A longevity expert blasted the products anti-aging-obsessed Bryan Johnson is selling as part of his Project Blueprint, claiming that they contain unspecified, ineffective ingredients that “increase risk of death.”
Dr. Andrew Steele, a biologist, told Fortune earlier this year that “no amount of diet or exercise is gonna get you that magical combination of genes” to thwart Father Time — and ripped the products included in Johnson’s Project Blueprint regimen, which allows anti-aging junkies to try out the strict regimen Johnson claims he uses to reverse his biological clock.
Steele pointed to Blueprint’s so-called “Essential Capsules,” which contain 30 servings for $57 and are “coming soon,” sometime in 2024, according to the website.
“What do these contain?” Steele asked on X, where he said Johnson has blocked him.
“The web page claims ‘clinical trial equivalent doses’ of various vitamins and things. The doses aren’t actually specified, but what do the clinical trials say?” added Steele, the author of Ageless: The New Science of Getting Older Without Getting Old.
Per Blueprint’s description of the capsules, they contain “26 critical multi-nutrients,” including vitamin D and E and selenium, among a cocktail of other vitamins, minerals and antioxidants loosely known to play a role in anti-aging.
Steele walked through some of the ingredients, questioning their effectiveness.
He pointed to evidence from the Cochrane Library, a collection of databases in medicine and other healthcare specialties, which says that “results do not support the use of calcium and vitamin D in healthy premenopausal women to improve bone mineral density.”
“More randomized clinical trials are needed on the effects of vitamin D on mortality,” the Cochrane report, published in January 2023, concluded.
In a subsequent X post, Steele said: “Vitamin E: Found by a Cochrane review (the gold standard in evidence-based medicine) to increase risk of death!”
“The increased risk of mortality was associated with beta-carotene and possibly vitamin E,” the concerning report read.
Meanwhile, Blueprint’s description of the Essential Capsules — which it advises taking three times daily with food — touts vitamin D’s ability to support bone health and immunity, while vitamin E is great for skin health.
Steele then pointed to selenium, described by Blueprint as an antioxidant for thyroid health.
“Selenium: Found by the same review to have no effect,” Steele shared, citing the same Cochrane Library data that deflated vitamin E’s effectiveness, which stated: “The current evidence does not support the use of antioxidant supplements in the general population or in patients with various diseases.”
Steele noted that to meet Blueprint’s two-bottle-per-month requirement, consumers would be spring “OVER $100 PER MONTH on tablets with totally unproven efficacy, and no slam-dunk clinical trial data supporting the ingredients.”
“If I had $100 a month to spend on my health, I’d buy a pair of running shoes in the first month and then use the $1100 I saved over the rest of the year to buy vegetables,” he added in a long-winded X thread on Thursday.
The Post has sought comment from Steele and Johnson via Project Blueprint.
Johnson launched the endeavor in 2021, which he said in a blog post at the time “aims to measure all 70 organs of my body and then maximally reverse the quantified biological age of each.”
However, Johnson’s protocol has yet to be available for purchase, though customers can sign up to join the waitlist for the Blueprint Starter Kit.
It wasn’t immediately clear how much Project Blueprint will cost when it becomes available for purchase sometime in 2024.
However, the products listed on Blueprint’s website — a 750 mL bottle of Premium Extra Virgin Olive Oil, plus packets of unsweetened cocoa powder, nut mixes and other superfood blends — range from $39 to $79.
There’s even a ready-to-mix blend for $99 to make Johnson’s infamous Nutty Pudding at home, though all the products have yet to be released, and are labeled “coming soon.”
The so-called “Nutty Pudding” is the dessert Johnson claims to eat every single day — a concoction of macadamia nuts, walnuts, flax seed, pomegranate juice and berries — although it doesn’t include extra virgin olive oil, of which he consumes three tablespoons daily.
Johnson said he started the project when he fired “Evening Bryan,” the name he gave an alter ego that faced “formidable challenges” between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. each night that caused him to binge eat trays of brownies at a time and pile on more than 50 pounds.
At the time — just before he sold Braintree to EBay for $800 million cash in 2013 — he was also reportedly working long hours that left him stressed and nearly suicidal.
He’s since entirely overhauled his daily routine, which has come to include a 5 a.m. wakeup time, one-hour exercise regimen, four to five hours of “concentrated thought,” 111 supplements, a 2,250-calorie vegan diet, blood transfusions and daily health tests, as well as a rigid bedtime routine where he’s hooked up to a machine that counts his nighttime erections.
Johnson, who’s 46, has said that his goal is to eventually have all of his major organs — including his brain, liver, kidneys, teeth, skin, hair, penis and rectum — functioning as they were in his late teens.