32 points by ferryth 1 hour ago | 27 comments
- To add some context, this is a relatively common form of gastritis impacting depending on location 3-5% of the population called Autoimmune Gastritis. Now his biohacking might be related it might not, the issue with the guy is that he does too many interventions at the same time so it’s hard to really tell what’s going on. He also has a core belief of equating looking younger with his interventions working, to his defence he also runs more rigorous analysis on his body. Overall he isn’t the most interesting bio hacker out there, but he is the loudest.
- Whenever I look up diseases and it reports a statistic such as "3-5%" I often feel like either I must not be interpreting it correctly, or it is so region-biased as to not be useful for how I'm consuming the data. Because it's hard to reconcile that apparently in the ballpark of 1 in 20 people have this?
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- His idea would be cool if not for the lindy effect: each one of his "tests" has a somewhat low probability of extending his life by a few months / years.
However each of his tests, as they are new, also has a smaller probability of having ruin effect: killing him or leaving him disabled in the process. Multiplying the treatments increases significantly the downside risks (1 failure is enough) while the positive will not compound (you will need many of them to work to see a significant effect).
- Someone should make a website showing the oldest living biohackers. Presenting it as a sort of leaderboard
- Honestly, great idea, hope someone interested reads this.
- It seems like a high-prevalence low-impact disease. Considering how much he self-scans it’s no surprise he found one of these. The cancer is not particularly dangerous and lifespan is barely affected by it.
Seems interesting but not consequential.
- This is heartbreaking to see (from the doc about this guy, he seemed to genuinely believe this was a good idea). A good warning about the limits of control humans have over things (and why brute-forcing it can often lead to bad outcomes).
- I wonder if the methods he used are any better than all sorts of incantations or ancient “cures”…a worthy goal that proved money can’t solve the ultimate disease…yet!
- There is nothing more valuable than doing what you believe and love in the life. Especially when doing no harm, furthermore trying to solve a great problem with great benefits for society.
Is incredible but understandable, many don´t get it.
- He's going about this in the least scientific way, though. When n=1 and he has a million confounding variables, it reads more like fear of his own mortality than a meaningful research project. And this is a business for him now, he sells supplements through his Blueprint program.
- [dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48804049
- This is absolutely hilarious. lolollol .. aw life is good.
- Now this news is everywhere and people seem to be mocking him, but he is a good guy.
- He's hubristic and selfish. None of his "research" is going to benefit anyone (himself included), making this essentially a huge waste of time and resources. Bryan will die just like all the rest of us, despite being very rich and self-obsessed. He could spend his enormous wealth on supporting real research and proper studies on real diseases that hurt lots of people. Instead he's acting like just another huckster promising a fountain of youth. He does this using bombastic terms and taboo methods (e.g. using his son as a blood boy), in a way that's calculated to direct enormous public attention towards himself. The science he advocates for is sketchy at best and the results of all his "experiments" will tell us nothing because we can't reproduce his methods (his program allegedly costs >$1M per year), nothing is blinded or controlled, and N=1. He's a bad person who uses bad methods to glorify himself and now he probably gave himself an autoimmune disease. He deserves to be mocked.
- > He could spend his enormous wealth on supporting real research and proper studies on real diseases that hurt lots of people
There we go again. There's always that one guy in the crowd, who knows better what you should be spending your money on. Also, that guy has the moral right to tell you. He is a really good person, you know! So you should listen! You should also thank him.
- Well said, he got what was coming to him too.
- > but he is a good guy
That definitely doesn't seem to be the case, especially if you look beyond his bio-hacking endeavors. His treatment of employees and ex-partners seems pretty horrible: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/technology/bryan-johnson-...
- Fwiw, people mocked him long before this news broke. People aren't hating on him as a result of his diagnosis, just found a new (and admittedly ironic) point to pick at.
- I mean, you never know for sure. It's all just PR and messaging. Especially from a tech CEO with money. The thing that I struggle to reconcile is how much he's been involving his teenage son in this experimentation. That's a pretty gigantic red flag for me, I guess.
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- That was unkind and unnecessary. Please keep these kinds of comments out of HN.
- He’s unfathomably rich and unfathomably stupid; doing insane shit to his body and actively recommending others do the same and that’s why he’s being mocked.
“Good guy” or not, he’s paying the price for playing with fire.
- At least he walks the walk. I won’t say he is stupid. You see stupid people(a big chunk of the human population) looking for immortality in more stupid things so I would place him way above these folks
- There is no proof that his autoimmune disease was caused by him "playing with fire", it's more likely to be genetic.
- I didn’t say they were related. I said he’s doing insane shit to himself because he has the money to do so. But it’s that he recommends others do the same and that’s stupid.
- I thought the article was talking about his blood donations to explain any part of how he ended up with this disease but no, he just has it (for some reason) as a result of something that happened at some point.
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