{"id":1543,"date":"2025-04-13T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-13T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/curiousdrive.com\/?p=1543"},"modified":"2025-04-22T11:57:32","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T11:57:32","slug":"bryan-johnsons-penis-can-teach-us-a-valuable-lesson-about-health-anxiety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/curiousdrive.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/13\/bryan-johnsons-penis-can-teach-us-a-valuable-lesson-about-health-anxiety\/","title":{"rendered":"Bryan Johnson\u2019s penis can teach us a valuable lesson about health anxiety"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\"Bryan\t<\/div>
Bryan Johnson (pictured), wellness-obsessed millionaire, has the penis of a 22-year-old (Picture: Kyle Grillot\/Bloomberg via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lying in bed on a Thursday morning, my customary scroll delivered a jump-scare \u2013 Bryan Johnson<\/a>, wellness-obsessed millionaire, has the penis of a 22-year-old, proclaimed a headline. <\/p>\n

I read on, almost against my will but desperate to understand more \u2013 had Johnson stolen it? Was the 22-year-old alright? <\/p>\n

Luckily for young men everywhere, it turned out that the penis in question was Johnson\u2019s own \u2013 chronologically 47 years old, as is the rest of him, but apparently performing like the organ of a much younger man<\/a>. <\/p>\n

That is, according to metrics like night-time erections, or blood flow, or something; as with all such finicky body measurements, I zoned out immediately \u2013 though increasingly, it seems that I\u2019m in the minority. <\/p>\n

Never have we had more tools at our disposal to measure every bit of ourselves. <\/p>\n

From fitness trackers to sleep apps, Average Joe and Josephine can be aware of their resting heart rate, REM sleep, and blood oxygen levels \u2013 even comparing trends over time, without stepping foot into a doctor\u2019s office.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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But if data is so empowering, why does it all make me feel so jittery?\u00a0(Picture: Emily Watkins)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Meanwhile, endless kits that promise to measure everything from my ovarian reserve to my genetic predisposition to various diseases, are advertised to me every time I log onto Instagram. <\/p>\n

But if data is so empowering, why does it all make me feel so jittery? <\/p>\n

There is, it seems, nothing I cannot know about my body \u2013 but plenty I\u2019m happy not discovering, thanks. On the contrary, I\u2019d argue that our over-monitoring amounts to little more than lots of useless data, encouraging us to be more neurotic and self-obsessed than ever. <\/p>\n

How does your resting heart rate compare to last week\u2019s? Unless you\u2019re flatlining \u2014 who cares?  <\/p>\n

A 2025 study about influencers peddling high-tech health MOTs that overdiagnose harmless conditions in healthy people confirms my hunch.<\/p>\n

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Having wrangled health anxiety myself in the past, I know all too well how one weird symptom or statistic can provide fuel for weeks of rumination (Picture: Emily Watkins)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Look at any set of numbers for long enough and you\u2019ll find an outlier \u2013 but how can you tell the difference between an unusual reading that should prompt a shrug, and one that requires a trip to A&E? I\u2019ll tell you: Unless you\u2019re a trained medical professional, you can\u2019t.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course, we\u2019ve all heard the exceptions that prove the rule \u2013 the devotees who say their device alerted them to some silent health condition that would otherwise have gone under the radar. <\/p>\n

But for every silver-bullet diagnosis, there are reams of meaningless measurements, serving no purpose other than fanning the flames of hypochondria<\/a>.   <\/p>\n

Having wrangled health anxiety myself in the past, I know all too well how one weird symptom or statistic can provide fuel for weeks of rumination. <\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t used any of the gizmos in question \u2013 the pedometer and period trackers<\/a> on my phone are plenty for me \u2013 not just because I think they\u2019re pointless, but because I know how fixated I could get.<\/p>\n

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It should go without saying that people concerned for their health should seek help (Picture: Emily Watkins)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How well did I sleep last night? How about last week? And what to do with the cruel truth that fixating on sleep makes it harder to achieve than ever?   <\/p>\n

It should go without saying that people concerned for their health should seek help, but I promise that a doctor\u2019s appointment will be eminently more useful than an app or a search engine, and offer much less scope for spiralling.  <\/p>\n

These anxieties aren\u2019t going unnoticed by corporations, either \u2013 on the contrary, they\u2019re cashing in on them. <\/p>\n

Reading gynaecologist Dr Jennifer Gunter\u2019s book Blood, I was fascinated to learn how meaningless the results from some fertility tests can be, especially considering how emotive and obscure the topic of women\u2019s reproductive health remains.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The price of buying into wellness mania is more than monetary (Picture: Emily Watkins)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As someone who is decidedly not a scientist, I would have assumed that the makers of such tests would be measuring something empirical, drawing a clear, evidence-based conclusion.<\/p>\n

Turns out, it\u2019s precisely that assumption that many such companies are (literally) banking on.   <\/p>\n

And the price of buying into wellness mania is more than monetary. <\/p>\n

Costing a reported $2million per year and requiring more than 100 supplements per day, Bryan Johnson\u2019s (yes, the same one with the 22-year-old penis) anti-death regime <\/a>is so extreme as to function as a real-world cautionary tale. <\/p>\n

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Comment now<\/title><span class=\"metro-comment-cta__text\">Do you measure your health religiously? Have your say in the comments<\/span><\/span><a class=\"metro-comment-cta__button\" href=\"#metro-comments-container\">Comment Now<\/a><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p>With so much of the joy of living \u2013 relationships, spontaneity, meals with loved ones \u2013 off the table, what\u2019s the point of staying alive? What are all these measurements for, if optimising them gets in the way of living?   <\/p>\n<p>In the same way as googling symptoms to reassure yourself is guaranteed to predict certain death, measuring every bodily function will never grant the surety that all is well. Your resting heart rate might be exemplary today, but what about tomorrow, or next year? <\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, your penis could be performing like one two decades younger, but that won\u2019t stop you getting hit by a bus. <\/p>\n<p>We want to be safe \u2013 that\u2019s just human nature \u2013 but not even the whizziest app can insulate you from a chaotic universe that couldn\u2019t care less how many steps you do a day.  <\/p>\n<p>They say that knowledge is power, but when it comes to bodies, that knowledge can be crippling. While obviously everyone should seek treatment if they\u2019re unwell, the unexamined body can be a beautiful \u2013 peaceful \u2013 thing.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Do you have a story you\u2019d like to share? Get in touch by emailing <a href=\"mailto:jess.austin@metro.co.uk\">jess.austin@metro.co.uk<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Share your views in the comments below.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bryan Johnson (pictured), wellness-obsessed millionaire, has the penis of a 22-year-old (Picture: Kyle Grillot\/Bloomberg via Getty Images) Lying in bed on a Thursday morning, my customary scroll delivered a jump-scare \u2013 Bryan Johnson, wellness-obsessed millionaire, has the penis of a 22-year-old, proclaimed a headline.  I read on, almost against my will but desperate to understand […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/curiousdrive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/curiousdrive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/curiousdrive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/curiousdrive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/curiousdrive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1543"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/curiousdrive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1551,"href":"http:\/\/curiousdrive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543\/revisions\/1551"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/curiousdrive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/curiousdrive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/curiousdrive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/curiousdrive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}