A biohacker who spends an eye-watering $2 million (£1.6 million) a year to try and reverse his biological age has revealed what happened when he injected fat into his face as part of ‘project baby face’.
Bryan Johnson, 47, from Utah, US, is a venture capitalist who refers to himself as ‘the world’s most measured human’.
In 2013, he sold his payment gateway company Braintree to PayPal for a whopping $800 million (£642 million).
47-year-old biohacker Bryan Johnson is on a mission to reverse the ageing process (YouTube/Bryan Johnson)
Nowadays, he claims that his ‘cardiovascular fitness ranks in the top 1.5 percent of 18-year-olds’ and that he celebrates his ‘birthday every 19 months because we’ve dramatically slowed my speed of aging’.
After his ‘health was in a pretty bad place’ in 2020, he decided to start Project Blueprint, which was Bryan’s personal journey to measure all 70 organs of his body to ‘maximally reverse’ his quantified biological age.
It’s a rigorous daily routine which consists of dozens of pills and a strict diet of the same daily foods, with a team of doctors monitoring his progress.
During this time, Bryan says he once was advised to inject fat into his face because he was losing so much of it off his body.
Millions are tuning in to Brian’s YouTube channel as he documents his progress (YouTube/Bryan Johnson)
He claims that people need a sufficient amount of fat on their face to look young.
“As Blueprint grew into a global movement, the scrutiny increased,” Bryan explained on Twitter.
“Facial fat, we discovered, is pretty important for how people perceive youth. It didn’t matter how good my biomarkers were if I didn’t have face fat.
“So, we started “Project Baby Face,” to explore whether we can restore lost volume.
‘Project Baby Face’ didn’t go to plan initially (X/@bryan_johnson)
“We selected a first therapy: injecting a fat-derived extracellular matrix to restore volume by stimulating my body’s natural fat growth.
“It’s possible to use one’s own body fat for this but the problem was I didn’t have enough fat on my body to extract, so I used a donor.
“Immediately following the injections, my face began to blow up. And then it got worse, and worse, and worse until I couldn’t even see. It was a severe allergic reaction.
“Thirty minutes after the treatment, I was scheduled to meet with @ashleevance of Bloomberg to talk about Blueprint.
“I called him and said, ‘Hey, so that you’re not alarmed, you may not recognise me today. I think I’m ok. I hope I’m ok. If I’m not ok, are you by chance trained to perform any life-saving actions?’
“Seven days later my face was back to normal and we were back in the trenches reformulating plans for our next attempt.
“Building a product is one thing; being the product is a whole different thing.”
Featured Image Credit: Instagram/@bryanjohnson_
Topics: Technology, Health
Bryan Johnson is the millionaire tech genius who is trying to reverse the aging process.
The goal, he says, is to ‘make death optional’.
When did Bryan’s biohacking journey begin?
Born in Utah, US, Johnson was just 20-years-old when he founded Braintree, a payment gateway that lets customers pay merchants using credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, PayPal Credit, and digital wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Venmo.
In 2013, the company was sold to PayPal for a whopping $800million (£642million).
By becoming a very rich man, the ‘biohacker’ has decided to embark on the journey he claims no other human has successfully been on, and that is to stop dying. Watch below:
What does being a biohacker involve?
For the past few years, the 46-year-old has started a longevity project called Blueprint, which is an ‘algorithm’ for preserving his body.
This includes swallowing 100 pills a day, not drinking alcohol, practising veganism, all while taking blood tests and undergoing colonoscopies every month – racking up around $2million a year in the process.
Bryan is very open about his transformation over the years, with him even sharing an ‘unrecognisable’ photo of himself before he switched to this controversial lifestyle.
In an interview with TalkTV’s Piers Morgan, Bryan said: “My day consists of 100 activities we’ve designed throughout the past two years. Every activity I do is based on scientific evidence.
Bryan Johnson is the millionaire tech genius who is trying to reverse the aging process. (ITV)
“The first thing I do in the morning is take my waking air temperature. I then weigh myself looking at fat, muscle, bodyweight, and hydration.
“I drink a concoction called the green giant, take 57 pills, work out for an hour, then have red-light therapy on my hair. I eat my breakfast which is a few pounds of vegetables, then I’m ready for my day.”
In the process, he claims to now have the heart of a 37-year-old, the skin of a 28-year-old, the lung capacity and fitness of an 18-year-old, and the gum inflammation of a 17-year-old.
Why does he practise such a vigorous lifestyle?
The real reason why he wants to go through such an intense process is so he ‘doesn’t die’.
“The goal is don’t die,” he said this week when being interviewed by Good Morning Britain.
“We are currently in the midst of the biggest transition of our species, where we’re going from death being inevitable to having some unknown horizon of how long and how well we can live.
“And I’m the first example of that in the world.”
He also enjoys the lifestyle.
Johnson – who has been open about going through depression after his divorce – told GQ: “I guess it depends on how you define hard. I personally find it a tremendous joy.
The goal, he says, is to ‘make death optional.’ (ITV)
“I derive tremendous pleasure from the entire process of what we’re trying to do. Pioneering the cutting edge of science and showing the future of human possibility.
“It’s funny, because most people hear about this, and the instantaneous reaction is to assume that I must be miserable.
“It’s very hard to understand that I might derive more pleasure from doing this than I would anything else.”
“I’ve never felt greater stability,” he says.
“Emotionally, I don’t think I’ve ever been able to make better judgments. My mind has never been as clear. So there are a lot of benefits there.”
Featured Image Credit: Good Morning Britain
Topics: Science, Technology, Health
We all have our favourite condiments which we completely drown our grub in on a daily basis, as a quick drizzle can seriously elevate any meal.
But if you’re favourite sauce is soy, take it easy when you’re covering your food in the stuff – as too much of it can have very sinister consequences.
And no matter how good it might be, it’s really not worth risking your health and wellbeing for the sake of a perfect bite of whatever your eating that is perfectly seasoned with that scrumptious umami flavour.
So, you should take this shocking report published online by the Journal of Emergency Medicine as a cautionary tale if you go a bit crazy with the soy sauce on your scran.
A 19-year-old US man guzzled a quart of the dark-coloured liquid – in what was later reported to be part of an initiation to join a university fraternity house – before running into serious trouble.
The case report detailing the horror incident in 2013 explained that he began experiencing seizures and foaming at the mouth shortly after consuming the soy sauce and was rushed to hospital.
Two hours after drinking the popular Chinese dip, the young lad was said to have been grinding his teeth incessantly, while also being generally unresponsive.
He was unable to respond to verbal commands and his arms were stiffly placed at his sides, the report said.
The patient was treated by medics, who administered anti-seizure medication in the hopes of stabilising him while also attempting to suck out ‘brown material with scant streaks of blood’ from his stomach with a tube that ran from his nose.
Too much soy sauce could leave you seriously unwell. (Getty Stock Photo)
He fell into a coma before doctors decided he needed to be transferred to the University of Virginia Medical Center.
Dr David J Carlberg, who was working when the patient was brought in, previously told LiveScience: “He didn’t respond to any of the stimuli that we gave him. He had some clonus, which is just elevated reflexes.
“It’s a sign that, basically, the nervous system wasn’t working very well.”
According to the report, the teenager’s blood sodium levels that were measured at the medical centre were the highest ever recorded in an adult who somehow survived hypernatremia, or salt poisoning.
This condition, which can lead to life-threatening complications if left untreated, occurs when there is too much salt in the blood and it is essentially a race against time to replace the water deficit.
Soy sauce might be delicious, but it’s also really toxic if you have too much of it, because there’s about 900 milligrams of salt in a single tablespoon of the stuff – meaning that too much of the soy would equate to a serious amount of salt.
More than your body could handle, as it happens – which is exactly what went wrong with this young man.
The liquid condiment can be dangerous in large doses. (Getty Stock Photo)
Quick-thinking doctors gave the college student water which had the sugar dextrose in it, in a bid to dilute the sodium in his blood and make him need a wee – seeing the teenager’s body gulp six whole litres of IV fluid in just half an hour.
He went on to produce over four litres of urine in the end too, allowing the sodium concentration in his blood to finally drop after five hours of having sugar water pumped into him.
Even though there was a serious risk that the 19-year-old would have been left with lasting neurological problems or brain damage, according to reports, he went on to make a full recovery.
He woke from the coma on his own after three days, while doctors said he seemed fine after returning to school a month later, adding that he was doing well in his studies.
Dr Carlberg credits the lad’s miraculous recovery to the quick work of medics who reduced his sodium levels so rapidly.
He added: “We were more aggressive than had been reported before in terms of bringing his sodium back down to a safer range,” saying that a slower approaches in the past have had poor or mixed results.
So take it easy on the soy sauce in future, lads.
Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Photos
Topics: Health, Food And Drink, News, Weird, Science
A psychiatrist that ran a show which outlined the dangers of excessive drinking revealed what happened to a young man who underwent a brain scan after a few drinks.
Daniel Amen, MD is an American health and mental health specialist, that shares his views on certain topics to his millions of social media followers.
One of this most popular and talked-about topics is that to do with alcohol, as the medical expert is a firm believer in staying sober, revealing what signs to look out for that could indicate that you have a drinking problem.
Despite speaking about other issues such as potential signs of ADHD, his videos on drinking garner the most attention.
Drinking affects one area of your brain more than others (Getty Stock Photo)
Known as @docamen on social media platforms, the doctor answered the question of why he doesn’t drink, explaining in a video: “I really like my brain and I don’t like being out of control, plus I’ve seen thousands of scans of drinkers and they’re not healthy.”
Adding that he wanted to keep his ‘brain intact’ so he could ‘live a long time’, he referred back to an Emmy-award winning TV show that he did called The Truth About Drinking.
However, he revealed what happened to a teenager when he went through a brain scan while under the influence of alcohol, resulting in a shocking outcome.
The doc said: “We took a young kid who was drinking a lot, got him sober and then got him drunk, and we scanned him drunk and his frontal lobes went away.
“Why do you care? The front part of your brain [that controls] things like focus, forethought, judgement, impulse control, organisation, planning, empathy – you want all those things,” he concluded.
It goes without saying that other parts of the human brain are affected too, but your frontal lobes are key in decision making and your own self-control.
Other areas in the brain, such as the cerebral cortex, central nervous system and hippocampus are severely affected by drinking too, as well as several others.
He said that a brain scan revealed that his frontal lobes ‘went away’ (TikTok/docamen)
According to the New York State Office of Addiction Services and Supports (OASAS), your frontal lobes are key to everyday function.
As part of a fact sheet explaining how alcohol affects the brain, they said: “The brain’s frontal lobes are important for planning, forming ideas, making decisions, and using self-control.
“When alcohol affects the frontal lobes of the brain, a person may find it hard to control his or her emotions and urges.”
They also added that people may act without thinking or become violent, while drinking over a long period of time in your life can cause permanent damage to the frontal lobes.
Featured Image Credit: TikTok/docamen / Getty Stock Photo
Topics: Alcohol, Health, Mental Health, Science, Social Media, TV
A US woman has shared an update on her recovery after losing all four of her limbs after doing a ‘normal’ thing while walking into her house.
When Marie Trainer returned home from a tropical holiday in the spring of 2019, she had no idea that her life would transform forever.
Marie received a warm welcome home from her dog, being greeted by kisses from the beloved pooch who was no doubt delighted to see her again.
The greeting for the Ohio resident was so normal that she didn’t even think twice about the small cut on her hand at the time.
However, a couple of days later, her life would change forever.
Marie had just returned home from holiday when her life changed forever (Marie Trainer)
Over the following four days, Marie began to feel progressively more unwell, with her husband of 37 years, Matt Trainer, later taking her to get checked out at a local hospital.
“I wasn’t feeling well and just got sicker and sicker,” she explained, after seeking medical attention Marie slipped into a coma as doctors were able to understand what exactly had happened to her.
Subsequent examinations at her local hospital and the Cleveland Clinic would reveal that Marie had contracted a rare infection from bacteria called capnocytophaga canimorsus.
What is capnocytophaga canimorsus?
According to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, capnocytophaga bacteria commonly found in the saliva of dogs and cats.
If the bacteria enters the human body it can cause a rare – but potentially fatal – infection.
The bacteria can also cause serious complications such as sepsis, heart attack, kidney failure, severe blood clots and gangrene.
Doctors believe the bacteria had entered Marie’s system after her dog licked the open wound on her hand.
The bacterial infection resulted in the partial loss of Marie’s limbs (Marie Trainer)
When Marie woke days later in a hospital bed, she would discover that both of her legs and arms had been amputated. The bacteria had caused several blood clots to form in her limbs – which subsequently saw her arms and legs turn necrotic.
“It was just rapidly progressing where her hands and feet were turning black,” Dr. Ajay Seth, told Fox News.
It was initially advised that Marie would need all four of her limbs amputated at the torso. However, Dr Seth was determined to save as much as possible in order to allow her the use of prosthetics.
Marie would ultimately have both of her legs amputated above the knees but Dr Seth was able to save a good deal of her arms – and she has since been on a five year recovery journey.
“It’s been challenging,” she said.
“Learning how to walk was the hardest thing, but I’m good, I’m doing good.”
She has since made a recovery with the help of prosthetics (Marie Trainer)
Marie has since been fitted with state of the art myoelectric prosthetics, allowing her to enjoy activities such as gardening and drawing once again.
“When I see her walk it’s like, ‘Oh my God this is amazing,'” said Matt said of his wife’s recovery, “We see the light at the end of the tunnel, we just adjust what we have to do, it just takes more planning when we want to do something.”
“To see the progress she’s made in five years it’s like miraculous, it’s unbelievable how far she’s come,” Dr Seth added.