BRYAN JOHNSON ISN’T ready to say that aging is inevitable. At age 45, the successful technology leader is already spending a large amount of money—$2 million per year and growing—to try and change his body’s age number. And now, he’s doing something new: infusing himself with his teenage son Talmage’s blood and plasma.
Johnson’s de-aging story first surfaced in an in-depth Bloomberg article, which highlighted how Johnson partnered with more than 30 health professionals and spent over $2 million to track every aspect of his health and wellness, all with the goal—as he told Bloomberg—of having “the brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, tendons, teeth, skin, hair, bladder, penis, and rectum of an 18-year-old.”
Johnson dubbed this age reversal attempt Project Blueprint, and it infuses every aspect of his life—from a strict 1,977-calorie daily vegan diet, to an exacting exercise routine, to a regimented sleep schedule. It also involves tracking his body relentlessly via MRIs, ultrasounds, and more invasive measures like blood tests and colonoscopies.
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The next step, apparently, is taking blood and plasma from his son. As NDTV highlights, Bryan joins with his son and his father, Richard, to mine the value from the youngest son’s plasma, red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets.
Using experiments on mice as the roadmap—without a hard scientific evidence that any rodent results will transfer to humans—Talmage is first drained of a liter of blood. Then a liter is pulled from Bryan, who replaces his liter with Talmage’s. Finally, Richard changes out his liter with Bryan’s. Talmage, though, doesn’t get replacement blood, and is forced to replenish his own reserves naturally.
Bryan Johnson believes that exchanging his own blood for that of a younger person can help rejuvenate and strengthen the body and various organs. Experts disagree.
“We have not learned enough to suggest this is a viable human treatment for anything,” Charles Brenner, a biochemist at City of Hope National Medical Center, tells NDTV regarding what was gleaned from the rodent trials. “To me, it’s gross, evidence-free and relatively dangerous.”
Johnson and his extensive medical team, however, seem to disagree. They are forging ahead with the treatment, all with the goal of staving off any diseases or degradations that are part of aging. Bryan says he’ll publish results of the plasma switch-out, hoping to prove naysayers wrong.
Those who disagree with him aren’t hard to find. “The people going into these clinics who want anti-aging infusions basically have an anxiety problem,” Brenner tells NDTV. “They have an anxiety problem about their mortality.”
Tim Newcomb is a journalist based in the Pacific Northwest. He covers stadiums, sneakers, gear, infrastructure, and more for a variety of publications, including Popular Mechanics. His favorite interviews have included sit-downs with Roger Federer in Switzerland, Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles, and Tinker Hatfield in Portland.
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