The longevity craze has taken off in Australia, with dozens of health and wellness fans meeting in Sydney’s eastern suburbs to discuss biomarkers, dip into an ice bath and talk about their idol, US billionaire Bryan Johnson.
Against all current scientific evidence, Johnson is convinced that he can reverse the ageing process. His slogan is “Don’t Die” as the 46-year-old attempts to turn back the clock to become 18 again.
Bryan Johnson is obsessed with anti-ageing, and his obsession has spread to Australia with events dedicated to his “Don’t Die” movement.Credit: Magdalena Wosinka
In the past two years, he’s spent more than $6 million on his “Blueprint Protocol”, a rigorous routine of exercise, laser treatments and monitoring every single aspect of his body.
He measures his blood, his breath, his stool, his erections and his sperm. He’s received blood from his then 17-year-old son and recently, bone marrow from a young Swede. His diet consists of blended lentils, steamed vegetables and a signature “nutty pudding” washed down with more than 100 supplements a day.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun-Herald via a video call, Johnson said while trying not to die is his reason for living, he shuns the criticism that his obsession will make him unhappy.
“People see me eating well and exercising and sleeping well. And they say, ‘Oh, boy, you must be so miserable.’ Meanwhile, they’re suffering from a mental breakdown because they can’t sleep, they’re drinking with their friends,” he said.
The Don’t Die movement, founded by US tech billionaire Bryan Johnson, has spread to Sydney. Credit: Steven Siewert
“It’s such an interesting conundrum. I’ve never been happier in my entire life, yet I’m on trial as if I am not happy.”
He believes immortality is just around the corner and his company, Blueprint, will be a leader in the field.
“I wanted to be a contributor to what the future will respect and value. Why I’m doing it is that I genuinely think that the 21st century will observe,” he said.
Johnson believes the pursuit of longevity is “deceptively simple and endlessly expansive”.
It’s also incredibly expensive.
Johnson – whose background is in sales – sells sugar-free “longevity” drinks and multivitamin “essential capsules” and, his most famous product, olive oil, at $143 a bottle.
Longevity expert Professor Luigi Fontana believes science is at a crucial point in developing treatments to slow the ageing process.
But can we stop ageing?
“There is no evidence, and there is no data in any animal body that you can stop ageing,” said Fontana, the scientific director of Sydney University’s Charles Perkins Centre.
This hasn’t stopped thousands of fans from drinking the Johnson olive-oil Kool Aid. Johnson’s monthly Don’t Die events have taken off globally with more than 3500 people participating in 58 countries.
In Australia, about 40 longevity enthusiasts gathered on Saturday at a park in Dover Heights for the second event.
They’re dressed in black while they wait for a shipment of “Don’t Die” branded shirts to arrive and eat a variation of Johnson’s vegan “nutty pudding”.
Sixty-year-old Bruce Alexander has long been a health fanatic and uses the events to meet like-minded people. He draws the line at ice baths: “That’s shocking, that is unbearable,” he said, jumping out of the bath after 15 seconds.
Sue Fischl has had her blood tested by a lab endorsed by longevity guru Johnson.Credit: Steven Siewert
Attendee Sue Fischl is 60 but looks decades younger. She’s laser-focused on her health and has recently undergone three months’ worth of daily cryotherapy and hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
She’s sent her blood to the US for testing and signed up for Johnson’s “Rejuvenation Olympics”, which tracks anti-ageing progress on a leaderboard.
She is incorporating Johnson’s diet, supplements and exercise routine via a personal trainer. Since beginning Johnson’s “protocol” six months ago, she said, her biological age – shown through epigenetic DNA markers – had dropped by 22 years.
When it becomes available, she wants to try gene therapy – an unapproved and unproven therapy that involves injecting new genetic instructions into a human cell. She also plans to buy Johnson-recommended bedsheets, a grip strength test and body composition scales.
“It’s not about the lifespan, it’s about the healthspan – energy and enjoying myself and having fun with it once you’ve got good health,” Fischl said.
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners vice-president, associate professor Michael Clements, said diagnostic blood tests could be useful to detect health risks, such as markers for heart disease, diabetes and stroke. The term “biological age” had more to do with marketing.
“It’s extrapolating common things that occur when we age and trying to give people some kind of indication, but it’s purely for marketing,” he said.
“If you’ve got cash to burn, there’s more than one company out there that would be happily taking your money to try and achieve that for you.”
He said a main concern was whether companies then referred clients to their GPs.
“Do they tell them to get traditional help for things like high cholesterol … or are they telling them that this new and unproven medicine is the cure?” he said.
“It’d be lovely if medicine was a lot quicker … but often it takes years to find out if these things are safe, so [the medical community] are always going to find ourselves at odds with people trying to sell medicine.”