A 47-year-old tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson is spending $2 million dollars each year trying to bio-hack ageing.
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00Remember when millionaires used to dream of getting richer, going to space or owning a
00:05new social media platform?
00:06Well, now they have a new obsession, and that is to never grow old.
00:10I am a modern-day explorer searching for the fountain of youth.
00:14This is the story of Brian Johnson, a tech entrepreneur from the US who spends $2 million
00:20a year in research, treatments and experiments to not age.
00:24No one in the history of the human race has tried to take every organ of their body and
00:30try to slow the speed of aging and reverse it.
00:33Never been done by anyone ever, the first time ever.
00:36And you know what?
00:37It's really, really hard.
00:44Many billionaires and entrepreneurs have been investing in longevity research for a long
00:48time.
00:49But what is different about Johnson is that not only is he investing in his research,
00:54but he's also his own guinea pig.
00:56My team and I set out to ask the question, what is possible right now with slowing our
01:02speed of aging and reversing it?
01:03So can humans really turn back time?
01:06But before that, let's go back to Brian Johnson and see where he came from.
01:09He got a BA in international studies and then an MBA and threw himself into the world of
01:14entrepreneurship.
01:15First, he founded a voice call company similar to Skype called Inquist, which later shut
01:20down.
01:21He tried his hands in real estate, which also failed, but it was in 2007 that he finally
01:26struck gold.
01:27He created Braintree, which was a credit card processing platform.
01:31Braintree acquired Venmo, which was also doing something similar.
01:35And in 2013, he sold the two collective companies to PayPal for $800 million.
01:40Now, while he was on this all time high, he was also going through personal issues.
01:45He went through a rough divorce and said he had put on a lot of weight.
01:49By this time, he'd also left his mom in church and said he went through depression.
01:53He said it was time for a big change.
01:56And eight years later, he announced a new project, Blueprint.
01:59Now, the goal of Blueprint was to use advanced technology, extensive tracking of the body,
02:04health treatments and experiments to see how he could prolong his lifespan.
02:09But like Johnson's t-shirt suggests, the ultimate goal of this project was to never die.
02:14So how did he do it?
02:15First, he brought on a team of 30 doctors, including anti-aging experts, that monitored
02:20his heart, his lungs, his kidneys, his brain and sexual health.
02:25He took a stool sample every day and slept connected to computers.
02:29Doctors took thousands of pictures of the inside of his body.
02:32And Johnson says he's the most measured human on earth.
02:36As far as I know, I'm the only person that has publicly posted my data.
02:41So I'm not saying here's my protocol and believe me, I'm saying here's my protocol.
02:45Here's all my data.
02:47And here's what I'm experimenting with next.
02:49Now, with all this data that they collected, they designed an algorithm that would completely
02:54dictate his life.
02:55We're going to quickly close the door.
02:57I maintain air quality inside the house to a pristine level.
03:02And in Los Angeles, air quality is sometimes compromised.
03:05I measure air quality inside and outside, so I always know.
03:09So we don't leave the door open if we go in and out.
03:12Unlike influencers, his day didn't start with a glass of warm water and lemon, but it went
03:17something like this.
03:18The first thing I'm going to do is use this Braun thermal scan device.
03:22I measure my inner air temperature every day.
03:24Through this, I'll flip on this UV light, just get a few minutes of exposure.
03:28I wake up normally when it's dark outside and so I can't see the sun.
03:32And so in place of the sun, I'll use this device.
03:36It helps set circadian rhythm, it improves sleep.
03:40Not just that, he checked his weight, did skin therapy, meditation, workouts.
03:44He also took 80 different pills a day that contained supplements to improve his health.
03:49These are all the supplements I take and they're alphabetized and there's a year supply of each one.
03:55He ate a diet with a strict amount of calories and ate all of his meals within a six hour window.
04:00Now, there was a scientific study done by Harvard where when older rats were given blood
04:05transfusions by younger rats, they were rejuvenated.
04:09So what did Johnson do?
04:10He got his 17-year-old son to donate his plasma to his father.
04:16That's me in the back.
04:18That's a nice look at that.
04:19I created this human.
04:21He's now almost 18 years old.
04:24We're now doing this together.
04:26I never imagined in my entire life this kind of relationship with my child.
04:31Thanks for the plasma.
04:32No worries.
04:33He didn't stop there.
04:34He donated one litre of his plasma to his father.
04:43Get out of here.
04:43Let's give you a hug.
04:44Get out of there.
04:45I don't want to ruin your needle.
04:46His father's biomarker test revealed that he was now aging like a 46-year-old as compared
04:52to a 70-year-old.
04:53But he clarified that he wasn't sure if this was a result of the transfusions or all the
04:58other stuff that they had been doing.
05:00Now, the US Food and Drug Administration had run their own tests previously and concluded
05:05that there was no clinical evidence that this kind of transfusion between older and younger
05:10people had any anti-aging benefits.
05:12This was the same conclusion that Johnson also drew from his experiment.
05:16People who support Johnson believe that all these treatments and experiments that he's
05:21doing is going to ultimately benefit humanity as a whole.
05:25However, longevity isn't just about eating well or following an exercise routine.
05:30In Okinawa, Japan, 40% of the population has a chance of living up to 100 years old.
05:36And it's safe to say that they weren't spending $2 million a year like Johnson.
05:40It's because longevity is also heavily linked to genetics.
05:44Health experts say that the treatments and regimens that Johnson follows is actually
05:48backed by known science, but doing all that could only help up to a certain extent.
05:54In fact, some doctors were completely against taking so many supplements a day and said
05:58it could cause other bad consequences.
06:01So what about other risk factors?
06:11This process of giving up a social life and being in bed before 8.30pm hasn't been easy
06:17for Johnson either.
06:19In fact, he told Time Magazine that his love life was on a pause because women hated that
06:24he had such a strict lifestyle.
06:26In November 2023, he announced that he underwent electric shock treatments to his penis to
06:32improve his sexual performance to be like that of an 18-year-old.
06:36It's been two years since Blueprint started.
06:39So let's talk about the results of the project.
06:41Was he successful in reversing or stopping the aging process?
06:45His website displays a long list of health improvements.
06:48According to him, he has found success in some areas.
06:51He now has the skin of a 28-year-old, the lung capacity and fitness of an 18-year-old.
06:57He says his left ear is 64 years old and he had a heart of a 37-year-old.
07:21What do you think about this story?
07:26Do you believe that not aging is the future of humanity?