Billionaire biohacker Bryan Johnson, the man going to extreme lengths to live forever, has claimed people are ‘pleased’ he has been diagnosed with an incurable condition.
The American entrepreneur, 48, previously made headlines for his outlandish anti-ageing techniques, spending millions of dollars in a bid to extend his life and attain the biological age of an 18-year-old.
However, last week he revealed that he has been diagnosed with autoimmune gastritis (AIG), a condition in which the body’s immune system attacks healthy cells in the stomach lining.
Now he’s taken to social media to address the reaction, saying that while some people were saddened to hear about the diagnosis others seemed almost pleased.
He wrote on X: ‘The world wants me to die.
‘My incurable disease diagnosis became global news. It was omnipresent on social media and 1,900 articles were written in a matter of days. Many were saddened. However, joy dominated the commentary.’
Johnson went on to say that ‘there is a special place in people’s hearts that loves to see others fail, especially when that person’s presence threatens their own psychological stability in some way or helps them feel better about themselves.’
The lengthy tweet saw Johnson reference the stories of Gilgamesh, Jesus and Asclepius, the Greek God of medicine and healing, as he spoke of his own quest for eternal life.
‘Death has been the omnipresent concern of the human race. It encapsulates our greatest fears, joy and curiosities. The discourse around it changes over time; however, the fundamentals remain unchanged,’ he said.
‘What’s different about this moment, that is unlike any other moment, is that physical death may no longer be inevitable.
‘What if I didn’t deserve it?
‘And what if I am your ally, and not a threat?’
Johnson is the founder and former CEO of Kernel, a company which creates devices to monitor and record brain activity.
He spends roughly $2m (£1.5m) a year on his anti-ageing protocols, including his medical staff, tests, treatments and therapies.
He eats a strict vegan diet of no more than 1,977 calories per day, and goes to bed at 8.30pm, during which time he tracks his sleep quality and other medical data.
Johnson also has regular MRI scans and ultrasounds, overseen by around 30 hired physicians, and even injected his own 17-year-old son’s plasma in a bid to achieve his ambitions.
Bloomberg reported in 2023 that he also takes dozens of supplements every day, as well as undertaking three high-intensity workouts every week.
He has previously admitted living an unhealthy lifestyle, enjoying fast food and sugary drinks as a child, and despite ‘a few healthy years’ in his 20s all that changed once he had to juggle the stress of running a business and becoming a father, falling into a period of depression.
‘Somewhere in that timeline, my body began developing an autoimmune process affecting my thyroid and then my stomach lining,’ he said as he revealed the AIG diagnosis.
After being diagnosed with hypothyroidism (an underactive thyroid) at 21, which he ‘successfully managed with common treatments for nearly three decades’, Johnson noticed signs that ‘something else was going on’.
But it was only in May this year that he was told of his AIG, a chronic, immune-mediated, inflammatory condition.
According to the Global Autoimmune Institute, it’s estimated that 0.5%-4.5% of adults worldwide have autoimmune gastritis, a chronic inflammatory condition in which the body’s antibodies attack the acid-producing cells that make up the stomach lining.
As the symptoms tend to be non-specific it can often go untreated or be misdiagnosed, and can lead to complications such as Vitamin B12 deficiency and anaemia, as well an increased risk of gastric cancer.
Although there is no cure for the condition, Johnson has not given up hope.
‘In the age of AI, multiomics, and custom-built DNA, proteins, and cells, no condition should be presumed incurable simply because no one has yet tried to cure it with today’s stack,’ he said.
‘I wish all of you the very best. Care for yourself, care for others, care for the planet and care for our animal friends. Care for life as it’s the most precious gift there is.’