American businessman Brian Johnson is a biohacker. At 45, he says, his biomarkers are consistent with a younger age: he has the skin of a 28-year-old and the lungs of an 18-year-old. Let’s talk about him and his way of looking younger.
Who is Brian Johnson
Brian Johnson is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and founder and CEO of Kernel and OS Fund. The first is engaged in studying the brain, the second is investing in scientific and technical startups.
Johnson was born and raised in the US state of Utah. At age 19, he became a Mormon missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and spent two years in Ecuador. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a religious organization that considers itself the restored early Christian church founded by Jesus Christ personally.
Johnson received a bachelor’s degree in international studies from Brigham Young University in 2003 and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 2007.
Body rejuvenation
In 2021, the businessman created the Blueprint project – with its help, he planned to change the biological age of more than 70 of his organs. In 2023, at age 45, Johnson says his heart is five years younger, his skin is like that of a 28-year-old, and his lungs are like those of an 18-year-old. In addition, the rate of aging slowed down to the level of 31 years, the activity of inflammatory processes in the body decreased by 66%, muscles became toned, and the number of gray hairs decreased by 80%.
Biohacking is improving the functioning of the body using various methods, such as medications, nutrition, training, to stimulate brain activity and age more slowly.
Why Johnson decided to rejuvenate
Brian Johnson explains his passion for health and the creation of Blueprint this way:
“Despite my success—raising three children and selling my Braintree business to Venmo for $800 million—I couldn’t cope with my overeating problem. When seven o’clock in the evening came, I could not stop eating. One day I forbade myself to eat in the evening. This is where it all started. I now undergo regular testing to determine what needs to be done to ensure the optimal functioning of more than 70 organs in my body.
I feel happier and more alive now than ever before. I became kinder to others and less irritable. This got me thinking: instead of complaining about your circumstances, why not start learning about your body and changing yourself from the inside out? It’s strange, but could the future of humanity begin with us eating vegetables and giving up self-destructive behavior?”
Blueprint Principles
Johnson has outlined four principles that will help support well-being and the process of rejuvenation.
- Don’t harm yourself. To stop doing the same things that are harmful to your health, such as smoking, overeating, unhealthy sleep, you must first understand the problem. For example, Johnson stopped eating at seven o’clock in the evening when he realized that he regularly overeats in the evenings. This made him sleep poorly, gain weight, and become more pessimistic about life.
- Listen to your body. Satisfying all your whims, for example, eating as much and whenever you want, is unreasonable. Instead, it is better to make decisions based on specific measurements. For example, Johnson decides what his diet will be based on test results from more than 70 organs.
- Work on yourself. It’s difficult to predict the future. But you can work on yourself and your health to make it easier to adapt to new circumstances in the future.
- Look into the darkness to avoid being blinded by the light. To explain this principle, Johnson tells an anecdote. A man looks for his keys under a street lamp. A passerby sees this and asks: “Are you sure you lost your keys here?” “No,” he replies, “I lost them on the other side of the street.” The confused stranger says, “Then why are you looking here?” The man replied: “It’s much brighter here!”
Schedule
Johnson adheres to a strict vegan diet of 1,977 kcal, while the norm for an adult man is an average of 2,500 kcal per day. In addition, the businessman exercises for an hour every day, and also conducts high-intensity training three times a week.
Johnson’s morning looks like this:
- getting up at five in the morning;
- taking about 20 nutritional supplements and medications;
- hour training;
- drinking a cocktail with the addition of various substances, such as keratin, collagen peptides, amino acids;
- brushing and flossing your teeth and rinsing them with tea tree oil and antioxidant gel.
At night before going to bed, Johnson wears special glasses that block blue light for two hours.
Health monitoring
Every day a businessman measures weight and body mass index, body fat, blood glucose levels, and heart rate. At night, a special device counts the number of nocturnal erections. Johnson checks his health every month: he undergoes medical procedures – ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging, colonoscopy, blood tests and others.
Supplyments
Johnson used to eat only one meal a day. But his body fat percentage dropped below 3 percent, and he adjusted it to bring it into the “optimal” range. He drank a little red wine a day to reap the health benefits. Now he simply takes a pill that he claims is a “patented invention” with supposedly the same benefits and without any of the disadvantages of alcohol. Whatever the theoretical benefits of calorie restriction, for him the benefits are clear, and it’s a challenge worth enjoying – one that requires him to take more than 100 pills every day, including 54 before meals.You can purchase the medications Brian takes at Amazon.com:
Brian’s results over 2 years:
- Slowed pace of aging by equivalent 31 years
- Now accumulating aging damage slower than 88% of 18 year olds
- Body inflammation is 85% below the average 18 year old (hsCRP 0.15)
- VO2 max: 58.7 mL/(kg·min), top 1.5% of 18 year olds
- Total Bone Mineral Density top .2% of 30 year olds
- Perfect liver fat (1.36%, top 10%.), iron & stiffness (MRI)
- top 99.5% highest muscle volume
- bottom 0.5% visceral fat, muscle fat, and subcutaneous fat volume
- Top 1% sleep performance & recovery (whoop)
- Possibly increased thymocyte volume to 7 yrs younger, pending further testing
- Ideal whole body muscle & fat (MRI)
- 50+ optimal clinical outcome biomarkers
- 100+ markers < chronological age
- Perfect liver markers: ALT+AST+GGT = 49
- Leg press single rep max: 800 lbs. Top 1-2% of 18 yr olds.
- Bench press single rep max: 240 lbs. Top 10% of 18 yr olds.
- 12 year age reversal in 500 day average HRV
- Reduced Alpha Klotho biological age by 21 yrs in 5 months, from 42 to 21.
- 31 year age reversal in grey hair age (80% reduction in grey hair)
- Identified and corrected (w/o surgery) ticking time bomb: bilateral internal jugular vein (IJV) stenosis
- Brain white matter hyperintensities (WMHs) reduced by 50% (MRI)
- 30+ organ ages quantified
- Free testosterone index (FTI) biological age reduced 20 years
- Improved homocysteine (hcy) by 49% (5.9 umol/L).
