Lying in bed on a Thursday morning, my customary scroll delivered a jump-scare – 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 more – had Johnson stolen it? Was the 22-year-old alright?
Luckily for young men everywhere, it turned out that the penis in question was Johnson’s own – chronologically 47 years old, as is the rest of him, but apparently performing like the organ of a much younger man.
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 – though increasingly, it seems that I’m in the minority.
Never have we had more tools at our disposal to measure every bit of ourselves.
From fitness trackers to sleep apps, Average Joe and Josephine can be aware of their resting heart rate, REM sleep, and blood oxygen levels – even comparing trends over time, without stepping foot into a doctor’s office.
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.
But if data is so empowering, why does it all make me feel so jittery?
There is, it seems, nothing I cannot know about my body – but plenty I’m happy not discovering, thanks. On the contrary, I’d 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.
How does your resting heart rate compare to last week’s? Unless you’re flatlining — who cares?
A 2025 study about influencers peddling high-tech health MOTs that overdiagnose harmless conditions in healthy people confirms my hunch.
Look at any set of numbers for long enough and you’ll find an outlier – 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’ll tell you: Unless you’re a trained medical professional, you can’t.
Of course, we’ve all heard the exceptions that prove the rule – the devotees who say their device alerted them to some silent health condition that would otherwise have gone under the radar.
But for every silver-bullet diagnosis, there are reams of meaningless measurements, serving no purpose other than fanning the flames of hypochondria.
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.
I haven’t used any of the gizmos in question – the pedometer and period trackers on my phone are plenty for me – not just because I think they’re pointless, but because I know how fixated I could get.
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?
It should go without saying that people concerned for their health should seek help, but I promise that a doctor’s appointment will be eminently more useful than an app or a search engine, and offer much less scope for spiralling.
These anxieties aren’t going unnoticed by corporations, either – on the contrary, they’re cashing in on them.
Reading gynaecologist Dr Jennifer Gunter’s 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’s reproductive health remains.
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.
Turns out, it’s precisely that assumption that many such companies are (literally) banking on.
And the price of buying into wellness mania is more than monetary.
Costing a reported $2million per year and requiring more than 100 supplements per day, Bryan Johnson’s (yes, the same one with the 22-year-old penis) anti-death regime is so extreme as to function as a real-world cautionary tale.
With so much of the joy of living – relationships, spontaneity, meals with loved ones – off the table, what’s the point of staying alive? What are all these measurements for, if optimising them gets in the way of living?
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?
Meanwhile, your penis could be performing like one two decades younger, but that won’t stop you getting hit by a bus.
We want to be safe – that’s just human nature – but not even the whizziest app can insulate you from a chaotic universe that couldn’t care less how many steps you do a day.
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’re unwell, the unexamined body can be a beautiful – peaceful – thing.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk.
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