Peter Thiel: I'm on human growth hormone [video]

Recently I started doing 72h salt-water only fasting once a month and my experience is that I get somewhat dizzy after 24h in the evening, but after a sleep I can perform normally without any need to eat, even including interval training and extreme uphill biking (slightly salty water is important here). This holds also for the 3rd day, again, absolutely no need to eat. Motivation were recent articles suggesting rejuvenation of one's immunity after 72h and subsequent feeding - will see if it works.

However, I believe I can do that only after I went on low-carb/no-carb diet for the past 2 years - I remember feeling horrible the first month on this diet with what you could name as "brain fog" most of the days - I guess at that point my body was learning how to survive on low carbs.

Anyway, fast forward, I am now far stronger, calmer (also due to 5 minute cold showers every day) and have brain clarity I haven't had in the past 10 years, which brings relax to what would most other people take as very stressful work, as the mind can perform and focus better and faster.

I speak as someone who has fasted up to 1 week. Interestingly, the difficult period is exactly the initial 2...3 days. After that it's no effort at all - albeit physical performance seems to decrease, of course.

Also as others have said it, you go over a bump and it becomes easy. Also, there is a window where I'm rather productive and less ADD when I'm fasting.

[1] http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/277860.php

But my point is not about the coffee per se; it's ignoring two big cofounders what really bothers me.

There very well could be some breakthrough in immunotherapy, where the treatment is to send a cancer biopsy to some lab that makes a custom drug, and the cancer is held at bay indefinitely.

It is a breakdown of the cooperation/altruism between cells that make you a multicelluar organism. We have several genetic programs designed to enforce cooperation, but cumulative damage in each cell over a lifetime eventually breaks all of them and generates 'independent' cells subject to natural selection, in our own bodies, with our DNA. All of our cells are cancerous, eventually.

Would you believe the claims as readily if he said he was going to stop aging? I would have to remind you that we don't even really know why we age.

It is fantastic and disconcerting that we are back in the age of wealthy patrons driving scientific discovery. I'm certain many discoveries and great art came from patrons who understood little about the field.