BONUS: Stop The Cellular Wildfire! – The Most Powerful Protocol To Lower Inflammation & Oxidized LDL with Dave Watumull | Menopause & Metabolic Health

Welcome to Everyday Wellness Podcast. I'm your host, nurse practitioner, Cynthia Thurlow. This podcast is designed to educate, empower, and inspire you to achieve your health and wellness goals. My goal and intent is to provide you with the best content and conversations from leaders in the health and wellness industry each week and impact over a million lives. today i have the honor of connecting with dave watemal this is one of these carefully curated carefully selected podcasts that are sponsored by highly vetted companies dave is the co-founder and ceo of ax3 life he's on a mission to bring astraxanthin to the world this marine super Nutrient supports whole body health and longevity and has captured his imagination for more than 25 years of research, development, and commercialization. He is the co-founder and CEO of AX3 Life, as I stated, a consumer health company dedicated to astraxanthin products, education, and community. Today, we spoke at length about longevity and lifespan, specific studies where astraxanthin has been particularly beneficial for lipids, in particular oxidized LDL, what astroxanthin is, what it does, and key properties, including integrating into someone's brains, protecting our mitochondria, crossing the blood-brain barrier, and multiple benefits, which we will go on to discuss, the impact of nutrition, specific key components of astroxanthin research on sarcopenia, cognition, joints, liver health, skin, eye health, and symptoms, the dose dependent effect of astroxanthin, and then my rapid fire questions. This is one of those supplements that you are going to want to consider. I'm actually going to transparently take it to see if I can drop my LP little a. My husband has high LP little a and at least one of my children. So we're all going to try it as a family experiment and I will report back. David, such an honor to welcome you to Everyday Wellness. I've been really looking forward to connecting with you and learning more about AX3. Oh, thank you for having me. I'm delighted to be here. Yeah. One of the kind of common conversations that we have on the podcast is around longevity, especially for women. I think so many women, it's probably not until they get into perimenopause and menopause that they probably give it much consideration. And from your perspective, how do you actually define it? And what can we do? Like, what are some of your favorite ways to help promote lifespan over time? Yeah, so that's exactly it. So longevity, of course, does include lifespan, how long you live. And there are interventions, including hours that can promote extension of life, but it's really about healthspan and how well you're living during those years. And so that includes everything from cognitive function, skin health, eye health, joint and muscle function, maintaining muscle mass, but it's also your cardiovascular health, which you may not feel, but, you know, leading cause of death, you know, and that's something that you really want to stay on top of. And so promoting your longevity is something that involves all of those things, not just how long you can live. Yeah, it's so interesting because I think that, again, it's probably not until middle age that women start experiencing, you know, decreased in energy, more joint pain. Maybe they have brain fog. They may notice, you know, tangible things that are changing about their skin or even like a reduction in their ability to manage stress. And so I think that it's so helpful to think about what are the things we can do to set ourselves up for success. And you may or may not know, but I spent 16 years in clinical cardiology as an NP. And so I remind listeners constantly, one in three women will die of heart disease. It is something we really have to be conscientious about because we're protected largely by estrogen's effects until we go into menopause. And so as we see declining estrogen, we see reductions in nitric oxide production. And then we see these, you know, it's like the constellation loss of insulin sensitivity, you know, poor mitochondrial health, all of which kind of magnify our risk factors for declining cardiovascular disease function. Exactly. And I'll just mention that we conducted our own human clinical study in, it was a combination, men and women, but these were subjects in Hawaii where we're based that were real world people with cardiovascular risk factors. And we gave them astaxanthin, which we'll talk about today, but a naturally occurring molecule that's very safe. And over 12 weeks, we saw reductions in not just LDL cholesterol, but oxidized LDL. So when your lipoproteins become oxidized, that's a huge risk for foam cells and plaque buildup and plaque rupture. And so if you can reduce oxidized LDL, that's really important. We saw reductions in blood pressure and in a diabetic subgroup of the population, we saw reductions in HSCRP and triglycerides. And so staying on top of your cardiovascular health with something like this does make a lot of sense. And I also mentioned that, you know, with so much noise out there, I think it can be confusing. Like, what do you do? You know, what should I do? The longevity is a buzzword. You hear all of these products and therapies and interventions. And I think, you know, it comes down to the basics. Like, I think everyone knows, but would rather have something that's like a quick fix. And so just getting consistent, good sleep is so important. And eating a good balanced diet. And not necessarily picking between this diet or that diet. But something that is probably in moderation. Healthy, whole foods, nutrient dense. And just picking what works for you. But being consistent with a good healthy balanced diet. And being active every day. And just sweating every day. Whatever, however that is. Whether you're walking or running or swimming. Just being active. Staying socially connected. And being close with your loved ones. And being outdoors. And spending time with your pets. And all of these things are so important. And most of them are not necessarily things that cost money, you know, to go and pay for some expensive therapy or expensive medication or supplement. It's more just the basics that, you know, most people neglect throughout life or just, you know, fall out of the habit of doing this or that. And if you can do that and then supplement with other things, whether you have deficiencies or maybe there's certain supplements that help you optimize certain aspects of health. That's just the thing that helps you take that next step beyond those fundamentals. No, I so agree with you. And I think that kind of in the health and wellness space, we forget, I call it majoring in the majors, as you astutely stated, you know, sleep and stress and, you know, nutrient density or meal frequency and then adding an exercise and that all the supplements in the world and all the medications in the world and all the hormonal replacement therapy in the world ultimately is not going to fix the root issue if you're not addressing these kind of major lifestyle factors. factors that really do impact quality of life metrics. I think for so many people, they don't realize that the choices we make in our 40s and 50s have tremendous influence on how we're living our lives in our 60s, 70s, and 80s. And because I had so many years in clinical cardiology, and prior to that, I was an ER and trauma nurse, I had the ability to kind of see people across their lifespan. And it's very hard as a 20 or 30-year-old to be thinking 40, 50 years down the road. But now that I myself am middle-aged, it really just reaffirms why there are specific things my husband and I will do that are really a priority because we want to avoid frailty because frailty, we know, leads to falls and a loss of independence. And that's where I think many people don't realize like, yes, the strength training is important, but ultimately maintaining muscle mass is what's going to allow you to maintain independence at home, which I think anyone listening, we want to live as high a quality of life for as long as possible and be as independent for as long as possible. And I think that is sometimes lost in translation in the health and wellness space because everyone's focused on the here and now, but we really need to be thinking long term. Yeah, exactly. And even say like with my grandmother several years back, you know, she was very active throughout life, ate very well, very clean, you know, always walked. She lived in the hills and she would walk every day and just lived kind of that perfect lifestyle, you know, connected with family. But ultimately she ran into, she contracted COVID and had, you know, a difficulty battling that. And on top of that, just prior to that, she had a minor cardiovascular event. And those two things back to back really impacted her independence. And, you know, because prior to that, you know, she was in her kind of mid to late nineties and she was still driving every day, doing all of her errands, doing all of her bills, mowing her own yard. I mean, she was just very independent, very active. But then once kind of the double whammy happened there, then she was just like, I give up. I don't want to live anymore, essentially. And it was pretty quick thereafter. And so fortunately, her health span and lifespan were pretty close. So from that standpoint, it was a good thing. But like you said, I mean, once you have some type of ailment that limits your ability to function normally in the world, that really kind of is the start of that decline. Yeah. And I think that what's interesting is if you look at the research, women live longer than men overall, but oftentimes it's that marginal decade. They really don't have the last maybe five to 10 years of their life might be in a state where they've lost their independence or not able to be as mobile. I have a loved one right now who unfortunately fell and broke her. First, she broke her hip. And then two years later, she broke her femur on the same side. So long bone and her hip hasn't really been independently able to move around without a walker. And she's sharp as a tack, intellectually so sharp and so feisty. And I think her feistiness is actually to her advantage. Because she's so feisty, no one pressures her about having to change your living situation. But I always think about the fact that it's usually something like that happens, that all of a sudden this is someone who is vital and out in the community that all of a sudden is now not able to be as physically active, a little more sheltered because, you know, she's now got some visual deficits and mobility issues, but cognitively sharp as a tack. And so we want to ensure that our lifespan and healthspan are, in terms of quality life metrics, are as good as they can be for as long as possible. And like your grandmother, who sounds like she lived this incredibly vibrant, active life, it sounds like she left the earth on her terms, which many people don't have that opportunity. Oh, yeah. No, she was surrounded by family. And actually, my mother was kind of lying in bed, holding her hand. And that's when she passed. So yeah. So let's talk a little bit about what is astroxanthin? Because we know that it's a carotenoid, it's derived from microalgae. But let's talk about the key properties, the things that got you so interested in this substance, because it has so many natural antioxidants and how beneficial you're just mentioning that NIH study. But from your perspective, what got you interested? Tell us more about it. I think it's fascinating. Like I went down a little bit of a rabbit hole learning about it and was like, oh, this is something I think my community will find really, really interesting. Yeah, it's something that so many people unfortunately just haven't heard of, but we've all consumed it because it's what makes salmon pink. And lobster, shrimp, you know, crab, it gives them their beautiful coloration. Even flamingos are pink because of astaxanthin, which is part of their diet from the crustaceans that they consume. So we've all eaten this. Most people have never heard of it. And going back into the mid to late 90s, as a summer high school job, I was working at a company on the Big Island of Hawaii that had a group of scientists from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego that knew how to grow this particular type of microalgae. And they were trying to commercialize it. They created these ponds in the lava fields there in Kona, and we're growing this microalgae that is a green algae. But when it's out and exposed to the UV light from the sun, it produces astaxanthin as this defense mechanism against UV light from the sun, and it protects them. And then the algae turns bright red. You'll literally be looking at the ponds, and over a few days, it'll turn from green to red, and then you harvest it thereafter. And so the scientists actually were the ones that told us, you know, this is actually more than just a pigment. It's actually critical to their health and their vitality. With their amazing feat of, you know, nature of just swimming upstream, you know, they are experiencing significant damaging effects to their muscles. They're wasting away. They're not really eating and they're pursuing this journey upstream kind of against the odds. And so as they're wasting away, the astaxanthin is kind of helping to maintain that muscle mass. And then ultimately, when they get to the point of reproducing and lay their eggs, the astaxanthin is transferred to the eggs. And that's why the salmon eggs are red is because of the astaxanthin, which then in turn protects the eggs from UV light from the sun in the shallow waters where the eggs are, and then helps with the development of the offspring. And ultimately, if salmon did not have astaxanthin, they would be smaller, they'd be weaker, they'd be gray rather than red or pink, they'd be too weak to swim upstream and more prone to infections. And so it's something that's really critical to the overall health. And so that was something that, you know, getting into this was just so intriguing, even though like at that time there was less than 200 peer-reviewed papers, there were no human clinical studies, but there were intriguing hints in terms of, oh, okay, this is this, you know, part of this carotenoid family. It's a really special type of carotenoid, a xanthophyll carotenoid, which has these functional oxygen-containing groups on the terminal ring groups of the molecule that give it very special properties. And now, fast forward, there's thousands of papers and like 100 human clinical studies, all this research. But nevertheless, at the time, there was these intriguing hints that, wow, this is something that really could be a benefit to humans. there at the time, even though we consume salmon, there were no supplements on the market, there were no drugs containing astaxanthin. And so we and actually the company literally across the street from us that was also growing microalgae like spirulina, and then ultimately this the same algae called hematococcus pluvialis, were the first two companies to launch an astaxanthin dietary supplement back in the 1999-2000 timeframe. And then thereafter, we actually realized growing the algae is very cool, but it's a botanical extract. You're exposed to the elements. You have the volcano nearby, so you have VOG. You have the airport nearby, so you have the airplanes flying over. You have birds, you have everything. And so it's something that is as controlled and contamination risk-free. And so we actually pursued, we thought, okay, this actually could be a pharmaceutical, something that doctors could use with their patients and And ultimately, we looked at cardiovascular applications initially, but we looked at producing in a laboratory with very high purity and consistency, but producing that natural product, but without any of the other components of the algae that are not the active ingredient. And so that was really our journey thereafter. But it was really exciting. And then we, from there forward, kind of explored, like, how does estazenthin work in the cells? What are some of its applications in cardiovascular health and other areas? And then from there, it just kind of dominoed thereafter. Because like you said, you can easily go down a rabbit hole of all the interesting mechanisms and effects that it has. If you're a woman in midlife or beyond, you'll probably notice those changes in energy, strength and recovery just don't feel like they used to. And what's frustrating is that for many women, this happens even when you're eating well, lifting weights, prioritizing protein and doing all the right things. You're not lazy, you're not unmotivated, and you're not doing anything wrong. A big part of what's changing actually starts inside your cells. As we age, our mitochondria, the energy-producing structures inside our cells become less efficient, and when mitochondrial function declines, it can show up as lower energy, slower recovery, reduced muscle strength, and feeling less resilient overall. This is a normal part of aging physiology, and it's one of the reasons midlife can feel so different. And that's why I've added Mitopure gummies from Timeline Nutrition into my daily routine. Mitopure is the only clinically proven form of urolithin A, a compound shown in human clinical trials to support mitochondrial renewal. In simple terms, it helps your cells do a better job of making energy. And when your cells have more energy, your body is able to support strength, endurance, and recovery as you age. What I appreciate most about Mitopure is that it's foundational, not flashy. This isn't a stimulant or a quick fix. It's a daily habit that supports how your body actually works at the cellular level And the gummies make it easy They just two sugar gummies per day They vegan and cleanly formulated They independently tested and certified for quality And if supporting your energy, muscle health, and overall resilience as you move through perimenopause and menopause is important to you, MitoPure is worth considering. You want to go to TimelineNutrition.com slash Cynthia and use code Cynthia Thurlow for 20% off your order. Again, that's Timeline.com slash Cynthia and use code Cynthia Thurlow for 20% off your Mitopure gummies. I'm excited to tell you about a foundational health supplement that is backed by some incredible science. This marine super molecule is called AstraZanthin, and it's supported by more than 4,000 scientific papers, 100 human studies, extensive safety handling, and NIH validated efficacy in a gold standard longevity model. Extensive research over the past 25 years has shown that astaxanthin perfectly spans and stabilizes cell membranes, protects lipids, proteins, and DNA from oxidative and inflammatory damage. This promotes cellular health, fights the hallmarks of aging, and provides lasting whole body health benefits for your joints, muscles, heart, brain, gut, skin, and eyes. It also boosts healthy energy, endurance, and recovery. I'm thrilled to partner with AX3 Life and share their bio-pure astaxanthin with you. Compare with ordinary astaxanthin, AX3 has superior bioavailability, purity, and environmental sustainability and is better absorbed, three times better actually, and has been shown to be highly effective in the NIH interventions testing program, the world's most rigorous mammalian lifespan study. I'm really impressed with AX3 and I'm super excited to share this particular podcast interview with AX3's co-founder and CEO. AX3 has also generously offered a 20% discount on your very first order when you visit ax3.life and use promo code CYNTHIA20 at checkout. Again, that's ax3.life and use code CYNTHIA20 at checkout. My family and I are actually taking astaxanthin to see if we can drop our LP little a. Stay tuned. What have you found from the research on humans? What are some of the benefits? You've alluded to this cardiovascular protection. And I know that certainly there are many of us that have some genetic markers. Like I have high LP little a. And so I've been very transparent with my community that, you know, this is genetic. There are many people who don't even know it's elevated. You know, the drug therapies that they have for elevated LP little a are very limited and they tend to be very expensive. Most people have to start with a statin, which we could have a whole conversation about that and plus or minus if there's any benefits. But the point of why I'm saying is this community is particularly interested in cardiovascular risk reduction in particular. talk to us about the molecule itself does across the blood-brain barrier talk to me about cellular membrane health like what are the confirmed benefits based on research yeah so there's kind of two aspects to the conversation is one is what it does as a molecule in the cells and that's kind of fundamental to all the effects that you'll see ultimately how it manifests itself in various you know areas of the body and then then there's all of those ultimate effects like on the heart and the brain and the joints. And so just looking at how it works in the cells as a starting point, the acesanthin molecule, like I mentioned, is a xanthophyll carotenoid. And I'll mention that carotenoids are a really critical family of molecules that co-evolved with photosynthesis to help plants and microalgae against environmental stresses. And over time, nature tinkered with these carotenoid molecules. And ultimately, if you look at the kind of the evolutionary tree of carotenoids, you see these simpler structures like lycopene, which are kind of just like a long pipe cleaner type molecule. And then ultimately, these ring groups were formed on the end of the molecule where the ends kind of wrapped around on themselves. So essentially, you just have a long backbone with these two rings on the end, and you get something like beta carotene, which a lot of people have heard of fat soluble, antioxidant gets into membranes. But when you ultimately keep going down that evolutionary tree, you start to get these functional groups like a hydroxyl, like an oxygen, hydrogen, and OH group. You also have these ketone groups on the astaxanthin molecule that give astaxanthin polarity. And what that means is that in the case of astaxanthin, when you look at the cellular membrane, which is comprised of a phospholipid bilayer, the phospholipids, and this may be somewhat technical, but hopefully it makes sense that you essentially have two phospholipids back to back that comprise your membrane around your cell and around your nucleus, around your mitochondria. And these phospholipids, the phospho is for a phosphate head group, and the lipids are the fatty acid tails. The phosphates are hydrophilic. They love the water. And the tails are hating the water, scared of the water, that they're fats, basically. And so the astaxanthin molecule is perfectly designed where its ring groups with the oxygens are water loving and aligned with the phosphates and the backbone of the acesanthin molecule is fat soluble. And so it perfectly aligns with the phospholipid bilayer. And rather than say beta carotene, which gets into the membrane, but doesn't anchor across the whole membrane, it gets in but can disturb the actual integrity of the lipids, the ordering of the lipids in your membrane. The acesanthin molecule perfectly anchors across your membrane and kind of locks into the membrane and doesn't disrupt the membrane. And we've actually done studies with a collaborator at Harvard that has a membrane model, and we measured the electron density across the membrane and saw that there was no disruption to that when you incorporated acizanthin into that solution with the membrane. And so you have acizanthin physically anchoring across the membrane, and therefore it's perfectly situated to not just protect the physical integrity of the membrane, but it can fight off reactive oxygen species or free radicals, both inside and outside the membrane. Those that come from the outside or those that are internally damaging potentially the lipids of your membrane. And as you have talked about oxidative stress, inflammation, these are things that over time, while your body has endogenous systems to kind of keep these things in check, as we age and as life hits us, our built-in systems to keep these things in control decline and degrade with time and so what can happen is say those lipids that comprise your membrane which are key structures to kind of not only form you know the structure of your cell but also influence the the function of your cell what gets in and out of your cell and and signaling cascades these lipids can become oxidized and it can be like this wildfire in a forest if your lipids are like the trees those trees can basically ignite the next tree and the next tree and so your lipid can become oxidized and highly damaged and that can trigger these inflammatory cascades that damage your tissues astaxanthin gets in there and it's kind of like a fire break it can basically stop the fire in its tracks from going from one lipid to the next and itself it doesn't become reactive and something that could also you know damage other things in some cases some antioxidants can actually become pro-oxidant at high levels or or in certain cases. In the case of astaxanthin, it does not. And it's uniquely structured where in the case of certain types of reactive oxygen species like singlet oxygen, it can absorb that extra energy from the singlet oxygen. And actually the molecule, the backbone of astaxanthin can vibrate and dissipate the heat from that reactive oxygen species safely. And so it quenches that singlet oxygen. And then basically astaxanthin is good to go again. It can do that over and over and over. And then if it's fighting like a free radical, which has an unpaired electron, where essentially it's trying to steal an electron from something like the lipids in your membrane or your proteins or DNA, it can damage all these critical components that comprise your cells, which are the building blocks of your tissues and your body. Acesanthin can actually come in and donate an electron to those free radicals. So now those free radicals that are essentially damaging because they're missing an electron, they want to steal an electron from someone, they get an electron from astaxanthin and then they're happy and then astaxanthin can sit there and distribute that lack of that electron that it donated it can distribute it across its molecule and not be reactive it can still sit there and be okay even though it gave up an electron whereas if a lipid gave up an electron it's very unhappy and tries to steal it from its next door neighbor and that's how you get that domino effect of the wildfire and so with astaxanthin it can ultimately be recharged by vitamin C and get an electron back from vitamin C. And then now it's back to normal and can continue the good fight. And then vitamin C can be recharged from glutathione and they all kind of work together as a happy little family, just like vitamin E and vitamin C work together. So acesanthin is really special in that way that it spans that membrane. It can quench singlet oxygen. It can scavenge and neutralize free radicals like the hydroxyl radical and others, these reactive oxygen species that can be so damaging if out of control. But also it gets to not just the outer plasma membrane, which is like the outer membrane of the whole cell itself, it gets to the critical membranes of the mitochondria where the energy are produced and the site of a lot of oxidative stress as a byproduct of energy production, but also to the nuclear membranes that house your DNA and so helps to protect against the oxidation of your DNA. So it gets to all of these critical locations within the cell that are highly privileged, and it does not disrupt the membranes. It stabilizes them and then fights off the free radicals that could damage them. And then on top of that, it naturally gets distributed throughout your whole body. So when you ingest it orally, it gets absorbed along with the fats in a meal that you're consuming. It gets transported to the liver. And then in the liver, it actually gets packaged into lipoproteins. And so, like I mentioned earlier, how we saw reductions in oxidized LDL, that totally makes sense mechanistically because it's literally packaged in with the LDLs and the HDLs and hitches a ride on those throughout the body. But along the way, it's actually protecting them from becoming oxidized. So, it's protecting their delivery vehicles as they're transported to the heart, to the brain, to the other tissues and organs in the body. And like you mentioned earlier with the blood-brain barrier, it is fortunate to be able to cross the blood-brain barrier and get into the tissues in the brain, gets into the eyes. And so it's naturally distributed throughout the whole body, gets into the cells in all of these key locations, gets into all of the membranes within these cells and fights off those reactive oxygen species. And so with that fundamental benefit, you can see efficacy related to heart health and brain health and skin and joint health and all these things. Because as we now know, and maybe what we didn't necessarily know 20, 30 years ago, oxidative stress and inflammation are these key drivers of these health conditions and aging itself. You know, especially when you look at the time scale of not just days and months, but years and decades. And so as these things are chronically smoldering at the cellular level, you know, depending on where it's happening the worst, you may develop some type of issue because of that chronic oxidative stress and inflammation. And ultimately, a traditional doctor may prescribe you a medication to deal with that symptom or end manifestation. But if you actually try to look upstream at what's causing it, you have a lot of times, you know, a fundamental driver. And that's really what astaxanthin naturally does. And so that's why it's such an amazing molecule. I think it's so fascinating because, again, a lot of conversations on here. I mean, we've had Tom Dayspring on, who's a lipid expert, I think nine separate podcasts. And because people are so interested in the lipids conversation, because many people are looking for alternatives to kind of standard therapy for addressing elevated lipids. I'll just put it that way because I don't want to come out and say the drug class because that then we end up down a separate rabbit hole. can we get enough astaxanthin from food or do you find or has the research shown that it's hard to get enough from food and that's why supplementation is so incredibly beneficial you can get a decent amount if you were to eat a good portion of salmon every single day but for example if you want to get even just the amount of one 12 milligram capsule which is like our standard dose and when what you'll find across the market with other astaxanthin products as the top and dose for health and being active and for longevity, you would have to eat about a close to a pound of wild sockeye salmon, which for some people, that's a little bit more of a gamier or fishier salmon, more of an intense flavor. But that one is bright red and has a lot of astaxanthin in it. Whereas if you say like Atlantic salmon, you know, a little bit more mild and buttery flavor and it is farm raised, but just a quick little tangent, a lot of people think that farm raised salmon are dyed pink with some food dye from the FDA, like how you get red sodas or things. The astaxanthin is actually incorporated into the feed for the farm-raised salmon. So they consume astaxanthin. They just don't get as much as, say, a wild sockeye salmon. That's why they're not as bright red. But they are pink because of the astaxanthin, but they have a lower amount. And just like other types of salmon that are not the sockeye, you'll find lower amounts. And so you would probably have to eat around four pounds of farm-raised Atlantic salmon to get what you would get in one capsule of ours or any other astaxanthin dietary supplement of a 12 milligram dose. So that is, you know, not really feasible for most people on a daily basis. And also that's just the baseline dose. A lot of people take one or two capsules or more, you know, in that cardiovascular study, I mentioned we had a low dose of 24 milligrams and a high dose of 96 milligrams. So can you imagine having eight times those amounts rather than just one pound or four pounds? It would be eight times that to get that type of dose. So it is challenging to get that much in your diet. But not to say if someone were to have salmon on a regular basis, that would definitely be a good thing. And that would probably be the best dietary source of acesanthin for humans to consume. But I do think that supplementing with acetate that allows you to get to those more optimal levels for sure. Well, I think that, you know, fish in general, at least in my house, I have two, well, I was gonna say I have two teenage sons. I have one teenager, one young adult, but they're both young adults. And what I've come to find is my kids are pretty open-minded to a lot of things, but fish is never their favorite protein. And so I'm sure there are many people listening that say the same thing, like a pound of sockeye versus four pounds of farm, like realistically, how many of us are going to consume that much on a regular basis. And not to mention the fact on top of that, you know, unfortunately, seafood tends to be a protein that tends to accumulate a lot of things that it's exposed to, whether it's toxins, you know, microplastics, etc. And so I think most, at least most of my patients and women that I talk to are conscientious. Yes, we need the healthy fats in some of these foods. However, I'm buffering it because, you know, certainly, I think probably once or twice a year, my integrative doc will draw a mercury level. And depending on how much fish I'm eating, we see the level go up and down. And so it usually for most of us, we're probably keeping our intake not as high as it once was, just with better awareness around heavy metal exposure. So when we're talking about oxidative stress, it kind of seems intangible perhaps for the lay public, but we see oxidative stress go right along with hormones declining, mitochondrial dysfunction, muscle loss, which is a big one. Women will say, you know, I'm doing all the right things. I'm eating plenty of protein. I'm lifting weights. I'm on hormones and I still struggle to maintain muscle mass. Brain fog, joint inflammation. What have been some of the other areas where the research has suggested there's benefit? Obviously we've talked about the cardiovascular piece, but in terms of like brain and joint health, what has the research suggested? Well, in the area of sarcopenia, that's a really interesting one because there was a human clinical study with astaxanthin in older adults, and it was paired with strength training. But in the group that had the astaxanthin, they saw the best improvements in muscle strength and size. And so it's something that definitely could support maintaining and, you know, a healthy muscle mass, you know, size and strength. So I think that's highly critical for anyone as they age. And so some people have asked like, oh, if it's an antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, would it potentially blunt some of the effects of the healthy response and adaptive response to muscle growth But it helps to actually maintain and promote that so that was a really cool finding that we saw in humans and from a cognitive function in humans there's also been studies showing improved benefits in these studies where they look at information processing and memory and attention and focus and you know you'll You'll have these tests where someone will look at multiple images and have to remember, did I see that one before? And how fast are they answering? And is it correct? Or these mazes and things like that. So these cognitive tests, and we saw benefits there. There have also been animal studies that have shown benefits in terms of increases of BDNF, which is involved in neurogenesis, growing new brain cells. And there's also seen benefits in neuroplasticity. And these are all things that as we age, you'll see declines in neuroplasticity. And so if you want to have kind of better adaption and connection between your neurons, and then rewiring for learning and staying mentally sharp, these are all aspects that esoxanthin has demonstrated promising results in animals. And then that's manifested itself with these results in humans related to memory and information processing, et cetera. And also from a brain health standpoint, if you think about estrogen levels dropping, say in the hypothalamus you have an oxidative and to back up the hypothalamus being responsible for regulating body temperature and a lot of things if you have dropping estrogen levels and kind of an oxidative burst because estrogen functions as an antioxidant among other things but it helps reduce that oxidative stress load that may be you know taking its toll otherwise on the brain tissues and so in the case of the hypothalamus if you have increased oxidative stress you know that can contribute to hot flashes because your body temperature is not regulated as effectively. And so with acesanthin on board in the brain tissue, you could potentially see benefits in that area as well. And while there aren't human studies in areas like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, and this is a supplement and not a drug, so we can't make claims that will prevent or treat those areas, those are all disorders that are driven by oxidative stress and inflammation at the cellular level in the brain. And so if you can have benefits in those areas, you could hope to have positive outcomes in that area. And there is interesting preliminary research in animals in those types of neurodegenerative disorders. So this is something that I think further research will continue to shed light on, but I think it is important in terms of protecting brain health. And then looking at joint function, anecdotally, some of the most prevalent feedback we get is my joints, you know, I just feel so much better. Comfort, mobility, it's something that it just allows me to go about my day, you know, feeling much better. And it makes sense, again, just because oxidative stress and inflammation take a toll on your joints. And whether it's ultimately leading to collagen degradation, you know, just or otherwise inflammation in your joints, these are things that acesanthin can impact. And so we've seen reductions in inflammatory cytokines that are tied in with joint health, like TNF-alpha, for example. And also in, there haven't been widespread human studies in arthritis and things like that. Although there was a study in adults with rheumatoid arthritis and there were benefits found there as well. Kind of preliminary research, again, not as a drug, but looking at is there potential utility here. there's also been animal studies looking at models of osteoarthritis with benefits demonstrated there as well so mechanistically it makes sense and it's been confirmed with animals and humans that this could definitely have a lot of joint benefits liver health people don't necessarily talk about it a lot but obviously liver is really important to the function of your body and we've seen benefits in humans and animals related to both damage to the liver from fat or alcohol so you can induce fatty liver disease or alcoholic liver disease in animals. And we've seen reductions in the liver damage in those types of models. So we've seen benefits there. From a skin health standpoint, which is important to everyone and of course also to women, we've seen human studies with benefits where there are reductions in fine lines and wrinkles. There's increases in moisture content and elasticity. And again, this makes sense because the astaxanthin can get to the skin cells and help to protect against the damaging effects of the UV light, just like the microalgae are protected against the UV light with astaxanthin. And so astaxanthin doesn't absorb the UV light itself, but if that UV light creates reactive oxygen species or free radicals, astaxanthin can help to mitigate those from damaging the components of your cells. It can help to mitigate the DNA damage in your cells that occurs from exposure to the sunlight. So it kind of helps as that internal, you know, protector against the sun, not in place of a sunscreen to block against the UV light, but kind of as a compliment. And hopefully, you know, a lot of people and women in particular are, you know, taking care of their skin topically, you know, not just when they're going to the beach or on a vacation, but just on a daily basis, just from regular exposure, even on a cloudy day to the sun. But even with that, you know, you still want to have something on board internally to help deal with the effects of the UV lights. So this is something that I think is really important for skin health. For eye health, it gets into the tissues of the eye. And astaxanthin has a couple related family members called zeaxanthin and lutein that are really important for eye health because the eye actually has receptors that pull those particular carotenoids into the macula of the eye. So in the back of the eye with the retina, those carotenoids actually absorb blue light and so that blue light could otherwise be very damaging to the macula and there's actually been human studies showing that as your levels of zeaxanthin and lutein which are these related carotenoids as those levels go down your risk of age-related macular degeneration goes up and so it's really important to consume enough zeaxanthin and lutein which people can get from various vegetables or from supplements. With astaxanthin, it's not limited to just going to the macula like those particular carotenoids. Astaxanthin is distributed throughout the rest of the eye and helps protect against the damaging effects of oxidative stress and inflammation throughout the eye. So it actually is a good complement to those other kind of eye health carotenoids that many other people may have heard of. So there's all of these effects for the body that are really interesting. And then if you also think about energy levels, or if you think about brain fog, the mitochondria are the source of your energy production. And as you've talked about and know, they are prone to dysfunction over time. And astaxanthin, like I mentioned, gets to not only even just to the outer membrane of the mitochondria, but also gets to the inner membrane of the mitochondria and actually helps to protect against the oxidation of cardiolipin, which is a key phospholipid in the mitochondrial membrane. And it's a critical kind of scaffold to the electron transport chain, which is the process essentially that energy is produced in the mitochondria. And so if that phospholipid, which helps to be the foundation for the energy production becomes oxidized, then your energy production goes down. And also as a byproduct of just healthy energy production, you will have free radicals that are created and your body's endogenous antioxidants do handle that. But over time, those antioxidant defense systems decline and are not as effective. And anastaxanthin can help to go in and bolster that effect. And so now if you maintain that mitochondrial function and mitochondrial health, now you have more efficient energy production, which is important for everything in terms of how your body feels and functions, but also how you think with brain And so it's vital at all of these levels. And so I'll pause there, but we can also even talk about some of the cellular signaling pathways that astraxanthin impacts that are related to mitochondrial health, longevity, you know, etc. Yeah, I think it's so interesting. And in these trials and the research that's been done, are we looking at differing doses of astroxanthin that are most effective? I know you mentioned earlier anywhere from like 24, 25 milligrams all the way up to 90 some milligrams. What is appearing to be, give me a range of the dosing that it's conferring benefits. I would imagine perhaps for eye health, you may need a lower dose than muscle health, just based on the fact that there's so much muscle in our body versus, you know, I'm sure the macula and the retinas are very sensitive to micronutrients and things like astroxanthin. But curious where the dosing ranges kind of goes with it. And I'm not exactly I'm not asking you to address every single study, but just like the ranges of benefits in terms of dosing. Most human studies have been done with relatively lower doses of astaxanthin. So anywhere from a few milligrams up to 20 or 24 milligrams, that's the typical range. For example, there was a study in school-aged children, like 12 years old, they were looking at digital eye strain, you know, from staring at screens all day. And they were administered something like four milligrams or six milligrams for 12 weeks or so. And they saw benefits there in terms of their eye health, measurable benefits. And so there are doses at all and efficacy at these ranges. But what we found in, say, like in our cardiovascular study where we went up to 96 milligrams, or if we look at, say, the animal studies where you have a lot more studies that have been conducted in a variety of different areas, you typically see a dose-dependent effect. So you'll see improved efficacy at higher doses. And fortunately, astaxanthin is exceptionally safe. It doesn't go in and chronically inhibit or bind to something that changes the normal function of your cell. Because a lot of drugs that are, say, anti-inflammatories, for example, go in and work downstream and just completely inhibit some function of your immune response that may be misbehaving. And so it helps to address that one issue you're experiencing with your joint or whatever it may be. But now it's not functioning normally to fight off infections and you're at risk of dying from a bad infection. Acesanthin works upstream and prevents the pathological activation of these inflammatory pathways or helps to mitigate oxidative stress, but doesn't impact the normal function of your cells. And so with that, it gives us this very large therapeutic window. You know, there hasn't been like a dose limiting toxicity where we've figured out, okay, this is the range where you got to be within, you know, this dose and this dose. And then hopefully, you know, we can see efficacy. It's something where you start at a low dose, you know, could be 12 milligrams or 24 milligrams. And then a lot of people take it for a few months and then they may adjust from there and maybe go up to three or four capsules or six or eight capsules. Try that for a few months and either see how they feel subjectively and or ideally measure biomarkers. Look at your lipids, look at ideally, you know, signs of inflammation and oxidative stress. If you can measure your oxidized LDL. If you can measure HSCRP, you know, measure of systemic inflammation, very, you know, extremely vital to cardiovascular health has been validated that if you can reduce your HSCRP below two or even below one, you have a very good chance of reducing cardiovascular events like heart attacks and strokes. And so if you can measure these biomarkers and then adjust your dose, you can try going up or down and then and seeing what dose seems to work best for you in your particular situation. Because like you alluded to, different organs or tissues may be more sensitive, you know, to either the impacts of oxidative stress inflammation or the amount of astaxanthin that gets there. Astaxanthin naturally gets the liver first. And so you have high levels there and then gets distributed throughout the body. So it's a matter of tissue accumulation, but also what you're dealing with at the cellular level in your particular case. And so I also mentioned that we haven't gone through this NIH longevity study that we were part of, but we saw good longevity lifespan results. And rather than just extrapolating the dose in terms of, okay, the mice in this study are this big, they were fed this much astaxanthin. So for us to consume the same amount, it would be this much astaxanthin. If you actually look at their blood levels, like how much astaxanthin they actually absorbed, and then you look at our human studies and see how much astaxanthin can we absorb, you can try to map an equivalent dose. And when we did that, and when we looked at this NIH study that demonstrated astaxanthin's extension of lifespan in this model, that looks to be, to our best estimate, somewhere in the range of 12 to 24 milligrams of astaxanthin dosing. So that would be the recommendation for a baseline health and longevity type of dose. And then from there, give yourself a few months, see how you feel subjectively, energy levels, brain fog, joint and muscle function, endurance, recovery, measure your biomarkers, and then adjust. And then again, give yourself the next several months and go from there. So that's really the approach for dosing with astaxanthin. If you're in your 40s and 50s and feel like your body suddenly stopped responding the way that it used to, you're not imagining it. Bloating, weight gain, sleep disruptions, food sensitivities, and unpredictable energy are incredibly common in perimenopause and menopause. But here's what most people aren't told. Your gut microbiome is changing right alongside your hormones. And those changes can influence everything from how you store fat, to how well you sleep, to how your body processes estrogen. That's exactly why I wrote my new book, The Menopause Gut. 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It'll take you to multiple options for where you can order The Menopause Gut in pre-sale. yeah i'm so i'm i think it's always the clinician side of my brain i'm like what are we talking about in terms of ranges and i love that you've talked so much about eye health we had a neuro ophthalmologist on and she really impressed upon us how these carotenoids are so critically important for eye health especially for women because we're more prone to macular degeneration it doesn't mean all of us will develop it but for so many of my patients i remember you know in their 70s and 80s, suddenly they're losing their vision and then being unable to read and interact with their loved ones. And so I love that you touched on that. You mentioned some signaling molecules and, you know, this role of like longevity pathways. Let's talk a little bit about the science around this, like what has been discovered and what have you found to be most beneficial? Yeah, it's so amazing. And for anyone that wants to dig in and look at the research, like you said, you can go down a rabbit hole and there's just so much there. And even now with the advances of AI. If people want to go to chat GPT or Gemini or whatever, and kind of just ask like, oh, does acesanthin help with this or that? And then ultimately, like, how does it do that? What is it doing? And you can really dive in and you can ask it to reference studies and go and verify that those are legitimate studies that are not being hallucinated by the AI, which may have happened in years past. But now it's actually, it's quite good. And I've been really impressed in recent months, you know, in terms of the advances there. But it's a great way for people to actually kind of just follow their curiosity and see how these things work. And so in the case of astaxanthin, again, it makes sense with how it works at the cellular level that with aging being this, you know, kind of decline of cellular function over time, that if you can promote and maintain just healthy, normal cellular function, not doing something superhuman or different, we're not trying to change how we work, let's just maintain how we work rather than declining. and that will help you live longer rather than going in and trying to target one thing and let's just fix that one thing because maybe that works in a particular niche disease indication. That's not how aging works and how chronic diseases work. Those are more complicated processes that play out over years and decades but they driven by these kind of core bad actors And so if you can have an impact there you can have an impact on aging itself And with astaxanthin we saw in the early days extension of lifespan in some of the basic model organisms that are used for basic research, like worms and fruit flies and yeast. And people ask, like, well, what's the point of seeing if you can extend the lifespan of a worm? But these are very well characterized and understood organisms that people can, you know, look at their genes and see if you have an impact on this or that. And then based on kind of the ancient fundamentals of, you know, how our cells work and our genetics, you can actually have a lot of learnings that are relevant to humans. And so, and it's also a lot easier to do research is a, the lifespan of a worm, you know, that lives days rather than a mammal that lives years or humans that live decades. so in any case we saw extension of lifespan in roundworms in fruit flies in yeast and say in the roundworms you can go in and genetically modify them in a way to take out a particular gene just to see if your agent is having an effect on that particular gene to give the longevity benefits and when the researchers knocked out this particular type of gene that that we have a kind of a similar version ourselves, the lifespan benefit went away in the roundworms. And so that gave us the indication that, oh, okay, this might work through the longevity mechanism of this particular gene, which in humans would be the FOXO3 gene, which was identified, say, through the Honolulu Heart Program, which is an amazing study that followed thousands of Japanese American men from the 50s or 60s for decades and would track their health status. Like every time they came into the doctor, they got blood tests, or if they were sick or passed away, this was all logged. And they have this huge archive of all of the data, both kind of on paper of why they were in the doctor's office, why they passed away, but also even biological blood samples and things. So they have this amazing bank of information. And from that, it was discovered that those that lived the longest, the healthiest, had a particular version of the FOXO3 gene that was the most active. And so it turns out in the roundworms, if you took that gene out, the effect that astaxanthin had went away. So it appeared to be that astaxanthin was working through this pathway. And in a collaboration with the University of Hawaii, there was a particular mouse model where they could examine this gene. And we saw that astaxanthin increased the activation of FOXO3 in the heart tissue by 90%. So that's kind of like doubling the activity of that particular gene. And so even though all humans have FOXO3 gene, they don't all have the same version. And the difference is not all the versions are as active in terms of expressing as much of the protein. And so astaxanthin helped to activate FOXO3 in this mouse model, which was really cool. And that led to the NIH Interventions Testing Program, which is one of the most rigorous lifespan mammalian models in the world to test astaxanthin. And we actually supplied it to them. And we saw a 12% increase in the lifespan. I will say in the males in that model, the females already lived about 10% longer. And the females also lived longer in this model, even with the males living 12% longer, the females also still lived longer, but it allowed the males to catch up to the females and live a similar lifespan. Although the females still won out a little bit and probably related to hormones and things. Because interestingly, and I'll get back to the pathways in a second. It turns out that in these mice, if you, and this was not in our study, but if you castrate the male mice, they will live basically as long as the females. And so there is something there with the hormones, you know, that is impacting the lifespan and impacting some things, you know, like the metabolism, glucose spikes, you know, et cetera. There are aspects that are related to the male hormones that are having the impact on longevity. And it appears that from a lifespan standpoint in this model with NIH, it helped to mitigate some of that. But it also helped the females, although it wasn't a statistical significant benefit of lifespan. The females numerically live longer. The curve was shifted to the right in terms of lifespan, and they still ultimately live longer than the males. But all this stacked up the evidence of extending lifespan in all these different models. And so then we and other researchers wanted to look at, well, how is it doing this? And so we knew that the FOXO3 gene seemed to be tied in with longevity. But beyond that, we saw that astaxanthin activated the AMPK pathway, which is an energy sensing pathway and is involved in regulating or modulating all these other important pathways. And so there's data with astaxanthin impacting mTOR, the target of rapamycin, which is a very well-known longevity agent. There is data that astaxanthin impacts the sirtuins, which a lot of people have been very excited about for many years with resveratrol and red wine and related molecules that impact those pathways. Astaxanthin also impacts Nrf2, kind of the master antioxidant pathway, and PGC1-alpha. And so all of these pathways, also NF-kappa B, a major inflammatory pathway. So all of these pathways impact key hallmarks of aging. So whether it's inflammation or inflammation, which is the tie-in between aging and inflammation, how they both affect each other, there's really good data with acesanthin reducing the inflammatory cytokines that are produced by NF-kappa-B. There's also demonstration of impacts on these pathways where you'll see increased autophagy, so the cellular cleanup or recycling mechanisms. Also, mitophagy, like you've talked about before in terms of the cleanup of your mitochondria. So it helps to maintain healthy mitochondria and healthy cells with mitophagy and autophagy. It helps to clear senescent cells and also helps to promote the growth of new neurogenesis and the connections between neuronal cells as well. And so many of these really vital things that are important for healthy aging are impacted by astaxanthin. And a lot of these pathways are things that people are very excited about when rapamycin impacts mTOR or other agents hit these other pathways. Astaxanthin also has an impact on these pathways that are very well, I don't know if I would say validated, but very well known to have a key role in longevity. It's so exciting because a lot of what I'm known for in the past is intermittent fasting and metabolic health. And so when you're talking about all of those longevity pathways, these are topics that we have discussed at length on the podcast. But really exciting to know that there are specific nutrients that can provide and confer these benefits. Towards the end of my conversation with guests over the last couple of months, I've been doing some rapid fire questions. I would love if you would indulge me and allow me to ask you a couple of these. Biggest mistake people make when trying to improve energy from, in your opinion. Taking stimulants, shortcutting it, rather than getting a good night's sleep or eating well. They're basically just stealing from the future to try to feel good now. In my case, I think, you know, taking a stimulant, it doesn't even really help that much because you get jittery and I don't even like how I feel in that case. But for a lot of people, they rely very heavily on stimulants for energy. And that's just not a healthy way to have optimal energy levels. So I think, like we talked about, there's all these other ways that you should support your energy production in a healthy way. And ultimately, you're just going to feel better, clear headed, more energy physically, mentally, emotionally, etc. There's really no shortcuts. You have to major in the majors. Best type of exercise for mitochondrial resilience? Well, first off, just exercising on a regular basis, you know, I think is important. And so I'm not an expert in, you know, exercise physiology and mitochondrial health with respect to exercise. I wouldn't necessarily have the definitive answer there, but I would think that certainly being, you know, active aerobically, you know, getting your heart rate up and, you know, having your mitochondria work hard, you know, because when you are aerobically active, You know, say I'll just reference a quick study with a young cyclist that was looking at time to exhaustion. So they were cycling at a really high intensity, their mitochondria were producing energy like crazy, and they're trying to see how long would take them before they were exhausted, before their ability to efficiently produce energy at the mitochondrial level was impacted and they switched over to kind of lactate and lactic acid production, and were no longer as efficient producing energy because energy from glucose, The ATP energy molecules that are produced through that pathway are so much higher, so much more efficient than from lactic acid. And so in that case, with astaxanthin, there was like an 18% improvement in cycling, like an hour and 25 minutes versus an hour and 12 minutes. And so there is an example where cycling at that level, high intensity, really worked the mitochondria hard. And in the case of astaxanthin, helped to improve that. But my belief is that if you are healthfully stressing your mitochondria on a regular basis in terms of exercise, getting that heart rate up, and whether it's, you know, low impact, like, you know, on the elliptical or on the rower or in the pool, swimming, you know, anything where you're just, you know, moving on a regular basis, that's going to be really good. On the same side, you know, strength exercise is really important, you know, for your muscles and, you know, gives that kind of a healthy stress response to your muscles and the mitochondria there. So I think a balanced approach of, you know, elevating your heart rate, sweating, and then lifting some heavy things that are within, you know, your range of not being injury prone. But if you're doing those two things, if you're sweating, getting your heart rate up and lifting something heavy, I think you're going to be benefiting your mitochondria in a great way. Such a great answer. One daily habit that reduces oxidative stress. Good sleep. Yep. Major in the majors. One longevity habit you never skip. Well, I can't say getting good sleep. I would love to say that. I don't know because, I mean, no one's perfect. It's hard to be consistent on everything. You know, I think exercising every day, eating a good diet every day, sleeping, trying to be mindful, you know, trying to stay consistent with whatever supplements you deem important. And so I think all of these majors are important. And so ideally, I wouldn't skip any of them. But I wouldn't say that I there are days where I do skip. So it's hard to say. But but again, if I'm in an ideal world, I would get a good night's sleep and and eat consistently well and exercise those major things. If you start with those, I think you'll be able to from there take good steps with the rest of your day and the rest of your life. Thanks for being a good sport. I know that this is the only thing I use AI for is that they do great job with pulling together rapid fire questions like those are fantastic. I so enjoyed this conversation, Dave. Please let listeners know how to connect with you outside of the podcast, how to learn more about AX3 Life. so they can go to our website ax3.life so rather than .com we have .life as our domain name so ax3.life and on instagram we are also ax3.life and and i hope that this conversation and and other podcasts if they want to learn more you know i've had great conversations with others as well if they want to dive into other aspects of health just if i can leave everyone with with a couple last things it's really important to take astaxanthin with a meal because it is fat soluble and that'll promote the absorption. And so whether you want to take it with breakfast or lunch or dinner or taking it a few times a day or a couple times a day, that's all good. The main thing is just taking it with a meal. And then I'd also like to mention that in the case of our particular form of the product called AX3, because there are other astaxanthin products on the market, like I mentioned earlier on in the conversation, our roots are in growing the microalgae that produces astaxanthin and a lot of products on the market are derived from that microalgae and include an extract of the algae that has five or ten percent astaxanthin along with other algal proteins and lipids and related carotenoids and then they're suspended in some type of oil carrier in a soft gel and in our case we have a laboratory produced form that's highly pure kind of like a pharmaceutical grade manufacturing version of astaxanthin that is just producing the natural molecule itself. So it's highly pure, highly consistent. And then we have a special formulation that allows for it to be very well absorbed. And we actually conducted a human clinical study with an off-the-shelf microalgal extract of astaxanthin from a leading popular brand and measured the amount of astaxanthin absorbed into the bloodstream with that version. And then brought the same group of people back a week later after the astaxanthin was washed out their system and no longer measurable, and then gave them our form of astaxanthin at the same dose, which in that case was two 12 milligram capsules. And we measured three times the amount of astaxanthin in the bloodstream, both at the maximum concentration point, but the total exposure over 24 hours, if you add up all of the time points, it was three times in that case as well. And so you're absorbing three times as much. And so if someone is comparing astaxanthin products, you may look at, for example, prices and see, okay, this one is half the price, but you have to keep in mind that I might be only absorbing one third as much as is say in the case of ours. And so that three times absorption is really important along with the purity. And in addition, in that same group of human volunteers in that study, in addition to having three times the level of astaxanthin, there was less variability between each of the subjects in terms of their absorption levels. So there was more consistent absorption in addition to three times the absorption. So that's something that I think for most people would be really important. And then the final thing about the product is the ingredients that we use to create the formulation. We use a very small amount of starch and glucose syrup, which from a label standpoint, if you see those ingredients on some type of food product, you would normally say, okay, I would avoid something that has extra starch or glucose syrup. But the amounts of these ingredients are very small compared to what you consume in a dietary sense. These are milligrams of a starch or of a glucose syrup compared to grams that you may consume. So for example, if you were buying a beverage at the store and it had 10 grams of sugar, that'd be like, okay, that's the fair amount of sugar. You compare another one has one gram of sugar. It's like, okay, that's pretty low sugar. This has less than a 10th of half a gram. Yeah. So it's virtually no glucose syrup, but that is what holds the formulation together. Kind of like the glue that holds it together. And the starch, the reason it's in there is that actually allows the astaxanthin, which is fat soluble to become water dispersible. And so if with the capsule, if you have trouble swallowing pills, you can actually twist open the capsule, dump the powder into water and it'll just mix into the water so you could drink it. It'll turn bright red like Kool-Aid, but it won't taste or smell like anything. In addition, your gut fluid is aqueous. And so when that formulation hits your gut, even just from the capsule and the capsule dissolves, the powder in the capsule will disperse nicely into the aqueous fluid in your gut. And then that will then in turn be nicely absorbed along with the fats in your meal. And so that's the reason for those ingredients and just wanted people to understand why those are there. But that's really what makes our version of the product. So hopefully that's helpful. And this is what the product looks like. So AX3. Yeah, it is incredibly helpful. Number one, because you explain why your product is differentiated. Number two, talking about how it's put together so that if people have questions, helps explain it's for bioavailability. But I've so enjoyed this conversation. Like I mentioned, I went down a rabbit hole and was so excited to talk to you. And one of the things I like and respect about your work is that listening to you on other people's podcasts, you really do tailor the conversation for the community. And so thank you for that. And we'll put all this information in the show notes so people can get easy access and follow up with you. Sounds good. Thank you. If you love this podcast episode, please leave a rating and review, subscribe and tell a friend. Bye.