Reverse Cellular Aging In A Bottle

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:00:00) - C15 does a lot of good stuff. The stronger our cell membranes it's known, the longer a species lives. We age because our cells do. As we hit menopause, our aging is accelerated dramatically. 15 goes in and literally strengthens our cell membranes to keep our cells young and working.

Sarah Milken (00:00:23) - Hey peeps, welcome to the Flexible Neurotic Podcast. I'm your host, doctor Sarah Millican. Yeah, you heard that right. I'm a real PhD doctor. Long, long ago, like last fucking year, I was sitting in the midlife funk wondering, was this it for me? That day, I realized I needed to get off my ass and start my midlife remix. I dusted off my PhD, wiped the menopause sweat off my forehead, grabbed my golden shit shovel, and started digging deep to all my midlife bitches. It's not just luck, coffee, and hormones that get you through your midlife remix. It's action steps. Let's do this.

Sarah Milken (00:01:06) - Hi good peeps, this is the next episode of the Flexible Neurotic Podcast.

Sarah Milken (00:01:11) - I'm Doctor Sarah Malkin, the flexible neurotic. Today I have a guest who might blow your mind. She is a veterinary epidemiologist. I know you're thinking, Sarah, this is a midlife podcast. What? Okay, stick with me. She's a serial entrepreneur for for for profit and not for profit companies. A veterinary epidemiologist, like I just said, I keep like saying that because it's so interesting. And a public health scientist with over 40 patents, 70 peer reviewed scientific publications, and previously served as an epidemiologist tracking diseases for the centers for Disease Control and Prevention and World. She has a B.S. in Animal Physiology and Neuroscience from UC San Diego, a degree in veterinary medicine from Tufts, a master's in public health from Emory, and was a National Research Council associate with the Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center. She's worked for the centers for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization, and Advanced Research Projects Agency. I mean, honestly, I don't even know what to say. This is like a real midlife hottie nerd, I love it.

Sarah Milken (00:02:25) - Let's welcome Stephanie Van Watson.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:02:30) - Hi, Sarah, it's great to have. I feel like I'm ready just to sign off at this point. It's like. I mean.

Sarah Milken (00:02:34) - I'm like, oh my God, who are you? Are you like Albert Einstein? Like, you don't look like the typical nerd. So. Yeah. Oh, you mean glasses, so do I. But the only reason I don't have my readers on is because I made the font like, a 15. But don't worry, I'm sure my eyes will start straightening soon. I'm so happy you're here. I've been following you on Instagram forever, probably since the beginning, and I'm like, oh, I need to have her on my podcast. And then I know, like schedules and this and that, but I'm happy we got it all settled. And I'm so excited to talk about this topic. We're just going to say fatty 15 and everyone's going to be like fatty 15. They either know it or they're going to know it by the end of this episode.

Sarah Milken (00:03:22) - And I'm so excited. The intention of this episode is to dig deep and find out about this very special molecule supplement that is taking the health and lifestyle space by storm. anyone listening is probably like, I'm in menopause. Perimenopause. Why does this matter? I'm going to tell you why it matters. We have so many doctors, nutritionists and medical experts talking about health, weight loss, midlife, blah, blah blah. I brought Steph here because I take her supplement. I didn't even know her when I ordered it. And this is not a sponsored podcast, so I'm just going to lay that out. I want you guys to know all about fatty 15 and how it can impact your health fast and easily. I'm also going to say that I'm not a medical doctor and clear everything with your doctor first. I'm a PhD doctor. I'm just here to curate, chat, entertain and give you the latest and greatest information. So let's get started. Steph.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:04:28) - Great. Thanks, Sarah. It's great to be here.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:04:31) - So excited.

Sarah Milken (00:04:31) - It's so fun to talk about all nerdy stuff, but how nerdy stuff can actually impact our health? I want you to give us, like, the quick and dirty on how you got into this, how dolphins play into this, why a veterinarian is changing human health. And let's talk about it.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:04:51) - Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's funny because it's it started with, you know, it was given I was going to medical school. And then I read this book by Laurie Garrett which was called The Coming Plague. This was like a ways back, and it was about hunting down Ebola, infectious diseases in Africa. And I just became obsessed. I was like, I'm a super nerd all about pattern recognition. And then I found out that there's this thing called epidemiology where you could go that's actually looking for patterns to find infectious diseases. And so, I was going to go to medical school, and I was actually connected to a veterinary epidemiologist, which I didn't even know existed at the time, did I? Right.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:05:33) - And so it was great. He had the best pitch. He basically said, listen, Steph, if you want to know, diseases don't learn it in one species. Just humans learn what diseases do in ten different species. And the way that you do that is going to veterinary school because you don't learn just dogs, right? You learn dogs and cats and pigs and tarantulas and, you know, horses and cows. So from a comparative perspective is basically saying you're going to have a much better understanding of diseases, whether they're infectious or chronic diseases. to, to be able to have meaningful benefits to both animals and humans. So that's kind of a crazy, path that got me here.

Sarah Milken (00:06:12) - Okay. Then you get invited by the Navy and take us from there.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:06:16) - Yeah. So I was working at World Health Organization, CDC, doing what I thought I was going to be doing, for the rest of my life. And then the Navy, reached out, and I was invited to help, lead a clinical trial program, basically a program to continually improve the health and welfare of older Navy dolphins, which I was like, well, this is awesome.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:06:40) - I'll do this for a couple of years, take a break and go back, to Atlanta. And it was such a wonderful environment, Sarah, where these the Navy has cared for a population of dolphins for over 60 years. They live in San Diego Bay. They go out into the ocean every day. Every day they choose to come back. I mean, it's incredible partnership between people and dolphins, because they get such good care at the Navy. They live more than 50% longer than dolphins in the wild. So dolphins in the wild lived to about 20. Dolphins at the Navy are living 40 to 50 years old. So as they had more and more older dolphins, that's where they brought me in. Not for infectious diseases, but to understand, aging. And so we then learned over a period of like ten years that because this was over 20 years ago, over a period of ten years, we started understanding that dolphins age a lot like us, their large brain, long lived mammals. So it actually ends up not being a huge surprise.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:07:43) - But they get chronic inflammation, high cholesterol, this thing called fatty liver disease that more and more of us are learning about, and even the full suite of changes consistent with Alzheimer's. So all of a sudden we had this amazing opportunity to help aging dolphins. But then they turned right around, to teach us about healthy aging for for humans, which has just been a tremendous gift.

Sarah Milken (00:08:08) - Okay, so you study. You study these dolphins. You notice that some of the dolphins within the Navy are living longer than some of the other dolphins. You set out to figure out why and tell us what you found and why we care.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:08:26) - Yeah, absolutely. So we other.

Sarah Milken (00:08:27) - Than dolphins are cute and we go visit them, you know, and hope to see them in the ocean sometimes I got a dolphin. I saw a.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:08:35) - Dolphin. It's just the best. So. Yeah. So from there, we were then able to, like you had said, we had we saw some dolphins that were aging better than others.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:08:46) - So we use this technology called metabolomics, where we looked at thousands of small molecules present in their all fish diet because like all they eat or fish, right? And as well as in their blood. And we went to see which small molecules predicted the healthiest aging dolphins. And we thought for sure it's going to be omega threes because all they eat are fish. Omega threes are good for us. And what we found was that omega threes didn't even make the list. And instead there was this molecule called C15 or penta acid. that was at the top. And so from there we moved to C 15 into the lab, did eight year, eight studies over three years. and it's just been an exciting story that then led to the culmination of 15.

Sarah Milken (00:09:34) - Okay, so our bodies don't make C15, but our bodies need C15. Okay, so how did dolphins have C15 in their bodies?

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:09:47) - Yeah, it's a great question.

Sarah Milken (00:09:49) - They don't make it right.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:09:50) - Exactly. So they're just like so they gave us the first clue which is higher sea dolphins with higher C15 or healthier agers.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:09:58) - When we increase C15 in their diet through specific types of fish that had C15, then they basically their aging related diseases got better. So those were two really big important clues. so, so I'm sorry, the question. Yeah.

Sarah Milken (00:10:15) - She's like, if they don't make it.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:10:17) - Yeah. So so dolphins, were getting it from specific types of fish. So some fish have C15, others don't. They mainly get C15 from specific types of fish. And specifically that was in the skin and the heads of the fish, which is parts of the fish that we don't typically eat. Our primary source like weird fish.

Sarah Milken (00:10:40) - Right. Like things we haven't, we don't eat.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:10:43) - Yes, it's like mullet and pin fish and people fish because it's like you'd bleed if you touched it. So, you know, it's, Yeah. Not your typical, salmon and, you know, tuna.

Sarah Milken (00:10:59) - Got it. Okay. So they. So no, no bodies, no dolphin bodies, no human bodies can make the C15.

Sarah Milken (00:11:07) - You have to get it. If if you're a dolphin, you get it from eating weirdo fish. Great. Now, as as a human, you can get it from food, but you probably have to eat a lot of that food to probably get to a clinical amount. Maybe that makes a difference in your system or not.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:11:28) - Yeah, we so we looked into that. Right. So we're like okay. Interestingly, while we were doing these studies and finding this association in dolphins, the exact same thing was happening in people. Numerous large scale studies coming out, looking at people with and without diabetes, with and without heart disease, with and without fatty liver disease. And study after study after study, Sarah were showing that people who had higher C15, lower risk of type two diabetes, heart disease, fatty liver disease. So it ends up this was happening at the same time. But while navy dolphins were, you know, getting or not getting C15 from specific types of fish we have been generating, we've gone through this 40 year experiment of taking C15 out of our diets because our primary source of it is whole dairy fat.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:12:14) - So, you know, as we've moved away from whole fat dairy, since the 19, late 1970s, we've moved to plant based milks that have no C15 in it. When cows eat corn versus grass, they have less C15 in their milk. As we get older, regardless of our diet, our C15 levels go down. So for all of these reasons, our C15 levels have been declining. And, you know, the natural thing is like what you had said is like, well, why don't we just bring whole fat dairy and milk back to our diets? That may be the solution for younger people, but what we're learning is now that we're living so long that dairy fat has about 1% of this good C15, fatty acid in it. It has over 40% of these pro-inflammatory, even chain saturated fats that are do the opposite. Increased risk of type two diabetes, heart disease, fatty liver disease. So it ends up that there's a need to get our C 15, but not have it compete with bad fats within the food.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:13:17) - So it's one of those rare instances where getting the nutrient in a pure form outside of the food has greater benefits than just getting it from the diet alone.

Sarah Milken (00:13:28) - Hokkaido. Okay. That made a lot of sense. So. So because C15 is an odd number, it's called an odd chain. An odd fatty chain. Right.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:13:39) - Yeah. You got it. Yeah. An odd chain saturated.

Sarah Milken (00:13:42) - Yeah. I'm like I have the order of the words wrong. And then and so we need this for our bodies okay. So I read that I know some people are probably thinking well isn't this sort of like fish oil. So I read that in Greenland there were Inuits. Is that how you say it.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:13:59) - Good. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Milken (00:14:02) - And so they so the researchers found that these people in Greenland were living longer. They did the research and found out that these people were, in fact, eating a ton of fish. And they looked at their blood and their their omega threes were very high. So according to all of this, this is like what's charted.

Sarah Milken (00:14:22) - The everyone needs to take omega three fatty acids or eat a ton of this type of fish like salmon, whatever to try to increase our omega threes right.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:14:33) - That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And it's been you know the story has been evolving from you know it ends up that the you know, the two Danish researchers that had heard they went to Greenland to look at the native populations there because, you know, they had heard that they had a much lower risk of getting heart disease, really heart disease. And so then they went and they just like you said, they went, they had, saw they ate a high, marine animal diet and and said, Marine animals, including fish have higher omega threes. Therefore what actually happened just four years later. And this never makes it into the stories, right? Just four years later, they actually showed that they don't have higher omega three levels in their blood. And they didn't have a lower risk of heart disease. What. Yeah. And there's like this part Sarah.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:15:26) - It never makes it in. It's their own papers that they published 3 to 4 years later and they're like oops. But the one thing that did make it through was that pure EPA that I'm sure I should say, this EPA, which is a type of omega three that did make it through, that they had higher levels of EPA, omega three, and just and they had lower risk of that.

Sarah Milken (00:15:51) - What we find in the supplements that we buy.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:15:54) - It isn't so we're you know, when you when we say we're taking omega three supplements, we think it's just a pure omega three. And even though we know because it says it's fish oil, so it's squeezing fish and like eating the oil. And so, you know, the the amount of diversity in fish oil supplements is huge from what's in it. So you know, there's there are omega threes in it, but there are like a dozen or more other fatty acids in it, including pro-inflammatory T 16 and C 18. And because they're oils and it's fish oil, they go bad.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:16:31) - Like you wouldn't leave fish oil out on a counter for more than half a day. Right. And so, a lot of fish oil supplements, omega three oil supplements, more than half have what's called lipid oxidation levels or oxidation levels that are higher than international voluntary safety standards.

Sarah Milken (00:16:49) - And so if they're rancid, basically.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:16:52) - Yeah, they go rancid. And if they're rancid and they're oxidized. Studies have shown that the omega threes that are there, they don't work. So you know it's it it's this is why today the NIH has a summary page where it says they've reviewed the science. And they said, you know, omega three fish oil or oil supplements specifically do not prevent heart disease. And for the most part, don't do a lot of the things we thought it was. And it's probably, you know, Sarah, because of the quality issue.

Sarah Milken (00:17:22) - Right. Interesting. Yeah. Because I did read that you I want to mention to everyone that your husband works on this with you because he's a Navy physician, which is, like, adorable.

Sarah Milken (00:17:34) - you're like, what? It's just the cutest thing ever. It might be cuter. Well, I don't know. My husband and I met in ninth grade. That's kind of cute, too. Oh, yeah. Like this, like, long standing situation. but you say that you guys really wanted to prove that this wasn't just like, oh, we think this is better than fish oil or omega threes. Like we're going to show you. So you guys published in is it like eight. Was it 8 or 13? I don't remember peer reviewed journals.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:18:07) - Yes. There have been a lot. so we've had we've had like five large studies published within the last four years. But before that it's been, you know, yeah, we've easily had over a dozen studies. Yeah.

Sarah Milken (00:18:22) - That's what I thought I read. Now, there was a specific one in nature scientific. And I'm not a. Medical doctor, but I think that that's a pretty well known established journal. What did you guys find in that research study? And like, why do we care?

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:18:37) - Yeah, absolutely.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:18:38) - So we found so you know, once we move from the dolphins it's okay. Association with better health. But that doesn't mean causation. and so that's where we moved pure C15 into the lab. And that's where we were able to show that C15 does a lot of good stuff. So nature has intended for us to get C15 to, in the simplest way to protect ourselves and keep them strong. The stronger our cell membranes it's known, the longer a species lives, like if you're a mammal. So it's a trick that evolution is used. So C15, helps to stabilize our cell membranes. We age because our cells do. Right. And so as we hit menopause, as I hit menopause, it's just like our aging is accelerated dramatically. that is in part because our cell membranes get weaker. And so as a stable fatty acid, C15 goes in and literally strengthens our cell membranes to keep our cells young and working. It also goes in and repairs our mitochondria. So this you know those remember from third grade like the parts of ourselves.

Sarah Milken (00:19:47) - I don't think I understood it in 10th grade either. But yeah.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:19:51) - So you know it's the battery of our cells. And so it makes the energy. So we know that C15 repairs the energy production of our cells, and it helps our cells talk to each other. So in order to keep our metabolism, our immunity, even our sleep and appetite balanced, our cells have to communicate with each other. And so we were able to show that C15 helps to activate these key receptors that keep our metabolism and immunity balanced. So it's job like when we talk about, you know, so C15 the outcome of this paper showing that it lowered inflammation. It helped, lower glucose and insulin levels in relevant models. And it was doing all these things at the cellular level. That's where we got to the conclusion where C15 is the first essential fatty acid to be discovered in over 90 years, right, since omega three and omega six. So it was like all of these things are necessary. It's truly like, no, no, really, it's it's essential.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:20:49) - Our bodies, just like you had mentioned. So our body's needed.

Sarah Milken (00:20:52) - So if you have I mean, let's talk about me. If you have high inflammation, you're insulin resistant. I'm basically describing a lot of midlife women, whether they know it or they don't. Not everyone, but many. you have high cholesterol, which I have. And I take a stat and all the things you're saying that taking fatty 15 is going to, over time, change those numbers.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:21:18) - Yes. So science and the studies are all supporting that. So first with inflammation, we've been able to show and others that C15 directly lowers these things called pro-inflammatory cytokines. It's the little troublemakers and instigators that are like hey, turn up your inflammation when you're not supposed to.

Sarah Milken (00:21:38) - I have a lot of those. Yes.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:21:42) - What's the instigators away these pro-inflammatory cytokines. And it doesn't just do it for 1 or 2. It has 18 different ways that it lowers this chronic inflammation that we get as we age. the second, with regard to insulin sensitivity, another team showed that C15 activates this thing called Ampk.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:22:02) - It's the heart of the metabolic of the longevity pathway. But more important, this is how metformin works. It's the top like leading treatment for diabetes for type two diabetes. And so by activating this Ampk, a group of scientists showed that C15 actually helped improve insulin resistance or insulin sensitivity and glucose uptake by cells. So that was the second. And then the third we were talking about, Sarah, was it obviously liver memory? Obviously it wasn't memory. well, we can talk about fatty liver. I'll come back. with regard to fatty liver, that it is the hypothesis is as our C15 levels have gone down population wide because of diet and age, that nutritional C15 deficiencies are actually accelerating our aging and causing aging related diseases sooner, including fatty liver disease. because it kind of popped up out of nowhere. And the leading hypothesis now is that nutritional deficiencies in C15, you know, it's like scurvy and vitamin C is fatty liver disease and and C15, so, you know, it's it's been a big, a lot of studies done over long periods of time all supporting.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:23:23) - We just we just need to get it back in our body.

Sarah Milken (00:23:25) - Now, how do you. How do you measure C15? Like can you test for the levels of it? Or the. You can only test other inflammation markers to see if those are changing.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:23:37) - Yeah, it's a great question. So two important components of that. So first is yes. So you can your doctor can request a C15 test. They are now commercially available. We aren't affiliated and aren't partnered with them. But a group called Genova Diagnostics has included C15 in their fatty acid panel. We were talking with doctor Mark Hyman the other day and he's I listened.

Sarah Milken (00:24:02) - To that.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:24:03) - And he's like, he's like, because they've been testing C15. They just didn't know to pay attention to it. But he's just like, I can't believe how many people have low C15 levels. And so having that test is critical. Right. And so you can get tested for C15 to see what your levels are. Is there a.

Sarah Milken (00:24:20) - Number that it should be.

Sarah Milken (00:24:21) - Or Genova tells you what that number should be.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:24:25) - Genova has a good range. We're working with them right now, but their range actually seems to be working pretty well as far as even the sample, results that they have on their website. The person, the sample person just actually has low C15 levels. So, so it's we're looking to further improve upon it. but we know based upon numerous studies that there is a threshold that we need to be above a certain level in order to basically not have this deficiency syndrome. And so hence, it's so important to have a test to be able to look for that. The second part is, even without a test, even if you don't do the test, what's so important about C15 and fatty 15 is that the reason why we have such high retention? We have over 95% monthly retention rates, which is like the.

Sarah Milken (00:25:19) - Subscriptions to fatty 15 your supplement.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:25:22) - Yeah, exactly. And this like that is just unheard of. And it's because people are feeling you can.

Sarah Milken (00:25:27) - Only buy it from you like you can't get on Amazon. You can't get it from third parties.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:25:33) - That's right. Yeah. And it's all through an agreement that we have with the Navy because it's you know, they're the ones who who made the discovery.

Sarah Milken (00:25:40) - So you're the inventor and they own the intellectual property and money from fatty 15 goes back to the Navy. That's right.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:25:51) - Yeah. And even goes back to the dolphins, which is. So we made that part of the deal. But money would go back to continue to understand and help help the Navy's dolphins live even longer and healthier. so when you go to the doctors, it's just as important is to be able to. Yes. Great. Your C15 levels get higher, but way more importantly, seeing those inflammation markers go down, the glucose, liver enzymes, cholesterol levels. And there was always cholesterol. That's what it was. So we a clinical so importantly get your C15 tests. But before you start and then three and six months into fatty 15 go get your tests again.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:26:34) - And you know, fatty 15 is there to help you, get better and get healthier, especially during midlife, right? When everything we start falling apart, you know? And exactly. That's where you can catch it coming, coming back. And there was a clinical trial of double blind placebo or double blinded randomized clinical trial that just came out about a month ago. And it showed that C15 supplementation, even more than restricting calories, and the Mediterranean diet, even above and beyond those benefits, it lowered LDL cholesterol, improve the gut microbiome, and had the greatest decrease in both body and liver fat, which was crazy.

Sarah Milken (00:27:17) - That's funny, because I was going to ask you the question. I don't know if this if that 100% answers it, but you tell me because you're the science nerd. If you took a sample of people and you just let them eat and do whatever and exercise, not whatever, like they just kind of live the kind of average blah, blah lifestyle, and they didn't take fatty 15 and then a group, you know, do you see what I'm saying? And then you took a group that like eight quasi perfectly did all the exercise, and there was a group that took it and didn't take it.

Sarah Milken (00:27:48) - Like, what would you find? Would the lifestyle pieces matter as much as the C15? I mean, it's not a magic pill.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:27:56) - It is not a magic pill. It is like truly like we were built, to be long lived mammals the way that nature, one of the core ingredients to make us live longer, that nature has developed is C15. It's literally like instead of our cell membranes being made out of gummy bears, we've got bricks in there to help keep us around a long time. So it's not magic. It's really just evolution's figured out that this fatty acid is. Is critical and it's, you know, it's in a big hint to that is that it's an milk. So it means that every mammal gets C15 at birth. unfortunately we are seeing that C15 levels in moms milk is declining because if mom is C15 deficient, so is her milk. And then that therefore, the infants and infants with lower C15 have a poorer body growth, lower head circumference, indicative of brain health, more likely to get type two type one diabetes and to get allergies.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:29:01) - So it's just again, it's just like, how do we get C15 really playing this role as essential from birth? all the way to our, our older years.

Sarah Milken (00:29:11) - Well you have it's approved for everyone above the age of four, including nursing and pregnant women. You haven't you haven't gotten it approved for four and under.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:29:22) - Not yet.

Sarah Milken (00:29:23) - Even though that doesn't really make sense if it's approved for pregnant women. But whatever. We'll let that.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:29:28) - Work. We're we're working. We're working on it. And that, you know, the good thing the bad thing is, is that, for infant formulas, have almost no C15 in it. And so there are other groups, Sarah, that have done a call to action of, of recognizing that it's lacking C15 while mom's milk has C15, as long as mom is fine. And so they're have have given a call to action to say we need to get C15 back into infant formulas. So it's understandably a lot more steps. And we want to be oh so careful and make sure that, you know, all of the regulatory boxes are checked, as we, as we head in that direction.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:30:13) - So and then, you know, as far as your question with regard to people taking it, we now know there's another clinical trial that's coming out. It's, in review. that was done by Rady Children's Hospital, with young adults, and where they tested, a fatty 15 in people who were had heavier weight, were susceptible to metabolic syndrome. So type two diabetes, fatty liver disease, and so I can't share those results. But answer your question with regard to where increasingly confidently able to say fatty 15 goes above and beyond, it doesn't mean don't exercise and don't eat well, right?

Sarah Milken (00:30:54) - No, it was just that it it does have an effect. Like if you are not exercising and not eating well, there's no downside to adding fatty 15. You need to be doing all the things, but you need to at least have this molecule in your body.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:31:10) - Yeah, exactly. And I'll tell you, like me personally, what I found was that fatty 15 helps me do the things that are healthier.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:31:18) - Like, that's a great point. Great. Like like sleep is critical to our health. And we're understanding more and more how important sleep is. Fatty 15 helps you sleep better. It's through this metabolite that and second molecule our body makes that triggers that activates really strong, healthy sleep receptors that.

Sarah Milken (00:31:38) - Affect your sex drive.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:31:42) - It's been pretty healthy, so I don't know.

Sarah Milken (00:31:46) - We'll have to ask Eric. We'll have to ask him. We'll have to be like prior to Steph taking this. But that might not work because of your age. You know, because most midlife women go into the tank anyway, so it doesn't matter. yeah.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:31:59) - Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I could say there are less dryness issues. Yeah.

Sarah Milken (00:32:04) - I was going to say maybe vaginal lubrication. Now, does it matter what time of day you take it? Like if you, you know, some people say take magnesium glycine late at night, so you sleep better. Have you found that with fatty 15.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:32:18) - Most people take it in the morning.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:32:19) - I take mine in the morning with my coffee. and you know, for people who want there's, there are some, you know, immediate benefits that take place over several hours after you've kind of front loaded and you, you're at your optimal C 15 levels. So you know.

Sarah Milken (00:32:34) - Those.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:32:35) - Yeah. So deeper sleep, calmer mood, less appetite between meals for me, Sarah, it was like losing an arm. It was so weird because I'm always hungry. And then all of a sudden I was not hungry between meals. And when I went to eat, I ate less. It was so obvious and so weird. And then the other thing was, joint pain. So, you know, menopause. And all of a sudden you, at least I started recognizing that I have elbows and hips because. Yeah.

Sarah Milken (00:33:07) - Yeah.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:33:08) - Because they were hurting all the time. And so fatty 15 help, help with that. So there are those kind of immediate delights and surprises, you know, and all the science supporting it.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:33:19) - We just need it for a long term.

Sarah Milken (00:33:21) - Do you have to take it on an empty stomach a full stomach. Are there rules?

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:33:27) - you can take it in any way. And we know that because. So part of the reason why we developed C 15 as or fatty 15 as a pure free fatty acid form is that's the form that's readily bioavailable. So we readily absorb that when we get C 15 from foods. For example there c 15 is attached to what's called the triglyceride. So it's like this complex lipid. Our digestive enzymes then have to pull the c 15 off. Make it a free fatty acid so that we can absorb it. And that's why you need to take a lot of things with foods to get those digestive enzymes going. With fatty 15 it's it's already.

Sarah Milken (00:34:04) - Study how quickly it is becomes bioavailable.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:34:08) - Yeah. We were really lucky there was actually there were actually clinical trials that were done with the exact same ingredient in fatty 15, that were done in all ages from, well, from ages eight and up and all different types of people.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:34:22) - And so it shows that we absorb it at levels go up, within 30 minutes to an hour, they reached their peak at four hours in our circulation. And then they stay higher than baseline for a good 12 to 24 hours. That's so that's kind of like when you take it in the morning, you can get that bump throughout the day. What's more important is that C 15 by taking it fatty 15 routinely it goes into your cell membranes. Right. And so that's where it goes and it stays. And where you know all of these a lot of these big benefits, these longer term benefits take hold. So any time.

Sarah Milken (00:35:02) - What's the half life of it. Like if you didn't take it for a week, how long is that saying hanging out in your body.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:35:10) - Right. So this is these studies are a little bit shocking with regard to and this is mainly from changing diets where they did studies, where they put people on high fat diets, diets that had C15 in them versus moving them to low fat diets that had very little C15.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:35:27) - And Sarah, what they showed were that within two days of moving to a low fat diet C 15 levels. so it was.

Sarah Milken (00:35:37) - Midlife brain you should not forget to take. Yeah, 15 we.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:35:42) - Have and people are I mean it's, it's 98% of our customers say that they take it every day. And, you know, that's a big change to when you're asking somebody to change something in their routine. That's usually one of the biggest humps. We think that people take it to one because they feel better about 50%. Right? Just immediately within hours. Two, it's one tiny pill. So it's this little I.

Sarah Milken (00:36:10) - Know I do have to say that, like I take a lot of supplements. I love yours because it's teeny tiny. It has no weird taste to it. It doesn't smell like, I wish all the supplements were like that.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:36:24) - Yeah. It's so it's easy. So it's like, okay, I'm not you're not having a negative impact from taking it like, oh.

Sarah Milken (00:36:31) - My gosh.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:36:32) - All that good stuff. So for that reason people do we don't. Our customers are not having a problem taking it every day and that they're. Or they're keeping those healthy C15 levels and and seeing the benefits.

Sarah Milken (00:36:44) - Now let's talk about dosage because I've heard you personally say you started with one. You move to two. I'm always about like the maximum. So. So I started taking two as soon as I heard you started taking two. But is there any benefit to, like taking one in the morning to help with appetite control and then one at night for going to sleep, or is that just like I made that up?

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:37:07) - No, I mean, everybody has their own journey for sure.

Sarah Milken (00:37:10) - And so I mean, I don't do that. I'm just after hearing about the appetite control, I'm like, wait, I want the appetite control during the day, not at night, but I don't know if it's that specific. You know.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:37:21) - It. I think that once you achieve those, you know, the healthy C15 levels, once that like, kind of frontloading happens, my sense is that it's less dependent upon when you take it is you want to use.

Sarah Milken (00:37:35) - Me as a sample? Yeah. Tone down. I'll hang with the dolphins. You can, like, test me on.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:37:43) - What you ask for. Sarah, you're not that far away. Oh, my God.

Sarah Milken (00:37:46) - I would love that. Bring my daughter. We'll go hang out with the dolphins. Sounds fun. I don't know if I could touch fish, though. Unless I wear gloves.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:37:54) - Yeah. Yes. That's me.

Sarah Milken (00:37:56) - Gag me. Like no way. Oh my God. so in terms of.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:38:02) - Tissue in the morning, I take two in the morning.

Sarah Milken (00:38:04) - Are you okay?

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:38:05) - Kind of need that bump. But we have other people. And again, this is when, like I saw my glucose levels went down, my liver enzyme levels went down, I was sleeping better, calmer mood. All of that was with one capsule for like a good solid year and a half. It's only with that was coincident with the time of where menopause was just like full speed. and so I'm like, well, I wonder if I tried to if that would help with the other things that were happening, like the joint pain.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:38:33) - And that's where I.

Sarah Milken (00:38:35) - Have there been any studies just on midlife women yet?

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:38:42) - Should we get.

Sarah Milken (00:38:42) - Women together for you? And you can just start testing us?

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:38:46) - You know, we so need that, and we very well have. We'll have an opportunity, so we'll let you know Sarah in it. Actually, I feel.

Sarah Milken (00:38:54) - Like you have some secrets hiding somewhere.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:38:58) - Yeah.

Sarah Milken (00:38:59) - I mean, you're probably doing it. Okay. The other thing I heard is that you still, like, if your doctor gives you prescription omega threes, I don't take prescription omega threes, I probably should. You're saying that that's a little bit different than taking omega threes that you order off of Amazon. And if your doctor gives you prescription omega threes you could possibly take those. And the fatty 15.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:39:25) - Absolutely. And so you know we follow as you have called out which I appreciate. We are super nerds here. You know at 5015. And so everything is around the science. And you know the science is supporting with regard to whether it's omega three fatty 15.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:39:40) - Right. That that exactly like what you said, while omega three supplements anything that you buy off the shelf and like you said from Amazon, not prescribed by your doctor, have major quality issues and therefore aren't working. However, pure EPA, a purified EPA is called the EPA and we are not associated.

Sarah Milken (00:40:02) - Well, I know spell that for everyone the A S.p.A.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:40:08) - Okay, the Sapa and that is a purified EPA and again, I am a dolphin doctor, so I will have the same disclaimer with you. How about, now the human physicians to talk to your doctor about it, but the, the large scale clinical trials, randomized, placebo controlled clinical trials have shown, in two different clinical trials that that purified EPA without specifically without DHA. Interestingly, protected against major, cardiovascular events like heart attacks and death. So I'm talking to you, you.

Sarah Milken (00:40:44) - Know, so the research says that you don't potentially have to have the de part.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:40:50) - For heart disease. Yeah. In fact, when they there was a prescription, fish oil, pill that had both EPA and DHA and that did not have the benefit that the pure EPA did.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:41:02) - So when, again, you know, speaking specifically to.

Sarah Milken (00:41:05) - Ask your doctor. But it's interesting information because, I mean, as we all know, research information sits in silos. And then it takes people like you who are nerdy and social to get the information from the research silo into, like, the real world.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:41:24) - Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's, thank goodness for people. And there's actually a and so, you know, because of that peer EPA finding that is why we published in PLoS one, Public Library of Science journal. We then put Fatti 15 head to head against pure EPA in cell based a whole series of like these diseases in a dish. to see how fatty 15 did against pure EPA. And we showed in that study and again in cells right. That C15 that fatty 15 did all of that had all of the benefits of pure EPA and three times more. So it's not we're not saying to replace your prescription, EPA with it, but it is speaking again to C 15 Essentiality and it's definitely getting the attention of physicians who are appreciating the science.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:42:16) - And, you know, really leaning in. We have more and more physicians who are, giving fatty 15 to their patients.

Sarah Milken (00:42:23) - I mean, honestly, I mean, we can't even get gynecologists or menopause, you know, to to prescribe hormone replacement. The leap to like, fatty 15. I'm like, do that might take like a decade or two I don't know. But you guys have such a strong marketing campaign. Like maybe you'll have, you know, the impact that it, you know, that we all need and kind of changing the narrative on this or even creating the narrative on it.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:42:50) - Yeah. I mean, it's been it's was really interesting because the demand from physicians came organically, which is, you know, how it should happen. I mean, that there we had, customers who were going to their doctor, and the doctor was seeing such dramatic improvements on their blood values that they were like, what are you doing? And then that's where they said, the only change I've had is fatty 15.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:43:13) - And then physicians themselves taking it and seeing the benefits not only in their patients but themselves. We developed a health care provider program to respond to the demand coming from physicians. So, you know, again, it's just like, thank you, science and and dolphins.

Sarah Milken (00:43:30) - Now, in your studies, did you find that the amount in one pill or two pills was the sort of changing factor?

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:43:41) - one pill. so I guess let me put it in a dosing perspective. So nobody has no C15 in their body. So there are other sources of C15 and which can include some plants, some seeds. But it's at really, really, really low levels. So we're always getting some exposure to C15. And that gets us to a level at this, you know, ten Micromolar what we know is we need to have at least 20 or higher to not have this deficiency syndrome. So, every 100mg of fatty 15 that you take raises your blood levels by ten micromolar. So if you have ten and you take the 100, that gets you to 20 micromolar, which is where you want to start at, and that's where you know you're going to see the benefit, then it's like you increase it another ten and you need.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:44:33) - But if you were super duper duper low in the beginning, you might need more to pick up.

Sarah Milken (00:44:37) - But well, that was going to be my next question. I know this is getting super sciency, but like I know for me with vitamin D and my doctor, one of my doctors, he said to me, he's like, Sarah, you're never your vitamin D at a certain point was so low that like, you're never going to get to the minimum threshold. So I want you to take this like 50,000 once a week for a month, get to a certain level. It's sort of like vaginal estrogen. You know, you're supposed to take a two week loading dose every single day and then go down to twice a week. Does fatty 15 work the same or. No, you just take the 1 or 2 pills and you don't have to like up, you know, load at the front end.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:45:18) - It's so it's yes and no. so we're still learning that there is a sense that for people who are very low, which now there's a test.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:45:27) - So we can actually define those, that there is a benefit of taking more. We're working with physicians to develop what's called a clinical dose so that physicians can help, you know, order the tests for their patients, and do exactly what Sarah, you experienced to say, like, okay, let's get you up. Let's get you boosted up to this level. So we're still learning if people have to have that to, to get above the level at all, or if you just get there quicker because it is cumulative. So as you take more C15 over more time, you get more in your, in your cells.

Sarah Milken (00:46:04) - So like where does it sit. Like it just hangs out. Yeah.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:46:09) - So you know so every so we're made of ourselves like every single piece in part our hair, our skin, our hearts, our livers are all made of cells. And all of those cells are surrounded by a cell membrane. The cell membrane is made entirely, almost entirely of fats, including fatty acids. So C15 loves that as a ideal place for it to go.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:46:34) - So it's it gets into our cells and therefore it's in our tissues. It's in our red blood cells. And it's literally strengthening that cell membrane so that our cells can continue working. Well, that's it's it's a main job. It can also when it's in our blood and just like riding around for the, you know, eight hours or so, it's also activating. It sits like a, like a, like a, a ball in a hammock kind of thing where it then can activate receptors when it's out in our circulation. That's those kind of immediate things of mood.

Sarah Milken (00:47:08) - And what about hair?

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:47:11) - Yeah. So that was a delight and surprise.

Sarah Milken (00:47:13) - It's like a major issue, right?

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:47:15) - Yeah. So my husband was like done with buying Drano.

Sarah Milken (00:47:21) - Come on. I'm like, the sink needs to be snaked again. He's like, your side with your sink is always bad. Mine is fine. I'm like, okay. No.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:47:31) - You have. Yeah. You've gone through menopause. When? Yeah. You have a snake.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:47:35) - for your. Yeah. So, Yeah. So I was going through that prior to us having fatty 15 on the market and, Apsara. Absolutely. So my hair stopped falling out. I don't have, like, I was getting, like, bald ish spots and super thin hair, you know, like, at the, roots. And, that completely went away. We hear that from. It's one of the most enthusiastic, you know, within three months, benefits that people experience. And again, it's that fatty 15 does there's actually a clinical trial that showed that C15 goes into the mitochondria of our hair, follicular cells, and it increases the energy in our hair cells by 300% and enabled hair to grow. This was a clinical trial done not by us. So someone needs to.

Sarah Milken (00:48:27) - Like compare it to like nutrafol or something, you know.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:48:30) - Exact product to see like how it compares, you know.

Sarah Milken (00:48:34) - Or maybe it's just like an additive thing.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:48:36) - I think. So because they act, they behave differently and so they can complement each other.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:48:42) - And yeah. And it just goes back to when you talk about things that are essential, like like vitamins, that a lot of times when you hear about a vitamin deficiency, right. It's like or your or somebody's being malnourished, the first things that you see are like, the skin isn't healthy, the hair gets thinner. And so that's where, again, it just speaks to C15 essentiality that it's role as a new vitamin. right. Essential fatty acid. It just makes sense that you get this back into your system and it helps.

Sarah Milken (00:49:13) - Okay, just a personal question. What supplements do you take in addition to fatty 15? Because people always ask me, but I want to ask you.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:49:23) - Yeah. So I take I take 15 to say it like that. That's all. I was never a supplement taker before. I. So. Yeah.

Sarah Milken (00:49:36) - Vitamin D like anything?

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:49:38) - Yeah. I don't take anything else. I try, I try to get as much as I can through my food. Because I do think that there are a lot of especially like omega threes is a good example.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:49:49) - So it's just, you know, so the take home message isn't that we don't need omega threes is just we need them to not be bad. Yeah. You know put them in our body. So get them from fish. So you know I probably eat fish maybe as often as four times a week. Yeah. you know raw fish too. I eat raw fish. Yeah. You know.

Sarah Milken (00:50:09) - What's interesting? My 19 year old son, he had all his blood work done, like in November or something. When he came home, I was like, guess what? We're doing this. He was like, what? I'm like, I need to just have a baseline on you, sir. yeah. What was interesting is his his his EPA, like his fish oil numbers were like off the charts. And the doctor was like, what? And and I said, no, no, no, no, the kid does not eat cooked salmon. He eats raw salmon. Let's I don't even we probably have to test his mercury knock on wood.

Sarah Milken (00:50:44) - But he was literally off the charts from sushi. I'm like, oh my God.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:50:48) - It's I mean, it's really the best source is from fish to get our omega three. So if they're low, if they get tested in their low, you know that I try to fix and I do I, you know, and to be honest, like I, you know, I drink I use not our low fat milk in my, coffee, I eat cheese, I don't shy away from butter. it's just, you know, getting the right balance. And obviously those fruits and vegetables, it's a.

Sarah Milken (00:51:16) - It's obviously about, like, moderation.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:51:19) - Yeah, yeah. And and just as importantly, like we talked about, I mean, exercise, and, you know, being able to get out in the sun and be able to sleep. And you know what I've added from all the science that's come to my routine of, you know, weights of including resistance training.

Sarah Milken (00:51:40) - I call them the dumb but necessary weights.

Sarah Milken (00:51:43) - Right? Yeah. Because I hate it, but I do it, I hate it, but I do it.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:51:48) - Like these things over in the middle of the family room, right? Yeah.

Sarah Milken (00:51:52) - I called one of my heart and goods. It's really hard, but it's really good for you. I'm like, oh.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:51:58) - Yeah, there was actually there was a study then, where they showed women who exercised and they otherwise had similar diets. Women who exercised more had higher C15 levels, and they were trying to figure out what is going on.

Sarah Milken (00:52:14) - Because if you're not making it yourself, then what's the reason for that.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:52:18) - That they had it's what's stored in the fat. So where basically that the belief, the understanding is that as we exercise, we are releasing C15 that stored in our bodies out.

Sarah Milken (00:52:33) - Oh, so it's more available.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:52:35) - Yeah, exactly. So you can get a little extra C15 boost in your circulation by. Yeah, that's a.

Sarah Milken (00:52:42) - Great motivation for me if I'm going to get more C15 squirting.

Sarah Milken (00:52:46) - So I'm going to go do the dumb weights right now. Wow, that's a real motivator. I'll keep that one in the back of my mind. Now, when you guys did your studies, you found changes in inflammatory markers at three months, six months, nine months, 12 months. Yeah.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:53:06) - So those in in the studies in the lab, as well as these human cell systems, which are really good, reliable ways, so much so that FDA is allowing these cell systems to pass as early, ways to assess efficacy in humans, which is great. but yeah, it showed that, especially at this 20 micromolar level, that was this optimum level where it successfully lowers many different types of inflammatory markers, especially things like IL six and MCP, one that are major troublemakers with age. so as we get older, again, these indicators kind of run awry and just call in inflammation everywhere. And so just even by calming Il6 and MCP one and it's doing much more than that. C15 is having this direct benefit on decreasing inflammation.

Sarah Milken (00:54:03) - Okay. I want to show everyone I brought it upstairs body 15. It's in this gorgeous glass bottle with the bamboo top you guys have. It's all like sustainable the whole thing. You send the bottle and then the refills are in these little pouches. So it's not there's not a lot of waste I love it I can you make all my supplements? And they look so pretty. My husband's always like, why do you have this shit all over the counter? And it's all. Different sizes and shapes, but if they all look like this, I'm like, maybe I would take them more.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:54:38) - Well. And that was like thanks to our packaging crew. Way back when, you know, because we're just like science nerds and not, we don't market. And, you know, this was a whole new world for us. And the folks that we worked with, with the branding and packaging said, listen, your science is like super high. You need to develop packaging that is at that level. And they're like, if you're saying save the world, why? Or, you know, save people, why can't you save the earth too? And so they came in and proposed this wonderful idea with regard to that we have today, which is a reusable glass and bamboo bottle.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:55:17) - Like you said, you get your, refills shipped in recyclable packaging, low carbon footprint. so yeah, why not? I mean, we all need to own it and take.

Sarah Milken (00:55:26) - Maybe they can repackage me.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:55:29) - We you don't need to be repackage like, oh.

Sarah Milken (00:55:33) - Let's let's I'll do a revamp here with your marketing company. I love it so good.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:55:39) - You're like, actually coordinated with the bottle. Like you got it.

Sarah Milken (00:55:43) - I didn't even think about that. I was just like, what's going to absorb sweat like that? That's my number one thing. Now, is there any downside to C15?

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:55:53) - We haven't seen any yet. I mean it's it's again, it just speaks to nature that, nature has, has we have co-evolved so that nature provides C15 to help us truly as humans live as healthy for as long as possible. And so given that and given the fact again that every baby mammal gets C15 at birth, it is remarkably safe. We've done safety studies, all at all levels and, everything that's needed even above and beyond what supplements are required.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:56:30) - And, it's had extraordinary safety. but we do hold it at, you know, two capsules a day, with regard to recommendations and then working with physicians and others to kind of determine where we could go from there.

Sarah Milken (00:56:45) - Got it. Now, the one other thing I do want to mention, because I thought it piqued my interest was anemia. Yeah, I'm a candidate for iron and I'm like, oh I don't know if I want to take iron because it's constipated. Have there been studies with comparing the use of iron versus fatty 15 or you kind of have to do both.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:57:07) - Yeah. It's the anemia is probably it's so funny you mentioned it is probably the most fascinating secret of C 15 and a fatty 15. So when we were doing the studies with dolphins to help them live longer and we increased C15, the fish that had higher safety in their diet, we saw their insulin go down, cholesterol go down, and unexpectedly, just like us, older dolphins are more likely to have anemia, a chronic anemia.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:57:36) - And so, ten of the dolphins in the study, had chronic anemia. Anemia was completely resolved in all of them. And the top. Yeah. And the top predictor of it was higher C 15 got into their cell membranes. So that's the way we're like we weren't even looking for that. How do they.

Sarah Milken (00:57:56) - Have to take it for.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:57:57) - It was like we saw significant statistically significant movement at month one. By month three it was resolved. And so we were able to repeat that directly with fatty 15 in relevant models in the lab. it's remarkable. we think, you know, we age because we cell, we age because our cells do. You know, like I shared our all of our cells become weaker. One of the first ones we see that's evident is our, our red blood cells. And so we have less red blood cells. We get anemia. It's actually an indicator of how fast it's our aging rate. And so we're able to reverse that marker of aging. we've been able to show with C 15.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:58:39) - So there's really exciting new information that will come out this year. so continuing to support that benefit, specifically in humans. So yeah.

Sarah Milken (00:58:49) - I have one last thing. I keep adding them. But PCOS, because I'm a PCOS person, I take birth control pills. I've been fighting it since I was 14. As we know, birth control pills are probably just masking the PCOS symptoms, but I've been on them for so long that I'm like, I'm not rocking the fucking boat right now. We're just going to keep the boat steady until it's not steady anymore. but PCOS is such a major thing for so many like adolescent girls and women, and I've heard some of your supporters talking about it.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:59:27) - Yeah. So we've there haven't been formal studies done with, C15 and PCOS. It came to our attention of its potential to benefit Sarah. Exactly like you said through. Pepperoncini, who has been, you know, dealing with PCOS for forever. And this is it's done wonders for her, under and with her doctor.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (00:59:47) - Her doctor is, you know, watched her closely as she has gone on her fatty 15 journey. I the PCOS is tied to metabolic syndrome and to fatty liver disease. It's this whole.

Sarah Milken (01:00:00) - I have all of it. Right.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (01:00:02) - So I'm looking it. So so it's this whole world of it's all connected. Right. And so there have been lots and lots and lots and lots of studies on C15 metabolic syndrome and type two diabetes. And so it's just kind of naturally folds in associated conditions like PCOS. And with regard to some of the symptoms of PCOS, where fatty 15 is is helping. So no formal studies, but we have definitely gotten enthusiastic feedback from from customers that are consistent, with its benefits.

Sarah Milken (01:00:39) - But there were studies for younger females in terms of ovary function and in terms of embryo quality. Right.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (01:00:49) - Yeah. You're so smart. Yeah, I.

Sarah Milken (01:00:50) - Know, I think I'm nerding myself out right now.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (01:00:52) - So. Okay. Like I'm now like a mini nerd. You're like a super nerd.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (01:00:58) - Yes. So there are studies showing that women who have a diminished ovarian reserve or Dr., that they had lower C15, in their ovaries compared to women who didn't have it. That has translated all the way to just like you were mentioning Sarah to even, embryo, health and the egg health that embryos divided faster when they had more C15 in the follicular fluid. you know, so all of this levels up to C15 is essential at the level of our ovaries, you know, and before we even become embryos, so feeding into all everything is supporting, you know, again, it's not a magic pill. It's just essential to our cells or made of cells. So kind of it fixes us where we're broken is kind of the best way to explain, how how people have had positive experiences with fatty 15.

Sarah Milken (01:02:05) - Wow. I mean, it's starting to sound like a magic pill, to be honest. Okay, before we wrap up, I just because this is a midlife podcast and we talk about health and pivots and finding what's next for us, I do want to say that I read about you, and you were talking about how you hope that women follow their paths, whatever they are, because you were a non swimmer, which I find fascinating.

Sarah Milken (01:02:30) - A doctor who works with dolphins, who doesn't know how to swim. You end up working for the Navy, which wasn't part of your plan. You end up being a veterinarian, which is not part of your plan, but you follow this path. And I would love for you to share with listeners just sort of a quick piece of advice on following a plan that maybe wasn't part of your plan.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (01:02:52) - Yeah, I think the biggest part of that is there, and I have been incredibly lucky, and that is that with every failure, not just something unexpected happen, but with every blatant failure came an unexpected opportunity that has landed life better than it would have been without it. And you know, whether that was from, you know, where which veterinary school I got into or didn't get into or what jobs I did or didn't do. Which meant I ended up with, you know, it was just I just one man. I don't have multiple. No, but.

Sarah Milken (01:03:34) - I read that you broke up with him because you didn't want to be married into the Navy.

Sarah Milken (01:03:39) - Then you went online dating and then you went back to Eric. Okay. No you can't.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (01:03:46) - You got to follow fate at some point. But the big thing is, my dad would always say this, right? It's just like with every closed door is an opportunity to walk down the hall of this hall and find out which next door was open that you wouldn't have ever had known, and that 1,000%. It has been so true in my life that I welcome and embrace failure, because I know that as soon as it happens, I'll, like feel badly for myself for like 24 hours, and then it's just looking for which opportunity just opened. And, you know, just we all grow from those things. And that counts from when you're 14, you know, all the way up until we're 104, you know, it's just keep living so that, failures happen and embrace them.

Sarah Milken (01:04:35) - I also think it's about you have to be. To put yourself in the opportunity to fail. Because if you're sort of sitting at home trying to manifest it in a vacuum, nothing's going to happen.

Sarah Milken (01:04:47) - So you have to say yes to things that maybe you wouldn't normally say yes to go to the dinner, that you would might feel uncomfortable because you don't know anyone, because there is some level of sliding doors and synchronicity of like right place, right time.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (01:05:03) - Oh yeah, for sure. And there's this whole Teddy Roosevelt quote, you know, where he talks about getting in the ring like in laws, just like you're saying, Sarah, like you have to get into the ring.

Sarah Milken (01:05:12) - Like Brené Brown style. Get in the arena, baby. Yeah.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (01:05:17) - And you gotta get yourself in the arena. And you might get in there and you might get bloodied and beat and but you're you're in it. And that, you know, that's the best way for us to be able to just as individuals live our lives and have those great delights and surprises that end up defining us. Yeah, this has been the craziest path, and it's only because I've. I've been in the arena.

Sarah Milken (01:05:41) - Well, maybe. Yeah.

Sarah Milken (01:05:42) - And now that you're in the midlife arena, the fatty 15 is helping you get up every day to do your best in that arena.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (01:05:51) - It does. I exercised my my exercise. you know, because I'm not I don't like exercise. I can exercise longer. I'm sleeping better, I'm eating better. So it's helping me. It's for sure fatty is helping me. A lot of other people exactly be able to embrace this exciting time of our lives. It's also a very freeing time in life. You've got a whole lot of hurdles thrown at us, but I'm loving it. I think it's such a good thing you got some wisdom and experience behind you, and kids are getting me too.

Sarah Milken (01:06:26) - I mean, it's I'm a half empty nest. I know you have 115 year old at home, but you have a boy. You have a girl, and I have a girl still at home. The girl, I think is a little bit harder. Just because she's like, is like tests a little bit more and she's a good one, but she's like, my husband's like, good luck to you.

Sarah Milken (01:06:42) - You birthed yourself. I'm like, oh, she sends me a text. And I'm like, did I send that to myself? And it's a text from her. It's so scary. Okay, before we wrap up, if listeners want to find you, where can they find you? Yeah.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (01:06:58) - So we can find you can find us at fatty 15, dot com. so that's the place we have info at fatty 15.com. If you want to email, send any questions. All of the science. If you want help sleeping, you could read a lot of boring science that's at discover c15.com. And that's where all of the science lies. But yeah that all.

Sarah Milken (01:07:20) - And you're on Instagram on.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (01:07:23) - Yeah. Fatty 15 is on Instagram.

Sarah Milken (01:07:24) - Are you dancing on TikTok yet stuff or no.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (01:07:27) - Oh yeah, I should be you know. No I do, I'm.

Sarah Milken (01:07:30) - Not in San Diego. We could dance with the dolphins together, do some TikToks.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (01:07:34) - Come on.

Sarah Milken (01:07:36) - I love it. Okay, I want to thank you.

Sarah Milken (01:07:38) - I want everyone to start thinking about the stuff that they can start doing today. One small step to discovering some new things like fatty 15. To add to our daily routine, I want to thank Steph for saying yes and becoming a new friend of the Flexible Neurotic Podcast.

Stephanie Venn-Watson (01:07:55) - This is so fun Sarah. Thanks for everything you're doing.

Sarah Milken (01:07:57) - Oh my God, so fun! Hey peeps, it's me again. I listen to this episode with Stephanie Van Watson, public health scientists and creator of fatty 15, among many, many other successes that she's had in her life. And I wanted to summarize the golden nuggets for you to have actionable items to start using today. Stephanie is amazing, so smart, and has all the health info you need to know in midlife for longevity and just feeling good. I know that when I listen to a long episode, I'm like, oh my God, I love that. But then I can't even fucking remember the specifics. This is why I come back and do a golden nugget.

Sarah Milken (01:08:36) - Summary. In this episode, we dig deep with our golden shit shovels in a very informative, kind of super.

Sarah Milken (01:08:43) - Nerdy.

Sarah Milken (01:08:43) - Conversation about fatty 15, which is a supplement that I hope all of you guys.

Sarah Milken (01:08:48) - Have in your supplement.

Sarah Milken (01:08:50) - Drawer and you're actually taking it like I am. Golden nugget number one, how Stephanie went from veterinarian to studying dolphins to cracking a huge breakthrough in natural.

Sarah Milken (01:09:01) - Supplements.

Sarah Milken (01:09:01) - For humans. I know it's a lot, and it doesn't really make sense when you first.

Sarah Milken (01:09:06) - Hear that.

Sarah Milken (01:09:06) - Sentence, you're like, wait, what is Stephanie? Super human? She went into veterinary health because of the extensive information that she could find out about all the types of living species, not just humans. And being the scientists that she is, she went deep into pattern recognition, which led her to epidemiology and predicting trends in human health. After working with the CDC for a while, she unexpectedly teamed up with the Navy to study dolphins. And this is when the breakthrough happened. Turns out that dolphins deal with many similar.

Sarah Milken (01:09:37) - Health issues as humans again, the more you know. Making them a perfect study subject for longevity. When Stephanie dug deeper into their nutrition, she realized that all their fish diets were giving them a lot more than just the expected omega threes.

Sarah Milken (01:09:53) - Which.

Sarah Milken (01:09:54) - Surprisingly, didn't even make the list. These dolphins were producing a molecule called C15 that was contributing to so many positive health attributes that Stephanie wondered, what if humans were producing C15? Or they could get it somehow? Do we all need to eat large amounts of fish or interesting things to get.

Sarah Milken (01:10:16) - That something that.

Sarah Milken (01:10:16) - We need? Or is there another way? Is there a supplement that could help with C15 from this discovery? Fatty 15 was born. Thank you Stephanie. Thank you Dolphins. Golden nugget number two okay what's C15 and what will it do for me? The episode was more on the technical side. So let me break down what C15 is and how it can help us to be healthier and live longer. Okay, so the basic story is C15 helps us with everything, and it's actually the only supplement that Stephanie even takes.

Sarah Milken (01:10:50) - What, no 64.

Sarah Milken (01:10:52) - Supplements in.

Sarah Milken (01:10:53) - The morning and afternoon. Like me, I know you're thinking sign me the fuck up. Okay, so C15 repairs the energy production of the cells in our bodies and helps them to communicate with each other, which is so important because that communication keeps our metabolism balanced, our immunity balance, and it lowers the things in our bodies that lead to inflammation and insulin resistance, aka everything that I need and everything that contributes to higher risk of chronic disease in midlife. But it doesn't just stop there, because there's also evidence that C15 also helps with midlife insomnia by activating our sleep receptors. I mean, how could you not be taking this? Stephanie actually said they have a 95% retention rate on their supplement subscription because it's just that good. I mean, those results speak for themselves. And just a reminder, this is not a sponsored episode. Golden nugget number three C15 can also improve your midlife hair and why? This is about more than just the looks. Stephanie explains that we're all made of cells.

Sarah Milken (01:11:59) - Everything in our bodies is cell, our hair, our skin, everything. And C15 works by getting into and around the cells as a support mechanism to help our.

Sarah Milken (01:12:09) - Cells.

Sarah Milken (01:12:09) - Talk and basically just thrive inside of our bodies. She said that one of the most enthusiastic benefits of C15 is the reduction of hair loss.

Sarah Milken (01:12:19) - When our hair is growing properly.

Sarah Milken (01:12:21) - This means that our body is operating in such a healthy way. She said that C15 works by actually increasing the energy in our hair cells by 300%, causing our hair to grow. I mean, I definitely need that. And my husband would agree because my sink is constantly clogged with all of my hair that is falling out. Stephanie mentioned that when our health is struggling, we will see this reflected in our hair through our hair thinning loss, which is also so common as we age. I mean, I use Rogaine and I'm not shy to admit it. I want to keep my hair. So long story short, when all the cells are working together and in unison the whole thing, everything works together and it's pretty obvious.

Sarah Milken (01:13:04) - Golden nugget number four following your path, even if it doesn't make.

Sarah Milken (01:13:08) - Perfect.

Sarah Milken (01:13:08) - Sense. Stephanie's life plan. And yes, I say plan in quotes was not linear. And it's a good reminder for us because life rarely goes as planned, and I think that's what makes it so beautiful and natural. Although frustrating at times, Stephanie says that with failure comes an opportunity that wouldn't have happened without it. This is so important because this means there really is no failure. And again, I'm saying that in quotes because with every closed door you're leading yourself to another open door that you may not have explored originally. Yes, failure sucks, but it's also a huge push in the right direction. Embrace the failure and don't be scared to put yourself in the situation to fail in the first place. Say yes to things that you might actually say no to normally. Get into the rain, the arena, maybe don't get your hair wet.

Sarah Milken (01:14:00) - Get yourself out of.

Sarah Milken (01:14:01) - The midlife wedding room. Whatever metaphor you prefer, have the experience be in it and live your life through experiences.

Sarah Milken (01:14:09) - This will lead to so many delights and surprises and glimmers of joy that will eventually end up redefining your purpose in midlife, fulfilling your dreams and just feeling good. The gold is dripping off these nuggets. Grab it, use it. You guys know the three things. First, subscribe to the fucking podcast. Don't just listen to it. One off second, share it with some friends who like midlife shit. And third, write an Apple review writing reviews. Is is so annoying. It's an extra step. But guess what? It really helps the podcast grow. You think your little review won't matter, but it does if you want to do a show. And everyone said my clap doesn't matter, there would be no clapping. You all matter. DM me. You know, I always respond. And of course follow my Instagram at the flexible neurotic duh. Love you talk so.

*Sarah * (01:12:09) - Cells.

Speaker 3 (01:12:09) - Talk and basically just thrive inside of our bodies. She said that one of the most enthusiastic benefits of C15 is the reduction of hair loss.

*Sarah * (01:12:19) - When our hair is growing properly.

Speaker 3 (01:12:21) - This means that our body is operating in such a healthy way. She said that C15 works by actually increasing the energy in our hair cells by 300%, causing our hair to grow. I mean, I definitely need that. And my husband would agree because my sink is constantly clogged with all of my hair that is falling out. Stephanie mentioned that when our health is struggling, we will see this reflected in our hair through our hair thinning loss, which is also so common as we age. I mean, I use Rogaine and I'm not shy to admit it. I want to keep my hair. So long story short, when all the cells are working together and in unison the whole thing, everything works together and it's pretty obvious.

Speaker 3 (01:13:04) - Golden nugget number four following your path, even if it doesn't make.

*Sarah * (01:13:08) - Perfect.

Speaker 3 (01:13:08) - Sense. Stephanie's life plan. And yes, I say plan in quotes was not linear. And it's a good reminder for us because life rarely goes as planned, and I think that's what makes it so beautiful and natural. Although frustrating at times, Stephanie says that with failure comes an opportunity that wouldn't have happened without it. This is so important because this means there really is no failure. And again, I'm saying that in quotes because with every closed door you're leading yourself to another open door that you may not have explored originally. Yes, failure sucks, but it's also a huge push in the right direction. Embrace the failure and don't be scared to put yourself in the situation to fail in the first place. Say yes to things that you might actually say no to normally. Get into the rain, the arena, maybe don't get your hair wet.

*Sarah * (01:14:00) - Get yourself out of.

Speaker 3 (01:14:01) - The midlife wedding room. Whatever metaphor you prefer, have the experience be in it and live your life through experiences.

Speaker 3 (01:14:09) - This will lead to so many delights and surprises and glimmers of joy that will eventually end up redefining your purpose in midlife, fulfilling your dreams and just feeling good. The gold is dripping off these nuggets. Grab it, use it. You guys know the three things. First, subscribe to the fucking podcast. Don't just listen to it. One off second, share it with some friends who like midlife shit. And third, write an Apple review writing reviews. Is is so annoying. It's an extra step. But guess what? It really helps the podcast grow. You think your little review won't matter, but it does if you want to do a show. And everyone said my clap doesn't matter, there would be no clapping. You all matter. DM me. You know, I always respond. And of course follow my Instagram at the flexible neurotic duh. Love you talk so.