Sleep, stress and exercise: your longevity toolkit | Kayla Barnes-Lentz

**Jonathan** (0:00)
Welcome to ZOE Science and Nutrition, where world leading scientists explain how their research can improve your health.
The year is 2099 As you pick up your hoverboard and head towards the door, a microchip in your brain tells you it's time to eat. You knock back a fistful of multicolored pills while your AI-powered robot helper ties your shoes. On your way to the cryotherapy center in your 5G-proof electro bubble, a thought crosses your mind. Surely there's a simpler way. There are an estimated 100,000 biohackers globally, and this number is growing. For many of these people, life is one long self-experiment. Try new gadgets, supplements, and even surgeries, all in the pursuit of living past 120 It's an interesting approach, but does it really work? Well, today, I'm joined by Kayla Barnes-Lentz, the world's foremost female biohacker who claims to be the world's most measured woman. We explore the lengths she goes to as she pursues her mission of living to 150 We'll also hear from Dr. Federica Amati, Head Nutritionist here at ZOE, a scientist at Imperial College London, and author of the best-selling book Everybody Should Know This. Federica will help us explore the boundary between biohacking and science-backed advice. By the end of this episode, you'll have some simple lifestyle interventions that both biohackers and scientists agree will help you live a long and healthy life. Kayla, thank you so much for joining me today.

**Kayla Barnes-Lentz** (1:45)
Thank you so much for having me.

**Jonathan** (1:47)
Federica, wonderful to have you as well.

**Federica Amati** (1:49)
Always fun.

**Jonathan** (1:51)
Kayla, we have a tradition here at ZOE where we always start with a quick-fire round of questions from our listeners. Are you up for that?

**Kayla Barnes-Lentz** (1:57)
Absolutely.

**Jonathan** (1:59)
We have some very strict rules. You can say yes or no or a one-sentence answer if you have to.

**Kayla Barnes-Lentz** (2:04)
Okay.

**Jonathan** (2:05)
All right. Kayla, are you confident that you will live until you're 150?

**Kayla Barnes-Lentz** (2:11)
No.

**Jonathan** (2:13)
Are you the most measured woman in the world?

**Kayla Barnes-Lentz** (2:15)
Yes. Publicly measured, yes.

**Jonathan** (2:18)
Federica, does extending your life have to be expensive? No. Does self-experimentation in science always fail? No. Finally, Kayla, what's the strangest thing you ever tried in your quest for longevity?

**Kayla Barnes-Lentz** (2:33)
I have removed all of my plasma from my body and I have replaced it not once but twice now.

**Jonathan** (2:39)
So that's like the plasma in your blood?

**Kayla Barnes-Lentz** (2:41)
Yeah. It's like an oil change for your body.

**Jonathan** (2:44)
Wow. This word biohacking is a term that I've heard used a lot recently. But to be honest, I don't think I really understand it. How would you describe what biohacking is? Yeah.

**Kayla Barnes-Lentz** (2:56)
I would just say upgrading the environment internally and externally. So you are using different modalities that can be the basics that will get into like nutrition and exercise, or it can be much more advanced, looking at labs and then incorporating interventions, maybe like hyperbaric, but internally and externally upgrading your environment.

**Jonathan** (3:16)
How do you figure out what that upgrading is? Because I'm thinking also that hacking word makes me think a bit about something sort of a bit experimental or something like that.

**Kayla Barnes-Lentz** (3:27)
I don't use the term biohacking as much these days. I definitely like longevity optimization or health span optimization because a few things. Number one, I think that it's a little bit more bro-y on this biohacking side of things. And I've been in this industry for over 12 years now, and I have went from being kind of like this woman that was doing this weird stuff on the corner of the Internet, I felt, to now women are really having our moment, which I'm so excited about. But yeah, I prefer longevity and healthspan optimization.

**Federica Amati** (3:56)
I love that because as a medical scientist, Jonathan, you'll know, what I hate about the term biohacking is this idea that we can somehow hack our biology. Our evolutionary biology is so much smarter than we are. So exactly to your point, it's about how can we support these processes that are there to help us stay healthy and thrive. Optimization is like almost a better term to explain it, right?

**Kayla Barnes-Lentz** (4:17)
Yeah, that's my preference.

**Federica Amati** (4:18)
Yeah, I agree with you.

**Jonathan** (4:19)
All right, I love that. So longevity optimization, which sounds to me like wanting to live longer than I would do otherwise. Am I understanding that right?

**Kayla Barnes-Lentz** (4:28)
Yeah, but we also have to be focused on health span, right? We don't want to live much longer in poor health or not remember our family members. So I think in the immediate, it is addressing health, current health status, future health status, with the idea that hopefully we can live longer as well.