They get mad with fat
In Silicon Valley, a new dangerous trend is hungry biohacking
Yulia Krasilnikova, Hi-tech+
Starvation is a new fashion among the richest inhabitants of Silicon Valley. Heads of IT companies "fast" for days, assessing their condition with the help of subcutaneous implants. Experts consider such "biohacking" extremely dangerous.
Meditative fasting
Billionaires from Silicon Valley regularly master new trends, and for some period the hobby acquires the scale of mass insanity. Yoga and meditation retreats and sensory deprivation are just a few of the hobbies popular among top managers of IT companies.
Recently, the leaders of the technology market have become interested in a new direction – interval fasting. So, the head of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, said in January that he periodically refuses to eat.
"I abstain from eating for 22 hours and only have lunch once. For three days I sat only on the water," he noted in his microblog.
The billionaire noted that during the fasting period, "the passage of time slowed down."
For Dorsey, giving up food is part of a self–discovery program. At the end of last year, he also went to Myanmar, where he devoted 10 days to vipassana, a meditative retreat that involves silence and immersion in oneself.
Hungry Biohacker
Other inhabitants of Silicon Valley combine starvation with biohacking – "hacking" their own body for the sake of optimization and productivity improvement.
The head of the Hvmn startup, Joffrey Wu, and his colleagues practiced refusing food for 60 hours. He recognizes such experiments as "aggressive", therefore, in the process of prolonged fasting, he measures his parameters with the help of an implant. The sensor continuously monitors the level of glucose in the blood.
Recently, Wu has developed a new system – he refuses to eat for 18 hours every day, and during the week organizes another one or two sessions of "fasting" lasting 24 or 36 hours.
He agrees that such practices have risks. However, he points out, the traditional American diet is no less harmful. People do not follow their diet, and then suffer from diabetes and obesity, Wu believes.
The Guardian cites another American biohacker, Justin Rezvani, as an example. He sold his IT business, after which he decided to improve his life. For several days, the entrepreneur refuses to eat and drinks only water, assessing the blood sugar level using a subcutaneous sensor. The experiment helped him to lose almost 30 kg.
Rebranding Fasting
Experts are skeptical about the new hobby of the inhabitants of Silicon Valley. According to Allison Chase, a specialist in eating disorders, any radical restriction of calories consumed should cause concern.
The problem lies not only in the practice of fasting itself, but also in the "glamorization" of the process. Refusal to eat has become a popular healthy lifestyle trend, which is supported by numerous fitness trackers to monitor calories consumed.
Dr. Walter Longo, who directs the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California, points out the benefits of fasting. He compares the process to a reboot, which affects the body in the same way that chemotherapy affects a tumor.
However, he emphasizes that refusing food lasting more than 13 hours carries a risk. Longo considers drinking only water for three days extremely dangerous: "We are not cavemen and we are not adapted to such extreme diets."
Doctors are concerned about the rebranding that eating disorders have been subjected to in Silicon Valley. This is expressed even in the vocabulary used by the "starving". They distance themselves from anorexia and other disorders, and their methods are called "fasting protocols", indicating a systematic approach.
They do not "count calories", but "monitor metabolic markers". And most importantly, they do not "lose weight", but go through the "optimization process".
Many studies point to the benefits of fasting. So, Japanese scientists have found out that such a technique can slow down aging. Interval refusal of food helps to maintain health even when biorhythms fail, and also protects against age-related diseases. However, most scientific papers describe experiments on animals, which means that it is impossible to fully rely on their conclusions yet.
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