How Tech Millionaires Want to Outsmart Ageing

Rapamycin, ketones, blood plasma and growth hormones have all entered the longevity scene. Wealthy tech entrepreneurs are testing treatments on themselves and sharing the results online. Some ideas have a scientific basis. Human evidence is far thinner.

Wealthy founders and investors from Silicon Valley have turned their own bodies into experiments against ageing. They test drugs, supplements and medical treatments, measure the results and publish the protocols on social media. Bryan Johnson is the best-known example, but he is part of a wider group of wealthy tech entrepreneurs who have made longevity a public project.

Their experiments now shape the debate around ageing. Drugs such as rapamycin, ketones, growth hormones and even blood plasma from younger donors have all been promoted as ways to slow ageing, delay disease or extend the number of healthy years a person lives.

Researchers do not dismiss every idea behind them. Some treatments rest on biological mechanisms that scientists already study. The problem is the gap between a plausible mechanism and evidence that a treatment works safely in humans.

The Problem With Self-Experimentation

Longevity influencers often move faster than clinical research. Exogenous ketones offer one example. Supplements containing 1,3-butanediol became popular in Silicon Valley as products intended to lower blood sugar and improve mental performance. The body converts the substance into ketone bodies.

By March 2026, entrepreneur Tim Ferriss and venture capitalist Kevin Rose were warning listeners of their podcast about products containing 1,3-butanediol. Ferriss referred to early animal data suggesting the substance might cause a condition similar to fatty liver disease in mice. Human studies have not confirmed the finding, and some manufacturers disputed the interpretation.

Young blood plasma has followed a similar path. Clinics have promoted infusions from young donors as anti-ageing treatments even though the US Food and Drug Administration warned against such procedures in 2019 and again in 2024. Johnson has included plasma treatments in his health programme and has received plasma from his son.

Peter Thiel said as early as 2014 that he was taking growth hormone because he hoped to live to 120. The Mayo Clinic, however, points to substantial risks and says there is little evidence that growth hormone makes healthy adults feel younger or more energetic.

Other products circulating through the same scene include methylene blue, promoted for mental performance, and nicotine pouches used in an attempt to improve concentration and energy. Advocates talk less often about the well-established risk of nicotine dependence.

When Preliminary Research Becomes a Protocol

Wealthy longevity advocates often present themselves as a bridge between new science and the public.

They turn preliminary research and personal observations into so-called “stacks”: individual combinations of supplements, drugs, treatments and protocols. Many reach the public long before regulators have reviewed or approved them.

Margje Camps of Utrecht University studies the influence health influencers have on public perceptions of medicine. Researchers who work on ageing warn that most of these biohacks have not been tested in clinical trials, leaving basic questions about benefit and harm unanswered.

Andrew Steele, author of Ageless, says no medical intervention has yet been shown to extend the human lifespan by directly targeting ageing itself. Researchers see possible candidates, but none has been studied closely enough in humans to establish that effect.

Nir Barzilai, president of the Academy of Geroscience and a geneticist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, takes a more nuanced view of the experiments.

Johnson’s supplements and drugs usually have some scientific rationale behind them, he argues. The mechanisms are often biologically plausible. Clinical evidence is another matter.

As Barzilai puts it: “Science is not based on n = 1.”

A Shadow Phase II Trial

Faye Mythen, founder of London preventive-medicine clinic Reborne Longevity, calls the phenomenon a “shadow Phase II problem”.

Phase II drug trials test safety and efficacy systematically in larger groups. Longevity influencers are doing something very different: wealthy individuals experiment on themselves, publish the results and reach large audiences before researchers have gathered controlled data.

Mythen argues that the protocols can then become accepted reference points despite never having gone through the research required to establish whether they work.

Her clinic measures biomarkers, cellular characteristics and genetic data before recommending preventive measures. Yet more clients now arrive asking directly for Johnson’s Blueprint or a specific molecule before anyone has measured a single biomarker.

The influence extends beyond social media. Steele recalls that when his wife, a doctor interested in longevity medicine, gave a talk in Munich, the first audience question concerned Bryan Johnson.

Rapamycin Has Strong Animal Data — Not Human Longevity Data

Rapamycin attracts more scientific interest than many other substances promoted by the longevity scene. Researchers have shown that the immunosuppressant can extend lifespan in mice by 23 to 60 percent. Rapamycin inhibits the mTOR signalling pathway, which regulates cell growth and has been linked to ageing.

Matt Kaeberlein, a biogerontologist and founder of the Healthy Aging and Longevity Research Institute at the University of Washington, says rapamycin has worked in every animal species in which researchers have tested it so far.

Proving the same effect in humans is far harder. Human lifespan studies require long observation periods, and rapamycin itself carries risks.

Researchers often point to a 2014 study of more than 200 people aged 65 and over who received everolimus, a rapamycin derivative. The drug improved their immune response to a flu vaccine. A follow-up Phase II study in 2018 found that a six-week course reduced the number of respiratory infections during the following year.

Those results do not prove that rapamycin extends human life. A 2023 survey of 333 people taking rapamycin off-label found that users generally reported a better quality of life. The researchers also noted an obvious limitation: the study relied entirely on self-reported information, and people who had stopped taking the drug after negative experiences may have been underrepresented.

Existing Medicines May Tell Researchers More

Barzilai sees other candidates among drugs already approved for chronic age-related diseases. Metformin, the inexpensive diabetes medicine used for decades, remains one of the most closely watched. Barzilai and colleagues are studying whether it can delay the development or progression of chronic diseases associated with ageing.

He also points to GLP-1 receptor agonists, the drug class that includes Ozempic. Researchers are examining whether these medicines affect biological features associated with ageing. SGLT2 inhibitors, which increase glucose excretion through urine and have benefits for the heart and kidneys, form another group. Bisphosphonates, used to improve bone health, are also under investigation. None of these findings turns an existing medicine into a proven anti-ageing treatment.

The Difference Between a Signal and Proof

Kaeberlein describes longevity research as a “signal-to-noise problem”. The limited data contain signals that some interventions deserve further research. They also contain a great deal of noise. Social media makes the two difficult to separate.

Scientific vocabulary can make the difference more difficult. Longevity figures regularly refer to lipid profiles, biological age, mTOR inhibitors and precise drug doses. Their language resembles that of clinical research even where strong clinical evidence is missing. Some also sell supplements under their own brands, creating a commercial interest that followers may not always recognise.

Johnson and the scientific team behind Blueprint acknowledge that randomised controlled trials remain the gold standard for testing individual treatments. They also argue that “n-of-1” measurements — intensive studies of a single individual — allow far more detailed observation than conventional trials.

Such experiments can generate observations and hypotheses. They cannot establish how a treatment will affect thousands of other people.

A large trial could. Steele estimates that a sufficiently large study of rapamycin in healthy adults would cost around USD 50 million to USD 100 million — a fraction of the wealth held by some of the best-known figures promoting longevity online.

Why the Idea Is So Powerful

The attraction of longevity does not rest on biology alone. Researchers say the idea gives people a sense of control. Money, technology, data and discipline appear to offer a way to intervene in a process that previous generations largely had to accept. They are sceptical of the belief that success in technology or business can simply be transferred to ageing.

Researchers have not ruled out treatments that one day extend healthy human life.

Rapamycin, metformin and other medicines give scientists reasons to continue studying the biology of ageing. Animal experiments have produced results that deserve attention.

The evidence available today draws a firmer line elsewhere: a biological mechanism is not a clinical result, one person’s experiment is not a trial, and a longevity protocol shared online does not become proven medicine because its owner can measure every variable.