Two recent articles from the UK’s “The Times” newspaper. I find these interesting just to see what people are doing, but all the scientific evidence points to these high-priced interventions being high in marginal cost, but low on marginal benefit. My bet is we get 98% of what these guys are doing just by staying fit, keeping insulin, and lipids in the optimal range, and taking a few key supplements and longevity drugs like rapamycin or an SGLT2 inhibitor…
When they married last March, James Watt and Georgia Toffolo’s low-key Scottish wedding was steeped in tradition. The BrewDog founder and reality television star began the day in Watt’s grandmother’s kitchen with a slice of toast and a cup of tea, before heading to the local church to exchange vows in the same spot his grandparents and great-grandparents married before them.
But when it came to the exchange of rings, there was an unexpectedly modern twist when Toffolo slipped onto Watt’s finger not a traditional gold or platinum band, but an Oura ring.
The gadget, which tracks sleep, exercise and body temperature, has become a popular accessory among celebrities and sportsmen and women. Prices range between about £349 and £499.
The ring is just one item in a growing arsenal of gadgets used by the health-obsessed entrepreneur who said he is on a mission to “live longer and be as healthy as I can” — an endeavour that has cost him more than £1 million so far.
Watt also uses a neurofeedback helmet, designed to aid relaxation, focus and emotional regulation; takes 17 different supplements each morning; plunges in an ice bath at 6am; undergoes extensive blood tests every two months and spends 70 minutes two or three times a week in one of two hyperbaric chambers he’s built in his London home. Proponents claim the pressurised chambers accelerate healing, reduce inflammation and stimulate cell rejuvenation. He also lifts weights most days, while the couple’s private chef ensures they consume 200 different plants and vegetables each week.
Watt estimates his routine takes about two and a half hours a day, but says he has largely folded it into his working life. “I take Zoom meetings in the hyperbaric chamber. I take phone calls in the sauna … and quite often I’ll do workout sessions with people that I’m going to do business things with,” said Watt, 43.
These biohacking efforts — the practice of taking health into one’s own hands through experimental interventions — do not come cheap. Watt estimates he has spent “well over” £1 million, including £110,000 alone on one of the two hyperbaric chambers.
Read the full story: Oxygen chambers, Oura wedding ring — Mr BrewDog’s thirst for long life (The Times)
and another story from “The Times”:
Billionaires trying to prolong their life end up wasting it
Ultra-successful types may treat the ageing process as just one more problem to be solved. Unfortunately for them, the human body is not a spreadsheet
How long do you spend in a hyperbaric chamber each week? Oh sorry, do you not have one of those in your home — snuggled between the staff quarters and home gym? My mistake.
James Watt, co-founder of the beer company Brewdog, spends up to three and a half hours a week in one of these capsules, which feed you pure oxygen. It is designed for patients recovering from strokes, carbon monoxide poisoning or radiation sickness. To my knowledge, Watt suffers from none of these, but he has become the latest business leader to share their wellness regime with the public to demonstrate that not only have they amassed a lot of wealth, they are now “biohacking” their health.
“This isn’t about trying to live for ever,” he told followers on LinkedIn, after his interview in The Sunday Times was published. “It’s about health span. Staying mentally sharp, physically capable and emotionally present for as long as possible … I work 12 hours a day, every day. I build businesses in competitive markets. If I can be 1 per cent or 2 per cent more focused, resilient or clear-headed, that compounds massively over years.”
Er, OK. Though getting up at 6am to plunge into an ice bath, lifting weights, wearing a neurofeedback helmet and oxygenating in a hyperbaric chamber does mean that — on top of the 12 hours of work — you are not going to have much time left to be “emotionally present”.
Watt, 43, is not the first and certainly will not be the last rich businessman (and it is nearly always men) who has decided that ageing and ill health is, essentially, an engineering problem. And all one has to do is throw a lot of resources and some technology at the issue and it can be “hacked”.
Full story: Billionaires trying to prolong their life end up wasting it (The Times)