The Essential Fat You Didn’t Know You Needed

Our cells, whether you're a dolphin or a mouse or a human, that we need at least 0.2% of the fat in the cell membranes to be C15. C15 is a sturdy fatty acid that literally serves as bricks like armor in our cells that helps keep them resilient and strong. A couple of months ago, we published what's called cellular fragility syndrome, the first nutritional deficiency syndrome to be discovered in 75 years. C the same combination of changes happening in people. We think as many as one in three of us have C15 deficiencies, which are resulting in the cellular fragility syndrome, which then leads to this, you know, whole combination metabolic syndrome and fatty liver disease.

Welcome. Stephanie Von Watson. You have a gorgeous name.

Oh, well, thank you.

Welcome to Rooted in Wellness. We're going to dive into everything fatty 15 today. I've had my eyes on your brand for such a long time now, so it's like, such an honor to have you here. But for background, how we typically start this episode is really identifying what it means to be rooted in wellness. So this podcast is all about feeling rooted in yourself, in your health, and also in your inner wisdom to heal. So do you have any practices that help you feel rooted in your life, your body?

There are things that keep me rooted that I feel rooted. And they might sound a little goofy, but, like, one is even just being at home with my family. Mona sitting on the couch under blankets is kind of like my optimal ideal of just being rooted. And I really think that more symbolically, right, it's just remembering, like, what's most important to your life. And, you know, for me, being with my family and being at home is. Is huge. Definitely with regard to, as a scientist, being in and tapping into nature. And because I'm a super nerd, tapping into nature, are analyzing data that are coming from nature, but trying to figure out, like, what secrets it is that they have to unlock. That is like my harmonious zone is just being able to do that. So that's just kind of a quirky, quirky side for me. And then cooking, I think that the ability to life gets pretty crazy, as you have known, and that a lot of times you end up eating out a lot and doing things that aren't necessarily well grounded with earth and even just doing the simple things like in our kitchen, as far as cutting vegetables, the sound of cutting and the smells that come from those vegetables that just for whatever reason, those that helps keep me rooted on just a general basis. And then, of course, eating helps you eat healthier.

Too 100%. Cooking as a family, I think, is a practice that we're just losing the wisdom behind it and the healing regard to it and the therapeutic aspect. So when you're at an ashram, they're playing really spiritual music in the background. They're blessing the food. There's laughter. When you're cooking, they're infusing it with energy.

Right.

It's like you take on energy from the food. So I love that you brought that up.

Yeah.

Okay. So on the flip side, I work with a lot of people who have these practices that might look like wellness practices, but they're checking them off their list every day, like meditation. Check. Breath, work, check. They're not even dropping into the feeling of it in their bodies, or they just, you know, they give up. They've drifted so far away from feeling their best. Do you notice when you drift, what are some things that make you feel uprooted from your life and who you are?

It's. I feel the most uprooted when I become obsessed with sticking to the schedule versus what's important.

Wait a second. As a scientist, don't you love a schedule?

Our military background, we're all about science, but I think that it's so easy to become consumed by the work schedule that we forget with regard to. And it very quickly uproots life and wellness, as, you know, you've experienced and have been so smart to overcome. And so that's a big driver of just. And it's a constant reminder to myself of just saying, you know, being able to take a moment and reconnect and realize what it is that's the most important because we only have so much time in life, so. So, you know, being able to keep that prioritized. But it is hard. It's a daily, conscious effort.

It's pulling back.

Right.

And like, what? Just saying the words. How does it feel to live life on autopilot?

That's right.

It feels gross.

Yeah.

There's so much beauty. We've got to pull back and look up. So I love that you brought that up. No one's actually said that because I think so many people in the Western world really thrive on a schedule. And what's funny is at the ashram, they. They use a daily schedule to the point where it feels like torture. You do the same things at the same time every single day. However, there's also time that is scheduled for giving, for study, for purpose, for being. Right. It's just. That's part of it.

Yeah.

Yeah. All right. So Something that I love about fatty 15. Not only the incredible science behind it, the fact that this is a supplement that's derived from the incredible wisdom of nature, but now that I understand more about you guys as a brand, is that you are so mission driven. Like, this isn't just a new fad supplement that we are seeing online. There's literally a mission and a book behind it. So let's dive in. C15, the first essential fatty acid to be discovered in over 90 years. Isn't that crazy?

It's crazy.

So share a little bit about your journey and how you got into health and nutrition and why did you become so interested in omegas?

Right, right. So this whole thing was an accident, which is amazing. And so I am a veterinary epidemiologist and, and was working for the World Health Organization CDC. And I was recruited by the Navy about 20 years ago to help look for patterns of health and wellness in older dolphins in San Diego. And I thought, well, gosh, that would be incredible to do. And my focus at the time when I was working at the CDC was really on infectious disease. It wasn't looking at long term wellness. And it was really because of the dolphins that basically evolved into this passion for long term health, almost whole body wellness. And so was brought over to the Navy. They've taken care of this population of about 100 bottlenose dolphins for over 60 years. They live in the open ocean, they live in San Diego Bay. When I first went there, I didn't know how I'd feel about dolphins in the Navy. And when I went there, they live in the open ocean, they live up to 60 years when in the wild, the average age is 20 of average duration of life is 20 years. So they live two to three times longer at the Navy. And they reproduce, they do all the things that healthy populations should do. And as they were getting older, we were realizing that about one in three of these older dolphins were looking like aging in us. So. Which includes high cholesterol, chronic inflammation, fatty liver disease, even Alzheimer's disease. How isn't that great? Exactly. So all they eat are fish.

Exactly.

And they exercise and they're not eating ultra processed foods. And that question that you just asked, look on your face. Right. That's exactly what was coming from the human health world. And so while my primary job was to take care of the dolphins, it incited this question from the human health community of like, how is this happening in dolphins? Because it's not being attributed to a lot of the things that we attribute, you know, these chronic health conditions in humans. So we were very lucky in which we were able to use this advanced technology called metabolomics. And we're able to look at thousands of small molecules present in their blood, their archived serum throughout their whole life, as well as their all fish diet, to figure out which small molecules predicted the healthiest aging dolphins. And we thought for sure it was going to be omegas because all they eat are fish. And, and it ended up, it wasn't an omega, it was C15. This odd chain saturated fatty acid was the highest predictor of the healthiest aging dolphins. And that started this journey that's, you know, it's been 10 years in the making.

So what was it specific to their diets then where the C15 was so relevant?

Right. And so what was that was fascinating was that, okay, all they eat are fish. But when we actually looked in, the dolphins have an option of five different types of fish and some of the fish had C15 in it and some did not. And so it was based upon the fish that the dolphins were being fed or what they were preferring drove, created different populations with different C15 levels. So those who loved the mackerel and the herring had higher C15 levels, less likely to have these diseases. The ones that ate the, the capelin and the squid had no C15 in it. So we actually kind of had this unknowingly different diets that could help very easily and cleanly point out which components of these diet choices, even among these five types of fish, helped determine a healthy, slower aging dolphin versus a sicker, accelerated aging dolphin.

Incredible. I want that to go on the record because the resistance that I've had over 15 years in this work, the three things that I ask clients to eat more of, mackerel, herring, sardines.

No, you already knew this. This is just validation, Validation.

This is like the incredible aspect of modern day medicine, right? So here's something in nature that is incredibly bioavailable for these dolphins. Would you say, like, is it a modern day health problem that these dolphins now are then starting to get sick just like us?

It's a great way to put it. So this showed up, we started seeing this syndrome pop up where it was this insulin resistance, fatty liver disease, metabolic syndrome that we're seeing, like you're saying at the same time we're seeing this increase in people.

How does a dolphin have metabolic syndrome?

Exactly. So they are, and that was the question. And so that's where we Learned that nutritional C15 deficiencies are causing metabolic syndrome. So we've A couple of months ago we published what's called cellular fragility syndrome, the first nutritional deficiency syndrome to be discover in 75 years. That now is we publish being which is also relevant to people in which we're seeing the same combination of changes happening in people that are there's a subset we think as many as 1 in 3 of us have C15 deficiencies which are resulting in the cellular fragility syndrome which then leads to this whole combination metabolic syndrome fatty liver disease. Fatty liver disease didn't exist non alcoholic fatty liver disease or massled they're going through a brand a rebranding right now is the name but fatty liver disease non alcoholic. The first 30 cases were identified by Mayo Clinic in 1980. Today one in three people globally have the disease. It popped up in the dolphins at the same time. Wow. Yeah.

And these are diseases too where like in seemingly healthy people from the outside they're now showing out like metabolic dysfunction. Fatty liver for people who are non alcohol drinkers even. Right?

That is exactly right. And it's showing up. A 1 in 3 people who have fatty liver disease are thin. And so in fact it's the people who are thin that have this disease are more likely to have the most aggressive forms of this disease in part because doctors aren't looking for it. Right. Because there are certain things that they're looking for for people who have heavier weight. They're not looking for it. Who people in people who are thin.

So can people test for this?

They can. So they can. So with regard to fatty liver disease it's usually caught from standard panels of CBC and chems but liver function tests and they'll typically the first thing they'll see is a high alt, AST and GGT for cellular fragility syndrome. You take a step back even further. Our cells are all of our cell. We're made of cells completely and every one of our cells are protected by this cell membrane. And the cell membrane's made of fatty acids of lipids. And what we've learned is that our cells, whether you're a dolphin or a mouse or a human, that we need at least 0.2% of the fat in the cell membranes to be C15. C15 is a sturdy fatty acid that literally, literally serves as bricks like armor in our cells that helps keep them resilient and strong. If we have too little of it, our cells become fragile, become weak, sets up lipid peroxidation, chronic inflammation and in fact an entirely new form form of cell death called phoroptosis which was discovered by Columbia University back in 2012. 10,000 papers written Mona on phoroptosis. Nobody's been able to explain what causes it until now. And now we're realizing C15 deficiencies are the driver for this syndrome.

So, you know, there's been a focus on omega 3 fatty acids for so long and I think there's probably like what, hundreds of thousands of studies that are done on how it lowers oxidative stress, lowers inflammation, benefits for brain health and brain function. So we see the similarities. You're talking about the changes that have happened in the modern world. Where did we originally get C15 from as humans?

Yeah, it's a really important question. So for us, our primary source of C15 is dairy fat. So you know, when you look at diets that we're supposed to have, like it's, if we need to go back, it's whole dairy fat. That is by far our primary source of C15. It's such a reliable source that C15 has been used for decades as a measurement of how much dairy fat we eat. Nobody knew it was active. Not only active, but essential, meaning these rare criteria of a nutrient that our bodies must have to stay healthy. But then what did we do? We took whole fat milk. Yes. We moved to non fat in 1977 and it was dietary recommendations that came from Congress for all Americans and that. And they said the best way to decrease those saturated fats are to stop drinking whole fat milk and stop eating butter. And then we doubled down on it in the 1990s for then the pediatric associations, again with good intent, then moved to including children like infants and saying that, you know, once they moved it, once they're two years old, they should move off of whole fat milk. And so it's, we need to learn as the science comes out and it is now indisputable that C15 is a healthy fat that we need. Our discovery of essential fatty acid was back in 2020. But wonderfully independent teams in Canada and now France have independently evaluated and restated that indeed this is the first essential fatty acid found in 90 years.

Incredible. And I think you said learning, but also unlearning. So even at my kids school, the only milk that's offered is non fat, non organic milk. So basically sugar water with hormones that they're feeding kids every single morning, which is terrible. And I was laughing earlier because coming from my dad's Indian background, it would be a joke growing up because he thought if you added milk to anything that he was making it healthier. And I just, I wonder where that comes from since milk is such a big part of an Ayurvedic lifestyle also.

Yeah, for good reason. For good reason.

But this isn't to say today that we should all go out and start, you know, pounding gallons of milk. Right. Because the quality of the milk that we're drinking today is very different than what our mothers and grandmothers had access to. So this is where supplementing is really key. And I think something that's important to point out is you said C15 deficiency. If it's a deficiency, deficiencies can be healed.

That's right.

Right.

That is right.

Like other vitamin and minerals and stuff like that. So to go back to the question though, like if you want to see if I have a C15 deficiency, is there a specific lab that I can go and get on an omega panel?

There is.

So there's.

So C15 is increasingly included in fatty acid panels, which is, which are typically like omega panels. So when you go get tested or you have people get tested, just check and make sure that the fatty acid panel includes C15 in it because there are ones available now. And then we partnered with Genova Diagnostics and there's an at home blood spot test that people can get their C15 levels measured, which is really helpful. So I use that one to measure my C15 levels and yeah, so it's a good tool to be able to understand where are we at and are we deficient and then to be able to at least get to where our cells can be re stabilized and which we know then will slow our biological aging and get us back on track. And then The Navy invested 10 years of research funding to say, can you isolate this ingredient and, and optimize it so that then we can actually leverage its longevity enhancing benefits. What it's all meant to do from nature so that it can be even better at doing the job it does. And a big part of that is because in milk and dairy fat, even though I do think children, the best way for children to get C15 is at least getting back to having them getting whole fat milk. But you're making a really good point, Mona. Where agricultural practices have changed.

Be careful. Yeah.

We know that cows fed grass have twice as much C15 in their milk than cows fed corn. We don't necessarily know what cows were fed. And so there's a lot of things outside of our control. But as we get older, if again we look back at nature, all mammalian babies drink milk, but as they become adults, they don't Keep drinking, drinking milk. So I think it leads into that. Dairy fat has 400 different fatty acids in it. Only 1% of those fatty acids is C15. And over 40% of the fatty acids in there are pro inflammatory fats. Which is good for a short term, but for taking for what we hope to be 100 plus years of life, a big reason why the Navy said, gosh, can we find a way to optimize this so we can leverage C15, the power of nature, C15 throughout our entire lives.

Incredible. It's funny just the timing of this conversation. I was off dairy for a really long time. Now I'm understanding just from like a gut health perspective, eliminating massive food categories isn't always the best thing for us. So I brought a little dairy back in and me personally, I haven't felt any different side effects or anything. So, you know, I would say avoid being a creature of habit. To that point though, when I'm at the grocery store, I will only see one, maybe two brands that will say grass fed organic milk. Right.

Eat that. Yeah.

It's like if it's not a declaration on the other ones, you've got to look into the source, where it comes from before you start consuming. And obviously a lot of people, the majority of the population as adults, they might not be able to digest dairy or lactose properly anyway. So this is where supplementing would be so essential. So what are you seeing as the key benefits from the studies that you've done, the science that you have? Have you done clinical studies?

We have. What do you see which is great, or I should say more importantly, others have independently. So, you know, once we moved, we made that initial discovery which was association. Right. In the dolphins of better health, we were seeing the same picture was coming out in people. So people with higher C15 levels, lower risk. And these are giant studies, like thousands of people followed over decades, higher C15, lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, heart disease and even certain types of cancers. So that association was shared between the dolphins and people. So then we moved Pure C15 into the lab. We worked with Dr. Ed Dennis, who is head of editor in chief for the Journal for lipid research for 15 years. So like the expert, right? And we took this hypothesis to Ed and he's like, chances are the whole fatty acid world didn't miss this discovery. And like a dolphin veterinarian came along. C15 has been known since the 1950s, but he's like, the dolphin angle is interesting. So here are the studies that should be done and so we did those studies, and with each studies, like, does it have. Is it bioactive? Is it safe? Are the concentrations those that match what we should have in our body and is it bioavailable? All of these things? And it just kept passing every test. And at the end of those studies, we realized that C15 does a lot of things. It's called a pleiotropic molecule. So it means. It's another word is promiscuous. So it gets around, does a lot of really good things. So it strengthens our cell membrane. It has no double bonds, so it's particularly resistant to oxidation. So that's a big role. It also activates specific receptors like ppar, alpha delta, ampk, which is at the heart of the longevity pathway and helps with glucose control. Akt, it inhibits mtor and it inhibits jak stat. So. Right. So these are really impressive mechanisms of action that it has that. And then we were also able to show that it repairs mitochondrial function. It has this way of basically skipping over the part of what where mitochondria breaks down. So the long story short being as an essential fatty acid, it plays a really important role in doing a lot of things that then translate to, like, things that we care about. So again, slowing our biological aging at the cellular level. And the result is, given all these activities is it taps into the longevity pathway to truly. It's meant to extend and preserve the length of our health for as long as possible. The results that people see long term is that we see improved metabolic health. So with regard to being able to again, which makes sense from ampk, improved glucose control, decreased insulin resistance, and decreased cholesterol and inflammation. When we started looking at this in the lab, helping with fatty liver disease, decreasing improving cellular stability, but also decreasing fibrosis in the liver and really remarkable functions. That then moved to Jeff Schwimmer. Dr. Jeff Schwimmer, he's the leading physician for kids with fatty liver disease. And Jeff read our paper in Dolphins talking about dolphins having fatty liver disease. And Jeff reached out and he's like, I don't think it's the same disease, but interesting, like, send me some liver samples like that you have archived. And so we did. Jeff looked at the liver samples and he sent an email back and he's like, we are go. Because this is the exact same disease as I'm seeing in the kids. And he's like, what is going on? It's not sugar. It's not like for the dolphins. Like, so we were together, we've been working independently over the past 10 years, where then he showed kids with higher C15 have less fat in their liver. And that then led to a clinical trial where he gave young adults graduates from his pediatric patients who have a history of fatty liver disease. He gave them fatty 15 for 12 weeks. And he was able to show that if we got them up and over this critical threshold of being not C15 deficient. So importantly, two out of three of the participants at the beginning were C15 deficient. Got them up and over not being C difficile, C15 deficient. They had stronger red blood cells, which we're anticipating, so stronger cells and importantly lower ALT and asd. So it was lowering their liver enzymes. So now Jeff is, you know, he's on helping to lead. He's like, just like you were saying, Mona, like, if a large subset of people with this syndrome is because of a deficiency, the upside of it is fixable. And that's our urgency. It's how do we get C15 back through agricultural practices through, you know, a lot of different ways, which includes supplementation. It's part of the solution.

I couldn't agree more. I think what's important about everything you just said is this goes far beyond the omega conversation. Like you just listed the top alarming rises in disease and inflammatory markers within the body that are causing us to age faster and get disease prematurely. So this is a way, way, way bigger conversation than that to bring it back in. To really focus on that though, you know, how can we tie fatty 15 then with omega 3? Should one supplement with one versus the other versus the other? And maybe before we do that, I think people understand the concept. Oh yeah, mega 3s are good for you. But I think we're at a point in history where they're so crucial because of our modern day diet. Right. So in Ayurveda, we believe in a balance in Omega 3, 6 and 9 as there should be. Right. But you and I both know that when we're looking at people's labs, there are, they're out of balance. People tend to be way higher in omega 6 and omega 9 arachidonic acid also, which is fueling inflammation, fueling aging also. So in a world where we can't just go out, no one should buy an omega 3 fatty acid from a Costco or a drugstore because chances are they're garbage. The quality is really, really low. They could be rancid. Also. We have to think about the oceans also. But in a world where we know about omega 3s how does fatty 15 fit into the omega 3 conversation and the ratios that we need to optimize?

Yeah, this is really good conversation. So when we talk about omega 3s that they are essential, right? Especially alpha linolenic acid, but that feeds into DHA and epa, the ones that we know well. And not everybody's at converting that ala into epa. So getting that is important. So getting all three of them are important. Omega 3s are polyunsaturated fatty acids. And so this means that we nerd out just a little bit that their chemical structure means that they have double bonds. Anything that's unsaturated has a double bond. A polyunsaturated has multiple double bonds. And double bonds are great because they help with flexibility and it's why they're oils at room temperature. It helps make our cell membranes flexible. C15 is like the yin and yang of the fatty acid world. So where there's an odd chain saturated fatty acid, where their job is to have no double bonds, and their job is all about resilience and helping cells be stronger. So just like you said that there is a balance that's needed between having the oil, you know, ones with the double bonds polyunsaturated with the saturated inner cell membrane, so that they're flexible and resilient. So there's also a balance issue with regard to C15 and odd chain versus even chain saturated fatty acids. So C16, C18 opposite pro inflammatory, associated with higher risk of type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, heart disease. And they're present at much, much higher levels like we talked about in foods. So one of our calls to action is to be able to understand what's the A ratio that we could get, what's the ideal ratio we can get and what foods have where there's a C15. Kind of like you have your Omega 6 to Omega 3, you have your C16 to C15 ratio, where you wanted to get that C15 up as high as possible, right? You know, because you have the same thing pro inflammatory, anti inflammatory fatty acids. So yeah. So we need. So this discovery of C15 as an essential fatty acid be like saying we discovered vitamin A. We wouldn't say stop taking vitamin C. Right. So getting your fatty acids as all of your essential fatty acids are important. And Mona, your point with regards to the quality. Right, let's go there is important. And it's because just like you said, studies repeatedly show that over that half reliably show that at least half of the supplements on the Shelf, Omega 3 supplements, have gone bad that they have measurable lipid peroxidation and rancidity. That is not the fault of the manufacturers. It's just. It is super fragile molecule and it's fish oil. Right. It's. It is in the, you know, and, and that is a big reason why when we developed this with the Navy, we could have put butter in a capsule and called it a C15 supplement.

But we didn't do that.

It's like the pure ingredient. Because all of these studies that we talked about is with pure, fatty. Pure C15, which is a free fatty acid, is bioavailable because it's saturated. It doesn't go bad, it's a powder and so it's stable. It's just a lot harder to do with our omegas. And so the limitation is coming from nature, but ensuring that you have the absolute highest quality is really important.

I love that you said that. So I've been taking fatty 15 for almost about a month now. I didn't stop my Omega 3 just because I talk about the importance of them every day and in conversation with my clients. Would I love people to be eating a fatty fish three times a week?

Yes.

If they lived in Alaska, it would probably be a lot better.

Right, right.

The quality of the fish that we're getting today, you know, from mercury levels and the plastics in our ocean and stuff like that, I don't know that eating more fish is necessarily a cure anymore. So then we go to omega 3 supplementation and some, you know, omega 3 rich foods from flax and chia and stuff like that. And it's really hard to get quality supplements and you have to consider the rancidity. And it's not a type of supplement that I would buy in bulk to have sit and oxidize on my shelf long term either. It's funny enough, Omega 3 was the first supplement air quotes that my mom started giving me as a kid though. So when she caught on to the benefits of Omega 3 for her rheumatoid arthritis and she knew as a kid I wasn't eating a lot of fish, she had this lemon flavored, you know, Omega 3 Antarctic. Yeah. So that's my association with it always, but I'm a big fan. Then just merging the science from fatty 15 and everything that you've mentioned with high quality omega 3 fatty acids and the benefits that we all need. We live in an inflammatory world and specifically for longevity. Now, you know, you mentioned MTOR. Dr. David Sinclair talks a lot about this through fasting. A lot of people Have a hard time fasting.

Oh yeah, right.

Or doing other modalities that are going to help with their longevity. So fascinating studies. And do you feel like now obviously you guys are getting a lot of eyes on fatty 15 and the C15 molecule? I'm assuming there'll be more clinical studies, more data that you'll have relevant to make more accessible?

Yeah, absolutely. And so what's been great is that since so first there were all these studies coming out with association of humans and C15 better health, at the same time we were coming out with the dolphin discoveries and then over the past 10 years really there's just been an influx of people of prestigious research teams all over the world have been working with C15. So@discoverc15.com is where all the peer reviews. So There are over 100 peer reviewed studies now from teams throughout the world demonstrating C15's health benefits. And so that's where the joy has really come from because making a discovery is great, but it's doesn't hold unless other people have done the work independently of you and in fact purposely skeptical and skilled do the work and publish their results, whatever they are and let the story roll out and fold out over the years. And what's happened over the past 10 years is just an extraordinary amount of literature supporting this really as a molecule we need to be able to support our long term health. So studies are there. There was another clinical trial that was done in Singapore that was with women with fatty liver disease. It showed it lowered LDL cholesterol, it improved the gut microbiome. So as far as increased growth of Bifidobacterium adolescentis, which, that microbe itself has been shown to extend longevity in worms. So we'll take that with a grain of Salt. Extended by 12 days, double the lifespan of a worm. So but just really important studies on the longevity front being able to show like things like people with a higher C15 have when you use these epigenetic clocks. Again this is a completely independent team showing that people with higher C15 have slower, have, have a younger biological age than their chronological age. So when you put all the pieces together, that's why Dr. Nick Schork, who's head of NIH's longevity consortium and he's been doing that for 15 years, he's like, I've seen every longevity molecule under the sun. And he's like there's nothing that has as much data and support to support our longevity than C15. So it's been validating and helpful to really our job is to follow the data and the data just keep pointing to. We just all the mid nature like, like, thank you, dolphins. And you know, and what's wonderful is by helping dolphins is how we made this discovery and that it just, you know, it's just, it's wonderful saying that we should be doing more of that, like helping other species. And as we're helping out different components of Earth, whether they're plants or animals, that we have an opportunity to learn from them and give back to them, which is wonderful.

I pray the future of medicine continues to look to nature to heal. We already get so many drugs sourced from nature itself. Right. So if we just like pull back a little bit more into all of the other healing aspects. That's my dream job. Let's declare that's my dream job.

I love it. Done, Jeff.

Yeah, exactly. Next. Personally, as a woman, I'd love to hear, like, how have you felt since taking it? Did you notice any physical changes?

Yeah, so. So long term. So I am seeing like, yeah, my blood, my blood values are awesome, are fantastic, which is great. And I do attribute a lot of that to fatty 15. That was not always the norm. So it's doing what it should be doing long term. What was a surprise mon, is when I first started taking it. Within the first few weeks I was. Had a calmer mood, I was sleeping deeper, I had less appetite in between meals and my joint pain went away. And I was like, strange like this, there's gotta be a placebo effect. And we started seeing that our customers were reporting the same thing. And so we launched in 2021. We've had over. So today we have over 85,000 active subscribers. And reliably, when we ask people at week two, are you feeling any benefits? Reliably, it's kind of that combination of benefits that half of people report. So then we're like, okay, what's happening here? So we actually, the research has continued this whole time. So we went back to the dolphins and the data and we found a second molecule. So when we looked at molecules that were predicting healthy aging dolphins, C15 was at the top, but there were 100. So there's a lot still to be discovered. When we went back, we saw another one that was really high on the list. It had C15 in it. And so it's a metabolite. So our bodies take C15, use it to make the second molecule called pentadecany L Carnitine. We'll call it pdc and pdc. When we put that to the test, it ends up being the second ever discovered full acting endocannabinoid. So it fully activates CB1 and CB2 only the second. So our bodies were, you know, you think about, we have these receptors in our body not for marijuana. Like that's not why we have them, because dogs have them.

They're not doing any potato edibles or.

Anything like that, but we have them. And the endocannabinoid system plays such an important role in whole body balance and homeostasis and sleep and pain management, all of those things. And Jeff's study also showed that when people took more fatty 15 that their PDC levels increased. So then we're like, ah, okay, now this is making sense. That and that may differ. Our genetics don't drive for the most part because it's an essential fatty acid almost all of us can use and put C15 to work. But it may be that genetics may differ upon how well people can put, can make pdc.

Right.

So anyway, that was for me, I thought those were that we call them delights and surprises. We don't encourage. Like we don't say take fatty 15 to sleep deeper.

Right.

But boy, when people take it and they sleep deeper, they're thrilled. Which is why our retention rates are just unheard of in, in the supplement industry. And I think it's just a big part of it is, it's really something we're meant to have. It is a pure molecule, you know exactly what you're getting. It's exact same molecule that are doing all these tests. It's just much more likely to go to work and provide these delights.

And I never even considered that. So as a woman, for women listening, we know typically week three, week four of our cycle, there might be some disruptions with our sleep, especially in the later perimenopause menopause years. I looked at my sleep score this morning when typically there would be a big drop and I had an hour and 51 minutes of REM last night and an hour and 20 of deep. This is like unheard of for me. I don't know the direct correlation, but I'm smiling ear to ear because this is the only thing in addition that I brought on like that could be different. But when this airs, I will definitely post a panel with my C15 markers and the changes because that is just fascinating and to think about. Like you just, you've covered so many topics. If we can take a supplement and I always say like try to tune into your body and how you see and Feel the shifts. Obviously you've been so hyper focused on this, but if someone's going to really tune into doing this or using this as a supplement, tune into the feelings of your body, the symptoms that you have, the subtle shifts. I think people really look for alarming changes. Like I didn't feel the difference. Instead it's the subtle changes over time as you rebuild your numbers that you might feel something that's a little bit more personalized.

That's right. Yeah, that's absolutely right. Yeah.

So from my understanding then, you know, we mentioned that C15 and Omega 3s are extremely beneficial. Would you say there's any other supplements that are co factors for C15? Is there anything else that you're taking even from a personal standpoint?

Yeah, I. Fatty 15 is the only supplement I take. I do, I do eat fish. So. And, but the questions that you have with regard to mercury and all of those things are really important. So that's my primary source of omegas. And I also have a hard time swallowing like all the pills, pills and I just couldn't, I couldn't do it. And then once I heard about that as far as the quality. So I go to, to food sources as much as I can for Omega 3s. I do think there are other supplements. I think it's what we're learning and as we're engaging experts in the nutrition field and in fatty liver disease and aging longevity, that we're all understanding that C15 is essential is like a part of that stack, that health stack that everybody needs, including kids. Right. So we need to age healthily from the very beginning. Right. And then from there we build from there. So I think it's really people trying things and seeing what works for them. And so I do think, even though C15 plays a role in mitochondrial repair, I do think that things that supplements that help with mitochondrial function are a big plus. And I think the things that help with muscle, helping to ensure that muscle buildup and things like creatine are also a good selection. But again, it's very, like you said, it's very personalized based upon what people need.

I love that you said that. Yeah. Because we hear about so many things that there is the science to back it, but I think you really have to personalize it. I take a lot of supplements because one of my greatest goals is to be hiking with my kids when I'm 90, 100 years old. So longevity is a really important part of that. Mitochondrial function is a really important part of that. My gut health is A really, really important part of that you brought up earlier, the integrity of the cell membrane, though. How is that crucial to how we're feeling and how we're aging? Because that really appeals to every part of the body.

It's. That's exactly right. And it's just like all. It just makes sense. Right. So we. This is just entirely new area that's being appreciated with regard to cell strength. Like, we need our cell membranes to stay strong and fight off lipid peroxidation, because in the end, that's what takes us down. So the fact that we're. This discovery of C15 and its primary role, along with all these other wonderful things, but probably the most important and unique is that it literally strengthens our cell membranes. There's actually a theory, it's called the cell membrane pacemaker theory of aging that was introduced by AJ Hulbert back in 2005. And what he showed. He's from Australia, and what he showed was that the longer a mammalian species longevity was, so he went from mice and walked away to dogs and cats and elephants, you know, people and elephants. And he looked at their fatty acids in their cell membranes, and he showed the more sturdy the fatty acids in their cell membranes dictated how long longevity in mammals.

Fascinating.

And he also showed that was directly correlated to how much lipid peroxidation they had in their bodies. So AJ Hobart showed. Has already shown, like, you were like, gosh, how do we. How do we live longer? And I would happen to add a tap into longevity on longevity. Evolution has already figured it out. Like, how do humans live longer than mice in the first place? We live 37 times longer than a fellow mammal. Let's start there and then, like, optimize it from there. So it's really a lot of exciting work being done. And it just. We know that this is what it does. We know that it physically goes in there. It's such a simple mechanism that isn't like a kind of cross your fingers and hope and pray that it taps into this mechanism and works for you. Like, it's just something that every mammal and even there are bacteria that leverage C15 to survive stronger.

Yeah, you're talking about cell integrity. And the only thing that I'm seeing is we're thinking of is the integrity of our gut lining. Right. So if there's one cell that's protecting us from having a strong immune system and, you know, integrity to our gut function or gut microbiome, I can only see the correlation between this and our gut microbiome. And the more that more studies evolve based on gut microbiome and our energy, our mood, our digestion, our immune system, how we age. Like.

Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up because whole other groups are looking at C15 and the gut. And just in the last six months there have been three papers published showing, looking at mouse models of inflammatory bowel disease and colitis and gastric ulceratis. And they're all finding that in these models that have leaky gut syndrome. So. Right. So they have these just an impaired gut lining because the cells aren't healthy, that C15 improves and fixes the gut cell lining and it stops leaky gut syndrome. And that that can help explore, explain like a lot of its benefits. And even more importantly, or just as importantly, is they're finding that not only does C15 help healthy gut microbacteria grow. Like, you know, we talked about Bifidobacterium, but a lot of healthy gut microbes that we've said, hey, if you have these gut microbes, you're healthier. They're finding that the reason why several of these bacteria, three of them so far, the reason why they're healthy is because they make C15.

Wow.

So they don't make enough to help us maintain the healthy levels, but there's this baseline background level that. So it's a crucial role. You're absolutely right. That the gut is. The gut is the heart of our health. Right.

Ancients have known all along. I love that you brought that up. Are there specific foods that you avoid with everything that you know? Is there stuff that you cut up from your diet?

I try to avoid as much. I try to minimize sugars and minimize trans fats based upon those things. I don't shy away from cheese and I love my flat whites in my coffee. So with whole fat milk.

50% of my clients just fell in love with you.

Yeah. Sardinia, where they have three times higher C15 levels in the rest of the world. The high, the high longevity zone in Sardinia. And they get, they have, their C15 levels are so high because they have local goats and sheep and they make their own. They're grass fed and it's mountainous grass. And mountainous grass actually results in animals having even higher C15, which is amazing. And the cheeses they make are hard cheeses. And there's. Their cheese is pecorino and has, which has two times higher C15 than others. So, you know, there are ways we can just again kind of tap into, you know, we don't all live in high longevity I know, sounds like a dream. But, but it means that if we went back to nature, the whole Sardinian culture is meant to survive in tougher times. And you know, their, their diets reflect that.

These conversations are so powerful. So especially coming from a doctor with your lens, with the science, when we can relate all conversation around healing back to the sources of our food and how if we take ownership over, maybe you're going to go out today and only buy grass fed milk or grass fed cheese or grass fed, you know, animal products. By simply making that decision and being firm on it, we're sending a message to the food industry. The food industry automatically will have to source more grass fed products. Those grass fed animals then benefit from actually having a life outdoors the way that they should and optimizing their health. Like it's the cyclical impact based on one decision. So I love that you brought that up.

We have that power.

We have that power. Right.

And that's a big part of our movement is just saying, even just having the dairy industry report the amount of C15 and C16 on their products and it will drive demand. I will purchase and like you said, grass fed will have higher C15 in it. So there are simple things we can do that can have an immediate benefit to us and like you said, but also be able to ladder up to have big changes.

You got it.

Industry wide.

It's part of a holistic decision. And another reason I ask that question too is because when something sounds so, so great and the science is there, it's like, wow, okay. But you cannot supplement your way out of a bad diet or a poor lifestyle.

That's right.

So, you know, making a decision to really focus on your health and longevity with high quality supplements that are science backed comes with the decision to also, you know, nourish yourself like you love yourself, heal your gut, be mindful of your like all the foundations of stress and over, you know, I can just speak personally from all of my clients who maybe do an elimination from dairy after they heal their gut, they can reincorporate dairy and they tend to be just fine or if it's the right type of dairy.

Right?

That's right. Yeah, that's right.

That's amazing.

Yeah. And funny. My kids, my kids have never liked milk. Isn't that crazy?

It's mine too. We have a 16 year old boy. Yeah. And as soon as he got past like two, he's like, I'm done, I won't drink milk.

My kids will pick the cheese off pizza. It's the most bizarre things, like they're those kids at the party.

Party.

And I grew up on milk. Like my dad put milk, as I said, in everything. So. But they will do a really great grass fed organic yogurt. Oh, is lovely, right?

Yeah.

So they're getting dairy from some source, which by the way, with yogurt also, I think I've only seen one brand that will say grass fed on the front, so look out for that. Also, the source really, really matters. So that's amazing. How long does somebody typically take to see, I can imagine, like, you know, the quality of their digestive health really matters. But from your studies, how long can people expect to see a difference?

So we usually say three to six months. And we encourage people to go get your baseline blood labs.

I'm going to add this in before you start.

Right. And then three to six months later, go back to your doctor and get your checkup. And that after reliably taking, you know, fatty 15 every day. So. And that's where really people not only do our customers come back and say, oh my gosh, here's my blood work. I'm so excited. But the doctors are like, what are you doing? And whatever it is, keep doing it. And that actually drove our healthcare provider program was because physicians were seeing what was happening in their patients and they're like, I've got to learn more. What a wonderful organic way for it to be building it out. And now we have lots of physicians now who are just seeing the benefits happen with their patients in the way that again, just following the data and the cleanliness of what the dolphins had to teach us, we just had to listen and pay attention.

That just gave me goosebumps. Witnessing nature and what we can learn from nature give me a sense of what you guys are expanding on. So you're so mission focused. This is a movement. Ultimately, what I'm hearing from you today, what, what's in the works?

Yeah, this is absolutely a movement. So we create, you know, when we created the, the supplement with fatty 15, we called it like at first we're like, are you crazy? Like you're calling a supplement fatty 15? We're like, we're owning it. Like, this is a mission. We, this is going to force a conversation around fats. Let's also evangelize and like neutralize the word fatty so it doesn't have to be a bad word.

Like totally. It's a great word.

Right? It's so. It's a great word. So we started with that, but really it was the Supplement's meant to be an awareness tool to help understand. They'll talk about C15 to start, talk about new changes in nutritional recommendations. USDA guidelines today, the active ones today, they say 161 times saturated fat in a negative to avoid it 161 times in 165 page document. They're not wrong because there are bad sessions, but they're throwing out the baby with the bathwater. And so we need. We're trying to help force this discussion so that this movement can keep going. Like we said, recommendations with regard to C16 versus C15 ratios in our diets, how can we get it back? Find the foods and put pressure on the industry for foods that have optimal C15 in them. So that's a big part of our movement. Our supplement, like we said, is part of it. And then also being able to get it as an ingredient back into the food supply. We're understanding that children, that the amount of C15 a baby gets is dependent upon the amount of C15 mom has. And if mom has less C15 in her milk, the less goes to baby and that that infant, the more C15 they get, the better their body growth, the better their brain development. There's a study in France showing that these kids who have higher C15 have better cognitive development at the ages of 3, 5, and 6. Most infant formulas have no C15 in it. And I mean, for me, I was at the mercy of infant formulas because, you know, I got about three solid months in. And then it just. It just didn't. Didn't. I tried really hard and there was still part of it, but there was. Infant formula was part of, you know, Ben's life. And so being able to understand at the earliest stages how to get to see. So all of this is part of it. And we're part of us having this conversation is a big part of this movement.

I think we have to get really loud about it. You know, there's this tendency for, you know, we don't want to be alarmist. A lot of people, they don't want to get angry because what does anger do? But getting angry is actually really important because what I see happening right now, even with the awareness on, you know, kids need good quality fats. The amount of processed foods that are in our children's diets today is through the roof. It is out of control. The level of inflammation and toxins that they're exposed to in a classroom at a school is higher than I've ever seen in history. So even if they were born with the right levels, I can imagine over time, if they're exposed to more of these inflammatory oxidative fats, then they're just going to get depleted anyways. So, you know, like anything else, you want to build that resiliency within the body and making sure that they've got it. That's consistent from childhood to university and adulthood and beyond. Which is why most more parents, all parents need to know about this now. So I'm with you. Let's keep advocating. I'm so gosh impressed with everything. I was so excited to have you on today.

Yeah, it's been great being here.

So to wrap things up, I would love to know, you know, we have some rapid fire questions. What are in your mind, what are some of the most common mistakes or misconceptions that you see women making with their health?

I would say that not enough people, including especially us women, appreciate that you can be overfed and undernourished and that sometimes when we talk about reducing calories, we need to realize we have to be very conscious of the nutrients that we're getting, the appropriate nutrients. And Ozempic is feeding into that story. Right. Where eating less, you lose weight. But we really need to be very aware of making sure that we get the right nutrients. Not just C15, but all these other essential amino acids, vitamins. Because otherwise very quickly we're going to see issues. Even vitamin C deficiency, Scurvy's making a comeback.

Right.

So it's like, let's not go backwards there. So I just think a appreciation not just of, oh, I'm eating too much of this, but also just being just as aware of what am I not getting enough of. And just increasing your awareness of all of those essential nutrients that are important.

I love that you brought that up. Sometimes we go to the grocery store, most times on autopilot, we might find a brand that we think is good and all of a sudden, you know, the ingredients over time change. Maybe the company was purchased by someone else. I did an audit the other day, which I haven't done in a while, just on cheap sugar and the sugar that was added into things like yogurts or maybe a smoothie mix or a protein powder or whatever it is. And it adds up so quickly. Like before I even got to lunch, there was like 25, 30 grams of sugar that were added.

Yeah. And you're done.

And you're done. That's it.

Like, that's it. Like you already had your.

Exactly.

It's like your lunch.

So really own in on like Looking at the ingredient labels because things change. And. Yeah, if you want to audit the nutritional profile that you're taking in, you gotta look. What's one way that women are making health too complicated?

I think that we can get overwhelmed with all the things that we're supposed to be doing, which is an active thought process. And I think that one thing that is easy to simplify, that everyone could do today, is making sure that we take. You just take time to just stop and be alone in silence in a room every day, not just before you go to bed, but that you carve that time out. And being in silence, away from the screens and the phones and the. Is, for me at least, is incredible, is healing. But it also just helps my mind reset. And it's just. I know that you appreciate all of these things, right? Because. Yeah. So silent, quiet time. But for yourself, I love that.

I think a lot of us have the answers within us. We just don't know how to listen.

That is right. And then when you do that, the right things, the important things really start, and you learn how to practice it. You know, the right things really start popping into mind.

So do you have an ancient recipe that you love, Something that's nourishing for you?

Yeah. Hot baths? Yeah. That seems like that is a critical essential. And when you go back and you look at the history of hot springs and hot baths and how they're used for remedies, like going thousands of years back, it's still something that I personally feel and is critical, essential. We lost our tub for a couple of months because fixing up the home. And I felt it like it's. For me, it's. It just allows me to calm down, but it also allows, you know, blood circulation. And I won't go into the details of all of the different components, but for me, it. That is an ancient healing therapy that.

I literally said this to a client yesterday. I said, have you ever thought that your bathtub, filling it with water is you literally stepping into one of nature's elements to have her hold you?

A great way to put it.

Like, if we pull back a little bit, that's exactly what water is. Whether it's the ocean or a lake or a stream or your bathtub. That's right, the same thing. If you had to pick something about modern medicine that excites you, what would it be?

The use of modern technologies, like we talked about metabolomics and dolphins, the use of modern technologies and advanced technologies that have been traditionally used for drug development and discovery are now being used increasingly in nature. And so that I think there is no way that our discovery of the first essential fatty acid in 90 years, that that means that. Oh, and it was found. And there's not going to be another one.

Right.

That's just the technologies are here now that I think this is the beginning of a renaissance of new nutritional discoveries that let's leverage these advancements to be able to like, turn ourselves back to nature and figure out what else. What's gonna, you know, what's gonna be the next.

I have to tell you, in India about 10 years ago, I went to a spice plantation and there was a girl there, and the T shirt that she was wearing said, in nature we trust.

Oh, I love this.

It's like, gosh, if doctors just understood that too.

Yeah, it's safe, effective, leveraging what we've evolved millions of years around. I mean, it's just. And like you said, some of the most effective drugs that we've had are all based on nature.

Well, you're such a cheerleader. I feel like I've been looking for you. A brain like yours. All right, three things that we can start doing right now to optimize our health.

Sleep.

Yeah.

Yeah. Sleep is so important for sure. Second is everyone's. I think people are. Everyone knows about exercise and increased increasingly understanding resistance training like add. Find some way to put your muscles to work because it has so many benefits that it is just as important as riding the bike and going for a run is adding in resistance training. And then I have to say C15, of course. I'm just making sure you're getting all of. Yeah. Again, don't be malnourished. And, you know, us being able to provide this optimized C15 to be able to help everybody and optimize our health and longevity is an important part to everyone's routine.

Beautiful. If you could leave our listeners with one takeaway that you're most passionate about right now.

So there is a book you had mentioned in the beginning. So we have a book. Simon and Schuster reached out last summer and they said, we've been following you for a year. We've been reading the science reading. And they're like, this is. This is a book. And said, would you write the story of the discovery? So I said yes. And it was cathartic, Mona, because it was like, it's been 20 years of this whole journey. So to be able to write this book, it also helped me realize what I hope is it. And of course it has all the information, all the science on C15 and all the things that we covered here in detail. But I'm hoping that the book is just, just as importantly. It provides tips for longevity, but even more importantly is that it can help us help inspire others to be able to maybe even uproot ourselves a little bit to then be able to take some risks, allow accidents to happen.

Yeah.

And that we can find ourselves in a different place in which we can be even better rooted in our health. And the fact that for me, I didn't mention this earlier but like I'm actually terrified of deep water. I don't know how to swim. The fact that I was like at the Navy working with dolphins. Dolphins like if you talk about. Yeah. If you talk about what a brutes mean. Deep water. And yet here I am, ended up in this place, in the place that I put in my greatest fears resulted in the ability to work with dolphins to make this discovery and how great for it to come full circle. Or then the discovery that the dolphins gave us is something that can help us live healthier longer so that we can all have more time to find our purpose.

Yes.

And you write and be able to do what we love doing. And so that's what I hope the book is just, it's just as inspiring to say that if a nerdy dolphin veterinarian, you know, these wonderful things can happen that you know, it's just, we just all need to let life happen, the flow of life happen so you can find your. Let accidents happen and find your purpose.

What a beautiful note. Like following the breadcrumbs until it leads you to the next. Aha.

That's right.

Right. Because God knows like the possibilities that are there.

Yeah.

It's just magic. Where can people find you? We're going to link everything out but I'm sure they want to follow you. They want to follow fatty15.

Sure. So yeah, fatty15.com is where the supplement is. DiscoverC15.com so we talk about all the sites we keep putting. There's probably a new paper published every one to two weeks now from around the world. And then. Yeah. And the longevity nutrients, it's on pre sale so it's wherever bookstores are.

Fantastic.

Which is great. Yeah.

Okay, I'll be sure to get that. Thank you so much for sharing everything today. Remember the power of your diet. Exciting new discoveries. I'm so grateful that you share the science behind it. It's just awe inspiring actually. And I can't wait to have you back.

Oh, Mona, it's been wonderful being here.