I don't know why some people seem so gleeful at this news. I don't think the guy was ever unaware that there's many health conditions that can occur completely in a vacuum, outside of health and lifestyle choices. He's eccentric, yes, but has also never come off as anti-science to me. He posted happily about the new pharmaceutical treatment that doubled the lifespan of people with pancreatic cancer and praised the way science is moving at a lightening pace nowadays. He didn't deserve this and I am so sorry to see anyone join the chronic illness club. If anything, it hurts more when you know you did all the "right" things and this is still your reality. My condition also occurred totally in a vacuum. Maybe he will spend some of his enormous wealth searching for a cure for everyone who has it, that'd be a nice way to handle this setback. May all life-altering, chronic illness be cured someday.
Everyone always talks about the blood and not the penis tracker he wears and uses to publicly compare his erectile health and duration against those of his teenage son.
“His duration is two minutes longer than mine,” he wrote alongside the chart. “Raise children to stand tall, be firm, and be upright.” - Posted that on instagram. Nothing anyone can say that will negate the weirdness of that to me.
He’s literally a vampire. If you don’t think at some point, his plan is to get a complete set of new organs when he needs them then you’re not paying attention. Right now they’re still pretending that exercising and diet are gonna be what gets him to immortality.
I think it’s still somewhat fair that they are saying someone is rich and has a team of doctors keeping him healthy and on the up and up, so that makes it ethical, scientific, etc.
I was just making the point if you have enough money, doctors will do whatever you tell them against your best interests and MJ is just another example of that. Need more examples?
Elvis Presley
Lance Armstrong
Barry Bonds
Marion Jones
Alex Rodriguez
Diego Maradona
Ben Johnson
Tyson Gay
Tiger Woods
but why tf does anyone care?? he's not hurting anyone.
"control over your own body" as long as it's OK with me personally seems to be the vibe in this thread.
if MJ wants to take proponal every night, it does not affect me in the slightest. if this dude wants to test a bunch of shit on himself, then afaic he can go for it. it can't be that much worse than smoking a pack of cigarettes, drinking a handle of vodka & eating Whoppers 3× per day... yet all that stuff is legal, its "morally acceptable" in our society (to a degree), and it doesn't require a doctor lol
Basically, crabs in a trapped in a bucket will pull the crab on top of them to pull themselves up but the crab below them pulls them too. So in the end every crab is still trapped in the bucket because as soon as someone pulls ahead someone else always pulls them down.
I think it has something to do with not wanting to see something go beyond its expiration date... especially when it's a human that is using up more resources than it needs.
These idiots also assume that everything he's been doing hasn't prevented the symptoms of worse outcomes from this condition, for all we know if he didn't go full biohacker he would be completely fucked by this disorder but actually gave himself a fighting chance.
"The most severe risk of a parent receiving blood from their child is TA-GVHD, a rare but highly fatal immune condition.The Mechanism: Your child inherits half of their Human Leukocyte Antigens (HLA) from you. Because of this partial genetic match, your immune system may fail to recognize your child’s white blood cells as foreign invaders.The Attack: The child's white blood cells survive, replicate, and aggressively attack your body's organs and tissues, treating your body as foreign."
TA- GVHD is universally fatal , brian does not have TA-GVHD . He has an autoimmune disorder , not an alloimmune disorder .
And , because we know TA-GVHD is a possibility , banks (here, the doctors) will irradiate the blood components of the donor blood thereby deactivating the T-lymphocytes present in them
Blood transfusions can trigger or exacerbate autoimmune diseases in susceptible individuals. The process—known as transfusion-related immunomodulation—alters your immune system. The introduction of foreign donor cells can cause immune confusion, potentially leading to the development of autoimmune conditions. Transfused blood can also, exacerbate underlying rheumatic or autoimmune conditions
He has had these symptoms for over 20 years, his venture into longevity does not go that far back. He just recently got a formal diagnosis. Its possible his protocol made it difficult to diagnose because he was otherwise extremely healthy
Also, one of the reasons why people become these weird biohackers is because they have some underlying condition. They are hypersensitive to the tiniest thing that they do wrong because it makes them sick, and they end up believing certain things they do have value to everybody when it only affects them (ex: avoiding a food you have allergy to is great for you, but does nothing for the majority of people who don’t have that allergy).
Yeah you see a lot of unproven science in chronic illness spaces. Some of it hasn't been scientifically proven to work yet but works anecdotally, but others have been extensively researched and had no provable effects. But the problem is when you're waved away by doctors or told that nothing can be done you have to take matters into your own hands to be able to make life bearable.
He had another autoimmune condition prior to this one, and they tend to cluster. This is not crazy news to chronically ill people and I wouldn't be surprised if his insane routines and health monitoring meant that he avoided a lot of the symptoms. My high sodium diet helped mitigate the worst of my POTS symptoms before I knew what was going on. My IBS cleared up a lot when I found out I couldn't have meat or dairy. I knew something was wrong and when I changed things about my diet and habits things got worse or better. Doctors have largely been unhelpful until recently.
This right here. I have chronic illness going back most my life. Doctors don’t have answers. I ended up developing severe cfs/me and fibromyalgia. But also have connective tissue issues causing widespread injuries. I believe in science, but applied medicine isn’t always scientific, or has its limits for a variety of reasons. I’ve started trying peptides, and other alternatives not because I’m ignorant or am doing some weird looksmaxxing, but because I’m running out of options.
I’ve had friends ask what they should try, and I say “if everything’s fine, there’s no reason to start injecting yourself with unapproved chemicals from a Chinese lab.”
He may have given himself this disorder with the amount of obsessing he does over his health. Chronic stress is a major trigger for developing autoimmune conditions.
He might have also triggered it with the amount of interventions he has done, such as 6 monthly plasma transfusions, getting his blood "cleaned" via machine and reinjected (potentially with added microplastics), hair transplants, hair dye, cosmetic procedures, etc. If you are already susceptible to autoimmune issues, doing things like that can trigger something.
It's also possible that consuming over 100 tablets a day completely fucked his stomach... it wouldn't surprise me if banging as many supplements and vitamins into himself as possible didn't also have some side effects.
Yeah, people on here say he consults with doctors. There is no doctor worth their degree that will recommend you take 100+ supplements daily. Most people with decent diets will have zero deficiencies in vitamins and minerals.
Sure, but an N=1 experiment with no controls and this many things being tested at once is completely useless for scientific purposes. You can learn absolutely zero from his "experiments". He would be better served investing his money into actual medical science.
I for one welcome our new billionaire vampire overlords.
We've tried trickle down economics with money and it didn't work, obviously that is because money is only liquid when Scrooge McDuck dives into it or someone is trying to confuse you when talking about their personal finances.
Blood however, is a much better standard than gold! Now we have a real shot at finally getting trickle down running efficiently.
Neither of us know what caused it. As you point out, there are some autoimmune diseases that are triggered by our behavior and some that are entirely genetic.
You hold this guy in perfect regard such that if he lived to 110 it would be due to all of his experiments. But if he suddenly gets ill its all due to random chance. I get that it breaks the dream that benevolent billionaires will solve all our problems. But there's a very real chance that there are health effects of all his biohacking.
I looked it up and got the feeling that he has caused this with his strange diet.
"The gut microbiome might also play a role in autoimmune gastritis.
According to Kellie Blake RDN, LD, IFNCP, a registered dietitian specializing in functional nutrition, an unbalanced gut microbiome contributes to increased intestinal permeability (leaky gut) and inflammation. Research has shown a connection between a leaky gut and some autoimmune diseases like autoimmune gastritis."
for all we know if he didn't go full biohacker he would be completely fucked by this disorder but actually gave himself a fighting chance.
Not likely. It is autoimmune so either it was genetic or something he was injecting into himself has caused his immune system to start attacking a part of his body
He's been very misrepresented in reddit memes and clickbait articles to deliberately make him seem a lot more of a weirdo than he is.
He's obviously an eccentric. But these 'strict routines and diet' etc primarily because he's made himself a living medical experiment and wants things to be consistent. Ofc non of this counts as widespread studies, but he is at least able to try all sorts of different things and screen regularly screen for the results/effects in a way no one else could afford.
And the social media content he makes doint this has become his career now
That's the thing though. He makes social media content around all of this. If he didn't then there wouldn't be such a reaction as we're seeing now. It's like holding a giant magnifying glass over your head and then be surprised that it gets hot underneath when the sun come out.
Let’s be real, the dude is a total weirdo and comes off as extremely out of touch and narcissistic.
Most people are not going to like you if you use your large fortune expressly to pursue your own health and immortality as your primary goal, it is literally a hated trope.
And actually I think it's normal to have a reaction like this in response. Or at least understandable.
Rich dude spends loads of money using his access to new treatments to extend his life, wasting millions on useless treatments that nobody else can afford while some die because they can't afford insulin, only for him to get an incurable disease that may even be due to the untested shit he has been doing? Of course that's going to feel poetic. Of course those with chronic diseases who are suffering, and maybe even dying, despite the existence of a cure that they can simply never afford, are going to feel a sense of guilty satisfaction.
It's not even about jealousy imo. It feels like it's more like a sense of injustice/justice, imo.
Yes, because it’s his fault that the American medical system is broken. If he donated the $2 million he used for his longevity then the medical system would be fixed
Not everyone has to be a conspiracy theorist or a raw meat/piss drinker (probably all the same people) to be considered a bit bonkers. But I won't be cheering anyone (almost) being ill, it is quite ironic though.
I mean, taking poop from a healthier person and putting it in your ass is also kinda weird but its a legit medical treatment with documented health effects.
He's doing things that doesn't have very well documented effects, if any, that have claims or rumors to have an effect or that supposedly people do because they believe it has an effect. So yeah obviously it's gonna run into some weird shit, and the weird shit makes headlines.
But he doesn't believe or expect most of the stuff he tries to work or have significant benefits.
A single dude can't be an experiment, and a single dude doing 100 different "experimental" things especially can't be an experiment. The altruism angle is simply untrue, he's doing it for himself.
If he is an outlier, then others can see if they can replicate the results, though. Yes, there is an issue with n=1, but in the past, someone had to eat the first poison berry for everyone else to know it was bad. We should have more people being 'experimental' in this manner, but I do not think anything positive will come of it.
His approach may seem sciency, but it is actually very unscientific. It is commendable that he publishes everything he does, but nothing he does is usable in science.
But not when science already says your idea is not how things work. You can't create rocket fuel using fire-type pokemon cards instead of an oxidizer and it wouldnt be considered scientific to try that on the basis of "no other scientists have tried so it might work!"
The problem is that many of these things aren't "backed by science", but instead are "suggested to have a possible link to greater outcomes by small studies that establish a need for more research into the subject". He often takes a single paper that suggests a link and says "great! I'll do that every day from now on, on top of everything else I do."
Beyond the fact that he is an n of 1, him taking on 20+ of these strategies at the same time makes any positive or negative outcomes that he experiences uninterpretable as a case study.
Let's say he sees an improvement in his blood tests from month a to month b. Was that because of supplement X? Supplement Y? Because he slept more? Because he exercised more? Because he used Z machine? You'd never know.
Science needs replication and controlled variables. He is doing neither.
Because he's not trying, as many have said, to "improve human lifespan," he's trying to improve his own, and maybe that of a very few other very very rich people. Which is his right and perogitve, but it's not some selfless act. If he wantedto improve human life span overall, there are a lot of cheap and simple places he could deploy resources that he chooses not to engage with.
As for him being not being anti-science, he associates positivily with RFK Jr. whose tenure at HHS is barrier both to science in general and human lifespan in particular. So hes done more damage than good on that front.
The main source of glee though is that this show that no matter how much money you have to toss at your health problems, end of the day we're all just animals whose bodies fail from bad luck.
I always had a theory that rich people saw Steve Jobs die of pancreatic cancer and freaked. Anyone who listens to Peter Thiel for five minutes knows that he's insane. Elon Musk doesn't believe poor people exist. Zuckerberg's been trying to pour himself into a computer for years. These people and many others are desperately trying to buy off the Reaper, but you can't bribe Death. You just have more options.
I saw recently he’s been paying for research into endometriosis because his girlfriend is suspected of having it. Endo and other illnesses women face are extremely under researched so he’s doing something that’ll improve the lives of people with endo hopefully
Only because his girlfriend has it. If she didn't he wouldn't care.
Thats a common problem for rich people. If it doeSnt affect them they don't care. Glad he is researching it. But it's not for altruistic or empathic reasons.
“Trying to help solve a problem once that problem affects you” is a wild thing to complain about. It’s great he funded endo research even if it’s just cause of the dudes girlfriend had it. Endometriosis is a scary, under researched illness that’s almost killed some of my friends so any research is good news
> he's not trying, as many have said, to "improve human lifespan," he's trying to improve his own
That's not true at all.
He openly talks about everything he's doing, all the research he finds or is a part of, and talks about how he wants everyone's lifespan to be longer. Sure - he's drinking his own kool aid for it, but... so what?
You'd be right if he said "I found a way to get healthier, and I'm not telling anyone."
Also - is some of the stuff he does expensive? Maybe, sure. But... aren't almost all new medical procedures and interventions expensive at first? New drugs are expensive to start, but then come down in cost. Should we stop all medial research that isn't going to result in instantly cheap medicine or treatments?
He literally open sources everything he does. While what he's doing is currently possible for mega rich only, all the data is open for everyone to read and study.
Nah, the type of institutional changes that'd take are a lot more than he can afford. At best he can bandaid problems for some people, till he runs out of money.
The Green Brothers have much less money than him, and have managed to have an astronomically greater impact on human lifespans than this guy.
Primarily through their work raising awareness of and advocating for Tuberculosis treatment, and their work in Sierra Leone to combat infant and maternal mortality.
It costs far less than you think to have an impact where it is needed most.
I don‘t feel strongly either way. The only thing that jumps out to me is that a ton of doctors responsible for nothing but his health and well-being missed this. Which spotlights the generally pretty terrible level of care regular people receive from their doctors and general health infrastructure.
There was another high profile case recently where it took 15 years for someone to figure out the person has Lyme disease - 15 years for a simple anti-body test.
So what I take from this news is: Turns out even if you have a ton of money you still get mostly incompetence.
You are oversimplifying it, due to lack of knowledge.
His condition is related to autoantibodies attacking the parietal cells of the gastric mucous membrane, which secrete intrisic factor. The latter is crucial for absorbtion of B12, which is then used for hemopoiesis.
Here is the nuance. It may take years or even a decade for the body’s B12 storages to be depleted to the point of clinically minifested anemia. Especially in people like Brian Johnson who are supplementing 24/7. Before that time there might be zero symptoms of pernicious anemia.
The most sensitive diagnostic methods for atrophic gastritis is gastroscopy with a biopsy from the gastric mucosa.
Now why would an asymptomatic person just wake up one day and say “Hey, I need gastric biopsy ASAP!” ?
The other way is to find serum autoantibodies, sure. But how do you reach that point? There are hundreds of things you can look for in you blood, how do you narrow it down to antibodies and exactly these antibodies that relate to a diesease you don’t even know you have ?
Even if you have the world’s top doctors you can’t just shoot blindly in the dark at something you don’t even see and hope that you will eventyally hit it, if you shoot just enough times. That’s not how medicine works.
Edit: I have since read Johnsons full post, where he describes low ferritin levels for years (despite supplementation) + another autoimmune condition affecting his Thyroid gland. Even though he is still asymptomatic, I think the comirbidity and lab findings should have prompted his personal medical team to investigate it earlier and probably pinpoint the diagnosis way fatser than this.
Surely the answer can’t be that healthcare, especially when it comes to chronic disease, is an inherently messy non-linear process and that healthcare providers are human and capable of making mistakes no matter how skilled or experienced they are?
I agree. It sucks to have an autoimmune disease and I agree with your sentiments.
I think people are just recognizing the fact that even with exorbitant amount of wealth cannot trick time and decay :'(
if anything "without him knowing" is probably a testament to his life style and diet, meaning it sounds like he was unknowingly managing his condition seemingly to a point of it being virtually asymptomatic
He is borderline anti-science. His approach to his supplementation is pretty pseudoscientific and is not based on solid evidentiary principles, and his 'self experimentation' is not only not brave, it is against any kind of scientific principle. Nor has he done all the 'right things'. It is really a form of self promotion. Regardless, he doesn't deserve to have a disease.
I don't really know this guy but this is my thought as well. It's sad when ANYONE gets sick like this, it's nothing to celebrate even if you hate the guy.
It's like, would you not cheer at Hitlers death... yah know? People like that usually say violence has no place anywhere and I wonder what they think about the deaths of the Nazis in WWII...
Any and all billionaires are disgusting. They sit by idol like they didn't steal the value of people's labor. No matter how much bootlickng you do, you'll never be one of them.
Maybe because more people have been arrested touching a pool than have been arrested for being on the Epstein list, and the rich make up the people on that list.
I don't know why some people seem so gleeful at this news.
In times like these, maybe because regular people are getting tired that rich folks are blowing up fortunes on "eccentric stuff", when all of those "resources" could be spent making actual life changing outcomes for those who can't even afford one doctor (or even giving it all for real research purposes).
But I guess that wouldn't be a "special thing to do", and that's the raison d'être for the rich egocentric people, to do fantastic things with the money, not boring, that's not exciting to make sure the rest of the folks out there have basic health, education and food on the table.
It's a fair feeling to have, to be upset with guys like this.
People hyper fixated and obsessive over health issues getting incurable ailments justifies people’s decision in living a bit more moderately. It’s the like the marathon runner that died from a heart attack forever ago that wrote books about health and running.
It’s performative healthy living and audiences love to see people fall/fail.
IMO I think a lot people don't hate him directly, they hate his privilege, that he's able to freely pursue something as universally desired as living a long and healthy life. The idea of the wealthy elite achieving something close to immortality and then keeping it behind a multi-million dollar paywall isn't so far fetched. What if he succeeded?
Science isn't moving at a lightning pace and there is a decent chance he caused that disease with all the unproven interventions he put his body through.
I dont think people are gleefully at the news, it is just that you can throw all the money in the world at de-aging and live life as cleanly as possible and still genetics and illness will come for you. It is the tragedy of existence
He’s on a strict plant based diet which also is usually horrible for some autoimmune conditions. It hurts so much when conflicted with that - my wife has lupus and stomach conditions and she’s vegetarian - and is constantly told the only proteins that are good for her would be wild fish and stuff like beef liver etc. she’s unable to eat those and struggles with the thought that a colorful bowl of salad and fruit is actually really, really bad for her.
The thing though, was he doing the right thing? using blood from his younger son without needing transfusion, the supplements and what ever else. I mean even supplements are to be used if your body is missing something.
It's sad but it also shows the foolishness of his hubris thinking that he can somehow escape mortality. It is one of the key parts of being human and not coming to terms with it just leads to living a shallow life.
He has the money to chase a fountain of youth while others struggle to afford asthma or diabetic supplies. It's novel to think the rich get sick and die too.
He regularly takes his son's blood to sustain himself. Not because he is sick or anything, just to prolong his own life. That shit is vampire behaviour right there.
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u/PlzAdptYourPetz Jul 06 '26
I don't know why some people seem so gleeful at this news. I don't think the guy was ever unaware that there's many health conditions that can occur completely in a vacuum, outside of health and lifestyle choices. He's eccentric, yes, but has also never come off as anti-science to me. He posted happily about the new pharmaceutical treatment that doubled the lifespan of people with pancreatic cancer and praised the way science is moving at a lightening pace nowadays. He didn't deserve this and I am so sorry to see anyone join the chronic illness club. If anything, it hurts more when you know you did all the "right" things and this is still your reality. My condition also occurred totally in a vacuum. Maybe he will spend some of his enormous wealth searching for a cure for everyone who has it, that'd be a nice way to handle this setback. May all life-altering, chronic illness be cured someday.