45-year-old Bryan Johnson and his team of 30 doctors believe they can rejuvenate his body.
By Ashlee Vance
Bryan Johnson, a wealthy IT entrepreneur, works with more than 30 doctors and health experts who constantly monitor every function of his body. This team is led by 29-year-old regenerative medicine doctor Oliver Zolman, who is determined not only to stop the aging process, but also to return all of Johnson's organs to a youthful state.
Zolman and Johnson read the scientific literature on aging and longevity and use Johnson as a guinea pig to test the most promising treatments. The creation and launch of this program (including the installation of a medical office at Bryan Johnson's home) required a multi-million dollar investment. Johnson wants his brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, tendons, teeth, skin, hair, bladder, penis and rectum to be like an 18-year-old.
For more than a year, Johnson, Zolman and the team have been working on the so-called " Project Blueprint " . The program includes Johnson's strict guidelines for diet (1,977 vegan calories per day), exercise (an hour a day, and high-intensity training three times a week) and sleep (same time every night, two hours after blue, light-blocking glasses, carrying). In order to optimize this program, Johnson constantly monitors the indicators of his body. Each month, he performs a series of medical procedures that can be extreme and painful, then measures their results with additional blood tests, MRIs, ultrasounds and colonoscopies. Jeff Toll, one of the members of the medical team, observes - "I treat athletes and Hollywood celebrities, and no one tries to expand the boundaries of possibilities as much as Bryan." All the work, according to doctors, began to bear fruit: Johnson's body - medically rejuvenated.
There are several obvious signs that Johnson is at least healthier than most 45-year-olds. Bryan is extremely muscular, his body fat ranges from 5% to 6% , and his muscles and veins are clearly visible. But his doctors are most interested in what is happening in his body. They say Bryan's tests show his total biological age has dropped by at least five years. The results show he has the heart of a 37-year-old, the skin of a 28-year-old and the lung capacity and fitness of an 18-year-old. "All the readings we're looking at have improved tremendously," says Toll.
Zolman, who received his medical degree from King's College London, is more reserved. He points out that his work with Johnson is just beginning, and they have hundreds of treatments left to study, including many experimental gene therapies. "We haven't had any outstanding results," he says. "We achieved small, reasonable results that we expected."
But Johnson thinks success is just around the corner. Although he is not the first programmer to "cycle" into a healthier life, Bryan is aiming for an ultra version of what the tech world calls the 'quantified-self' movement. For the past decade, in Silicon Valley, the idea of optimizing your body has been understood as occasional exercise or fad diets like intermittent fasting or Soylent, food alternatives. Johnson's insight is that you need to count a lot more than steps to get a clear picture of what's best for your body. "What I'm doing may sound extreme, but I'm just trying to prove that self-harm and self-destruction can be prevented," Johnson says. While conveying the lessons of his unconventional lifestyle, he also believes in the success of a specific strategy: turning this whole process into a game.
In his 30s, Johnson created the payment processing company Braintree Payment Solutions LLC . The business was a huge success, but the long hours and stress led him to depression and obesity. in 2013 Bryan sold his business to EBay Inc. for $800 million and began a long road to self-discovery. An unexpected hook for biology led Bryan to found OS Fund , a biotech-focused investment firm , and later, in 2016, a company called Kernel , which makes helmets that analyze brain activity. Researchers are currently using the helmets to measure the effects of meditation and hallucinogens and find ways to reduce chronic pain. It was during this time that Johnson began experimenting with his body: changing his diet, taking a number of supplements, or occasionally injecting stem cells.
Johnson argues that people don't have the information they need to live a healthy life—that being able to see their data in black and white can help people break destructive habits. Many leave a healthy lifestyle in the hands of the will. However, forcing yourself to follow this program ( Blueprint) and thus eliminate late dinners and parties (pizza, alcohol, etc.) allows you to perform various tests to make sure that it works, that you are treating your body the best it can.
Zolman, several decades younger than Johnson, also experienced a medical wake-up call . In 2012, during his first year of study in London, Zolman injured his back playing basketball. Because of this injury, he struggled to walk for a year and sometimes had to use a wheelchair. Doctors couldn't fix the situation, so Zolamn began gathering information and creating a physical therapy program himself. This program included a deep tissue massage for the legs, calves, lower back, and abdomen. "As soon as I did that," he says, "boom, and I could walk."
Although this story may sound like a good sales tactic, Zolman in 2019 graduated from medical studies with honors and since then has not stopped analyzing various clinical studies that could help to live as healthy and long as possible.
Zolman believes that advances in longevity require a more coordinated approach to promising drugs and therapies. He believes that there must be better results at the fringes of medical science than what we currently see. In 2021, he founded the company 20one Consulting Ltd. "My goal by 2030 - with the help of biostatistics, to prove that it is possible to reduce the aging of all 78 organs by 25%", he says and understands that "this is an extremely complicated and crazy idea".
For beginners, its treatment focuses on the basics - improving nutrition and physical activity. The more expensive programs, which cost $1,000 an hour, include a lot of testing, therapies and health devices (if the client doesn't see results, Zolman doesn't charge). But Johnson is the only client who takes rejuvenation so seriously.
Zolman spends most of his time reading scientific papers and summarizing their findings in a way that Johnson can test. "There is no person in the world who is chronologically 45 years old and his organs are 35 years old," says Zolman. "If we can demonstrate clinically and statistically that Bryan achieved these results, it will demonstrate the success and effectiveness of the intervention beyond what is genetically possible."
To determine such progress, Zolman monitors 10 or more different indicators for each patient's organ. With the brain, for example, he uses a variety of MRIs and ultrasounds to monitor blood flow, tissue volume, scarring, swelling, and plaque growth in the brain, ventricles, midbrain, pituitary gland, and brainstem. Zolman supplements this data with various tests measuring cognitive abilities and conducting blood tests.
Although Zolman is optimistic about his program, he admits that it will take years to find out if his goals and methods are correct and how well the program works.
Johnson starts at 5 a.m. every morning. taking two dozen different supplements and medications. Lycopene for arterial and skin health; metformin for the prevention of intestinal polyps; turmeric, black pepper and ginger root to reduce liver enzymes and inflammation; zinc for supplementing vegan nutrition; and a microdose of lithium for brain health. Then there's an hour-long workout that includes 25 different exercises and a green juice loaded with creatine , cocoa flavanols, collagen peptides, and other goodies. Throughout the day, he eats extremely healthy food, the recipes of which are refined according to the results of his latest research. After eating, Johnson brushes her teeth, between her teeth, and rinses her mouth with tea tree oil and applies an antioxidant gel. His doctors say Johnson's gums are like those of a 17-year-old.
Every part of Johnson's body has a set regimen and metrics to track. He has 33,537 pictures of his poo and discovered that his eyelashes are shorter than average, and he had the thickness of his carotid artery examined. He works his pelvic floor with electromagnetic pulses to improve muscle tone in hard-to-reach areas, and has a device that counts the number of his nightly erections. In this area, he also functions as a teenager.
It measures your weight, body mass index, and body fat daily, and monitors your temperature, blood glucose, heart rate fluctuations, and oxygen levels during sleep. Johnson also undergoes regular blood, stool and urine tests, as well as full-body MRIs and ultrasounds; kidney, prostate, thyroid and nervous system examinations are performed regularly.
To repair the sun damage to his skin, Johnson applies seven creams a day, has weekly acid peels and laser therapy, and has been hiding from the sun ever since. To improve the hearing in his left ear (which was damaged by childhood hunting), he undergoes sound therapy, which tests the frequency limits of his hearing and emits sounds that stimulate his ear and brain cells. Interestingly, he rejected many of the internet's favorite health trends, including resveratrol, ice baths and high doses of testosterone.
The doctors on his team help with all scans and tests, analyze the results and advise what is safe and what might be dangerous. At one point, Johnson's body fat dropped to 3%, which began to threaten his heart. The team recommended adjusting his diet, including eating habits - eating more during the day and not consuming all the calories at breakfast.
While the reporter was visiting Johnson, he prepared his usual dinner. Nut Pudding , which consisted of almond milk, macadamia nuts, walnuts, flax seeds, half a Brazil nut, sunflower lecithin, cinnamon, cherries, blueberries, raspberries and pomegranate juice, was very tasty. However, the journalist had to taste a pile of vegetables , which were mashed into a gray-brown mass. It consisted of black lentils, broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, garlic, ginger root, lime, cumin, apple cider vinegar, hemp seeds and olive oil. All of these ingredients might sound great on their own, but when they were mixed and mashed together, it felt like you were eating thick mud paste.
For dessert, they had chocolate, but not just any kind. " The Blueprint has many levels," Johnson said. "You can say, 'Chocolate is good.'" Then the next level would be, 'Dark chocolate is better.' And then there's the Dutching process, where the chocolate is alkalized to remove the bitterness, and it destroys most of the value. So, you need dark chocolate that is not processed in this way (dutching) and that has been tested for heavy metals. Then you need chocolate from the regions of the world with the highest concentration of polyphenols (which is what you need most). If you don't delve into all five of these levels, you'll get very little benefit from chocolate.
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Johnson receives a lot of criticism from people who accuse him of eating or psychological disorders or living the most boring and restrictive way. Doctors interviewed by Johnson's team say he is making a breakthrough in longevity and will likely extend his life, but even they question whether the findings will apply to the majority of people.
"I think what he's doing is amazing, and he's pushing me to be better," says interventional oncologist Kristin Dittmar. "What he does is basically a full-time job." She also points out that cancer has a genetic component that even the most advanced science cannot yet overcome, let alone juices or creams.
Johnson believes one way to communicate his insights to others is through radical transparency. He has a website where he publishes the entire treatment program and all the research results. And now he is starting another project - the Youth Olympic Games , which encourages like-minded people to join. The idea is to choose medical science and data over short-term trends and add some competition. The more popular this lifestyle becomes, the cheaper and more accessible the procedures Johnson is testing will become.
To give you an idea of how many people are interested in this topic, the company TruDiagnostic LLC offers a blood test that tries to measure the rate at which a person ages by assessing whether various genes are active at hundreds of thousands of points in their genetic code. Of the roughly 20,000 people who took the test in the last three years it was on the market, about 1,750 repeated it to track their anti-aging efforts. The company claims that it is Johnson who has reduced his biological age the most in this group.
To most people, Johnson's lifestyle seems impossible or absurd. Some scientists and health enthusiasts familiar with Johnson's program express displeasure at the promotion of supplements and vitamins that they believe are not beneficial.
Still, some of the most respected experts in longevity and aging say the idea of an open forum on the topic is inevitable. "The whole area of longevity is moving into a much more rigorous, clinical space," says George Church, a prominent geneticist at Harvard University who owns stakes in many biotech companies. "I think what Bryan is doing is very well-intentioned and will probably be very important." He adds, "I also think that when the dust settles , a lot of these studies won't be that expensive."
Johnson is not talking about it yet, but according to several of his doctors and advisors, he is scheduled to undergo many more experimental procedures, including gene therapy. One way or another, he dedicated his body to science in hopes of proving what was possible to the rest of us. "This is where all the beauty is hidden," he says. "This is new, uncharted territory full of potential."