Author's squats and nail divination

What has biohacking become in the modern world

Alexander Panchin, Forbes

Biologist, popularizer of science and author of the book "The Sum of Biotechnology" Alexander Panchin believes that biohacking has become one of the types of alternative medicine today. How this happened and what relation biohacking has to spiritual development trainings and nail divination, the scientist told in his column for Forbes Life.

The term "biohacker" has been known since at least 1988. Initially, biohacking meant scientific biological experiments conducted by amateurs at home, at school or even in the garage. And today anyone can buy a special kit on the Internet and, without leaving their room, create genetically modified bacteria that will glow in ultraviolet. There are communities of engineers who figure out how to make cheap versions of expensive devices from improvised materials — centrifuges, microscopes, sequencers and DNA amplifiers.

Biohackers were also called enthusiasts who tried to create (or created) expensive and inaccessible medicines at home. For example, some drugs for gene therapy can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars — this price is associated with the rarity of the disease for which a drug is needed, the high cost of clinical trials and patents available to pharmaceutical companies. However, similar drugs, if you know the principle of their action and possess modern methods of genetic engineering, can be made in a home molecular genetic laboratory. Yes, it will be possible to sell the resulting drug only on the black market, but it can be secretly injected to yourself or to a friend dying of an illness — however, it is not a fact that the treatment will be safe. That's what was meant by biohacking before.

And who are biohackers today? Judging by the popular posts and accounts of self-proclaimed researchers on social networks, Biohacking is...

• when you decide to please your beloved by implanting a vibrating implant under your pubic bone;
• when you're guessing by your nails;
• when you travel through the universe of spiritual development trainings;
• when she "trains your mitochondria," and then transfuses her young blood and transplants microflora from the lower intestine;
• when you become "the master of your body and mind, the master of your reality" by taking a course for only 35,900 rubles;
• when you do squats and acupuncture according to a special author's technique.

All these are real examples of biohacking. Unfortunately, today this term means anything and therefore does not mean anything. It is not the first time that unscrupulous figures "hijack" a completely decent word, imitate with its help their alleged belonging to the world of science and try to enrich themselves in this way.

To date, biohacking is nothing but a form of alternative medicine, about which either it has not been proven that it works, or it has been proven that it does not work. As the Australian comedian and musician Tim Minchin said: "Do you know what alternative medicine is called, about which it has been proven to work? Medicine".

There is nothing wrong with looking for drugs or techniques that prolong youth, improve intellectual brain functions or increase performance. The problem is that it is not so easy to understand whether something really helps. In July 2011, the New England Journal of Medicine published an article about a study in which subjects had to evaluate the effectiveness of various asthma remedies. Each of them randomly underwent four stages of treatment. They didn't do anything to him on one of them. On the other, they were given real medicine inhaled through an inhaler. On the third, a placebo inhaler was offered. On the fourth — incorrectly done acupuncture. Measurements of lung capacity using a spirometer showed that only real medicine helped the volunteers. But it followed from the survey of the subjects that all three interventions seemed to them about equally effective compared to non-intervention.

Some advanced biohackers actively spend a lot of money on measuring various biomarkers and trying to change them for the better, as it seems to them. It would seem that such measurements are objective, and if the test results improve, then everything is being done correctly. But this is not quite true.

Take, for example, body temperature, which is a good signal of infection. The marker may be reliable, but if we take antipyretics at a high temperature, it will not help to defeat the infection and recover faster. Yes, the marker will return to normal, the patient's well-being will improve. However, the infectious agent is not going anywhere. In addition, sometimes knocking down the temperature can even hurt! Thus, a study on more than 15,000 patients (its results were published in the journal PLOS One in March 2015) revealed an increased risk of death when taking antipyretics in people with sepsis and a temperature above 39 ° C.

The problem is also that biohackers experiment on themselves. In their opinion, since the pharmaceutical industry does not offer people medicines for old age, it means that you need to take different supplements yourself, monitor the result and find out what works and what does not. But it is problematic to understand whether something works or not on one person. Therefore, clinical studies involving large samples of people were invented in medicine. And even such studies sometimes stumble upon pitfalls and human errors.

Another approach used by biohackers can be called "theorizing". It seems that sometimes they reason like this: "We do not have normal clinical studies on the benefits of some drug or dietary supplement to prolong life or improve its quality - well, let it! Let's look in scientific databases for indirect justifications for certain approaches." Research on cells? Great! On animals? Even better! Articles about the molecular mechanisms of action of a substance? In general, it's wonderful! This is a scientific approach! As a result, biohackers prescribe a drug regimen for themselves, "backed up" by a weighty list of serious publications. And sometimes they offer their subscribers to purchase similar schemes for a lot of money.

What's the problem here? The fact is that not everything that works on animals or has "theoretical justifications" will work on humans as intended. Here it is useful to recall the story of the hormone leptin, the use of which reduced weight in mice. In addition, scientists had enough theoretical grounds for using leptin in the fight against obesity in humans. In 1995, Amgen acquired a patent from Rockefeller University for the use of leptin against obesity for $20 million with the condition of additional payments in case of success of the drug. But numerous human studies have shown that the hormone is practically useless for weight loss: it helps only some patients lose weight — with mutations in the gene responsible for the production of leptin. And there are a lot of such examples. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, nine out of ten drugs that have been successfully tested in laboratories, including animal models, subsequently fail in human studies. Laboratory experiments, of course, are also important, but they are not enough.

Without normal clinical trials in humans, it will not be possible to confidently talk about the benefits of certain interventions. One can only assume. But what is even worse: it will not be possible to talk about the absence of harm. After all, the establishment of the negative consequences of taking a particular dietary supplement, medicine or something else also requires a careful scientific approach.

A sad example is the fate of Aaron Trayvick, the founder of the company that financed, among other things, the aforementioned implantable vibrator (called lovetron9000). Biohacker drowned while floating. Ketamine was found in Aaron's body — a psychoactive substance used for anesthesia and disrupting the perception of the surrounding world. Various biohackers have repeatedly recommended ketamine in small doses to "restart brain neurotransmitters and stress hormones," to combat depression and improve performance — based on studies on mice.

In addition, some biohackers can take dozens of different drugs at the same time. Is it necessary to say that substances that are safe or useful individually can harm the body in some combinations?

Those biohackers who not only experiment themselves, but also give recommendations to subscribers (not amateur genetic engineers and not schoolchildren with a homemade DNA extraction kit using vodka and pineapple juice, but people who recommend dietary supplements and trainings) are like the heroes of comedian Dara O'Brien's joke: "The dentist is the one who for many years, he has been studying a profession, goes through complex certification procedures, practice, and as a result is able to solve a certain range of tasks. A dentist is a person who pulls out teeth with a thread and a door. Anyone can declare himself a dentist."

If you are concerned about your health, contact a specialized specialist. If you are waiting for a cure for old age, wait until it appears and passes normal clinical trials. And what does science recommend to a healthy person today? It's simple: you need to get enough sleep, exercise moderately, eat more fruits and vegetables, do not overeat, do not abuse alcohol and quit smoking.

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