Blueprint (Bryan Johnson)

• Slow the rate of biological aging, which Johnson tracks organ by organ on himself.
• Keep blood pressure, glucose, lipids and inflammation in very low ranges.
• Build and keep muscle, bone density, fitness and flexibility.
• Maximize sleep quality through strict routines.
• Replace in-the-moment food and lifestyle choices with fixed systems.

Bryan Johnson, a tech entrepreneur, began Project Blueprint in his early 40s. His protocol page describes him at the start as overweight, sleep-deprived and depressed, and frames the goal as measuring every organ and slowing or reversing its rate of aging [1]. In 2023 he was reported to be spending over $2 million a year on it [11].

His page mixes two things, and this guide keeps them apart:

• What the protocol asks you to do: sleep consistency, a final meal at least 4 hours before bed, a plant-heavy whole-food diet with extra-virgin olive oil, 6 hours of exercise a week, avoiding smoking, junk food and excess alcohol, the Blueprint supplement stack, and routine tests such as blood draws every 3 to 6 months [1]. In a 2025 interview he described the core of sleep, diet and exercise as free and open to most people [16].
• What he does only on himself: prescription drugs such as metformin and acarbose, and therapies such as hyperbaric oxygen, shockwave therapy, stem cell injections and gene therapy. His page calls the whole project an experimental clinical research project that mixes on-label, off-label and unlicensed treatments [1]. We treat these as his experiments, listed below, and do not rate them as part of the protocol.

Johnson sells many of the products the protocol recommends through his Blueprint store, including the supplement stack, olive oil and protein powders.

AumniVIDA is not affiliated with Bryan Johnson or Blueprint, and he has not reviewed this page. We describe the regimen from his own published materials as of October 2026 and grade each part against independent research.

Johnson's published daily food routine [1]:

He stops eating around noon and stops drinking fluids at 4 pm. The page says he follows no named diet camp. Because it includes collagen peptides, which come from animals, the current routine is not strictly vegan even though it is mostly plants.

What the evidence says. The building blocks are well supported. People who eat the most fiber have 15% to 30% lower mortality and less heart disease, diabetes and colorectal cancer [2]. A Mediterranean diet with extra-virgin olive oil cut major cardiovascular events by about 31% in a large trial [3]. Modest calorie restriction of about 12% for 2 years improved blood pressure, lipids and insulin sensitivity in healthy adults [15]. No trial has tested Johnson's exact menu, meal timing or 10% energy deficit.

Related pages: Mediterranean diet, plant-based diets, calorie restriction and time-restricted eating.

The recommended stack. His page lists the Blueprint stack among the things readers may want: Blueprint Essentials, Advanced Antioxidants, Longevity Mix, Ashwagandha and Rhodiola and an 800 mg EPA/DHA capsule. He also takes creatine and prebiotic powders himself [1]. No trial has tested the stack as a whole. Large trials of single supplements are mostly negative for disease prevention: vitamin D at 2,000 IU a day did not prevent cancer or cardiovascular events in 25,871 adults [6], and the US Preventive Services Task Force found insufficient evidence for multivitamins [7].

Prescriptions he takes himself. His own list includes thyroid hormone for hypothyroidism diagnosed at 21, oral minoxidil for hair, metformin in 6-week on and off cycles that he describes as an experiment, tadalafil, empagliflozin (Jardiance), acarbose, candesartan and evolocumab (Repatha) every two weeks [1]. The page lists these as his prescriptions, not as steps for readers. What independent research shows:

• LDL lowering: strong evidence, in the right people. Evolocumab lowered LDL to a median 30 mg/dL (0.78 mmol/L)0.78 mmol/L (30 mg/dL) and cut cardiovascular events by 15% in patients with heart disease [13]. Its value in a lean, fit person without heart disease has not been tested in trials; see ApoB and LDL cholesterol.
• Anti-aging drugs: mostly animal evidence. Acarbose extended median lifespan by 22% in male mice [17] and rapamycin extended lifespan in mice [18], but no human trial shows that either slows aging. Johnson stopped rapamycin in 2024 after side effects [10].
• Metformin with exercise: two trials in older adults found metformin blunted gains from aerobic training [19] and from strength training [20], a possible conflict with a regimen built on daily exercise.

Johnson sells the stack the protocol recommends, which is a conflict of interest worth keeping in mind when reading his recommendations.

His exercise guidance is close to mainstream advice, set at the high end [1]. He trains 60 to 90 minutes most mornings and moves for 2 to 3 minutes every 30 minutes during the day. The strength component is well supported: muscle-strengthening activity is linked to 10% to 17% lower mortality, with the largest benefit at about 30 to 60 minutes a week [4]. See strength training, Zone 2 cardio and the Norwegian 4x4 for the vigorous part.

His sleep rules are concrete [1]:

1. Treat sleep as the most important appointment of the day.
2. Eat the final meal at least 4 hours before bed.
3. Screens off 60 minutes before bed, followed by a calm wind-down.
4. Keep a consistent bedtime; he chooses 8:30 pm but says any fixed time works.
5. Use red or amber light in the evening.
6. Keep the bedroom dark, quiet and at 65 to 70 F (18 to 21 C).
7. Avoid caffeine and alcohol 8 to 10 hours before sleep.
8. Get outside within 15 to 30 minutes of waking, or use a 10,000 lux lamp; see morning sunlight.

Regular sleep timing has good observational support: the most regular sleepers had 20% to 48% lower mortality than the least regular in UK Biobank [5]. His claim of months of perfect sleep refers to a wearable's score, not a clinical sleep study. He uses a dry sauna daily, and his page suggests readers who sauna aim for 3 to 5 sessions a week of 15 to 20 minutes, with a list of who should skip it [1]. Finnish cohort data link frequent sauna use with lower cardiovascular death [14]. See sauna.

The protocol's routine measurement list, addressed to readers, covers blood draws every 3 to 6 months, an annual full-body MRI after 40 or with high-risk family history, annual skin and eye checks, dental visits every 6 months, monthly self-exams and continuous glucose monitoring [1]. Most of this is standard screening. The full-body MRI is not: the American College of Radiology says there is not enough evidence to recommend it for people without symptoms or risk factors, and that it can trigger needless follow-up tests [21].

On himself, Johnson reports percentile rankings for many markers, for example bone density in the 99th percentile and grip strength in the top 5%, and organ age estimates such as a skin age of 39 at 48. Two cautions apply to these numbers:

• Clocks are noisy. Technical noise alone made six popular epigenetic clocks differ by up to 9 years between repeat measurements of the same sample [8]. A change of a few years in one person can be measurement error.
• Clock changes are not outcomes. In the CALERIE trial, 2 years of calorie restriction slightly slowed the DunedinPACE measure but did not change other clocks, and nobody knows yet whether such changes mean longer life [12].

Johnson's own disclaimer says biological age claims are preliminary, can reflect statistical error and need peer-reviewed validation [1]. Tracking standard markers such as ApoB, HbA1c, hs-CRP and ferritin over time is the part of his approach with the clearest clinical meaning.

Blueprint is the clearest example of the N-of-1 evidence tier in this encyclopedia: one person, many simultaneous changes, no control group. That design can generate ideas but cannot show which change caused which result, or whether the same would happen in someone else.

What the record shows so far:

• Early results were modest. In 2023 his lead physician said the results were small and reasonable rather than remarkable [11].
• Illness still happens. In 2026 he disclosed autoimmune gastritis, a condition with no known cause; he said the regimen made it milder than it would have been, which cannot be tested [22].
• His experiments, listed below, are separate. They are not part of the protocol and not counted in its rating, but they show the same limits. Six young plasma exchanges, one from his son, produced no detected benefit, and he stopped them [9]; the FDA says young plasma has no proven benefit and carries real risks [23]. He stopped rapamycin in 2024 after skin infections, higher glucose, lipid changes and a higher resting heart rate [10].

The population evidence points to the same conclusion as most critics: exercise, fiber, olive oil, regular sleep, not smoking and LDL control are worth doing [2] [4] [3]. Beyond those habits, the evidence for the stack and the extra tests is thin.

The main criticisms, roughly in order of how often scientists raise them:

1. One person cannot answer the question. Aging researcher Nir Barzilai has said Johnson's choices are based on biology but not on clinical evidence, and that science does not rest on n = 1 [10].
2. Too many changes at once. With dozens of simultaneous interventions, no result can be traced to one of them.
3. Cost and access. A reported $2 million or more a year puts his own version out of reach [11], although Johnson says the habit layer is free [16].
4. Commercial interest. Johnson sells supplements, food products, skin and hair care and tests through Blueprint, so the protocol doubles as a product catalog.
5. Risky experiments on himself. Young plasma [23], gene therapy and stem cell injections are outside approved uses, and his page acknowledges unlicensed therapies [1]. These are his experiments, listed below, not steps the protocol asks others to take.
6. Noisy measures. Organ and epigenetic ages are not validated for tracking one person [8].

On the other side, Johnson's team told Nature that it regards n-of-1 measurement as the next frontier and has generated first-in-human observations [10]. His free protocol page shares detailed, if self-reported, data, and its habit layer of sleep, exercise and whole-food eating costs nothing.

The app's version is community-compiled from Johnson's public eating principles. It is not his protocol, and neither Johnson nor Blueprint has reviewed or endorsed it.

The scorecard focuses on the parts with the best evidence, such as fiber and extra-virgin olive oil [2] [3], and lets you set your own energy and fiber targets. It explains your data for general wellness; decisions about medication, including the lipid and glucose drugs on Johnson's list, belong with your clinician. For a framework that puts exercise and early lipid management first, compare Outlive and Medicine 3.0.

• Copying the drugs and therapies Johnson tries on himself instead of the habits that carry the evidence.
• Eating too little: a fixed calorie target from one man may be too low for active, younger or larger people.
• Reading single epigenetic or organ-age results as proof of change.
• Buying branded products on the assumption that the brand is what works.
• Stacking many changes at once, so you cannot tell what helped or harmed.
• Moving bedtime to 8:30 pm at the cost of family, work or social life, when a consistent later time works.

• You are pregnant or breastfeeding: a fixed energy deficit and a long daily fast are not appropriate without medical guidance.
• You have a history of eating disorders: rigid food rules and calorie targets can be harmful.
• You take glucose-lowering, blood pressure or other prescription medicines: dietary changes and added drugs can interact; check with your clinician.
• You are considering any prescription Johnson takes himself, such as metformin, SGLT2 inhibitors, acarbose, tadalafil or PCSK9 inhibitors: these are not part of the protocol, need a prescriber and need monitoring.
• You are considering any of his personal experiments, such as plasma exchange, gene therapy or stem cell injections: these are unproven for aging and carry real risks.

• Hunger, low energy or loss of menstrual cycles with too low an energy intake.
• Gas and bloating when fiber and legumes rise quickly.
• Social strain from very early bedtimes and fixed eating windows.
• Anxiety or obsessive tracking from constant measurement.