The man who injects his son’s blood to stay young just admitted he overlooked one basic health hazard sitting in his own home

Biohacker Bryan Johnson, known for his extreme longevity pursuits, called himself an “idiot” for overlooking a health hazard in his own backyard. The millionaire, whose anti-aging regimen includes nutrient-packed smoothies, red light therapy, and injecting himself with his son’s blood, revealed he had toxic artificial turf at his home the entire time. Johnson shared the discovery in a post on X, writing that all the time he spent trying not to die, he had toxic turf sitting right behind his house.

As detailed by LADBible, Johnson explained that the artificial turf in question contains crumb rubber infill, often made from recycled tires. He claims this material can leach chemicals including PFAS, heavy metals, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which he alleges are linked to hormone disruption, carcinogenicity, and systemic inflammation. For someone who has spent years and significant money engineering nearly every aspect of his biology, the oversight stands out.

The science does offer some backing to Johnson’s concerns, though with more nuance than his post suggests. The National Toxicology Program (NTP) has conducted extensive research on synthetic turf and recycled tire crumb rubber, with studies nominated in November 2015 and now completed. Synthetic turf fields are common across the United States, and growing public concern about potential health risks, particularly for athletes and children, prompted the research into what chemicals people might actually be exposed to.

Missing an obvious hazard while optimizing everything else is peak irony

The NTP conducted chemical and physical characterization of crumb rubber, followed by in vitro cell-based tests using human-derived cell lines from the lung, skin, small intestine, and liver. In tests involving mice, the NTP found “no evidence of toxicity” from ingesting crumb rubber, with blood and urine analysis showing internal chemical levels were “very low.”

No specific health problems were observed in short-term studies. However, when human cells were tested, crumb rubber did leach chemicals under certain conditions such as high heat, and those chemicals caused cell death.

The NTP studies confirmed that crumb rubber contains many of the substances Johnson cited, including PAHs, various metals, and plasticizers such as phthalates and bisphenol A (BPA). The studies did not, however, assess the health effects of long-term exposure or specifically evaluate the carcinogenicity of individual chemicals within crumb rubber.

The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment separately found “no significant risk from key component” of synthetic turf fields, adding another layer to the picture. The question of whether Sony’s latest pricing decisions signal broader consumer cost increases has drawn similar debates about what companies are actually exposing people to versus what the data supports.

Johnson wrote that the discovery made him question his “basic competence in life,” adding that he tries hard to survey potential threats but found “a monument to idiocy sitting right in front of my face.” He has committed to removing the artificial turf from his property entirely. Johnson, who has built a public reputation around extreme health optimization not unlike others who obsessively track environmental risks, summed up his frustration by saying he is “still stuck with this seemingly unsolvable problem of how to not be an idiot.”