Millionaire trying to live forever stops taking longevity drug in case it speeds aging
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Queen famously asked ‘who wants to live forever?’, and one of the answers is Bryan Johnson, a millionaire who has gone to extreme lengths to live as long as possible. But his efforts to stay alive indefinitely seem to have been scuppered by an anti-aging drug which could in fact have the opposite effect.
![[Anti-aging guru Bryan Johnson reveals he had all the plasma removed from his body]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SEI_225713707-844a-e1736959282827.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
Bryan, the subject of Netflix documentary Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever, has made several attempts to reverse aging and extend his lifespan – including injecting himself with plasma donated by his teenage son. Called Project Blueprint, he sells his own supplements and individualised health plans to customers while taking 54 supplements every day.
![[Bryan Johnson]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SEI_225833227-88a5-e1736959298846.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
But he has now found out that one of those supplements may in fact have been making him older, not younger. Rapamycin is a drug originally used as an immunosuppressant to prevent organ transplant rejection and as a treatment for some cancers and rare diseases.
![[Bryan Johnson]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SEI_194580631-ace3.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
It inhibits the mTOR pathway, related to aging and age-related disease, meaning there’s been plenty of research into its potential anti-aging benefits. Unfortunately, it turns out that not only is rapamycin actually aging Bryan, it was also causing a series of side effects.
He’s stopped taking the drug after five years of use, having experimented with the dosage, to try and mitigate those side effects, but to no avail. Bryan said on X: ‘Despite the immense potential from pre-clinical trials, my team and I came to the conclusion that the benefits of lifelong dosing of rapamycin do not justify the hefty side-effects (intermittent skin/soft tissue infections, lipid abnormalities, glucose elevations, and increased resting heart rate).
