study is necessary to understand if this is a net benefit or a risk.

1.??????Consider taking supplements. Supplements shouldn’t be the cornerstone of your approach to good health, but they may offer some benefit and are unlikely to do harm.

• Multivitamin: covers any micronutrient deficiencies in your diet. I take a highly affordable Walgreens multivitamin, as there’s no need to get fancy here.
• Vitamin D: most Americans don’t get enough, and adequate levels are not necessarily optimal levels. Vitamin D improves calcium absorption in the gut and may protect against severe COVID symptoms (not a substitute for vaccination).?Furthermore, deficiencies can cause many health issues, including depression. I take Walgreens Vitamin D softgels.
• Vitamin K2 (MK-7): offers many health benefits, including reduced risk of arterial calcification, heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.?Individuals with the highest levels of vitamin K also had lowest all-cause mortality. I take Now MK-7 Vitamin K2 capsules.
• Glucosamine/chondroitin: may not do anything for arthritis in humans, but does seem to be associated with significantly lower risk of cardiovascular disease mortality and all-cause mortality. In addition, it promotes longevity in mice, apparently acting as a low-carb diet mimetic. I take Now Glucosamine & Chondroitin capsules.
• Nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) or nicotinamide riboside (NR): NAD+ is essential for the health of mitochondria, your cells’ powerhouses. Young people have high blood NAD+ levels, but by middle age they fall to 50%, and by old age, they fall to 5% of childhood levels due to aberrant activation of CD38, a NAD+-destroying enzyme. Inhibition of CD38 has been shown to ameliorate the age-related decrease of NAD+ levels in aged mice, which resulted in an increase in activity of pro-longevity factors, including the sirtuins discussed above. Until drugs are developed to target CD38, your best bet is to supplement with NMN or NR, which are precursors to NAD+. Both NMN and NR increase blood levels of NAD+, have been shown to be safe in humans, and are currently being tested in clinical trials. I take Bulk Supplements NMN powder; 1/8th packed teaspoon is about 250 mg.
• Pterostilbene or resveratrol: found naturally in berries, these structurally related compounds may offer wide ranging health benefits. Pterostilbene appears to have better bioavailability than resveratrol. I take Jarrow trans-pterostilbene.
• Creatine monohydrate: useful for resistance training, as it may allow you to lift an extra rep or two per set, which may translate into faster progress. It is a natural molecule already present in your muscles and in red meat, its mechanism is well understood (phosphorylating ADP to generate ATP), and it has an excellent safety profile. I take Bulk Supplements creatine monohydrate powder.
• Cod liver oil: rich in omega-3 fatty acids and vitamins A and D. ?Look for one high in EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid), as the Reduction of Cardiovascular Events with Icosapent Ethyl–Intervention Trial (REDUCE-IT) showed that it was EPA and not DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) that provides all of the heart health benefits. I use Carlson Wild Norwegian Cod Liver Oil because they’ve found a way to mask the fish taste using a delicious lemon flavor.