from Hacker News

The Most Expensive Eating Disorder

by nickwritesit on 12/10/24, 10:55 PM with 75 comments

  • by at-w on 12/11/24, 1:54 AM

    >It seems that he is spending a lot of his time & effort on maintaining his hair (huge kudos for admitting that!). If his body was functioning like an 18-year old he should not need to do that. If Bryan really set back his true aging clock he probably would not be battling with ongoing hair loss (as he most likely did not battle hair loss 20 years prior), or at least it would stop (which does not seem to be the case).

    Androgenetic hair loss (what Johnson has and what the medications he takes are designed to treat) is caused by genetic sensitivity to DHT and DHT levels in the body, not aging. People who don't have the genetic predisposition to AGA or who have very low DHT levels can often make it to 60+ with no visible hair loss. It's not like they're "not aging," they just don't have the combination of genes and DHT levels needed for significant hair loss to occur.

  • by lemming on 12/11/24, 2:23 AM

    I saw Bryan recently on a Magnus Midtbo episode on YouTube. In that they discussed that his body fat had been extremely low, and he had gone up to around 10% subsequently on medical advice, i.e. that his body fat had previously reduced to unhealthy levels. 10% is low, but it's not what he looks like in the photos on this article, and it should be sustainable long term with some effort. He says on his website under his current protocol that he eats 2,250 calories a day (10% deficit from RDA), which doesn't sound crazy to me. I mean, it's not what normal people do but he's not doing what normal people do by definition, and at least what he's eating doesn't seem out into crazy unhealthy territory to me.

    He definitely came across as a little eccentric in the video, but very enthusiastic about the project, I found it pretty charming and would definitely find it pretty interesting to chat to him I think.

  • by kazinator on 12/11/24, 1:35 AM

    I was so fit in my 30's, I measured a heart rate of like 38 sitting in a work meeting.

    I could amuse nurses in an emergency room by clipping my finger into the machine, instead of the patient I was with, to set off the alarms with the low numbers.

    One time I came in with some severe stomach flu. I was lying on my back and the nurse said to another, "Come here! Look this guy is so thin, you can see his heart beating in his abodomen. (Due to the aorta passing through there, and the heart behind it being massive.)"

    When your HR is low, you can get pretty dizzy if you stand up at the wrong moment between pumps.

  • by derektank on 12/11/24, 3:29 AM

    Informative article! I did have a question about this passage though.

    "It seems that he is spending a lot of his time & effort on maintaining his hair (huge kudos for admitting that!). If his body was functioning like an 18-year old he should not need to do that. If Bryan really set back his true aging clock he probably would not be battling with ongoing hair loss (as he most likely did not battle hair loss 20 years prior), or at least it would stop (which does not seem to be the case)."

    Is this true? I suppose it's a question of what one defines as aging but I thought male pattern baldness resulted from hair follicles physically shrinking in response to exposure to androgens. That's a very different process than an accumulation of senescent / poorly differentiated cells, which is what I have always heard described as the key hallmark of aging

  • by maz1b on 12/11/24, 2:24 AM

    It seems a bit.. abrasive and brash to label this an eating disorder, no?

    As a doctor and technical founder/CEO myself, I really like patients who are into their own health and fitness, obviously this guy has the means and resources to take it to an extreme, but I think the lesson he wants to impart is that there are benefits to investing in your own health, the same as people invest in self-tooling such as expensive Macbooks/Mac studios, running shoes, and much more.

    The whole world would see such titan sized improvements in GDP along with personal lives. Men and women would be happier if everyone strove to be fit, "younger" (with respect to wellness and fitness) and in better shape, not to mention that would translate to very real economic benefit in every country.

  • by slibhb on 12/11/24, 2:32 AM

    > Also, in the interviews I have seen of him, his blinking frequency is quite high, presumably because he is so low in body fat that his lacrimal ducts cannot manufacture the lipid portion of tear fluid properly.

    Bryan Johnson is one weird dude and I would bet against his regimen's effectiveness. But stuff like this is just silly and makes me doubt the rest of this post.

  • by tom_ on 12/11/24, 2:30 AM

    Feels like a bit more body fat would suit him a lot better. The lean look is fine if you're under 25, but at some point you have to admit that it's over.

    > the way he looked while taking “TRT” looked nothing like a “testosterone replacement dose” but rather like a (mild?) steroid cycle

    This seems to be common with TRT takers, who tend to have the physique (or some slightly strange-looking approxmation thereof) of a man 10 years younger. I guess it's not supposed to give you an abnormally high testosterone level, but you'll get that level consistently and reliably, regardless of mood or external events. Can't get that when you rely on your body to do it itself! It all adds up!

    A TRT dose set based on the population average might also prove usefully higher than your body is tuned for too. And I expect you can just say that you're not feeling it, and they'll give you a bit more.

  • by romanobro56 on 12/11/24, 5:06 AM

    I will never understand how Bryan Johnson is helping anybody. Ok, if he lives longer then what? Do we all have to do what he does (impossible)? How is he contributing at all to science? He is a walking confounding variable. Even if he succeeds in living a long time, humanity won’t be able to take anything away from it.

  • by thuanao on 12/11/24, 1:38 AM

    Is ~2200 calories a caloric deficit for Bryan Johnson's size and activity level? If you're not in caloric deficit you won't really feel bad if you're hitting macros.

  • by iamleppert on 12/16/24, 3:16 PM

    It's not what he's doing that bothers me. It's the desire to blast it out to everyone and be so public about his experiments with an air of scientific advice and authority. What he's doing is not science or scientific in the slightest. Just because you use scientific tests and devices and such doesn't mean you're doing science, or doing anyone (including yourself) any good.

    It sends the message to people, if you're rich, you can make up your own rules. Well, life doesn't work that way as he is soon to find out. If there is one thing I have seen in my days of living on this earth is that life loves irony.

  • by MrLeap on 12/11/24, 3:08 AM

    I appreciated reading the author's medical explanations of this guy's physical manifestations.

    Hearing this guy receives tons of criticism seems wild to me. "Live forever or die trying" isn't exactly a rare posture. I'd wager it's about as common as "I'm going to die anyways so why bother."

    Explore the possibility space. Balance compassion for self and others. Good luck to everyone.

  • by m3kw9 on 12/11/24, 2:38 AM

    Let him cook, he has the dough and the want to do it, op can call what he likes too, whatever suits him

  • by IncreasePosts on 12/11/24, 3:15 AM

    From the author:

    Some of the strategies I employ include:

    I put a prime on sleep, diet, and exercise. I optimize my hormones. I downregulate the mTOR pathway. I take pharmaceutical drugs aimed at improving metabolic health. I employ several behavioral, hormonal, and pharmaceutical strategies to delay cancer, atherosclerosis, and neurodegeneration. I cleared my body of (some) senescent cells with senolytic drugs. I monitor dozens of health markers. I take a handful of supplements. I put a prime on my mental health.

    This sounds like the pot calling the kettle black.

  • by AndyNemmity on 12/11/24, 4:02 AM

    The most recent thing I've heard him say is his body fat percentage is 10% currently.

    It's odd that's not reflected in the article, and the conclusions are very much different if that's the case no?

  • by dyauspitr on 12/11/24, 3:01 AM

    I don’t see why he’s getting all this hate. He tests a lot of products on the market and publishes the results for free. What’s to dislike?

  • by shearnie on 12/11/24, 5:25 AM

  • by throwaway314155 on 12/11/24, 3:36 AM

    Why am I expected to know who Bryan Johnson is?

  • by eviks on 12/11/24, 3:16 AM

    Don't get the first disclaimer

    > as he is propelling the whole field forward

    Towards what, even more self-deluded people with expensive eating disorders?

  • by byyoung3 on 12/11/24, 3:25 AM

    this is spam. he's optimizing his health. dont hate the guy for trying to improve the health of himself and others.

  • by tonymet on 12/11/24, 4:13 AM

    Eating disorders are mostly fantasy