Johnson says he extracted all his blood, separated the plasma, and replaced it with a mixture of 5 albumin and IVIG (Pic: Instagram)
Anti-ageing influencer and biohacker Bryan Johnson got a complete plasma exchange done—to reduce the speed of ageing and reverse it to his benefit, he claimed on social media. In an Instagram post, the US-based millionaire said, “I removed all the plasma from my body, and the doctor said it’s the cleanest she’s ever seen.”
Johnson says the procedure involved extracting all his blood, separating the plasma, and replacing it with a mixture of “5 per cent albumin and IVIG.”
Johnson, in his post, also highlighted his previous efforts at reverse ageing when his son gave him plasma and said that this new attempt will mark a version 2.0 of that “V2.” This latest move, according to Johnson, is part of his ongoing blueprint to slow ageing. “Everything I do is an attempt to discover what slows down my speed of ageing and reverses my ageing damage,” he wrote. “We follow the science and data, no matter how outlandish the therapies may seem.”
What is plasma?
According to doctors, plasma is the liquid part of your blood, which makes up a little over half of your blood’s total volume. Other blood cells, like red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets, mix in with plasma, which carries them to every corner of your body.
Plasma is about 92 per cent water, along with proteins, antibodies, coagulation factors, albumin, and fibrinogen, which make up 7 per cent of it. The other 1 per cent is hormones, vitamins, water, salt, enzymes, and other important compounds.
What does plasma do?
According to experts, plasma has several jobs that make it vital to your survival, a few of which include:
- Carrying red blood cells to your lungs for them to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide
- Maintaining your blood pressure levels
- Delivering water and nutrients to all parts of the body
- Regulate your body temperature
- Carrying immune cells
- Using proteins that your body uses to alleviate inflammation and clotting
- Removing waste products from your liver or kidneys
What happens when you remove plasma from your body?
According to Johnson, nothing drastic happened to his body after removing plasma. "I did the entire thing; I felt the same and went to bed and slept the same. So for me, it was pretty inconsequential. For those suffering from health challenges, they can feel a significant boost of energy and alertness,” he said in a follow-up video.
"So, how might this affect my longevity? Well, like all things blueprint, we are measuring dozens of biomarkers, and we will see a before and after and then make an assessment of what it’s doing for me,” Johnson added.
What are the diseases and conditions that affect plasma?
A few conditions and diseases that affect your plasma include:
- Protein malfunction diseases like amyloidosis
- Blood disorders like hemophilia, von Willebrand disease
- Immunodeficiency from not having enough immune proteins in your blood
- Myeloma—a cancer that affects your bone marrow and disrupts blood formation.
