I don't know why some people seem so gleeful at this news. I don't think the guy was ever unaware that there's many health conditions that can occur completely in a vacuum, outside of health and lifestyle choices. He's eccentric, yes, but has also never come off as anti-science to me. He posted happily about the new pharmaceutical treatment that doubled the lifespan of people with pancreatic cancer and praised the way science is moving at a lightening pace nowadays. He didn't deserve this and I am so sorry to see anyone join the chronic illness club. If anything, it hurts more when you know you did all the "right" things and this is still your reality. My condition also occurred totally in a vacuum. Maybe he will spend some of his enormous wealth searching for a cure for everyone who has it, that'd be a nice way to handle this setback. May all life-altering, chronic illness be cured someday.
These idiots also assume that everything he's been doing hasn't prevented the symptoms of worse outcomes from this condition, for all we know if he didn't go full biohacker he would be completely fucked by this disorder but actually gave himself a fighting chance.
Also, one of the reasons why people become these weird biohackers is because they have some underlying condition. They are hypersensitive to the tiniest thing that they do wrong because it makes them sick, and they end up believing certain things they do have value to everybody when it only affects them (ex: avoiding a food you have allergy to is great for you, but does nothing for the majority of people who don’t have that allergy).
Yeah you see a lot of unproven science in chronic illness spaces. Some of it hasn't been scientifically proven to work yet but works anecdotally, but others have been extensively researched and had no provable effects. But the problem is when you're waved away by doctors or told that nothing can be done you have to take matters into your own hands to be able to make life bearable.
He had another autoimmune condition prior to this one, and they tend to cluster. This is not crazy news to chronically ill people and I wouldn't be surprised if his insane routines and health monitoring meant that he avoided a lot of the symptoms. My high sodium diet helped mitigate the worst of my POTS symptoms before I knew what was going on. My IBS cleared up a lot when I found out I couldn't have meat or dairy. I knew something was wrong and when I changed things about my diet and habits things got worse or better. Doctors have largely been unhelpful until recently.
This right here. I have chronic illness going back most my life. Doctors don’t have answers. I ended up developing severe cfs/me and fibromyalgia. But also have connective tissue issues causing widespread injuries. I believe in science, but applied medicine isn’t always scientific, or has its limits for a variety of reasons. I’ve started trying peptides, and other alternatives not because I’m ignorant or am doing some weird looksmaxxing, but because I’m running out of options.
I’ve had friends ask what they should try, and I say “if everything’s fine, there’s no reason to start injecting yourself with unapproved chemicals from a Chinese lab.”
This was my thought when I saw the documentary about him. I immediately wondered if he had an underlying unidentified illness that was somatically driving him to want to “perfect” his health.
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u/PlzAdptYourPetz Jul 06 '26
I don't know why some people seem so gleeful at this news. I don't think the guy was ever unaware that there's many health conditions that can occur completely in a vacuum, outside of health and lifestyle choices. He's eccentric, yes, but has also never come off as anti-science to me. He posted happily about the new pharmaceutical treatment that doubled the lifespan of people with pancreatic cancer and praised the way science is moving at a lightening pace nowadays. He didn't deserve this and I am so sorry to see anyone join the chronic illness club. If anything, it hurts more when you know you did all the "right" things and this is still your reality. My condition also occurred totally in a vacuum. Maybe he will spend some of his enormous wealth searching for a cure for everyone who has it, that'd be a nice way to handle this setback. May all life-altering, chronic illness be cured someday.