Could Bryan Johnson be the first person to 'biohack himself to death'? Why physicians should pay attention
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Patients should be extremely skeptical of claims made by anyone who suggests that specific protocols can induce or treat any form of autoimmune disease based solely on anecdotal experience, without rigorous scientific evidence.
—Michael DeShields, MD
Bryan Johnson has built a public identity around measurement: Sleep, biomarkers, imaging, supplements, diet, body composition, biological age, all tracked and posted.
Recently, the tech mogul said that he suffers from autoimmune gastritis, noting it's like his "stomach is eating itself.” STAT quoted his framing: “I’m going to try and solve it.”[]
Related: 100+ supplements, erection monitoring, off-label blood transfusions... Inside a tech mogul’s extreme anti-aging protocolWhat is autoimmune gastritis?
Shernell Surratt-Gary, DO, describes autoimmune gastritis stating, “Autoimmune gastritis is a chronic disease which causes your body's immune system to damage the lining of your stomach. Over time, as your stomach loses the capability to produce intrinsic factor (the protein required to transport vitamin B12 into the bloodstream) and sufficient acidity, you are no longer able to properly absorb vitamin B12 through digestion. Most people with this disease will eventually have iron deficiency.”
Johnson himself described his progression to his current problem. “As a kid,” he wrote on X, “I ate sugar cereal, drank sugary soda, and gobbled down fast food…I had a few healthy years in my early 20s but then became a young father of three and began building a business. Juggling that stress and grind, I let my health slip and gained 40 lbs. Within a few years I’d fallen into a deep, chronic depression. Somewhere in that timeline, my body began developing an autoimmune process affecting my thyroid and then my stomach lining.”[]
He revealed that his biopsies showed early autoimmune gastritis after years of low ferritin, with elevated anti-parietal cell antibodies.[]
'Biohacking' and chronic diseases
So, can biohacking treat autoimmune disease? Michael DeShields, MD, clinical advisor of the Discovery Institute in New Jersey, a drug and alcohol rehab facility, says, “Patients should be extremely skeptical of claims made by anyone who suggests that specific protocols can induce or treat any form of autoimmune disease based solely on anecdotal experience, without rigorous scientific evidence.”
The next question is just as important: Can extreme wellness regimens trigger autoimmune disease? Ranjit Dhelaria, MD, MRCP, FASN, board-certified internist/nephrologist and Medical Director of the Mizner Stem Institute in Florida, answers this question bluntly: “[There is] No credible evidence that diet, stress, or supplements cause it—it's an antibody-mediated process. Aggressive supplement regimens can irritate the GI tract, but that's not autoimmunity.”
While Johnson’s autoimmune gastritis doesn’t prove biohacking causes autoimmune diseases, it definitely highlights how extreme measurement can still miss a disease. A patient can be intensely measured, deeply motivated, and surrounded by high-end testing, yet still have a chronic disease in progress silently for years.
Related: Blue-tongued patients may be biohacking their way to a longer lifespan... by ingesting medical dyePotential risks
“For 11 years, I’ve had low ferritin, without anemia. We continually tried to raise my iron levels with food and supplementation but nothing would work,” said Johnson.[]
Could this point to a diagnostic blind spot hiding inside an otherwise hyper-measured body?
Dr. DeShields says the biggest risk with extreme biohacking is misreading results that do not show a clear clinical benefit. When patients measure hundreds of biomarkers repeatedly, abnormal values will inevitably appear, even when nothing is clinically wrong.
This can lead to “unnecessary medical tests, invasive medical procedures, supplements with possible adverse side effects, and/or other forms of treatment that are unproven and risky,” he says.
His bottom line: “Testing should be used to address one very clear, clinically relevant question, not to produce additional data.”
Patient counseling
But when patients bring wearable data, multiomics testing, AI-generated reports, or self-directed protocols into a clinical visit, Dr. DeShields says physicians should not dismiss their engagement. “Many patients are quite engaged in their own health. And that engagement is an asset,” he adds.
The physician’s role, he says, is to decide whether the data is valid and actionable, then interpret it in the context of the patient’s history and physical exam.
“Biohacking should augment established methods of preventing, evaluating, and treating illnesses/diseases—not replace them," he says.