Photographs posted by the former tech mogul on Instagram show him squinting out from puffy eyelids, with the rest of his normally chiselled face swollen up like a balloon.
Johnson wanted to restore volume to his face to counteract his strict vegan diet of 1950 calories per day, which had left him looking gaunt.
“People thought I was on the brink of death,” he claimed. “It didn’t matter how good my biomarkers were if I didn’t have face fat.”
Bryan Johnson recovering from his reaction. Photo / Bryan Johnson
Johnson, who made US$800 million (about NZ$1.08b adjusted to present currency rates) from selling a payments processing company in 2013, was apparently too lean to supply the fat for the injections, and turned to a donor instead.
“Immediately following the injections, my face began to blow up,” he said, admitting that “Project Baby Face” had not gone to plan.
“It got worse, and worse, and worse until I couldn’t even see. It was a severe allergic reaction.”
It took seven days for his face to return to normal, Johnson added.
He was scheduled to meet with a New York Times journalist later that day, and warned him in advance: “So that you’re not alarmed, you may not recognise me today.
“I think I’m okay. I hope I’m okay. If I’m not okay, are you by chance trained to perform life-saving actions?”
The blood transfusion between Bryan Johnson and his teenage son, Talmage. Photo / Bryan Johnson
Johnson’s ultimate goal is to reverse biology and make each of his organs – including his brain, heart, lungs and kidneys – equivalent to that of an 18-year-old.
He spends US$2m a year employing a team of dozens of doctors on his anti-ageing procedures and says his overall pace of ageing has slowed by 24%.
His diet involves more than a hundred daily supplements and 70 pounds of pureed vegetables every month.
The millionaire has claimed to have the heart of a 37-year-old, the skin of a 28-year-old, the lung capacity of an 18-year-old and the gums of a 17-year-old.
In one previous experiment, he used blood transfusions from his teenage son, Talmage, in an attempt to reverse age-related cell damage.
