Dave Asprey, 43, is best known for his concoction Bulletproof Coffee, the go-to caffeine kick of Silicon Valley, Hollywood and David Beckham. A Guinness-dense combination of coffee, two tablespoons of butter and a product he markets called Brain Octane Oil, a triglyceride oil derived from coconut oil, the recipe was inspired by Tibetan yak-butter tea. Before becoming a “biohacker”, he made, lost and remade fortunes in tech startups. The Bulletproof empire now includes shops, online sales and a podcast; Asprey’s latest book, Head Strong, contains his theories on how to improve your brain function in two weeks.
You’ve spent $1m and 20 years “biohacking” yourself. What does that word mean?
Biohacking is the art and science of changing the environment around you or inside you so that you have full control of your own biology.
Biohacking is the art and science of changing the environment around you or inside you so that you have full control of your own biology.
It’s interesting to hear it described as an art and science – many in the scientific establishment would regard you as quite out there…
Oh no, the stuff I do is very science-based. The primary function in the scientific method is that you make an observation, you form a hypothesis and you test the observation. My observation for Bulletproof Coffee came while I was in Tibet – namely, why do Tibetans have a blender hooked up to a car battery that they carry around on a yak in order to blend their yak-butter tea? It didn’t make any sense but they do it. And two, why do I feel amazing when I drink it?
Oh no, the stuff I do is very science-based. The primary function in the scientific method is that you make an observation, you form a hypothesis and you test the observation. My observation for Bulletproof Coffee came while I was in Tibet – namely, why do Tibetans have a blender hooked up to a car battery that they carry around on a yak in order to blend their yak-butter tea? It didn’t make any sense but they do it. And two, why do I feel amazing when I drink it?
The stuff I’m doing isn’t just like flip of a coin – it’s a hypothesis based on reading thousands of papers about biochemical pathways.
How does your background in Silicon Valley inform your approach?
Hackers are systems thinkers and in order to take control of another computer, you don’t have to know everything about it. You just have to know enough and apply the right techniques. And it is experimental and it is OK to try something and fail. There’s a lot of fear in medicine and there’s also a lot of, “Well, we’re only going to do one thing at a time…” It’s very, very slow-moving and I don’t want to move slowly. I’ve only got maybe 85, 90 years. My goal right now is 180 years, because I’m doing something about it now instead of waiting.
Hackers are systems thinkers and in order to take control of another computer, you don’t have to know everything about it. You just have to know enough and apply the right techniques. And it is experimental and it is OK to try something and fail. There’s a lot of fear in medicine and there’s also a lot of, “Well, we’re only going to do one thing at a time…” It’s very, very slow-moving and I don’t want to move slowly. I’ve only got maybe 85, 90 years. My goal right now is 180 years, because I’m doing something about it now instead of waiting.
In Head Strong, you write that you started biohacking because you had “brain fog” and were overweight. So you wanted to improve your health?
More than improving my health, it was about having control of my own biology. When I started out, I thought I had a couple of problems. I had some brain fog, like I’d try and pay attention or remember things and I couldn’t. I got pretty concerned about it. Then [the doctor] told me I had a very high risk of stroke and heart attack before I was 30. And I said, “Well, fix me.” And it was the utter failure of that approach that made me decide I had to take control.
More than improving my health, it was about having control of my own biology. When I started out, I thought I had a couple of problems. I had some brain fog, like I’d try and pay attention or remember things and I couldn’t. I got pretty concerned about it. Then [the doctor] told me I had a very high risk of stroke and heart attack before I was 30. And I said, “Well, fix me.” And it was the utter failure of that approach that made me decide I had to take control.
What approach did you originally take?
I worked out for 90 minutes a day, six days a week for 18 months in order to lose the 45kg of fat I was carrying. I cut my calories, I went on a low-fat diet, but it only made me tired and hungry. It was miserable. So it was the desperation of, “For God’s sake, none of this crap works” – that’s what really got me motivated.
I worked out for 90 minutes a day, six days a week for 18 months in order to lose the 45kg of fat I was carrying. I cut my calories, I went on a low-fat diet, but it only made me tired and hungry. It was miserable. So it was the desperation of, “For God’s sake, none of this crap works” – that’s what really got me motivated.
What percentage of calories do you think should come from fat?
I think 50-70% of calories should come from very specific fats.
I think 50-70% of calories should come from very specific fats.
Most dietary guidelines recommend 20-35%, right?
They absolutely would; this is higher. If you’re eating the wrong fats or eating them with a lot of sugar, it doesn’t work. If it’s margarine and canola oil, you’re going to get one result and if it’s coconut oil and avocados, you’ll get a different result. But if someone ups their vegetable intake, they stop eating processed foods and they up their saturated fat intake, they generally have amazing results that fly in the face of what you would expect.
They absolutely would; this is higher. If you’re eating the wrong fats or eating them with a lot of sugar, it doesn’t work. If it’s margarine and canola oil, you’re going to get one result and if it’s coconut oil and avocados, you’ll get a different result. But if someone ups their vegetable intake, they stop eating processed foods and they up their saturated fat intake, they generally have amazing results that fly in the face of what you would expect.
What “results”?
This isn’t a small sample any more. My first book, The Bulletproof Diet, has sold globally somewhere around half a million copies. People consumed 48m cups of Bulletproof Coffee last year. It’s a big thing, and on my book tour for Head Strong, in every single city, there were people coming up and saying, “Dave, I lost 40lb, 50lb…” So the sample here is so large and the online forums are so large that anytime someone says, “There’s no evidence for this,” I’m like, “What kind of evidence do you like?” Here are tens of thousands of people who have struggled for 20 years to lose weight and have lost it effortlessly in a rapid period of time
This isn’t a small sample any more. My first book, The Bulletproof Diet, has sold globally somewhere around half a million copies. People consumed 48m cups of Bulletproof Coffee last year. It’s a big thing, and on my book tour for Head Strong, in every single city, there were people coming up and saying, “Dave, I lost 40lb, 50lb…” So the sample here is so large and the online forums are so large that anytime someone says, “There’s no evidence for this,” I’m like, “What kind of evidence do you like?” Here are tens of thousands of people who have struggled for 20 years to lose weight and have lost it effortlessly in a rapid period of time
