# Kate Tolo's extreme quest for endometriosis answers > Bryan Johnson's girlfriend is tracking 1,500 biomarkers to find a noninvasive diagnosis for a disease that takes five to ten years to diagnose. - Title: Kate Tolo's extreme quest for endometriosis answers · WIRED - Summary: Bryan Johnson's girlfriend is tracking 1,500 biomarkers to find a noninvasive diagnosis for a disease that takes five to ten years to diagnose. Kate Tolo is… - Keywords: kate tolo, bryan johnson, endometriosis, biomarkers, diagnostic testing, women's health, immortals, self-tracking, reproductive health, Kate, Tolo's, extreme - Source: WIRED — https://wired.com/story/kate-tolo-says-her-quest-to-be-the-female-bryan-johnson-is-for-women - Author: Ej Dickson - Published: 2026-09-23T10:30:00+00:00 - Read time: 4 min - Topics: kate tolo, bryan johnson, endometriosis, biomarkers, diagnostic testing, women's health, immortals, self-tracking, reproductive health ## A painful silence Kate Tolo got her first period at thirteen and experienced debilitating cramps. When she told her father, he said they didn't talk about female stuff and walked away. > We don't talk about that female stuff. ## A suspected diagnosis In her early twenties, Tolo experienced extreme pain while defecating and went to the emergency room. A doctor suggested she may have endometriosis, a chronic disease affecting an estimated ten percent of women of reproductive age according to WHO data. ## What endometriosis does Endometriosis is caused by an overgrowth of endometrium-like tissue, or uterine lining. It is primarily characterized by extremely heavy and painful periods, as well as pelvic floor dysfunction, bowel issues, and dyspareunia, or pain during sex. ## Refusing surgery A doctor recommended Tolo have a laparoscopy, an invasive surgical procedure required to get an official diagnosis and remove endometriosis tissue. Tolo refused, saying she wasn't going to undergo an invasive surgical procedure or cut herself open. > I wasn't going to undergo an invasive surgical procedure, or cut myself open. That just wasn't an option for me. ## Meeting Bryan Johnson In early two thousand twenty-six, Tolo started developing a concierge health service with her boyfriend Bryan Johnson, the technologist-cum-multimillionaire-cum-biohacker known for his quest to become immortal via rigid self-optimization and wellness protocols. ## An obsession begins During a clinical intake, Tolo shared her lifelong struggle with suspected endometriosis. Johnson became obsessed with finding a cure and positioned his girlfriend as the female Bryan Johnson. ## Tracking everything Using two point six million dollars in funding from Immortals, the wellness company the two founded, Tolo is tracking more than one thousand five hundred biomarkers from sources such as her blood, urine, and stool over the course of her menstrual cycle. ## From fashion to extreme tracking Tolo, thirty years old, worked in fashion marketing before becoming Johnson's executive assistant and special projects director for Kernel, his neurotech company, in two thousand twenty-one. ## The mental toll Describing herself as an introvert, Tolo was initially uneasy about becoming the world's most measured woman. Prone to depression and anxiety, she had a panic attack on week two of the protocol when her internet went down during red-light therapy. ## Pushing through for women Tolo says that even when every part of her is screaming to make it stop, she pushes herself to the absolute limit of what is possible mentally and physically in her body because she is doing this for women. > Even when every part of me, individually, is screaming 'Make it stop,' I can see myself pushing myself to the absolute limit of what is possible, mentally and also physically, in my body. Because I'm doing this for women. ## Diagnosing without surgery Though Tolo never underwent surgery and has never been officially diagnosed with endometriosis, the couple claims they have diagnosed her with the condition over forty-two days using noninvasive methods such as a saliva and blood test and an endo-specific ultrasound. ## The organoid experiment Their next step is creating an organoid using cells from Tolo's menstrual blood, which she describes as essentially her in a petri dish, to test various interventions and compare results to a more conventional biopsy. > essentially, me in a petri dish ## The blood collection challenge For the past few months, Tolo has been collecting her menstrual blood in a cup and transferring it to a standing tube every few hours before shipping it off on ice in a Styrofoam container to be tested by a lab. ## Why diagnosis takes so long Kristin Riley, chief of minimally invasive gynecological surgery at Penn State Health, says endometriosis has historically been extremely difficult to diagnose. The gold standard for determining its presence is still surgery, and it can take between five to ten years to diagnose a case. ## Skepticism from physicians Physicians who treat endometriosis regularly are skeptical that Tolo and Johnson's methods will yield helpful results given the extremely limited sample size. Ilana Ressler, an ob-gyn at Illume Fertility in Connecticut, says results would have to be applicable to a general population, not just one person. ## Love and public perception Johnson has framed his interest in curing endometriosis as purely a labor of love. Since he started advocating for extreme anti-aging procedures, he has been derided as an out-of-touch Silicon Valley weirdo, but his quest to treat Tolo's endometriosis has endeared him more to the public. > I'm desperately in love with Kate. [I] want her to be happy and well, and it's been so many years she's had to live with all this pain, and I just want to help do this for her. ## The sauna test Among other experiments, Tolo is tracking her nighttime erections with a device she calls a techno tampon and using a sauna to see how her menstrual cycle would be affected by extreme heat, pushing her core temperature to a brutal one hundred two point four degrees. ## Refusing to quit After twenty-five minutes in the sauna, Tolo started feeling nauseous and having headaches. Johnson encouraged her to step out, but she refused, saying there was no other option and she wasn't going to waste the opportunity to do something on behalf of half the population. > I wasn't getting out of there. There was no other option. I felt sick at times. I didn't know how reasonable or logical I was being, if I was losing my bearings, if I was going to pass out. But I wasn't going to waste the opportunity to do something on behalf of half the population. ## Key takeaway Kate Tolo is using extreme self-tracking with Bryan Johnson to develop noninvasive diagnostic methods for endometriosis, a condition affecting an estimated ten percent of women of reproductive age.