Bryan Johnson has encountered several obstacles along his costly expedition.
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A Silicon Valley entrepreneur has shared some of the adverse effects he faces due to his commitment to the pursuit of immortality.
Bryan Johnson has long been raising eyebrows with his intense lifestyle for the ultimate goal of ‘reversing aging’.
The entrepreneur - who is the focus of Netflix's Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever - was born 47 years ago but has taken a whole lot of steps to ensure that he looks younger and feels younger, but it isn’t without its issues.
Johnson claims that his mission has granted him the 'heart of a 37-year-old' and the 'lung capacity of an 18-year-old', though the journey has been far from simple.
In fact, his typical day sounds a lot more draining and painful than the average person.
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The biohacker has been open about the procedures he's undergone to reverse his age, including having his DNA 'edited', injecting himself with stem cells and exchanging blood with his son. So, you know he is serious about staying young forever.
But recently, writing on his Twitter page, Johnson said he was dropping rapamycin, a cancer drug that was shown to have some anti-aging effects in mice trials.
He explained that he had been taking it for years, but he and his team decided to drop the drug.
Johnson remarked, "Although pre-clinical trials show great promise, my team and I have concluded that the significant side effects of lifelong Rapamycin dosing outweigh its benefits."
He went on to say, “We observed intermittent infections in the skin and soft tissues, along with issues such as lipid abnormalities, elevated glucose levels, and a higher resting heart rate. After ruling out other possible causes, we suspected Rapamycin as the culprit. Given that adjusting the dosage didn’t yield any improvements, we made the decision to stop it completely.”
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To complicate things further, Johnson went so far as to claim that there is proof indicating it may actually accelerate the aging process. In other words, it's the exact contrary of what he aims to achieve.
He further mentioned: “Moreover, on October 27th, a recent pre-print [5] suggested that Rapamycin is among a select few proposed longevity interventions that may actually lead to an increase or acceleration of aging in humans as indicated by 16 different epigenetic aging clocks.”
“This evaluation represents a groundbreaking approach, as previous longevity interventions have primarily been assessed using one or two aging clocks. This narrow focus can introduce hidden biases and may allow for the selective use of more favorable clocks when evaluating the interventions.”
Johnson stated that further investigation is required on the subject, as the 'experimental compounds are continually changing'.
That being said, I believe I’ll embrace the process of aging naturally.
