Nano Technology Improves Mitochondrial Function and Protects Against Oxidative Stress: 45

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast. Today, my guest is Chris Burrus, and he is going to share with us some really interesting health-related technology. He also has a very interesting past full of both interesting jobs and an interesting health journey. So, Chris, I'll let you get into it a little bit by sharing some of your background and telling people, you know, kind of the lead-up story of how you got to the point you are now.

Cheryl, thank you so much for having— you did cut out for a little bit, but I think this software does a great job of recording both side, so I think we're good. I know that your typical guest has actually gone through a journey. And let me describe my journey because it's going to not necessarily fit in with your typical guest. So, I am, in fact, a guy who now sells supplements. And I never wanted to be a guy who sells supplements. In fact, I believe typically people become supplement persons or guys one of two ways. One of them is they They wake up and they decide that they're going to be wealthy and they decide they're going to do it with supplements. And I have no problem with people being wealthy. I just didn't end up here that way, right? The other is people have more like your guest's journey of they've got a physical challenge maybe of themselves or a loved one and they do the research and they solve the problems like your recent podcast where she actually did all the medical and legal work behind it. Like, that's, that's, that's not me. That's pretty amazing. But, but they, they solve that problem with supplementation, and now they want to save the world. And, and hopefully it doesn't surprise you, I'm not against people saving the world. It's just not how I ended up here. I've been manufacturing this molecule, and we'll jump into this, since 1991, and they threw it in a crazy toxicity study. They actually thought the molecule would be toxic instead of being toxic, the test subjects they gave it to, in this case, Wistar rats, lived 90% longer. And my customers basically insisted that I become a supplement guy. So I know my different— my background's a little different than some of your other guests.

Right. So you probably— were you involved with that supplement through your work in science before?

Yeah. So, well, let's kind of roll back. Like, what is this molecule? If you're watching, I'm holding up a— it's a beautiful molecule. There's actually a book about it called the most beautiful molecule. If you're listening, just imagine a soccer ball where the lines on the soccer ball represent the bonds between the carbon atoms. You have a spherical molecule of 60 carbon atoms. This molecule was discovered in 1985 here in Houston. That's where I'm based. And the 3 scientists who discovered it went on to win the Nobel Prize for that discovery. So a short 11 years, discovered in '85 and published in Nature magazine in '85, and then Nobel Prize in '96. So, it's an amazing molecule. I actually started my company with my business partner Robert in 1991 manufacturing that molecule and selling it to research institutions around the world. Now, we're going to make your audience a little nervous here because we're talking about a supplement. I'm here because I have a supplement that I want to share the research on. And, I'm going to start with saying this amazing molecule is really good in ink, batteries, tires, and photocells.

So that's, that does scare me. I'm, I'm, I'm interested to hear the tie-in.

Well, it gets worse. It'll get worse and then it'll, then it'll get better, right? So they, that's, it's such an amazing molecule. One way that I describe it is it performs as well or better than the current best material in almost every application. And again, in ink, batteries, tires, photocells, uh, it is an amazing molecule. There's a new symbol in chemistry because of this molecule. Molecule. So we're all familiar with the symbol, right, from our email address. So this is kind of how you know you're going to win a Nobel Prize, right, when a new symbol in chemistry starts getting used because of your discovery. Well, it turns out that the void in this molecule, so in that soccer ball-shaped molecule, is big enough for any atom on the periodic chart to fit inside of it. So you have a new symbol, the symbol, lanthanum C60, means lanthanum physically trapped inside of it, not covalently or ionically bonded to the exterior of it, but physically trapped inside of it. So, so in 1991, when, when my business partner and I started the company, all 10 of the 10 most referenced scientific papers were regarding this molecule or fullerene's other, other kind of sister molecules. So That's kind of the definition of a viral scientific discovery. Everybody was doing research on it. Now, how do we go from inks, batteries, tires, and photocells into, hey, now this is a supplement and you might want to consider consuming it? Well, it starts off with this very horrible— they assumed it was toxic. They literally assumed this molecule was toxic for various reasons. It has some parallels with benzene, we don't have modern society without benzene. If you just look around wherever you're at right now and think, okay, if everything plastic just instantly disappeared, well, benzene is the foundational molecule for plastics, many medicines, detergents. Again, we don't have modern society without benzene. Benzene on its own, so not, you know, attached to other components that turn it into plastics and detergents and medicines, is in fact toxic and also a known carcinogen. And because there are some similarities on the exterior of this, this soccer ball cage, they said, okay, this is probably toxic, uh, and so we think we're going to be using it on a regular basis in ink, batteries, tires, and photocells. We need to understand that toxicity study— that toxicity. So they did a study. They did the study out of the University of Paris, and in that study Right, so now this— the bad part's over, it's about to get better. Um, so they did the study. In that study, they gave rats— a group of rats water, a group of rats olive oil, and then a group of rats olive oil with this molecule. And when you're going to consume it, we call this molecule ESS60. Um, instead of being toxic, the rats that they gave the olive oil with the ESS60 molecule, really the, the MyVitalC formula those rats didn't die from toxicity. They actually lived 90% longer than the control group. So, the single longest longevity experimental result in history was born out of a toxicity study. And, that was really the pivot point for my business partner and I to change from happy-go-lucky carbon nanomaterial scientists going down the path of getting into the supplement industry. And, I can talk a lot about how painful that was, how we didn't do it. But you might have questions about some of the science at this point. So I want to make sure I'm not hogging the conversation.

Yeah, I do actually have a question because I think, I think it's going to have some relevancy going forward and maybe, maybe not, but I'm going to ask it anyway. So you mentioned the covalent and ionic bonds. So for people going back to high school chemistry, you may remember that that's kind of how bonds or not have bonds, but how molecules get together and create new elements, I guess, or new—

atoms get together and create new molecules. Exactly. You're exactly right.

Thank you. Thank you for refreshing because it's been a long time. But the question I had was, you mentioned that, you know, normally they attach to the outside to kind of make these new elements. How does it going inside of it? It seems like that's something different. And it makes me wonder, like, what the membrane is made out of. Is it lipid-based? Is it like something around that? Can you explain how it gets in there and why that might be relevant?

Yeah. So, your kind of lipid model is definitely born out of biology, right? The cells of our, you know, the lipid cell walls. It's hard to really kind of share that this soccer ball-shaped molecule is only 60 atoms, right? So, you'll have more than that in just a lipid. Right? And, and you'll have a variation of mole— of atoms in that particular lipid. So, so this is on a nano scale. This is a nanomaterial. And, and so the only way to answer your question, really the way to get something trapped inside of it is to have that something, that atom around when it's forming in the first place. Now, let's talk about how challenging that is, cuz you, you might be wondering, well, if this is, this performs as well or better than the current best material, How come I haven't heard of it? How come we're not using it all the time? And the reason is 'cause it's expensive and it's very expensive to make. We'll talk about the fact that it is actually a naturally occurring molecule here in a second, but let's talk about the reactor that is needed in order to manufacture this. So basically in a reactor, in an inert atmosphere, so that basically means get rid of all oxygen, you're gonna take two graphite rods and you're gonna vaporize those graphite rods. Graphite is one of the hardest materials on the planet to vaporize, so you're actually using local temperatures of the sun to vaporize it. As an example, we have to wear welding goggles to watch this reaction occur, and if we actually just let the sun— let that light shine on our skin, we will get sunburned. It is the local temperature of the sun, so this is a very confined reactor. Out of that reactor, comes only a small— you get a car, we call it carbon soot, and only about 10%, we're getting really technical here, so we might change course here. You get about 10% of that material is a whole gamut of molecules called fullerenes. Carbon-60 is the most abundant fullerene. And of that 10%, so now we're just narrowing down and down, about 80% of that fullerenic material is carbon-60. So, it's a very inefficient process. And before we shift gears, just note that it is in fact a naturally occurring molecule. If you take a candle— so, we've all been exposed to this molecule that we call ESS 60. You're just not really aware of it and they only discovered it in 1985, Nobel Prize in '96. If you take the soot from a candle flame, and typically you do that by holding a cold metal plate over the candle and it collects a black soot, you will get parts per million or parts per billion of this ESS 60 molecule. Again, so we've all been exposed to it. In order to manufacture larger quantities, you have to go through that process that makes it extremely expensive. And, what you want to do to go back and answer your question, if you want something trapped inside of it while you're vaporizing those graphite rods, what we would typically do is drill out the graphite rod and have the presence of lantanum or any other thing that we wanted trapped inside of it so that it's in that environment as this stuff is, as the, the cage is forming, that soccer ball cage is forming, and that's how you get it inside.

Hmm. Interesting. So how, how does this relate now to health? Because you were saying that now, now you're thinking we've got this very scary thing and you just described this very scary process of how it's made. So I think, I'm guessing, but based on the name of your company, we're putting some vitamin C inside of there or something for the nanotechnology. So maybe you can take it from there and and explain the relevance to health at this point.

Yeah, absolutely. So, I think, well, the C in MyVitalC, so that's the company name, the brand name, actually stands for carbon. And so, there isn't any vitamin C. Now, interestingly, let's roll back to that study where in that study, the rats lived 90% longer than the control group. And people often will ask, well, how does— how's that working? What's going on? And First, I like to kind of throw out there that scientists significantly smarter than me are going to find out the exact mechanisms. We understand that it's probably happening at a— the benefits are happening at a mitochondrial level, right? So, if you think about every cell in our body has mitochondria in it. Mitochondria is called the powerhouse of the cell. And, we know that this ESS60 molecule can get in there and participate in the processes that the mitochondria goes through in order to create energy for the cell. And, and that benefit is probably what's happening on a, on a much higher level. You think about these rats that live 90% longer and you think about the medical community's thought process around aging. And they— the current medical theory is aging is an oxidation and an inflammation process, right? So we're oxidizing our bodies, we're inflamed, and that's causing problems in our bodies. And that's why we're aging. It's not surprising that our, our product ticks both of those boxes. And I'll, I'll tell you what I mean. In fact, in the oxidation one, it ticks it even better for, for a couple reasons. And I'll talk about that. First off, there's a peer-reviewed published study out there that shows that our formula, this molecule, this ESS60 molecule is 125 times more powerful than vitamin C. Right? So you're talking like, we all know vitamin C is good for us, at least it gets rid of scurvy. This is 125 times more powerful than that. And there's actually an ad hoc study that's out there on the web showing it to be 172 times more powerful than vitamin C. And we're going to take it even to another level, right? It was known in the '90s that this molecule, the soccer ball-shaped molecule, could hold 6 electrons, that's 6 negatively charged particles. Reactive oxygen species, those are the ones that cause oxidation in our body, are negatively charged molecules. So, this can hold 6 of those. And, what happens typically is as the mitochondria is going through the process, and remember that's the powerhouse of every cell, as it's going through the process of making ATP, that's the energy source that the cell uses, it creates reactive oxygen species. That's kind of like the exhaust in your car. And it's not good. Our body, because we're consuming it and have it available, will send in an antioxidant like a vitamin C, D, E, and it'll neutralize that reactive oxygen species and get it out of our body. We all know that our bodies can get depleted of, of antioxidants and all sorts of components. So if it's a situation where this particular group of cells, their mitochondria spitting off reactive oxygen species, and there's no readily available antioxidants, then what happens is those reactive oxygen species run around. I, I describe it like bumper cars doing damage in the body. When you have this ESS 60 molecule, its ability to hold on to the reactive oxygen species prevents it from being doing this bumper car damage and it just holds it. And then when the body's able to replenish the vitamin C, D, or E,, it can then come in, attach, and neutralize that reactive, reactive oxygen species and get it out of the body. So we call this molecule the boss because it buffers oxidative stress, and that's different than, you know, interacting with it and neutralizing it because it also sacrifices itself. In this case, the ESS60 molecule is staying resident and working to make sure that those reactive oxygen species aren't doing damage. So, that was a very long story for part 1 of the— it's an antioxidant, right? And, it even works better. The other is inflammation. And, we have to be very careful when it comes to inflammation because the FDA has very specific guidelines. What the FDA does allow us to say is that our product helps with inflammation at least as it's related to exercise inflammation, right? So, we've all had a a tough workout or a day we walked really long and we woke up and, and we felt the previous workout. That's inflammation. Our product helps with that inflammation. Uh, what the FDA doesn't allow us to say is that it addresses any other kinds of inflammation because those inflammation, the, the FDA says are exactly parallel to diseases and the FDA has not evaluated our product. Our product's not intended to treat, diagnose, cure, or prevent any disease. And just to wrap up the, the inflammation piece, our product fits perfectly in with an anti-inflammatory diet. That's a diet associated with the Blue Zone people. That's a diet, and, and the Blue Zone people are people who tend to live longer, have less incidences of stroke, have less incidences of heart attacks, and we fit in that diet perfectly.

Well, that's good cuz that's a lot of people listening to this podcast are very interested in not only anti-inflammatory diets, which keto, low carb, but also Mediterranean-style keto, that kind of thing. So, it's a great tie-in. And, the question I'm about to ask you may or may not be able to answer because of what you just said about the FDA, but let's take it. I'm not going to mention any kind of disease process. Yeah. Let's say in your body, one of the main places that we get inflammation that's very problematic is in the endothelium of your arteries. Which can cause whatever down the road, but it, it's based on inflammation and it kind of damages some of the cells. So even if you take it outside of the arteries, if you're just looking at various cells in your body that can be damaged or mutated by inflammation, would you, I mean, I guess this, this molecule, if it's in your body, theoretically it could go around and attach and get any of this kind of inflammatory process probably out. And I don't know if you're able to respond to that or not, but if you can add anything to that.

Yeah, I could. And, and, and, and it will, it will be with some tap dancing. Let, let me first just say, I think the distinction that the FDA— I understand why they make the distinction, but the distinction about handling exercise inflammation as opposed to other inflammation is, is not a valid distinction, meaning the things that can take care of exercise inflammation. Inflammation is inflammation. And so if it helps with inflammation, then it helps with inflammation. But the FDA has decided that we can only say it helps with exercise-related inflammation. So I hope that answers like some—

Yes.

—some of your question. And I can share that— Yes, perfectly. And then, I'm gonna be very vague and we'll get into— I'm sure we'll talk about testimonials and whatever and I'll do another disclaimer at that point. But, what I can say is what you're describing and really in almost every modality of health, we have testimonials that people are seeing improvements. And I've got to be honest, and maybe we can talk about this, never wanted to be a supplement guy, actually resisted it for 4 years. We resisted it to the point that we added not for human consumption to our scientific products. Like, we just didn't want to get into the supplement industry because if you think about what we were doing, we're selling carbon nanomaterials to research institutions around the world. When I sell it to a research institution, whether it's a university or a private research organization like IBM or something, the first thing they do is they take our, what we sold them, this black powder, they give it to a research assistant or a grad student and they take it back into their lab and they test it to make sure that what we told them we were gonna sell them, we did sell them. Well, that's not how the supplement industry works, right? Like, people buy stuff and sometimes they buy it off of Amazon, which I typically do not recommend. And we can, we could talk about that. And, but they don't have an HPLC machine. They don't have the lab to test it. And, and when we were in this debate as a company from the publishing of the story of, of the study, the peer-reviewed published study in 2012, really until 2017, I found we, we would debate like once a quarter. My business partner was like, do we wanna do anything that with this? We're getting 2 to 3 calls a week. And our, our conclusion was no. And we kept not for human consumption on our labeling in that time period. I found a peer-reviewed published paper that said 50% of the supplements that are on the market don't have in them what they say they have in them. And this is not where my business partner and I— like, that's not our pedigree. Our pedigree is like, well, that's not an option. Like, if 50% of the products we send out the door to scientists, researchers around the world didn't have in it what it said it have in it, like, we would be ruining research across the globe on this viral research Nobel Prize-winning molecule. That's not our mindset. And finally, what turned us is latter part of 2017, a guy with a really big YouTube following, he's in the Bitcoin space, he started talking about all the benefits he was getting taking the product on a daily basis. And our phone went from ringing 2 to 3 times a week to ringing 10 times a day. And that's when we look at this and we made this Well, we really asked ourselves two questions, right? Okay, this is— I mean, we're carbon nanomaterial science scientists. We're also entrepreneurs. This has gone from being like a potential opportunity to like, it's screaming and, you know, being thrown in your face opportunity. And we said, we asked ourselves two questions. And the first is a moral question. Are we comfortable selling it? I take it, my wife takes it, everybody on our team takes it. By the way, not a requirement to work here. Like, you don't have to take it. Yeah, we're comfortable selling it. And our customer— we have like 500 5-star reviews on Google because our customer service team loves the product and they love delivering value. So, that's the first one. More question, I am comfortable selling it. And then, next is the FDA and the FTC. You got to do a lot of T-crossing, a lot of I-dotting, and we're doing that. And that's when we really kind came up with MyVitalC and brought that into the marketplace.

Well, this is already selling me on needing to get some of this because I love all things biohacking. And I think the more and more people talk about— I'm so glad that you mentioned how its effect on mitochondria because that in, especially in the keto space, has been a huge point of discussion lately, just how do we uncouple mitochondria? How do we create more of them? And that's leading to a lot of anti-aging and longevity stuff, which is really what I'm very focused on. Tons of cancer in my family. People have heard me talk about this on the podcast before, and so I'm always looking for something that could possibly make me live a little longer or be healthier in any way. I'm all for it. So once you decided to finally— sorry, go ahead.

You've probably read Dr. Gundry's books like Plant Paradox and Longevity Paradox. Yes. Yeah. Unlocking the Keto Keto Code or something, Decoding Keto or something. That's a phenomenal book. Actually, I'm still in contact with him. I was on his podcast about 2 years ago, and he likes our product. He really likes our product. He's recommended it to some kind of high-power people that he is connected with. And yeah, some of the examples in that book, he really breaks it down to a great level, and it's just really smart. And I love what he says, right? I want you To Die Young at a Very Old Age. Yes. It's so perfect.

And, by the way, for all the listeners, if you haven't read that book yet, it's very great. I would actually love to have him on the podcast as well at some point because I just think what he's been talking about lately is very cool. Anyway, so you decided to take this jump into supplements. And, I would like to go back to one thing that you said because I think this is just a little bit of a good education for people, what you said about supplements not actually having what's in them. So, the things that I have been told by— I had a friend that was a pharmacy doctorate and she said, always look for GMP seal, which is good manufacturing practices. And then, always look for supplements that have third-party testing and not just on the things that they're putting into the supplement but actually a third-party test on the end resulting supplement. The final product. Yeah. Yes. Is that something that you would agree with or do you have any further things, tips for people? Because I love to give practical tips on this podcast about how, if they are going to take supplements, how to ensure that they're actually getting something that's high quality.

Well, I think, I think you've got some good things. And, and, and just to share with you, we manufacture everything here in our scientific lab. We are not GMP yet. We are working on that process. So, I agree with it wholeheartedly even though my lab isn't there yet. We actually, do follow all the guidelines. You just got to go through a certification process. So, a lot of hoops. Yeah. More T's and more I's. Like, that's never-ending T's and never-ending I's. I also agree with third-party testing, and I'm going to share that they also need to have internal testing, right? So, one of them is I think you need to do the research to understand the people, the leadership, This is bad news, right? Like, you really do need to dig in and understand the company that you're working with, right? Because the problem— there's no need for outside testing if they are testing inside unless you don't trust them, right? If they're lying about the test, that's why you want the third-party test. I think in general, you can get a feel of, are these people the type of people to lie? Because Here's what we found. Carbon-60. So, if you look about this molecule is carbon-60, right? And we've trademarked ESS 60 to keep consumers safe because what we found is we took 22 of the carbon-60, and I call that industrial carbon-60 products out there, and we took 22 of them and we tested them. And not unlike the peer-reviewed published research I read, more than 50% did not have— of the products did not have in them what they said they have in them. Some of them didn't have any Carbon-60 at all. And, and so I think it's— the situation is we're a lab who's been working with this material for 30 years. We have the equipment. One of the big things we found is at a smaller scale, so in a small Erlenmeyer flask, you had to mix this for 2 weeks. By the way, that's kind of unheard of in the supplement industry. Usually things dissolve pretty quickly. It turns out that this ESS 60 soccer ball-shaped molecule takes a long time to dissolve in different oils, olive oil being the one that you can get the most to dissolve in. And we can talk about what— why we recommend that ultimately. When we went to larger batches, because we have an HPLC and the know-how, we started testing it and realized we actually had to go to 3 weeks. There's something about the fluid dynamics. You're not getting as much exposure to this small amount of the carbon-60 powder, really the ESS 60 powder. And so, you actually have to run it longer. That's probably a lot of why these other companies that are out there selling industrial C60 have low concentrations is because they don't realize they needed to go from 2 weeks to 3 weeks. So, we go to 3 weeks, we have a high concentration. So, you really do need to kind of understand the company and research. I like this example. Like Amazon is kind of scary in the supplement world. And I'll, I'll share this. People rely on Amazon reviews and they should for things like a phone because it works or it doesn't work for things like, I don't know, a pressure washer for your driveway, right? Like you get reviews and like it showed up and it shot water out at a high pressure. That's a good sign. But what is a 5-star review for vitamin C mean, right? Like, what does it really mean? What we know it doesn't mean is they didn't even weigh the capsules, right? Like, nobody's weighing these capsules. Nobody's giving a 5-star review and said, I weighed them and they were all exactly 1 gram plus or minus 10%. They, they didn't— they definitely didn't crush them and take them to their HPLC and confirm that it was ascorbic acid. That didn't happen. They probably didn't even count the tablets in it, right? As long as the bottle wasn't empty, like, I kind of joke and it's sad, but a 5-star positive review about a supplement probably just means Amazon harassed them before they died and they decided to leave a review because there really is no value in a 5-star review supplement on a supplement in Amazon. By the way, we are in Amazon so that we can serve our customers. A lot of people have Amazon Prime. They want to get it quickly. By the way, out of our office, we ship the same time that Amazon Prime does. Just not over weekends. We've had people complain on Monday, "I placed my order on Saturday and it's not here." Yeah, we're not Amazon. People's Amazon—

people's expectations nowadays are much different. But I think there is some benefit to ordering it from the source as well, just because there are counterfeit products on Amazon. And I think when you're actually a verified business on Amazon, that's a little different. Um, that's why you should always look for the store that has like the company name on it instead of just buying the cheapest one that you see on there.

Yeah, I think you and I agree. One, don't trust the reviews of supplements. And two, the cheapest— I mean, you're putting this in your body. I'll tell you this. This is a funny story. So I get an email and it's this guy saying, hey, I'm taking product A, right, which was not mine. And I'm thinking about taking product B, which was also not mine. What do you think? And I wrote back and I said, well, first let me tell you a story about product A. We used to sell Carbon-60, industrial Carbon-60, to that company. And this is in the early days, and we didn't know what they were doing with it. We were just selling the product. When we realized that they were mixing it in oil and giving it to their customers, and that what they were purchasing was an industrial grade, we refused to sell them any more product. But they're still in business. So they refused to come back to us and buy the appropriate product to be putting into a supplement. They're still in business, so I'm glad you're leaving them. And then I said, by the way, if you trust me with the answer to B and you're going to put this in your body, you probably should just buy from us. Like, that's the thing that makes the most sense. So, yeah, definitely true that you need to do the research and understand that you trust the leadership, that they're honorable people. Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

And that's why I'm pretty picky about the stuff that that I take myself for sure. And then anything I put on the website or people that I just decide to become affiliate partners with, I usually have some kind of conversation like this. I try the product myself. I look into, is it GMP? Is it tested? All that kind of good stuff. And so, you know, luckily, if you can find a few good sources like that, somebody that you trust that's already done the work for you, like your company or somebody else, then you don't have to constantly be vigilant. But that's kind of hard to find. So, it is important to be on the lookout for that stuff.

It's, it's like, it's good news and bad news. The good news is that you can find out and the information is available on the internet. The bad news is it does take some work. Like, you know, it's not, it would be so nice to just say like, oh, I'm going to go on Amazon and I'm going to look for 5 stars and that's going to be the best, safest product. But that's, that's not true, right? That it just isn't true. Yeah.

And hopefully, you guys out there be careful with that stuff. But so, Chris, I want to be respectful of your time. And before we get too far gone here, I want you to talk about what can people expect if they decide to take this special molecule and what are the types of things that you've been hearing people have success with to the degree that the FTC will let you anyway? Yeah, exactly.

So, what first, let me do a disclaimer and I like to repeat this because it really is like the guidelines are good to drive people, to drive companies to do more research. And, we're actually doing research, we're in the process of of first recreating that original Rath study. We've got a couple more hoops to jump through before we can get that started, but we're the first company to step up since 2012 to actually recreate that study. That's how the scientific process works. We also do have plans to do trials, but those are dauntingly expensive, and so we've gotta build up to that point. Any testimonial that I share is absolutely anecdotal. And a lot of people will say, "Oh, anecdotes, you dismiss them." And the reality a lot of people don't realize is anecdotes are actually part of the scientific process, right? It starts with a hypothesis, but the hypothesis is born out of anecdotes. They aren't things that you— like, if scientists didn't go, "Oh, I heard this anecdote about this thing and now I want to test it." then the testing would never start. So, these are all anecdotal. We're not claiming that this is gonna happen for you, but we're sharing what has happened with others. And then also, when I give a testimonial, it's either about myself, somebody I've had a conversation with so I can track back to them, that traceability is really important to me, or somebody that I have an email with. So, those are the only ones. I don't— even if my business partner comes to me and said, "Oh, this amazing thing happened for this customer." I don't share that testimonial because I don't have that direct contact. That's typically how I operate. And, also just finally, again, the FDA has not evaluated our products. It's not intended to treat, diagnose, cure, or prevent any disease. Our most consistent testimonial, and frankly, this could explain everything else because I mentioned earlier, almost all modalities of health, like whatever it is that you're trying to address in your body, We have testimonials that of people coming back and saying it's helped in that case. And it could just because of this, our most consistent testimonial is people take it in the morning, they report mental focus and energy during the day, and then better sleep that night. Couple things, sleep is good for your mental, physical, and emotional well-being. If all our product ever did, like, like just get rid of, let's, because maybe they're associated, but let's get rid of antioxidants, get rid of inflammation at least as it's related to exercise. If all it did is help you get real sleep, and we're not talking about prescription sleep, we'll talk about that in a second, then that would explain everything because sleep is the most healing and restorative medicine you can possibly take. Also, it's free. So, that's our most consistent testimonial. Now, the reason What's really interesting, I'm not aware of any supplement that you take in the morning and positively impacts your sleep that night. I'm aware of things you can do. You can exercise in the morning and that will positively impact your sleep at night. You can get exposure to the sun and get your circadian rhythm in line with the rising and falling of the sun, and that will help positively impact your sleep. We're a direct contrast. There's a book, and you've probably read it called, and if you haven't, you should, called Why We Sleep by Dr. Matthew Walker. I've heard of it.

I have not read it.

It is— you, you, you, so I'll describe it for you and then you can make a decision.

No, I'll definitely read it.

This is enough already. It is the most terrifying book about sleep. I call it the Freddy Krueger of sleep books, except it scares you to sleep. It doesn't scare you out of sleep. Because it's 25 years. Dr. Matthew Walker's an amazingly intelligent and probably one of the best speakers. He, he literally will do, an entire 25-minute speech with no ums or hems or haws. It is an amazing speaker. And he's probably good. I'm sure there's a TED Talk from him out there, and that would be a good summary. But what he talks about is the $2 billion sleep aid industry. And these are prescription drugs. I wish I'd gotten my dad off of them right away. I just didn't have this knowledge at the time. So, it's a $2 billion sleep aid industry. It's prescription drugs. They give them, right? You take them right before you go to sleep. And what they do, we'll get a little technical here, is there's a chemical in our body called adenosine. And actually, it's the A in ATP. The A is adenosine. As adenosine builds up in our bodies throughout the day, it causes us to desire sleep. So, you take this prescription sleep aid. It relieves the chemical pressure of adenosine. And so, you wake up without the desire for sleep. And that's got to be really refreshing. If you have wanted sleep for 3 weeks and haven't gotten satisfactory sleep and then wake up and don't want sleep, that's got to feel good. The problem is that these prescription drugs knock you out. They prevent you from getting the NREM sleep. They prevent you from getting the REM sleep that actually do the healing. And so, they're very detrimental. Our product, you don't take right before you go to sleep. You take it in the morning and it helps you sleep that night. So, that's our most consistent testimonial. I don't know if you have any kind of questions around that.

Well, as a person who previously took sleep aids and I looking back, I didn't know the things then either that I know now exactly what you just said. And yeah, it's not a good road to go down. So, I think any time that you can find a a natural sleep aid that works, but it still allows you to get restorative sleep, I'd be all for it because there's so many people nowadays that really struggle with sleep issues. Thankfully, knock on wood, I'm out of those woods, but I know there are plenty of people still there. Yeah.

Well, good. Glad to hear you're out of that because sleep, I mean, we all know that it's good for our mental, physical, and emotional well-being. I mean, things that we don't know is there are scientific ties to physiological impacts. We do this— the largest human study on sleep deprivation actually occurs twice a year. It's called Daylight Savings Time. And it is a fact, and it is across all the countries that participate in Daylight Savings Time. When we lose that hour of sleep, heart attacks go up by 20+%. And we gain that hour of sleep, heart attacks go down by 20+%. It's actual physiological differences that are impacted by sleep. And I think people, we have this hand waving in our society of sleep is so absolutely important. You gotta get your 7.5 to 9 hours of sleep opportunity every night unless there's something else to do. Right. And you're right. And that's, we're the only species on the planet that forgo sleep for no healthful purpose. Any other animal that's missing sleep is because it's mating opportunity, it's running from a predator opportunity, and it's food opportunity. That's the only reason every other creature on the planet will miss sleep. And we're going dancing. I love to dance, so I don't know where I sit on that particular subject, but yeah, sleep is really important and that's our most consistent testimonial. And then, I can get into— I'm trying to think of what might be interesting. So, we have a distributor here in Houston. She's our largest distributor in Houston. Her name's Gwen. And, I did a video with her. And, she originally ordered the product for her dog, right? She was just like, ah, she had no intentions of taking it. She heard about it. She ordered some for her dog. She noticed such a profound difference in her dog that then she started to take it. And, I like to pause at this point because With any supplement, part of you, and you're probably wondering this, I wonder how much of it is placebo effect. Well, the great things about pets is there is no placebo effect, right? The dog isn't going, I got the little dropper of oil this morning, so I'm gonna be, you know, more vibrant and I'm gonna be running around like a puppy again. No, they either feel that or they don't. There's no placebo going on. So, she noticed this profound difference. She started taking the product and I did a video with her and she was like, yeah, when in that video she says, when I was 3 months in, had you asked me if I noticed anything, I would've initially said, no, I haven't noticed anything. And then I stopped and I kind of took stock of my life and I'm like, well, I'm actually working a little bit later, right? I'm waking up earlier. I was never a morning person before. And then arguably the worst testimonial for a supplement ever, I cleaned my garage, right? So, I think that's the worst ever. But actually, cleaning your garage means something, right? Whether it's the emotional load of not wanting to tackle it or it's just the energy. And again, if you're getting better sleep, you've got the energy to tackle stuff. I can tell you, embarrassingly, I have to admit that I used to take 2 naps before noon. On Saturdays and Sundays. And the way this would work is I would wake up. I have twins. That explains it. And when they were little and cartoon, right? Yeah. Right. So, we would wake up in the morning, we would put on the cartoons. I'm laying on the couch. They're physically sitting on top of me for nap one. By the way, somebody pointed out what brilliant parenting that was because the little ones can't get away without waking you up. Right? So, that was nap number 1. Go downstairs for breakfast, resume the position, nap number 2. And, if we weren't out of town or having a very particular plan, I was taking 2 naps before noon both Saturday and Sunday. When I started taking this on a regular basis, I was still in the position— my twins are much older now, so that doesn't happen anymore, but I was still in the position I would be there and like, well, I don't want to watch cartoons and I don't really need to fall asleep. So, I would get up and do something like clean my garage. So, that cleaning the garage really means something. And I want to add one more testimonial that relates to the potential kind of emotional baggage that cleaning the garage might represent. I once sent some product to a lady in the UK. She was an influencer. She was going to provide me with a video. And in her video, she started it with, "So, I'm in the middle of quitting smoking." And I was like palm to forehead.— if you ever known anybody to quit smoking, that's not a great time really to even interact with them, let alone get a testimonial about a product. But she went on to give a good testimonial about the product. And one of the things she said in it is, "I found that I have a longer fuse with my son." And that really goes to, again, the emotional ability to handle that emotional weight of Children can be challenging. And again, if it's just the sleep, then it could be just—

Well, I think this goes a long way into describing how some of these things work. Like you said, you didn't know the exact mechanism, and it's similar with ketones, except I think Dr. Gundry is onto something with the whole mitochondrial uncoupling thing. And I've tried to explain to people before that experience of whether you're in it naturally or you can take exogenous ketones, not the quite the same thing, but you get some of those effects. And it's like the way I describe it is it just allows you to make better decisions, but that's because you're better rested, you are in a better mood, you are experiencing just these maybe subtle, like you said, sometimes you don't even realize they're happening until it's a few months down the road. And then you're like, oh wow, I have been accomplishing a lot more and things like that. So I think it, you know, if the mechanism maybe doesn't matter as much, but here we have this information, it's like basically why not just try it? And see how it works for you and kind of keep track. I like to have people when they start taking some of these things to actually keep a little diary, just note before they start taking it, note a week or two's worth of sleep, what time they get up, what time they went to bed, how restful was the sleep, how'd they feel the next day. And then as they start to take and only do one at a time, people, only take one supplement at a time because then you don't know which one's working. But take it and then keep track of the same things and just see if you start to notice some patterns because it might be subtle, but then you have to decide, "Hey, is that worth it for you?" And then, also think, put it in perspective of what are the possible long-term effects of this because if you're getting months and months and months more better sleep, your body is repairing itself better and potentially impacting longevity in that way as well. So, anyway, for whatever all that's worth, but when you test a new supplement, try to only add one new thing to your routine so that you can really get get a good idea of what's working.

Yeah. I think that's a good strategy. And, there's a parallel. I think I'm working on a blog post because we've got a guy. His name's Anthony Kunkel. He's a 2-time US ultra running champion. Now, this is like crazy running. He— when he's peaking up, he's running 120 miles a week. He won a US championship in a 20— was it a 50-miler and 100K, which is 62 miles. So, really running. And, my first conversation with him was really interesting because I said, "I initially tried the product and I didn't really notice anything. And then, I tripled the serving and I was like, wow, this could be the difference between somebody having a hobby at running or having a career at running." at running. So, that's a 3% to 5% difference in actual performance. So, he's on the product regularly. He's taken triple servings versus everybody else. But, his testimonial was really unique in that he said, "I don't believe this helps me with exercise recovery. I believe it prevents damage in the first place," which I've never heard anything like that before. And he says, the reason I say this is because on the last, you know, 5 miles of a 50-mile run, a phrase you don't hear very often, where leg strength and stability were previously a problem, they're no longer a problem. And so he's— I've actually working on a commercial with him because it's just such a profound difference. And so people ask, well, can this work for me? Well, it can work for elite athletes. And elite extreme athletes, like 50 miles is extreme. And it can work for the average Joe. One of our fastest— people ask how long will it work. Gwen said, "Well, 3 months. I didn't notice until I actually slowed down and thought about it." And then, I've got one video testimonial. The lady sent it to me at the end of the day. It was like, "I took it this morning and I didn't even finish my cup of coffee." And, if you're a you're a coffee drinker, potentially addicted to that cup of coffee, 1 or 2 cups of coffee, somebody saying, pointing out that they didn't finish their cup of coffee is pretty substantial. So, it runs the gamut. I'll leave because I don't know if we're going long. I have plenty of time. But, one testimonial I want to share is I am the geeky scientist that you see or hear in front of you. I have a spreadsheet of my migraines and I was trying to figure out what was causing my migraines. This goes back to 2014. 4 or 5 migraines per year. Trying to figure it out like, was it diet? Was it drinking? Was it too much exercise? Whatever it was, I haven't figured it out. In 2018, when I started taking this regularly, I didn't get a single migraine. Now, you couple this— my, my wife went through menopause pretty early and one of the things that she was challenged with was with severe headaches like migraines. And I always remember the number 9 because she was— she had a medication where she could only have 9 per month. So, her 10th migraine, her 11th migraine, which she did experience, she just had to suffer through. She is my spouse, so it did take me a long time to convince her to try this new product, but I finally got her to try it. And, she's down to 1 migraine a month or 1 every other month. So, we do know that this crosses the blood-brain barrier. But again, all modalities have— we've got testimonials related. I've had personal conversations with people related to every modality of health in the body. And, if we are in fact helping the mitochondrial function, if you took a collection of of physicians who are mitochondrial experts and you ask them, "Hey, would it be good to have a reactive oxygen species buffer in the mitochondria while it's going through the process of making ATP?" All of them would raise their hand. Not a single one would keep their hand down, right? And, it's a buffer as opposed to antioxidant just because antioxidants can get depleted, buffers hang around and continue to do their job. If that's what's driving it, then that's why we're getting testimonials across all these.

This is so amazing, Chris. I just want to thank you so much for sharing all this with everyone because I think it could be amazingly impactful and potentially like just, ah, that's amazing. But anyway, before, so I do have to, I wish I had more time because I do have another guest coming on, but because I could let you go on with this forever because I just find it so fascinating. I love to chat about this stuff, but in light that we have to go, can you please, like, just finish with where people can find you? Are you active on social media channels? How do people get in touch? Where do they find the product? All that sort of good stuff.

Yeah, well, and before we do that, I'm going to make an offer because I've done this before. I'm happy to assume— do you have any pets? I'm happy to send you some product so that you can try it. And what I've done in some cases, your podcast, so I'm not inviting myself, but to schedule something out so that we could revisit and talk about, hey, maybe it's 45 days out and you can share how you've doubled your life in 45 days.

Well, I'm getting ready to go through a move and lots of stress. So, anything that could help potentially make me sleep better and stay sane would be much appreciated.

Sane. We get that. We get that testimonial a lot. I think we probably need to be careful because you said sane, and that's probably a medical condition. Okay, it was a joke. It was a joke. It helps their emotional— their emotional balance. But yeah, so we can talk about that quickly off air. I've actually made a unique URL for your audience so they can go to myvitalc.com. /hng, and that's for the Heal, Nourish, Grow. So it's myvitalc.com/hng. When they go there, you can find our products. We recommend the Olive Olo product. It's got all the research behind it, and it's got the highest concentration of the ESS60 molecule. But we do also offer avocado oil, and we also offer MCT. They have a little bit lower concentrations. I actually use the MCT for like a Bulletproof Coffee thing every morning. So, I like that. And then, I take our olive oil product. Every one of these products, you can get on subscription and we've got a 25% discount for subscription. Don't worry, you can cancel it at any time. I mentioned 500 5-star reviews earlier. Our team is not trained to talk people out of canceling their subscription. They're there to help you facilitate whatever you want to happen with the product. So, I just want you to take advantage of that 25% discount. I've also created a coupon code. It's the same HNG. That'll get you another $15 off of your order. So, go try it. I'd love to hear the testimonials and then you and I can talk about— Okay. Sounds wonderful. So, thank you again.

And well, if we do this little experiment, we'll have you back on either way. I always— we can extend this conversation and see what other great things you've learned down the road. But thank you so much for taking the time today, Chris. I really appreciate it.