{"id":1148,"date":"2026-05-14T13:40:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T13:40:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/bbc-sciencefocus\/?p=1148"},"modified":"2026-05-14T13:41:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T13:41:00","slug":"why-billionaires-could-reverse-ageing-for-everyone-but-keep-refusing-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/bbc-sciencefocus\/2026\/05\/14\/why-billionaires-could-reverse-ageing-for-everyone-but-keep-refusing-to\/","title":{"rendered":"Why billionaires could reverse ageing for everyone \u2013 but keep refusing to"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

COMMENT<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why billionaires could reverse ageing for everyone \u2013 but keep refusing to<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

The ultra-rich keep spending millions to live forever. So why aren’t they putting money into the science that could save us all?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

By Andrew Steele<\/p>\n\n\n\n

–<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\"Close
Photo credit: Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Want to live forever? Here\u2019s a two-stage plan: first, make billions in Silicon Valley; second, spend those billions on bizarre longevity treatments and wait for immortality to arrive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least, that seems to be the working theory among a certain class of tech billionaire. For instance, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT), stares into a bright LED light while doing his emails in the morning, fasts 15 hours a day and takes diabetes drug metformin<\/a>, a drug whose supposed anti-ageing benefits remain largely untested in healthy humans. (I asked ChatGPT \u201cShould I take metformin for longevity?\u201d, to which it replied<\/a> \u201cShort answer: it\u2019s not a good idea.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there\u2019s Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal, who told an interviewer<\/a> he was \u201clooking into parabiosis stuff\u201d \u2013 a controversial area of research in which young blood is used to rejuvenate older animals, and perhaps one day even people. (When later pressed on the rumours directly, Thiel responded<\/a>: \u201cI am not a vampire.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Peter
PayPal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel also plans to be cryogenically preserved in the case of his legal death. Photo credit: Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And Bryan Johnson may only be a \u2018centimillionaire\u2019 (he claims<\/a> to be worth $200m, or about \u00a3150m), but what he lacks in net worth he makes up for with his vast social media output. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He posts about everything from his sauna \u2018protocol\u2019 to the device he uses to measure his (and his son\u2019s) nightly erections. He explains that his \u2018Blueprint\u2019 protocol<\/a> (it\u2019s protocols all the way down) \u2013 a combination of an extreme diet, obsessive exercise and sleep, dozens of supplements and even gene therapy \u2013 has reversed his biological age<\/a> to the point where he\u2019s the \u2018healthiest person on the planet<\/a>\u2019. Whatever that means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it\u2019s not just Californian tech titans. Basketball billionaire LeBron James reportedly spends $1.5m (\u00a31.1m) a year<\/a> on his health, including sessions in his at-home pressurised oxygen tank, and undergoing cryotherapy at -160\u00b0C (-250\u00b0F). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Kardashians have done full-body MRI scans<\/a> which claim to detect cancer and other problems early, but aren\u2019t recommended<\/a> by medical bodies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russian billionaire Dmitry Itskov founded the \u20182045 Initiative<\/a>\u2019 which aims to upload human brains into computers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

97-year-old Chinese billionaire Li Ka-shing swears by a supposed<\/a> anti-ageing supplement called nicotinamide riboside, and has invested<\/a> $25m (\u00a318.5m) in a company that makes it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do all these diverse longevity protocols and their various ultra-wealthy adherents have in common? None of the treatments are likely to help their users live much longer than average. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The things shown to help wealthy people live longer are, reassuringly, the same things shown to help everyone<\/em> live longer: not smoking, better diet, more exercise, lower stress and better healthcare. None of which, thankfully, cost millions of dollars a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the genuinely life-extending breakthroughs that don’t yet exist won’t come from billionaires experimenting on themselves. They’ll come from properly funded science \u2013 which, as it turns out, is exactly what most of the ultra-rich are failing to invest in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Follow the money<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s start with the facts. Rich people definitely live longer \u2013 in the US, the richest 1 per cent live 10 to 15 years longer<\/a> than the poorest 1 per cent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet it\u2019s not because of their cryo chambers, metformin and parabiosis, but for all the boring, and far more widely available, reasons we just mentioned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if you do have infinite money, there\u2019s quite simply not much extra that you can do with current medical tech to live a dramatically longer life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scientists have plenty of intriguing anti-ageing ideas<\/a> that work in worms, flies and mice, but no treatment has ever even been put to a clinical trial to find out if it can meaningfully slow human ageing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, Sam Altman may or may not live longer as a result of taking metformin \u2013 there\u2019s currently no solid evidence either way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Metformin\u2019s benefits are uncertain, but some of what \u2018biohackers\u2019 subject themselves to may be actively harmful. For example, in 2019, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned<\/a> about the risks of getting blood transfusions, from infections to serious allergic reactions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Bryan
Bryan Johnson has his heart scanned so frequently he can track changes in his arterial stiffness month by month. Photo credit: Alamy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, extreme dietary restriction has also been shown to backfire, weakening bones and impairing the immune system in later life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there are the infamous \u2018supplement stacks\u2019: sprawling combinations of pills, powders and experimental compounds taken all at once in the hope that they\u2019ll somehow add up to longer life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than improve your lifespan, supplements are regularly linked to contaminated ingredients<\/a>, liver damage<\/a> and dangerous side effects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And combining dozens of interventions together creates another problem entirely. We know that multiple treatments used simultaneously can \u2018interact\u2019, meaning that ingredients that might work individually actively make things worse when taken together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A well-known example in medicine is that Viagra plus some heart medications can cause death from dangerously low blood pressure<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Human biology is complicated, and it\u2019s much easier to break things than fix them \u2013 just as replacing one random component in a car engine is far more likely to worsen performance than improve it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To find out what actually works doesn\u2019t just require having millions of dollars \u2013 it needs proper human testing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\n\n\n\n

Read More:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n