A pool and gym just don’t cut it any more. How about your very own cryotherapy chamber or red-light therapy bed? Helen Kirwan-Taylor investigates the new ‘biohacking’ home technology promising to supercharge your health
By Helen Kirwan-Taylor
16 May 2022
This article is a repost which originally appeared on TATLER
Edited for content. The opinions expressed in this article may not reflect the opinions of this site’s editors, staff or members.
Our Takeaways:
· The use of infra-red light treatment and hyperbaric oxygen therapy are considered stables of biohacking.
· While not absolutely necessary, some biohacking tools and practices can be very expensive.
· While expensive treatments are available, they do not replace foundational aspects of nutrition and natural living.
If you don’t sleep in a hyperbaric oxygen pod, like Justin Bieber, or at the very least on an infrared mattress, then what’s wrong with you? Do you have self-esteem issues? These days, you need to get with the biohacking programme. Just look around wealthy London: the diggers are in, basements are being excavated, and oxygen chambers and flotation tanks are being speedily installed. Behold the new temples to the pursuit of youth.
Biohacking, if you didn’t know, is the practice of interfering with your own biology in an attempt to improve it. Staples include infra-red light treatment and hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), which delivers pure, pressurised oxygen to the body. Amazing claims are made for both. But what’s really astounding is the size of this elite, luxury market: the consultancy firm McKinsey predicts that over the next decade biohacking could become a trillion-dollar industry.
Already almost every aspect of it has been nano-hacked. For example, there’s no longer any need to fast now that you can have ProLon meals (which trick the body into autophagy, or cell-cleansing) delivered to your door. Or you could just pop two longevity spermidine supplement pills (a favourite of the Vivamayr clinic) and achieve the same effect. Similarly, if ice baths sound like too much hard work, you can always clamber into your own thermal shock chamber (try it out first at Ice Health Cryotherapy in Kensington – unlike most cryotherapy chambers, it doesn’t require full immersion and can therefore be used while you listen to music). And rather than follow a restrictive keto diet to burn fat and increase mental clarity, you can simply knock back some deltaG – at £59.99 for a 59ml mouthful, the most expensive keto drink on earth. Created by Oxford professor Kieran Clarke and available to buy from Wellgevity, it’s like drinking a high-octane body fuel and a sip or two will allow you to glide through the most difficult presentation.
But no doubt your wellness consultant will tell you that. Enter Julie Cichocki. The founder of the ‘wellness curator’ Kloodos, Cichocki is a one-woman hacking machine who can provide you with what is currently only available to celebrities or athletes. I happen to ring her as she is on her way to Southampton to create a complete biohack unit in the house of a self- made tycoon and, for a taster, she sends me to Repose on High Street Kensington to try out the number- one contraption on the market: the £60,000 Mitogen photobiomodulation (red-light therapy) bed. Its light goes so deep, says Cichocki, that it triggers the production of the magical, all-singing, all-dancing source of youth – a cell-energising molecule called adenosine triphosphate (ATP).
For ultimate relaxation, Cichocki continues, ‘the bed allows you to surrender and move into critical beta mode’ – and it is often the first piece of kit she will put into the houses of her high-net-worth clients. Most likely, this will be followed by a whole-body cryo-chamber (£125,000), a hyperbaric oxygen chamber (£75,000), a dry float tank (£27,000) and an infra- red sauna (£6,000), plus an ice bath and plunge pool.
‘It’s not unusual for clients to spend upwards of £150,000,’ says Cichocki. And why not? Biohacking promises great things, from cell renewal to disease prevention; it’s no wonder every Hollywood star, Silicon Valley magnate and premier athlete is kit-ting out their home gyms with the latest that technology can provide.
The ‘gateway’ hack is infrared light – supplied in panel form by Bryan Gohl of Red Light Rising, whose ‘Armoury’ model costs around £12,000 and is about the same size as a door. (The actor Tom Hopper swears by it and has bought two for his personal use, in ‘The Advantage XL’ size.) Its applications go way beyond enhancing performance and energy. ‘Some people claim it helps their eye- sight,’ says Gohl. ‘Others, that it eases their menopause symptoms. And we know it really helps with muscle pain and joint stiffness.’ Other pluses? It acts like a giant seasonal affective disorder (SAD) corrective light; it doesn’t stop you from being able to scroll through Instagram while you use it, as the infrared beds do; and many, myself included, have found it useful in combatting long-Covid symptoms.
Then there’s hyperbaric oxygen therapy, a fashionable hack at the moment because, apart from helping to speed up recovery from operations or illnesses, it can also help brush away the mental cobwebs. City types in particular are addicted to its ‘natural high’ nd can be found in droves at The Wellness Lab in Knightsbridge after the markets close. (A bonus of the spaceship-like chambers is that they double as divans.) And don’t forget intravenous infusions such as nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) – the ultimate anti-ageing chemical, endorsed by celebrities including the actress Davinia Taylor – which is available at Hum2n in Chelsea.