Dave Asprey

Dave Asprey (born 1973) is an American entrepreneur, author and advocate of a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet known as the Bulletproof diet, about which he has made claims criticized by dietitians as pseudoscientific. and in 2014, founded Bulletproof Nutrition Inc. Previously, Asprey held executive and director positions for technology companies including Trend Micro, Blue Coat Systems, and Citrix Systems.

Career

Asprey worked in the IT industry for companies that included Bradshaw and 3Com. He taught and ran the Internet and web engineering program at the UCSC Silicon Valley Extension, in which Asprey created one of the first working instances of cloud computing. Later, he joined Exodus Communications as director of strategic planning, where he co-founded the company's professional services group. and later, vice president of technology and corporate development at Blue Coat Systems. He then became an entrepreneur in residence at Trinity Ventures before co-founding a company called Basis. before he left to run his own business full time.

Bulletproof Asprey founded Bulletproof 360, Inc. in 2013 He initially started the Bulletproof brand after developing Bulletproof Coffee. He posted the recipe for the beverage and details on the health benefits he experienced on his website while still working for Trend Micro. The stated goal of Bulletproof Nutrition is to enhance human performance. It supports the Quantified Self movement as a way to empower individuals to understand and 'hack' their own health.

In 2014, Asprey authored The Bulletproof Diet, published by Rodale Books, and in 2015 opened a cafe in Santa Monica selling Bulletproof Coffee and high-fat foods. In July 2015, Asprey raised $9 million from Trinity Ventures to expand the company.

In July 2018, Bulletproof 360, Inc. reported raising more than $40 million in equity and debt financing, led by the food and beverage investment firm CAVU Venture Partners. Other investors in the round were Trinity Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank. In Sept, 2019, Bulletproof announced that Asprey had stepped down as CEO but would continue to focus on his role as executive chairman. In September 2021, Asprey announced franchising his new venture, Upgrade Labs.

Bulletproof diet

The Bulletproof diet developed and marketed by Asprey recommends eating foods high in fat, moderate in protein, and low in carbohydrates with a foundation being the consumption of Bulletproof Coffee, a brand of coffee made and marketed by Asprey. Asprey developed this recipe after traveling to Tibet and drinking yak-butter tea. He returned to the United States and experimented with buttered drink recipes and published the preparation for his buttered coffee drink on his blog in 2009. The Bulletproof diet promotes the consumption of grass-fed beef and butter and considers soy, wheat, canned vegetables and microwaved foods to be toxic, but fails to provide any evidence to support these claims. It also recommends incorporating intermittent fasting. Asprey warns coffee drinkers to avoid mold toxins such as ochratoxin in coffee. Asprey has no medical degree or nutritional training. Stephan Guyenet reviewing the book for Red Pen Reviews commented that although some of the Bulletproof diet's advice such as eating whole foods and avoiding processed foods is healthful, "much of the dietary advice presented in the book seems either based on a superficial understanding of nutritional science or a complete rejection of it."

Vox contributor Julia Belluz criticized the Bulletproof diet referring to it as "like a caricature of a bad fad-diet book". Belluz wrote particularly against claims that changing diet can reduce inflammation and lead to weight loss, saying Asprey ignored contradictory studies about the health benefits of certain foods, and inappropriately extrapolated studies on animals, very small groups of people, and people with specific diseases to the general human population.

Dietitian Lynn Weaver criticized the diet as being hard to follow and supported by only small studies that are "not generally part of the scientific literature used by medical and nutritional professionals".

Asprey has been accused of making false health claims about his vitamin products to prevent and treat COVID-19. In 2020, the Federal Trade Commission sent Asprey a warning letter telling him any "coronavirus-related prevention claims regarding such products are not supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence. You must immediately cease making all such claims".

In 2021, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent a warning letter to Asprey's company, Bulletproof 360, stating that its products were "not generally recognized as safe and effective” for the uses advertised.

Personal life

Asprey tried a vegan diet for six months in the early 2000s, but then returned to eating animal source foods. He has criticized veganism, stating that it can increase the risk of vitamin B12 deficiency and has suggested that it is "hard to get enough high-quality protein on a vegan diet". Asprey promotes the consumption of organic, grass-fed meat. Asprey believes biohacking has benefited his sexual health, having kept an ejaculation journal for a year.

Asprey met his wife, Lana Asprey, a physician, at an anti-aging conference, and they lived in Vancouver Island, Canada. He claimed that following the Bulletproof diet helped his wife with her polycystic ovary syndrome. In 2021, Asprey and Lana divorced, after which Asprey moved from his thirty-two–acre farm in Canada to Austin, Texas.

Asprey supported President Donald Trump's nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to United States secretary of health and human services (HHS). He expressed hope that Kennedy would remove FDA regulations, believing that doing so would lead to a "dawning of a new age of biohacking". He echoed Kennedy's distrust of research funded by "Big Pharma", stating, “I want the right to look at all the data, and I want the right to make the decision of what works for me.” Super Human: The Bulletproof Plan to Age Backward and Maybe Even Live Forever (2019), Fast This Way: Burn Fat, Heal Inflammation, and Eat Like the High-Performing Human You Were Meant to Be (2021), Smarter Not Harder: The Biohacker’s Guide to Getting the Body and Mind You Want (2023),