A millionaire biohacker taking extreme measures to extend his life is stopping taking a longevity drug over worries it sped up ageing.
Bryan Johnson is famed for his bold attempts to reverse ageing and extend his life, including injecting plasma from his teenage son.
He also recently made headlines for starring in his Netflix documentary Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants To Live Forever.
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On his conquest for youth, Johnson spends a jaw-dropping $2 million annually on his anti-ageing efforts, involving a vegan diet, avoiding sun exposure, daily exercise, and even more unconventional methods, like shock treatments on his genitals.
The 47-year-old made over $300 million when he sold his mobile and web payment company Braintree to PayPal in 2013.
And since then, he has gained plenty of attention for his ambitious Project Blueprint that combats ageing. Alongside this, he markets his own (highly pricey) supplement stacks and personalised health plans under the Blueprint brand.
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Now he's revealed one of the 54 supplements he takes daily was doing the exact opposite of what he wanted, it was making him older, not younger.
The drug known as Rapamycin was originally designed as an immunosuppressant to help with organ transplants and treat certain cancers and rare diseases like tuberous sclerosis complex.
It’s been heavily researched for its potential anti-ageing benefits through targeting the mTOR pathway - a key player in ageing and related diseases.
However, rapamycin didn’t turn back the clock, instead it started piling on years - not to mention, a bunch of side effects.
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"Despite the immense potential from pre-clinical trials, my team and I came to the conclusion that the benefits of lifelong dosing of Rapamycin do not justify the hefty side-effects," Johnson wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
He explained the list of side effects he experienced such as skin infections, abnormal lipid levels, high glucose readings and an increased resting heart rate.
"With no other underlying causes identified, we suspected Rapamycin, and since dosage adjustments had no effect, we decided to discontinue it entirely," he added.
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"Additionally, on October 27th, a new pre-print indicated that Rapamycin was one of a handful of supposed longevity interventions to cause an increase/acceleration of aging in humans across 16 epigenetic aging clocks."
Johnson had been on the drug for nearly five years- experimenting with different doses - following what he called the most aggressive rapamycin protocol in the industry.
The biohacker concluded that more research is needed as the ‘experimental compounds' are 'constantly evolving’.