Bryan Johnson Profile picture
Oct 22, 2024 12 tweets 6 min read Read on X
Genetically, I should be bald.

I started to lose my hair and go gray in my late 20s.

Now, at 47, I’ve got a full head of hair and ~70% of my gray is gone.

Here how I did it.. 🧵 Image
Contrary to popular belief, you can maintain your hair well into your 40s and beyond.

In 12 months, I went from a Norwood 3 to a Norwood 2. Norwood is a hair loss scale, as indicated in the image.

Here’s how I achieved these results:
Image
1. Start early:

Don’t wait for visible loss.

Many lose up to 50% of their hair before they even realize it.

The best time to work on your hair is before you start losing it. Sources (1) (2)
2. Nutrition:

Make sure you're getting adequate:

+ Protein: including collagen peptides and sufficient methionine, cyteine, and lysine in addition to taurine, to support collagen, keratin, and elastin synthesis. Ref (3)

+ Omega-3 fatty acids: for antioxidant effects and improving scalp circulation. Ref (4)

+ Key vitamins & minerals: including iron, selenium, and biotin. Ref (3)

The Blueprint stack has all of these. ↓Image
3. Customized topicals:

I use a personalized Rx formula based on my genetics to prevent and reverse hair loss. Roots byGA (5)

Here are the ingredients in my formulation: Minoxidil (7%), Cetirizine HCl (1%), Latanoprost (0.004%), Dutasteride (0.25%), Melatonin (0.1%), Caffeine (0.2%), Tretinoin (0.0125%), Vitamin D3 (1,000IU/ML), Vitamin E (10 IU/ML).

5% minoxidil is a solid budget alternative. Apply 1 mL to scalp at night or in the morning (or both), massage thoroughly.

Note that some people experience side effects with a topical such as itchy skin, headaches etc. so monitor for those.
4. Red light therapy:

Six minutes a day and you can be doing your morning routine as you wear it. A study on 44 males (age 18-49) showed that treatment with 655nm laser cap for 25 min every other day for a duration of 16 weeks resulted in a 39% increase in hair growth compared to placebo. Ref (6)

An affordable Blueprint red light cap coming soon.
5. Oral minoxidil:

I take 3.75 mg a day. I started with 2.5 mg and evaluated for side effects.

In a double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial involving 90 men with androgenetic alopecia AGA, oral minoxidil (5 mg daily) was found to have similar efficacy to topical minoxidil (5% solution applied twice daily) after 24 weeks.Ref (7)

Oral minoxidil is generally considered safe at low doses, but it can have side effects such as hypertrichosis (excessive hair growth) and headaches.Image
When starting any new hair regimen:

+ Start slow
+ Introduce 1 product at a time
+ Monitor closely for side effects
+ Give each addition 3 months to show results
+ 5% minoxidil alone is sufficient for many
+ Consider personalization based on your genetic profile, health, diet type and nutritional condition to reverse any deficiencies (e.g. omega3, protein...) revealed by blood testing.
In December, I'll have a hair growth serum for you. I've been experimenting and refining the formulation for two years.
A final note that I’m in touch with several companies that are building novel hair regrowth therapies. They are promising and exciting.

They’re still years out but it’s cool to think that hair loss may no longer be a thing we have to think about. Just one reason why the future is going to be amazing. #dontdie
For my full protocols and guides visit Project Blueprint here:

blueprint.bryanjohnson.com/pages/blueprin…

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More from @bryan_johnson

Mar 25
I take 2.5 mg of Cialis daily.
Not for erections, but for longevity.

Here’s what the science says about Cialis and lifespan extension…

And why it’s not the reason behind my 3 hour long titanic nighttime erections.
🧵
0/ It sounds wild, but low-dose Cialis (tadalafil) and Viagra (sildenafil) are both drawing attention for longevity benefits.

Recent clinical evidence indicates the use of either correlates to longer survival in men, in addition to their potential for heart health, metabolism, and even brain function.

A new retrospective study evaluated the longevity potential of 407 prescription drugs in over 200,000 participants, with both Cialis and Viagra being among the surprising promising hits in men (yet to be evaluated in women, since the retrospective studies only cover existing drug use for established indications).

Sildenafil will soon be tested in the NIA’s ITP, the most credible pre-clinical longevity drug testing program in mice.Image
1/ My nighttime erections are better than the average 18 year old, but Cialis is unlikely to play a meaningful role in them or even my sexual function.

While it’s true that daily low-dose Cialis (2.5–5 mg) can help men with erectile dysfunction (ED) or benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) by maintaining steady blood levels of the drug, the primary benefit is in restoring minimal normal erectile function, not enhancing already healthy sexual performance.

In one study, men with ED taking 5 mg/day of tadalafil showed an average increase of 17.75 minutes in nightly Duration of Erectile Episodes (DOEE). This threshold was considered predictive of a successful response.

My dose is half that, 2.5 mg.

However, this effect is likely limited to individuals with existing ED, as the drug appears to normalize function, not boost it. Even then, the increase is relatively modest, less than 10% compared to my typical nighttime erections lasting over 3 hours.

Another study found that 12 weeks of 5 mg/day tadalafil had no significant effect on the duration of nighttime erections, though participants reported increased confidence and improved spontaneous morning erections.Image
Read 9 tweets
Mar 19
Study uses MRI ad machine learning to estimate brain age, and identifies 64 “druggable” genes that drive brain agingImage
0/ Published last week in @ScienceAdvances a study reported the use of brain scans with multiple deep learning models combined with gene expression analysis in blood samples and brain tissues from to identify genes that drive brain aging.
Background and details

1/ The study used brain scans and gene expression analysis data from 38,961 subjects from the UK Biobank, 6637 of which with a diagnosed brain disorders with “healthy” brains.
Read 11 tweets
Mar 19
My sperm quality equal to a healthy 20-year-old.

+ sperm 330 million
+ motility 53%
+ motile sperm 175 million
+ morphology 10% normal

Sperm health predicts testosterone, metabolic health, disease, addiction, and life expectancy. 

Here’s what you need to know.🧵 Image
0/ I have more motile sperm than the average healthy 22-29 year olds and much higher than the average fertile US man (104 million motile sperm count for the US father, age 32∓6 years).

Image above of my sperm is from a 2023 test. Image
1/ Sperm quality predicts health and longevity

Beyond predicting infertility, poor sperm quality also correlates with poorer health, higher incidence of age related disease, and premature death. While a total motile sperm of 20 million is enough for fertility, this number is a minimum that does not necessarily reflect good health.
Read 7 tweets
Mar 18
I am looking into exosomes from human trophoblast stem cells (hTSC) given their regenerative potential such as anti-inflammatory effects, metabolic optimization, telomere lengthening, and cellular senescence reversal.🧵 Image
0/ Exosomes are nano-sized extracellular vesicles released by almost all cell types. They carry bioactive cargo (RNAs, proteins, lipids) and mediate intercellular communication, influencing many cellular processes like tissue repair, inflammation, and aging.
1/ The TSC exosomes are produced by human trophoblast stem cells, these cells divide to make up the placenta and are from earlier stages of development than umbilical cord MSCs and HSCs.
Read 6 tweets
Mar 18
HBOT ranks as one of the highest value health therapies I’ve done. Results from 60 sessions:

+ wiped out all systematic inflammation in my body. Below detectable levels. This is wild.
+ 300% increase in VEGF (formation of new blood vessels)
+ telomerase activity of a 12 year old, associated with biological age
+ 250% and 290% increase in Short-Chain Fatty Acids and n-Butyrate, respectively, important microbiome markers
+ complete elimination of metabolic imbalance in my gut
+ 28.6% reduction in a dementia marker
+ improved muscle oxygenation
+ dramatic improvements to whole body skin health

The outcomes match what we observed in the scientific literature and what we predicted in deciding to do this therapy.

What's notable is that after achieving elite level biomarkers over the past four years, my team and I have struggled to find new therapies that meaningfully improve my biomarkers. HBOT achieved that.
🧵Image
0/ Inflammation

Post HBOT, there’s no detectable systemic inflammation in my body (hsCRP). Inflammation is the foundation of disease and all things bad health.  Before HBOT, my inflammation markers were in the top 5% of 18-29 year olds (you get more inflamed as you age).

HBOT eliminated systematic inflammation in my body to a point it was below levels of detection. This is wild.

A second test to confirm the inflammation measurement, my CRPm, an epigenetic biomarker proxy for inflammation, is in the lowest 1%.Image
1/ Vascularization

300% increase in VEGF drives the formation of new blood vessels which improves tissue perfusion and oxidation, essential for improving fitness, physical and cognitive performance . Also has further pro-longevity effects on gene expression.

Improved muscle oxygenation, reached the same level of exercise power (wattage) at more than double the muscle oxygenation.Image
Read 11 tweets
Mar 7
Dear humanity,

I am building a religion.

Wait a second, I know what you’re going to say. Hold that knee-jerk reaction and let me explain.

First, here’s what’s going to happen:
+ Don’t Die becomes history's fastest-growing ideology.
+ It saves the human race.
+ And ushers in an existence more spectacular than we can imagine.

It is inevitable. The only question is: will you be an early or late adopter?Image
Why is it inevitable?

Four fundamental shifts are happening right now:
1) We are giving birth to superintelligence (AI).
2) No existing ideology solves AI alignment.
3) With AI, our species’ survival is not guaranteed.
4) With AI, individual biological death is no longer inevitable.

We are at risk of extinction without a unifying framework to solve human alignment and AI alignment.Image
Why Don’t Die?

All existing frameworks are too narrow…
+ Democracy governs civic matters
+ Capitalism dictates wealth
+ Religion cares for the soul

Don’t Die speaks fluently with…
+ the universe through physics
+ AI via mathematics
+ software via computation
+ living things via biology
+ humans via storytelling
+ truth via memetics

Don’t Die is a universal translator and the grand unifying theory of existence.Image
Read 15 tweets

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