Mark Bell's Power Project - Why Bryan Johnson is Wrong About the Sun

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

Full episode drops Monday!Longevity experimenter Bryan Johnson famously avoids direct sunlight to prevent skin damage and photo-aging. But is avoiding the sun actually protective… or does it create a deeper biological problem?In this episode, David Herrera breaks down why sunburn, sunscreen, and modern diets are tightly linked, and why fear of sunlight may be doing more harm than good. We explore how chronic sunscreen use weakens the skin, how seed oils increase burn risk, and why DHA and gradual sun exposure help the body adapt instead of break.Special perks for our listeners below!🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!🩸 Get your BLOODWORK/TRT/PEPTIDES! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com and use code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off Self-Service Labs and Guided Optimization®.🧠 Methylene Blue: Better Focus, Sleep and Mood 🧠 Use Code POWER10 for 10% off!➢https://troscriptions.com?utm_source=affiliate&ut-m_medium=podcast&ut-m_campaign=MarkBel-I_podcastBest 5 Finger Barefoot Shoes! 👟 ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes!Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM?si=JZN09-FakTjoJuaW🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎➢https://emr-tek.com/Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast➢ https://www.PowerProject.live➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerprojectFOLLOW Mark Bell➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell

You know, Brian Johnson, the guy who's like, don't die, he is pale, very pale. When he speaks about the sunlight in general, he tells people to be careful because, you know, if you're trying to reverse your age, you don't want the skin damage, you don't want the sunburn. So he's very, very careful with midday light, that UVB light.

What would you tell people, how would you tell people to interpret some of that information that he's putting out about the sun? And then secondly, if somebody is finding like, damn, I can't go out without getting sunburned. And or, and they use sunscreen, what are things to think about? That was a three-part question.

Brian Johnson and avoiding light because of skin damage, always getting sunburned, and then the need of using sunscreen. Okay, so I'm going to attack this all cohesively. Okay. All right, so I'm not going to answer all of it individually. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because it doesn't need to be. Perfect. Okay. So number one, skin damage. sunburn the same thing and sunscreen induces those effects

because it's essentially like putting a cast on your arm and then you take it off randomly and you try to do bicep curls with it you're going to hurt yourself right it's going to atrophy so if you're someone who uses sunscreen all the time and then one day you're like you know what I want to try to get some sun yeah you need to be cautious

you need to go through therapy physical therapy right and that physical therapy starts probably with What I would start is this, going back to photo aging and stuff like that, I would start, number one, at the biological or biochemical level, right? So DHA, right? DHA is not used for fuel. It's a fat, it's an omega-3,

but it is used to be incorporated into cell membranes. So all cells have a membrane, and DHA is saved exclusively for the part of making parts of that cell membrane, it's very electrically conductive. Has a lot of, so it makes cell membranes more conductive. Everything is touching everything in your body. So if it's more conductive, you improve communication,

and because you improve communication, now the skin can tell the brain wirelessly that there is sun out and you should upregulate all of the prehab that comes with that. Now, here's the other thing. Everybody's kind of familiar with like cast iron, cooking equipment and stuff like that, you have to season it, right?

And if you season it properly, that becomes an incredibly great device to use, right? But if you clean it, or if you use the wrong oil, you just smoke and make nastiness when you're trying to season it. Well, that is exactly what's going on with linoleic acid versus omega-3s.

Linolaic acid, think of it like a low smoke point oil. So seed oils. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Again, I'm being specific, because some seed oils are totally fine. Okay. Others are not. It's the linoleic acid content.

Got it. You can just Google this. Hey, if I'm eating what oil X, right, whatever that is. For example, palm oil, you look at the linoleic acid of that, it's less than 10% perfectly fine. Yeah.

If you look at sunflower oil, it's like 70% or soybean oil, same thing. So it's linoleic acid specifically. So now going back to the whole sunscreen thing and all that, right? If you have an omega-3 index greater than 8%, which is actually ideal, you can just get a fingerprint test and test this, right? Then you have lots of cell membranes with lots of DHA. That means you're very electrically conductive.

What does that also mean? Going back to the grounding thing and all of that from the previous episode, it makes you a very good antenna. So now you don't get sunburned. You actually dissipate and assimilate more of that solar energy. The other thing is if by some reason you get too much, right? Like even me, right? Like if I went from right now and took a plane flight to El Salvador,

that first day I might get sunburned. I might get sunburned. Maybe not if I remain grounded all day, right? But if my omega-3 is nice and high, even when I get a little bit burned, those omega-3s turn into a patina, right? Now there's a scientific term for this. This is dehexia.

acid turn into decosinoids when it is interacted with by UV light. So basically think of it this way. DHA is this long chain of fatty acids. When UV light hits it, it gets cut in specific places. And those separate chunks are decosinoids. Decosinites are protective to all membranes. Huh, okay.

Including your eyes and your skin. So if you have a nice, high DHA content in your diet, then even if you get burned, it's not even a big deal because you're forming the patina. You're forming the initial starting point of where you need to be. And then two or three days later,

you're not burned anymore. You recovered incredibly quickly because what else is happening with DHA? It's anti-inflammatory. You see what I'm saying? Yes. Okay, so that's where you need to start if you want to avoid something.

sunburn and you use a lot of sunscreen. You need to be excellent about your DHA content in your diet. Yes. The next thing is you need to incrementally start at the part of the day where you're not going to damage yourself. That's why morning solar exposure is the mecca. It's the thing that needs to happen for everyone, for all the, you know, somebody who's seasoned

that's not, you know, avoiding the sun to somebody who's just starting out. That's the place to start and end, right? And then as you get more adapted, you can expose yourself five minutes at a time in the middle of the day, 10 minutes at a time. And basically you're just trying to get right to the form of you're getting pink, right? Think of it like the spatina forming, right?

You get pink, that means that the dechocinoids have been interacted enough that they're starting to get a little bit of damage, but nothing's burned to you yet. And then the next week, you can add another five minutes, another 10 minutes, et cetera. Now, let's talk about the photo aging thing that Brian Johnson is trying to avoid it. Because he never, right, so think of it this way.

Let's go back to the very beginning of this episode where I was talking about nitric oxide formed by UV light inhibits the electron transport chain that because there's infrared, the ATP keeps spinning. So that means that the stress test for the cell for him is never happening. Okay. Right.

Now, this is what I'm gonna say, right? That means that if he can manage total stress on his body, which he's spending millions of dollars doing, he's probably going to live quite a while without problems. He won't keep that up forever. I don't know how long he's actually been doing it, but maybe a decade by now.

Probably not, actually. Not a decade, but close to it, I think. Right, that's what I'm saying. He's kind of getting there, right? He's on the tail end of a decade, right? He's not going to make it the two before something happens because all cells eventually have a life cycle.

They will fail. Now, he's doing a lot of really, you know, he's doing plasma integration from his son. You see what I'm saying? Like, he's technically kind of pseudo doing this cellular repair autophagy thing, but he's doing it chemically and through procedures. You see what I'm saying? That's why I'm saying.

He's got a long runway, but he's spent a lot of damn money to do it. Mm-hmm. But you can just go outside and get it from the sun. Right, but going back to the photo aging, right? That's the, he's trying to avoid that. He's trying to avoid the photo aging. So that's what I'm saying.

So let's go with that. That means that the moment that he doesn't keep up with his procedures, he's going to photo age to a high, high degree. Now it's going to manifest in the following way. It's going to manifest in potentially something like melanoma, or not melanoma, sorry. I'm blinking on the name. It's what happened to Michael Jackson.

Oh, Vitligo. Vitiligo, yes. Okay, yep. What do you mean to tell being so pale? No, no, no. Because he's not black, it's gonna go in the opposite direction. Reverse vidligo.

Which is what? Is he gonna get darker? Melasma. I've never heard of melasma. Oh, really? No, never heard of melasma. His hair and stuff will turn color and stuff too, right?

Yeah, he'll get grayer hair and he'll probably start forming melasma. Oh, wow. Interesting. Now, again, how long is that runway before it starts to happen? I don't know. Depends on how much money he's got. It's an interesting thing because, you know,

people are trying to replicate some of his protocols, right? And I just hope, like, black and brown folks kind of ignore his sunlight advice because I see a lot of people that, as I told you, you know, My aunt is a nurse and she's older. And like, she's like, I was talking to her about sunlight. She's like, you can't be in that UVB.

I'm like, you are a hundred percent Nigerian and a dark-skinned woman. What are you, what do you mean? Right? But these things permeate and the people start to believe it. Everyone starts to believe it for themselves. It's good propaganda. Yeah, it's crazy, dude.

I think certain cultures are terrified of the sun as well. Like I believe the Asian cultures. Well, actually, so what I've heard, right, because my mom, my, my wife. just went to Thailand and Cambodia and all of that, right? And she asked them, you know, because they are. They're obsessed with that. They're obsessed with like hiding from the sun.

Lightning creams. Exactly. Yes. And the reason why is because it is viewed as being wealthy. It's viewed as a, because it makes sense, right? Because if you're wealthy, you pay people to do things. You don't go outside as often.

You become more pale. So they're trying to emulate that status. Ryan, can you look up fair and handsome, skin commercial. Just look that up on YouTube, please, because this is like the most hilarious thing. But Mark, you were saying that Asian countries fear the sun? I believe a lot of Asian people do fear the sun.

It is quite interesting. Probably for some of the reasons you're mentioning. And then I know in Australia, but Australia might actually have some reasons because I believe that the... Can I interject on there? Yeah, yeah. Australians don't.

You know, those are... The Aberer. Right, right, right. Yeah, they're dark. They're good. It's the ones who fast traveled over there that are fucked. So yeah, I mean, those people, right, expats. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

To the island, they might have a legitimate reason to do that, but it isn't anything to do with the sun. It has to do with this guy. Deuterium deplete water. They have the worst water on the planet. Really? So that means that now all cellular processes are halted or slowed down significantly,

including the repair mechanism. Question for you. Okay, so the water's a big deal, but does it really have nothing to do with the sun? Because Australia's UV is violent. Yeah, but that's what I'm saying. Like, okay, if you're an expat there, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kind of like you telling me, you know, the whole UVB conversation that we just had about you specifically, right? Yes, yes, yes. You have to hack this environment. There's no way around it. Now, your hacks are minimal. They have to hack that environment.

That would be their hack. Having Deuterium depleted water would be... Having Deuterium depleted water, figuring out ways to make more melanin. Don't they have issues with their ozone layers? That kind of bullshit, you think? It's not over Australia. It's in that region.

It's more over Antarctica. That's what I'm saying. It has almost nothing to do with... I'm not saying that they don't get stronger sun there because they do, because the southern hemisphere is actually, because the earth is not a perfect sphere, it actually is, you know,

they get a few miles closer in their summertime versus our summertime, right? I'm not debating that. I'm saying the reason why Europeans in Australia are having problems is because they don't belong there. That's what I'm saying. Yeah.

And if you actually knew the information that I'm trying to give you, you know, about the physics of how biology works and all of this stuff, you would quickly come to the realization that you come, that you need to hack your environment at specific times of the year. Yeah. For you, it's the cold stuff here. For them, it's the summer stuff there, right? How do you hack that environment?

Well, you need a lot of damn tyrosine. Tyrosine is what's going to turn into melanin and dopamine and stuff like that, right? Mm-hmm. You need a lot of tyrosine. And then you need to speed up all biological processes involved with taking tyrosine and turning into melanin and that. That's gonna be here, right?

Right, you're gonna speed up that process as much as possible. And the other thing is you're going to, when it's summertime, you cannot afford to not be grounded if you're outside. Right, because the solar energy is that much more powerful. And that also means, going back, to the DHA thing, that means that their DHA level

and their membranes needs to be like 11, not eight. It needs to be 12 or 13 or 14. You see what I'm saying? Like if they implemented the hacks, they would be probably a lot better off. That they don't. They live a modern lifestyle, just like everybody else. Yeah, what is the, because they have the highest incidences

of skin cancer in the world. So what is the also using sunscreen and getting all that sun potentially doing to them too. It's making them have more skin cancer. You're seeing the result. Can you explain that? Because in their minds, this sunscreen is going to prevent me from getting this cancer.

Why is it the exact opposite? Okay. So number one, every time you put a sunscreen on, you're atrophying your skin. Yes. So that means that, you know,

let's go back to the cast analogy because it works pretty good, right? So my bicep is getting smaller. and smaller. And instead of when I randomly don't put it on, or I forget to put it on for, you know, because you have to apply it, right? Like that's what I'm saying, right?

Or you get into water and you can't quite tell when it's not working or when it's not, right? Right. So think of it this way, right? I'm atrophying my bicep a lot. But when I reach for that dumbbell, it's not a 10-pound dumbbell, it's a 100-pound bag. You see what I'm saying? I'm pretty confident I'm going to rip my bicep

if I keep doing it like that. 100%. Right? Like, again, there's, can we talk about all the science? I mean, I guess if you want to, but I don't think it needs to be more complicated than that. Yeah.

Right? Like, you use a lot of UV. You're in a place with stronger sun. Mm-hmm. When you happen to forget it or happen to wash it off, you're going to be exposed. Yeah. You're not bulletproofing yourself.

Mm-hmm. Right. So how do you bulletproof yourself in that environment if you're a European? Be tan. Try your damnedest to be as tan as possible. Exactly. Make the,

like the Aborigines. Walk around barefoot, get as tan as hell. But also get your DHA, all those things you were just talking about. That's what I'm saying. You're going to have to do things, right?

You're going to have to do things that normal people don't do because you've got to hack that environment because you don't belong there. Just like you were saying earlier, I don't really belong here. Can I hack the environment? The answer is, yes, you can.

Yeah. Do you have to do it year round? You don't. Don't make the comment. Someone's gonna make the comment of Insima just go back to Africa. Fuck you. 100% fuck you.

I know someone's gonna say that shit. It's like, get the fuck out of here. But you see what I'm saying? Like, okay, if you're gonna be a multi-global race, you know, the human race, then you have to learn these things in order to stay as healthy as possible. Now, school and things like that,

they, if you learn to learn, you will come up with a lot of these things. That's why science is advancing and demonstrating some of the things that we're talking about, right? It's because people that learn aren't indoctrinated. They learn.

That's not the average human being. The average human being is indoctrinated. That's why this whole slather yourself with sunscreen is actually so damn popular is because propaganda really works. I wonder when that's going to culturally change because it's like that, The sunscreen stuff is like so you can't avoid it.

It's still popular here. I can't even believe it. Right. It's, it's a, there's this guy, Dr. Adey Adamson. He's a, he is a dermatologist, but he's like been, he puts out a lot of information that's kind of fighting back against that, especially for information when it comes to black and brown folks. Well, you said the DHA will help you. The seed oils will hurt you. It will make you burn easier.

And now you have a modern society basically living off of seed oils. I'm not joking. You cannot go to a grocery store and find something with a label that doesn't have a seed oil in it that has a high amount of linoleic acid without paying an exorbitant amount of money compared to the like product from a seed oil. Now, I want to add one more thing to the whole sunscreen thing in Australia. But basically anywhere, anywhere where you're applying sunscreen is any amount of sunscreen is harmful, not just. just for the cast effect that I described. At the chemical level, these are all tyrosine inhibitors.

What does that mean? It inhibits your ability to tan and create melanin. Even when you don't use it, you have to go through a detox period. Shit. You see what I'm saying? Yeah.

Because it's going to be absorbed into your skin. This episode with David Pereira dispelled so many myths on light, sunlight, sunscreen. It was crazy. And if you enjoyed this, go check out the full episode.

A lot in there. It's going to help you out. You don't want to miss it.