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May 28, 2026
Prof. Dominik Pförringer
Longevity, biohacking, and self-optimization are booming. Prof. Dominik Pförringer explains why the dream of eternal life may be a dangerous illusion
By
Univ.-Prof. Dr. med. Dominik Pförringer
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When people are promised unrealistic goals or the fulfillment of distant desires, many are prepared to abandon rational thinking and leave the field to irrationality. A classic example: On the supposed path to great wealth, many are willing to completely distance themselves from probability calculations and purchase a lottery ticket, whose chance of a relevant win is irrationally low.
In the past, good money was often made by presenting people with even the most absurd idea just well enough. Indulgences were sold to buy one's way out of worldly sins. Fortunately, this business field was rapidly ended by a clear-thinking man named Martin Luther.
But even today, new equivalents can always be found. A recent example: CO₂ certificates. Here, the capitalist thinking person is suggested to buy a clear conscience, whitewash his air travel, reduce his climate-damaging footprint…
A profitable idea that allows many businesses to thrive, but certainly not our climate-sick planet. And now clever entrepreneurs have devised a new jackpot: Eternal life.
Getting healthily old is the supposedly latest craze. What was still playful in Brandner Kaspar with a card trick and a cherry spirit in conversation with the Boandlkramer is now supposed to come within reach technically through all sorts of powders, infusions, and continuous measurement. Here too, as already suspected, the path of reason is quickly abandoned, and a playground for quackery and lucrative business opens up.
If anything, questionable animal studies are conducted, and the optimization-obsessed is explained in flowery language what is healthy and when, and how aging can be slowed down on a cellular level by "reprogramming" cells as early as possible. The cerebral decay, the brain abandonment of consumers, is welcomed to bring dangerous half-knowledge—based on obscure sources and unfounded science—to men and women.
In a world striving for permanent self-optimization through self-measurement, where everything is calculated and visualized, the desire for a long life falls on very fertile ground. In this context, I quote the feuilletonist of the "Welt", Matthias Heine: "...after the time previously considered appropriate, I, old fool, am happy to vacate my place in the world for young fools who make their own stupidities."
I would go one step further: Even a far above-average long life eventually turns from pleasure to burden. Under the umbrella term of longevity, dangerous half-knowledge about genetics and epigenetics is mixed with fragments of molecular biology, and this conglomerate of partial understanding is obscured behind a facade of incomprehensible terms with flowery verbal acrobatics.
All of this leads, among other things, to the dangerous distribution and uncontrolled intake of so-called dietary supplements. In itself a nice idea, which fortunately 98 percent of humanity does not need – with a reasonably balanced diet. For me, any form of semi-founded sensory perception, self-measurement, repetitive analysis without medical need is the beginning of the end.
A professional athlete or fighter jet pilot might know how to use this from a completely different perspective. For the professional athlete, an objective, scientifically based measurement and the resulting evaluation for training optimization is relevant. For the hobby athlete, it is more than sufficient to pay attention to the best diagnostic tool: their inner voice.
Examining blood without controlling it for a clear pathology falls under the category in medicine of 'who measures a lot, measures a lot of nonsense.' Let's leave clinical chemistry to those who need it, and sensory technology to those who benefit from it, such as diabetics.
Lying healthy in a full-body MRI helps some radiologists but can rob the healthy of their good sleep. The so-called full-body scans always carry the risk of completely irrelevant incidental findings that cause more unrest than they contain harm.
All those without a chronic need for medical diagnostics should consider themselves lucky to be guests on this planet, show gratitude towards life, and immediately stop wanting more out of greed and selfishness, artificially prolonging it. After all, it’s not about how many years are in life, but how much life is in the years.
I am indeed a great advocate of sensible analytics and the use of innovative technologies, but always in moderation and within the framework of justified indications. What does the clear-thinking, rational doctor — so me — advise? It is quite simple and is already in the Declaration of Independence of the USA: "Pursuit of happiness."
I'll put it a little further: Do what makes you happy. If you like to smoke, then don't let anything or anyone stop you. Imre von der Heydt wonderfully captured this in her book "Do you smoke? Defense of a passion."
If your passion is Bordeaux wines, drink them in the company of good friends and with the best food. In the second half of life, many end up in Burgundy, apparently also livable and socially more acceptable than another round of jogging.
In any case, everything is better than dedicating oneself to biohacking — a nice neologism that underlies various definitions and thus brings more questionable aspects than foundations from a medical perspective. But wait, not everything at once — let's look forward to a new round of supposed self-optimization ...
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