[Digital Today reporter Jinju Hong] Bryan Johnson, who has poured huge sums into anti-ageing experiments with “immortality” as his goal, is changing the focus of his project. He is shifting away from reversing visible ageing and toward finding and treating disease based on individual health data.

Decrypto, a blockchain media outlet, reported on Oct. 6 that Johnson wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that “sadly, the best anti-aging therapy is filters and retouching and lighting”. The remark contrasts with his earlier push, in which he spent $2 million a year aiming to roll back his body age to that of an 18-year-old.

Johnson has not given up on longevity itself. This year he is focusing more on directly detecting and treating disease than on anti-ageing. One trigger for the change was his own health problems. Johnson disclosed in June that he was diagnosed with autoimmune gastritis. After that, his co-founder and partner Kate Tolo also received diagnoses of endometriosis, PMOS and adenomyosis after about six weeks of tests.

Johnson said in July that he almost shut down his longevity company, adding that what he needs to build in the era of superintelligence is “curing every disease”. His annual $1 million longevity programme, Immortals, which began in February, has also broadened its direction.

The existing programme centred on nutrition, GLP-1, hormones, peptides and biomarker management. It has added stem cells, organoids and the development of personalised treatments. Johnson said he is focusing on creating tools that allow individuals to identify and solve their own health issues, adding that he and Tolo are the first customers.

Johnson has not completely ended his “18-year-old project”. He claimed last month that he is “18 in many ways”, citing sleep, reproductive capability, resting heart rate, vascular health and inflammation markers. He acknowledged, however, that his hearing and somatic mutations are not at teenage levels and that his appearance also looks like his actual age of 49.

Controversy has also continued around Johnson's longevity experiments. He claimed in July that he “cloned himself as a newborn”, but a community note pointed out that he only reprogrammed adult cells into induced pluripotent stem cells and that this differs from cloning. Johnson described the cells as a “baby Bryan in a petri dish”.

Expansion into women's health is also under way. Tolo said in an interview with Australia's ABC that women's health was always the next stage of the project. She said she aims to make herself “the most measured woman in the world” and is collecting 14,000,000 data points related to her menstrual cycle.

Johnson is also maintaining his goal of reaching immortality by 2039. He drew a line, saying immortality is not his only goal in life. As a result, his longevity project appears to be being reshaped away from experiments to keep appearance and body age young and toward using personal health data to detect disease early and develop customised treatments.

sadly, the best anti-aging therapies are filters, retouch and lighting