Millionaire who wants to live forever stops taking longevity drug over concerns it sped up aging

WTF?! Bryan Johnson, the tech millionaire famed for his many attempts to reverse aging and extend his life, including injecting himself with plasma from his teenage son, has run into an issue with one of the 54 different supplements he takes every day: it was making him older, not younger.

Johnson, who earned over $300 million when his mobile and web payment company Braintree was acquired by PayPal in 2013, has gained plenty of attention in recent times for his Project Blueprint anti-aging quest. He also sells his own (very expensive) supplement stacks and individualized health regimens under the Blueprint name.

47-year-old Johnson is the subject of a Netflix documentary called Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever, which reveals that he takes 54 pills every day, among many other things, to try and slow down the natural biological process.

One of those pills was rapamycin, a drug originally used as an immunosuppressant to prevent organ transplant rejection and as a treatment for certain cancers and rare diseases like tuberous sclerosis complex. It works by inhibiting the mTOR pathway, which plays a significant role in aging and age-related diseases, leading to research into its potential anti-aging benefits.

Unfortunately for Johnson, it turns out that rapamycin was having the opposite effect to what he intended: the drug was actually aging him. It was also causing a slew of unpleasant-sounding side effects.

"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," he wrote on X. Johnson explained that these include skin infections, lipid abnormalities, high glucose levels, and 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."

"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 taking rapamycin for nearly five years, experimenting with various doses. In the Netflix documentary, he called his routine the most aggressive rapamycin protocol of anyone in the industry. Some medical experts who appear in the program shared concerns about humans taking the molecule for longevity purposes.

Johnson is said to spend around $2 million annually on his health regimen, which includes a vegan diet, avoiding the sun, and daily exercise. He's also used shock treatments on his genitals in an apparent effort to gain the erections of an 18-year-old.