Tech Founders Are Now Blood Swapping With Their Teenage Kids
A wealthy tech entrepreneur is blood swapping with his teenage son in an attempt to stay forever young.
A wealthy technology entrepreneur named Bryan Johnson is blood swapping with his teenage son in an effort to preserve his youth. Fixated on eternal youth, the 45-year-old is also sharing his blood with his elderly father. The tri-generational blood transfusion took place at the Resurgence Wellness Clinic in Dallas. Johnson, his son Talmage, and his father Richard completed the procedure over several hours.
The blood swapping begins with Talmage having a liter of his blood extracted. A machine then processes the liquid to separate it into distinct components. This results in a batch of plasma and separate batches of red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. Next, Bryan undergoes a similar procedure. An additional step takes place where his son’s plasma is introduced into his bloodstream.
Finally, Richard concludes the sequence by receiving Bryan’s plasma after creating space by having his own blood drained. According to Futurism, this wasn’t Bryan Johnson’s first venture into blood swapping. He previously obtained blood from an anonymous donor, whom he meticulously chose after considering factors like body mass index, blood type, dietary habits, and health history.
Johnson isn’t content with blood swapping alone to maintain his youth. The tech founder also wants to restore his brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, tendons, teeth, skin, hair, and other organs to the state they were in when he was 18 years old. Johnson spends approximately $2 million a year to achieve his goal and employs a team of 30 doctors and specialists.
The medical team provides guidance on what needs to be done to achieve a physique reminiscent of his late teenage years. Johnson isn’t the first person to fervently pursue eternal youth by blood swapping. The concept has appeared in folklore for centuries. Some scientists believe there might be some research to back up these beliefs.
A few inhuman studies conducted on mice have revealed that when younger rodents are physically connected to their elder counterparts to share a circulatory system, older mice showed a marked improvement in cognition and circulation. However, there is no evidence to suggest that these results would translate to humans who partake in blood swapping.
While rich folks are willing to spend millions to restore their youth, the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning against blood swapping in 2019, describing the practice as an unproven therapy. “There is no proven clinical benefit of infusion of plasma from young donors to cure, mitigate, treat, or prevent these conditions,” the agency said in a statement.
The FDA also warned of the risks associated with using plasma obtained from blood swapping. Charles Brenner, a biochemist at City of Hope National Medical Center in Los Angeles, also voiced serious doubts about the validity of the practice, adding that it could have harmful effects. “To me, it’s gross, evidence-free, and relatively dangerous,” he cautioned.
The blood swapping practice reads like the script of a horror movie. One particular film which covers the practice is the 2022 feature, Gone in the Night. The story sees Winona Ryder’s Kath go up against Dermot Mulroney’s Nicholas, who kidnaps her boyfriend to steal his blood in a quest for eternal youth. The movie is directed by Eli Horowitz from a screenplay by Horowitz and Matthew Derby.
