topbiohacking

[topbiohacking]

How to age Well. 5 Secrets to Age Well!

Aging Gracefully Is A Choice! Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

There are few people you might know of in your life and when you see them you immediately think ‘wow, they are really aging gracefully! Is there a secret? Or did they inherited some special genes?’ It’s a simple question, but the answer might surprise you.

So, what does it really take to age well?

Diet: Not a specific diet, but a balanced diet of what you already like to eat!

Exercise: No Crazy exercises that you will do once and regret for the rest of your life. Something you already like but a new way of doing it.

Memory Health / Brain Health: To do everything right, you need your memory to remember, and remember correctly.

Skin & Hair: What we put on our skin eventually makes its way inside (partially or in an indirect way) the same goes for our hair.

Cell Health: Everything boils down to our cells! This is where everything started from, so it makes sense that we should fix everything at the roots.

First – Diet

When we usually talk about dieting we always like to label our diet with some sort of a name. However, if you are looking for a specific diet and diet plan, maybe this is not the article you are looking for. Even though we will be talking about food and nutrition from the inside out. 

But for us, we look at diet and food from a holistic approach. You need to eat almost everything, and everything in a moderate amount will benefit you. There are many diet plans out that tell you to stop completely consuming one thing or another. But most people who start on those diets, don’t make through the first month. The main problem with such diets that they are not sustainable. Cutting something out ‘cold turkey’ might work for some, it does not work for the majority. 

Food Variety Is Key To Provide Us With All Nutrition Image by silviarita from Pixabay

For diet, we are going to provide the tips that will give you the best results with the least amount of effort! Tips that will require you doing less not more. It sounds like a good deal. Right?! Let’s dive in. You need to look at those three areas ONLY:

Look at your food consumption for a longer period of time. Not daily. Balance it on a weekly basis, monthly and overall basis.

Stick with organic whenever you can.

The dirty dozen and The Clean 15 lists. A simple list of food that you want to get organic, and another list that you might be able to go with the non-organic. The top 15 foods with the least pesticides are called the Clean 15, while the 12 foods with the most pesticides are called the Dirty Dozen. The list is courtesy of the Elizabeth Rider Blog 

THE DIRTY DOZEN (2019)

Buy these organic whenever possible – Updated 2019

Strawberries

Spinach

Kale

Nectarines

Apples

Grapes

Peaches

Cherries

Pears

Tomatoes

Celery

Potatoes

+EWG’s Dirty Dozen Plus:

Hot Peppers +

THE CLEAN 15 (2019)

These are ok to buy conventional (not organic) – Updated 2019

Avocados

Sweet Corn

Pineapples

Sweet Peas Frozen

Onions

Papayas

Eggplants

Asparagus

Kiwi

Cabbage

Cauliflower

Cantaloupe

Broccoli

Mushrooms

Honeydew Melons

Second – Exercise

Exercise is closely connected with diet. We can’t talk about one without the other. Also, the same goes for exercise that goes for dieting. Most people who start a brand new exercise that is totally different from their daily activities, typically they will give up on the new routine quickly. 

For sure, there are some crazy cases where people stick with it from day one and keep going forever, but most of us, we need to adapt those exercises in our daily life one exercise a week, or one exercise a month. 

This Is The Reality Of How Most People Feel About Exercising. Especially, Trying Something New For The First Time

This Is What We Think Of Ourselves When We Exercise For The First Time! It’s True After A While But Right Away.

Here are a few steps to get your exercise ‘requirements’ done easily:

Things you like to do or you are already doing. If you like walking, then start with it. If you like working out, then do this. If you like hiking or even as simple as shopping. Yep, you read it correctly. You can just add a few steps to your shopping trips. Park the car further, do a few more laps around the mall. Chase your kids, or grand-kids around the yard, the park, or even the living room. Take the stairs down and the elevator up. Or half-half.

Break a sweat. If you can break a sweat in whatever you do then you nailed it! Sweating is a sign that you are putting your body in activity mode. Nothing too crazy, but just a little to move you forward ahead of where you are today. Usually, 3-5 min of high-intensity exercise should be enough to break a sweat.

Add one more. By the end of the day, you just want to add one more pump to your heart to keep it pumping longer. One step, one repetition, one pound of lifting weight, one positive change no matter how small it is.

A Walk With Your Grand-kid In A Fresh Air, Is More Thank Just An Excellent Exercise! Image by emailme3 from Pixabay

NOTE: Never, Ever use your progress in dieting and exercising as a rewarding/excuse to bring bad habits that you are trying to move away from. The reward of walking the extra mile is not another donut. You are better off without them both in this case.

Third – Memory Health / Brain Health

There’s no point of dieting and exercising if we don’t remember doing them. It might sound silly to bring up such a thing, but it’s so real. We don’t remember to exercise until it is too late in the day or the week. Or we forget what kind of activity we planned on doing today. So, in this case, we are missing on our physical health because of our mental health. 

“Sometimes you will never know the true value of a moment until it becomes a memory” Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

Our brain is the most important organ in our body. It is the central computer of the whole body. When we start forgetting, slipping off mentally, we lack mental clarity, memory issues, lack of focus, and other issues. Those are problems on their own, but also they are signaling issues that are occurring from our bad food, lack of activity, sleeping behavior, and so on. However, the good news is that we can reverse most of them. We can change our food, and see it in our brain, and we can feed our brains and see the results on our bodies. 

That’s how science started discovering the types of food that will help our brain become healthier and stay healthy. Few of those foods are:

Wild Salmon – Omega 3

Walnut 

Avocado 

Almond

Blueberries 

Broccoli

Coconut oil 

Turmeric – curcumin 

Dark chocolate

Drinking water – Brain content is 80% water.

Two more tricks/ hacks that will help improve brain health, but has nothing to do with food and as easy as eating food, are:

Brush your teeth with the opposite hand. That will help your brain develop new neural connections.

Learn something new! Anything. Learning new skills, activities, games, crafts, new learning helps the brain to engage, wake up, and spark the young activities that once used to have.

Skin Care Is Not Luxurious, It Is Essential Image by chezbeate from Pixabay

Fourth – Skin & Hair: 

We often don’t think much of what we are putting on our skin & hair from deodorant, shampoos, lotions, sprays, etc. We pay attention to the way it smells, the way it makes us feel, but not the ingredients, or how we are getting those results. 

A simple example of this case is that we use lots of deodorants, but we are not sure (aware) of how they are working. Most of them use harsh chemicals to kill the bacteria that are causing the odor, but at the same time is hurting our skin. There is a nice article by publicgoods that explains the way ‘deodorant’ works on our body.

The same goes for shampoos that we use, we like the smell, the price, and maybe the results, but over time we start losing hair. That’s when we start looking for solutions and start educating ourselves on what we the heck we are putting on our hair.

If you think you are starting to go bald, you might want to check this blogpost First Signs Of Balding

And if you are a woman losing a lot of hair then you need to start with considering treatment from the source, the scalp first. Here’s a good blog post I found for this (it has good humor in it as well haha) Inside My Quest to Find the Holy Grail of Hair Care

Fifth – Cell Health

Last but not least, is the health of our cells. Out of everything, this is what all boils down to. It takes no genius to figure it out, but it’s important to say it over and over that the health of our cells is the health of our body.

The problem that we see out there with all of these big corporates and big money, is that they look at each problem in a very disconnected way from other problems so they can sell you an UNLIMITED number of product “solutions”. While the core thing is to look at the main source of all the problems which are our cells. 

Our Health Start From The Health Of Our Cells Image by Colin Behrens from Pixabay

The health of our cells starts by fighting Cellular Stress.

What Is Cellular Stress?

Nrf2Science describes that “Too many damaging free radicals — or too few protective antioxidants — can wreak havoc on cell membranes, mitochondria, and DNA, leading to tissue damage and a wide range of chronic diseases, including cancer, chronic fatigue, diabetes, arthritis, and heart disease. For more than 50 years, scientists have known the aging process to be linked to highly reactive oxygen molecules produced during normal metabolism. These oxygen molecules, often called “free radicals” or “reactive oxygen species” (ROS), can react with and cause damage to cellular structures throughout the body. Particularly vulnerable to oxidative damage are cell membranes, DNA (genetic material), and mitochondria (where cells generate energy)—and damage to these vital areas often means that cells cannot function properly.” Cellular Stress/Oxidative Stress is something that we need to combat in our cells as it has been linked to many chronic diseases like cancer, chronic fatigue, diabetes, arthritis, and heart disease, etc.

Oxidative Stress Diseases

Some of the chronic diseases that are linked in a way or another to oxidative stress

The Cause of Oxidative Stress

Even though Oxidative Stress is harmful to the cell, it is part of its natural behavior. According to Nrf2Science “Sometimes, the body deliberately makes free radicals in order to neutralize viruses and bacteria.” Also, scientists have found that the cell produces free radicals during its normal metabolism. However, the problem arises when there are too many free radicals that they begin to interfere with the cell’s normal functions. The increase of free radicals might also be from external sources as well. External factors like food, pollution, smoking, pesticides, fungicides, chemicals, etc.

A quick search on the topic of Oxidative Stress and the diseases related to it will yield quite some results, probably more than what we would like to see. However, relatively speaking, all research seems to be limited, or new in age. But for the most part, this is where taking antioxidants started taking off. Things like vitamin C supplements, vitamin E supplements, eating more blueberries, etc. The kind of routine that we have been familiar with. The only issue with this approach is that we are supplementing our body with external antioxidants, which is better than nothing but is very limited in the amount of effectiveness in combating oxidative stress and eliminating the increasing number of free radicals.

The Best Solution I Have Found & I Personally Use & Put My Reputation Behind…

The other emerging approach, which is the one I subscribe to, is ‘hacking’ the Nrf2 pathway to signal the production of antioxidants within our body itself instead of supplementing our body with external synthetic antioxidants. In my mind, I imagine our body as this perfect computer and at some point it starts to slow down (due to aging and other factors), instead of me upgrading the machine by adding better processors, which is not possible to our “human-machine”, I will try to optimize my existing system/ body to perform better to go back to its original capabilities.

Releasing the system from the unnecessary burden that we are putting it in, is much easier, and more efficient than upgrading or supplementing with external resources. That’s where Nrf2 Activation comes into the picture.

We can think of Nrf2 as the new sheriff in town! Oxidative stress & Cellular Stress are the bad guys. The antioxidant is the policemen. Everyone is telling you to add more policemen to your body to fight the bad guys, which is a good idea, but what’s even better is that you have your body making its own policemen if you enable the sheriff to do their job! NRF2 is the sheriff you need on your side!

Get The Best NRF2 Activator…..Period!

By The Way, If You Don’t Take Anything Away From The List Above Then Take One Thing & One Thing Only, To Get The Fastest Results! Activating Your NRF2 Naturally Please Don’t Go Another Day Without At Least Giving Your Body The Benefit Of The Doubt, To Heal Itself From The Inside Out!

“No Matter how much it gets abused, the body can restore balance.” 

-Deepak Chopra

Get The Best NRF2 Activator…..Period!

Resources: https://jimkwik.com/ https://blog.publicgoods.com/breaking-a-sweat-antiperspirant-vs-deodorant/ http://www.nrf2science.com/ https://www.elizabethrider.com/dirty-dozen-clean-15/ http://blog.topbiohacking.com/wp/blog/we-keep-hearing-that-western-diet-is-different-than-eastern-diet-eastern-western-mediterranean-etc-why-it-even-matters-how-diet-affects-nrf-activation/ http://topbiohacking.lifevantage.com/blog/inside-my-quest-to-find-the-holy-grail-of-hair-care/

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We Keep Hearing That Western Diet Is Different Than Eastern Diet. Eastern, Western, Mediterranean, etc, Why It Even Matters? How Diet Affects NRF Activation

Writing on the difference between Eastern & Western diet is something I can write a book about as I was born in Iraq and I have been living in the US for the last decade. My wife, on the other hand, was born & raised in the US and Western diet is all she knows until she met me. So eastern, the western diet is my daily life, all day every day & I love it! But looking at this subject with a little ‘scientific’ lens, we will see it’s more than just different types of dishes, or the way they look. It’s the ingredients, the way to prepare them, the frequency of using herbs and spices, and so on. Below are real pictures I found in my online album. This is what we have one day for breakfast – traditional eastern breakfast- and what we have for dinner -traditional western dinner- on any given day.

But first things first, you need to get a little familiar with the term Oxidative Stress. If you are new to these terms, no worries, check my article on Oxidative Stress, it will make you go huh? Really? Check it out here.

When I started learning all about Nrf and the biology of our body it took me a few tries to piece together the information in my brain. But as my background is in Information Technology, I always referred to my tech mind to help me out with few examples. So I might incorporate some of them here to help out non-medical people to hash out the info.

So What Is NRF?

NRF stands for Nuclear Factor Erythroid. It’s a pathway and transcription factor. There are different NRF in our body, but the most popular one is Nrf2.

Nrf2: Looking up the definition of Nrf2 in a couple places, I found that the Wikipedia definition is the simplest to understand. Nrf2 is “Nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2), also known as nuclear factor erythroid-derived 2-like 2, is a transcription factor that in humans is encoded by the NFE2L2 gene.[5] Nrf2 is a … protein that regulates the expression of antioxidant proteins that protect against oxidative damage triggered by injury and inflammation.[6]”

Nrf2 is the one I will be focusing on for this article, and I will demonstrate the reasons why I think we should all focus on activating, researching & studying it, and above all making it public knowledge to improve our health individually. 

What Does Nrf2 Do?

What Does Nrf2 Do?

Nrf2 is like a sensor that we have in so many of today’s technologies. I relate it to one of the programming fundamentals, which is ‘IFTTT’ ‘If This Then That’.

Nrf2Science defines it as the Master Regulator “At the very center of our cellular protective pathway is a protein called “Nrf2” that serves as a “master regulator” of the body’s antioxidant response. You might think of Nrf2 as a “thermostat” within our cells that senses the level of oxidative stress and other stressors and turns on internal protective mechanisms.” 

So Nrf2 looks at how many Free Radicals are being produced and triggers corresponding enzymes to produce as many antioxidants to fight them. Some of the antioxidant enzymes are: SOD (Superoxide dismutase) glutathione, and catalase. 

The high production of free radicals combined with the low production of antioxidants will cause Cellular Stress or Oxidative Stress.

A study by Washington State University stated “NRF2…May Well Become The Most Extraordinary Therapeutic And Most Extraordinary Preventive Breakthrough in The History Of Medicine.”. 

It took me a few tries, and it didn’t stick with me how big of a deal this all ways until I asked my wife (who is an occupational therapist) to explain it to me. My wife told me that the last time Washington State made a statement like this, it was about penicillin.

WOW! Nrf is a big deal and can make a huge difference in the way we cure diseases and treat chronic illness.

  What Is Cellular Stress?

Nrf2Science describes that “Too many damaging free radicals — or too few protective antioxidants — can wreak havoc on cell membranes, mitochondria, and DNA, leading to tissue damage and a wide range of chronic diseases, including cancer, chronic fatigue, diabetes, arthritis, and heart disease. For more than 50 years, scientists have known the aging process to be linked to highly reactive oxygen molecules produced during normal metabolism. These oxygen molecules, often called “free radicals” or “reactive oxygen species” (ROS), can react with and cause damage to cellular structures throughout the body. Particularly vulnerable to oxidative damage are cell membranes, DNA (genetic material), and mitochondria (where cells generate energy)—and damage to these vital areas often means that cells cannot function properly.” Cellular Stress/Oxidative Stress is something that we need to combat in our cells as it has been linked to many chronic diseases like cancer, chronic fatigue, diabetes, arthritis, and heart disease, etc.

Some of the chronic diseases that are linked in a way or another to oxidative stress

The Cause of Oxidative Stress

Even though Oxidative Stress is harmful to the cell, it is part of its natural behavior. According to Nrf2Science “Sometimes, the body deliberately makes free radicals in order to neutralize viruses and bacteria.” Also, scientists have found that the cell produces free radicals during its normal metabolism. However, the problem arises when there are too many free radicals that they begin to interfere with the cell’s normal functions. The increase of free radicals might also be from external sources as well. External factors like food, pollution, smoking, pesticides, fungicides, chemicals, etc.

A quick search on the topic of Oxidative Stress and the diseases related to it will yield quite some results, probably more than what we would like to see. However, relatively speaking, all research seems to be limited, or new in age. But for the most part, this is where taking antioxidants started taking off. Things like vitamin C supplements, vitamin E supplements, eating more blueberries, etc. The kind of routine that we have been familiar with. The only issue with this approach is that we are supplementing our body with external antioxidants, which is better than nothing but is very limited in the amount of effectiveness in combating oxidative stress and eliminating the increasing number of free radicals.

The other emerging approach, which is the one I subscribe to, is ‘hacking’ the Nrf2 pathway to signal the production of antioxidants within our body itself instead of supplementing our body with external synthetic antioxidants. In my tech mind, I imagine our body as this perfect computer and at some point it starts to slow down (due to aging and other factors), instead of me upgrading the machine by adding RAM, better processors, etc (which is not possible to our human-machine), I will try to optimize my Operating System to use fewer resources, perform functions in a more efficient way, remove bugs, viruses, & malware. Releasing the system from the unnecessary burden that we are putting it in, is much easier, and more efficient than upgrading or supplementing with external resources. That’s where Nrf2 Activation comes into the picture.

We can think of Nrf2 as a switch/regulator more than a direct involver in the production of antioxidants. It’s a gatekeeper and a powerful gatekeeper! And for those reasons, Nrf2 Activation is a really important phenomenon.

Nrf2 Activation / Switch-On

Activating the Nrf2 pathway has been on the radar of scientists, researchers, and pharmaceutical companies. Some made more progress than others, but Nrf2 Activation is gaining some attention and ground. Respected universities have been involved in the study of this subject like Ohio State University, Texas Tech, Harvard, University of Colorado, and others. As well as companies like, LifeVantage, BioGen IDC, Abbott, and a few others. 

Turn – On NRF2

We want to activate the Nrf2 pathway as it will signal the production of folds upon folds of powerful antioxidants. Even though studies & researches on activating Nrf2 still at their early stages, but so far there are some promising results. As our body is a collection of cells, then it will make sense that protecting our body as a whole it must start from a cellular level.

Activating Nrf2 is something that will only gain more ground forward, as it has been doing for the last couple of decades.

How Can We Activate Nrf2?

Recently there have been many studies talking about the benefits of different natural plants as powerful antioxidants. A few examples are: curcumin, green tea, blueberries, bacopa, Hydrogenated Water/ Ionized Water, etc. Each one of these individually activates Nrf2 in its own way. 

spices – a natural antioxidant

Food is a big part of activating Nrf2, and also, is a big player in limiting the activation of Nrf2 as well. There is a very informative article with the title “Activation of the Nrf2 Cell Defense Pathway by Ancient Foods: Disease Prevention by Important Molecules and Microbes Lost from the Modern Western Diet” You can read the full article here (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0148042)

One of the interesting findings of the article is “several aspects of modern food technology, including the elimination of cooking with wood fire, the shift to food preservation by canning and refrigeration, and the brewing of alcoholic beverages under strictly controlled conditions, all have contributed to the elimination PAD-expressing microbes, together with elimination of alkyl catechols and catechol, from the modern Western diet. Collectively, these large-scale dietary changes have potentially serious negative consequences for Nrf2 defense and health among persons relying exclusively on modern Western foods. In contrast, Asian, Middle Eastern, and African diets still contain many foods prepared and preserved by traditional methods through fermentation with PAD-expressing lactobacilli (reviewed in [141–145]) and thereby continue to provide sources of alkyl and catechol Nrf2 co-factors.” 

In Conclusion:

Activating Nrf2 is a new holistic approach to improve our overall health, and it’s part of modern biohacking. Due to that, you will find many skeptics who won’t even dabble in the idea. Using herbs & food for treatments is still not looked at as a curing method in the western world or even serious preventative measures. At the end of the day, your health is your responsibility, whether you delegate the decision making to a professional person, or you take control of your biology and the awareness that requires. Your body, your life, your decision.

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How I used a $1.60 pen and paper, and an internet connection to Biohack my brain!

Hacking Our Brain To Happier Life Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

The question is; why are we not satisfied? Not satisfied with where we are in life, and how we feel about our body, and what we do for a living, and when we were born, and to some extent who we are as individuals. Why?

Biohacking comes in different shapes and forms, and the most powerful once sometimes the least visible one.

If you were asked on the spot to pull out a piece of paper and start writing two lists.

One list of the things that you are happy with and grateful for and another list of the things that you are not satisfied with and you want to change in a heartbeat. Which list will be longer? Which list will be harder to write with? Keep in mind, you don’t have to share this list with anyone! You take it and trash it afterward if you would like.

But the interesting things you will write down will change your life forever and you will find things about your own self that you never thought of. Or maybe even, things you hate in others or hate to think of.

I have done this exercise a couple of times in different formats, and the first round of results was very interesting, to say the least. I felt like all the things that I want to change and the things that I am not happy with are right on the surface. I really didn’t have to dig deep for them. They were more present in my thoughts than I have ever wanted them to be.

On the contrary, writing the things I am happy with and grateful for took longer, more thinking, and digging. Also, I found it surprising that writing the happy thoughts was more emotional. Even though I would have thought the opposite.

Happiness is there! We just need to hack our way to it! Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay

By the way, just to mention, this is not an exercise I came up with. But I have mixed it in with few other exercises to hack into my brain, mind, and emotions. I will share a few resources with you on how you can do the same!

What I found out about myself changed my perspective. I have found that there are so many things I want to change. Only a couple things I hated ( I know hate is a strong word) about my reality and surrounding. But so many things I am grateful for in my life. Combing this exercise with another one called 7 levels deep took the whole experience to another level. Or fair to say another 7 levels! This exercise is really powerful. It will need a blog post on its own. But in a nutshell, you take one thing you want to do/ change in your life or one thing you are happy with or not happy with. Then you ask yourself ‘why’ 7 times. For example; if I said I am not happy with my energy level on a daily basis. Then I will ask myself but ‘why I am not happy with it?’ So I will say because I am not getting the work I wanted to get it done before I go to bed. Then I will say, why it’s important to get my work done before I go to bed? And so on and so forth for 7 times. The important thing to remember is that, don’t default to an answer that you have been using forever. Take some time to REALLY think about your answer. Also, it will take a few different times as it’s emotionally hard to crack into your inner self to get the real reason behind what you do on a subconscious level.

I feel like 7 Levels Deep exercise is one of those exercises that are easier for people who are more expressive of their emotions than others. If you are a person who grew up in a culture that tells you to hide your emotions then you will have a harder time digging deep into your inner mind to get what you are really looking for. So give yourself a day and do the exercise again. I promise it’s totally worth it!

After doing both exercises multiple times and digging deep into my results, I found that the things I am happy with and grateful for are WAY more important to me than the ones I really want to change! Having a healthy happy family, and happy healthy daughter is way more important than the brand new car I want. Spending time working on the projects that I really enjoy and pouring my time, soul, and tears into it is more important than pouring the same things for a bigger paycheck in a project that I could care less about.

I found that the things I ‘hate’ and want to change are all in my control. And the ones that I can’t control, they don’t matter much at the end of the day. I found that who we surround ourselves with matters the most, people online and offline. I found negativity has a louder speaker on popular online platforms and traditional media. 

There are so many things I have changed in my life and none of them were easy. But most of them have been worth it, as I can feel so far. But it’s taking so much hard work that I understand now why I have not done it earlier. Now I understand why people resist change, even if they always chant for it. It’s darn hard to change and even harder to change for the better!

That changed my perspective on how I see things. Instead of thinking ‘I need this to be happy’, I started looking at what makes me happy and saying ‘I need more of this’. Reverse engineer the whole formula that we have been living our life on.

Why I am talking about this?

We always talk about change like it’s someone else’s job. We want a better body, better health, better sleep, more time in the day, more money in the bank, a bigger house, faster car, crazier vacations, and so on and so forth. But, we don’t want to change a thing. What’s even worse, we don’t want to even give it a try. There’s nothing wrong with wanting more or trying to be better. In fact, this MUST be everyone’s goal in life! Every one of us should strive to be better, want more in life, and achieve more, and MOST of all help others achieve the same.

Looking at Biohacking with a Different Lens Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

That’s when I started looking at Biohacking through a different lens. It’s not only what we feed our body from direct tangible products. It’s everything that surrounds us that feeds our mind, nurtures our body, affects our environment, controls our thoughts. When we talk about biohacking, we are talking about all tangible and intangibles. Anything that will optimize us to perform better and be our best every day all day! 

Those two exercises are so powerful that I have added them to my weekly to-do list. Even though I don’t always get the chance to do them every single week, but I will try to do them at least every other week.

I highly recommend you take the time to do them. You can look them up online or you can check out some of the resources below.

Some resources for those exercises:

https://www.7levelsdeep.com If you want to do the exercise online!

7 Levels Deep with Dean Graziosi when I first learned about this concept!

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Is It Possible That Oxygen Can Be Bad For Your Body?

Early on when I was first learning about nutrigenomics and biohacking, I came across a scientific statement that made no sense to me (at least at that time). I don’t remember where I read it, but it was something along the lines of: “oxygen can be bad for your cells.” I stopped and was puzzled. How can oxygen be bad for my cells? I need oxygen, we all do!

I was stumped, but what I learned next made SO much sense. 

What happens if you bite into an apple and then forget about it on the table? You come back to a brown apple, right?

Or you leave a piece of metal out in the elements and after time it rusts.

So in your body, right now, oxygen is breaking down and “rusting.” This process is called oxidation and it happens to everyone.  

Rust doesn’t discriminate. 

I started asking a friend of mine, who is a doctor, a bunch of questions about oxidation and tried to make sense of his “doctor talk” and dumb it down to understand how it was affecting me.

The conclusion I got from our first conversation was pretty exciting and eye-opening; our cells need oxygen to survive and create energy, and this makes waste or oxidation. Oxidation causes the aging of our cells, and we are as old as our cells are. 

The more I looked into it, I found out that many diseases are caused by the oxidation in our cells, and this introduced me to the term “oxidative stress." 

What took our conversation to the next level is what he shared next! Look at the diseases that can be linked to oxidative stress!

When he shared this image with me I was shocked! I knew I needed to do something. 

Good news: Your oxidative stress is something that can be reduced, and you can use nutrigenomics to do this!

Do you want to know how nutrigenomics can help you?! Follow the journey here

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The Different Types Of Biohacking

The Different Types Of Biohacking

We all age, aging usually associated with negative thoughts for the most part. But the question is, do we all have to age the same way?! Maybe there are different ways of aging. Just maybe….

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The Different Types Of Biohacking

The Different Types Of Biohacking

There are 3 main types of biohacking, each has its benefits and limitations but all work towards optimizing your body/mind.

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Let Me Tell You The “Scientific” Proof Behind Eating Chicken Soup When I Get Sick.

We all have things in our families and unique to our cultures that help us feel better: eat the chicken soup, lentil soup, drink this type of green tea, eat turmeric, a spoon of honey, crushed garlic, put this on your chest. When you are young, you just eat the soup your mom says will make you feel better when you have a sore throat, the flu, or a cold and don’t think much of it. Mom knows best, right?!

When you get a little older, you start to ask why? Usually, your parents say something like “this is what you do when you are sick, it is what my parents did for me when I was younger.” There usually isn’t a scientific reason behind it, or if there is a reason they don’t know it. 

This will change with the introduction of nutrigenomics. 

So What is Nutrigenomics?

Nutrigenomics -from nutrition and genomics- is using nutrition, supplements, and herbs in specific combinations with each other to achieve your body’s full potential. These combinations help your body upgrade your good genes and downgrade your bad genes.

Nutrigenomics is the name of a new branch of science; but some of these practices have been around and used for hundreds of years, especially in eastern cultures. 

With new technologies and how computers process huge amounts of data, we have a better understanding of the effect of nutrients in our bodies. This is Nutrigenomics! And this area of study is growing fast! 

Why you should get excited!

I grew up in an Eastern culture where using food and herbs to prevent and cure disease is common. However, with the introduction of Western medicine and pharmaceutical drugs, those natural remedies have been forgotten. When I moved to the US and saw the rise in costs of prescriptions and the horrible side effects of some drugs, it brought to mind the natural remedies that I grew up around. 

I got excited about Nutrigenomics when I learned that it is applying pharmaceutical technology and the scientific method on natural blends of nutrients and herbs. We are blending the best of both worlds, and in this way, I am using natural ingredients that have been scientifically proven to help get the most out of my body without the side effects!

What can nutrigenomics help with?

I started using nutrigenomics to help me focus and be more productive. I wanted to biohack my brain and body to get the most out of every day, which is essential as an entrepreneur! My wife wanted to get some energy back transitioning back to work after our daughter was born. My mother wanted to decrease her knee pain. 

So what this means to you in your life/business is you can hack your biology safely to get the best version of yourself.

Nutrigenomics helped all 3 of us gain a better lease on life and take control of our bodies and minds! There are so many applications for nutrigenomics, stay tuned for the next article where we will dig deeper!

The thing I really want you to take away from this is: Nutrigenomics is the new science that has the potential to change our world forever.

It’s a journey I am taking to take control of my own biology! Follow my journey here!

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The Top Bio Hacker Blogs

The Top Bio Hacker Blogs

#Biohacking #TopBioHacking #Entrepreneur #DadPreneur #Health&Technology #الاختراق_البايولوجي

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What’s BioHacking?!

Being a DadPreneur ( Dad & Entrepreneur) takes so much physical and mental energy. Raising a baby is no less demanding, if not sometimes more demanding, than building a company. Like many other parents, my wife and I were lacking energy, sleep deprived, and on maintenance mode all day everyday. So we were on the hunt for any advice to take our energy level up a notch. We were looking for any trick to gain another hour in the day, or any help to get one less thing on our to-do list.

That when I was introduced to Biohacking. If you have not heard of it yet, then you are probably saying the same thing I said. “Bio What?” I know what is bio and I know what hacking is. But the idea of both put together is just weird. My biology is not a computer, and the computer does not have any biology. I had a very funny ‘huh’ moment. Nevertheless, I told you I was on the hunt for something new.

So it all started for me back in November of 2018 when I was introduced to the concept of Biohacking. For someone like me who is coming from a technology & business background, I have a very limited knowledge on health & science, but I have always been fascinated by how technology and science have been shaping our life.

I am more of a hands on guy, more of a doer than bookworm, so I decided to start biohacking my body along with a few other family members. It has been more than 6 months of Biohacking and the results have been interesting to say the least. It is amazing how we can hack our biology with simple foods, herbs, and habits to achieve more out of our body. Also, it has been  interesting to see how overrated some of the things that all think of as “healthy” really are.

I want to share my journey with the rest of the world, as I realized that there are many people like myself who have not heard of the term yet. But not anymore!

So what is Biohacking?

Biohacking is a practice by which we can alter our body in order to make it feel more alive, more useful and more productive. It can be defined as the process in which an individual makes changes to his or her lifestyle in an attempt to hack the biology of their body and therefore be able to make the best version of themselves.

The most shocking discovery for me in my biohacking journey so far is that how similar hacking our body and entrepreneurship really are…

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The Different Types Of Biohacking You Need To Know About!

After defining the term “biohacking” in my previous article (You can read it here), now it’s time to look at the different ways to biohack your body. 

Keep in mind, the goal of biohacking is to optimize your body to perform at it’s best!

There are 3 main types of biohacking, each has their benefits and limitations but all work towards optimizing your body/mind. 

Do-it-yourself biology (DIY biology, DIY bio) is a growing biotechnological social movement in which individuals, communities, and small organizations study biology and life science using the same methods as traditional research institutions.

Grinder are people who apply the hacker ethic to improve their own bodies with do it yourself cybernetic devices or introducing Biochemicals into the body to enhance or change their bodies’ functionality. 

Nutrigenomics -from nutrition and genomics- is using nutrition, supplements, and herbs in specific combinations with each other to achieve your body’s full potential. These combinations help your body upgrade your good genes and downgrade your bad genes.

For myself, I have been focusing on nutrigenomics as the method of biohacking my body. We will dig deeper into biohacking using netrogenomics in the future. For now, one of the simplest examples of this method is:

Coffee and a Nap

Everyone knows that a cup of coffee will help you wake up or stay awake. 

A nap will achieve the same results. 

But if you drink a cup of coffee and take a 20 minute nap AFTER drinking the cup of coffee, you will wake up feeling awake, refreshed, and focused! 

Let’s break it down. 

A 20 minute nap will help you feel refreshed when you wake up and help you feel more focused. 

The effects of caffeine start to hit about 20 minutes after you drink it. While you sleep the caffeine does it’s magic, but shouldn’t keep you awake. The caffeine will help you gain energy and focus better on a task. 

These two work as a team to get your body to achieve an optimal stage of energy and focus that you couldn’t achieve with just one. 

As an entrepreneur, I love simple hacks like this because it has a noticeable positive effect on my daily productivity! And it is not hard to sustain this in my routine.

Let’s Take Control Of Our Biology. Join Me Here

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(Image caption: Neurons from 19-month-old mice (bottom row) show much higher rates of oxidative stress than neurons from 9-week-old mice (top row). Lipofuscin, a molecule associated with aging-related oxidative stress, appears red. Credit: Hyeseung Lee)

Biologists discover an unusual hallmark of aging in neurons

As we age, neurons in our brains can become damaged by free radicals. MIT biologists have now discovered that this type of damage, known as oxidative stress, produces an unusual pileup of short snippets of RNA in some neurons.

This RNA buildup, which the researchers believe may be a marker of neurodegenerative diseases, can reduce protein production. The researchers observed this phenomenon in both mouse and human brains, especially in a part of the brain called the striatum — a site involved in diseases such as Parkinson’s and Huntington’s.

“The brain is very metabolically active, and over time, that causes oxidative damage, but it affects some neurons more than others,” says Christopher Burge, an MIT professor of biology. “This phenomenon appears to be a previously unrecognized consequence of oxidative stress, which impacts hundreds of genes and may influence translation and RNA regulation globally.”

Burge and Myriam Heiman, the Latham Family Career Development Associate Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, are the senior authors of the paper, which appears in the Nov. 27 issue of Cell Reports. Peter Sudmant, a former MIT postdoc, is the lead author of the paper, and postdoc Hyeseung Lee and former postdoc Daniel Dominguez are also authors.

A mysterious finding

For this study, the researchers used a technique developed by Heiman that allows them to isolate and sequence messenger RNA from specific types of cells. Messenger RNA carries protein-building instructions to cell organelles called ribosomes, which read the mRNA and translate the instructions into proteins by stringing together amino acids in the correct sequence.

Heiman’s technique involves tagging ribosomes from a specific type of cells with green fluorescent protein, so that when a tissue sample is analyzed, researchers can use the fluorescent tag to isolate and sequence RNA from only those cells. This allows them to determine which proteins are being produced by different types of cells.

“This is particularly useful in the nervous system where you’ve got different types of neurons and glia closely intertwined together, if you want to isolate the mRNAs from one particular cell type,” Burge says.

In separate groups of mice, the researchers tagged ribosomes from either D1 or D2 spiny projection neurons, which make up 95 percent of the neurons found in the striatum. They labeled these cells in younger mice (6 weeks old) and 2-year-old mice, which are roughly equivalent to humans in their 70s or 80s.

The researchers had planned to look for gene expression differences between those two cell types, and to explore how they were affected by age. “These two types of neurons are implicated in several neurodegenerative diseases that are aging-related, so it is important to understand how normal aging changes their cellular and molecular properties,” says Heiman, who is a member of MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

To the researchers’ surprise, a mysterious result emerged — in D1 neurons from aged mice (but not neurons from young mice or D2 neurons from aged mice), they found hundreds of genes that expressed only a short fragment of the original mRNA sequence. These snippets, known as 3’ untranslated regions (UTRs), were stuck to ribosomes, preventing the ribosomes from assembling normal proteins. “While these RNAs have been observed before, the magnitude and age-associated cell-type specificity was really unprecedented,” says Sudmant.

The 3’ UTR snippets appeared to originate from about 400 genes with a wide variety of functions. Meanwhile, many other genes were totally unaffected.

“There are some genes that are completely normal, even in aged D1 neurons. There’s a gene-specific aspect to this phenomenon that is quite interesting and mysterious,” Burge says.

The findings led the researchers to explore a possible role for oxidative stress in this 3’ UTR accumulation. Neurons burn a great deal of energy, which can produce free radicals as byproducts. Unlike many other cell types, neurons do not get replaced, so they are believed to be susceptible to accumulated damage from these radicals over time.

The MIT team found that the activation of oxidative stress response pathways was higher in D1 neurons compared to D2 neurons, suggesting that they are indeed undergoing more oxidative damage. The researchers propose a model for the production of isolated 3’ UTRs involving an enzyme called ABCE1, which normally separates ribosomes from mRNA after translation is finished. This enzyme contains iron-sulfur clusters that can be damaged by free radicals, making it less effective at removing ribosomes, which then get stuck on the mRNA. This leads to cleavage of the RNA by a mechanism that operates upstream of stalled ribosomes.

“Sending neural signals takes a lot of energy,” Burge says. “Over time, that causes oxidative damage, and in our model one of the proteins that eventually gets damaged is ABCE1, and that triggers the production of 3’ UTRs.”

RNA buildup

The researchers also found the same accumulation in most parts of the human brain, including the frontal cortex, which is very metabolically active. They did not see it in most other types of human tissue, with the exception of liver tissue, which is exposed to high levels of potentially toxic molecules.

In human brain tissue, the researchers found that the amount of 3’ UTRs gradually increased with age, which fits their proposed model of gradual damage by oxidative stress. The researchers’ findings and model suggest that the production of these 3’ UTRs involves the destruction of normal mRNAs, reducing the amount of protein produced from the affected genes. This buildup of 3’ UTRs with ribosomes stuck to them can also block ribosomes from producing other proteins.

It remains to be seen exactly what effect this would have on those neurons, Burge says, but it is possible that this kind of cellular damage could combine with genetic and environmental factors to produce a general decline in cognitive ability or even neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s disease. In future studies, the researchers hope to further explore the causes and consequences of the accumulation of 3’ UTRs.

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We all age, aging usually associated with negative thoughts for the most part. But the question is, do we all have to age the same way?! Maybe there are different ways of aging. Just maybe....

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Is It Possible That Oxygen Can Be Bad For Your Body?

Early on when I was first learning about nutrigenomics and biohacking, I came across a scientific statement that made no sense to me (at least at that time). I don't remember where I read it, but it was something along the lines of: "oxygen can be bad for your cells." I stopped and was puzzled. How can oxygen be bad for my cells? I need oxygen, we all do!

I was stumped, but what I learned next made SO much sense. 

What happens if you bite into an apple and then forget about it on the table? You come back to a brown apple, right?

Or you leave a piece of metal out in the elements and after time it rusts.

So in your body, right now, oxygen is breaking down and "rusting." This process is called oxidation and it happens to everyone.  

Rust doesn't discriminate. 

I started asking a friend of mine, who is a doctor, a bunch of questions about oxidation and tried to make sense of his "doctor talk" and dumb it down to understand how it was affecting me.

The conclusion I got from our first conversation was pretty exciting and eye-opening; our cells need oxygen to survive and create energy, and this makes waste or oxidation. Oxidation causes the aging of our cells, and we are as old as our cells are. 

The more I looked into it, I found out that many diseases are caused by the oxidation in our cells, and this introduced me to the term "oxidative stress." 

What took our conversation to the next level is what he shared next! Look at the diseases that can be linked to oxidative stress!

When he shared this image with me I was shocked! I knew I needed to do something. 

Good news: Your oxidative stress is something that can be reduced, and you can use nutrigenomics to do this!

Do you want to know how nutrigenomics can help you?! Follow the journey here

[topbiohacking]

There are 3 main types of biohacking, each has its benefits and limitations but all work towards optimizing your body/mind.

[topbiohacking]

#Biohacking #TopBioHacking #Entrepreneur #DadPreneur #Health&Technology #الاختراق_البايولوجي

[topbiohacking]

Let Me Tell You The “Scientific” Proof Behind Eating Chicken Soup When I Get Sick.

We all have things in our families and unique to our cultures that help us feel better: eat the chicken soup, lentil soup, drink this type of green tea, eat turmeric, a spoon of honey, crushed garlic, put this on your chest. When you are young, you just eat the soup your mom says will make you feel better when you have a sore throat, the flu, or a cold and don't think much of it. Mom knows best, right?!

When you get a little older, you start to ask why? Usually, your parents say something like "this is what you do when you are sick, it is what my parents did for me when I was younger." There usually isn't a scientific reason behind it, or if there is a reason they don't know it. 

This will change with the introduction of nutrigenomics. 

So What is Nutrigenomics?

Nutrigenomics -from nutrition and genomics- is using nutrition, supplements, and herbs in specific combinations with each other to achieve your body's full potential. These combinations help your body upgrade your good genes and downgrade your bad genes.

 Nutrigenomics is the name of a new branch of science; but some of these practices have been around and used for hundreds of years, especially in eastern cultures. 

With new technologies and how computers process huge amounts of data, we have a better understanding of the effect of nutrients in our bodies. This is Nutrigenomics! And this area of study is growing fast! 

Why you should get excited!

I grew up in an Eastern culture where using food and herbs to prevent and cure disease is common. However, with the introduction of Western medicine and pharmaceutical drugs, those natural remedies have been forgotten. When I moved to the US and saw the rise in costs of prescriptions and the horrible side effects of some drugs, it brought to mind the natural remedies that I grew up around. 

I got excited about Nutrigenomics when I learned that it is applying pharmaceutical technology and the scientific method on natural blends of nutrients and herbs. We are blending the best of both worlds, and in this way, I am using natural ingredients that have been scientifically proven to help get the most out of my body without the side effects!

What can nutrigenomics help with?

I started using nutrigenomics to help me focus and be more productive. I wanted to biohack my brain and body to get the most out of every day, which is essential as an entrepreneur! My wife wanted to get some energy back transitioning back to work after our daughter was born. My mother wanted to decrease her knee pain. 

So what this means to you in your life/business is you can hack your biology safely to get the best version of yourself.

Nutrigenomics helped all 3 of us gain a better lease on life and take control of our bodies and minds! There are so many applications for nutrigenomics, stay tuned for the next article where we will dig deeper!

The thing I really want you to take away from this is: Nutrigenomics is the new science that has the potential to change our world forever.

It’s a journey I am taking to take control of my own biology! Follow my journey here!