Bryan Johnson Reports His Biomarker Results: Can Biological Aging Be Slowed or Reversed?
Bryan Johnson
We keep rankings for the fastest person alive and the richest person alive, but none for the healthiest. Bryan Johnson opens the video with that observation. After several years pursuing the goal of reversing the aging process, and after measuring their body across thousands of data points, Johnson suggests they may now hold that title. The video explains why they are doing this, how they define and measure health, which biomarkers they consider most telling, what went wrong along the way, and what they think ordinary viewers should do.
The Goal: Age Escape Velocity
Johnson frames the project around a concept they call "age escape velocity." This means slowing the rate of biological aging until one year of calendar time produces less than one year of biological aging. Johnson says this will not come from eating well and exercising alone. It will require more advanced therapies that "turn back the clock." As an example of an emerging technology, they cite the ability to edit our own genome, which they say is already here. They predict that these technologies will become accessible to more people as they advance, and they describe them as "just around the corner."
Johnson distinguishes this goal from "magic immortality." They describe it as a methodical system for changing the trajectory of the body's aging, and they frame it as an engineering race between the damage the body sustains and our ability to repair and prevent that damage. In their view, the point at which repair outpaces damage will mark a new era, one in which "the calendar ends dictating your biological fate."
Defining and Measuring Health
To explain how health can be defined, Johnson starts with a simple comparison. Nobody would confuse a 90-year-old with a 2-year-old, but it becomes hard to tell a 35-year-old from a 36-year-old. They say the same principle applies throughout the body, so biological age can in fact be measured. From that starting point they list things "we all know" to be unhealthy: morbid obesity, diabetes, and a sedentary life. They add everyday indicators of health, such as how well the body fights infection, reaction speed, strength, and flexibility.
Johnson then asks whether anyone can actually change their course of aging. They say years of self-experimentation have convinced them that it is possible. Their examples are skin health, heart function, and liver function. They say that when organs are measured by both functional and anatomical categories, those organs can be made to show a younger age.
Johnson's protocol is built on what they call a gold-standard set of biological age measurements, benchmarked against population-level studies so they can see their percentile. They illustrate how uneven aging can be within one person. At 47, Johnson says their left ear measures as 64 years old, while their heart functions like a 37-year-old's. Their team set out to establish a baseline age for every organ in their body.
Selected Biomarkers
Johnson says they recently published more than 60 biomarkers that are highly predictive of all-cause mortality, meaning the likelihood of dying from anything. They share a few of these in the video. They also add a caveat that someone can have excellent markers and still be caught by an unexpected event.
Speed of aging. Johnson says this is one of the markers their team values most. It is based on epigenetic measurement. A score of 1 means aging at a normal rate, below 1 means slower, and above 1 means faster. Johnson reports that their most recent measurement was their best (the transcript renders it as "48," which appears to mean 0.48), and they give their best three-test average as transcribed "0.054." They summarize the result as roughly "celebrating a birthday every two years." Johnson treats this as a whole-body marker, because illness in any part of the body would affect it.
Inflammation. Johnson calls inflammation "the killer everybody should be aware of." They report that their high-sensitivity CRP came back as non-detectable, which they interpret as having no systemic inflammation, and they call this a remarkable accomplishment.
Sperm health. Johnson says global sperm health has declined by more than 50% over the past 50 years. They report that their own sperm health is substantially better than average levels from 1970 and on par with that of someone in their early 20s. They present this as evidence that a person can live in the modern world and still have excellent sperm health.
Cardiorespiratory fitness. Johnson describes VO2 max, meaning how well the body uses oxygen during exercise, as one of the best predictors of longevity. They report being at the 85th percentile for 18-year-olds.
Telomeres. Johnson explains telomeres as the end caps of chromosomes, like the hard tips on shoelaces, which fray and break with age. They report that their telomeres measured at the biological age of a 10-year-old, and they joke, "Am I becoming a baby?"
Bone density. Johnson reports that a recent DEXA scan placed them in the 99.8th percentile of all people.
Taken together, Johnson says these results show their body "functioning at an elite level across all of its systems."
Starting Point and Daily Protocol
Johnson describes where they started five years ago. They were 40 pounds overweight, had systemic inflammation, slept poorly, and were chronically depressed. All their markers were terrible, and they say they felt they were "physically and mentally falling apart." Five years later, they say they have "arguably the best comprehensive biomarkers of anybody in the entire world."
Their days are meticulously structured, with precise routines for bedtime, diet, exercise, and supplements. Johnson says these routines draw on an extensive review of scientific evidence and on measurements of their own body. They push back on the objection that the protocol only suits them. They say it rests on population-level studies of what works for large numbers of people, with only small personal modifications.
As an example of this approach, Johnson describes their diet of 2,250 calories a day under the principle that "every calorie must fight for its life." Their team evaluated candidate foods to identify those with the highest longevity potential. They did the same for therapies. Johnson mentions hyperbaric oxygen therapy, current sauna use, mesenchymal stem cells injected into their joints, and a host of other interventions. They say any therapy that does not deliver results is cut: "This is not about theater. It's about results." To viewers who find all this outlandish, Johnson responds that it is evidence-based and predicts that "Bryan Johnson of 2025 is a normal dude in 2030."
The Biggest Surprise: Resilience
Johnson says the most important thing they learned is that the body is resilient. They started at 43 after poor health habits in childhood, 20 years of "running myself into the ground as an entrepreneur," and 10 years of chronic depression. They present their turnaround within five years as a reason for everyone to have hope.
What Went Wrong
Johnson acknowledges that things always go wrong and gives two examples. The first is rapamycin, which they call one of the more promising drugs in anti-aging. They took it for several years while carefully measuring their levels and found that it accelerated their speed of aging, which they call a "great irony." They stress that this result is not conclusive about the drug. It may have affected only them, and there may have been factors they weren't measuring. Still, on that one narrow marker, it was speeding up their aging.
The second is a cosmetic setback. Early on, Johnson practiced caloric restriction and became very thin, which stripped fat from their face and, in their words, made them look really old. They tried fat injections to restore a youthful appearance, had a severe allergic reaction, and their face swelled up. They describe their overall method as a loop: measure, try a therapy, evaluate the data, and repeat, with "no loyalties except for to science and data."
What Viewers Can Do
Johnson tells viewers not to be intimidated. They say simple, basic habits deliver most of the benefit. The single thing they would focus on is lowering one's resting heart rate before bed. That means eating earlier and lighter, avoiding alcohol and late-night snacks, and avoiding high stress just before sleep. A lower heart rate before bed improves sleep, and in their view better sleep makes it easier to exercise and eat well. The simplified version is to lower your heart rate before bed, sleep well, exercise daily, and eat a bit better. Johnson argues this cycle compounds, making good decisions progressively easier.
Johnson closes by declaring that "a new era of being human is here." They say the old ways of debauchery and of being martyrs to professional ambition are over, replaced by what they call the era of "don't die." They urge viewers to make health their top priority and to encourage friends, parents, and children to do the same, starting with how people take care of themselves.
There's the fastest person in the world. 9.58, the world record's gone. There's the richest person in the world. He is now the richest person in the world. We've never had a ranking of who is the healthiest person in the world. Bryan Johnson. Bryan Johnson. Bryan Johnson wants to reverse the aging process. For the past few years, I've been working towards that objective. And after measuring my body with thousands of data points, I may have achieved that title. Why am I doing this?
I believe we are entering into a new era of existence. One that will be focused on age escape velocity.
What does age escape velocity mean? This means you're slowing down the rate of your biological aging. So if one year of time passes, you age for less than 1 year. Now we are not going to achieve age escape velocity by eating well and exercising. We need more advanced therapies, things that turn back the clock. There are so many promising technologies emerging. For example, the ability to edit our own genome, which is already here. As the technologies advance, like all things, it will become more accessible to more people. And those technologies are just around the corner.
What I'm talking about is not magic immortality. It's about the systems we built in a methodical fashion to change the trajectory of your body's aging processes. It's an engineering race between the damage your body sustains and our ability to repair and prevent that. The moment that our ability to repair outpaces the damage your body causes will be a new era of living. This is the point where the calendar ends dictating your biological fate.
How do you define healthy? Let's start simple. Let's say, for example, you have a 90-year-old next to a 2-year-old. Nobody's going to confuse who's 90 and who's two. They're clearly different ages. Now, as you narrow that range to a 35 and 36-year-old, it's not quite clear who's 35 and 36. That same principle applies to the entire body. You can in fact measure biological age.
Now starting from that simple example, we can say other things are also true. Being morbidly obese is not a good situation. Having diabetes is clearly not a health protocol. Being sedentary is not a winning strategy for a long life. These are basic things we all know. How do we measure healthy? Well, there's basic things we're aware of. For example, you can say, how good is your body at fighting infection? What is your reaction speed? How strong are you? What is your flexibility? These are basic measurements we all understand as a general indicator of health.
So, can you actually do anything to change your course of aging? I know from years of experimentation that I can do things that reverse my body's biological age. For example, my skin health or how my heart functions or how my liver functions. When you measure these organs according to functional categories and also anatomical, you can in fact get organs to represent a younger age.
What do I personally track? My entire longevity protocol is based upon a gold standard set of biological age measurements. These are benchmarked against population level studies to know where I'm at as a percentile. I'm 47 years old, but that's not true for my entire body. For example, my left ear is 64. My heart currently functions like a 37-year-old. We wondered if we could ask that question for every organ in my entire body and get a baseline. How old is Bryan Johnson right now?
I recently shared over 60 biomarkers that are highly predictive of all-cause mortality. Now, what is all-cause mortality? It's the likelihood you're going to die from anything. Now, these biomarkers give you insight into your risk of all-cause mortality. Of these 60, I'm going to share with you a few examples. Now, of course, a caveat is you can have great markers and then also be surprised by some unexpected event.
One of the biomarkers my team and I value the most is my speed of aging. This is based upon a new technology called epigenetics. Now, if you measure one, you're aging at a normal speed. Less than one, slower than normal, and more than one, faster than normal. My recent speed of aging measurement was 0.48. That was my best. My best three-test average is 0.54. That roughly means I celebrate my birthday every two years. So you can in fact dramatically slow down your speed of aging. And this is a marker for whole body wellness. If I'm sick in some part of my body, it's going to have an effect on how fast or slow I'm aging.
Next is inflammation. Now this is the killer everybody should be aware of. We measured something called high sensitivity CRP and it came back as non-detect in my body. I have no systemic inflammation. That's a remarkable accomplishment. We were pretty happy about that one.
Next is sperm health. Now, this is important because over the past 50 years, sperm health of the world has dramatically declined over 50%. My sperm health is better than the average levels of 1970, and substantially so. In fact, my sperm health is on par with someone in their early 20s. It's an example that you can in fact live in the modern world and have superior sperm health.
One of the best predictors for longevity is your cardiorespiratory fitness. This is sometimes known as your VO2 max. It's how well your body utilizes oxygen during exercise. My levels are at the 85th percentile for 18-year-olds.
Next up are telomeres. These are the end caps of your chromosomes. You can think of these like shoelaces where they have the hard material at the very end. As you age, they fray and they break. You want these to be strong. I had mine measured and they are the biological age of a 10-year-old. Am I becoming a baby?
And finally, bone health. I had a DEXA scan recently and it came back in the 99.8 percentile of all people. So, my bones are really strong. When you assemble all these markers together, my speed of aging, sperm, cardiovascular fitness, my telomeres, my body is functioning at an elite level across all of its systems.
So, where did I start and how much have I improved? When I started, I was 40 lbs overweight. I had systemic inflammation. I didn't sleep very well. I was chronically depressed. My markers were all terrible. I felt like I was physically and mentally falling apart. Now 5 years later, I have arguably the best comprehensive biomarkers of anybody in the entire world.
What am I doing every day to achieve this? My days are meticulously structured. We have a precise routine for my bedtime, what I eat, exercise, supplements I take. It's based upon extensive review of the scientific evidence and measurements of my body. Now, one mistake people make is they oftentimes say, "Well, but Bryan, this protocol is specific to you." Actually, we base the scientific protocol on population level studies. We learned what worked for a large number of humans, not just me. Now, of course, I make small modifications here and there for myself, but generally speaking, these things are based upon population level evidence.
This has led me down the path of making some very specific decisions. For example, my diet every day is 2,250 calories. And the philosophy is every calorie must fight for its life. In doing that, we evaluated all the foods that could potentially be consumed every day and which ones have the highest potential for longevity. We did the same with therapies. So I've done recent therapies like hyperbaric oxygen therapy. I'm now doing sauna. I've done things such as mesenchymal stem cells in my joints and a host of other therapies, all based upon scientific evidence. Now if a therapy doesn't deliver results, we cut it. This is not about theater. It's about results.
Now, in hearing this, you may think this is outlandish. There's two things for you. One, this is based upon the scientific evidence. Also, Bryan Johnson of 2025 is a normal dude in 2030.
What is the most surprising thing I have learned about my body? Unquestionably, the most important thing I have learned about my body is the body is resilient. Remember, I was 43 years old when I started. I had led a life with poor health habits as a kid, 20 years of running myself into the ground as an entrepreneur, 10 years of chronic depression. I was in a really bad state of health. And 5 years later, I have the best biomarkers in the entire world. This should give everybody hope.
Now, have things ever gone wrong? I can't think of anything. Of course, they have. Things always go wrong. I'll give you two examples. One is I took one of the more promising drugs in the anti-aging world called rapamycin. I did it for several years, meticulously measuring my levels. It turns out that drug accelerated my speed of aging. Great irony. Really fun. Now this is not conclusive on that drug. It may be the case that in me it had that effect. There may be other things we weren't measuring, but still, in that one narrow marker, it was accelerating how fast I was aging.
Number two is my face blew up when I was doing fat injections. In the early days of my endeavor, I went on caloric restriction. I got very skinny and that has the effect of wiping out all the fat in your face. Turns out that makes you look really old. I was trying to make my face look youthful with more fat, injecting the fat, and I had a severe allergic reaction and it blew up. I guess a bit more than I bargained for.
This is the protocol we've built. Measure, do a therapy, evaluate the data, and repeat that cycle again and again. No loyalties except to science and data.
Can you do any of this yourself? The answer is yes. I encourage you, don't be intimidated by this conversation. You actually can do simple basic things and get the majority of the health benefits. I'll tell you the single thing I would focus on if I were you is to lower your resting heart rate before bed. That means when you do that, you eat earlier and lighter. You avoid alcohol, you avoid late night snacks, you avoid high stress just before bed. That which lowers your heart rate before bed improves your sleep. And when your sleep is improved, you're going to exercise and eat well. If you can simplify this entire complex world of health: lower your heart rate before bed, get excellent sleep, exercise every day, and begin eating a bit better, that cycle will compound upon itself. You'll find it easier and easier to make good decisions.
Friends, I'm telling you, a new era of being human is here. If you can't see it, I'm telling you, it's here. The old ways of debauchery and being martyrs for our given professional ambitions, it's over. We are in the era of Don't Die. Make health your number one priority. Invite your friends to make their health the number one priority. Call your parents. Check in. How are they doing? Lower their resting heart rate. Help your children. This is a new time to be a new human. It begins with how we take care of ourselves.
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