My Biohacking Odyssey

What exactly is biohacking? What does a longevity lifestyle entail?

My definition of biohacking is finding out new ways in which I can gain more information and data on my own body and use this information to improve my health. I like to keep close tabs on how my body reacts to certain foods, sleep, exercise routines, periods of illnesses and so on. I follow the signs of my body by using a diverse toolkit which has been laid out further down on this page. I am extremely meticulous about the data that I collect as I believe that in order to get a true picture of what is happening in my body or how my body/health is reacting to certain stimuli, having as much data as possible is extremely beneficial.

Most of the biohacking that I do is with the intention of fighting aging, as I along with many scientists view aging as a disease. Hence, all my biohacking is aimed at alleviating the symptoms of aging and gaining longevity. There are now various molecular tools and tests which can predict your biological age on the basis of factors like markers of inflammation in blood tests, gut microbial health and diversity, telomere length, Horvath's epigenetic clock and many more. Your biological age DOES NOT have to be the same as your chronological age. If one has an unhealthy lifestyle, or a lifestyle that is not suitable for the person's body, then the chances that their biolgical age is greater than their chronological age are high. This would indicate that even though they are young, they might start facing health problems at an early chronological age, which might compromise their healthspan.

I want to ensure that my biological age is never more than my chronological age and I strive to maintain a biological age that is lower than my chronological age. To simply put it, I want to live a long life. But, most importantly I want to live a LONG AND HEALTHY life. My biohacking has helped me create a longevity lifestyle for myself that will help me achieve my goal of having a lower biological age as compared to my chronological age.

The fun thing about my longevity lifestyle is that it is highly personalized to me. This personalization is the essence of personalized medicine. Every person is different, their body's needs are different, they are in different environments which have different impacts on their lives. Hence, what works for one person might not work for another. Additionally, since change is the only thing constant in life, my lifestyle right now might not suit me in the future and I will have to adapt my lifestyle to work with the changes that I might experience. My biohacking toolkits will ensure that I have the data on myself that I will need in order to know what I need to change to adapt to the new situation, and thus continue on the path of a long and healthy life.

Why am I on this Odyssey? What do I wish to achieve?

Long Lifespan

I want to live a long life and having a healthy lifestyle, which supports my health will allow me to do so. Hence, I try to incorporate as many healthy practices in my routine as possible.

Long Healthspan

With the current state of medical knowledge and ever developing medical interventions, elongation of lifespan while being unhealthy has become possible. Thus, healthspan and lifespan do not necessarily correlate. I want to ensure that I am healthy for as long as possible, meaning I want to have a long healthspan.

Youthful Brain

When we are young, it is easier learn new things memorise things with ease. I have always valued my memory, especially my ability to learn new languages and remember song lyrics. I believe that reversing aging/fighting it will ensure a youthful brain that will be capable of high quality learning for a longer time.

Adaptability

Unhealthy periods might be caused by vacations, situations where things are not in my control, periods of illness. If I am healthy whenever possible, my body will be strong to fight off such periods . Hence, maintaining a healthy lifestyle will ensure that my body remains strong and adaptable to changes.

Current Malleability

I am healthy and young right now which indicates that my body is still malleable, meaning that it is easier for my body to show the healthy outcomes of healthy habits right now. For example, it is easier for young people to gain muscle as compared to older people. Thus, I want to reap the benefits of my current malleability.

Better Understanding of Myself

I am an extremely curious and scientific person and I want to know exactly what is happening to my body and how my body might react to certain stimuli. Doing my biohacking experiments equips me with the data that I need in order to understand myself better. Hence, this journey is important for me.

My Biohacking Toolkit

I have a BS degree in Genetics and Genomics, and I have research experience in the field of Diet, Metabolism and Epigenetics. I am thus well acquainted with the research process and understand the importance of data. Besides, I am a complete nerd and I love reading research papers and listening to podcasts related to nutrition, longevity and anti-ageing in my free time.

My educational background and nerdy pastimes hold a huge responsibity of molding me into a data driven personality. Essentially, I am constantly finding ways to collect data regarding myself and my health parameters. I then allow my data to steer my lifestyle into the direction of further improved data points. It is a continuous cycle. In order to obtain this data, I have utilized a huge variety of fitness related tools, devices and products. Each of these has given me a greater insight into my own health and I continue relying on them for data.

I am extremely grateful to have access to these tools, which help ensure that nothing goes sour and my health is not compromised.

Blood Tests at A.G Diagnostics (2001-Present Day)

My maternal grandfather, mother (featured in the picture) and aunt are all pathologists. Since I was a child I have been surrounded by discussions regarding how blood parameters can be used to determine health levels and diagnose diseases. I have had a minimum of two annual blood check ups every year, which have resulted into a huge amount of data. The most important parameters that I follow are glycated haemoglobin, triglycerides, HDL and LDL. Due to 21 years worth of data that I possess, I can analyse the trends and spot when something is out of line. There are well defined ranges that are used to predict when something might be an indicator of ill-health. However, every person might have a separate range that is healthy for their body (for eg. lipid profile of lean mass hyper responders). Hence, knowing my own range makes it easy for me to spot potential health issues and allows me to take steps towards reversing those problems. The success/failure of my efforts is validated by the next round of blood tests. In this way I have a constant feedback loop.

MyFitnessPal (May 2021-Present Day)

I have meticulously recorded my calorie intake with the help of MyFitnessPal for over a year now. I used to weigh 75 kgs when I was in 10th grade and I used to be obese. I used calorie counting in order to help me with my weight loss journey after 10th grade, but I stopped using the app afterwards as I believed that calorie counting can only be helpful for weight loss. However, I have realized that actually recording what you eat, calorie intake and macronutrient levels can be very informative. I can increase the amount of calories that I am consuming and modify the macronutrient breakdown according to the needs of my body and health goals. Besides, I suffer from migraines, and keeping a food diary has helped me identify possible triggers. Similarly, I have used my food diary to verify my food intolerances, and cross-validate Lumen and CGM data. People think that calorie counting is time-consuming, but now it is just second nature to me.

Food Intolerance Test (August 2021)

The Food Print food intolerance test can detect if you are intolerant to certain foods with the help of IgG antibody levels. It uses a panel of regularly consumed foods and provides you with a list of foods that illicit a strong IgG response, a mild response and a weak response. The foods that illicit a strong response are the ones that you should try to avoid and the ones that illicit a mild response are the ones that you should minimize. Although food intolerances do not show a strong phenotypic response like food allergies, it is important to be vary of them as they cause leaky gut syndrome, which keeps getting worse if left unchecked and increases gut inflammation and bloating. In order to validate the results I tried a mixture of elimination diet and addition diet to see if I noticed any changes. I avoid the food items (eg. barley, brewer's yeast, mushrooms) which illicited a strong response and I definitely feel the benefits of doing so.

Lumen (October 2021-Present Day)

Lumen is a device that uses your Respiratory Exchange Ratio (ratio of oxygen consumed by the body and carbon dioxide produced by the body) to predict if your body is burning carbohydrates or fats for energy. This ratio has been used in metabolic chambers for experimental purposes for years and I love the fact that I can use it every day for the sake of my health journey. The device gives you a score between 1-5 with 1 being fat burn and 5 being carb burn. The goal is to achieve metabolic flexibility and making your body capable of switching between the two modes. I use this to see how my metabolism reacts to my meals, how my metabolism reacts to my intermittent fasting, how long my body takes to process alcohol and how my body reacts to a period of vacations with not so optimal nutrition. I have also attempted to cross-validate the readings with the help of the CGM (described later). This has been extremely helpful in my weight gain journey to cure hypothalamic amenorrhea where I tried to avoid going into fat burn.

Oura Ring (December 2021-Present Day)

Oura Ring is a fitness and sleep tracker. It tracks your sleep, heart rate, heart rate variability, calories burnt, number of steps taken, body temperature, menstrual cycles. Every morning I check my sleep score and readiness score and I must say that the app has given me insights that are pretty consistent with how I feel. With the help of Oura I know exactly how my body reacts to late meals, alcohol consumption, excess food intake, periods of illness, certain forms of exercise, meditation and varying sleep quantities. The body temperature tracker was extremely helpful in my journey to combat hypothalamic amenorrhea, as I was able to predict my menstrual cycle and predict the day when I might expect my first recovery period (ps. I was right). I also use Oura sleep tracks and guided meditation tracks for guiding me to sleep or for guided meditation during the day, when I feel that I need to have a calm brain or when I feel that I need to relax. I absoultely love Oura because of the comfort and the amount of data that I receive. It is a plus point that it looks good on my hand.

Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) (January 2022)

I absolutely loved having a CGM on my arm. I loved having continuous feedback in the form of my blood glucose levels in response to the food that I was consuming. Everyone in my family did a round of CGM (14 days) and it was interesting to see how every person reacts differently to the same food. With the help of CGM, I recognized how my glucose levels rose in response to sugary foods and starchy foods like rice. I also realized that the greater the amount of processing involved in a food product, the higher the sugar spike. For example, if I have a properly made pizza with whole foods I have a lower glucose spike for the same amount of pizza consumed as compared to pizza from a fast food restaurant. Besides, I found out what are the best foods to break my intermittent fasts and I also realized that the order in which you eat your food, or the combination of food you consume has a huge impact on your blood glucose levels.

Viome (April 2022)

Viome's health intelligence test kit collects a blood and stool sample and returns a report regarding multiple parameters like gut microbiome health, microbial diversity, inflammatory markers, immune health, etc. I found the information regarding my gut microbiome extremely useful. Through my research in epigenetics, I know the role that the gut microbiome can play in various health outcomes. Your gut microbiome influences the epigenetic markers which are essentially drivers of your genome. Thus, maintaining a healthy gut microbiome will help in maintaining overall well-being. I tried incorporating their suggestions regarding foods that I should incorporate and foods that I should avoid which were curated on the basis of the microbes that they detected in my gut microbiome. I try to eat a wide variety of whole foods, to ensure that my gut microbiome floursishes. I will be getting another Viome test done in the coming months to see how my microbial health has changed.

23andMe (May 2022)

I was interested to see if I carry any genetic variants for diseases and hence I did a 23andMe test which was one of the most accessible DNA tests available. The reports were fun to look and and compare with my family's reports. Personally, I feel that it was a fun test to do in order to get my DNA data, but it did not provide me with any actionable data. I plan on using the data to put on Inside Tracker, which I have described further below on this page in order to gain greater insights into my health. Even though 23andMe did not give me any data that I can use to make changes to my day to day life, I am glad that I have the data.

Tally Health (June 2022)

As mentioned previosuly, I do a lot of anti-ageing research in my free time and listen to a lot of health related podcasts. Few of favourites are Huberman Lab Podcast by Dr. Andrew Huberman, The Doctor's Farmacy by Dr. Mark Hyman and Lifespan by Dr. David Sinclair. I have followed Dr. David Sinclair's work for a long time and I believe that he is at the forefront of anti-ageing research. While listening to one of his talks, I came to know about his new company 'Tally Health' which is planning on releasing a test to determine your biological age. I signed up for beta testing and got selected and I have sent in my sample. I am extremely excited to see the results which are expected in early 2023. So stay tuned!

Gut Food (June 2022-Present Day)

I am so happy with Gut Food. The effect that gut food has had on my digestion is undeniable. It is meant as a microbiome support and has prebiotics, probiotics and polyphenols which all help in improving the quality of your gut microbiome. Since gut microbiome plays an influential role in overall health, I find it extremely important to maintain a healthy gut microbiome. My parents have also found gut food to be extremely important. I take half a scoop of gut food every single morning on an empty stomach. I personally find that half scoop of gut food is sufficient for me as compared to a whole scoop. I am really excited to see how gut food might have impacted the quality of my gut microbiome which will be revealed by my next Gut Intelligence test by Viome (described earlier on this page).

AG1 by Athletic Greens (October 2022-Present Day)

"Made to the strictest quality standards. Made in New Zealand. Made for just about everybody." I literally recite these words every time I hear the AG1 by Athletic Greens advertisement. I was slightly skeptical about this product as it also has adaptogens (I am skeptical about the impact of adaptogens in general), but I wanted to try it out and see for myself if it truly was helpful. It initially took me some time to adjust to the taste, but now I wake up craving to start my day with AG1. This has really had a great impact on my digestion and it helps me kickstart my morning with vibrancy. I have noticed that my workouts and energy levels have improved after I started taking AG1. But, the effects on my digestion have been noticeable. I might not take AG1 every single month as I am happy with the effects of Gut Food and I can take other supplements like B12 as a compliment to Gut Food. But, I am highly considering doing a course of AG1 after every 2 months.

Therabody SmartGoggles (October 2022-Present Day)

I have suffered from migraines since I was 9 years old. Hence, when I heard that Therabody SmartGoggles might help me alleviate migraine pain, I was really excited. These goggles have a heating and vibration setting and have relaxation tapes that accompany the three settings - sleep, smart relax and focus. I have used them with headaches and they are helpful in calming me down and distracting me from the headache with the vibrations. Plus, they are great for light sensitivity during migraines as they completely block all the light. I love using the goggles at night before I sleep to relax my eye strain and prepare me for good quality deep sleep. On days where I have a lot of work which mainly involves long durations of screen time, I use the goggles to relieve the eye strain. These goggles have proved to be an extremely helpful addition to my daily meditation routine.

InsideTracker - My Parents (December 2021-Present Day)

InsideTracker basically gathers all the data that can be gathered from DNA tests, blood tests and lifestyle habits and uses its algorithm to analyse it for you. It comes up with suggestions that might help optimize your health, increase your healthspan and increase your lifespan. It essentially does what I am doing but offers the analysis on a single platform. My parents use it and have found it to be helpful. I am planning to upload the data that I have on the app once I have repeated my blood tests, which I plan on doing in December 2022. I am interested to see what kind of insights InsideTracker might provide and if they are in line with my findings.

Pillars of my Longevity Lifestyle - Diet, Exercise, Rest

My Current Diet

1 / Calories and Macronutrient Breakdown

I am currently consuming 2500 calories daily with the following breakdown: 25% Proteins, 30% Carbohydrates, 45% Fats.

2 / Intermittent Fasting

I am a big fan of intermittent fasting and I prefer having atleast 14 hours in between meals with 18 hours being ideal, which I am able to achieve on the weekends. I also ensure that there is a sufficient gap between my last meal and before I go to sleep, as I have noticed that my sleep quality and HRV deteriorate if I have late meals.

3 / Whole Foods (Predominantly Home Cooked)

I love cooking and I believe in cooking with whole foods and high quality ingredients. I believe that in order to get the highest quality nutrition, lower the processing involved, the better. I follow one rule while shopping: If the ingredient list has things that don't belong in the food item, DO NOT buy it.

4 / Fermentation, Pre-Biotics and Pro-Biotics

Fermented foods like kimchi, sauerkraut, sourdough; pre-biotics and probiotics from yogurt and kefir (preferably buffalo/goat/sheep milk) have immense health benefits. I love including them in my daily routine. My day feels incomplete without yogurt.

5 / Variety, Eating the Rainbow

Greater the variety of foods, greater the diversity in gut microbial communities and greater the amount of nutrients that you can get. Hence, I believe in eating a huge variety of vegetables and eating foods of different colours, as colours provide different nutrients eg. anthocyanins from purple foods.

6 / Minimal Alcohol Consumption

I am an oenophile and I love alcohol for its taste. But, my HRV, HR and sleep quality don't seem to love it as much. Hence, I maintain minimal alcohol consumption.

1 / Daily Movement

I whole-heartedly believe that some form of movement everyday is beneficial. Hence, on days when I might feel some weakness, or I might not feel ready for a big workout, I focus on low intensity movement like taking walks or stretching.

2 / Exercise in the Morning

I love exercising in the morning within the first 3 hours of waking up as I feel most energetic then and I do not feel like my day has started without it. I also do fasted exercise as it suits me better.

3 / Strength Training

I am focusing on strength training right now as I want to be stronger and small amounts of strength training can be incorporated in the daily routine while recovering from hypothalamic amenorrhea.

4 / Cardio

Currently, I am recovering from hypothalamic amenorrhea and hence, I have completely stopped doing cardio even though I love it. But, my body needs a break from it so I am staying away from it till I have made a full recovery, which might take 6 more months.

5 / Pilates, Barre, Yoga

Pilates, Barre and Yoga are also gentle forms of exercises that can be supportive for hypothalamic amenorrhea recovery and hence, I incorporate them in my weekly routine.

6 / Avoid being seated for a long time

Oura makes sure that I do not sit idle for a long time. It sends me a notification if I have been inactive for a long time. So if at all I am sitting in one place for a long time, I try to move around a bit and maybe stretch if possible.

My Current Exercise Routine

My Current Rest Practices

1 / Consistent Sleeping and Waking Times

I have realized that my sleep quality and energy levels are better when I sleep and wake up at the same time every day and hence, unless I have social plans, I make sure that I stick to my sleep schedule.

2 / 8 hours of sleep every night

Yes, 8 hours of sleep is incredibly helpful. As a student, it has been extremely difficult to get 8 hours of sleep, but I ensure that I get atleast 6 hours of sleep during hectic periods. Sleep is necessary to recover from mental and physical exertion.

3 / Meditation or NSDR (Non-sleep deep rest)

Meditation and NSDR have proven to be extremely important in increasing my quality of work, my focus, decreasing the frequency of my migraines and increasing my sleep quality. SmartGoggles, Oura and NSDR routine by Dr. Huberman are amazing tools for my daily meditation.

4 / Therabody

I have never slept as well as I do after using Therabody SmartGoggles for atleast 15 minutes prior to going to sleep. Hence, every day I meditate while using the Smart Goggles right before I go to sleep.

5 / Rest Days when necessary

Sometimes, I do not get enough sleep or enough rest and I do not feel like I have the energy to workout. On such days I focus on taking the rest that my body needs and this allows me to bounce back the next day and get back to my routine.

6 / Sleep Tracks

I like to listen to Oura sleep tracks to put me to sleep. They are guided meditation tracks that really help me settle into sleep and get deep sleep. Even though I do not find it hard to sleep without the recordings, I have noticed that my sleep quality improves when I use the tracks.

Things that went NOT so right!

As a scientist, I have learned that experiments involve things that go right and things that go wrong. Similarly, I have experienced things that went right and things that went wrong in my Biohacking Odyssey. The trick is to acknowledge both the good and the bad, identify the mistakes, learn from them, and move on to designing the next experiment while keeping the learnings from the previous experiences in mind and ensuring that the same mistakes are not repeated. Would science be as fascinating as it is, if it were not for the uncertainties and the risks assumed by experiements? It is unfair to assume that every experiment will bear solely the intended consequences.

Luckily, I have a safety bubble inside which I conduct my experiments. This safety bubble is composed of my various biohacking tools which provide me with constant feedback, most importantly, the ability to get my blood work done as frequently as necessary in my mother's pathology laboratory back home. Due to this safety bubble, I am able to decipher the factors that might have caused an unintended consequence and work towards addressing those factors, so that I can reverse the effects of the unintended consequence. Hence, at this point I would again like to emphasize that no one should look at my lifestyle and follow it to a t. I am not prescribing any tool, supplement or lifestyle habit to anyone. I am solely outlining my journey and I am confident while trying out new things because of the safety bubble I have. In the absence of this safety bubble, I would have been extra cautious while trying new things that could possibly have a substantial impact on my health.

In my biohacking journey, in attempts to reduce my body fat percentage, my body fat percentage dropped below what my body was comfortable with. There is a theory that states that your body has a hypothalamic set point which dictates the weight and the fat percentage that your body is comfortable with. If the fat percentage drops below the ideal set point, then the body might be forced to go into survival mode and switch off the functions of a normal body that it deems to be unnecessary for the sake of survival. In the case of women, this tends to be the menstrual cycle. This situation is called hypothalamic amenorrhea. Hypothalamic amenorrhea can also be caused by other factors like excessive exercise, restrictive eating , or hormonal imbalances caused by some other problem. In my case, it was caused by low body fat percentage, and I ensured that there was no other factor like hormonal imbalance involved by getting a blood test done to check my estrogen, progesterone, FSH and LH levels. Hence, in order to recover from hypothalamic amenorrhea and regain normal menstrual cycles, I set out to gain weight. I increased my calorie intake from 2000 to 2500, reduced the amount of exercise, completely cut out cardio, ensured that I wasn't putting my body under any stress, further decreased my alcohol intake, decreased my caffeine intake and ensured that I was getting enough sleep everyday.

I was successful in my weight gain journey and I gained 7 kgs and had my recovery period. I used Lumen to check that my body was not going in fat burn mode and was mainly depending on carbohydrates for energy. I used MyFitnessPal to ensure that I was atleast meeting my 2500 calories goal every single day. I also increased my intake of healthy carbohydrates in the form of starchy vegetables and bread, but my body seems to be more comfortable with starchy vegetables (my favourite ones being purple sweet potatoes, murasaki sweet potatoes and sweet winter squashes). I used the temperature tracking tool on Oura to predict when I might get my recovery period, and at this point in my health journey, I know my body so well that I was able to predict the day when I will get my first recovery period. I was right. I got my first recovery period on the day that I predicted and I was so happy that I could predict my body's behaviour so well and I was so relieved that I had recovered from hypothalamic amenorrhea. Even though I regained my periods, I still haven't recovered completely and it will take atleast 6 more months to properly recover and make my body feel comfortable. I will keep using my biohacking tools to help me in my journey towards making a complete recovery from hypothalamic amenorrhea.

Future Directions

1 / Another round of Blood Tests (December 2022)

I am looking forward to get my tests done in December and I will be focusing on my estrogen levels, HbA1C and lipid profiles. I am also interested to see how AG1 might have affected my vitamin levels.

2 / Complete recovery from Hypothalamic Amenorrhea (on-going process)

As mentioned previously, I still have not made a complete recovery and I will continue taking the necessary steps (eating enough, resting more) to ensure that I have recovered completely from hypothalamic amenorrhea.

3 / Another round of CGM

It has been a year since I have used the CGM patch and I would like to repeat the experiment to see how my body reacts to certain foods and certain ways of eating foods. I also have a few other experiments in mind that I would like to carry out to see my body's reactions.

4 / InsideTracker for me

After repeating my blood tests in December, I am thinking of uploading my DNA data and blood reports to InsideTracker and seeing the analysis that InsideTracker can offer me.

5 / Another round of Viome

I am interested to see how Gut Food, AG1 and increased starch intake might have affected my gut microbiome, particularly my microbial diversity. I am thinking of repeating Viome Gut Intelligence test in early 2023.

6 / Conscious choices in other products (eg. self-care)

I am aware that diet and exercise are not the only factors that affect your lifespan and healthspan. There are many other external stimuli that we experience on a daily basis like chemical substances in self-care products. Hence, the next step in my longevity journey would be to make changes in the products that I use and try to use products that are as natural as possible.