Kayla Barnes, a 33-year-old wellness CEO based mostly in Cleveland, was keen to select up her date from the airport one spring night final 12 months. It could be the primary time she would meet Warren Lentz, who lived in Los Angeles, in individual, and the following step in a month-long burgeoning relationship that included numerous FaceTimes, texts—and, most notably, an in depth change of non-public well being info.
After assembly Warren on Raya, a non-public, membership-based relationship app, and earlier than their first date, Kayla requested his well being labs—together with a intestine well being check and a complete toxin check, measuring ranges of heavy metals and environmental toxins within the physique, plus a slew of different assessments, of nutrient ranges, irritation, and a spread of biomarkers. Warren dutifully had all of them carried out by a neighborhood California clinic with out hesitance. And Kayla knew, nevertheless unromantic, that each his compliance and his outcomes would present greater than another relationship compatibility check or abnormal deal-breaker query ever may.
“He did all of them without question,” she tells Fortune. And good factor, she provides, explaining that it was essential to have a accomplice who appreciated and inspired her strict life-style—and admitting it might “never work” to have a person who got here dwelling, drank beer, ate chips, and watched TV.
“Health outcomes are so much better when we have a great support system around us,” she says. Fortunately, his labs seemed good, with some room for enchancment to strengthen and optimize his intestine well being, she says. Most significantly, he was additionally desirous to see the outcomes and to get more healthy along with her.
He handed different exams, too—together with Kayla asking her suitor if he frequented L.A.’s elite natural meals retailer Erewhon (he did), in addition to shortly stalking his Instagram to verify he was following an satisfactory variety of well being influencers (he was).
“I had never had anyone ask me for my health labs in the context of dating,” says Warren, 36, the chief income officer at a advertising company and former founding father of a expertise company for Gen Z influencers. “But I liked how she was confident about the fact that that was important to her.”
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Kayla has at all times chased perfection. As a child, she labored to hone her gymnastics abilities; as a younger grownup, to review diet and obtain a mind coach certification from Dr. Daniel Amen, a neuroscientist identified for giving rich public figures mind scans.
And now, as an entrepreneur, it’s a part of her job: She’s host of the Longevity Optimization podcast and co-owner of LYV the Wellness Area, an as much as $1,000-a-month membership precision well being and longevity clinic headquartered in Cleveland, the place novel know-how and well being trackers aren’t solely inside attain, however profession necessities.“I always had super high ambitions for myself, and I just wanted to become the absolute best version of myself,” she explains.
Right here’s only a glimpse of how she goals for that now: strict 8:30 bedtimes, set meal occasions of solely natural meals with by no means a drop of alcohol, morning energy classes, weekly physique composition measurements, chilly remedy, purple mild remedy, sleep monitoring, grip energy exams, strolling conferences, routine blood and toxin exams, and quarterly stem cell therapies for preventative functions.
She admits her life-style and values aren’t in the least relatable. However whereas some might name her a well being nut or health fanatic, in immediately’s lexicon, Kayla is the epitome of the fashionable biohacker: somebody with a pure dedication to experimenting and optimizing well being through the use of knowledge, know-how, and life-style interventions. Within the age of longevity, the place extra persons are desirous to spend within the title of dwelling longer, we’re conversant in many novel biohacking life-style selections. However there’s a brand new frontier we’ve but to listen to about: the biohacking relationship market.
Kayla says she trusts the science of protocols like stem cell therapies to sluggish ageing, particularly as a result of she’s interviewed so many within the area on her podcast. Nonetheless, she acknowledges that that is her private protocol and doesn’t take into account herself a well being supplier for the broader public, regardless of co-owning a long life clinic.
However naturally, she yearned for a accomplice who does greater than put money into a high-end fitness center membership, gulp down a inexperienced smoothie, and attempt to eat natural. Discovering an acceptable biohacking mate, she realized, would show to be a complete completely different feat.
However then got here Warren, who ignited Kayla’s craving for connection and her want to have a accomplice who would slot in along with her life-style.
An atypical first date
Following their first encounter on the Cleveland airport and a stroll, Kayla confirmed Warren her dwelling, the place it was laborious to overlook the quite a few “health robots,” as Warren nicknamed them, distributed all through. A $7,000 sauna shared her bed room, together with a $2,500 Faraday cage to guard in opposition to electromagnetic pulse, a $45,000 PEMF to scale back muscle fatigue after train, and $2,000 purple mild panels on the again door of her closet to scale back pores and skin ageing (in line with the Cleveland Clinic, whereas small research present promise in low-level red-light remedy, longer-term analysis is required to name it a viable remedy for treating the pores and skin).
“Being healthy as a lifestyle not as a burden was definitely at the forefront of her life,” Warren recollects about observing her cupboards, which resemble pharmacies moderately than houses for boxed pasta and paprika.
“I knew right away he was gonna be in or out because probably not every day that you go to meet someone you’re dating do you open up the fridge and see syringes [full of peptides to reduce skin aging],” Kayla says.
On the primary assembly, Kayla additionally gave a tour of her longevity clinic and the pièce de resistance of the date: an hour-long session for 2 in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber—a therapeutic tube for the physique initially meant to deal with folks with carbon dioxide poisoning and to extend oxygen in scuba divers after strain adjustments, in line with the FDA. And there, albeit not throughout from one another at a candle-lit dinner, the 2 had on a regular basis first-date conversations, referring to their pursuits and life-style values, all whereas enclosed in a Again-to-the-Future-esque tube.
Their chemistry was evident to each.
“We were pretty intentional, which I loved,” says Warren, who was health-conscious already at that time, albeit to not Kayla’s stage. “If other people heard [about the date], it might not sound super romantic, but it was so exciting to us. It was what we had been waiting for.”
Kayla Barnes-Lentz
A fast however necessary notice about biohacking
Whereas the $27 billion longevity market is embraced by many, its particular practices aren’t at all times scientifically backed, FDA-approved or physician-recommended—a proven fact that Kayla and Warren perceive and are snug with, however which newcomers may need to parse out on their very own.
Nonetheless, the trade has amassed a cohort of loyal followers, from Silicon Valley’s Bryan Johnson to researcher David Sinclair and entrepreneur Peter Diamandis. Ladies like Kayla are additionally main the best way in taking preventative measures for his or her well being to dwell longer, more healthy lives. And inside that dialog, the necessity for social connection is seldom talked about—regardless of robust proof that it’s the energy of our interpersonal relationships that almost all typically predicts our happiness, and which in flip prevents stress, anxiousness, and melancholy, all accelerants to ageing.
Biohacker Marriage ceremony Bells
After simply three months of relationship, Kayla and Warren acquired engaged whereas long-distance within the mid-point of Austin, Texas—though she jokes, she would have beloved it to be at their go-to date spot of Erewhon.
Courtesy of Kayla Barnes
On the wedding ceremony lower than six months later—an affair the place 150 friends loved bone broth, natural grass-fed, grass-finished meat, and an natural keto cake—the hitched Lentz and Barnes-Lentz sported matching Ranges Dexcom steady glucose displays, seen on every of their arms.
They now dwell collectively in L.A., and disclosed they make seven figures, making it attainable to spend within the low six figures on their longevity protocol. Whereas she is aware of her protocol isn’t accessible to the plenty, Kayla admits that no-cost life-style adjustments are an important in making folks more healthy and in addition hopes to affect folks to make a fraction of the adjustments she makes. Since transferring in collectively final 12 months, Warren has adopted Kayla’s lead in consuming a purely natural food regimen, going to mattress by 8:30, and limiting all so-called responsible pleasures allowed with the famend 80-20 rule, an age-old precept that champions being disciplined 80% of the time and giving your self wiggle room the opposite 20%.
Kayla Barnes-Lentz
Earlier than assembly Kayla, Warren would keep up previous midnight and indulge within the occasional ice-cold Weight-reduction plan Coke or Dr. Pepper, although he admits it was a trait she hated, prompting him to provide it up.
“It is probably one of the hardest things, sadly, that I did or had or had to do for the betterment of us as a couple. But man, a Diet Dr. Pepper,” he says, seemingly dreaming of 1 nonetheless. “Kayla is all in, 10 out of 10 the healthiest person I have ever met,” he says, admitting that “doing longevity as a couple is unique because there’s always going to be one person who might be pushing harder than the other.”
That’s Kayla, in fact—one thing Warren says makes him a fortunate man. Now, he calls his spouse the “chief health officer” of their household. For instance, Kayla has reduce out microplastics, refusing to drink from a plastic cup, although Warren nonetheless makes use of them often.
It’s a nickname welcomed by Kayla, who admits, “I knew that it was going to take someone really unique to fit everything that I was looking for,” she says. “But being married has been one of the biggest biohacks I’ve ever done.”
Masha Maltsava
Being married has been one of many largest biohacks I’ve ever executed
Kayla Barnes-Lentz
A lot as they assess their bodily and psychological well being, the biohackers have a month-to-month marriage optimization assembly to make sure their partnership is optimized, too. “It’s created a space for her to tell me, ‘Hey, when you eat past 8 p.m., that doesn’t make me frustrated or act out of the blue, but it makes me sad because I want you to be your best.’” Additionally they make area to go with one another, and each agree it strengthens their emotional bond.
FOMO? By no means heard of it
After all, the duo has to forgo social plans if they’re too late into the night and intrude with their bedtimes. And no, they inform Fortune they don’t have FOMO, primarily as a result of they’ve one another. The sport they’re enjoying is just too enjoyable, and so they wind down their nights by studying or watching a present on the sofa.
Nonetheless, they attempt to make some social plans work by leaving them early, consuming earlier than a cocktail party, or providing an alternate. “I’m becoming someone like Kayla who doesn’t get joy out of eating food that’s not organic or grass-fed finished,” Warren says. “I’d rather have sparkling water with some lemon than a cocktail,” he says, including his household is curious but accepting of their life-style.
On the wedding ceremony, Warren’s sister paid homage to the distinctive pairing. “His sister said I was the most ‘unrelatable person,’ but I loved it. It was the best,” she says. Now, Warren’s relations all come to Kayla’s clinic to get their very own exams.
Masha Maltsava
With biohacking collectively comes the truth that, if all holds up nicely and the protocols work, the 2 may spend way more time collectively than the common married couple—maybe one other half century until demise do them half. “I don’t know to the extent we could push 200, but I think it’s a really exciting time to be alive right now,” Warren says. “We are in it for the long haul.”
Regardless of preliminary changes, Warren says adhering to this strict routine was a “no-brainer” and has helped him really feel more healthy—all within the title of affection.
“I’m definitely all in,” he says. “Very few people go the extra mile to get a perfect score, and that’s what she’s been doing.”
Since assembly Kayla, he shares, his testosterone, the intercourse hormone accountable for libido and sperm manufacturing, has gone up 200 factors (a wholesome vary is from 300 to 1,000 nanograms per deciliter), and he has not craved sugar fixes like he used to.
Says Kayla, “I want to live as long as my husband does, so that means that I need to prioritize doing everything in my power with all my resources, access, and knowledge to optimize his health. For an optimal marriage, we both have to be running at the same speed.”
The couple is making ready to financial institution their stem cells for rejuvenation down the highway, for once they get sick and for emergencies, all of which Kayla plans to submit about on her private web site and social media accounts.
“We’ll continue to look at biomarkers to see what is improving, and that’s kind of the whole name of this game,” she says.
And with that, the couple hopes to introduce a brood to their abode—5 to seven kids, to be actual, whom Kayla hopes shall be biohackers, too. “I’m excited that we are going to be able to have the healthiest children ever,” she says, noting that a part of the plan consists of investing in a biohacking dwelling exterior of the town. There, whereas curating a wholesome life-style for her kids, she plans to steadiness the next: “How hard do we push into [health optimization], and how hard do we let them find their own path?”
For Warren’s half, he says that Kayla pushes him in the precise route—and will seamlessly accomplish that for his or her children, too. “This is someone who would obviously not just be an amazing wife,” he says, “but also an amazing mom.”