Wellness trends for the extreme (and the rich) – including poison frog

The biggest room in the world is room for improvement, right?

And as biohacking techniques like cold showers and intermittent fasting go mainstream, New York City’s most dedicated health seekers are venturing into more extreme territory.

Take, for example, the poison kambo — from Amazonian tree frogs that has become a favorite way for some in Silicon Valley to detox both emotionally and physically.

The patient’s skin is smeared to create a small wound where the cambo is applied.

“It’s pretty wild — your face blows up like a frog and then you throw up and you have to flush out all the toxins that are in your body,” said Lauren Berlingeri, co-founder of HigherDose, a New. York-based wellness technology company that sells popular at-home products such as red light therapy masks and sauna blankets.

Kambo treatments are known to give users diarrhea and heart palpitations, but fans claim it can cure everything from anxiety to migraines if you’re willing to put up with a few hours of pain.

Berlingeri — who participated in a kambo ceremony and “20 minute flu cleanse” for an episode of her “BiohackHERS” podcast — said the most dedicated fans will travel to Peru, where the most expert doctors administer the treatment. for about $150.

Then there’s ozone inflation therapy — said to be Gwyneth Paltrow’s favorite, of course — which blows ozone into the rectum with the promise of healing the gut and killing bacteria.

Getting the treatment done professionally at places like Next Health in NYC costs about $150 a session. But for $1,850 you can get a starter kit at home from biohackersupply.com. Note that the FDA has warned that taking ozone can be dangerous.

For those looking to slow aging, total plasma exchange (TPE) filters plasma to remove unhealthy particles—like autoantibodies that attack healthy cells—to reduce inflammation and boost immunity.

Multimillionaire venture capitalist-turned-controversial biohacker Bryan Johnson — who spends $2 million a year on “reverse aging” treatments, including daily fat scans, more than 100 pills a day and a 70-pound vegetable diet per month – he announced recently. is a fan of TPE.

IVs in each arm remove, filter and replace your plasma in sessions that start at $10,000 and take about four hours to complete. According to Berlingeri, biohacking experts recommend undergoing a series of six or more treatments before moving on to annual maintenance treatments.

In other words, $60,000 will only get you to the base of where you need to be, according to those looking to make a fortune out of it.

Berlinger said biohealing treatments like these are “really great things for when you’re pretty sick” — but she’s also seen people cross the line.

“How far can you take it, right? How good can we feel? It can even be an addiction…” she said. “So there’s also the unhealthy side of being obsessed.”

Berlinger adds that, often, it’s the simplest practices that are the most beneficial.

“I prefer the gentle daily detox…” she said, referring to the infrared sauna at HigherDose. “You sweat, you detox, you feel great.”

But its best hack costs nothing – yet it can be the most painful treatment of all for many people.

“After 6:00 p.m., I put my phone down… my device is very much on.”

---

---