Ep 46-Don't Die: Bryan Johnson and Longevity Science

A cookie-fueled cold open gives way to one of the thorniest questions in modern medicine: are we getting healthier, or just better at making numbers look good? Using Brian Johnson’s “Blueprint” as a case study, we unpack the science behind epigenetic clocks, the appeal of tight control, and the lesson medicine keeps relearning—lowering a risky marker isn’t the same as improving a life. We trace hard-won examples from ICU glucose control to HRT and anti-arrhythmics, then map that history onto today’s longevity culture, where proxies move fast and outcomes arrive slow.

Enjoy the ride, laugh at the holiday detours, and leave with a pragmatic checklist: sleep on purpose, move daily, eat simply, and be skeptical when a perfect metric is sold as a cure. If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review—your support helps us keep the conversation honest and useful.

Resources: 

• Steve Horvath’s original epigenetic clock (2013, Genome Biology)
• National Law Review+1
• BryanJohnson.com
• GrimAge and PhenoAge models (Aging, Nature Communications)
• DunedinPACE (eLife, 2022)
• Home | CALERIE
• American Federation for Aging Research+1
• The Documentary “Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever” on Netflix

Chapters

• 0:00 Cold Open & Cookie Banter
• 3:32 Sponsor: Molly Bz Gourmet Cookies
• 6:32 Setting The Topic: Don’t Die Blueprint
• 8:27 Epigenetic Clocks Explained
• 13:12 When Markers Mislead In Medicine
• 20:02 Aging As Social Reality
• 23:12 Brian Johnson’s Backstory
• 28:02 The Blueprint Stack & Routine
• 33:42 Control Is Not Safety
• 36:12 Chart Note: FDA And Aging
• 40:02 Evidence That Actually Helps
• 45:12 Calorie Restriction Nuance
• 50:52 Rapamycin, Metformin, And Risk
• 56:22 AMPK vs mTOR Made Simple
• 1:03:12 Plasma Fantasies And Reality
• 1:08:52 Fear, Free Will, And Ethics

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:43

Oh man, no. Hey, listen, you tricked me. You said count to three and then you started with three.

SPEAKER_02: 0:53

Oh, yeah, sorry. I did think after I got to what would have been zero, I was like, I hope she's pushing the button.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02

Buttons were pushed. We're live. Mine is going. We're live. Oh man, how are you doing? How are you feeling? Oh good. Yeah. How are you doing? Tis the holiday season. Happy weather. Oh, it's nice here. Is it not nice up there? Well, I mean, you know, if you count below zero ice storms. Oh, I mean, yeah, we had that, but then that day ended up being 41 degrees. Oh my gosh, really? We're no. Our high was like 12. Oh, it so who knew four hours south could be so blissful.

SPEAKER_02: 1:43

Yeah, when I drove home that day, I was like, wow, it feels like spring. I'd be wearing shorts and breaking off open seasons. Really good.

SPEAKER_01: 1:53

Yeah. Well, sorry about that. That's okay. I'm happy for you and I plan to come down there in the next day or so. But you ready? You ready for Saint Nick? Have you been a good girl this year? Always. Yeah. Too old to be bad.

SPEAKER_02: 2:14

Honestly, I sleep way too much to be in trouble. I'm like an early bird dinner girl and go to bed early. So yeah, no, I'm definitely unintentionally always on the nice list. Oh well. Can't say that's probably been me forever, but for a while.

SPEAKER_01: 2:39

Well, I know that with a baby on board, your bedtime is nearing. So I think we dispense with further chitty chat and we go on to talk about cookies.

SPEAKER_02: 2:56

Yeah, because you guys, Jenna, has tried the cookies.

SPEAKER_01: 3:02

Tried a big old box of Molly Bee's. That's Molly Beezy gourmet cookies. They were available at Mollybees.com, and I could not resist the discount. And it was so cute. They came in this box. It would look like an oven, like a gas stove range. And then you open it up. It's a cute and then it looked like the front of an oldie fashioned like 1950s stove. And then you open up another layer, and there's all these cookies all sweetly packed in there. And so I chose a bunch of different varieties, and I'm here to weigh in. And my daughter also can attest to this. The chocolate cherry. What do they call that one? The cordial. Be cordial. Yeah. Be cordial. Chocolate and cherry. Oh my gosh. It was so good. So it's not like big chunks of like ugly, textured, like dried cherry. I was a little worried about that. No, the cookie itself is cherry flavored, like a light marishina flavored with like bits of milk chocolate in it. Oh my gosh, it was so good. And then my favorite, because I was like, I really can't wait to try anything that has hot Cheeto powder on it. And so it was the where I can't even find them. Hot mess. Hot mess, yeah. Mango, white chocolate, and hot Cheetos. Oh my god, it was really good. And it wasn't spicy. The hot Cheetos almost just gave it, they're just sprinkled on top. It almost just gave it like, you know, when you do like salted caramel, I just gave it a little like zing. So it was really, really good. If you want, speaking of zing, a big zing in your step, try a big joe. It's like biting into an espresso. So not for the faint of heart. Got my heart racing a little bit. Um but screw the cup of coffee in the morning, just get a big Joe cookie. And then the tea, which is Earl Gray Lavender, white chocolate with lemon frosting. Very elegant, totally appropriate for a tea party. I highly sound so good. Yeah. So these cookies have yours truly's endorsement. They bring gourmet artisan crafted light home with no bakery trip required. And they come pre-packaged. So I'm going to gift some to people for Christmas that, you know, like I'm going to a couple different places. So I'll bring like a little hostess thank you. So I can put them in a little gift bag and just be like, and they're unique. Yeah, it'll be cute. So good for any occasion. So find them at MollyBz.com and you'll get 10% off with our code stay suspicious. Cool. Thanks for sharing. Yeah. I've skipped right over the correction section. I don't think we have any corrections, do we? Yeah, we're perfect. I don't really have any trigger warnings either. And the resources for this show primarily were from a Netflix documentary released in January 2025 called Don't Die, The Man Who Wants to Live Forever. And also the website, BrianJohnson.com. So this topic, it's not necessarily true crime, but it's healthcare. And it's potentially, you know, there are some implications that might not be safe for the public. And so I think this is worth uh talking about. And I will cite remaining sources at the show notes, like I said, but kind of thought thought provoking. And then I also wanted to, you know, it's the holiday season. I wanted something a little less uh murdery and a little more thought provoking. So let me start with a confession. If someone offered me a pill that guaranteed I'd live 10 extra healthy years, no strings attached, I wouldn't hesitate. I wouldn't read the side effects. I would not ask follow-up questions. I would be halfway down the hall with a glass of water before you finished your sentence. So when it comes to the media's fascination with Brian Johnson, the tech millionaire who turned his body into a 24-7 longevity experiment, I totally get it. I also think that instinct deserves interrogation because Brian Johnson isn't ridiculous. He's not fringe, he's not even especially wrong about some things. But Johnson believes aging is a technical problem and that death is a solvable engineering flaw. And that with enough data, discipline, and money, the human body can be optimized into compliance. He calls this the blueprint. And his guiding principle is simple: don't die. Not live well, not reduce suffering, not maximize function, just don't die. So today on Doctoring the Truth, we're going to talk about why that framing, not the supplements, the pills, the plasma, that framing of this concept is probably the most medically concerning part of this entire experiment. But before we go any further, we need to talk about how modern medicine is trying to measure aging. One of the most talked-about tools right now is something called epigenetic age. Your DNA doesn't really change much over your lifetime. What does change is how your cells read that DNA. Epigenetic markers are chemical tags, mostly methyl groups that sit on DNA and tell genes when to turn on or off. And as we age, those tags shift in very predictable patterns. Scientists have used those patterns to build what are called epigenetic clocks. You can take a blood or saliva sample, analyze thousands of DNA sites, and a model estimates your biological age, which is sometimes called your quote-unquote real age. Blueprint tracks multiple epigenetic clocks at once and treats them like a feedback loop. If an intervention like diet, sleep, exercise, supplements, even prescription drugs lowers that biological age, that intervention stays. If the clock moves in the wrong direction, then that intervention gets cut. The key idea is this: aging isn't just wear and tear, it's also instructions. And Blueprint is trying to rewrite those instructions in real time. This isn't fringe science. These clocks came out of mainstream aging research, including work published in journals like Nature Aging, PNAS, and Lancet. What is especially scientifically appealing about this is that epigenetic clocks respond within months, not decades. They reflect multiple aging pathways at once. Markers of inflammation, metabolism stress, some epigenetic changes appear partly reversible, and they're currently the best validated biomarker of aging that we have. So this is why longevity research, not just blueprint, is obsessed with them. But measuring something well doesn't mean we understand what changing it actually does. So here's the problem Epigenetic age is a proxy, not an outcome. Lowering it doesn't guarantee longer life, better cognition, or fewer diseases. And different clocks can disagree. In some cases, you can improve the numbers without improving the organism. Biomarkers are powerful tools, but they can also become moral shortcuts. When numbers start to stand in for health, it becomes easy to mistake optimization for evidence. Blueprint isn't proof that we can outrun aging, it's a live experiment in how far we're willing to trust measurements, even when the long-term consequences aren't yet measurable. Let me give you some historical examples of prioritizing measurements in medicine over outcomes. For years, critically ill patients in intensive care units were allowed to run high blood sugar. And for years, those patients died at higher rates. Observational studies showed a clear association. The higher the glucose, the worse the outcomes. So the logic seemed obvious. If hyperglycemia is bad, then normal blood sugar must be good. In 2001, a major study published in the New England Journal of Medicine appeared to confirm this. ICU patients whose blood sugar was aggressively lowered using insulin had better outcomes. The medical world responded quickly. Tested this strategy across more than 6,000 critically ill patients. Blood sugar targets were lower, the numbers looked better, and mortality went up. Patients in the ICU group died more often, largely due to severe hypoglycemia. So we successfully normalized the marker, but in doing so, we made patients less likely to survive. The lesson was brutal but clear. Lowering a dangerous number is not the same thing as making a patient safer. Second example is hormone replacement therapy in post-menopausal women. Menopause comes with a dramatic drop in estrogen, and for decades that drop was treated as a problem to be fixed. Estrogen appeared protective. Women before menopause had lower rates of heart disease, and estrogen improves cholesterol profiles. Observational studies suggested that women on hormone replacement therapy had fewer cardiovascular events. So the logic followed: if declining estrogen increases risk, then restoring estrogen should prevent disease. By the 1990s, hormone replacement therapy wasn't just used to treat hot flashes or osteoporosis. It was prescribed to millions of women to prevent heart disease. The markers looked right. Estrogen levels normalized, LDL went down, HDL went up, and then came the Women's Health Initiative. This was a large randomized controlled trial, not an observational study. And in 2002, the results stunned the medical community. Women receiving hormone therapy had higher rates of heart attacks, strokes, blood clots, and breast cancer. The trials were stopped early because the harm was undeniable. We corrected the hormones, we improved the lab values, and we increased the very outcomes we were trying to prevent. The biology made sense, but the physiology didn't cooperate. Another example. After a heart attack, many patients developed abnormal heart rhythms, extra beats that looked dangerous on an EKG. These arrhythmia were strongly associated with sudden cardiac death, and for cardiologists, they were visible, measurable, and terrifying. Some of the logic was simple: suppress the arrhythmias and prevent sudden death. By the 1980s, powerful anti-arrhythmic drugs were widely prescribed, and they worked at least on paper. The EKGs looked perfect, the abnormal beats disappeared. Then came the cardiac arrhythmia suppression trial, the CAST trial, published in 1989. Patients taking these drugs were not safer. They were more likely to die often suddenly. Mortality was two to three times higher in patients whose arrhythmias had been successfully suppressed. So the trial was stopped early. We fixed the rhythm, but in doing so, we destabilized the heart. In each case, the logic was sound. The marker improved, but the outcome didn't. This is not a failure of science. It's a warning about the dangers of confusing association with causation. Epigenetic clocks, however, are far more sophisticated than glucose targets, hormone levels, or EKG tracings. They integrate thousands of data points across the genome and correlate strongly with aging, disease risk, and mortality. But there's still surrogate markers, statistical models trained on population outcomes, not guarantees of individual benefit. Lowering epigenetic age means that the signal is moving in a favorable direction. It doesn't mean that the underlying system is safer, more resilient, or protected from unintended harm. History doesn't tell us to ignore these tools, it tells us to handle them with humility, because often when medicine has taken a better number for a better outcome, patients have paid the price. But there's another uncomfortable truth that sits underneath all of this, and it's one Blueprint never really addresses. Aging is not just biological, it's social. People don't experience aging in a vacuum. They experience through loss of status, loss of income, loss of physical autonomy, loss of visibility. And when longevity culture frames aging as something that can be out-engineered, it quietly reinforces the idea that decline is optional and therefore blameworthy. But that's not a neutral message. It lands differently depending on who you are. If you're wealthy, aging becomes a technical challenge. If you're not, aging becomes evidence that you failed to optimize hard enough. Medicine has spent decades trying to move away from moralizing illness. Longevity culture is dragging it back just with better branding. And this is where the conversation shifts from personal health choices to public health consequences. Because blueprint doesn't just influence individuals, it influences how people interpret risk, responsibility, and worth. When someone internalizes the idea that aging is preventable, then illness becomes suspect. Disability becomes failure, and death becomes incompetence. That mindset doesn't stay theoretical. It shows up in how people talk to their parents. It shows up in how employers think about productivity. It shows up in how patients talk to doctors. I mean, you can hear it in their questions. What did I do wrong? How could I have prevented this? What protocol did I miss? And sometimes the honest answer is nothing. And that's a deeply uncomfortable thing to accept in a culture built on control. Ryan Johnson can stop an intervention the moment a lab result shifts. He can afford constant monitoring, he can afford adverse effects, but most people can't. Not to mention that health risk is not evenly distributed. If a wealthy person develops side effects from calorie restriction, they get labs, imaging, and expert consults. If a working class person develops side effects, they get told to eat more after the damage is done. Longevity culture loves to frame experimentation as empowerment. But empowerment without safety nets is just exposure. There's a reason clinical trials have inclusion criteria. There's a reason doctors hesitate when healthy people ask for off-label drugs. It's not paternalism, it's pattern recognition because medicine sees the people who don't bounce back, the ones whose immune systems don't recover, whose bone density doesn't return, whose anxiety spirals when the numbers don't cooperate. But let's back up a bit and learn more about the guy behind Blueprint. Who is Brian Johnson? Brian Johnson was born in 1977 and raised primarily in Springville, Utah, a small conservative town south of Salt Lake City. He described his upbringing as financially unstable with periods of significant economic stress. Johnson has spoken publicly about growing up in a household marked by uncertainty and instability, including parental conflict and eventual force. He's characterized his childhood environment as emotionally difficult rather than outwardly dramatic. Not a single defining trauma, but a prolonged sense of insecurity. And this matters because Johnson often frames his later obsession with control as a reaction to early chaos in his life. He was raised in a strict Mormon household in Utah, a culture built on discipline, moral accounting, and the idea that the body is something you're responsible for managing correctly. As a young adult, Johnson followed the expected path: marriage, children, religious commitment. But behind the structure, he describes a growing sense of internal collapse. He struggled with depression, disordered eating, and significant weight gain. In the Netflix documentary, which came out in January this year, entitled Don't Die, The Man Who Wants to Live Forever, Johnson describes periods of binge eating, loss of control, and a body that felt increasingly unrecognizable to him. His marriage ended in a painful divorce, one that he portrays as both emotionally devastating and identity shattering. At the same time, he began distancing himself from Mormonism, eventually leaving the faith altogether. Where Mormonism once offered rules, rituals, and moral clarity, Blueprint offers metrics, protocols, and biological scores. Where sin once mattered, deviation does now. In Don't Die, Johnson's explicit, Blueprint is not just about living longer, it's about never again losing control of his body, his mind, or his future. Seeing this way, Blueprint isn't just a longevity experiment, it's a response to chaos, an attempt to turn suffering into survival. System. In the documentary, and I'm paraphrasing here, he tells the interviewer that living in such a structured way removes the mundane decision-making time away, freeing his brain so he has more time to think about higher-level concepts. I mean, okay. You may be pretentious, Brian, or boring, or both. Brian Johnson made his money the respectable Silicone Valleyway. He founded a fintech company or fine tech company called Braintree, which was later acquired by PayPal. So sidebar for those of you like me who don't know how to pronounce or even know what a fintech fine tech company is. According to Copilot, it's a technology-driven firm that creates financial products and services. These companies leverage technology to enhance and automate the delivery of financial services, making it easier for users to manage, invest, and move money. Examples include mobile payment apps, online lending platforms, and investment management services. Okay, so Ryan walked away extraordinarily wealthy at a very young age and by his own account, deeply unhappy. So this part matters. He spoke openly about struggling with depression, burnout, and a sense of existential collapse after his business success. He didn't pivot into philanthropy. He didn't start another company. He turned inward. And this is where the story takes a turn from tech profile to medical ethics case study. Johnson decided his next project would be his own body, not metaphorically, literally. He assembled a private medical team, he began measuring everything: blood chemistry, sleep stages, hormone levels, orgonians. He was like, is Portland that weird? No. Organ imaging, cognitive tests, sensual function, inflammation markers, at a frequency that would make most clinical trial coordinators sweat. He wasn't trying to manage disease, he was trying to reverse biological aging. Now let's be precise here because this matters. There is no universally accepted way to measure biological age. There are proxies, epigenetic clocks, biomarker panels, risk scores, but none of them are definitive and none of them guarantee lifespan extension. Johnson knows this, his team knows this, but in public messaging, that nuance gets blurred, and that blur is where influence begins. Blueprint isn't a single intervention, it's a stack, and stacks are where medicine gets messy. At its core, blueprint includes extremely regular sleep timing, strict control of light exposure, regimented exercise, a calorie-restricted, highly controlled diet, aggressive supplementation, intermittent use of prescription medications. And by the way, regarding supplements and medications, in the documentary, he says he takes 54 pills a day. And I know constant biometric tracking. Sounds like a fun day. Speaking of which, here's a look at a day in the life of Brian. And for those of you Monty Python lovers like me, that was a little Easter egg in the life of Brian. Okay. Brian goes to bed early, usually around 8:30 at night. He wakes up naturally before five in the morning. Sleep comes first in the blueprint hierarchy. Everything else is built around protecting the circadian rhythm, sleep efficiency, and deep sleep time. He eats roughly 2,200 calories a day, plant-based, tightly controlled, and finished by early afternoon. There are no late meals, no sugar, no alcohol. The goal isn't pleasure or variety, it's metabolic predictability. In the documentary, he explains that he usually doesn't eat afternoon each day. So he goes to bed at 8:30, so it's eight and a half hours of the day that he's not. I mean, sounds like a good time. Exercise starts early, usually within half an hour of waking. About an hour to 90 minutes a day, he does strength training, cardio balance, and flexibility. Not to bulk up, but to maintain muscle, bone density, and cardiovascular function at a biological age, decades younger than his calendar age. And after that come the tools. Red and near infrared light therapy, which is meant to support skin health, recovery, and mitochondrial signaling, based on small but suggestive studies. Hyperbaric oxygen sessions, which increases oxygen delivery to tissues, chasing repair signals, even though definitive aging data in humans is still thin on this topic, but he measures everything: hundreds of biomarkers, organ-specific biological age, sleep stages, inflammation, hormones. If a number moves the wrong way, the intervention gets kicked out. Now, this is important. Many of these things are not controversial. Sleep regularity improves metabolic health. Exercise reduces mortality risk. Avoiding ultra-processed food improves cardiometabolic outcomes. So if blueprint stuck there, we wouldn't be talking about it on the show. But blueprint doesn't stop there, so we're talking about it. It bundles evidence-based behaviors with experimental, off-label, or unproven interventions, and then presents the whole package as if it's a cohesive system. And systems feel authoritative, especially when they're run by someone who looks calm, wealthy, disciplined, and quote unquote in control. Which brings us to the most seductive lie in longevity culture that control equals safety. But before we continue, it's time for a churn note.

SPEAKER_02: 26:30

I've really missed the wagon on the Christmas jingles last couple weeks. I can't wait to have my brain back again.

SPEAKER_01: 26:40

Listen, that baby's gonna take your brain in utero, and you're gonna be sleep deprived and not have a brain for a while. So you know what? So jingles are lower your expectations, girls. It's all part of the fun. Um welcome to the chart note where we learn about what's happening in medicine and healthcare. So uh while I was doing research for this episode, this may be kind of a duh moment for many people, but I didn't realize it, so I'm gonna talk about it. Did you know, Amanda, that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration doesn't recognize aging as a treatable condition? No. I mean, I guess I've never thought about it, but so here's why, and this is what it means in practice. Their official position is that the FDA considers aging a natural biological process, not a disease or a condition in its own right. So, because of that, there's no formal regulatory pathway to approve a drug with aging as the indication. So, by regulation, drugs must be approved to treat or prevent specific diseases, defined as conditions in which an organ, part, or system doesn't function properly. So aging doesn't meet that definition under current FDA roles. That makes sense, I guess. That kind of makes sense. Longevity medicine isn't happy about it, though, understandably, because since aging isn't treated as a disease, companies that want to develop anti-aging drugs can't just submit aging itself as the indication in which their approval is being sought. Instead, they have to design trials around specific age-related diseases like heart disease, cancer, or dementia. So there's an ongoing debate and push for change to rethink this stance. Some researchers argue that aging should be recognizable as a treatable condition because it underlies many chronic diseases, and doing so could expand development and testing of interventions that address aging biology directly. Others point out the potential downsides of labeling aging as a disease, including insulting those thus getting old, lucky enough to get older, but also concerns about ageism and healthcare and how such a label might affect care for older adults. So currently, the FDA-approved drugs are indicated for specific diseases like diabetes, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease. Even if some of these drugs may have effects on aging mechanisms, they're not approved to quote unquote treat aging. So without a change in regulatory policy or a new approved indication framework, developers must continue to tackle aging indirectly through disease endpoints. So, in short, the FDA treats aging as a natural process, not a disease, which means drugs targeting aging as an indication can't be approved. This shapes both the design of longevity trials and the incentives for pharmaceutical innovation. And it's a central regulatory hurdle for the longevity field. Back to the story. Let's talk about what does have real evidence because dismissing everything Brian Johnson does would be intellectually lazy. Sleep is boring, sleep is unsexy, sleep is devastatingly effective. Consistent sleep timing improves insulin sensitivity, blood pressure, cognitive function, mood regulation, and cardiovascular risk. No pills required, no tracking rings necessary, although they don't hurt. Blueprint's emphasis on sleep is one of its strongest components. And here's the irony: this is the part that people skip when they try to copy him. They want the supplements, they want the hacks, they want the drugs. I do. They don't want to go to sleep.

SPEAKER_02: 30:22

I'm I'm like listening to all this. I'm like, I fucking love sleeping.

SPEAKER_01: 30:26

Girl, you're sleeping for two. Yeah. Calorie restriction is where things get more interesting and more nuanced. So in animals, calorie restriction robustly extends lifespan. That's not controversial. But in humans, the best evidence we have comes from the calorie trials. And this is an acronym spelt C-A-L-E-R-I-E. And so I thought it was a typo. And hence I looked it up and learned a little bit more about it. They are carefully controlled studies examining moderate calorie restriction in non-obese adults. So calorie stands for the comprehensive assessment of long-term effects of reducing intake of course. How to starve people that don't need to be starved. A major research program funded by the National Institute on Aging, designed to test the effects of sustained calorie restriction in healthy, non-obese human adults. So, what did it show? Well, it wasn't immortality. It showed improvements in cardiometabolic risk factors like lower blood pressure, improved lipid profiles, better insulin sensitivity, which matters, but it also showed something else. Even in tightly monitored trials, people struggle to maintain aggressive restriction. Hey! Side effects include fatigue, cold intolerance, reduced libido, and psychological strain. Like every diet I ever tried starting in the 80s until I gave up 10 years ago. There's been so many different things to try. Restrictive lifestyle is not sustainable. Yeah. And so this, oh my god, the the ladybugs are doing like leapfrogging over each other now. What is happening? You guys are just showing off now. Dang, we've got some wild ladybugs up there. I know. Feral. I know. Yeah. So here's an uncomfortable question. If calorie restriction were prescribed the way blueprint presents it outside a trial without guardrails, would we call that preventative care or disordered eating? Because to me, that's uh a recipe for creating an eating. That sounds very much like starvation heights. And this is right. Oh yeah, I was thinking about what was me at this time. Horrific woman, Catherine. Catherine Sutton's Hunger Gains is the name of the episode. I didn't know the answer to this question. Anyway. Oh, sorry. Well, we'll bring it up next. We'll bring it up next week. We'll have something to talk about in the uh crutchment section. So this is where Blueprint leaves mainstream medicine and enters ethical gray space. Brian Johnson also experimented with a chemical compound rapamycin and later discontinued it. And that's not failure, that's data. But the public takeaway was this wasn't that this was complicated, it was, well, even he couldn't make it work, which should tell you something, because rapamycin is a real drug with real science behind it. In animals, it extends lifespan. In humans, it's used as an immunosuppressant, particularly for the prevention of organ transplant rejection. There's growing interest in its potential role in aging biology. But here's what matters rapomycin suppresses immune function. So long-term use in healthy people is not well studied. Side effects are real, infections, wound healing issues, metabolic effects. Metformin sits in a similar category, promising, plausible, but not proven as an anti-aging therapy in healthy people. Most of what we know about metformin and aging comes from animal models, cellular biology, and observational human data, not lifespan trials. So let's take a moment to look at a simple definition of aging, because it isn't one thing, it isn't like a clock that could be turned back or one biomarker to meet. Modern biology describes aging as a series of overlapping processes that happen unevenly across the body. So DNA damage accumulates, cells stop dividing when they should, or refuse to die when they should, mitochondria becomes less efficient, communication between cells degrades, and repair mechanisms slow down. And inflammation becomes chronic instead of useful. Here's the part that matters for this story. These processes don't move in lockstep. You can improve one while worsening another. You can optimize one organ system while stressing out the rest. You can make a lab number look younger while the person feels worse. So let's define two important biomarkers for aging. This is bringing me back to high school biology. So AMPK, which I'm just going to call AMPK, stands for AMP-activated protein kinase. And what this is, is the cell's fuel gauge. It constantly asks the question: do we have enough energy to grow or do we need to conserve and repair? When AMPK turns on, it's activated when energy is low, like during calorie restriction, fasting, exercise, metabolic stress, and certain drugs like metformin. This happens when energy goes down and AMP signals go up. So when it's activated, the cells shift into survival and maintenance mode. So to do that, it slows energy expensive processes like making new cells and proteins. It increases energy production, it enhances repair and cleanup pathways and promotes autophagy. Autophagy? Autophagy. Cellular recycling. And so why AMPK matters for aging is that it's associated with stress resistance, improved metabolic efficiency, reduced inflammation, longevity in multiple animal models. And so it's often described as a pro-longevity signal, not because it makes cells grow, but because it makes cells last. The other baromarker we're going to look at is MTOR, which I'm going to call mTOR suppression, and it stands for the mechanistic target of rapamycin. So mTOR is a cell's growth accelerator. It answers a different question. Do we have enough resources to grow divided build? So when it turns on, it's activated when nutrients are abundant, insulin and IgF1 levels are high, amino acids are plentiful, and it's a normal and necessary process, especially in growth, wound healing, muscle building, and reproduction. But when it stays active too long, the cell prioritizes growth over maintenance. So that leads to autophagy, which is that recycling, decrease in cellular repair, increase of accumulation of damage proteins, increased cancer risk, and increased age-related degeneration. So when you suppress MTOR, it slows the growth signals, reactivates repair pathways, increases autophagy, and shifts biology from growth to preservation. So that's why drugs like rapamycin extend lifespan in many species. So AMK and MTOR relate to each other like biological opposites. If they were talking to each other, and AMK would say, energy is scarce, conserve and repair, mTOR would say, resources are plentiful, grow and build. So when AMK is activated, it inhibits MTOR, which means and AMK activation, mTOR suppression equals more repair and less growth. And this coordinated shift is central to many longevity theories. So calorie restriction activates AMK and suppresses MTOR. Exercise does that. Metformin mimics some of these signals pharmacologically, and epigenetic clocks may reflect some downstream effects of this shift, but they don't prove benefit. So let's break it down to a lay person analogy because this is how I learn stuff is if we really dumb it down and tell a story. So imagine your body is a city. AMPK is the emergency manager. When the resources are tight during fasting, exercise, or stress, AMPK steps in and says, stop building, fix what's broken, recycle what you can, let's keep the lights on. MTOR is the real estate developer. So when food and energy are abundant, MTOR says, build new towers, let's expand, let's grow. Both are necessary, but if the developer never stops building, then the infrastructure collapses. So we can deduce aging appears to favor cities that spend a little less time expanding and more time maintaining what they got. Good lesson to learn for all of us. So, and here's where epigenetic clocks come in. AMK activation and mTOR suppression don't just change your metabolism, they change which genes are turned on and off. And over time, those changes leave chemical marks on the DNA called methylation patterns. So epigenetic clocks read the patterns, and when cells spend more time in repair mode and less time in growth mode, the top, the clock often ticks more slowly. But in this matters, the clock only sees a signal. It doesn't know whether the whole system is actually safer. So epigenetic age reflects how the city is being managed, not whether it's going to stand forever. Flowing the clock may mean we're sending better instructions. It doesn't mean we've rewritten the ending. TAME stands for targeting aging with metformin, a groundbreaking clinical trial used by the American Federation for Aging Research, designed to test whether the widely used diabetes drug, metaphorin, can delay the onset or progression of multiple age-related diseases in healthy older adults. It represents a major effort in gyroscience, the field that treats aging itself as a target, not just individual diseases. Metformin affects several pathways linked to aging: AMPK activation, MTOR suppression, reduced insulin signaling, inflammation control, and mitochondrial stress response. These mechanisms overlap with calorie restriction and longevity biology in animals. What we don't yet know is whether modifying those pathways in healthy humans meaningfully extends health span or lifespan. The TAINE trial aims to answer whether metformin delays age related disease onset. It has not yet delivered definitive results. So when longevity influencers frame Metformin as a longevity staple, they're running ahead of the evidence. Sorry guys, evidence-based medicine doesn't move at social media influencer speed. But let's address the elephant, or rather the vampire in the room. The idea that young plasma can reverse aging is ancient. It shows up in mythology for a reason. In Greek mythology, there's a sorceress named Medea. When King Aeson grows old and weak, Medea doesn't give him herbs or exercise. She drains his blood completely, replaces it with a magical brew, and he's reborn young again. Literally re-blooded. Fast forward a few centuries, and the story gets darker. In the late 1500s in Europe, rumors swirled around Hungarian countess Elizabeth Bathory, who was said to bathe in the blood of young women to preserve her youth. She was also said to be a mass murderer. But anyway, whether or not that's historically accurate almost doesn't matter. The belief was plausible enough that people accepted it. Morbit does a really good episode, and I didn't look up which number on the Countess Elizabeth Bathory, but you have to have a strong stomach for it. So there you go. And then there are vampires, immortal beings whose youth and power depend entirely on drinking the blood of the young. No blood equals no life. Different cultures, different centuries, same idea. Long before we had biology or plasma infractions or randomized trials, humans were already convinced that youth lived in the blood and that aging could be reversed if you could just steal it. In modern medicine, the evidence does not support anti-aging plasma transfusions in healthy adults. The FDA has explicitly warned against clinics marketing this practice for longevity. Brian Johnson publicly experimented with plasma-related interventions. He had his son's plasma infused into himself and he gave his father his plasma. He eventually stopped. I mean, again, stopping isn't the problem, but broadcasting the experiment as aspirational is. He tweeted on January 28th, 2025, that he's no longer injecting his son's blood because he's upgraded to total plasma exchange. And he outlines the steps on this tweet. Number one, take all blood from the body. Number two, separate plasma from the blood. Number three, replace plasma with 5% albumin and IVIG. Ending his post with a picture of himself holding an enormous bag of some orange glutinous substance with the caption, here's my bag of plasma, who wants it? Okay, so a quick Google search to find these two apparently magical ingredients, IVIG, which stands for intravenous immunoglobulin, and albumin are both critical therapeutic agents used in various medical conditions with distinct roles in treatment. Intravenous immunoglobulin, IVIG is a preparation of antibodies derived from pooled human plasma, used primarily to treat immunodeficiency disorders, autoimmune diseases, and inflammatory conditions. It's effective in managing conditions like primary immunodeficiency and autoimmune diseases like Young-Barre syndrome and infections. IVIG helps to boost the immune response and reduce inflammation, but there are potential side effects that can include headaches, fever, chills, and allergic reactions. Albumin is a protein produced by the liver that plays a crucial role in maintaining oncotic pressure in the blood and transporting various substances. Intravenous albumin is used in clinical scenarios like volume resuscitation in patients with low blood volume, treatment of liver cirrhosis, and management of hypotension during dialysis. It can help increase blood protein levels and improve circulation. Studies suggest that it can also be beneficial in certain conditions like septic chalk. So they're both vital therapeutic agents with specific applications, but understanding their roles, benefits, and potential side effects is crucial for effective patient management. Because I think it would be easy to frame Brian Johnson as arrogant or reckless, and I don't think that's accurate. I think he's terrified. And I think he's doing what many people do when fear meets resources, he's building a fortress. He has said openly that he's removed free will from his life because free will leads to bad decisions. That should give us pause. If a patient told a clinician they eliminated free will to avoid aging, we wouldn't call that optimization. We'd call it a red flag. And here's the ethical pivot point when that mindset is monetized, when it's packaged as discipline, sold as protocol, and framed as aspiration, it stops being personal. It becomes cultural and culture shapes behavior. The real risk blueprint isn't Brian Johnson. It's everyone who copies parts of it without medical supervision, lab monitoring, and the ability to stop along with the financial buffer to absorb harm. I can guarantee you there are people out there now restricting their calories aggressively, stacking supplements blindly, experimenting with hormones, skipping medical care, and chasing biomarkers instead of well-being. Because a wealthy man made it look controlled. Medicine isn't offended by curiosity, it's deeply offended by false certainty, though. Brian Johnson isn't wrong that aging deserves more attention. He's not wrong that preventative care matters, and he's not wrong that the medical system often fails people. But longevity isn't a startup, and bodies are not beta products. The danger isn't that he wants to live forever. The danger is that he makes death look like a personal failure rather than a biological certainty that we should approach with honesty, compassion, and humility. And there's a part of me that believes he's sensationalizing his pursuit of longevity for media attention. For example, after the documentary came out, he tweeted on January 22nd of this year, quote, nighttime erection data from my 19-year-old son and me. His duration is two minutes longer than mine. Raise children to stand tall, be firm, and be upright. Surely that's a joke, right? I mean, he used a device called the Adam Sensor, which is a device that if sorry, Adam, I just realized this. Adam, did you make a sensor? Don't ask him. It's a device that affixes male's genitalia and tracks changes in penile size throughout the night. The data is collected and sent to an app on the user's phone, allowing them to gain insights into trends, and ostensibly this means, according to our friend Brian, gaining insight into their sexual health. And Okay, I was gonna say, what is the point of even knowing that? He thinks it's gonna provide insights into overall well-being, cardiovascular, metabolic, and hormonal health. Of course. His poor son.

SPEAKER_02: 47:51

I know I would move out. Why is he still there?

SPEAKER_01: 47:55

He had to give up his plasma and his nighttime data. I mean, I'm poor kid. God, weird. But this is where the don't die philosophy starts to eat itself because if death is the enemy, then every deviation becomes threatening. A bad night's sleep isn't a bad night, it's damage. A skipped workout isn't rest, it's decay. A meal out isn't joy, it's a risk. So that kind of vigilance doesn't produce longevity, it produces hypervigilance. And hypervigilance has its own health consequences. Chronic stress raises cortisol, it disrupts sleep, it worsens inflammation, and impairs immune function. Ironically, fear of aging can accelerate the very processes that people are trying to avoid. There's also a deep misunderstanding in blueprint style thinking about what long life actually looks like. Most people don't die suddenly at peak performance. They live with gradual changes, they adapt, they lose some functions and gain others, and they redefine what well means to them. Longevity research that actually improves lives focuses on health span, not just lifespan. Like, can you walk without falling? Can you think clearly? Can you connect with people? Can you tolerate discomfort without panic? And another thing Blueprint quietly sidelines is interindividual variability. Some people tolerate calorie restriction well, others develop hormonal disruption, bone loss, or mood disorders. Some people respond well to certain drugs and others experience outside side effects. Medicine spends enormous effort to identify who should not receive an intervention. Longevity culture tends to ask only who might benefit, and that asymmetry matters because medicine is built around protecting the vulnerable, not rewarding the resilient. But Brian Johnson's experiment may continue for decades. It may generate interesting data, it may even inform future research, and none of that is inherently bad. What's dangerous is the implication that his path is replicable, scalable, or morally superior. It is not. It is one man with extraordinary resources responding to fear in a particular way. That doesn't make him foolish, it just makes him human. But the tragedy would be if we mistook his coping strategy for a roadmap, because the goal of medicine isn't to eliminate death, it's to help people live well despite its inevitability. In the early 20th century, aging was blamed on glandular failure. Doctors injected patients with animal organ extracts under the promise of vitality. I invite our listeners to re-listen to episode four, goodness gracious, goat balls and lyre, for an insane example of this quackery. In the mid-century, hormones became the answer: testosterone for men, estrogen for women, youth in a vial. People felt better at first, but then came the long-term data: cancer risk, cardiovascular events, and stroke. So the story quietly changed. Then antioxidants took center stage. Aging was oxidative stress, we were told. So let's neutralize free radicals, and you neutralize time until trials showed increased mortality in some groups. Then there was growth hormone clinics, then chillation therapy, then megavitamins. Each wave had science, each wave had confidence, and each wave had unintended consequences. Blueprint isn't unique, it's just better funded. Brian Johnson has a podcast on Apple Podcast called This is the Brian Johnson Podcast. By the way, I think there's only 20 episodes, so we're ahead of him.

unknown: 51:22

Whoop-whoop.

SPEAKER_01: 51:24

So here's his description. The Brian Johnson Podcast is ushering in a new era of being human. In this podcast, I'm joined by longevity physician Dr. Mike Mallon, my co-founder Kate Toto, and the occasional guests. We discussed the scientific-based protocol to help you become your best self. After living in Ecuador for two years among extreme poverty at the age of 21, I returned to the U.S. and devoted my life to making the largest, most meaningful impact of humanity. After selling my company Braintree Venmo for 800 million, I traveled back in time to my 21-year-old dreams of doing something impactful for the human race. I wondered if we may be the first generation to not die. I put together a team of 30 medical professionals and built the world's best health protocol called Blueprint. On this protocol, I became the most biologically measured person in history and achieved the best biomarkers in the world, quantitatively becoming the healthiest person on the planet. Now is the first time in 2,000 years that a new globally adopted ideology must emerge. AI is progressing faster than any of us can comprehend, causing us to reexamine everything we think about ourselves, each other, and society. This is now humanity's to-do list. Don't die individually, don't kill each other, don't destroy the planet, and align AI with Don't Die. End quote. On his website, he writes, quote, after billions of years of evolutionary advance, we're on the cusp of what could be the most extraordinary existence in the galaxy. May we have the courage and wisdom to believe that now is the very beginning. End quote.

SPEAKER_00: 53:21

Yeah. Oh.

SPEAKER_01: 53:23

Wow. He's just he's just a freaked out dude with a lot of money and time on his hands.

SPEAKER_02: 53:29

Yeah. Yeah. Too much.

SPEAKER_01: 53:32

I think he's enjoying the attention too. I mean, there's some good ideas in there, but he's just taking it too far.

SPEAKER_02: 53:38

Yeah. And like the premise of it, sure. Yeah. Let's try and extend our lifespan. But let me ask you this. I'm not sure to the point of don't die, but let me ask you this.

SPEAKER_01: 53:51

If you could live a hundred extra years, or live twenty extra years, like if you could live a hundred extra years, like in a nursing home, or twenty extra years, you know, independently. Exactly. I mean, it's it's not about longevity. All your friends, all your family have died, all your family's gone. Like, I guess if everybody's living longer, but then we're gonna run out of money. We have to keep working. Who's gonna be able to do that?

SPEAKER_02: 54:22

And people are still having children, right? The younger ages, like everything's gonna be so overpopulated. Very miserable.

SPEAKER_01: 54:31

So, no, I'd rather have a few quality years over although, you know, listen, oh, for sure. My beloved family, my kids, don't pull a plug too soon, you know. Make sure Bama's brain isn't around before you. Oh, I don't think they listen.

SPEAKER_02: 54:46

Okay. Well, I'm like, well, that kind of gets into the debate of quality.

SPEAKER_01: 54:53

Yeah, no, yeah, no, I don't want to be a vegetable either. So yeah, it's uh yeah, I think it's it's uh maybe grist for future episode to talk about maybe we could do an episode on euthanasia or like DNR kind of stuff, Dylan. Yeah, but anyway. Amanda, as you know, it's that time of year where we start thinking about approving improving our health, you know, January 1st and all 2026. New Year's resolution time. For me, as a woman of a certain age, I find I need to work harder on my protein intake. But I hate that chunky white powdery stuff or those thick shakes that claim to taste great, but they aren't fooling anyone. It's just like trying to have a barium swallow when you when you try to get those things done. But guess what? We have a new sponsor that's solved the problem. It's called clear protein. Oh, okay. Hey, new sponsor. I heard about them from a friend, and I can tell you right now, these drinks are clear, refreshing, fruity, and delicious. I can't decide if strawberry, watermelon, or wild blue raspberry are my favorite. But you just take the powder, you mix it with water, avoid the extra calories, and avoid the thick and chunky taste of milk-based protein. Clear has 20 grams of protein a drink with no sugar, no lactose, making it ideal for most diets. And it helps build and maintain muscles as well as supports endurance and recovery. And there's no bloating or farting unless unlike those traditional lactose-based proteins. You know what I'm saying? If you know, you know. If you know, you know. So elevate your protein game with clear whey protein powder, lactose-free, sugar-free, and refreshingly delicious. Perfect for a flavorful protein pack boost. Visit clearprotein.com to receive an exclusive 20% off any product when you use our promo code STAYSUSPIOS. That's clear with a K. Visit Clearprotein.com and use promo code stay suspicious for 20% off any product today. And so it's like a juice drink. And it's oh that's cool. It's got just as much protein, it's not thick and it's not milky. Yeah. Yeah. And it just dissolves with water.

SPEAKER_02: 57:11

And I have some friends that can't have protein shakes because the milk aspect. So I was the same way. That's so nice.

SPEAKER_00: 57:20

Yeah. Tell them to use our promo code.

SPEAKER_01: 57:29

Well, here's a word about our sponsors. Because I've had some questions from listeners. Producing a podcast isn't free. So if you want to support us, we earn a commission when you use our promo code Stay Suspicious at checkout. So we don't get paid for talking about our sponsors, but we only pick sponsors that you know we can relate to and we like their products. And if you were to buy, not only do you get a deal, it's a win-win, you get a great deal on a fabulous product. And that helps support our show.

SPEAKER_00: 58:01

Yeah, it's time for a medical mishap. I've got a little Christmas surprise for you. Guess who wrote in a second time? Your friend. Stop. Stop.

SPEAKER_02: 58:18

Taylor. Yep. Oh my god, I'm pumped. I cheated. I looked ahead.

SPEAKER_03: 58:24

Do you want to read it? Hi Taylor.

SPEAKER_02: 58:26

Yeah, I do. Well, unless you do, I guess I got to. Did I read? I read Taylor's last time.

SPEAKER_01: 58:32

It's okay. You read it. I'm just, I'm just, you know, your girl's got heartburn and swollen ankles. I'm just looking out for you, baby.

SPEAKER_02: 58:40

You read it. Wow. Tell everybody about my tree trunks. I didn't listen to you telling everybody about my tree trunks.

SPEAKER_01: 58:47

My swollen ankles are um still not even approximating my normal ankles. So can we just stop right now?

SPEAKER_02: 58:57

Hi, Doctor in the Truth team. It's Taylor again, the fruit fly in the cast person. Hey. First of all, thank you for reading my last email on the show. No, actually, thank you. Second of all, I regret to inform you that the universe apparently decided that one medical mishap was not enough character development from me. This one is even less dramatic. No blood, no bugs, no fractures, which somehow makes it worse.

unknown: 59:31

Excuse me.

SPEAKER_02: 59:32

A few weeks ago, I went in for what I was told would be a quick routine dermatology appointment, just a mole check. 10 minutes in and out. I even scheduled it during my lunch break because I am nothing if not optimistic. Yeah. That's very optimistic of you, Taylor, in a derm clinic. The dermatologist was lovely, calm, efficient. She did the full exam, pointed out a few freckles that had apparently been freeloading on my body for years, and then paused at one spot on my shoulder. Has this one always been here? She asked. Reader, I do not know what has always been on my shoulder. I barely know what's on my face.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:18

For real.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:20

She said it looked a little suspicious, which is dermatologist for don't panic, but you're about to panic. And she recommended a quick biopsy. Quick was doing a lot of work in that sentence. She numbed the area, which felt like a bee sting from a bee who had been lifting weights. Then she said, You'll feel some pressure. This is a lie doctors tell. I felt everything, just without the courtesy of pain. Pressure is not the word. Pressure is what you feel when someone leans on your shoulder. This was more like aggressive tugging. Anyway, biopsy done, bandage applied, and I was told to keep it clean, dry, and covered and to watch for signs of infection. I went home feeling very mature and medically responsible. That night I removed the bandage to clean the area and immediately learned that I am not emotionally equipped to see my own biopsy site. It was deeper than expected. Not alarming, just unsettling, like looking into a tiny window of yourself you were never meant to see. And I can confirm I those biopsies sections are a lot bigger than your brilliant description, though.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:40

Like applied, yeah, I know exactly what she means.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:44

Yeah. Uh-huh. Such a good writer, Taylor. I cleaned it, applied ointment, covered it back up, and tried not to think about it. Over the next few days, everything seemed fine. No redness, no swelling, no fever. I congratulated myself on being a model patient. Model patient, TM. Yeah, TM. TM. Then on day five, I noticed something odd. The bandage was crunchy. Oh, did you not change it? Did you leave it on for Friday? Uh-oh, okay. The bandage was crunchy, not wet, not bloody, crunchy. I peeled it back carefully and discovered I'm scared to read forward. Ugh, and discovered that the wound itself was healing fine, but the adhesive around it had fused to my skin in a way that can only be described as medically intimate. I panicked and did what any adult would do. I Googled. Of course, of course. This was a mistake. Of course it was. Google suggested warm water and a gentle removal. I tried that, nothing happened. The bandage laughed at me. I tried oil, I tried patience, I tried bargaining with the universe. And eventually I realized I was either going to remove the bandage or become one with it forever. So I pulled. And in doing so, I accidentally removed a concerning amount of skin. And what's that? Hair? I would like to state for the record that I have never willingly waxed my shoulder. I did not know this was a hairy area for me, but I do now. The next morning, my shoulder looked like two different medical events had happened to two different people. One area was healing beautifully, the surrounding area looked like it had lost a fight with the duct tape. And when I went back for my follow-up, the dermatologist took one look and said, Oh wow. Again, not what you wanted to hear. I explained the bandage situation and she nodded sympathetically and said, Yeah, that happens. Once more, I'm begging the medical community to stop normalizing these sentences. The biopsy came back benign. Thankfully, I am fine. My skin is fine. My creepy shoulder hair will grow back, I suppose. But I left that appointment with two realizations. Routine does not mean uneventful. And number two, every medical visit has the potential to humble you deeply, quietly, and without witnesses. So thank you for the show. Thank you for reminding me that healthcare is equal parts science, systems, and the occasional adhesive-related tragedy. I promise not to email again unless somebody or unless something truly unhinged happens. Which does statistically means I'll talk to you soon. Love Taylor. Still alive, still learning, and now staying suspicious around medical team.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:51

I really oh God, I hope nothing happens to you, but oh my god, I kind of do.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:59

I would not have made it to day five because your girl has an adhesive sensitivity. That would not like my army wanted to fall on off.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:11

Or didn't know it yet, but that seems like an adhesive allergy, right? Sensitivity. Five days though. They told her to keep it on. I don't know. Bless her heart. Thank you, Taylor. We love you. Right in. Maybe somebody else because your writing is awesome, but we also don't want you to have too many mishaps in your life. Yeah. But listen.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:39

Yeah. Yeah. What can our listeners expect to hear next week, Lamanda?

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:47

You know, again, great question because I haven't started and I have one week to do it, but I'm also hosting Christmas, and there's more Christmas to go to in there. And so I'm gonna be down to the wire again, you know? It's gonna be a surprise for all of us. I get that. Yeah. We may have to maybe I'll finish one of the five I've started.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:11

I know yours truly will help you get something something together.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:16

Uh you know, it would really just help myself if I would finish one of those. I know what it's like though.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:21

You're like, oh, and then you move on to the we're all move on to the next thing.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:26

Yeah. Yeah. I'm on winter break now for work, so I won't feel as crammed to like this. Feels like homework sometimes, you know, like after work you have homework to do. Um, but now I don't have school, so I'll I can have more time to finish these cases I have started. Eee! Or, you know, just start new ones because I'm good at that. You're good at it all, baby. So, you know what? Until then, we hope you guys all have a happy holiday season. Because this will come out the day after Christmas. For those of our UK listeners. Oh my gosh. And you know what? Not only am I hosting Christmas on Saturday, the 27th, we have family coming into town that Friday and not leaving till Sunday. I don't know when I'm gonna have to. Probably Monday.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:20

I may have to come up with a two-pattern. Because, okay, I mean, here we are hashing out our our business our biz nasty online.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:30

I know we're like, what are we gonna do with our like? I'm like, oh my god, I'm so busy and it's cross my ass. Okay, so until then, guys, Merry Christmas.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:38

Happy Hanukkah, happy Hanukkah, Boxing Day, happy old tides.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:43

All the things. Don't miss a beat. Subscribe or follow Doctoring the Truth wherever you enjoy a podcast for stories that shock, intrigue, and educate. Trust, after all, is a delicate thing. You can text us directly on our website at doctoringthe truth at buzzsprout.com. Email your own story ideas, medical mishaps, and comments at Doctoringthe Truth at Gmail. I just had an ADHD thought. Our friend from the UK who knows about the Bristol scandal, he never told me if there was anything that I needed to fix. So if you've made it this far, sir, please let us know if there's a corrections section, Rich. I just remembered. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at Doctoring the Truth Podcast and Facebook at Doctoring the Truth, where you can also find my friend Rich. We're on TikTok at Doctoring the Truth and at oddpod. Don't forget to download rate and review so we can be sure to bring you more content next week. Until then, stay safe. Stay suspicious. Bye. Bye. If you made it through that ADD ramble, I'm so sorry. Oh, you're fine. This is why I have five cases going on.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:08

Are we are we gonna stop? One one, two, three, stop.