760. THIS Super Nutrient Fights Chronic Inflammation + Can Extend Your Lifespan
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Hello there. Welcome to Almost 30 Podcast. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Almost 30 World. It's Lindsay and Krista. We're best friends in real life. We're not breaking up. We're not breaking up.

Actually, did you know that 65% of companies do not succeed because the founders do not get along? Yep. Also, when people invest in companies, that's like one of the first things that they're looking at is the relationship. Also, dolphins are the only animals that have sex or pleasure. Keep it going. And also, did you guys know –

What was your stat again? I couldn't think of it because I was thinking of my joke. Can you say it again? I said that when investors look at the relationships between the founders, yeah, because it's such a marker for success. This is what I say. Everything is relationship. Everything is relational. Everything is

Everything is relational and human. As much as we like to think it isn't in business or in investing or whatever, it's all about that. It truly is. Because you get down to it. You're like, I guess there's product, business,

there's ROI, there's the money that you make, but then at the very core of it, you're looking at the founders and their relationships. Good. You know, you're looking at like that type of thing. And when like deals get over the line, it's probably because the relationship has been fostered. Yes. You know. I love the deal getting over the line. And also people like in our business, we were just talking about another podcast where you could feel the tension between the hosts and that's uncomfortable. And I feel like

part of our success, a big part of our success is our relationship. Yes. Even though we've struggled, which we talked about in episodes. Over the years, we've been doing this for so long. I remember one episode we did that was called The Truth of Our Relationship. Oh, wow. We were hoping it was going to be a clickbait. But we were saying the truth of our relationship is that we've brought up

We were perfectly paired in so many ways of strengths and weaknesses and then also wounding. Yeah. You know, there's oftentimes perfect relationships for a lot of reasons and we had perfect wounding matches. What was yours? Yours is not enoughness. Mine was like I can't trust anybody. Would you say that? Yeah, yeah. I would say that. You're my mother and I'm your father. Yeah. That's kind of true. Is it? Maybe. I don't know if you were my…

I don't know. Well, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Because the trust. Yeah. Was like, oh, I can't trust anybody. Or you were my husband. I don't know, man.

There's a lot of codependency happening. Yeah, there's basically a lot of codependency happening. Okay, so I'm excited you guys are here. Almost 30. We do spirituality, lifestyle. We do health and wellness. And oftentimes we like to have on founders of companies and brands that can help us understand new cutting-edge supplements, research, information,

in the health and wellness space. So for a long time, we were really focused on health and wellness. Now we've kind of expanded more to personal growth, but it's so nice to stay ahead of what's coming out because in the health and wellness space, there's so much happening. There's so much changing and there's so much evolving and there's so much noise and information. I was actually on Max Lugavere's podcast recently. We were talking about

In our space, how do we make sure we're good stewards of information, that we're good stewards of research, that we are promoting products that are actually helping people? And the company and founder that we interviewed today from AX3 is actually one of his favorite companies. It was who we heard about. Hold on.

I actually heard about AX3 through Max Lugavere. Even when I was on his podcast recently, he was shouting out the supplement as one of his favorites, especially as it relates to longevity and to brain health because that's such a focus for him. So in this conversation, I got to sit down with the founder, David Watermall. Is that how you say it? Mm-hmm. Okay.

So I actually got to sit down with the founder, David Watermull, and break down the science and break down this new research about this new supplement that's so instrumental and helpful and something I'm excited to try and take on and even bring to my dad because my dad's health –

is really declining. He's really struggling. He has Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. So anything that I can do to help him and his health, I'm like game and excited to try. Yeah. It was really fascinating to talk to him about the sourcing of this, where this comes from. So astaxanthin is, this is a pure form of astaxanthin sourced from algae. And I just found it so fascinating that...

Within ourselves, as we age, I think this is kind of a duh, but we're kind of focused on all the other things and we're not focused on the core foundational part of who we are, which is ourselves. And over time, they're unable to produce as many antioxidants as needed to combat environmental stressors, etc. So we need to give them a boost and

And one of the ways to do that is to take astaxanthin. So for example, this helps your brain health, as Krista said. So it actually crosses the blood-brain barrier and has been shown to improve cognitive performance and memory and processing and really improves your neuroplasticity and improves eye health. He actually gave a specific example about

He had an accident with his own eye and just like how it has helped his eye recover and regenerate over time as well as skin health and heart health. So it is really a full body supplement. So oftentimes when Krista and I are vetting supplements and talking about supplements, there's usually a focus. You know, it's either for your skin or maybe it's just for your brain health. But this is one of those that I can confidently say

everyone can benefit from taking. Yeah, that's where I think things are transitioning now that I've noticed. It's like, what are the building blocks of health? Because I think

You know, for a long time in our space, it was like pulling on the top levers of, okay, I'm going to take a vitamin C or I'm going to take something else. But now it's like our cells are how we function. And if you have strong, healthy cells, everything else is going to run better. And actually the body is so intelligent that by just giving the cells what it needs to survive and to be strong and

and to be healthy really allows the body then to use its own intelligence to use energy more efficiently. So you're not just bombarding it with something externally, but you're giving it the foundations to really be healthy from the inside out. So this helps with brain health, heart health, joint and muscle health, your lifespan, your skin, and your eyes. Because as we age, our body's natural antioxidant defenses slow down, which can really drive that chronic inflammation and diminish our overall health. So it helps

really overcome the oxygen

That was it. Cut it. And I found this fascinating too. It is the most powerful antioxidant. So to put it into perspective, it's 6,000 times stronger than vitamin C. It's 550 times stronger than vitamin E. It's 40 times stronger than beta carotene. And it comes from nature. So it's just so cool. And I just love...

You know, their dedication to the sustainability, the process, how they have created their own algae farms to be able to produce this consistently, making sure the product is of the highest quality. Yeah.

We love it. And this is one of Max Lugavere's favorite, Genius Life, one of the gurus in the health and wellness space, our dear friend. So he's a huge fan of AX3, and you can get a discount on AX3 using code ALMOST30. So go to ax3.com to get the supplement now to support your cells and anti-aging and increasing your lifespan. Can you just say go to ax3.life? Yes.

So you can get Astaxanthin from ax3.life. That's ax3.life. And you can use code ALMOST30. I think this is a great product for you and then also for your family to support you in having really healthy cells and reducing inflammation and living longer. All right, y'all. Thank you for listening. If you haven't already, pre-order our new book coming out in June, almost30.com slash book.

Krista and I wrote this over the course of a year and a half, but it is really a compilation of her life's experience, especially navigating change and times of transition. This is for people in their late 20s.

heading into their 30s, it's also for anyone just moving through change. We know how intense it can be, how chaotic it can be, how it can bring you to your knees. And this is the guide that we wish we had. So please pre-order now. This is a great gift.

For anyone in your life, almost30.com slash book. I actually got a WhatsApp from one of our girls, our community. She was in a few of my programs. She's amazing. She just said, I just started reading and I literally cannot put it down. It is so good, exclamation point capital. I literally blocked off my morning to keep reading. I seriously have never felt so understood by a book. I love you and I'm so proud of you.

Makes my whole day, and I can't wait for you guys to put your hands on it. This is something that can support you in your life now and in the future and really be that thing that's going to be like a foundation of what you're going to use for your personal growth moving forward. All right, y'all. Enjoy this one. Thank you, David, for joining us. We'll see you on the other side. See you soon. Bye.

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to 64000. 64000. Message and data rates may apply. See terms for details. Excited to have you because I've been taking, I've been taking AX3. Mostly for the cognitive benefits. My dad has Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. And so I, and my grandma had Alzheimer's and I have both on both sides. So I think

As a preventative way in my, or as a preventative measure in my life, I've been really mindful about it. And it's been really beautiful. And we got introduced through Max Lucavere, which has been so nice. So our audience are women that are very curious about supplements, very curious about what they can do to reduce inflammation, to feel really good, to live long.

long, healthy lives. And they've been talked to about a lot of supplements over the years and products. So during our conversation today, I want to really break down the journey for you in this. Why is this such a thing, a huge part of your life? And then talk a lot about the research and science behind it because I want to make sure that we're telling them things and we're offering them things that are going to help their lives in the way that it's helped mine. Yeah, I would love to start at the beginning because I'm always so fascinated with...

Because this is a very specific supplement. Yeah. And it's such a, I found it really fascinating to learn about where this is sourced from, why it is so potent and effective. But how did you find this and become so fascinated with it that you would be...

create a product yeah so it wasn't a plan to launch this as a product or even to get into this space it dates back to high school for me so as a summer job i was involved with the company on the big island of hawaii that was growing microalgae it was a group of scientists that had figured out how to grow this microalgae they're trying to figure out how to commercialize it and i was there just helping production in the ponds and you know realizing that this

And this algae, that's this green algae, it's out there in the hot, bright sunlight in Kona where the Ironmen train and compete. Just ponds dug into lava fields. And the algae would grow, the sunlight would hit them, and then they would turn bright red and they'd be producing astaxanthin as a defense mechanism against the UV light from the sun. And it helped them. And it's part of the whole photosynthetic process and it co-evolved with that billions of years ago.

as I kind of was moving beyond just production, learning about this science, I realized like, wow, this actually has profound effects in nature, throughout the marine ecosystem. It's a key nutrient throughout the whole food chain. And so with that, we did research and at the time there was only a few hundred peer reviewed papers, if that, but there were early hints of the fact that it impacted oxidative stress, inflammation, it had great safety. And so we thought, wow, this could be really,

beneficial for humans, not just for animals. And so we and a company across the street from us that was also doing similar technology were the first ones to bring out an astaxanthin dietary supplement back in the 2000 timeframe.

And at the time we thought, you know, this could even potentially have disease applications. So we looked at pharmaceutical development. But to do that, it's hard to take a botanical product, a plant, an algae, and actually take that through an FDA process. And so we decided let's actually try to produce this in the laboratory, you know, like pharmaceutical grade, exactly how you get the same chemical compound from nature, but with absolute purity and consistency.

So we worked on that for many years and we advanced the science. We did all types of studies looking at various applications for cardiovascular and liver health. And then with that, after about a decade with the whole financial crisis of 2008, which really impeded our ability to continue to finance the pharmaceutical effort,

We came back to the supplement space and brought the learnings of the pharmaceutical research and the rigor to the supplement world. And then over the last, you know, however many years we've been working to create awareness for astaxanthin and bring it, you know, to the human market and to grow that awareness because

Everyone's heard of things like omega-3s and many other supplements, but not many people have heard about this. And so kind of fell into this, you know, and goes back now 25 years for me, you know, late 90s when I started with this. But just the more you dig, the more you learn, the more exciting it is. And you see the impacts in the science, but also in people's lives. So all the feedback we get is really rewarding is what keeps us going to keep pushing. Did you have a health

you know, a health reason for being interested in it? Like, was there an aspect of your journey that was like, I, this has been really helpful and impactful for me? Yeah, it wasn't. A lot of people sometimes have those stories where they had some type of condition and they, you know, the doctors couldn't fix it and then they solve it on their own. And then that's their product. And that's amazing. And fortunately, I, you know, had good health. I mean, I've had certain injuries over the years. Like I injured my eye in high school with a blood force trauma of a tennis racket to the eye

And so I've had my fair share of issues there, but not from a health standpoint where I'm trying to find a cure for something, but just wanting to be healthy and be active and live a long, healthy life and not just...

lifespan, but healthspan, valuing all of that. And then just seeing your loved ones as they age and grandparents pass away and things like that, you just kind of become aware of your own mortality and also that you realize, especially as you age and you get not just through your twenties into your thirties and forties, then you realize like,

wow, actually feeling good is a huge part of life. You know, if you're tired and dragging and not feeling great, then it just impacts everything in life. So I think along the way, I've really learned the value of health and pursuing that. I'm so glad we're at a point in history now where people are actually aware of how they feel rather than just getting ahead and all of that. Yeah.

I, I've, yeah, I'm grateful because I talked about this a little bit with, uh, Dr. Mark Hyman, but that, that difference between, um, health span and life and lifespan. So people want to live long. Okay. But are you actually going to be healthy and thriving when you are 80, 90 years old? So I just think it's super important. I did want to ask, um, cause I heard about this, maybe listening to Max, but, um, I

So there are certain animals and species that eat this algae and they benefit from it. Can we actually nerd out on that for a second? Because I think it's really fascinating. Anything with animals. Yeah. So the algae, microalgae produce this, like I said, as a defense mechanism against UV light from the sun. And it works its way up through like plankton and shrimp and things and small fish and then ultimately into plants.

to salmon, whales. So it's a huge part of the whole marine ecosystem. But the story with salmon is especially cool because everyone has consumed salmon, but they may not realize that the reason that they're pink or red is because of astaxanthin. It's a natural pigment, but it's not just a pigment. It gives them really important health benefits. And so

when they swim upstream to reproduce, it's this amazing journey. They're going against the current upstream, going up these little waterfalls, and they're basically wasting away without eating and just trying to get to the top of the stream to reproduce. And

And as they're doing that, the astaxanthin is helping to power them upstream. And then when they turn bright red, because normally it's their internal flesh that's red, but their skin will turn red as they get ready to spawn. And I think that's the astaxanthin being transferred to their skin, perhaps as a signal of being ready to reproduce.

And then ultimately, when they get to the location to reproduce and lay the eggs, the astaxanthin is transferred to the eggs. And that's why the salmon eggs are red, is because of the astaxanthin. And because they're laid in the shallow ponds, it also helps protect them against UV light from the sun, just like the microalgae. And it also helps with the development of the eggs.

And there's been other studies looking at developmental and reproductive safety and benefits as well. And so it's like a part of the whole life cycle of the salmon. And so without it, they would not be how they are. They would be gray, they'd be small, they'd be too weak to swim upstream and reproduce. I mean, let's just look to nature for everything. Yeah, I know. Do you know what I mean? But nowadays they have the salmon that they put the dye in.

So it has no astaxanthin then? No. So actually that's also a misconception. People think that farm-raised salmon are dyed pink, you know, with just some random color. They're actually fed astaxanthin in their diet. Um, and so they may not get as high of a level as, you know, wild sockeye salmon that's really deep red. Um, but it is still astaxanthin, um,

And it's just that it's part of their diet in the farm-raised conditions. And there may be reasons why you wouldn't want the farm-raised salmon for living conditions or other considerations versus wild-caught. But in terms of why they're pink or red, it's the same thing that they're consuming. They're just getting as part of their diet or their feed rather than what they consume in the wild. Wow.

So you mentioned something about UV. What is the relationship between astaxanthin and UV? How would that impact us as humans and our skin? What would it be doing to us and our skin? Yeah. So the sunlight contains UV rays and that can damage your DNA and other cellular components. And so astaxanthin helps to absorb that

oxidative stress that would be happening and damaging your cells. And so it gets in there and just kind of helps to absorb and shield against that light that would damage you. It makes you younger, more youthful.

And I was like, yeah, it helps to repair the DNA. Just model. Like, yes, yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What other, so that's a form of oxidative stress. Yeah. What other, go ahead. This is the only thing I want to say about that. That's an unlock of the beauty journey that I've been on is like reducing my oxidative stress through things like this. And yeah,

It's some peptides that I've been taking like seromerelin or whatever that have, you know, it's not related to oxidative stress more than like increasing my HGH. That is like such a beauty thing that you don't, it's kind of like that, that thing that you don't really know that makes someone more beautiful. You're like, wow, you look more radiant or more youthful or more dewy or more alive.

or more just vital, but it wouldn't be something on the surface. You'd be like, oh, they changed their lipstick or their hair. Like it's just like a... They're just glowing. Glowing. Yeah. Yeah. No, there's actually research showing that with astaxanthin, it helps with all these skin benefits. So moisture content, elasticity, fine lines, wrinkles, and that's both

studying oral and topical applications. And so we, of course, have the oral version with capsules, but there are some people looking into cosmetic applications as well. And future product extension, we would look to maybe do that as well. Like a cream. Like a cream. But you probably, you can't have too much astaxanthin in there. Otherwise it would be bright red. It'd be like warping. I was going to say, it'd be red. Yeah.

We're like sandwich. Yeah. We're like ready to spawn. But fortunately, orally, it does work from the inside to help with those benefits too. I was going to say, I was like, that's so powerful for this, like, I think more so

to be like feeding your skin and or like treating your skin from the inside out, like inside first. Yeah. A lot of people think, oh, I can just slap things on and that'll do it. But I mean, so much of your health is determined from your inside. And just like people don't realize that the brain and the body are connected. I mean, just your overall health impacts everything from your skin to your brain and all that. Yeah. What other, uh,

forms of oxidative stress does asampin help and or like kind of prevent because we're people in a modern world a lot of us are living in cities a lot of us you know are exposed to various things so i guess what have you seen would also love for you to find what that is

Yeah, so oxidative stress is something that can be triggered by all types of things. It could be pollution, toxins, it could be a poor diet, injury, UV light from the sun. And so, or it can be for instance, when your cells are producing energy,

mitochondria, the little power plants of the cells, and you breathe in the oxygen, you take in your nutrients, and then they produce energy. But as a byproduct of that, you have these reactive oxygen species. And so these are oxygen molecules that have unpaired electrons that are looking to

react with other things in your cells, which causes damage. And it's almost like the Tasmanian devil from the cartoons just bouncing around and creating all this chaos. And it damages your lipids in your cellular membranes and your DNA and proteins and all these things. And so the oxidative stress can be triggered from a variety of different

sources. And there can be different forms of reactive oxygen species or free radicals, but with astaxanthin, it actually has an impact on a variety of these different types of reactive oxygen species and free radicals. And because it's distributed throughout your whole body, it has an impact on a whole host of forms of oxidative stress, which has an impact on

downstream effects on inflammation and other cellular pathways. And so one thing in particular is that it gets into the membranes of the cells. And so your cells have a lipid bilayer around the outside of the cell, which is formed with phospholipids. You have two of them kind of butted up

back to back. You have a polar head and an apolar tail. And astaxanthin has a polar head and an apolar backbone. And so it locks right into the cellular membrane and spans right across it and helps to stabilize the membrane. And there's other antioxidants and other carotenoids, which is the family that astaxanthin is a part of, that look similar in chemical structure.

Things like beta carotene, for example, is like a cousin of astaxanthin, but it doesn't have the same polar head groups to allow it to anchor across the membrane and can actually disrupt the membrane, which can impact how the cell functions. And so with astaxanthin, it gets into those membranes, stabilizes them, but also prevents those lipids from being oxidized.

You may have heard about like with omega-3s that those can become oxidized. And these fatty acids are really important to the integrity of your cellular membranes, but those membranes can become oxidized, which also can be referred to as lipid peroxidation. And that has all types of downstream effects on areas of health, liver, heart, brain types of disorders. And so with astaxanthin, you're in the cell membrane, you're preventing that lipid peroxidation or the oxidation of those lipids

But what's also cool is that there's membranes around all the other components of the cell. So the nucleus has a membrane which houses the DNA. The mitochondria has membranes. And so astaxanthin can get to all these sites. And these are privileged locations like the mitochondria to actually get to. To go into a lab and try to design a molecule to do all that would be virtually impossible. And so nature came up with this.

And it routes astaxanthin to all of these membranes throughout the cell and helps prevent the oxidation of those lipids in all those places, which impacts not only the lipid oxidation, but also DNA and proteins. And so if you think about your cells as little

that power your body. If you think of the analog of a little factory or a bunch of machines in kind of the real world here and it was made of metal and everything was rusting and not running properly, that would be a bad thing. And so as a thing kind of keeps everything from rusting and getting kind of gummed up and not being able to function normally. And so you can just think about your cell as just

functioning in a way that nature intended versus being oxidized and inflamed and dysfunctional.

We think that this is kind of a random question, but I always think with this, something like this, it's like, is this, is this the reason why we need this is because in the modern world, we have so many stressors on the body and so many ways in which we are preventing ourselves from naturally being well, because I'm thinking about throughout, or is this just optimization? Because I'm thinking about throughout history and the fact that people probably weren't, didn't have access to something like this. So what do you think is the sort of reason now that people would need this?

Well, it's multiple things. I mean, they would have had access through diet if they consume seafood. So salmon, shrimp, lobster, crab, these all have... I mean, so salmon, like I mentioned, are pink because of astaxanthin. So that's also the reason that lobster and crab and shrimp are pink or red. It's because of the astaxanthin. And so people would have consumed it in those ways. It's also, by the way, the reason why flamingos are pink, because they eat the shrimp in their diet. And so...

So not that you'd be eating flamingos, but... How long do flamingos live? Probably a long time, I think. Yeah, yeah, it must be that extended. Oh my God, I love that. Also, I bet flamingo meat isn't bad. No.

I don't eat meat. I don't eat meat. Chill out, Megan. Yeah, honestly. Hey, you guys are the freaks. So, yeah, so I'm sure that people had it as part of their diets. But while people, you know, thousands of years ago may not have been exposed to pollution and, you know, ultra processed foods and things and, you know, suffering from obesity and

you still age. And as you age, things wear down. And so you have these built-in endogenous antioxidant systems that help to deal with the oxidative stress that would be happening just, again, as a normal byproduct of energy production in your cells, which over time, as you age, for example, or say if you get injured, you're out hunting and something happens and you have an injury or an infection, all these things can ramp up these internal processes that, you know,

provide challenges for your body to deal with that oxidative stress. And so I think it's something that we probably always needed. And it's just, it's just worse now with, with everything on with modern life. So I think getting a diet full of astaxanthin, but also supplementing with astaxanthin is really important now.

Yeah, I was gonna, I was gonna ask that, that question of like, I guess, how much salmon would you need to eat in a day to get like the proper amount? Because I guess just to kind of frame for people, like how much you would need to be effective. Right.

Yeah, I mean, first of all, there's different types of salmon that have different amounts of astaxanthin. But even if you get a really beautiful deep red sockeye salmon and eat a whole fillet, that may be four, six, eight milligrams of astaxanthin. And supplements like ours are 12 milligrams of

And a lot of times people find benefits even with multiple capsules a day. And so you would have to consume a lot of salmon to have a similar type of dose. I mean, if you had a nice, beautiful full filet every single day, that certainly would be great as a baseline, but most people don't.

do that. So yeah, I definitely would probably want a supplement to get the true benefits and optimize your health that way. And what have you noticed, I guess, for yourself and, you know, people around you that have taken astaxanthin for quite some time, just the benefits that you've experienced? Yeah. So energy levels, sleep, mental

Mental clarity, lack of brain fog, those types of things are things that I notice. Fortunately, I don't suffer from joint and muscle issues, but I know a lot of people that do. My father, for example, is in his mid-70s and plays hardcore singles tennis multiple times a week and in the hot sun in the middle of the day and it really helps him with his mobility. And so a lot of people, joint muscle function is a really big benefit there.

but cognitive benefits, there's been studies showing improvements in information processing, memory, recall, all those things. And a lot of people report similar types of benefits. So some of the things are the things that you can experience yourself

where you feel like, oh yeah, I feel like I have more energy or my joints feel better. And then there's other things that you can measure. People can see reductions in cholesterol or triglycerides or blood pressure, things like that, that have been shown in clinical studies, but also just anecdotally with people that are in our community. Wow.

What's the brain? Cause I take it for cognitive function. Cause I know Max recommends it and, you know, like love his worker on that. Um, just cause it's impact on my life and potentially my future. Yeah. Um, what are the impacts on your cognitive health? Well, as you know, oxidative stress, inflammation have a huge role in a variety of brain mental, uh, you know, and, and brain types of disorders. Um, and, and

And these are things that take a toll on the brain over years and decades of time. And so the progression of oxidative stress and inflammation in the brain can lead to all these types of issues. And with astaxanthin, it crosses the blood-brain barrier, gets into your brain, gets into the cells in the brain, and then does the same thing that we talked about earlier in terms of protecting the cells from oxidative stress in the membranes.

and impacting cellular pathways that are involved in aging as well. And so that's why I can have a benefit on a lot of these areas. And there hasn't been specific like human studies with Alzheimer's or Parkinson's and those would be more in the disease realm or pharmaceutical realm of testing and development. But mechanistically, it has impacts on these things, which

are things that you'd wanna do. So you'd wanna reduce your neuroinflammation to have the best chance of warding off these cognitive disorders and decline over time. So everything from an anti-inflammatory diet to exercise and sleep and lack of stress, all of those things. But if you can supplement with things that also help and that are safe, then that can give you the kind of the best shot or the most insurance to hopefully maintain your health and cognitive health throughout life.

You mentioned earlier it has an effect on liver and heart function. Can you go more deeply into that? And I also read it has an effect potentially on eye health. Yeah. She's obsessed with her eyes because her contacts. I don't have a contact in this eye right now. She doesn't have a contact this week. I'm just like, I don't know. I want to, I'm pissed that like, I just keep getting a stronger prescription. Oh, okay. Yeah. I had that happen recently. Over the years. And I felt like I was like,

This is a bad, I was like, oh, this is a sign for how much time I'm on my phone on my screen. And I think I could change this because I'm like, if it's a muscle, I should be able to change this. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. So from the liver, astaxanthin gets into the liver when you first absorb it through your stomach and small intestine, it gets kind of absorbed along with the fats in your meal and then gets into the liver and accumulates there and helps prevent constipation.

again, a lot of the oxidative stress and inflammation that happens in the liver. We've done studies with academic liver researchers where you can induce liver damage in various ways. And we tried that with and without astaxanthin as part of the chow. And this was a particular animal model, which

Obviously there's ethical and moral considerations around animal research, but for pharmaceutical development, before you can go into humans, you often have to prove that it works in an animal species. And so there was research looking at liver disease and we found benefits in terms of reduction of liver damage and liver enzyme levels, which can be elevated when you're unwell. And so we found those benefits. There's also human data showing reductions in markers related to fatty liver disease

and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis or NASH-related types of disorders. So these are issues that people with poor diets and whether it's high-fat diets or alcohol consumption, all these things can damage your liver over the years.

Acetazanthin looks like it would have a beneficial impact on helping to mitigate those issues. And then in the liver, acetazanthin gets packaged into the lipoproteins like LDL, VLDL, and HDL, and hitches a ride on them throughout the body. And while doing that, it helps to prevent them from being oxidized because your LDL, people think about your bad cholesterol.

What's really bad is when the LDL itself is oxidized. And so oxidized LDL is something that most, it's hard to get it measured. There's specialty labs that do it, but we've done a clinical study showing that we can reduce the oxidized LDL, which is really important because that can really lead to atherosclerosis. And so in particular, it's the oxidized LDL that builds up and can lead to the plaques and the ruptures of those plaques and the clotting of the arteries. And so-

These are things that if you can, again, reduce over time safely, have a really big impact. So others, and as we have done clinical studies showing reductions of LDL cholesterol, total cholesterol, also increases in HDL, the good cholesterol, decreases in triglycerides and blood pressure. And again, in animal models, when we're doing our pharmaceutical research,

We found reductions in stroke in blood clots, sort of thrombosis and rethrombosis in various species. And so that was a really exciting result to see that in multiple different animal models at different academic research institutions that we could prevent blood clots from happening. And then also atherosclerosis in a model where we could actually image and see the aortic arch of the heart and visually see less plaque

in the animals that got the doses of astaxanthin over a few months of time. So really profound impacts on heart and liver. And then with the eye, same thing, your eye is prone to UV damage from the sun and oxidative stress. And so astaxanthin does help with that. But interestingly, astaxanthin has a couple very close relatives called lutein and zeaxanthin that you may have heard of.

Lutein is in like, what's that? Centrum silver. Yeah. It's a little more well-known than astaxanthin. But there's actually clinical studies showing that the levels of like lutein and zeaxanthin are...

they actually are localized in the macula in your eye. So your eye was already designed to have those in your eye to help protect it against UV light, for example. And as those levels go down over time, your risk of age-related macular degeneration goes up. They're inversely correlated. So if you can keep those levels of lutein and zeaxanthin up in your eye, those would really help with mitigating macular degeneration.

And so with astaxanthin, it's been shown to impact visual acuity, tear production, and other things. Although to our knowledge, astaxanthin doesn't like localize in the macula like lutein and zeaxanthin, but it's more being systemically distributed and being in and around the eye. It helps to impact overall health of the eye. So I would say that lutein and zeaxanthin are probably more...

like astaxanthin for the eye, but astaxanthin still has benefits for the eye, like I mentioned with visual acuity. So hopefully maybe it could help you with that prescription over time. I'm going to be your girl to give you that testimonial. One time I was at this retreat and my world is sometimes health and wellness and sometimes very spiritual. And she cured her eye

You know, like her eyes kept getting worse and worse by staring at a flame for a month. So she would just relax her eyes and stare at a flame.

Well, yeah, because you know, like say you're doing like the eye test, the eye doctor, depending on how hard you're squinting or how tired you are or whatever, that can impact how well you can see, you know? And so I do think things like how well rested you are and stress and all these things can have an impact on that. So perhaps, you know, if she's being more relaxed and, you know, focusing on that plane, maybe that did have that benefit. Yeah, phones. I feel like phones are a thing. I know. Yeah.

It is. If you think about it, that's one of my favorite things to do at the end of the day is just relax the eyes looking into the distance. Just letting the eyes, because we're just fully in like certain muscle usage of the eyes because we're focusing on things short or we're not focused on the long range. But just relaxing and looking into the distance. It's just so nice. Well, you don't realize like,

This is going to be a tangent, but we can come back. But I know just how many muscles are right here. And just like kind of the tension. Like when I actually relax everything, I'm like, oh, girl, you've been. I know. Yes. You don't even realize it. I know. Does astaxanthin actually have a...

effect on like recovery, muscle recovery? Like are athletes using this? Like, yeah, what's that? Yeah. Going back to Kona, when we were initially working on this, a lot of the triathletes were using this for endurance and recovery purposes.

Because again, when you're really beating up your body, you're going to have an oxidative stress response and inflammatory response. And part of that you want in terms of like building muscle, like tearing and rebuilding the muscle. But with astaxanthin, it's been shown that it helps to increase muscle tension.

strength and size over time, especially like in elderly where that can be a really big issue because when people age and they lose muscle mass, that's not good and you want to maintain that. And there's studies showing it helps to actually improve that muscle strength and size. And there's also studies showing improvements in recovery and endurance. And so, yeah, it seems to really be a beneficial supplement for athletes as well. This is very dynamic.

Yeah. I wanted to talk about that because it's like, I've noticed there's a few, or I've noticed more often now the supplements that I'm gravitated towards and the supplements that I think are becoming more popular rightfully so are a

addressing cellular function or addressing specific functions that impact every area of the body as a foundation rather than like, Hey, this is B12, this impact, you know what I mean? So can you talk a little bit about that? Cause I think I want people to really understand what this is and what this is doing from the level of like, this is what this does in the body. And this is why it impacts all of these areas. Yeah. So this is really impacting the foundational health of your body at the cellular level.

And so the fact that it's distributed throughout your whole body gets into all of your cells. There's cells everywhere. All your tissues are made of cells and every cell needs to function and has a purpose. And if it...

you know, is being oxidized and not functioning normally, then it's going to lead to different types of dysfunction. And so, you know, if it's in your liver, it may be one issue. If it's in your heart, another in your brain, another. And people will try to treat these things with various different types of supplements or drugs or other types of treatments. But like you're saying, it's not necessarily...

a different issue that's happening. It could be the same systemic fundamental issue that needs to be addressed. And if you do that, just like if you get better sleep or an overall better diet has all these benefits, it's not just impacting one thing because it's working at that foundational level. And so the fact that astaxanthin gets throughout your body into all of your cells, all the membranes, that's why it has all these benefits in all these different areas because it's working at the source where if your cells are functioning normally and they're happy and they're good throughout your body and all the different organs and tissues,

then things are going to work a lot better. And so it's not just going in and doing one thing or certain drugs may go in and, you know, bind to a certain receptor in the cell and do one thing. Like, you know, something got ramped up and it's causing an issue. And then the drug goes in and just knocks that thing out completely and just inhibits it all the time, like turns off the switch. But

That switch was meant to go on and off from time to time, but that drug goes in and makes the switches forever off. And that may fix one issue, but then create another issue. And so what this does is more restoring that homeostasis and that normal function rather than trying to go in and change how the body works by always turning something on or always turning something off. It's like, hey, let's just allow things to function normally.

Can you find astaxanthin in the medical space? Are they giving this at all or it's just supplements? Yeah, right now it's just supplements. We were doing pharmaceutical research for about a decade and we still would love to pursue that in the future as well.

One company has pursued a medical food application of vasosanthin, and that was related to sarcopenia, which is the decline of muscle in the elderly. And that's what I was mentioning earlier. So that was clinical work and led to the approval of vasosanthin as a medical food for that particular application. But in terms of the safety studies that have been done with vasosanthin and all the non-clinical and clinical research,

This is something that has much more research than almost any drug that would go into human development. And then ultimately the pharmaceutical development, you go through phase one, two, and three human clinical trials, which increases the sample size in specific clinical studies and then allows the FDA to approve it for a particular indication, like a particular disease. And so that's a pathway that takes many, many years and tens or hundreds of millions of dollars just to get the result that, yep, it actually works in this thing that

we kind of already knew about, but it allows you to market it for a disease. Whereas as a supplement, you can't market the supplement for disease, even if there's scientific studies showing preliminary data that is really intriguing, for example. And so we can only talk about cardiovascular health, but we can talk about preventing heart disease or treating heart disease.

But then certainly the research is out there and people can look into that and make an informed decision. But one really important thing is that astaxanthin has such a great safety profile. A lot of drugs have a very narrow therapeutic window where you try to line up, okay, what's the dose that will work but not kill you and then try to adjust that.

In our case with astaxanthin, there's really been no dose-limiting toxicity that's been found because in order for the FDA to approve astaxanthin to be included in the animal feed or in the fish feed for salmon, for example, back in the 80s and 90s, there was research and then ultimately FDA approval.

as a color additive for the feed. But before doing that, the FDA required a very big battery of safety studies. And these are the same types of toxicity studies that would be done for a drug development before you could go into humans. So high dose long-term studies, that would be the equivalent of us eating just spoonfuls and spoonfuls and spoonfuls of just pure astaxanthin. And these studies were examined in various species over time.

many years, carcinogenicity and things like developmental and reproductive toxicity, genotoxicity, like DNA type toxicity, all these things were examined and there were no issues of human kind of clinical significance that were found. And so it gives a very wide window of, you know, kind of, you know, how much you can take. And so most people take something like 12 or 24 milligrams a day of astaxanthin, but

For example, we did a human study showing that 96 milligrams a day had these key benefits on the cardiovascular biomarkers I mentioned, like cholesterol and oxidized LDL and blood pressure. And some people take even more than that. So that's like if one pill has 12 milligrams, you take like a bunch a day. Yeah, that would be eight a day in our clinical trial. Some people take double that. But most people take...

Two a day or maybe one to four, it depends. And so it depends on your particular health status, what you're dealing with, how intensely you're exercising or maybe what other issues that you're battling or hoping to improve. And so you can start with a given dose

take it for a few months and then see subjectively how you feel, but then also you can get your blood work done. And then every three months or six months or year, you can see how those cholesterol levels are doing or liver enzymes are doing and adjust your dose accordingly, either up or down. And some people have been taking it for a while and then they're like, oh, I'm not sure if it was working. And then they stopped taking it and then they realize, oh, wow, I actually don't feel as good as I used to. Then they start taking it again and then they realize, yep, that it really was having a benefit.

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And then finally, if you buy two books, you're going to get those two things I just mentioned. And you're going to get access to the Almost 30 Mini Workshop Series, Navigating Your Saturn Return with Kristen Lindsay. It is a step-by-step guide. So not only do you have the digital guide and you're going to be getting the book, but this is really helpful to like be in conversation with us. We're going to give you examples from our own Saturn Returns.

There's going to be clarity and laughs and moments of like, oh my God, that makes so much sense. So I'm excited for you. You can go to almost30.com slash book and learn all about it, pre-order it there and get your bonuses. That's the thing too, I think Sue, with the trend is more so the supplements that are subtle and it's like just benefiting all the systems or the cells. And you're not like, I think, you know, kind of the old pharmaceutical route was like,

spot treat only do one thing and we didn't know that it was impacting everything else so this area feels better or we're numbing or dulling yeah and now it's like how can we just continue to support the foundation of our health yeah you know for our whole lives i'd love to hear more about the nih study that came out oh yeah that was cool yeah so there's all this research and and so we didn't even talk about longevity yet um and so let's talk about longevity and what do you define as longevity

The longevity is both lifespan and healthspan. And so some people think of it as one or the other, and research can be one or the other. And so this particular NIH study that I'm going to talk about and some others were more on the lifespan because that's something you can just easily measure.

But then when you couple that with all the health benefits that we know about, we know it'll have an impact on the health span as well. Because some agents just extend life but don't necessarily have benefits on overall health. And so we're unique in that regard where we have really compelling lifespan extension data together with all these health benefits.

And so in parallel to all this other research I was mentioning, heart, brain, liver, skin, eye, health, there's also research looking at these model organisms like worms and yeasts and fruit flies that are used for basic scientific research that are really well understood and they have short lifespan. So you can see if you have an impact with one type of molecule versus another.

And with astaxanthin extended the roundworms, their lifespan. And when they looked at why, it was through pathways that do things like autophagy, which is cellular cleanup and recycling. And so your cells can get dirty and need to be cleaned up internally. Old proteins and lipids and things need to be recycled. And that process called autophagy is something that is involved in

longevity and we saw that that ascent then looks to have an impact on lifespan through increasing autophagy in these roundworms. Similarly, extended lifespan in fruit flies and in yeast

And we have some collaborators at the University of Hawaii that are world-renowned, you know, kind of geroscience researchers that have been working on longevity for a long time. And fortunately, in Hawaii, there was this program called the Honolulu Heart Study or the Honolulu Heart Program that followed Japanese-American men dating back to the 60s, I believe. And it was like

8,000 of these Japanese American men and they followed them for decades. And so they would track whenever they got sick or if they passed away. But every time they came in, if they had a blood test or a biopsy or anything, they archived all of these samples and they had this huge database of all these biological samples and all these doctor's exams. And as part of

all of this, our research collaborators found that there's this gene called the FOXO3 gene, which is associated with longevity in this population. And it's also been replicated in other human populations that if you have a particular version of this FOXO3 gene, that's essentially the most activated version of the gene, you're three times more likely to live to 100 healthy. And so it has really profound impact on lifespan. And so there's...

ways to look at FOXO3 expression in non-clinical studies as well. And our collaborators at University of Hawaii had this model and we said, well, I wonder if astaxanthin would potentially activate FOXO3 in their model. And it turns out that when you looked at the heart tissue, it activated the FOXO3 by like 90%. And that was really exciting. And we didn't know if they would even do that and it did. And so

And with that research, the group at the National Institutes of Health, the NIH, which is comprised of all these different institutes that look at heart and brain and other types of things. But there's one institute, the National Institute on Aging, that looks at aging and Alzheimer's and things like that. And they...

funded this program over the last 20 years that is conducted at three different institutions, the University of Michigan, the University of Texas, and the Jackson Labs in Maine. And these academic researchers have put together this model that is meant to be the best predictor of human lifespan by taking, these are a particular type of mice that they breed that are genetically heterogeneous, which is gonna be more,

relevant to humans versus a lot of research is done with like inbred laboratory mice. And those are not necessarily something that if you extended lifespan, it wouldn't necessarily relate to humans as closely. And so they spent a lot of time developing this particular animal model that

you know, if you could test it in humans, it'd be ideal, but humans do live a lot longer, you know? And so a true lifespan assessment would take years or decades to truly follow, you know, say we all start taking it and how many decades we have to wait to see if it worked. And so this is something where within a few years, you can see if you had an impact on lifespan, but they have a few thousand mice every year that they start into this, into this study. They have a new cohort and they'll, they'll select,

maybe five or six test agents based on exciting research. So like in our case, we had the data where we extended lifespan in all these different model organisms, the FOXO3 anti-aging gene increase, but they've also taken all types of other things like fish oil or

curcumin or resveratrol and other things that have shown promise for health and longevity. And they include them into their feed and just feed the mice either a placebo or the active from somewhere in young to middle age and just follow them throughout life.

And over the last 20 years, only a handful of agents have actually extended lifespan at all. And only a handful have actually extended lifespan more than 10%. And with astaxanthin, we were selected back in 2019 to be included in the study based on all this research that we had. We supplied the astaxanthin to them, helped them figure out how to get it into the chow, the feed for the mice, and then the right dosing and all of that.

And after several years, it showed that the astaxanthin did extend the lifespan of the mice by 12%, which is in the top 10 of the agents ever tested. And it's the first one that actually has the safety to be taken every day and that's broadly accessible as a dietary supplement.

One of the other agents that worked was rapamycin, which a lot of people take for, or not a lot of people, but certain people are taking for life extension. But it has safety and tolerability issues that people are trying to work around and you wouldn't necessarily want to take that every day. So people are trying different dosing protocols and analogs of rapamycin. I took it for a little bit. I think I took it for two months. I got it through Joy, the company I work with, because they have a bunch of peptides and they tried rapamycin. But it's one of those things like I would know. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, you just gotta, yeah. I mean, you would just take it because you hope it's going to help you live longer. I felt, I felt, no, I didn't feel anything, but I wouldn't know if it's like a long-term benefit thing. I heard it on Peter Atiyah. Yeah. And he's a big proponent of rapamycin and he, I know he takes it as well. And so there's, um, certain people are believers in it. Some people are not as much. And it certainly is probably the best proven, you know, um, molecule to extend lifespan in multiple different models. Um,

And it's been tested multiple times in this program at NIH, which is called the Interventions Testing Program or the ITP. And Peter Tia has had the head of the ITP or one of the three principal investigators on his podcast several times, Dr. Rich Miller, who we've worked closely with as well. And so rapamycin has been proven multiple times in ITP to work. And so it definitely extends lifespan, but it's not something that most people probably want to take every day. It's essentially a repurposed drug.

immune suppression drug used for organ transplantation.

Isn't that crazy? Yeah. But it happens to extend lifespan. I was like, I heard all the benefits and I'm like, let's do this. And I started taking, I researched more. It was like, if you have had like a transplant, I was like, well, I was like, I'm just a girl that wants to look good and feel good. Yeah. Yeah. It's a bit extreme. Yeah. I was like, I don't know, man. I was like, I could do this another way. Yeah. Yeah. So that's why. Yeah, honestly. I was like, how about a green juice? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And so, uh, so this was the other alternative. So it's like rapamycin is like more intense. You don't really know the dosage. We're kind of figuring it out, but like this was the other alternative that did. Yeah. So rapamycin was the first thing to work in the ITP many years ago. And then since then, a few other repurposed drugs have essentially worked, but this is the first supplement, you know, with this great safety profile that extended lifespan more than 10%.

And then, interestingly, I can talk about the male-female difference in that because males and females do live different lifespans. And so in this model, the female mice already lived about 9% longer just in the controls. Just like in humans, the females live longer. And so the males...

lifespan increased by 12% with really high statistical significance. The females increased by like 3% without statistical significance, but still lived, if you look at the overall lifespan, about 1% longer, but maybe not statistically different. So about the same, maybe slightly longer. And so it's interesting that allowed the males to catch up and the females to maybe get a little bit of lifespan benefit as well. And so we don't know exactly why hormonal other things. And we do know that from a health

benefit standpoint, Asa Santhan has worked in males and females for all these things we've talked about. But it looks like from the lifespan standpoint, it's not as profound as the male benefit. But I don't know, from a female human standpoint, if you think about your spouses or male family members hopefully living a similar duration, I mean, hopefully that's a good thing or maybe not. Maybe just want some peace and quiet. Totally. It's crazy. I mean, that type of impact on the world,

would be profound if men were living at, you know, because it's such a subtle thing that we've normalized and accepted that women live longer than men. But from like a generalized highest level perspective, that means men are working, you know what I mean? Like there's so many ways. They're working longer. They're working longer. Their dad's longer. Yeah. We don't have to go back to our mom and dad.

Yeah, yeah. I'm like, finally, I can take a break. Yeah, yeah. But just like subtle aspects of things, you know? No, a lot of people do think that if people just live longer, then, oh my gosh, it's going to wreck the economy because, you know, there's all these old people that are just, you know, needing more support and not contributing. But,

The thing is, like, no. That's such a crazy thing to be like, because you're going to be one of those people. It's like, oh, these old people. Yeah, yeah. What are we going to do with them? Yeah, but if you increase that health spend and you're productive and contributing, it actually can have a huge benefit for society. Also, these old people are working. Old people chill.

Honestly, dude. You can work longer. You can do whatever longer. Live your life. But if you can kind of increase the overall health and not have everyone reliant on all these medications and other things and going to the hospital for all this kind of sick care type of treatment, it can have a massive, massive benefit on overall public health and the economic burden that comes with that. That's huge. Your studies that you've done...

So you said it's men and women, right? Yeah. Like that human cardiovascular study was men and women. Because I feel like, I don't know. I don't know if it's like now or back then, like people are like, oh, these studies are only done on men. And then women are like, hey, we have a totally different hormone.

experience. Like, okay, so it's both, which is great. Yeah. So human and animal studies have been done in male and female populations. So yeah, there's definitely benefits. It's just from that lifespan standpoint in that particular NIH study, which is the gold standard for lifespan research in a mammalian model. It just so happened that the males lived long or had the

the greater benefit. But that is similar with other agents that have been tested where you'll see like a male benefit, not a female. In our case, the females, if you look at the curves, the curve was shifted more to the right in terms of a longer lifespan, but just wasn't statistically significant in terms of a difference. But you might be, because it's a smaller benefit, you would need a bigger population to potentially show a benefit. So we can't say it definitively extended the female's life, although you

It numerically did. And visually, you can see it on the curve. But again, you know, it's like the females lived as long or longer than the males still, even with all the male benefit that was seen. What would you say the five major benefits of it are, of AX3R?

It's almost like for each person, it's what is more meaningful to them. But I think longevity, lifespan, healthspan is number one. That's kind of overarching. That includes everything. But if you want to break it down, then you can think of it two ways, kind of from the outside of, oh, heart and brain and eyes and skin and those things. But also if you think about internally, the fact that reduces oxidative stress, reduces inflammation, impacts health.

longevity-related pathways is distributed throughout the body, has a great safety profile. So you can think of it in kind of like those foundational benefits and functions. But then also just in terms of kind of easy to think about things, I think heart, brain,

liver, skin, eyes, those are all things that it has an impact on. And again, some people will think, oh, it sounds like snake oil. How can I do all these things? But again, like to your point, because it's working foundationally throughout your body, it has an impact on all these different issues, areas of health. It's not just going to one place in your body and doing one thing. I think that, yeah, I've said this twice, I think the same, but in health and wellness, being in the space for 10 years now, noticing that

you know, not even in supplement space, but in the general space, we're now looking more at the whole thing fully. You're looking how the whole impacts everything, whether it's your food as the foundation or your relationships as the foundation. And so it would make a lot of sense, you know, and that's why I love taking supplements like this and especially this supplement, because it's like, I want to support my entire body and my cells. And I love that it allows my body to use its own natural intelligence to do what it needs to do with things. And that's my favorite type of

of support for my body. Like as an example with like DHEA, as an example that I've taken for my hormones, I had, you know, hormone issues. Taking DHEA was helpful because it allowed my body to create the hormones naturally. And this allows your body to create or support the cells in the way that they best need to be supported, which is just the best. Yeah. Yeah.

And it plays well with other supplements. So if you think about like omega-3s, those help to replenish the lipids in your cellular membranes and this helps to prevent the oxidation of those lipids. And other longevity supplements may improve mitochondrial health and we also go in there and help with that as well. And so I think that for people that are taking other supplements, this should be considered to be part of that core stack for overall health and longevity.

And so it's not necessarily instead of other things, but it integrates well with those other things. What are you taking? Like, what is your, what's your flow? What's your stack? My stack is... And you can include food and lifestyle. Yeah, exactly. And you live in Hawaii. Yeah.

So living in Hawaii, good number one step. And so clean air and access to oceans and mountains. I'm like, I sleep in an EMF blanket grid in LA. Yeah. Yeah. So certainly location has an impact. But healthy diet, I think is really important. Again, just moderation, just healthy, good, nutritious, whole foods.

and regular exercise. And so whether that's going to the gym or if it's going into the ocean and just being active on a regular basis, getting good sleep, mindfulness, all these things I think are really, really important. And then from a supplement standpoint, I obviously take astaxanthin. I take AX3, four capsules a day.

And then I also take an omega-3 supplement and then a multivitamin and I'll do, you know, kind of like the green drinks and electrolytes. And so I like to start each day with electrolytes and a lot of water just to kind of hydrate and get electrolytes into the body

Um, and then, um, you know, kind of eat lightly and clean throughout the morning. And, and, um, I'll take my eggs three with, with a meal, uh, typically for me with dinner. Um, some people will do, uh, breakfast and dinner or lunch and dinner just has to be a meal that has some fats in it because that's, um, how it's best absorbed at

The body brings it in along with the fats that it's processing. And so you don't want to take it on an empty stomach. Otherwise, some may pass through you. And just like with beets, if you eat a colorful, you know, a meal full of beets, some people can see stool discoloration. And so with astaxanthin, again, it's also a pigment. And so if you don't absorb it well, you may get some stool discoloration, which is not something to be worried about. It just means that, oh, I didn't absorb all of it as well as I could have.

And so like if you take one of our capsules and open up, like twist it open and put the powder into a glass or a bottle of water, you'll see it turn red right away when the acetazanthin is dispersed. And so, yeah, so that's something that again, if it passes through you, it can cause some discoloration. But if you do take it with a meal, it should be hopefully fully absorbed.

But yeah, so for me, it's mainly astaxanthin, my omega-3s, and then other just mainly nutrition and healthy lifestyle. Love it. So good. So good. I'm so grateful. Yeah, I'm so grateful. I want to...

Every time I do this, I'm like, I want to get my dad taking this. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it can benefit everyone. Have you gotten like your elders on this? Yeah. Yeah. So my father, well, my father, we worked together for the last 25 years. And so he was, yeah, so he was. David and Dave. David and Dave. Yeah. My grandfather was David too. No way. And so my father. Is that AX3? Yeah. Yeah. It could be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

True. It should be DX3. Yeah, yeah. No, yeah. So a couple of things. So yeah, so my grandfather was David and my father was David. And so he was junior. But then I got a different middle name. So I'm not the third. So it's really confusing that my father is David Jr. and I'm David. And so that's kind of, but different middle initial. I didn't know that was a technicality. Yeah. You have to have the same middle name. Yeah, this is... Yeah, then you're the third. That's made up. Oh, wow. Yeah.

That's not real. Yeah. I'm like, you're David III for us. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So we typically go by David and Dave. Okay. And so, but yeah, he was working with the company. He's David. I'm Dave. But some people call me David. Me too. I think David is younger for some reason. Oh, okay. Because it's like...

You call a little boy David? You don't call like a little boy Dave? No, it's Davey. Yeah, Davey. Yeah, yeah. This is when you can say, hey, are we going off the rails? Yeah. Honestly. Yeah. I was about to be like, oh, and you dated a guy, Davey. Like, I don't even know. We can stop that. We'll cut that out. Cut. This is, you know what's so crazy? Last thing is you said, what did you say? Where I was like, you said this...

Yeah, I think we need to stop. Anyway, go on with your story. Speaking of the three. Yeah. So, but yeah, so my father and I worked together for 25 years. So he was involved in that company on the Big Island. He used to work in the biotech space for many years, helping to get companies like Amgen, which was a really big biotech company where it still is, but it was one of the first ones to come along and did a lot of really cool research.

breakthrough research. And so he was working as a biotech analyst, helping companies get funded and kind of awareness in the investor community. And then he transitioned over into the operational side when this company on the big island was looking to commercialize their technology. And then for me, it was like, oh, summer job, can I go and work? And they threw me out in the ponds to work. And the joke is always rather than starting from the ground up, I started from the pond up.

with, with that's his Anthem. And so, so we've worked together for all these years and he's also a co-founder of eggs three along with me. Um, and we have a team of others as well that are, that are great. And, um, and then just, just transitioning to, to the eggs three, the reason for the name, the three, um, is, is because it's actually three times more bioavailable than ordinary asses, Anthem from the algae. And so, like I mentioned, we started with the algae growing in the ponds,

But when you try to extract it, you can only get 5% or 10% astaxanthin out of the algae. And first of all, even when you're trying to grow it, it's prone to batch-to-batch variation, and it's hard, and it's exposed to the environment. And so you have the bog from the volcano, and you have just all the elements and airplanes flying over. And so it's more prone to contamination if you grow it in the outdoors. Right.

Some people have done fully enclosed tubes where you can grow the algae and extract it, but you're still only extracting 5% or 10%. And so in our case, we said, okay, if we can do this for pharmaceutical purposes in the lab where we produce it with really high purity and consistency, that'll be better. And then we

we're able to kind of find a formulation that allowed the astaxanthin to be dispersed in the body and absorb so much better. And so we did a human study looking at, if you take the version from the algae, the version that we make in the lab that's really pure, and give the same group of people a dose, say two 12 milligram capsules of the algae version, measure their blood over the course of a day at multiple time points,

and then send them home for a week. So it all gets out of their system undetectable and then give them the same two 12 milligram capsules of ours. Same people measure the blood again, sent to the lab. And we got three times the amount of astaxanthin into the bloodstream. So from the same dose, people think, oh, if I take 12 milligrams, I take 12 milligrams, I get the same amount in, but it doesn't all go in. It's not all absorbed as well necessarily. And so with our form, we got three times more into the,

into the bloodstream over the course of that day. Both the maximum concentration and the total concentration measured at all the time points added up. And so that was a really, really big benefit. And that's why, so AX is kind of shorthand for astaxanthin, which is hard to pronounce. And then three for the three times of the benefits of the absorption. - Wow, three times the Davids. - Three times the Davids, three times the astaxanthin. - Three times the acid. - That's it, yeah. - So good.

So our listeners, people listening right now, we have a code. Almost 30. Almost 30. Is our code, which I'm really excited for you guys to try and get for your family as an easy supplement to support them in their health and something that I've been taking for a while that I felt like has been just really great. Yes. It's a great add to my diet to have in the morning and I'll have it with my protein shake.

I have some fat and it's been lovely. So I appreciate it. This has been so much fun. Fascinating. I love to hear all the research and just kind of hear into your story. And we're so grateful you could come. Yeah. Thanks for coming from Hawaii. Yes. Oh, happy to. Thanks for having me. Beautiful LA, baby. All right, guys. We'll see you soon. See ya. Bye.

Thank you guys for tuning in to Almost 30. Thank you, David, for coming in from beautiful Hawaii to tell us more about AX3. Again, you can go to ax3.life. It's ax3.life. And you can use code ALMOST30 to get a discount. Highly recommend. I've been taking this for a few months now. I've definitely noticed my inflammation going down. Oh, yeah. I've definitely noticed improved cognition. And I think it's going to be one of those staples that the more you have it and the healthier your cells are, the better you're probably going to feel. Definitely. So you'll get 20% off.

Thank you all for listening. We appreciate you. Be sure to subscribe anywhere you listen to pods. It means the world. Follow us on Instagram because you can follow along for the road to the book release. We'll be sharing a ton there. Thank you. Thank you. We'll see you on the next one. We'll see you soon. Bye. Bye.