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Anti-aging activist Bryan Johnson walks out of Zerodha co-founder’s podcast over air quality concerns

NRI PULSE STAFF REPORT

New Delhi: Tech entrepreneur and anti-aging advocate Bryan Johnson walked out of a podcast recording with Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath at a sea-facing apartment in Bandra, Mumbai due to poor air quality in the venue. Johnson, who follows a strict health regimen, found the air quality at the venue unsuitable, despite using an air purifier and wearing an N95 mask.

Confirming his decision on X (formerly Twitter), Johnson wrote, “When in India, I did end this podcast early due to the bad air quality. @nikhilkamathcio was a gracious host and we were having a great time. The problem was that the room we were in circulated outside air which made the air purifier I’d brought with me ineffective.”

He noted that the Air Quality Index (AQI) inside the room was 130, with PM2.5 levels at 75 µg/m³—equivalent to smoking 3.4 cigarettes a day. After three days in India, he said the pollution had caused his “skin to break out in a rash and my eyes and throat to burn.”

Johnson also expressed concern over the normalization of air pollution in India, saying, “Air pollution has been so normalized in India that no one even notices anymore despite the science of its negative effects being well known. People would be outside running. Babies and small children exposed from birth. No one wore a mask which can significantly decrease exposure. It was so confusing.”

Calling for urgent action, he added, “The evidence shows that India would improve the health of its population more by cleaning up air quality than by curing all cancers. I am unsure why India’s leaders do not make air quality a national emergency. I don’t know what interests, money, and power keep things the way they are, but it’s really bad for the entire country.”

Johnson, known for his multi-million-dollar anti-aging project Blueprint, compared India’s air pollution crisis to America’s obesity epidemic. He noted that upon returning to the U.S., he was struck by the high obesity rates, saying, “42.4% of Americans are obese and because I was around it all the time, I had been mostly oblivious to it. In many contexts, obesity is worse than air pollution in the long term.”

Neither Kamath nor Johnson has commented further on the podcast episode.

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