

Others - and Horton points out that most of these are startups - are more radical in their approaches.


"They're basically just encouraging us to live healthy lives and you know, if that brings us extra longevity and lifespan, healthspan, that's fantastic." In his article "Silicon Valley's quest for immortality – and its worrying sacrifices", he argues that there is a real danger to some of these practices that certain tech companies are touting. James Horton, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Bath, has also written about the darkside of this obsession with body optimization and longevity. "They are basically treating themselves like computers: If I don't eat, how does my blood sugar react? If I eat this, how … did my metabolic markers change? And that degree of obsession, really, I think can be quite problematic." Unintended consequences These behaviours, Mahdawi said, are troubling. "Some of them will go and they'll get special glucose implants in their skin, so they can test their glucose, and that's something that diabetics normally have," Mahdawi explained. Mahdawi said she also spoke to people who consider themselves "biohackers," which are those who measure certain markers in their bodies and experiment on themselves using various techniques with the goal of optimizing their health.
