Is anti-aging really the big business that it’s touted to be, not just worth billions now but trillions in the future?John Kealey/The Globe and Mail
Gus Carlson is a U.S.-based columnist for The Globe and Mail.
It’s one of the most clichéd nods to mortality in our aging-obsessed culture: telling people you’re 39 when you’re 40 or older.
But if you believe in miracles – and have $2-million to spare – Bryan Johnson says he can make that little white lie a reality. In fact, the tech CEO has become a media darling in the past week with claims that his rigorous program has already taken more than five years off his chronological age of 45.
For decades, entrepreneurs like Mr. Johnson have tried to turn the centuries-old search for the fountain of youth into profit.
Schemes promising to buy mortals more time have become a multibillion-dollar segment of the economy – fitness programs, diets, anti-aging elixirs, infusions and, of course, plastic surgery. A facelift by a decent New York doctor can run US$100,000 or more, not including the post-op stay at an undisclosed five-star resort so people won’t know you’ve had the work done.
But is anti-aging really the big business it’s touted to be, not just worth billions now but trillions in the future? The costs are prohibitive, the results yet uncertain, and the process is complicated and torturous.
Mr. Johnson, who sold his company Braintree Payment Solutions for US$800-million 10 years ago, says his process won’t simply buy time – it will turn back the clock. He estimates he has already slowed his aging by 24 per cent.
His formula, dubbed Project Blueprint, includes a fanatical regime of diet, exercise, sleep, supplements, injections and invasive, often painful monitoring of various bodily functions by some 30 doctors.
How fanatical? Mr. Johnson told Bloomberg he rises every day at 5 a.m., eats exactly 1,977 calories of exclusively vegan food a day, takes a host of supplements regularly, does hour-long, high-intensity workouts three times a week and wears glasses that block blue light for two hours before he goes to bed to promote restful sleep.
His monitoring routine is comprehensive – doctors say he has had more than 33,000 images taken of his bowels. The result, he says, is his body’s systems, including cardio and cognitive, are performing at the levels of a much younger man.
Science fiction? Sure, this may remind you of the old Twilight Zone episode in which an older man is injected with a serum intended to make him more youthful and attractive to his much-younger wife. The serum works – too well, with the man reverting to a baby.
But Mr. Johnson is not alone in his quest as a modern-day Ponce de Leon. PayPal PYPL-Q founder Peter Thiel, Amazon’s AMZN-Q Jeff Bezos and Google parent company Alphabet GOOGL-Q have all invested in businesses tackling age-related diseases, cell rejuvenation and extending life expectancy.
Then there’s cryogenics, where the promise is not to buy time but to stop it until the secrets of human foreverness are discovered. It’s not cheap – US$200,000 to have your body stored in liquid nitrogen, or US$80,000 for just your brain.
It’s been more than 50 years since California psychology professor James Hiram Bedford became the first person to be “deanimated,” dying at 73 and putting down US$100,000 to have his body frozen.
Now there are an estimated 500 bodies and brains in three commercial cryogenic facilities – Alcor Life Extension in Arizona, the Cryonics Institute in Michigan and KrioRus near Moscow. Another 3,000 people have signed up for de-animation.
Does it work? It depends on your definition of success. For 27 years, Dr. Bedford’s remains were moved repeatedly from one facility to another as various cryogenic companies folded. At one point, his family put his container in a self-storage unit for five years, topping off the nitrogen themselves.
About 30 years ago, when he was transferred to a new vessel, handlers found the skin on his neck was inflamed, his nose had collapsed and his chest had cracked. Otherwise, good as new.
Of course, mainstream science is beyond skeptical of such life-extension schemes, and there are myriad ethical issues. Whether you believe in evolution, an almighty universal force or some third thing we don’t know about, nature has proved that every life form has a beginning, a middle and an end to its earthly existence.
Bravo to Mr. Johnson if his formula works, but if hanging around for eternity must involve what he subjects himself to every day, I’ll pass. Being deprived of a cheeseburger now and then and having my bowels photographed several thousand times is not my idea of living.