Biohacker extraordinaire Bryan Johnson just dropped something wild on X that has the longevity community buzzing. The guy who's famous for spending millions trying to reverse ageing claims a single magic mushroom session fundamentally reset his metabolism.
And he's got the receipts. Continuous glucose monitoring data, research papers, the whole nine yards.
Let's break it down.
Glucose monitoring
When Johnson decided to livestream his latest magic mushroom experience, many were expecting the usual psychedelic fare: some profound insights, maybe some emotional processing, perhaps a shifted perspective on mortality. What we are witnessing instead is a possible breakthrough in metabolic health and longevity.
The data he shared shows three time periods: pre-dose baseline (72 hours), dose day (24 hours), and post-dose (72 hours). The changes are stark:
His mean glucose dropped from 87.22 mg/dL to 80.94 mg/dL (an 8% decrease). His variability, measured by coefficient of variation (CoV), dropped from 12.95 to 11.84. Most dramatically, his time spent above 125 mg/dL went from 0.23% to literally 0.00%.
His blood glucose control (which was already elite at the top 2% of the population) catapulted to the top 0.2%. We're talking better glucose regulation than 99.75% of people aged 18-25.
His estimated HbA1c dropped from an already-impressive 4.7% to an exceptional 4.4%. A 6.8% reduction. From a single session.
Why This Matters (A Lot)
We currently treat metabolic dysfunction with daily medications. Metformin (the most prescribed diabetes drug on the planet) takes six months of daily use to drop HbA1c by 10-15%. Johnson's claiming he got comparable effects in one psychedelic session.
His hypothesis is that a "neuroplastic event" (basically, the brain rewiring itself) might have downstream effects on the liver and pancreas that rival or exceed pharmaceutical interventions. He's calling it a first-in-human observation, with only some rodent studies suggesting this might be possible.
That's a bold claim. Bold enough that it immediately attracted some serious scientific scrutiny.
The Scientists Weigh In
Martin Picard, a mitochondrial psychobiology researcher at Columbia, jumped into the thread with a crucial question: why are we assuming the "reset button" is in the brain at all? Could psilocybin be acting directly on peripheral metabolic regulation? Or both?
It's a fair challenge to Johnson's framing, which assumes a top-down mechanism in which the brain changes cause metabolic changes. But what if the mushrooms are working on multiple systems simultaneously?
Here's where things get really interesting. In July of this year, a groundbreaking study was published in npj Aging by researchers at Emory University and Baylor College of Medicine. In fact, I believe it was this study that ignited Johnson's interest the longevity benefits of psilocybin.
The study, led by Louise Hecker and her team, provides the first experimental evidence that psilocybin doesn't just affect the brain, but it fundamentally impacts cellular ageing and longevity at multiple levels.
What they found in cells:
- Psilocin (the active form of psilocybin) extended cellular lifespan by 29-57% depending on dose
- It preserved telomere length (one of the key markers of cellular ageing)
- Reduced oxidative stress and improved DNA stability
- Increased SIRT1, a master regulator of cellular ageing and metabolism
What they found in aged mice:
- Monthly psilocybin treatment increased survival from 50% to 80% in 19-month-old mice (roughly equivalent to 60-65 human years)
- Improved fur quality and reduced white hair
- Treatment started late in life and still worked
Additionally, when they tested psilocin on isolated fibroblasts in a petri dish (cells with no connection to a brain whatsoever) they still got the lifespan extension and metabolic improvements, supporting Picard's assertion of direct cellular action.
More Complex Than We Thought
The Emory/Baylor study reveals that Picard was absolutely right to question the "brain reset button" framing. Psilocybin appears to work through multiple simultaneous mechanisms:
1. Direct cellular effects: The compound acts on cells throughout the body, not just neurons. It increased SIRT1 expression (the same longevity protein that's elevated in caloric restriction), reduced oxidative stress, and preserved telomeres.
2. Systemic receptor activation: The 5-HT2A serotonin receptor that psilocybin activates isn't just in the brain. It's expressed in fibroblasts, heart cells, immune cells, endothelial cells, and throughout metabolic organs like the liver and pancreas.
3. Mitochondrial improvements: The study showed enhanced mitochondrial function and reduced cellular stress responses at the most fundamental energy-production level of cells.
The researchers note that a recent study found 5-HT2A stimulation in neurons induced SIRT1-dependent expression of antioxidant enzymes. SIRT1 overexpression has been shown to extend lifespan in C. elegans and mice.
So Johnson's metabolic improvements might be coming from both top-down neuroplastic changes and direct molecular effects on his liver, pancreas, fat tissue, and basically every other metabolic organ in his body.
What This Means for Johnson's Glucose Results
Looking at Johnson's dramatic glucose improvements through the lens of this new research, suddenly everything makes more sense.
If psilocybin is simultaneously:
- Activating 5-HT2A receptors in pancreatic cells
- Reducing oxidative stress in liver tissue
- Improving mitochondrial function in muscle and fat cells
- And rewiring neural circuits that regulate metabolic homeostasis
...then of course you'd see rapid, dramatic changes in glucose regulation that persist after the drug clears your system.
The Emory study's finding that these effects come from changes in fundamental ageing pathways (SIRT1, telomeres, oxidative stress, DNA damage responses) suggests this isn't just temporary drug action. It's actual reprogramming of cellular ageing processes.
The Bigger Picture
What excites me most is that we're witnessing a paradigm shift in real-time.
For decades, we've thought about psychedelics purely in terms of consciousness, neuroscience, and mental health. The idea that they might be potent systemic anti-ageing compounds that work at the cellular and mitochondrial level wasn't even on the radar until very recently.
The Emory researchers suggest psilocybin could represent a "disruptive pharmacotherapy" as a geroprotective (protects against ageing) agent. Given that the FDA has already designated it as a breakthrough therapy for depression, and given the safety data we have from clinical trials, the pathway to studying this for metabolic health and longevity seems surprisingly clear.
Johnson's self-experiment, as messy and preliminary as it is, might have accidentally documented something genuinely revolutionary: the first human observation of psilocybin's geroprotective metabolic effects.
Whether this pans out as a practical intervention remains to be seen. But between Johnson's glucose data, Picard's validation that there's real science here, and the Emory study's experimental proof of concept, we're looking at something that could fundamentally change how we think about ageing, metabolism, and the therapeutic potential of psychedelics.
The "magic" in magic mushrooms might be even more profound than we imagined, not just for consciousness, but for the fundamental biology of ageing itself.
