He’s built a global reputation by trying to cheat death through science.
But biohacker Bryan Johnson, who follows one of the world’s most extreme anti-ageing routines, has confessed he may have ‘taken this whole longevity thing too far’.
The entrepreneur has spent millions of dollars in a relentless quest to reverse ageing, from swallowing more than 100 pills a day to receiving blood plasma from his teenage son.
So the candid admission will come as a surprise to Mr Johnson’s millions of followers, given he has long championed his strict regimen as the blueprint for a longer, healthier life.
Instead, the longevity guru suggested his relentless pursuit of youth may have come at a cost.
‘Been thinking things over and wonder if I’ve taken this whole longevity thing too far,’ he wrote on X.
It comes nearly a month after the 48-year-old revealed he is suffering from an incurable autoimmune disease.
At the start of July, he told his followers that he was suffering from autoimmune gastritis (AIG), adding: ‘My stomach is eating itself.’
The millionaire entrepreneur has spent millions of dollars in a relentless quest to reverse ageing, from swallowing more than 100 pills a day to receiving blood plasma from his teenage son
The candid admission will come as a surprise to Johnson’s millions of followers, given he has long championed his strict regimen as the blueprint for a longer, healthier life
AIG affects around two per cent of people, although many cases go undiagnosed because symptoms can be mild or absent in the early stages.
In a lengthy online post published at the start of July, Mr Johnson explained the challenges he faced in getting a diagnosis for the disease, as well as the steps he is taking to manage and try to cure it.
He revealed that as a child, he ate fast food and sugary foods and beverages.
The biohacker had ‘a few healthy years’ in his 20s before he let his health slip after he became a father and began building a business, he said.
‘Within a few years I’d fallen into a deep, chronic depression,’ he said. ‘Somewhere in that timeline, my body began developing an autoimmune process affecting my thyroid and then my stomach lining.’
He was diagnosed with hypothyroidism at 21 and successfully managed the condition with common treatments for nearly three decades. But for years, there were signs that something else was going on, Mr Johnson said.
It was only in May this year that he discovered he also has AIG, adding: ‘I’m unsure how long I’ve had it.
‘AIG causes irreversible damage – nutritional deficiency, anaemia, and over a long horizon, elevated cancer risk.’
The biohacker took to X to admit to his followers that he ‘may have taken this whole longevity thing too far’
Johnson, 48, is a centi-millionaire who is trying to eliminate death. He said he was diagnosed with hypothyroidism when he was 21 but just got his autoimmune disease diagnosis in May
Mr Johnson was diagnosed after he ‘overhauled’ his medical team this year to ‘lay the groundwork’ for a $1million per year longevity programme called ‘Immortals Care’, designed as part of the biohacker’s quest to defeat death.
The team conducted a series of tests, including a colonoscopy that came back negative for cancer.
But a bi-directional endoscopy, which examines the entire intestinal tract, in addition to blood biomarkers, showed elevated levels of anti-parietal-cells antibodies, which indicate AIG.
A stomach biopsy that revealed weakening of the stomach lining confirmed the suspicion, as that is a clear early sign of the autoimmune disease.
The biohacker said he and his team ‘are going to try and solve my AIG’. They plan to conduct routine monitoring of his iron levels and other biological indicators and perform additional tests to understand more specifics about his disease.
Depending on the findings, they plan to implement ‘experimental approaches’, including targeting proteins that act as chemical messengers in the immune system, rebuilding regulatory T-cells and performing engineered cell therapy, among other options.
Mr Johnson emphasized that ‘there’s no approved cure for autoimmune gastritis today’, and he and his team’s attempts to cure the disease will be brand new. However, he believes it can be done and that the goal is worthwhile.
‘In the age of AI, multiomics, and custom-built DNA, proteins, and cells, no condition should be presumed incurable simply because no one has yet tried to cure it with today’s stack,’ the biohacker said.
His latest admission has resonated with followers who questioned whether an obsession with living longer can end up overshadowing life itself.
One person commented: ‘I kind of feel like we already live pretty long lives as it is. The pursuit of more is admirable and highly interesting work but building one’s identity around it seems like a recipe for disaster from a stoic perspective.’
Another added: ‘It’s important to take longevity seriously but while doing so, just understand that anything can happen to anybody at any time.’
However, some encouraged him to ‘keep going’ on his longevity quest, adding that they are keen to know the long-term results of his anti-ageing routines.
