What does health look like?
4 min read
Published Jan 13, 2026
For those who haven't been terminally online for the past few years, this is Bryan Johnson, one of the most recognizable figures in the longevity space.
Through his project Blueprint, Johnson has turned himself into a full-time experiment, personally testing cutting-edge preventive and anti-aging therapies before sharing them with the public. The goal is simple, if a bit ambitious: measure everything possible and slow biological aging as much as science currently allows.
To pull this off, Johnson employs a small army of doctors and researchers (which, he says, costs about $2 million a year) to track hundreds of biomarkers, fine-tune interventions, and keep the experiment running smoothly. This is, of course, not a typical wellness budget. Johnson is an exited founder who sold Braintree to PayPal in 2013, which made self-funding this lifestyle possible (there’s probably a quiet joke here about U.S. healthcare costs). He’s also mentioned that Blueprint itself now brings in meaningful revenue, predominantly from nutrition packages and supplements that people can buy, or premium services connected to the Blueprint health platform.
On a daily level, the protocol sounds intense: Johnson tracks an insane number of metrics, takes an equally big number of supplements (around 111 per day), exercises daily, and follows a highly controlled, almost monk-like diet. What makes the project especially interesting, though, is its -curated- transparency. Johnson publishes his protocols, data, and results for anyone to examine, copy, or critique. Whatever your opinion about the man, Blueprint may be one of the most public and data-heavy self-experiments ever conducted, offering a glimpse into just how far human optimization might go when time, money, and curiosity are not limiting factors. But it’s not science in the strict sense, as it involves a single individual, doesn’t allow for isolating or controlling multiple variables, relies on self-selected metrics, and is still ongoing with no definitive outcome.
A few days ago, I was listening to a 2023 episode of Diary of the CEO with Johnson, and one passage really caught my attention:
(Steven Bartlett) I feel like I’m never gonna meet someone who is so well-versed in how the things I put in my mouth have an impact on my biological age. So what advice would you give to me? Say I’m a blank canvas and I’m gonna believe everything you say and my objective is to increase my healthspan and to not age poorly
(Bryan Johnson) Do exactly what I published. I’m gonna make it dead simple for you. I say tongue in cheek that Blueprint is the best health protocol ever developed. Prove me wrong with your data. If someone can achieve better biomarkers with their protocol it’s gonna be amazing for me and everyone else cause now we have a comparison.
I paused walking.
Health protocols are a dime a dozen, and their creators resemble a sprawling Pantheon, gods in an Eastern religion; there are hundreds of them, each promising clarity, balance, and longevity, but only a few protocols truly matter unless you first understand the underlying mechanics and science of the body you’re trying to heal (or protect).
So how is Johnson claiming that their “relegion” is the best?
That prompted our team at Nudge Care (including our medical doctors), to put the claim to the test. On April 15, 2025, Bryan Johnson publicly shared his blood test results on the platform formerly known as Twitter.
https://x.com/bryan_johnson/status/1912215143846723703
Besides scrutinizing Johnson’s claims, this presented an ideal opportunity to test our workflows: Nudge Care’s core value proposition is the ability to analyze large volumes of health data (ranging from blood tests and biomarkers to medical history) and combine AI-driven analysis with physician oversight to deliver a clear health summary and actionable recommendations. Using only Johnson’s publicly available lab results and basic demographic information such as age, we ran his data through our clinical-AI pipeline, which combines algorithmic analysis with physician oversight. Our goal was to see what an unbiased, specialized medical system would conclude from his biomarkers alone.
So what do Johnson’s blood exams show?
First, Johnson’s health report summary: He displays low ferritin which is concerning in an otherwise healthy 50-year-old man; these results might be the result of extreme fasting or a plant-based diet but have to be treated as pathological lest we know more. Our suggestion is that he should first look for hidden blood loss from the digestive tract, repeating the test with complete iron studies and possibly a colonoscopy to rule out colon cancer, as well as a gastroscopy.
At the same time, the unexpectedly high fasting glucose and detectable glucose in the urine sugar should be rechecked (confirming true fasting and reviewing supplements), and low glutathione may reflect overtraining or an underlying gut issue.
Enlarged red blood cells (elevated MCV) are also a concerning finding that warrants further evaluation, even when vitamin B12 and folate levels are normal. Such evaluation should include assessment of thyroid function, alcohol intake, medication use, and other potential causes.
Only after these medical causes are ruled out should iron intake, vitamin D, magnesium, and the overall supplement load be adjusted to support energy, hormones, and kidney–liver health.
On the bright side, his cardiometabolic health is really good: low LDL cholesterol (yet also low HDL, the “good” cholesterol), triglycerides markers are all in optimal ranges, showing strong cardiovascular protection and metabolic control. Also, measuring his biological age (using the PhenoAge algorithm (from Levine et. al. seminal paper) Johnson is approximately 11 years younger than his chronological age.
To sum up, our assessment points to three priorities:
an urgent evaluation for iron deficiency,
investigation of abnormal blood markers, and
targeted adjustments to nutrition and supplements, but only after underlying medical causes have been properly addressed.
Prevention starts before symptoms.
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But what does this all mean?
First, it is important to distinguish between health and longevity: they are related, but not synonymous. A similar distinction applies to being healthy, feeling good, and looking good. While these dimensions often overlap, they do not always align. In the world of Bryan Johnson, these concepts are sometimes conflated.
Johnson is an outlier, and in many respects, his work contributes to collective knowledge by using his own body as an experimental testing ground. What’s more, his general recommendations on sleep and exercise point in a broadly constructive direction for health for a huge, global audience. At the same time, however, he promotes an image of “optimal health” that does not fully align with his own clinical profile, and in this sense, Johnson himself is not an unambiguous picture of health.
We at Nudge Care are not interested in replacing one health religion with another. Our aim is to help people determine what fits their biology, constraints, and realities. We believe health should be personalized, not practiced as a rigid belief system enforced by rules. More on that and why we do what we do in our manifesto.
Finally, if you care to get your own health assessment report, sign up on our waitlist here and download the application on iOS and Android.
