An anti-aging zealot who spends $2 million a year in a quest to turn back time has dragged his teenage son into being his personal “blood boy.”
Bryan Johnson, the 45-year-old software developer who wants to keep his internal organs, including his penis and rectum, functioning youthfully — enlisted 17-year-old Talmage to provide blood transfusions, Bloomberg reported on Monday.
At a clinic near Dallas last month, Johnson, his 70-year-old dad, Richard, and Talmadge showed up for an hours-long, tri-generational blood-swapping treatment, the outlet reported.
Johnson usually receives plasma from an anonymous donor, but this time Talmage provided a liter of his blood, which was converted into batches of piece parts — a batch of liquid plasma and another of red and white blood cells and platelets.
The fitness nut then undergoes the same procedure, but there’s one key addition — after having his own blood drained, Talmage’s plasma is then fed into Johnson’s veins, according to Bloomberg.
As the oldest, Richard goes last and receives the same treatment as his son.
Johnson told Bloomberg that he has a team of 30 doctors and regenerative health experts overseeing his regimen, which has come to include making trips to the Dallas-area clinic for a plasma exchange.
He reportedly screened anonymous donors as “blood boys” to ensure he was receiving blood from a person with an ideal body mass index who lived a healthy lifestyle and was free of disease.
Using plasma as an anti-aging technique caught the attention of wellness junkies when scientists literally stitched young and old mice together so they shared a circulatory system, Bloomberg reported.
The older rodents showed improvements in their cognitive function, metabolism and bone structure, while the younger subjects showed that frequent blood donation could have positive effects.
However, there is little human-based data, leaving many researchers to view plasma-swapping longevity techniques as inconclusive, according to Bloomberg.
“We have not learned enough to suggest this is a viable human treatment for anything,” Charles Brenner, a biochemist at City of Hope National Medical Center in Los Angeles, told Bloomberg. “To me, it’s gross, evidence-free and relatively dangerous.”
Blood plasmas are traditionally given to patients experiencing trauma, burn, shock, severe liver disease and clotting deficiencies, among other conditions, according to Red Cross.
Johnson, who made his fortune by selling his payment processing company Braintree Payment Solutions to EBay for $800 million in cash in his early 30s, gained notoriety earlier this year for his battle against Father Time.
While awake, Johnson follows an ultra-strict routine that begins each morning at 5 a.m. with two dozen supplements.
He then strategically exercises for one hour, eats a low-calorie vegan diet and even brushes his teeth in a calculated manner, with a tea-tree oil and antioxidant gel rinse.
Then while sleeping, Johnson is hooked up to a machine that counts how many erections he has throughout the night.
At bedtime, Johnson wears blue light-blocking glasses for two hours.
The goal for Johnson: to have all of his major organs — including his brain, liver, kidneys, teeth, skin, hair, penis and rectum — functioning as they were in his late teens.
He claims these pricey treatments have already brought him closer to the fountain of youth, with the heart of a 37-year-old and skin of a 28-year-old.
It’s all part of an anti-aging initiative Johnson founded called Project Blueprint, which also encourages its followers to take daily measurements of their weight, body mass index, body fat, blood glucose levels and heart-rate variations.
“My new endeavor, Project Blueprint, aims to measure all 70 organs of my body and then maximally reverse the quantified biological age of each,” Johnson penned in a 2021 blog post.
He said it started when he fired “Evening Bryan,” the name he gave an alter ego that faced “formidable challenges” between 5 and 10 p.m. each night that caused him to binge eat and pile on more than 50 pounds.
At the time, just before he sold Braintree to EBay, he was also reportedly working long hours that left him stressed and nearly suicidal.
“Data, not emotions, now manages both my diet and sleep protocols,” he wrote in the post.
His obsession with longevity has led Johnson to start Kernel, a manufacturer for $50,000-apiece helmets that measure brain signals and the impact of meditation and pharmaceutical interventions on chronic pain.
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
