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Fortune
Fortune
Orianna Rosa Royle

This tech CEO is swapping blood with his 17-year-old son to stay young

Bryan Johnson on stage (Credit: Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg— Getty Images)

With all the money in the world to spend, the rich and famous can afford to go to pretty extreme lengths to remain forever youthful.

Gwyneth Paltrow recently revealed on The Art of Being Well podcast that she fasts until noon and only has chicken broth for lunch all the while hooked up to an IV vitamin drip for the entire interview. Meanwhile, Demi Moore has enlisted the help of “highly trained medical leeches” to suck and “detoxify” her blood and John Cleese swears by stem cell therapy.

But there’s one CEO taking matters even further.

The tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson recently recruited his 17-year-old son Talmage and his 70-year-old father Richard to join him in “the world's first multi-generational plasma exchange”.

Last month the trio headed to Resurgence Wellness, a medical spa in Texas where, according to Bloomberg, the youngest Johnson got a full liter of his blood removed (for context, the human body has about five liters of blood) and separated into a batch of liquid plasma and then a batch of red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. 

Next up, Bryan underwent the same process with the addition of having the same quantity of his son’s plasma reinfused back into his veins. Finally, the multimillionaire’s father had some of his own blood drained to make room for Bryan’s good stuff.

The FDA advises against people infusing young blood because there’s “no compelling clinical evidence on its efficacy”, yet Johnson’s medical team approved the procedure as a possible treatment for cognitive decline.

In traditional medicine, plasma infusions are already used to treat a variety of conditions, including liver disease, burns and blood disorders but not as a means to reverse aging.

Not his first rodeo 

This isn’t the first time Bryan Johnson has had young blood pumped into his body to reverse aging.

The American serial entrepreneur previously received blood transfusions from young anonymous donors which, according to Bloomberg, Johnson personally screened to ensure they had an ideal body mass index, were free of diseases and lived a healthy lifestyle.

It’s all a part of Johnson’s $2 million a year anti-aging routine for his latest data-driven venture, Project Blueprint.

As well as blood transfusions, Johnson follows a strict daily routine which includes having his body fat, heart rate variability, blood, stool samples and the number of erections he has per night monitored. 

Every day he also takes two dozen medicines at 5 a.m., consumes 1,977 “vegan calories”, and exercises for an hour before using blue-light-evasive glasses and hitting the hay.

The results? He claims to now have the heart of a 37-year-old, the skin of a 28-year-old and the lung capacity of an 18-year-old.

While the data is preliminary, Johnson plans to continue sharing his methods and lessons so that others can evaluate and benefit from his work.

But the majority of people who don’t have the resources to have a medical facility in their home are more likely wondering how on earth did Johnson get rich enough to afford all these treatments in the first place? 

Look no further. Here’s how the youth-chasing millionaire made his money.

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