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Comment by kkoncevicius | Hacker News Reader

I love what the guy is doing. It is a one-man experiment that would be very very hard to reproduce, or even get ethics approval and funding for, by a research lab.

But on the other hand, I get a sense that the public side of his results are overblown. For example, my field is epigenetics, so I had a look at his "epigenetic clock" results. He uses "DunedinPACE" to track the rate of aging and his result is supposedly 0.72 (which very roughly estimates that he ages 0.72 years per a single astronomical year).

However, what is not mentioned, is that this result, while impressive, is not so extraordinary. He is number 6 in his own online leaderboard [1]. And the people who beat him at this metric don't do anything fancy to get better numbers than him [2]. Why not mention things like that along with all the optimism?

[1]: https://rejuvenationolympics.com/leaderboard/#absolute

[2]: https://fortune.com/well/2023/11/04/longevity-women-biohacke...

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> Why not mention things like that along with all the optimism?

He does mention things like that. For one, he posted a link to this article: https://twitter.com/bryan_johnson/status/1721578475759239658....

He's also made a number of posts, often as replies to people asking the same sort of question that you are, pointing out that 95% of longevity is the simple things we're aware of (diet, exercise, etc.) and that he's just testing out all the other stuff because he can/he's interested/it's a worthwhile investment of time and money for him to get that last 5%.

>However, what is not mentioned, is that this result, while impressive, is not so extraordinary.

The lesson here is that not all phenotypes age at the same rate. Bryan doesn't have a choice in that, like none of us have. He mentions that his hair started falling out in his 30's while I have a full head of hair in my 40's. He's promoting a lifestyle and being an experiment, he doesn't need to caveat his work in any way.

>Why not mention things like that along with all the optimism?

The only people I see with extreme optimism are weird tech people. Most people I follow outside of that circle range from laughing at this to "kinda neat" (like you and me).

Is anyone convinced this is "worth it", or that what he's doing is actually anti-aging anything?

The following protocol will put most people in the top 20% of health outcomes if you're consistent for 2 years. If you're baseline healthy, it'll put you in top 10%. If you keep it up for a lifetime, I'm certain it will add at least a decade of 'high quality years' to your life (I'm not talking life extension, but quality of life).

A good diet (no/minimal processed foods), lots of water, 7.5-8 hours of sleep, limited stress, strong family/social circle, regular (3-5x per week) cardio, (2x per week) strength training, 1x per week high intensity cardio for 30 minutes, and regular stretching/flexibility for 15 minutes per day.

I think it is worth it for the stats in general. I would think it is likely not worth it for any individual to religiously follow.

Depends. Are you convinced major life extension is coming soon ?

Maybe if he was not doing anything, his score would be 1.1?

Also, I don't think the point is doing fancy things. The people that beat him might just be doing "common sense" healthy things. Something which most people don't do. See SAD (Standard American Diet).

Yeah, of course, maybe it would be 1.1. What I am trying to say is that the results could be reported in a more scientific manner.

For instance, about epigenetic clocks, there are a lot of them now. There is GrimAge for mortality, FitAge for fitness, and dozens of different clocks for chronological age. I cannot know for sure, but I am almost sure Bryan tried at least a few. Why did they select to showcase only this one? Is it because they liked the results the most?

Same for all other markers. All of them are "optimal" "above 95%", etc. Is there no marker that is not so great and can still be improved? Also showing the history of the measurements (how they fluctuate during years Bryan is on the protocol) would be wonderful. Or measuring the same markers for a different person, who is above him in the leaderboard, but not going through the protocol.

I want to repeat that I love what he is doing. But for some reason the website gives a marketing vibe. This is our protocol, everything is optimal, here is our olive oil. Which is a bit of a weird look, given the lengths Bryan Johnson is going through.

"Maybe" isn't exactly scientific; what he should've done was keep his existing lifestyle, have the same measurements taken, but not actually look at them because they would influence the measurements.

Without a baseline, the numbers are meaningless. What if most people are under 1 but there's a few outliers that skew the numbers?

Although even then it could be 1 thing out of 100 things he does to actually be helpful, e.g. exercise.

That's right. What matters most here is whether he might be just as healthy if he'd just exercise regularly and eat a decent diet.

This guy spent so much trying not to die that he’s not living at all.

How is he not living? What would he need to do to really live? Go get drunk at a bar? Stay up until 3am playing video games?

FTA: "I am now accumulating aging damage slower than the average 10 year old"

That to me said to me far more about the average 10 year olds diet and perhaps also likely to an increasing sedentary level.

There are no reliable, scientifically validated biomarkers for the rate of aging. People who use such metrics are just fooling themselves.

https://peterattiamd.com/richardmiller2/

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