From "The Immortals: meet the billionaires forking out for eternal life" (The Guardian).
September 6, 2023
"Until recently, Bryan Johnson was paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to infuse one litre of his teenage son’s youthful plasma into his own ageing blood stream every month."
"'I’ve never paid more attention to what he’s eating … because that was going into my body,' the 46-year-old American tech entrepreneur says.... He also pumped his own plasma into his 70-year-old father’s body to help improve his declining physical and cognitive health: 'It was one of the most meaningful moments in his entire life. And it was the same for me.'... But Johnson had just begun using an algorithm to prevent biological ageing, which sifts through all research on longevity to create the best treatment plan and he was using his own body as a petri dish for it. Doctors have told Johnson he has the heart of a 37-year-old and the lungs of an 18-year-old...."
From "The Immortals: meet the billionaires forking out for eternal life" (The Guardian).
From "The Immortals: meet the billionaires forking out for eternal life" (The Guardian).
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So Elizabeth Bathory was more of a medical pioneer then we realized? :P
So he's basically a high-tech vampire. I wonder how his son feels about being treated as, what, a "blood cow"?
If you could live a long healthy life by feeding off your own children’s life-force, would you? I’d like to think most of us wouldn’t.
From his son ? There must be a global shortage of monkey glands.
To do this, would I have to give up pizza?
I just had an argument over the gene/behavior question with the phd roommate. My bet is he doesn’t outlast what his telomeres determine…
…and unless mr billions actually has the heart of a 37yo and the lungs of an 18yo the doctor is lying. You can always spot the lie by the extreme specificity…
Look out for words like immortal, eternal, forever (sorry Ray) in articles and books about this.
Extended and indefinite are more like it.
Ugh
Sounds like a modern day Elizabeth Bathory, albeit without the killing of the servant girls.
Johnson is living in the land of diminishing returns. I run 2-3 times per week and have a VO2 Max which is above average for a 35-39 year old. I'll be 61 next month.
Forking over the money for these things does not make them immortal. They're just people capable of indulging their whims.
I got better whims.
Eat well.
Stay fit.
Die Anyway.
Apparently history will be written (and read) by the trillionaires.
Yikes!
Just... be careful what path you set your feet on, ok? You can end up in some profoundly creepy places.
What if his son doesn’t want to keep undergoing aphaeresis to supply dad with plasma? I once had a bad reaction to the process when donating to the local blood bank. It is not a completely risk free procedure. Other than the issue of informed consent (assuming minors are allowed to donate plasma where they live) I don’t care what the rich dude does with his money. Really I saw his name first and assumed it was about the AC/DC singer until I got to “age 46” and had to start over.
More coffee!
Yeah, well. Jimmy Buffett wasted away in Margaritaville, so some billionaires are still dying.
Doctors have told Johnson he has the heart of a 37-year-old and the lungs of an 18-year-old
These two comparisons mean precisely nothing. The range of heart health in 37-yo people and lung-health in 18-yo people is wide wide wide. Doctor knows a sucker when he sees one.
I hope his kid is charging him a king's ransom for his plasma.
I go to a lot of estate sales. One common sight is books on extreme longevity. Taking your own son's blood is off the charts creepy. This man should be shunned.
Another old lawyer said...
So he's basically a high-tech vampire. I wonder how his son feels about being treated as, what, a "blood cow"?
=======
nice enjoyable chinese drama with cute name for blood cow for Panda blood
"Shan Shan Comes to Eat"
inquiring mind want to know >>
do billionaire also take ivermectin for kungflu or
dress like swathed mummy?
This all starts in the (aptly-named) High School, with a thought that begins, like, "If my parents live to be 100, maybe I should smoke their ashes or something,..."
Blood plasma today, kidneys tomorrow. If I were the son I'd watch my back.
"The writing's on the wall, come read it, come see what it say"
just using son's blood is better than clone-brain transplant on Jacksons Whole!
There's a way to achieve immortality. There's a great book written about it.
There's a catch, though, it's not immortality here on Earth, it's in the Kingdom of Heaven.
There are warnings in that book about the false gods Mr. Johnson is chasing.
A Korean horror film about eating aborted babies comes true:
Dumplings (2004) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472458/
Some called it anti-abortion propaganda at the time it was released. But if you wanna live forever...you apparently do what it takes...
St. Vincent song Los Ageless (2017):
"In Los Ageless, the winter never comes
In Los Ageless, the mothers milk their young"
...
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/stvincent/losageless.html
There is a rumor that Oprah keeps herself young by harvesting the blood and plasma from children.
I thought that sounded crazy... Now I'm not so sure.
I believe Heinlein mentioned that solution in one of his novels.
I think some details are missing, because I doubt it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to transfuse 1 liter of blood in 1 month, or even in 1 year.
I hereby dare to declare,
as a billionaire,
That everyone Must Care
Burma Shave.
The show Silicon Valley made fun of this procedure a few years ago.
Doctors telling what he wants to hear.
I believe Heinlein mentioned that solution in one of his novels.
Although none of his characters ever bled his or her own child or anyone else's.
Yeah, "young blood," freely donated, was the first and simplest longevity therapy in the Future History series of Heinlein books and stories. Ultimately what they went with was cloning yourself and somehow transferring your personality and knowledge into the body of your clone. Cloning yourself, plus genetic manipulation, was also how you got replacement organs and such when needed. And he pulled a nice deus ex machina by coming up with a technological way to keep the clone's brain (personality, "soul") from developing on its own.
He was more interested in longevity as he got older, it seemed, than with wrestling with moral questions. The stories were still fun, but they weren't doing the big job of science fiction as much.
I think some details are missing, because I doubt it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to transfuse 1 liter of blood in 1 month, or even in 1 year.
Hopefully it's because his son is charging him that much for the blood.
Dad cheerfully writes the checks and says, "That's my boy!"
He should take the next step and share blood circulation with his son (or parabiosis).
I got better whims.
LOL!
Me too.
It sounds semi-plausible. Vivek Ramaswamey has some stock to sell Mr. Johnson.
Hunter Biden's tax payer funded Hooker said...
"There is a rumor that Oprah keeps herself young by harvesting the blood and plasma from children.
I thought that sounded crazy... Now I'm not so sure."
That's no rumor - from the NY Daily News 2008:
Hey, Girlfriend: I've Got Dick On My Face!!!!
"Doctors have told Johnson he has the heart of a 37-year-old and the lungs of an 18-year-old...."
Have they identified the 37 and 18 year old he got these from? Other kids of his?
Sounds like the Howard families.
John Henry
There seems to be trend of wealthy people, actors/Directors, and Pols all living forever. Aren't eastwood, Duvall, Connery, and hackman still alive. They'd be 93 if they are. Kirk Douglas lived to be over 100. And carter, sandra day oconnor, and Breyer still around
I wonder why, maybe they're getting some expensive drug or treatement the rest of us aren't. Maybe not blood plasma like Johnson, but they're getting SOMETHING. Because regular people are still dying in their 70s
Doctors have told Johnson, the good news is, you have the heart of a 37-year-old and the lungs of an 18-year-old. The bad news is, they're still in your son. But for a fee...
Clinical cannibalism... at least his son is not classified as a "burden".
so, vampires were right, the whole time?
Just think of All those ignorant bitches, that just threw their fetuses away, without consuming them!
We ALL NEED, to follow the wisdom of Baal, and Satan!
the heart of a 37yo and the lungs of an 18yo
to be fair.. His charlatan doctor didn't say WHICH 37 year old, or WHICH 18 year old..
Plenty of 37 yo's die of heart disease.. LOTS of 18 yo's die of emphysema
Once again, The Simpsons were there first.
What's up doc?
https://www.claimsjournal.com/news/national/2023/09/01/319151.htm
37 and 18 are oddly specific values. A kind of tell, right?
Jamie said...
I believe Heinlein mentioned that solution in one of his novels.
Although none of his characters ever bled his or her own child or anyone else's...
All of that but first the regular humans came up with an artificial young blood source while the Howards were traveling the cosmos in a generation ship after escaping persecution on earth in the book Methuselah's Children.
This slope. It sure seems slippery.
The reason that this is costing so much, is not because of transfusions from his son. That's just a cover, though there have been studies with mice showing healthful effects of blood from younger mice into older mice, so it's plausible. No, the real cost comes from the kidnap and torture of children to make the adrenochrome that is ding the heavy lifting in his rejuv process.
But in the mean time, more plasma centers are going to spring up, offering college students real money to donate. $50 a pop will become $500 and instead of the 28 day cooldown, it will be twice a week. Not bad money for a renewable resource.... I am looking for some VC money to launch my business. email me at lifesucker@blood_liable.woo
Heinlein used this youthful blood transfer idea in the 1960s as a means of prolonging the lives of the elderly in his novels. Of course, he also wrote about a genetics project to enlongate life, which had a sport succeed in the 2nd or 3rd generation. That character never died.
Is anyone yet organizing the breeding of the kids with highly aged grandparents?
It would be actually hilarious if this guy was killed by a falling meteorite.
God will not be mocked...
'Doctors have told Johnson he has the heart of a 37-year-old and the lungs of an 18-year-old...'
How old is his Johnson?
"I have good news and bad news..."
"Give me the good news first, then."
"You have the heart of a thirty-seven year old."
"Wow! That's great!"
"The bad news is that the thirty-seven year old is Charlie Parker."
"Parker died at thirty-five!"
"You're beginning to grasp the situation..."
Goya did it better. "Saturn Devouring His Son"
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/82/Francisco_de_Goya%2C_Saturno_devorando_a_su_hijo_%281819-1823%29.jpg/800px-Francisco_de_Goya%2C_Saturno_devorando_a_su_hijo_%281819-1823%29.jpg
This woman had the lungs of a 33 year old: https://nypost.com/2023/08/30/fitness-influencer-larissa-borges-33-dies-following-double-cardiac-arrest/
One more reason to have children!
Sigh... billions of liters of third world plasma, even whole blood, going to waste.
Perhaps Carnival could have a Transfusion Cruise to Central and South America.
And it would lessen the need to (illegally) immigrate to the U.
Win - win
Unless the ultra rich think THAT blood is tainted....
My great grandmother had two sisters. The three of them lived to: 99, 98, 98. Grandma: 98. They didn't eat mostly purple sweet potatoes or unsaturated fats or whatever trendy thing the doctors like at this moment, it was double fried pork chops, raised doughnuts with maple syrup and a cigarette and the leanest and fattiest part of whatever the hunters killed...
Feel free to keep lecturing us about how we control our own destiny but it is only partly true. The shorter part...
It sounds like what QC Kinetix does. But QCK doesn't charge "hundreds of thousands of dollars".
Somebody is getting bilked.
Paddy 🤣
You doesn't has to call me Johnson...
seriously, is THIS what happened to Bon Scot? i thought he'd drank himself to death..
But y'all are saying that Brian Johnson is a vampire, that drank his blood and stole his soul?
Back In Black indeed!
Blogger Another old lawyer said...
"So he's basically a high-tech vampire. I wonder how his son feels about being treated as, what, a "blood cow"?"
Also referred to in vampire fiction as a "pomme de sang".
https://anitablake.fandom.com/wiki/Pomme_de_Sang
As for the Oprah angle, possibly adrenochrome. Except the source doesn't survive after donating.
Blood out, blood in.
Shit rich people do with their money. Like riding a cardboard tube below the waves to see the Titanic.
My dad died when he was 94. He had a physical a few months before he died and was told that he had the heart and lung health of a man 30 years younger. I thought that was interesting when he told me that because Dad started smoking corncob pipes in his early teens and drinking quite a lot of alcohol starting in college. He continued doing so until his death.
He died because the medical transport driver forgot to chock the wheels of his wheelchair and at the first turn Dad and wheelchair tipped over. That accident caused renal failure and Dad died a few days later.
We never know our fate beyond knowing that our fate will one day arrive.
At now 66, as long as I get the three score years and ten I was promised, I have no desire to employ extreme measure to keep it all going. My dearly loved step-mom, who I just spoke with on the phone Monday, is 93. From what I can tell, life at her age is more of a chore than it's worth.
Two years ago, my regular doctor retired. His replacement told me that his job was to see that I made it to 70. And I though, then what? And that was the last time I saw him. I absolutely love the guy I replaced him with.
I don't see that anyone else has mentioned it, but it costs him hundreds of thousands of dollars to do a monthly blood transfusion? How can I get into the private blood transfusion racket?
My Oma, and later my own mother, used to say they were ready to go--when they hit 90 or so years. For all I know, they meant it.
I'm pretty surprised that I made it to 70, and have no reason to think I'll get to 80.
"Doctors have told Johnson he has the heart of a 37-year-old and the lungs of an 18-year-old...."
Sure. They'll keep telling him that until a) he dies or b) he goes bankrupt.
I'm 80, and in reasonably good health. My father, mother, and younger brother all died at an earlier age than than that. So did 2 of my 4 grandparents.
SO WHAT? If you (i.e. God), give me a choice, I'd keep on living the way things are right now. If God says, you can live longer, but you'll be sick and in pain most of the time. The only rational answer is: Whatever you say, God.
As a believer, I rely on the divine Providence to set the term of my life. As an abstract, intellectual game it is amusing (in small doses) to read these people who imagine that they are going to make 'everlasting life' for themselves. But I thought that a couple of the photographs of the father and son, in the context of their 'commercial arrangement', were 'creepy'.
Narayanan says: nice enjoyable chinese drama with cute name for blood cow for Panda blood
"Shan Shan Comes to Eat"
I looked it up and just watched the first episode. Very apropos this discussion. It’s called Boss & Me and it’s on Netflix.
John Borell: word.
My Moms kidneys have been slowly losing ground in their functioning abilities. At 91, what’s the next step? She’s adverse to dialysis, having seen others try to prevent the inevitable, but I think it would be an option that would give us all more time together.
I wonder, does the body go easier(I’m really asking- is the death less painful) if you don’t try to prevent it? Or, easier if you wrong e/available minute you can and then cut the cord? No one can know that, I guess.
I also know that morphine is probably the real Reaper- I’m not a fan- but, I’m not in dire straits, either.
Doctors have told Johnson he has (...) the lungs of an 18-year-old
Unfortunately, it's an 18-year-old chihuahua who lives with an old lady that smokes four packs of cigarettes a day. ("Oh, Steempy, you eeeediot...!"
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