Bryan Johnson vs. Italian Grandpa (Siim Land Embarrasses Himself Once Again) @Siim Land @Bryan Johnson

Watch on YouTube · 2026-03-30 · 30 min

0:00 Hey guys, as suggested, I'm going to review a video called Who Will Live Longer? Italian Grandpa or Brian Johnson? Science Breakdown. Seamland created this video, which is why you shouldn't expect anything even related to science. Before we start, let's check out this thumbnail. He looks real. It doesn't at all look like the most photoshopped picture on Earth. No. And once I start the video, we won't see this extreme filter which he uses. No, we will see the way he really looks like. I'm pretty sure you've seen this meme on... Of course. He looks very real. It doesn't look blurry. It doesn't look like... His whole body is glowing because of the filter. That's the way he looks like.

1:01 Wow, his body fit seems to be even lower now. That's one of the things that he's hiding.

[video] 1:08 The smoking and alcohol would of course reduce his lifespan.

[video] 1:26 The general sentiment on the internet is that the Italian grandpa is going to outlive Brian Johnson, but what does the actual evidence say? I know a lot of people have their cognitive biases and uninformed opinions on this, so I wanted to make this video to look into what does the research actually say about these two different lifestyles.

1:42 I'm going to look at what do the... That's okay, but research is not scientific. Research is a compilation of opinions, usually. It's all fine. to read about other people's opinions, just don't confuse it with science.

[video] 2:01 A 100% perfect so-called lifestyle would be

2:20 A natural lifestyle, obviously. Because there's nothing better than nature. ...while eating pasta, drinking wine and smoking ciggies. Pasta? Wine? What about the meat? The rotten cheese? What about all of the animal foods? What about the goat brain that they eat raw? No, that won't be mentioned. He doesn't exercise, just walks everywhere, hangs... Yes, they don't exercise. I'm glad that he mentions that because the guy is obsessed with exercise. ...out with his friends and is unemployed.

[video] 2:58 The Italian life expectancy is 84.18 years, 86.13 for women...

3:03 Being unemployed would be great, of course, for your longevity and generally for your happiness. But obviously people... in Italy, in Greece and in all of these countries also work.

[video] 3:18 up until a certain age and 82.12 for men which is number 11th in the whole world other mediterranean countries have a similar range for life expectancy italian longevity is driven by the mediterranean diet active lifestyles strong social connection wow the mediterranean diet and he shows bread with olive oil what the fuck is wrong with this guy why all the lies

3:46 They live long because they eat lots of fish, meat, even organs. At least that's what the people used to do. Up until recently, now not that many people eat such a good diet there. But that's why... They are also getting sicker and sicker now. And a relaxed work-life balance. However, they also have health care. If you would base your diet on bread and olive oil, then it would be a miracle if you would reach the age of 20.

[video] 4:17 Which is one of the most important things for life expectancy. One of the biggest 100-year-old Italian grandpa stereotypes is that they smoke every day. This makes it seem that the centenarians, they all just smoke, and that is the reason why they live so long. But the truth is the complete opposite.

4:30 Wait, what? Everybody understands that they live long because they eat an animal-based diet, they are out in the sun, they don't work as much, they simply don't have as much stress as other people, and they eat a better diet, or as I said, they used to.

4:51 Everybody gets this. Nobody believes that they live long because they smoke. Look, he's even more blurry now. People in Rome...

5:28 don't live in a healthy way at all. I've been there.

[video] 5:34 So out of all people in Rome, 0.00017% were 100-year-old smokers. But that's Rome. Everyone in Sardinia smokes, right? Someone replied to me on Twitter. It's seen that in Sardinia, 48% of the elders aged 89 to 101 had been smokers in the past, while only 1% of them were active smokers, which means that most of the Sardinian elderly people never smoked, and the ones who did weren't actively smoking. Having smoked in the past could mean anything. Is it one month or 10 years? What's key is that most of them never smoked and only 1% were active smokers. In the Greek island Ikaria, which is another longevity hotspot, 50% were past smokers and most stopped at age 60. Only 7% were active smokers. So the amount of people who actively smoke and reach the age of 100 is extremely small. I'm talking about 0.0001% of the population. They're extreme outliers and 99.99% of people who smoke will die before the age of 100. The simple explanation to this is that some people get lucky they don't get cancer, but the underlying reason is genetics.

6:21 It's important for genetics. people to understand this because there are people out there who actually believe that they smoke and drink. I don't think that anybody believes that that's why they live long. I've never heard of that. But they believe that there's some kind of luck to it, which is obviously nonsense. The smoking and alcohol would only harm you. It's just hard to focus on what he's saying because

6:55 His body fat is very low. The bones are very visible and that's what he's trying to hide. You just really cannot take him seriously when it comes to the topic of health and longevity.

[video] 7:12 Genetics is far more powerful than people realize when it comes to maximal lifespan. You've probably heard that longevity is 80% lifestyle and 20% genetics. That claim was based on some Danish twin studies. But a recent reanalysis of these studies saw that longevity is actually about 50% genetics when addressing some confounders.

7:28 And what exactly are these genetics? Where are these genes?

7:35 That's why I said that you cannot take this guy seriously. He never talks about actual science, only some beliefs and opinions.

[video] 7:44 It means that genetics is far more powerful than people thought. Genetics matters a lot more, especially for people who smoke and drink alcohol and live to the age of 100. It's not the smoking or the alcohol that causes this, it's their genetics in most cases. Another problem with these so-called blue zones is that a lot of them aren't actually 100 years old. A lot of centenarians live in regions with poor birth certificates, which means their data is false. In the US, the introduction of state-specific birth certificates is linked to a 69 to 82% decrease in supercentenarians. This reminds me of these Facebook or Instagram posts you see sometimes.

8:14 It's because that's when people became more enslaved. Their diets also changed. A lot changed back then. And that's why people also didn't live as long anymore. The more freedom you have to do what you want to do, the longer you will live.

[video] 8:33 This 300 or 200-year-old Tibetan monk or some sort of Persian grandpa that has a passport, it says they're 300 years old. And because it's a passport, you need to believe it. When it comes to Sardinia specifically, then the leading researchers there, Pullain and colleagues, did confirm the ages of all the centenarians in the central eastern part of Sardinia, which makes it a true blue zone. Sardinia is also a region where men live nearly as long as women, which is not the case everywhere else. In the US, the female-to-male ratio among centenarians is 9 to 1, but in Sardinia, it's 2.4 to 1. So what are the Sardinian men doing that enables them to live so long? Is it the smoking grandpa? Well, looking at the smoking statistics, that is not the case. Only 1% of the Sardinian elderly are active smokers. The first and foremost answer is genetics again. Sardinia is an island, it's isolated from the mainland, and it's been isolated from immigration and... How can you say genetics?

9:15 What do you mean by that? Explain it. You cannot simply say genetics without any explanation whatsoever. Nobody understands what it's even supposed to mean. Are you saying that you can inherit the lifespan of your ancestors? What are you actually trying to say? Are you saying that you can eat pizza, pasta, work a lot, exercise and still live long because your ancestors lived long? Is that what you believe? That's impossible. Your lifespan is completely dependent on your lifestyle.

[video] 9:58 Mainland for centuries. What about the other 50% of lifestyle? There's a 2021 study by Pauline and colleagues that looked at the dietary patterns of the Sardinian oldest old. They eat olive oil, potatoes, cheese, milk, fruit, and cereals every day.

10:12 And of course, no meat. Wait, let's go back.

10:18 Right. Yes, and so meat. What? It's not the case whatsoever. Everybody knows this. This is such propaganda, and he falls for that. Why don't you actually go to Sardinia and check out what they eat? It's that simple, and then you will see that they eat animal-based with very few plant foods.

[video] 10:47 They eat olive oil, potatoes, cheese, milk, fruit, and cereals every day. Here's a percentage frequency of consumption of 16 foods among the Sardinians. Daily foods include potatoes, cheese, bread, and cereals, fruit, milk, olive oil, coffee. Weekly and monthly foods are legumes.

11:01 And this makes zero sense because some of this wasn't even around a few decades ago. How did people live so long then? Cereal? Since when can you even find cereal in Sardinia? Maybe since 30 years?

[video] 11:20 ...pasta, vegetables, meat. Another 2020 study looked at Sardinians in Ecosian longevity hotspots and found that they consume every day milk, cereals, legumes, coffee, and fruits. The Sardinians in Ecosians, they're not plant-based, they're not meat-based, they're actually dairy-based and bread-based. The reason is that these communities are pastoralists. They have goats that they herd on these mountainous regions. You're not going to be able to have massive cows and massive fields in these mountainous regions. This might be a big contributor to the longevity of Sardinians in particular. They live in a mountainous terrain with lots of slopes and hills. They're walking up and down these hills all day, and that's very good cardio, which would...

11:53 Wait, what? Are you saying that the stress makes them live longer?

12:02 How can he always come to the opposite conclusions of the truth? It's just really strange. We can see that people suffer when they climb hills up and down. Maybe not down, but for sure when you try to go up a steep road, for example. We can literally see it. We know that it reduces your lifespan. We can see that it stresses your body. Stress always reduces your lifespan. We can see it because of the face expressions alone. It's that simple.

[video] 12:41 reduce the risk of heart disease. If you lived in the mountains or even had stairs in your house, you'll notice that over the course of the day, you're getting pretty good exercise. So although Sardinians aren't doing exercise in a traditional sense, they're not going to the gym.

12:54 In reality, that would only reduce your lifespan. If you would actually walk up and down a few times a day, if you would live to 110, if you didn't experience that, then you would have lived to... 120, 30. It just depends on how much stress you experience.

[video] 13:18 Not doing cardio. They are getting very good cardiovascular exercise by walking up and down the hills. So what's the reason this Italian grandpa is supposedly thought to live so long? Well, first of all, the Italian life expectancy is in the low 80s, which is one of the highest in the world, but it's obviously not 100 years old. Not everyone lives to the age of 100. Only very small selective people do. The smoking centenarian is an extreme outlier in and of itself. It's a single-digit percentage...

13:40 Living to your 80s is very abnormal naturally. It's essentially half of your natural lifespan. It's crazy actually to live to your 80s. It's super abnormal.

[video] 13:55 Makes it to 100 while smoking. Second of all, genetics is very powerful. 50% of longevity is genetic, which enables... Can you prove that?

14:03 Firstly, prove the existence of genes and then prove that it has something to do with longevity. But seeing as you won't be able to prove genetics in the first place, we shouldn't even expect... An answer to that...

[video] 14:20 Some people to live to 100 even with a completely unhealthy lifestyle and being carefree about it. And because the likelihood of reaching 100 is already so low to begin with, everyone who does reach the age of 100 has some beneficial genetics to begin with. So it's a selection bias. People who reach the age of 100 would have reached the age of 100 with almost any lifestyle thanks to their genetics.

14:37 What? Are you saying that if you would run marathons and eat a vegan diet, You would live to 100 and beyond because of your genetics, which have never been observed.

14:55 What's wrong with him? What's actually wrong with this guy? Why is he like this? Why does he lie? Why does he have so many religious beliefs in his mind? This is such extreme brainwashing that he experienced in his life. There's no other explanation. How can you be wrong about everything?

[video] 15:20 The amount of people living to 100 isn't that much higher in these blue zones if you look at the data. It's much lower than people think. It sounds like literally every old person in Sardinia is 100 years old. But the truth is that Sardinia has about 66% more centenarians than mainland Europe. In Sardinia, there are 16.6 people over the age of 100 out of 100,000 people. Whereas in mainland Europe, it's 10. So it is 66% more. but it's not as high as you've been led to believe. Overall, I feel like the Italian grandpa approach to longevity is a coin toss. It's 50-50. People who live like that can't live very long, mostly because of genetics. Or they live to their expected life expectancy, which is around their 80s. Now, of course, there are a lot of things that you do right and things that we can learn from them. Number one, have good social relationships. Number two, don't be stressed out and try to live a less stressed lifestyle.

15:56 Wait, wait, what? But you promote stress in all of your videos.

16:03 It's what your channel is all about.

[video] 16:06 huh don't be so busy don't try to overwork yourself and number three eat a minimally processed food diet but it doesn't look like you need to have some sort of 100 perfect diet now let's talk about the polar opposite approach the focused biohacker approach that brian johnson represents following a super strict diet not just in terms of avoiding processed foods but also in terms of testing it for heavy metals never eating anything that doesn't fit the meal plan following a strict bedtime routine measuring hundreds of biomarkers and taking hundreds of supplements Needless to say that there are no studies proving that this approach would be optimal for longevity. It doesn't mean that it wouldn't have benefits for extending your lifespan, at least to a certain extent, but aging is very complex and it doesn't appear to be as linear as just be healthy as much as possible.

16:43 It's not complex at all. Simply avoid stress. That's it for the most part. And healthy food is also very important, but stress will age you the most. Unhealthy food also stresses your body. And therefore you'll live longer.

[video] 17:01 Even healthy people can get cancer. Even healthy people can die in their 60s and 70s.

17:06 What? Healthy people can die in their 60s and 70s? That makes a lot of sense, yes. You're healthy and then you die because of a disease, I assume. I guess that that's what he means. But you're healthy. Yes, very logical. Just like all of your videos, it makes a lot of sense. You're healthy and you die because you're healthy. Yes.

[video] 17:37 Intuitively, you could say that Brian will probably live longer than the average person who, you know, isn't obese, but they're also not with a six pack. They eat a normal diet, but they're not optimizing their macros and they might take a few supplements. Brian is the extreme example of a health optimization fanatic. Most people watching this probably follow a different degree of this approach. You probably take a few.

17:53 He takes 100 plus supplements. That says it all. They are made in laboratories. All of them have an LD 50 value, meaning that they are toxic. There's nothing much more that you need to know about his approach. He will experience some kind of organ failure, most likely liver failure. You cannot take that many toxic laboratory made pills and survive for many years. It's not biologically possible.

[video] 18:31 Supplements, you probably follow a clean diet, but you're not 100% strict and you definitely don't test it for heavy metals. You probably take a few blood tests once a year, but you're not measuring every possible thing. So it's obviously a spectrum of health fanaticism or carefreeness. First of all, I want to say that the more effort you put into your health, the more strict you are with your health routines doesn't mean that you will actually be healthier or you will live longer. For example, Brian's biomarkers are good, but they're not all optimal and they're not better than everyone else in the world, as he likes to claim. I've made a video comparing my biomarkers to his and out of the 65 we have both data for, 44 of them I have better results.

18:58 The thing is that biomarkers are vague and unscientific, most importantly. He always talks about science and you don't see anything even science-related in his videos.

19:16 You cannot actually directly measure any of this, but I wouldn't expect him to understand that.

[video] 19:25 Nine of them Brian has better and 12 of them are equal. I'm not saying I have the best biomarkers in the world, but I'm highlighting the point that being 100% committed to the health routines.

19:33 Okay. Are you healthy? Do you look healthy? Why don't you show us the way you look like? Come on, show us what these biomarkers which you imagine are actually doing to your physical body in the sexual reality. Stop talking about what you imagine and stick to reality.

[video] 19:59 Doesn't mean you'll get linearly better results. And Brian is the perfect example of that. In the Longevity World Cup, which measures biological age from 10 common blood markers, Brian wouldn't even make it to the top 100 people in terms of reduced biological age based on this test. He would only have around 9 years lower biological age, whereas the top contenders have over 20 years lower than their chronological age.

20:17 All of these longevity people talk about the biological age, but at the same time, they don't look at the actual body. They look at some unscientific, vague, indirect markers and they ignore if somebody actually looks old because they are biologically old. That doesn't matter somehow. Their reality doesn't matter to these people, as you can see.

[video] 20:48 This is something I want everyone watching this to realize. You could be spending eight hours a day obsessing.

20:53 What would it matter? What kind of... markers he has if he looks the way he looks like. And we cannot even really see how he looks like because of this insane filter. But even with the filter, we can see that he looks very unhealthy and old for his age. He's in his early 30s, I believe.

[video] 21:24 What he's effectively doing is reducing his risk of heart disease, Alzheimer's, diabetes, kidney disease, and cancer. Avoiding obesity, alcohol, and smoking are big risk factors for these diseases. And by having a perfect lifestyle, he can reduce his risk of these common chronic diseases. However, the risk of smoking and alcohol on your health is minuscule compared to biological aging. Aging is the biggest risk factor for cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer's. A 70-year-old person has tens of times higher risk of... That's just a correlation.

21:47 What it means is that if you eat a bad diet... You experience a lot of stress and you do that for 70 years. Eventually, it will all accumulate and that's why it will be more likely that you will get these diseases. Naturally, you have no risk whatsoever if you are perfectly healthy.

[video] 22:11 These diseases compare to a 30-year-old. That's because of aging.

22:15 What Brian is trying to do is slow... It's not at all because of aging. Do you believe that somebody who eats raw meat, organs especially, drinks blood, doesn't exercise, has no stress, will experience any of that? Do you actually believe that? Do you see any humans in nature with any of these diseases? Or do they all live to over 100?

22:44 with no diseases whatsoever. Come on. Again, he's not sticking to reality. He's making something up.

[video] 22:52 Down his speed of biological aging, but there's no evidence that he's being effective at it. As I said, these tests are not 100% perfect. Now, it's reasonable to say that he is aging slower than his peers, but there's no evidence that he's reversing his age or that he will actually live significantly longer. There's currently nothing that Brian Johnson is doing that will make him live over 120 because he's just focusing on the basics of diet, exercise, sleep, and supplements. The experimental therapies he's doing, like plasma exchange, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, blood filtering, etc., these aren't going to move the needle that much. There's no evidence that these therapies would work in any significant manner. The gene therapies might do so, but they're currently in their infancy stage, and there's no evidence that they actually work. Does this mean that Brian Johnson will actually live shorter than the Italian grandpa? I personally think that it will depend a lot on genetics. The Italian grandpa in Sardinia with...

23:31 Always, when you cannot explain something, genetics. It's just a lottery. Unbelievable. If you actually believe that, then you would have to say that you can simply eat a vegan diet, you can run marathons, as I said before, and you will live to over 100 just because of your genetics, which have never been observed. That's your logic.

[video] 24:01 good genetics will outlive Brian Johnson. But Brian Johnson will outlive the average Italian grandpa who doesn't have extremely good genetics. Longevity is extremely genetic and it runs in families. A 2004 study on 295 centenarian offspring found they had a 62% lower risk of all-cause mortality, a 71% lower risk of cancer-specific mortality, and an 85% lower risk of coronary heart disease-specific mortality. Being the sibling of a male 19-year-old increased...

24:23 These are just correlations. Nothing else. It could mean that they had the same lifestyle.

[video] 24:33 Your likelihood of living to 90 by 1.73 times while having both a male and female sibling who survived until the age of 105 increases your chance of living to 105 by 35.6 times compared to the general population. That's a massive genetic advantage. It means that if you have parents or grandparents who live to the age of 100, you have a significantly higher likelihood of also living to 100.

24:54 Yes, because you would be living the same way as them. That's why it's so simple. A lot of people nowadays say that my father had this disease and that's why I will also have it. But then when you look at the actual reality, you will see that they eat the same food, they exercise or whatnot. They live the same kind of life. And that's why, of course, you will also experience that it's all about your lifestyle, the way you live. And again, the closer to nature it is, the healthier you will be and the longer your lifespan will be. That's it. You cannot inherit that. Of course, both lifestyle and genes matter.

[video] 25:42 As you said, lifespan appears to be 50% genetic. The other 50% is your lifestyle and your health. Having a longer health span, staying healthier for longer, predicts longer lifespan in supercentenarians. The healthier centenarians live longer than the unhealthier centenarians. And healthier average people live longer than unhealthy average people.

25:58 It's so dangerous to base everything on some correlation studies which are so unscientific.

[video] 26:08 I do think that Brian Johnson will live longer than the average mediocre Italian grandpa. The life expectancy in Italy is around 82-84, so Brian will probably live longer than that.

[video] 26:21 So my conclusion to the question, who lives longer? The 100% perfect optimized biohacker or the Italian grandpa who lives a carefree lifestyle? The answer to that depends a lot on genetics. If you were to follow the stereotypical Italian grandpa lifestyle...

26:32 When you have nothing to say, you just say genetics. Typical. Yeah. He cannot understand why the Italian grandpa would live longer than other people nowadays. Seeing as he's in the sun a lot, he doesn't work out. He eats animal-based, which he doesn't even understand or doesn't want to admit.

[video] 27:00 Sit in the sun, eat pasta, smoke ciggies, drink wine, then you're probably not going to live to 100, because smoking increases the risk of cancer by over 10,000%. It's a complete stereotype, as I showed, because only 1-2% of the smokers live to the age of 100. It almost feels like it's propaganda by the tobacco industry. It's a complete myth. You might have good genetics and you can live to 100, even while smoking, but most people don't have exceptional longevity genetics, so they need to follow a healthier lifestyle.

27:22 That's the thing. You cannot live to your actual optimal lifespan if you do anything unhealthy. If you smoke, drink alcohol, eat a grain-based diet, avoid the sun, exercise... It doesn't matter what your ancestors did, what you inherited, such as your eye color, your hair and so on. That has nothing to do with your longevity. Nobody is going to live to 150 if they don't

27:59 Follow nature as much as possible. It's never going to happen.

[video] 28:04 And a slightly more optimized lifestyle. But there's no evidence that following a 100% perfect lifestyle, a 100% strict lifestyle would be better or that it will get you better results with your health. The answer then is somewhere between the average person and the health fanatic. Being a health fanatic is probably a net negative because being worried and anxious about your health makes you unhealthier. But if you're more health conscious, then you take care of your health, but you don't obsess about it. You're more likely to live longer than the person who's just randomly winging it, unless that person has good genetics.

28:28 It's actually insane that somebody can create such a wrong video. How can you get everything wrong? He doesn't want to admit that people who live to 100 eat an animal-based diet and that they ate a lot of organs up until the last 20 to 30 years. Humans in nature also focus on the organs. He doesn't want to admit that they don't exercise. He actually tried to make you believe that they do exercise. They walk up some hills now and then. And of course, if some of them do, then they won't live as long as the people who don't do that because stress only reduces your lifespan. Stress, pain, and suffering, what feels bad intuitively, will never increase your lifespan. How can you even suggest that?

29:29 He did mention that they are out in the sun. They don't hide from the sun, which is what Brian Johnson does.

29:40 He simply doesn't understand it. you are supposed to follow your intuition, which is your nature. Instead, he promotes some unscientific, indirect biomarkers, which can be used to link this to that, you can create some kind of correlations, but you should never actually take that seriously. It's not scientific at all. It's really the opposite of that. And even when it comes to the correlations, oftentimes it doesn't work. You should be focusing on the sexual reality. Does he look old? Then he is biologically old.

30:28 Does he try to hide the way he looks like by using crazy filters, which makes your face look blurry as if it's glowing? Why don't you show yourself if you have it all figured out? Thanks for watching.