Bryan Johnson has responded to reports of him leaving midway a podcast conversation with Nikhil Kamath. During the discussion, Johnson, wearing a face mask, joked about the poor air quality. When Kamath asked how bad it was, Johnson quipped, “I can’t see you over there.”
Explaining his abrupt exit on X (formerly known as 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 further highlighted: “The room’s Air Quality Index (AQI) was 130, with PM2.5 levels at 75 µg/m³ — equivalent to smoking 3.4 cigarettes a day.”
By his third day in India, Johnson said the pollution had caused his “skin break out in rash and my eyes and throat burn.” He expressed disbelief at how normalized air pollution seemed, noting, “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.”
Johnson also highlighted the significant impact on public health. He wrote:
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.
When I returned to the U.S., my eyes were fresh to see what is normalized to me. I saw obesity everywhere. 42.4% of American 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.
Why wouldn’t American leaders declare a national emergency on obesity? What interests, money and power keep things the way they are but are really bad for the entire country.
Johnson’s post has gone viral now with over 2 million views so far.
