>It seems that he is spending a lot of his time & effort on maintaining his hair (huge kudos for admitting that!). If his body was functioning like an 18-year old he should not need to do that. If Bryan really set back his true aging clock he probably would not be battling with ongoing hair loss (as he most likely did not battle hair loss 20 years prior), or at least it would stop (which does not seem to be the case).
Androgenetic hair loss (what Johnson has and what the medications he takes are designed to treat) is caused by genetic sensitivity to DHT and DHT levels in the body, not aging. People who don't have the genetic predisposition to AGA or who have very low DHT levels can often make it to 60+ with no visible hair loss. It's not like they're "not aging," they just don't have the combination of genes and DHT levels needed for significant hair loss to occur.
Biological aging is a fuzzy concept that we define relative to various social constructs and other objective markers compared to the general population.
I don't see much issue with its usage in this context.
I saw Bryan recently on a Magnus Midtbo episode on YouTube. In that they discussed that his body fat had been extremely low, and he had gone up to around 10% subsequently on medical advice, i.e. that his body fat had previously reduced to unhealthy levels. 10% is low, but it's not what he looks like in the photos on this article, and it should be sustainable long term with some effort. He says on his website under his current protocol that he eats 2,250 calories a day (10% deficit from RDA), which doesn't sound crazy to me. I mean, it's not what normal people do but he's not doing what normal people do by definition, and at least what he's eating doesn't seem out into crazy unhealthy territory to me.
He definitely came across as a little eccentric in the video, but very enthusiastic about the project, I found it pretty charming and would definitely find it pretty interesting to chat to him I think.
I bounced off 3% body fat (also measured by a DEXA scan) back when I was cycling competitively. This was surprisingly easy to achieve with high volume structured training and a food plan. Coach advised me to only remain so lean for target races. Coach was right, my immune system was weak and my mood was terrible until it got back up to 8%. Good racing results though.
I can’t imagine bothering with any of that if I didn’t have something I wanted to win.
I was so fit in my 30's, I measured a heart rate of like 38 sitting in a work meeting.
I could amuse nurses in an emergency room by clipping my finger into the machine, instead of the patient I was with, to set off the alarms with the low numbers.
One time I came in with some severe stomach flu. I was lying on my back and the nurse said to another, "Come here! Look this guy is so thin, you can see his heart beating in his abodomen. (Due to the aorta passing through there, and the heart behind it being massive.)"
When your HR is low, you can get pretty dizzy if you stand up at the wrong moment between pumps.
When I was training to run a leg of a marathon relay a few years ago, my resting heart rate dropped a lot. One time I mentioned my overnight HR of 38 to my wife, a doctor. Next thing you know, I’m in a different doctor’s office being fitted for a Holter monitor. Everything was fine. Turned out my heart was just in great shape.
The doc said that they’re more aware of low HRs now because so many people are wearing 24/7 heart monitors, aka smart watches. Numbers that use to be taken as signs of “holy crap, something bad’s happening” are sometimes more like “huh, guess the normal range is wider than we thought”.
But for anyone reading who has a fast or slow heart rate: let your doctor be the judge of that, OK? Lots of the time it is something wrong, and you don’t want to dawdle on that one.
there’s a famous story about Wayne Gretzky’s (170 lb weight, 140 lb max bench) recuperative abilities being so powerful that the Oilers’ trainers thought the testing machine was broken.
I strength train two or three times a week and my heart rate last night was 42. I think a low heart rate is at least partly genetic. Definitely agree about the dizziness.
Informative article! I did have a question about this passage though.
"It seems that he is spending a lot of his time & effort on maintaining his hair (huge kudos for admitting that!). If his body was functioning like an 18-year old he should not need to do that. If Bryan really set back his true aging clock he probably would not be battling with ongoing hair loss (as he most likely did not battle hair loss 20 years prior), or at least it would stop (which does not seem to be the case)."
Is this true? I suppose it's a question of what one defines as aging but I thought male pattern baldness resulted from hair follicles physically shrinking in response to exposure to androgens. That's a very different process than an accumulation of senescent / poorly differentiated cells, which is what I have always heard described as the key hallmark of aging
It seems a bit.. abrasive and brash to label this an eating disorder, no?
As a doctor and technical founder/CEO myself, I really like patients who are into their own health and fitness, obviously this guy has the means and resources to take it to an extreme, but I think the lesson he wants to impart is that there are benefits to investing in your own health, the same as people invest in self-tooling such as expensive Macbooks/Mac studios, running shoes, and much more.
The whole world would see such titan sized improvements in GDP along with personal lives. Men and women would be happier if everyone strove to be fit, "younger" (with respect to wellness and fitness) and in better shape, not to mention that would translate to very real economic benefit in every country.
I like this reasoning. When evaluating if an individual has an eating disorder it is vital that the physician doing the evaluation spend the requisite time imagining various scenarios relating to the gross domestic product of the country they are in, or the earth as a whole
Given where his body fat and his core body temperature is these days, let's withhold judgment a bit before we crow about "titan sized improvements in GDP".
He's running an n=1 experiment well out of established parameters, and the outcome is far from guaranteed.
I don’t think you understand how down the rabbit hole this guy goes.
> Bryan Johnson’s supplements list includes more than 100 compounds taken as powders, tablets, and capsules, designed to support different aspects of his health.
This is an insane thing to do and I have delved deeply into supplements myself and it is stunning how hard it is to find evidence that any of them do anything beneficial long term.
This matches me own experience and daily diary of trying things, rating how I feel, bloodwork, etc. The only thing I’ve ever found beneficial long term is testosterone, sunlight, and exercise.
Uh are you a psychiatrist because it doesn't sound like it? This definitely looks like it could meet DSM criteria as an eating disorder.
To the muggles out there, generally speaking non psychiatric doctors (and many older, out of date psych professionals for that matter) know about as much about modern psych diagnostic criteria as a potato.
> Also, in the interviews I have seen of him, his blinking frequency is quite high, presumably because he is so low in body fat that his lacrimal ducts cannot manufacture the lipid portion of tear fluid properly.
Bryan Johnson is one weird dude and I would bet against his regimen's effectiveness. But stuff like this is just silly and makes me doubt the rest of this post.
Feels like a bit more body fat would suit him a lot better. The lean look is fine if you're under 25, but at some point you have to admit that it's over.
> the way he looked while taking “TRT” looked nothing like a “testosterone replacement dose” but rather like a (mild?) steroid cycle
This seems to be common with TRT takers, who tend to have the physique (or some slightly strange-looking approxmation thereof) of a man 10 years younger. I guess it's not supposed to give you an abnormally high testosterone level, but you'll get that level consistently and reliably, regardless of mood or external events. Can't get that when you rely on your body to do it itself! It all adds up!
A TRT dose set based on the population average might also prove usefully higher than your body is tuned for too. And I expect you can just say that you're not feeling it, and they'll give you a bit more.
I will never understand how Bryan Johnson is helping anybody. Ok, if he lives longer then what? Do we all have to do what he does (impossible)? How is he contributing at all to science? He is a walking confounding variable. Even if he succeeds in living a long time, humanity won’t be able to take anything away from it.
Yep. There's nothing scientific about trying 1000 different treatments on yourself. You'll probably drive more interest in the field if you live to be 120 or something, but that's about it. Mostly reeks of ego, selfishness, and a fear of his own mortality.
Speaking as a healthcare worker, people in this country don't need a longer lifespan, they need a better quality of life. Most Americans become pretty sick by their 40s-50s due to lifestyle, diet, and lack of access to healthcare. You have hypertension and/or diabetes in your 30s, which progresses to chronic kidney disease in your 40s, and by your 50s you're spending half the week sitting in a chair getting dialysis. His wealth has made him so far removed from the reality of most people.
Is ~2200 calories a caloric deficit for Bryan Johnson's size and activity level? If you're not in caloric deficit you won't really feel bad if you're hitting macros.
If we’re discussing just that one data point, I don’t think so. I think it could be, but it could also be okay. One of the challenges is knowing what’s he is actually doing commensurate with what he says he’s doing.
His workout is really hard, it it’s not a lot of resistance training. He’s gotten good at it so it has the benefits that a hard workout would. When I did it for a week, I suffered but I couldn’t match the metabolic demands that my Olympic lifts oriented training workout entailed when I lift heavy.
I’m very strong but I eat between 2500-2700 kcals in my 50s and I lift heavy. I eat a bit more on big run days.
Given the length and nature of his gym routine, o don’t think his burn ratio is that high.
As for the rest.. his temps and sleep patterns, I couldn’t say. He says he sleeps well and there is data to support the observation that he had trouble sleeping. I can sleep 8-9 hours without waking up, and that is definitely correlated to my workout habits and my peace of mind.
Brian is interesting but we may have partial data from him that is out of sync with what we think his other practices are at the same point in time.
It's not what he's doing that bothers me. It's the desire to blast it out to everyone and be so public about his experiments with an air of scientific advice and authority. What he's doing is not science or scientific in the slightest. Just because you use scientific tests and devices and such doesn't mean you're doing science, or doing anyone (including yourself) any good.
It sends the message to people, if you're rich, you can make up your own rules. Well, life doesn't work that way as he is soon to find out. If there is one thing I have seen in my days of living on this earth is that life loves irony.
I appreciated reading the author's medical explanations of this guy's physical manifestations.
Hearing this guy receives tons of criticism seems wild to me. "Live forever or die trying" isn't exactly a rare posture. I'd wager it's about as common as "I'm going to die anyways so why bother."
Explore the possibility space. Balance compassion for self and others. Good luck to everyone.
I put a prime on sleep, diet, and exercise.
I optimize my hormones.
I downregulate the mTOR pathway.
I take pharmaceutical drugs aimed at improving metabolic health.
I employ several behavioral, hormonal, and pharmaceutical strategies to delay cancer, atherosclerosis, and neurodegeneration.
I cleared my body of (some) senescent cells with senolytic drugs.
I monitor dozens of health markers.
I take a handful of supplements.
I put a prime on my mental health.
This sounds like the pot calling the kettle black.
at-w|1 year ago
Androgenetic hair loss (what Johnson has and what the medications he takes are designed to treat) is caused by genetic sensitivity to DHT and DHT levels in the body, not aging. People who don't have the genetic predisposition to AGA or who have very low DHT levels can often make it to 60+ with no visible hair loss. It's not like they're "not aging," they just don't have the combination of genes and DHT levels needed for significant hair loss to occur.
drooby|1 year ago
I don't see much issue with its usage in this context.
xnx|1 year ago
Is the formula something like: DHT sensitivity * time = hair loss ?
deadbabe|1 year ago
lemming|1 year ago
He definitely came across as a little eccentric in the video, but very enthusiastic about the project, I found it pretty charming and would definitely find it pretty interesting to chat to him I think.
inopinatus|1 year ago
I can’t imagine bothering with any of that if I didn’t have something I wanted to win.
kazinator|1 year ago
I could amuse nurses in an emergency room by clipping my finger into the machine, instead of the patient I was with, to set off the alarms with the low numbers.
One time I came in with some severe stomach flu. I was lying on my back and the nurse said to another, "Come here! Look this guy is so thin, you can see his heart beating in his abodomen. (Due to the aorta passing through there, and the heart behind it being massive.)"
When your HR is low, you can get pretty dizzy if you stand up at the wrong moment between pumps.
kstrauser|1 year ago
The doc said that they’re more aware of low HRs now because so many people are wearing 24/7 heart monitors, aka smart watches. Numbers that use to be taken as signs of “holy crap, something bad’s happening” are sometimes more like “huh, guess the normal range is wider than we thought”.
But for anyone reading who has a fast or slow heart rate: let your doctor be the judge of that, OK? Lots of the time it is something wrong, and you don’t want to dawdle on that one.
throaway2501|1 year ago
cgh|1 year ago
pharrington|1 year ago
derektank|1 year ago
"It seems that he is spending a lot of his time & effort on maintaining his hair (huge kudos for admitting that!). If his body was functioning like an 18-year old he should not need to do that. If Bryan really set back his true aging clock he probably would not be battling with ongoing hair loss (as he most likely did not battle hair loss 20 years prior), or at least it would stop (which does not seem to be the case)."
Is this true? I suppose it's a question of what one defines as aging but I thought male pattern baldness resulted from hair follicles physically shrinking in response to exposure to androgens. That's a very different process than an accumulation of senescent / poorly differentiated cells, which is what I have always heard described as the key hallmark of aging
123yawaworht456|1 year ago
maz1b|1 year ago
As a doctor and technical founder/CEO myself, I really like patients who are into their own health and fitness, obviously this guy has the means and resources to take it to an extreme, but I think the lesson he wants to impart is that there are benefits to investing in your own health, the same as people invest in self-tooling such as expensive Macbooks/Mac studios, running shoes, and much more.
The whole world would see such titan sized improvements in GDP along with personal lives. Men and women would be happier if everyone strove to be fit, "younger" (with respect to wellness and fitness) and in better shape, not to mention that would translate to very real economic benefit in every country.
superb_dev|1 year ago
jrflowers|1 year ago
groby_b|1 year ago
He's running an n=1 experiment well out of established parameters, and the outcome is far from guaranteed.
unclad5968|1 year ago
hobs|1 year ago
Mistletoe|1 year ago
> Bryan Johnson’s supplements list includes more than 100 compounds taken as powders, tablets, and capsules, designed to support different aspects of his health.
This is an insane thing to do and I have delved deeply into supplements myself and it is stunning how hard it is to find evidence that any of them do anything beneficial long term.
This matches me own experience and daily diary of trying things, rating how I feel, bloodwork, etc. The only thing I’ve ever found beneficial long term is testosterone, sunlight, and exercise.
AnarchismIsCool|1 year ago
To the muggles out there, generally speaking non psychiatric doctors (and many older, out of date psych professionals for that matter) know about as much about modern psych diagnostic criteria as a potato.
slibhb|1 year ago
Bryan Johnson is one weird dude and I would bet against his regimen's effectiveness. But stuff like this is just silly and makes me doubt the rest of this post.
mynegation|1 year ago
tom_|1 year ago
> the way he looked while taking “TRT” looked nothing like a “testosterone replacement dose” but rather like a (mild?) steroid cycle
This seems to be common with TRT takers, who tend to have the physique (or some slightly strange-looking approxmation thereof) of a man 10 years younger. I guess it's not supposed to give you an abnormally high testosterone level, but you'll get that level consistently and reliably, regardless of mood or external events. Can't get that when you rely on your body to do it itself! It all adds up!
A TRT dose set based on the population average might also prove usefully higher than your body is tuned for too. And I expect you can just say that you're not feeling it, and they'll give you a bit more.
voisin|1 year ago
I am confused by what you mean. Being lean should be a goal throughout life, no?
dyauspitr|1 year ago
romanobro56|1 year ago
jmcgough|1 year ago
Speaking as a healthcare worker, people in this country don't need a longer lifespan, they need a better quality of life. Most Americans become pretty sick by their 40s-50s due to lifestyle, diet, and lack of access to healthcare. You have hypertension and/or diabetes in your 30s, which progresses to chronic kidney disease in your 40s, and by your 50s you're spending half the week sitting in a chair getting dialysis. His wealth has made him so far removed from the reality of most people.
thuanao|1 year ago
browningstreet|1 year ago
His workout is really hard, it it’s not a lot of resistance training. He’s gotten good at it so it has the benefits that a hard workout would. When I did it for a week, I suffered but I couldn’t match the metabolic demands that my Olympic lifts oriented training workout entailed when I lift heavy.
I’m very strong but I eat between 2500-2700 kcals in my 50s and I lift heavy. I eat a bit more on big run days.
Given the length and nature of his gym routine, o don’t think his burn ratio is that high.
As for the rest.. his temps and sleep patterns, I couldn’t say. He says he sleeps well and there is data to support the observation that he had trouble sleeping. I can sleep 8-9 hours without waking up, and that is definitely correlated to my workout habits and my peace of mind.
Brian is interesting but we may have partial data from him that is out of sync with what we think his other practices are at the same point in time.
iamleppert|1 year ago
It sends the message to people, if you're rich, you can make up your own rules. Well, life doesn't work that way as he is soon to find out. If there is one thing I have seen in my days of living on this earth is that life loves irony.
MrLeap|1 year ago
Hearing this guy receives tons of criticism seems wild to me. "Live forever or die trying" isn't exactly a rare posture. I'd wager it's about as common as "I'm going to die anyways so why bother."
Explore the possibility space. Balance compassion for self and others. Good luck to everyone.
m3kw9|1 year ago
IncreasePosts|1 year ago
Some of the strategies I employ include:
I put a prime on sleep, diet, and exercise. I optimize my hormones. I downregulate the mTOR pathway. I take pharmaceutical drugs aimed at improving metabolic health. I employ several behavioral, hormonal, and pharmaceutical strategies to delay cancer, atherosclerosis, and neurodegeneration. I cleared my body of (some) senescent cells with senolytic drugs. I monitor dozens of health markers. I take a handful of supplements. I put a prime on my mental health.
This sounds like the pot calling the kettle black.
itishappy|1 year ago
AndyNemmity|1 year ago
It's odd that's not reflected in the article, and the conclusions are very much different if that's the case no?
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
dyauspitr|1 year ago
shearnie|1 year ago
throwaway314155|1 year ago
bdangubic|1 year ago
eviks|1 year ago
> as he is propelling the whole field forward
Towards what, even more self-deluded people with expensive eating disorders?
byyoung3|1 year ago
tonymet|1 year ago