There’s Only One Real “BioHack”
If you spend enough time scrolling through the fitness and health space on social media, you’ll start to see all sorts of different opinions. One of the trendiest keywords out there is the idea of “biohacking.” Normally, you’ll see people use this word to describe a lot of activities that have VERY diminishing returns but sound like a cheat code. This could include cold showers or ice baths, fasting, apple cider vinegar, breath work, and a plethora of other random activities.
Normally, my advice to people when they hear the word “biohack” is to run in the opposite direction as fast as you possibly can. Often times, people use this word to catch your attention, make something sound better than it is, and then eventually turn a profit from that attention.
There’s a lot of reasons why people might start looking into things that they’d consider a biohack; although I think there are two main reasons that drive people in this direction. The first (and more innocent reason) is that they tried real, good health and fitness advice, got something wrong or didn’t get the results they were after, and ultimately lost trust in the process.
There are several data points out there that can suggest this. Lichtman et al. [1] studied the difference between the number of calories people think they eat versus the number of calories they actually eat. They found that many people who thought they were eating 1200 calories were actually eating 2000 calories. Further, many people rely on smart watches to tell them how many calories they are burning in a day. What they don’t know is that these watches can be 30-90% inaccurate. This means if your watch tells you that you burned 500 calories in a workout, you likely actually only burned 50-350 calories in that workout.
With these two severely skewed data points, you can see how someone can easily lead themselves to believe that calories don’t have anything to do with weight loss (even though they have everything to do with weight loss) [9].
The second reason why people might start looking into things that they’d consider a biohack, and more vile reason, is because it is easy to make a profit with this type of marketing. It is much easier to sell something when you are able to convince people that you have a little-known secret that is a short-cut to their goals. The word “biohack” is the perfect word to get this done.
However, for all the trash talking that I’ve just done about biohacking, the point of this article is to talk to you about the one true thing that could be considered a biohack. The catch is that it’s not a short cut and it’s probably something you know you should be doing already.
The biohack that I am talking about is fitness. Virtually all relevant biomarkers of health improve as your fitness improves. In the remainder of this article, we’ll talk about some examples and why that is.
Strength Training and Health
While this may come as a surprise to many people, lifting weights is one of the most health-benefitting activities you can do. Having more muscle and being stronger makes your health a lot more resilient than you’d think.
Sarcopenia and Osteopenia
If you’ve noticed that grandma or grandpa have a little more trouble standing up off of a chair than you do, these two phenomena explain why.
As we age (starting somewhere between 25-30), the cross-sectional area of our muscles decrease. This age-related loss of muscle is known as sarcopenia. Similarly, our bones lose mineral density as we age beginning in the same age range. This age-related loss of bone mineral density is known as osteopenia and can further develop into osteoporosis.
This can pose a rather serious problem in our later years. Sarcopenia can lead to an increased incidence of falls and osteopenia can lead an increase number of fractures from said falls [2,3]. In older adults, an increase number of fractures tends to yield an increase in mortality, particularly fractures of the hip [4].
One of the primary goals of strength training is to increase muscle size, although I’m sure that’s no surprise to you. This also means it serves as one of the most powerful ways to preserve muscle and fight back against sarcopenia.
In addition, it isn’t just our muscles that grow as we get stronger. Our bones, tendons, ligaments, etc. all have to increase in thickness in order to accommodate heavier loads. As a result, strength training serves as a very efficient way to retain bone mineral density and fight back against osteopenia.
Further, having more muscle mass and bone density improves many other important health factors which will be talked about in the following paragraphs. Losing muscle and bone due to sarcopenia and osteopenia will deprive you of these benefits.
Prevention of Type 2 Diabetes
Prevalence of type 2 diabetes in people younger than 40 years old is increasing significantly year over year [5]. Family history and genetics absolutely play a big role in determining one’s risk of developing diabetes; however, obesity and a sedentary lifestyle are equally if not greater predictors of diabetes risk [2,5,6]. Further, consistently participating in resistance training seems to be one of the most powerful things you can do to lower your risk of developing diabetes. Why is this? Essentially, having more muscle mass makes your body more insulin sensitive (i.e. lower chance of insulin resistance) and better able to handle glucose.
Reduced Risk of Heart Disease
Cardiovascular disease has been the number one killer of Americans for quite some time now. Resistance training, such as weight training, is one of the best practices we can do to prevent heart disease [2,8,9]. This is shown as many crucial biomarkers of cardiovascular disease risk improve with strength training such as lower LDL (“bad” cholesterol), higher HDL (“good” cholesterol), lower total cholesterol, lower triglycerides, and others.
Further, skeletal muscle releases compounds called myokines. It is the job of these myokines to reduce inflammation in the body. This can be helpful, since chronic systemic inflammation can promote the environment for chronic diseases to develop such as heart disease or diabetes.
Higher Resting Metabolic Rate and Lower Chance of Obesity
When you build more muscle, it isn’t free for your body to keep. It actually costs your body a lot more calories at rest to maintain higher levels of muscle mass [2]. This statement can be a big advantage and have a lot of utility.
As you may know, weight management is a matter of energy balance [9]. Specifically, the balance between the calories that go into your body versus the calories that are burned throughout the day. If you eat more calories than you burn in a day, you gain weight; if you eat less calories than you burn a day, you lose weight.
Given this relationship between body composition and energy balance, strength training seems an almost essential component to prevent obesity and weight gain. Most of the calories we burn in a day are burned at rest (through things like your heart beating, breathing, etc.) and not during exercise. Therefore, increasing the rate of calories burned at rest is one of the most effective ways to effortlessly maintain a good bodyweight.
Cardiovascular Fitness and Health
As you can see, strength training certainly checks a lot of the boxes. Cardiovascular training, however, can add onto a lot of these benefits as well as provide a few more.
Improve Cardiovascular (heart) health
This might be the obvious one to point out, but it’s worth pointing out nonetheless. Heart disease is the #1 cause of death in the United States. Strength training provides a big help in the fight against heart disease, however, improving your endurance seems to be more potent.
It’s no secret that having high blood pressure is the biggest indicator of heart disease risk [12]. There is a natural age-related increase in blood pressure we experience throughout life, and taking action against this natural increase is one of our best bets against cardiovascular disease.
Luckily, improving your endurance is one of the most effective ways to lower your blood pressure [11]. Your blood pressure along with your heart rate decrease as a direct result of increased cardiovascular capacity.
Increased Lifespan
I think we can all get behind the idea of looking and feeling a little younger as we get older. Fortunately, there’s a rather simple way to accomplish this.
There’s a term in endurance training called your VO2max. This is a measure of how efficiently your body is able to deliver oxygen to your working muscles. Said more simply, it’s a measure of how good your endurance is.
Strasser et al. conducted a review looking at the influence of higher VO2maxes in the context and longevity and various chronic diseases. They found that 70-year-old individuals with high enough VO2maxes were able to express the biological age of a 50-year-old. You probably don’t need me to tell you how big of a difference that is. That could very well be the difference between watching your grandkids play in the back yard versus playing with them.
What all of this means for you
Now, that’s a whole bunch of health benefits I just threw at you. If you just skimmed through it all to get the idea, that’s okay. The point you should take home is that your health is almost directly tied to your fitness. I don’t want you to see this and just say “okay, cool” and then do nothing with this information. I want to talk about what this practically means for you.
What this all means is that if you want to improve and preserve your health and lifespan (which you should), the most effective thing to do is just to get more fit. Although, this can be a big turn off for a lot of people. Much people are much more drawn to the idea of buying some “superfood” or a fat burner pill. The truth is, if you want to make a big impact on your health and well-being, the answer is to improve your fitness; your health and well-being will improve as a direct result.
We can also use this information to help direct our nutrition choices. For instance, when you eat a pre-workout meal, you want to eat a meal that will optimize your performance in your exercise. You want to eat enough protein to optimize the environment for recovery and muscle growth. I can go on and on with the examples, but I imagine you get the point. Of course, you want to get enough fiber and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) on a daily basis. However, past this, the best way to eat for health is to eat for fitness.
References
Discrepancy between self-reported and actual caloric intake and exercise in obese subjects
PubMed ID: 1454084
Resistance training is medicine: effects of strength training on health
PubMed ID: 22777332
Resistance training and sarcopenia
PubMed ID: 27374049
Frailty and Sarcopenia
PubMed ID: 33347228
Type 2 diabetes in adolescents and young adults
PubMed ID: 28847479
Strength Training and the Risk of Type 2 Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease
PubMed ID: 27580152
Comparative effectiveness of aerobic, resistance, and combined training on cardiovascular disease risk factors: A randomized controlled trial
PubMed ID: 30615666
The effect of 12 weeks of aerobic, resistance or combination exercise training on cardiovascular risk factors in the overweight and obese in a randomized trial
PubMed ID: 23006411
Energy Balance and Obesity
PubMed ID: 22753534
Survival of the fittest: VO 2 max, a key predictor of longevity?
PubMed ID: 29293447
Aerobic interval training reduces blood pressure and improves myocardial function in hypertensive patients
PubMed ID: 21450580
High Blood Pressure and Cardiovascular Disease
PubMed ID: 31865786
