Bryan’s call to “Don’t Die” now rings in my ears as “Don’t Lie” every time I hear it. I hope the societal mechanisms for truth will be able to help him make a course correction. I hope he will release the BP5000 data set and apologize to participants. But Bryan Johnson feels to me like an unstoppable marketing force at this point — full A-list influencer status — and sort of untouchable, with no use for those of us interested in the science and data.
To be fair to Bryan I have started the process of setting up “Hemming Biohacking” which will enable me to sell specialised biohacking interventions on Amazon (inter alia). I have found it difficult for people to make up my suggested interventions and so am getting some concentrated gene food made up (mixed citrates). Hence I will be in the supplement selling business and subject to the same conflicts of interest.
Cross-posting this here for those who are interested in Joseph Everett (What I’ve Learned) videos on BJ. It’s (my) commentary carefully watching, noting the inconsistencies in WIL’s messaging. Any influencer that takes that shit seriously enough to recommend it, discredits themselves IMO as either being inattentive, biased, etc.
I dunno man. ITP runs on a pretty small budget. Bryan could easily help the ITP to 10X their capacity, and it could vastly improve our understanding of longevity interventions. I don’t think that would be near zero effect.
Like, he chases down these “fancy” interventions like HBOT, laser shockwave etc, but the bigger bang-for-buck is going to come from things like molecules, gene therapies etc. Guy flew to some Caribbean island to have gene therapy. If “Don’t Die” is really a truthful mission statement, wouldn’t it make sense to fund some good trials?
I may have helped me understand my SHBG being high - does below sound right to people
From Brian:
Is this true:
SHBG - is slightly elevated due to high levels of exercise, optimal insulin, low body fat and high metabolic demand. It’s common in high-performance athletes.
Vitamin B12 level is 1815 pg/mL, high (ref range 200–900 pg/mL). B12 is essential for energy production, brain function, and DNA synthesis. We have targeted a higher B12 level to optimize methylation. High levels are usually harmless. Could also be from enhanced absorption from HBOT. No action being taken.
Bryan has said previously IIRC that such trials are likely not going to work so he’d rather fund the shovel companies rather than digging for gold himself, or it was about something else.
Besides we have multiple available drugs gone through phase 3 trials now and about a dozen on the way in phase 3 trials that can be repurposed (see agingbiotech.info/trials) . AI progress with agents is hyperbolic or exponential.
I don’t like too high serum B12 with regards to slight increase in lung cancer risk in MR iirc. But at the same time low B12 has devastating and permanent side effects so I’d prefer that slight increase in risk from too high serum B12 than try to optimize B12 downward too much. Have to monitor MMA and homocysteine levels with it as well. But it was long time ago I looked at this.
Probably possible to optimize it with MMA + Homocysteine + Serum B12 all in optimal range.
My B12 tends to be above the normal range. I also keep B9 high. Hence looking at the recent results they can be over 1,000 ng/L (=pg/mL) some labs report on a molar basis and off the top of my head I don’t know the conversion factor. The threshold is 150 pmol/L and it is reported over that.
IMO, this is part of BJs transition to becoming one of those “you can do anything with natural lifestyle” type influencers. Taking a bunch of pharmaceuticals isn’t good for the image. He’s been dropping the prescription drugs and has launched his own supplement brand, healthy meal prep delivery etc.
Call me cynical, but I’m going to guess that within 1 year he’s going to be selling his own Berberine supplements. He will claim that they tested the store-bought ones and they had impurities, heavy metals, poor yields, not the right type of leaves, or whatever.
As far as I know, most of those who took metformin simply stopped it, not switching to berberine or anything else.
BJ is the only one I know is still using metformin this year.
Rhonda Patrick started berberine a few years ago.
She described berberine as a statin alternative, but she doesn’t mention if she is still taking berberine recently.
Not just berberine, I think many influencers like Attia, Huberman, Rogan are all very cautious at these “natural plant extract” or “AMPK activator”.
Berberine is an HDAC inhibitor and complex 1 inhibitor, through those routes it will indirectly activate AMPK, but it is not as far as I know a direct AMPK activator.
