Joe Rogan is no stranger to biohacking. The podcaster and UFC commentator regularly experiments with treatments and protocols designed to optimize his health, recover faster, and reduce inflammation.
But when the topic of his recent plasmapheresis session came up during his conversation with reproductive epidemiologist Dr. Shanna Swan on the Joe Rogan Experience, it became clear that Rogan had gone through the procedure with remarkably little knowledge of what it actually cost or what, precisely, it had done to his body.
Plasmapheresis is a medical procedure in which blood is drawn from the body, filtered to remove certain components, and then returned. It has been used clinically to treat autoimmune conditions, and more recently it has attracted attention in biohacking circles as a potential way to remove accumulated toxins, including microplastics and endocrine-disrupting chemicals, from the bloodstream.
Rogan described the experience during the episode. “I recently underwent this plasmapheresis thing,” he told Swan. “The next day afterwards, I felt like lighter. I felt like, whoa, this is crazy. Like I felt like I had more energy.”
He described the procedure as roughly two hours long, with tubes running from one arm to the other. He stated, “I was laying there and I had like cords in this arm and cords in that arm. So I had blood coming out of that arm and going back into that arm. It’s really kind of nutty.”
When Swan asked how much the procedure cost, Rogan’s answer was direct: “I don’t know.”
That admission prompted Swan to point out a significant missed opportunity. She asked whether Rogan had measured his chemical levels, specifically the plasticizers and bisphenols that her research focuses on, before undergoing the procedure.
He had not. “I should have done that,” Rogan acknowledged. Swan noted that if he collected a urine sample now, through the Million Marker testing kit she had brought to the studio, it might show relatively low levels, but without a baseline measurement taken beforehand, there would be no way to know whether the plasmapheresis had made any difference at all.
Rogan admitted he does “a lot of stuff” to maintain his health, making it hard to isolate any single variable.
“It’s really kind of difficult to know what’s doing what,” he said.
Swan summed up his approach plainly: “You’re doing your experiment of one.” Rogan agreed. “I’m not doing science. I’m doing chaos.”
