The Hidden Longevity Benefits Of Astaxanthin | David Watumull | Align Podcast #526
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Welcome back to the live podcast. My name is Aaron Alexander. This conversation was a overview and deep dive in some of the functions of our physiology and how to make our physiology function better. We get into what are antioxidants, what is oxidative stress in the body, what is inflammation, what is at the root of inflammation, is there a difference between systemic inflammation and acute inflammation, as well as a

thorough deep dive into something that I have heard a lot about, particularly from a friend, Max Lugabeer, who is a friend and guest of the podcast. He's been a good friend for a very long time. He's been taking this stuff, asked his anthem for a long time. He referred me to David Wadimal, the guest for today. He said, this guy's brilliant. Should have one. So we reached out, we set it up and we did a deep dive on the potential.

potentially miraculous effects based off of the data and research that has been done on astaxanthin that it can have on things like longevity and reducing inflammation and things like so i'm excited to share this conversation with you guys david has 20 plus years of experience in the biotech industry and he is an absolute wizard when it comes to all things biology so i hope you guys enjoy this conversation with david wadimal let's get to it

do you much breath work stuff in your life? David? I do a little bit, but like headspace has like a, you know, breathing, uh, exercise. Um, and so some, a lot of times in the morning, so I'll, I'll do that. And it's just like a five breath, um,

little exercise and then I'll maybe do some other mindfulness work, but not formal breathing work. But yeah, like I, I really enjoyed what we just did. What do you do when you're feeling overwhelmed and you're feeling stressed? How do you downregulate? How do you calm yourself down if you're having a, having a freak out? I'm pretty good at not getting too high or too low, but I will take deep breaths. Um, go on a walk, um,

Um, you know, if it's getting out in the water, um, I haven't surfed as much the last few years, but I used to surf like all the time. So surfing would definitely be a way to kind of disconnect, reset. Um, but exercising, fresh air, those are typical things for me. So a lot of things I want to talk about, I want to talk about oxidative stress. I want to talk about inflammation, I want to talk about antioxidants, I want to talk about longevity. Um, you live in Hawaii, you grew up in Hawaii, which is pretty cool.

What do you see as some of the greatest stressors for the modern era of people causing things like oxidative stress and inflammation and things of the like? I think it's a combination of things. I mean, certainly there's the stress of everyday life with whatever you're pursuing, right?

And I think a lot of that gets amplified with social media and news and things being pretty polarized. And so I think that has an impact on everyone's stress levels. And then certainly...

the food you eat has a big impact, the environment, the air, the water, all of that. So I think we're under constant attack from a lot of things that can increase our oxidative stress and inflammation. And so there's, I think, a variety of things that we can do to push back on that. And it's, you know, it's dietary, it's lifestyle, it's supplementation, it's mindfulness, it's breath work, it's, you know, being active, being socially connected, all of these things.

But I certainly think there's a lot that is pushing against us on that front. What is oxidative stress exactly? So in your body, when you're creating energy, say you're breathing in air and you have your nutrients running,

The cells, the mitochondria in the cells are producing energy. And as a byproduct of that, you will have oxygen-free radicals that are in a way reactive with the other components of the cells. And so you have these little...

almost like Tasmanian devils, if you remember the cartoon that are going around and really causing a lot of havoc inside the cells. And your body has endogenous built-in systems to deal with these free radicals, but you

over time as we age and as the oxidative stress increases in our bodies, certainly there's additional things that we need to do to support our endogenous systems. And that can be supplementation or dietary and lifestyle modifications as well. I would imagine with something like oxidative stress, it's healthy to a point and then there's a tipping point where it becomes degenerative. What's the positive function of oxidative stress? And at what point does it become degenerative?

deleterious to health. Yeah. So it's like with everything in the body where there's homeostasis, there's balance, there's a reason things are the way they are in the body. And so oxidative stress or free radicals are all components of normal processes. Or I would say oxidative stress is probably when things get a little bit beyond where they should be. But having reactive oxygen or nitrogen species, free radicals, those are

normal byproducts of normal processes in the body. And so you'll have redox sensitive pathways. So you'll have certain things that are happening in the cells that are triggered by free radicals or oxidative stress. And so it's all part of how the cellular machinery works. What is redox sensitive pathways?

Redox would be the sensitivity to the balance of the free radicals or the oxidative stress that would be happening. And so if you have an increase in reactive oxygen species, for example, that may trigger certain things happening in the cell. So that would be a redox-sensitive situation. And the reactive oxygen species...

What is that? So that would be, for example, like when the mitochondria, the little energy production components of the cells are creating energy, they're taking oxygen that we breathe and nutrients that we consume and then going through a process to create energy. And just like you have production of energy in cells,

In the real world, you have, or in the physical world, you'll have pollution that's created as a byproduct. And so when this oxygen is essentially used to create the energy that powers our bodies, you'll have a pollution essentially that comes out of the mitochondria, which will be these reactive oxygen species that are kind of

you know, discarded at that point and no longer utilizing the energy production process. And now they're going out and, you know, causing issues in the cells. And so those would be the reactive oxygen species that are looking to engage with a, another component in the cell because, you know, they,

have a difference in their electrical charge. And so they're reactive and they're looking to engage or, you know, interface with another component in the cell, which can be damaging. And that's where antioxidants come in. They can...

say, accept or donate an electron that can neutralize or scavenge, quench those free radicals so that they're no longer reactive and causing damage to the cells. So reactive oxygen species and free radical, are they synonymous or are they different in some way? Yeah, there's different terminology, but you'll have reactive oxygen species that are free radicals. You'll have reactive nitrogen species. And so there's different kind of

components or umbrella terms to how things are classified but that's all essentially the same thing for our intents and purposes here what is it that inspired you to become so brilliantly nerdy about all this stuff and like understand the body to this depth and this degree

Yeah, well, I didn't take the formal track. I didn't pursue an MD or a PhD in this. I fell into it actually initially back in high school. And so I was introduced to a company that was formed on the big island of Hawaii by a group of scientists from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in Loja, California. And they had developed some cool technology to produce microalgae.

and they wanted to commercialize it. And so for me, I was in high school at the time and started working in the production of the microalgae in the ponds that they use to grow the microalgae.

And at the time, I didn't really know much about it. But as I spent some time there, I learned that this microalgae actually will start out life green. And then when it's stressed from the sunlight, from nutrient deprivation, it will produce this molecule called astaxanthin that is a defense mechanism against UV light from the sun. And then it turns bright red.

And it turns out that in the wild, this microalgae, it works its way up the food chain. And ultimately, it's responsible for the red pigmentation that you see in lobsters and crab and shrimp and salmon and other marine organisms. And so this nutrient is conserved throughout these marine organisms. And it really...

provides a bunch of benefits beyond just color. And so for me at this time, this was really interesting and exciting. And the others that I was working with, including my father, who was previously in the biotech industry and came over to help this company commercialize their technology as well. So he and I and some others really thought, wow, this could really have profound impacts on human health. Because at the time,

commercialization pathway wasn't

really clear. And we ultimately thought, you know, this could be something that could be really beneficial for humans. It certainly works in the wild, helps salmon with actually swimming upstream. And so the story of salmon reproducing is pretty crazy in terms of swimming upstream against the current, kind of up against the little falls. And they're essentially wasting away, you know, as they're swimming upstream. But ultimately, they get to, you

And you'll see that when they're swimming upstream, their skin turns bright red and

And that's actually the astaxanthin transferring from their flesh to their skin, which may be a sign of being ready to spawn. And then ultimately when they reproduce and lay their eggs, you'll see the beautiful bright red eggs of the salmon. And that's their red because of the astaxanthin being passed on from the mothers to the offspring. And it helps the eggs with their development and production against the sunlight when they're in those shallow waters. And so we knew that they had these really profound roles in nature.

and there was some preliminary research at the time. This was the late 90s. There was a couple hundred peer-reviewed papers showing antioxidant activity, anti-inflammatory activity, and at the time, there was no human studies or any supplements on the market, but we actually brought out together with a company literally across the street from us that also was growing microalgae. We were the first two companies to bring out an astaxanthin dietary supplement back in the

2000 timeframe. So that was really my introduction to this whole space. And I've been with it ever since for the last 20, 25 years. And so just being immersed in the world of astroxanthin for this time, in all aspects of research and development,

um, has been the reason that I've been able to really, uh, you know, fall in love with this and, and, uh, and really get to know all these, these different components of how it works and why it's so important for us. So is the acid xanthan, is that being, it's not being produced endogenously within lobsters or salmon there, they're eating that off of algae, uh,

Coming off of the riverbeds or the ocean. It's coming up the natural food chain. So it's in what they consume. They may not be eating the microalgae directly, but they may be eating smaller crustaceans, you know, that have consumed the microalgae, for example, or the phytoplankton. And so, yeah, so it's something that works its way up the food chain. It's a nutrient that is conserved and passed up as the different species and organisms consume it.

And that's when salmon are... I always heard that farm-raised salmon are colored, but they're not actually colored with paint. They're colored in the sense that they are taking astaxanthin as a supplement. Is that right? Did I misunderstand that? Yeah. So that's actually a misconception out there is that farm-raised salmon are...

dyed pink or red. They're actually fed food that contains astaxanthin. And so the astaxanthin industry does supply astaxanthin to the salmon feed manufacturers and other farmers for other animals as well.

And so it's a really important component of their feed. And there may be reasons why you would not want to choose farm-raised salmon for how they're raised or living conditions versus wild or the actual level of astaxanthin, where in a wild-caught salmon that's much brighter, deeper red, you'll have more astaxanthin content, whereas the farm-raised may have a lower level because the farmers will include enough

for the salmon to be healthy and to be colored pink, but maybe won't overload it with a bunch as certain like sockeye salmon might have a lot of astaxanthin in them. But either way, if it's farm-raised or wild-taught, you are getting astaxanthin, which is making them pink or red. I'm drinking blue-green algae right now. I had some astaxanthin this morning actually from...

Your company. Oh, cool. So I'm all stacked with algae. Is there some hierarchy within the realms of the algaes for people to be consuming? Because I know that there's been a lot of fads and the concept of superfood is something that's gotten thrown around a lot over the last decade. And I don't know when it was invented, but it seems probably the last decade. Yeah.

and algae seem to fall into that category. What should we know about algae? Well, I'm not an expert in algae in general. I guess potentially an expert in our type of algae that produces astaxanthin, but I think there's different strains of algae that produce different types of nutrients. And so, you know, you'll have spirulina and you'll have a variety of other sources of forms of algae. And so, this particular form is called Hometococcus pluvialis, and that's

this green algae that turns red when it produces astaxanthin. And so certainly that one for sure is a very high source of astaxanthin in the wild. In terms of other algae, I think it all comes down to the research. And so spirulina is certainly used in a lot of green drinks and other things. I don't think from a blanket statement really works in terms of

algae is great for you or not great for you. I think it really depends on the particular strain and what nutrients you're getting from it. And then ultimately, uh, say in the case of astaxanthin, how it's produced because growing the microalgae is, is very challenging. And having worked in the ponds myself, um, you know, it's, it's very difficult and it's prone to

to potential contamination, especially if you're using the open ponds like we were on the big island of Hawaii, because it's great and you have fresh air and sunlight and everything, but you also have the volcano nearby. And so you have a fog potentially, you have the airport almost right next door. So you have airplanes flying over and you're exposed to the outdoor elements. And so there are contamination risks there.

There are other production methods where you can do it entirely indoors in closed tubes without using the open ponds, and then that would not be prone to the external contamination risk. But then ultimately, you're still ending up with algae that then you have to extract as much of the acesanthin from. And

Even with the purification methods and extraction methods, you're only getting about 5% or 10% astaxanthin from the algae. And then the other 90% to 95%,

It's just the other components of the algae, which is not necessarily bad for you. It's proven to be safe, but that's not necessarily the active ingredient that we're shooting for in terms of astaxanthin itself. And so those are things that you can look at. And then after several years of working in the microalgal production of algae, we actually thought, well, this could actually be something that could be pursued as both a dietary supplement

and a pharmaceutical for high doses where doctors could use it with patients that have certain disease states and things based on the research that was developing. And so we looked at doing laboratory-based production of astaxanthin where using natural product total synthesis, you essentially construct the molecule step-by-step from scratch, but end up

with the same molecule in terms of all the same carbons and hydrogens and oxygens, and you can make the same isomeric form or forms that you find in nature. And that's a way that you can make it without any contamination risk. And you can make 100%, basically, close to 100% pure astaxanthin, which then can be formulated into forms for human or animal consumption.

Um, and so that, that was a track that, that we pursued and having worked on both the microalgal production and the, uh, you know, synthesis of it. Um, we pursued both and we found this, this synthetic was actually a way to get super pure and highly bioavailable in terms of a special formulation that, um,

that we utilize in our product. So that's one thing where if you're looking at algae, you have to look at, okay, how are they growing it? Is it prone to contamination? What type of extraction purification methods do they have? And what are you actually getting in the final product? How does the astaxanthin act on inflammation in the body? And then also same question as before in relation to oxidative stress.

When is inflammation good? What is inflammation? And what's the tipping point where suddenly it's, you know, a term I've heard from you is it inflammation starts breaking things down. Like what's the tipping point where suddenly inflammation is, is bad. And then what are some things that we can do to, uh,

support us in our inflammatory journeys. So inflammation is something that we're all familiar with and it's acute form, which is used to protect the body and fight off infections and heal wounds. And so say you fall over and land on your elbow and your elbow swells up, you know, that's an immune inflammatory response. This is, you know, your body's recruiting cells to that site to repair. Yeah.

you know, the tissue, the damage that's occurred from an injury, for example. Or if you have an infection and you are fighting, you know, a cold or flu, that your body is having an immune response. That's an inflammatory response. It sends cells and, you know, signaling molecules to the site to fight off, you know, the intruders basically. And so that's what the immune inflammatory response is.

And that's a good thing. But the problem is normally you want that immune response to go and do its job and then go away. But what happens is as we age or due to, again, poor diets, lifestyles, all these things, that inflammatory response will stay active at this chronic kind of low grade level, low grade inflammation, chronic inflammation. And so you have this smoldering of, you know,

inflammatory, you know, cells inflammation happening, um, throughout the body potentially, or in certain organs, depending on what's going on. And that's something that over time will, you know, cause damage to that particular tissue, whether it's the heart or the brain, the joints. And so that's, that's the real, the tipping point is you, you,

Acute inflammation is a good thing. Chronic is not a good thing. Would that be site-specific where the body has a nagging inflammatory response? Or would it be a systemic inflammatory response? As you're talking, I'm kind of like, because I feel like, you know, I've said all these terms a lot over the years and I've heard them a lot. And I feel like as you're explaining this stuff, I'm like, God, the body is so exceptionally astonishingly

And I have no idea how this works. It just feels like magic. And like, what is like the core? What's like the origin of inflammation? You know, like where does it start? Like, like, like the intelligence of it is absolutely mind boggling to me. And I mean, that's how we survived, right? I mean, it was, we wouldn't have survived if we couldn't fight off infections and heal wounds.

That allowed us to beat out probably other organisms and species and things that couldn't ultimately how far back you draw it. So, I mean, it's a fundamental component of cellular biology and how the body works. But yeah, to your point about systemic versus localized biology.

Could there be like a bunch of micro localized fires happening like, oh, your gallbladder a little bit and your knee a little bit and your back a little bit and your liver a little bit and the culmination of all of that ends up looking a lot like systemic inflammation? And or is there such a thing as just this is just systemic inflammation where your whole body is just...

we're just, we're freaking out. The totality of us is freaking out and we're fighting, we're fighting the totality of ourself, which we're considering to be a fire. I think you can probably have both where you can have a localized, you know, situation of inflammation. But ultimately I would say typically probably becomes systemic because the body talks, you know, throughout. And, and so you can have develop a systemic, you know, inflammation that can lead to issues in other places. And that's where, you know, if you have,

some gut issue, for example, and then years down the road, it turns out now you have some joint or cognitive issues, a typical approach may be, oh, I need to prescribe this medication for your joints or for your brain, but ultimately it may have stemmed from something in the gut or something in your diet or some other inflammatory insult that didn't kind of restore itself back to a normal situation and now is leading to this systemic

chronic inflammation and now manifesting itself in one way or another. And so it's kind of like if you have a system of pipes and you turn up the water too much, at some point it probably will burst somewhere. You may not know exactly where, maybe it's based on the weakest link and then ultimately that's where the issue happens. That systemic inflammation can manifest itself differently for different people and different health situations, but it is definitely a bad thing and you want to try to get back to that root

cause of it and try to bring down the inflammation that's causing this rather than trying to fix a manifestation of the issue after the fact. How does astaxanthin act? What's the mechanism of action in relation to inflammation in the body? Even with the 3,000 peer-reviewed papers on astaxanthin and 100 or so human clinical studies and a lot of preclinical or non-clinical studies,

we don't a hundred percent understand all of how astaxanthin works. But with that said, we do have a pretty good understanding of in the cells, it gets to the cellular membranes. And so your cell has a lipid bilayer. So essentially two lipids kind of sandwiched back to back as an exterior layer to the cell, but then also the mitochondria, the power plants in the cells have their own membranes and the nucleus that houses the DNA has its own membranes.

membrane, as well as other components of the cell have their membranes as well. And so, astaxanthin localizes in these membranes. And based on its unique molecular structure, where it has these polar head groups, it actually aligns with the lipids in the membranes that are polar on their heads and apolar on their tails on the interior of the membranes. And so, astaxanthin, based on its molecular length and the

structure of it itself, the polarity of the molecule, it will anchor across the membranes and perfectly span these membranes and help to stabilize them and prevent the oxidation of these membranes and be well-situated to fight off those free radicals, those reactive oxygen species, both inside and outside the membranes.

And so at its core, its direct physical effect is as that antioxidant in these membranes. But with these redox sensitive pathways and functions in the cells, you'll have

a variety of steps that happen. These reactions that happen in the cell where the reactive oxygen species will set off a cascade of events that ultimately lead to an inflammatory pathway being turned on. Like NF-kappa B is a

kind of a well-known inflammatory pathway that is responsible for certain inflammatory cytokines and mediators that are often the targets of a lot of anti-inflammatories. So things like TNF-alpha is something that is generated from the NF-kappa B pathway, which is a target of a lot of rheumatoid arthritis drugs, or COX-1 and COX-2, which were the target of a lot of

anti-inflammatory drugs for pain and for arthritis and things like that. You'll have prostaglandin E2, which is something that aspirin targets. And so these are things that are ultimately essentially the output of inflammatory pathways like NF-kappa B. And so with astaxanthin,

By reducing or restoring the homeostasis and the redox, you know, kind of balance it in the cells, it will attenuate the cascade of events that leads to the inflammatory pathways being turned on and creating inflammation in this chronic state. But the cool thing is that unlike, say, other anti-inflammatory agents that go in and chronically inhibit inflammation,

an inflammatory, you know, cytokine like TNF-alpha, for example, or COX-1 or COX-2, or try to, you know, shut down an entire...

inflammatory immune response, astaxanthin appears to only reduce the pathological or kind of the bad activation of these inflammatory pathways, but not their normal function. So your body can still fight off an infection or a wound or heal a wound, but not be activated in a way that's pathologically, that's counterproductive to the body. So that's a difference in terms of how astaxanthin is working effectively upstream

preventing the unwanted activation of the inflammatory pathway rather than working downstream, trying to plug a hole after the fact chronically when the body is meant to be producing that in some cases. And so you don't want to chronically turn something off or turn something on when that's really not how the body was meant to function. Would there be some like longest lever in reducing chronic inflammation in the body? I mean, I'm sure your bias would be to say astaxanthin, but I'd imagine there's probably a lot of like

psychosomatic stuff like stress, environmental things, you know, like what would your holistic lens on inflammation be? If you could say what would be the longest lever, you know, but I think it's the combination of these things. And I think there's so much, you know, interplay between all these different things. And so I think it's the usual approaches that we often hear. I mean, so it's eating, you know, a good healthy diet, you know, that is not, because some foods can be

causing inflammation, whether it's fried foods or other things can be

pro-inflammatory rather than anti-inflammatory. You know, certainly being active, you know, is a way to, you know, help your body function in a better way. But things, you know, like you said, like psychosomatic, I mean, you know, there's, you know, I think the mental stress and suffering that many of us experience can trigger these types of

uh, processes and pathways, uh, in negative ways. And so whether it's social connections, mindfulness, breath work, um, you know, walks activity, I think all these things are really important and all contribute, uh, to that, uh, kind of restoration of the normal function of your body as it should, rather than, um, you know, turning on or off things that, um, you know, are, are not meant to be in that way. Um, another thing, even just

Obesity itself, the adipose tissue can release cytokines and can create inflammation itself. And so reduction of adipose tissue is something that would be beneficial just from a scientific standpoint of reducing inflammation as well. Could you define some approaches? Okay.

Could you define cytokine as well? I just went for... So cytokine would be an anti-inflammatory messenger, essentially a signaling molecule that an inflammatory pathway will produce, and then it will go in and tell things in...

you know, kind of provide signals or messages to other, you know, components of the cell. And so essentially it's a component of the inflammatory process that leads to, in some cases, a good, you know, thing, a good response where you want to fight off an infection or, you know, help heal a wound. But in other cases, it can be damaging if it's actually damaging the tissue that you want to be protecting rather than fighting off a foreign invader. Okay.

I think the approach to things like inflammation and then how it's tied to things like mood is very interesting. And there's, you know, the bottom-up approach of working with the body and, you know, things that you're eating, for example, or taking supplements and such to cause the mind to feel more at ease. And then there's the top-down approach.

I'm going to do meditation and I'm going to have more physical contact in my life and improve my relationships. I'm going to do therapy. I'm going to spend time out in nature. And then that ends up trickling into the physiology of,

Has there been much research in the effects of astaxanthin on mood? I don't know of clinical studies looking at mood. We have anecdotal evidence or feedback, testimonials from the user community that people do report improvements in mood.

There is with omega-3, right? Isn't omega-3 suggested to be very supportive for boosting mood from things that I've read and heard? I believe so. I mean, I think it's, again, omega-3s also help reduce oxidative stress and inflammation as does astaxanthin, although they have their slightly different mechanisms. But the role of oxidative stress and inflammation in cognitive function and mental health is well documented.

And so if you're looking into any of those areas, the oxidative stress and inflammation in the brain, which can be triggered by a lot of things, like you said, that is something that is not good for mental health, including mood, but also mental health disorders. And so if you look at mental health disorders or brain health disorders,

You know, those are all things that can be catalyzed and or just driven by oxidative stress and inflammation. And so, therefore, mechanistically, it would make sense that astaxanthin, which is distributed throughout your body and crosses the blood-brain barrier and gets into the brain tissue and can help reduce the oxidative stress and inflammation directly in the brain, would have an impact on these areas.

With that said, the human studies that have been done have looked at things more like information processing, memory, you know, so they'll do a cognitive test and they'll look at how many questions you got right or how fast your response time was and those types of things. So more cognitive performance has been the focus of some of the cognitive research with astaxanthin. But there's so many different areas. The fact, like I said, that it's distributed throughout the body means that it potentially has an impact on so many different aspects.

aspects of health. And there's data in both humans and animals, as well as, you know, kind of test tubes, you know, kind of the variety of the different forms of research, looking at everything from heart health to liver health, to brain health, to skin health, eye health, all these different areas. And so really interesting research in a lot of these areas, but it's not fully

So like in the area of brain health or mental health, those are areas that I think further research should pursue because it would be warranted to see, can we have an impact on certain aspects of mental health? And, you know, what is the appropriate dosing? And, you know, is it something that together with certain lifestyle interventions or other interventions, you know, is a really effective approach for one to improve their mental health?

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I've heard you communicating about astaxanthin in relation to cellular autophagy. Is that right? There's correlation with that. What is autophagy? Same question as before, like basic elementary, like...

There's probably a good version of autophagy. But what is it in the first place? Is there a tipping point where it's like, well, it's a little too much autophagy? Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know about too much autophagy. But essentially, autophagy is cleaning up, tidying up of the components in the cell. And so your cell is like a little factory cell.

Things are going on and it gets messy, you know, and things need to be cleaned up, tidied up, recycled. And so autophagy is that process of, you know, recycling old components of the cells and then, you know, making way for new things to happen in the cells. And so that's something where, you know, you don't want your cell to look like an episode of The Hoarders or something where it's just, you know, there's no cleaning that's going on.

And so autophagy is a good thing to help just keep things functioning normally by keeping things, you know, kind of clean and recycled in the cell. And so autophagy can be, and also you can have autophagy in the mitochondria, which is called mitophagy. And so whether it's within the cell in general or within the mitochondria,

that's something that can be triggered by certain cellular signaling pathways. And so with astaxanthin, there is data showing that it activates AMPK, which is a really important pathway that is involved in a lot of longevity-related findings. And so autophagy, mitophagy is one there that through its impact on AMPK and then downstream effects on everything from mTOR to the sirtuins,

FOXO3, NERF2, a variety of these pathways have their own impacts on autophagy and mitophagy. Can you define AMPK? I'm sorry. I apologize for all of this.

AMPK is an acronym for a particular, I could pull up the exact definition. It's a long scientific terminology, but it's essentially an acronym for that particular scientific pathway. And it's a pathway that is nutrient sensing and has an impact on other cellular pathways, like for instance, mTOR, which is the mammalian target of rapamycin, which is

rapamycin for people in the longevity space, they would have heard about it. It was discovered on Rapa Nui in soil samples and was developed actually as a drug to help people with organ transplants to make sure that they could accept the organ. And it turns out that it also has this impact on longevity through research with the National Institutes of Health and other investigators. And

it acts on this particular pathway that, um, that it's named after, uh, or the pathways is named after. And, and, um,

And so, for example, that's one of the pathways that, that astaxanthin ultimately has an impact on as well, although not directly like in the case of rapamycin, rapamycin is directly, um, you know, acting on mTOR, whereas astaxanthin, uh, has an impact again, you know, we don't know exactly how astaxanthin impacts AMPK. Um, we know that AMPK is, um, activated by, um, adiponectin, uh, which is, um,

inversely correlated with TNF-alpha, which we know that astaxanthin impacts TNF-alpha. And so, you know, the exact pathway, if you draw the whole line from astaxanthin being in the cellular membranes to ultimately impacting AMPK is something that you can show impacts on different components. But, you know, at a biophysical level, what astaxanthin is doing to turn, you know, AMPK on, that is not something where it's directly doing it, but it's through a cascade of events that ultimately lead to AMPK activation.

So all of that to say it's supportive for the longevity and health of cells. Yeah.

Yes. And so things like autophagy and mitophagy are impacted by the NPK pathway. You'll also have like apoptosis, which is cell death, which is a normal thing that happens, but also you can have too much of it. Or cellular senescence, the so-called zombie cells that are essentially should be dead, but they're not quite, and they're just secreting bad things like inflammation from them. And so they effectively, you know,

need to be taken care of. And so you don't want that cellular senescence. And so those, as well as mitogenesis, which is the creation of new mitochondria, things like that are good things.

with the body's normal function. And so these are all things that can be impacted with, with acids, anthins effect on, on AMPK. I feel like a five-year-old asking my dad questions. I appreciate you entertaining me. Why would a body hoard senescent cells? Yeah.

Why would a body be stifled in its apoptosis or autophagy of that which could be senescent? I don't think it's intending to hoard those cells. I think it's more of a normal mechanism that was meant to deal with that has broken.

or it has declined. And so say you have a car, you know, and over time, you know, the air conditioning breaks or, you know, the suspension components wear out, you know, those types of things happen or you have a house and the roof starts to leak. I mean, so bad things happen just over time because time takes its toll on, you know, on anything.

And so I think that's what's happening in the body where what would be a normal process to ensure that you don't develop these senescent cells or that you have normal cleanup with autophagy in the cells. Those normal mechanisms get impacted over time through things like oxidative stress and environmental pollution, toxin, all these things can impact cells.

negatively the normal functioning of the cells. And so I think that's what happens over time is the normal response is no longer normal. And then as a result, now you have these zombie cells. Would the longest, Laverty is that same metaphor in cleaning up senescence in the body, be fasting?

or some iteration of that, I would presume that would probably be the, that be like the big, the biggest stick. That's like, okay, it's really time to go guys. But what do you think about that? Well, it certainly does a lot of research with, um, you know, caloric restriction, um, both for, for longevity and, and then for,

fat and for fasting, you know, for health. And I know that there's, you know, debates about intermittent fasting and, you know, types of fasting and all of these things. I think there certainly is a lot of research to support that. But also, you know, in terms of what fasting does or caloric restriction does in the cells, it impacts certain cellular pathways. And these are some of the same pathways that astaxanthin also impacts through its cascade of effects. And so, you

Um, I don't know in terms of ranking again, in terms of like the, the, the longest lever, you know, for this, um, I think there certainly is research on that. I would not be an expert in the overall assessment of that. Um, but I, I know there's a lot of good research on that. Probably I could see a fast and supplementing with astaxanthin probably be pretty potent. Is there other supplements? Well, let me just say that fasting to kind of purge the system and, you know, kind of let, you know, get out with the old and in with the new, you know, I think conceptually makes sense.

Just as the little tidbit there, though, you wouldn't want to fast and take astaxanthin just because, I mean, you could, but astaxanthin is best absorbed with a fatty meal because it's actually a fat-soluble molecule. And the body, when it's processing the fats from your meal, that is, astaxanthin will essentially hitch a ride.

with the fats as they come into the body and, and they get packaged into the, the, the lipoproteins like LDL, HDL, BLDL, and kind of helps them to protect themselves against oxidation. And then also uses those as, as kind of transport vehicles to get throughout the body. And so, so therefore you would, you would still absorb some astaxanthin with, you know, on a

um, you know, kind of fasted, um, empty stomach, but you're going to absorb much more of it with the fats in a fatty meal. Um, so is that, thank you for that. Is, is astaxanthin categorized as an antioxidant?

Yes. Yeah. I think that is its primary function is as an antioxidant. But again, like we talked about, there's a lot of interplay between oxidative stress and inflammation. And so it really depends on if you talk to someone, what is its mechanism or what is it? Is it an antioxidant? It is at its peak.

core its primary function but it also has an effect on inflammatory pathways so it's effectively an anti-inflammatory as well although most of your traditional anti-inflammatories will go directly impact you know some component of the inflammatory cascade whereas um you know we'll be working more upstream with with astaxanthin so so i think

an antioxidant is probably its most correct definition of what it is, but it's much more than just an antioxidant when you look at how a lot of people will kind of lump all antioxidants together. And it's very different than other antioxidants. You look at things like vitamin C or vitamin E. Vitamin C is water-soluble. It's not fat-soluble. It doesn't get into the cellular membranes. And so it can be in or outside of the membrane. It can be kind of outside of the cell or inside the cell, but not

in the membranes, so it won't protect those lipids from oxidative stress or oxidation. With vitamin E, it kind of looks similar to astaxanthin in terms of one end of the molecule. And so, it can get into the membranes, but it will not span across the membrane and stabilize the membrane. It'll cause some membrane disruption as it kind of sways, but anchored into one side, but not into both sides across the membrane.

And then with beta carotene, if you were to Google beta carotene, which is in the same family of carotenoids as astaxanthin, and then you Google astaxanthin molecular or chemical structure, you'll see that they look almost the same in terms of their ring groups on the ends of the molecule and their backbone. But astaxanthin has hydroxyl and ketone groups, which are like

oxygen, hydrogen groups, for example, with the hydroxyl groups that give the molecule polarity that, like I talked about before, allows it to span and anchor across the membrane. So beta carotene will get into your membranes of your cells, but it won't span and anchor across the membrane and it'll cause membrane disruption, which is bad for the health of the cell and the function of the cell. And we've actually done research

where you can measure the electron density or profile across the membrane. You can look at a healthy membrane and see, okay, it has a nice distribution of electrons at both ends of the membrane. And then if you insert something like beta carotene, that carotene,

that electron profile, i.e. the membrane effectively is disturbed. Whereas with astaxanthin, when it goes into the membrane, the electron density across the membrane is not disturbed virtually at all. And so it's something that works well, plays well in the membrane. So it's very different in terms of how it localizes in the membrane. Also, the fact that it gets to your outer plasma membrane of the cell, but also the nuclear and mitochondrial membranes, which are privileged sites to be

And then on top of that, because of its structure, it can fight these free radicals in ways that would be different from other antioxidants. And so it can be more effective at scavenging and quenching these free radicals. And in certain studies, looking at certain types of free radicals, it's been proven to be much stronger, like 6,000 times stronger than vitamin C or 550 times stronger than vitamin E and like 40 times stronger than beta carotene. And so it's looking at its ability to

fight a certain type of free radical, for example. And so it's something that in various test tube studies looks to be much more potent as an antioxidant, but almost probably more importantly is where it gets in the cell and how it aligns in those membranes and protects those lipids in your membranes from oxidation, which is really important for overall health and longevity. So it's very different than other antioxidants. And then when you look at its downstream effects on

inflammatory pathways and other important cell signaling pathways. It's something that really distinguishes itself from, from other antioxidants. You're brilliant, dude. I would, if I was attracted to men, I'd marry you. Oh my gosh. If we had a mutual connection, I'm like, your mind is incredible.

That's funny. That's funny. Yeah. Why are you, how, like, why are you so interested in this stuff? Like how did you, why are you going so deep in all of the little panels of all of this, this, like what drives that? Oh man, I feel like I'm blushing. Um, but so no, but so I've always just been interested in how things work, you know? And so, I mean, it's, it's, it's taken forms of whether it was like

calculus in high school, I was like wanting to understand exactly how it all worked. And because from that understanding, then you can be productive versus just like memorizing the answer, you know, so it was that understanding of how it worked. Sometimes it takes enough memorization in order for the pieces to start to integrate to create understanding. Yeah, yeah. Right? Like sometimes there's a little bit of rote memorization, but then eventually you can start to connect. But if you're just stuck in the rote memorization, it's just

There's nothing there. Yeah, the memorization can help you with terminology or certain, you know, overall structures of how things are. But then ultimately you need to put together and not just remember like in this instance, in this snapshot, this was the answer. It's like, okay, well, this is a moving dynamic situation. You know, if something changes or there's some extrapolation from it, what does that mean? And so,

Separately, I also was interested growing up in cars, trucks, engines, all that stuff. I was the kid that was in AP calculus, but also automotive tech, building truck engines and things.

Again, understanding how the engine worked, understanding how the overall vehicle worked, all the systems, how they work together. That's all just really interesting to me. And then now in this case with the human body, cellular biology, chemistry, there's just, there's so much there.

but there's a lot to understand and learn. And I'm certainly not an expert and there's much, you know, smarter people in terms of, you know, PhDs and MDs that have also spent their lives in this. But in terms of the astaxanthin world, that's, that's been where I've lived the last 25 years. And so all aspects of how you source it, how you make it, how it works in the body are things that I've definitely dove into. And I just, my nature is mine to understand. Yeah. It's incredible. So with the longevity, so there's like people are taking resveratrol, um,

What is rapamycin? Something that occurs endogenously or is rapamycin something that would be taken as a supplement or both? And then the question is, where does astaxanthin stack in comparison to other longevity substances, drugs, whatever, supplements, whatever you call that?

Rapamycin was discovered in the soil on Rapa Nui. Oh, right, right, right. And that was the one that we talked about that impacts. Right. It was developed as a drug for organ transplantation. And then it turns out it has this impact on this pathway that has longevity mechanisms. So the mTOR, the mammalian target of rapamycin. And so...

I'm not an expert on rapamycin. I don't believe it's endogenously produced. I think you have to supplement or take it as a drug. I just thought that because it's in mTOR. Okay.

That was why I was, that's why. So it's the pathway is named after the effect that, that the agent has on it. But again, that pathway, um, there's certainly other rapamycin experts. I don't know if you would have endogenous rapamycin or if you would have some other, you would have other, um, you know, molecules or things, components of the cells that impact the, that pathway, you know, that at some point had to be named, you know, um, right. Um,

And so that rapamycin was proven to extend lifespan in the National Institutes of Health, specifically the National Institute on Aging funds a program called the Interventions Testing Program, which is conducted at three different organizations, the University of Michigan, the University of Texas, and the Jackson Labs.

And they have these genetically heterogeneous mice that are different from your typical inbred laboratory mice, that the normal laboratory mice are not the best representation of

relevance to humans, although they're easy to study for basic research purposes. If you're trying to look at longevity and make extrapolations or, you know, conclusions in a non-human model, the genetically heterogeneous mice are much better at being closer to something that will be relevant for humans. And so this group of academics,

develop this particular strain of mice that are, like I said, genetically heterogeneous. They have these three different sites and they'll have a few thousand mice each year that they start in a cohort. And they'll have a control group with just normal chow that they're fed. But then they'll give them other promising agents for longevity. And rapamycin was one of the first ones that they tested.

like um probably 15 20 years ago um and um and so this is something where they follow these mice where they you know they have things like rapamycin or resveratrol or astaxanthin these have all been tested in this model over the years um and they'll feed them the chow from at some point you know when they're young to middle age or potentially older age but then they'll follow them from whenever they start dosing throughout the rest of their life and see how long they live and

Rapamycin was, I believe, the first agent to demonstrate efficacy in that model, or certainly at least the first to demonstrate very meaningful efficacy of more than 10% life extension. And then since, it's been replicated in that ITP, the Interventions Testing Program, as well as other models of longevity and aging. And so rapamycin was really put on the map as a longevity agent by this ITP program.

Resveratrol had a lot of hype probably in about 15 years or so ago as well. And at that time, it was all the hype around red wine, you know, because it's something that you get from red wine and it impacts certain pathways that are involved in production.

living longer. And so there was a lot of interest in resveratrol. It was tested in the ITP. It did not extend lifespan. And there was a lot of pharmaceutical development. That was the whole thing, right? It was a big farce. If people want to go back and look at the story of resveratrol... Who got busted for that? It wasn't Peter Attia, was it? David Sinclair was the investigator behind resveratrol. And I wouldn't say he busted, but so he... I thought there was like a...

It was like a thing. I watched a YouTube video about it. Yeah, so it's a little bit controversial with that, but he helped to really advance the science around resveratrol and the sirtuin pathways that impact some of these longevity mechanisms. And that led to a really big interest in related molecules for pharmaceutical development.

And I believe it was GSK, Glassville SmithKline acquired, I think it was Sertris. It basically was named after the Sertrium Pathways, a pharmaceutical company that was developing proprietary drugs

forms of resveratrol effectively for medical use. And they were purchased for hundreds of millions of dollars. And then ultimately, after several years of research and development, they just shelved the program because it wasn't working. And so nevertheless, that created a huge amount of hype around resveratrol and red wine and all the benefits and this and that. And so...

still to this day, resveratrol is very popular as a longevity agent. And there's a lot of research that shows it has potential benefits in things, but the gold standard model like the ITP did not show an impact on lifespan. And so interestingly, the ITP also tested...

you know, Omega threes and green tea and say the, the, the NAD precursor and R, um, you know, which is, you know, NAD and R and MN are all popular in the longevity space, uh, you know, for, um,

mitochondrial health and energy production and longevity effects. And that also did not extend lifespan in the model. And so we were fortunate to be invited to supply the ITP with our astaxanthin back in 2019.

based on preliminary research that astaxanthin was shown to increase lifespan in other model organisms. And so a lot of basic research is done in worms and fruit flies and yeast. And these are organisms that are well understood by scientists. And then you can look at things in terms of, say, lifespan. And so astaxanthin was shown to extend lifespan in these different model organisms.

And based on some of that research, and the collaboration we did with the University of Hawaii that showed that we impacted FOXO3, which is known as an anti-aging gene. Based on a lot of human research, it's been correlated with people living

to 100 healthy if you have this particular version of the FOXO3 gene. And with acizanthin, we did a study showing that it increased the activity of this gene, which is what you would want. And so based on all of that, the ITP said,

we'd love to test your astaxanthin in our model. And so we supplied to them. And after several years in that model, following the lifespan of these mice, it turned out that astaxanthin did extend the lifespan by 12% in the male mice. And that was the first time in the 20-year history of the ITP that

a supplement had extended lifespan more than 10%. And just an agent in general had extended lifespan more than 10%. That was exceptionally safe and broadly accessible because things like rapamycin had worked and a few other medications have worked. But these are things that have side effects and tolerability issues that you may not want to be taking every day. You're doing like some Brian Johnson, Davidson, Claire, MG injecting your dong with, you know,

stem cell kind of scenario. Like, I think this is a good idea, but we're not totally sure. Yeah. I may live to 100 or I may die tomorrow. I mean, you don't know. Yeah. Or 200. Yeah. Right. And so it's really interesting. And yeah, we've actually had a lot of dialogue with Brian about astaxanthin ITP study. He's a big believer in astaxanthin as well. And no, I definitely value the work that he does. And everyone, including Davidson Clark, I mean, everyone contributes a lot to the overall field. And

Um, you know, but, um, but I think with astaxanthin, it's something that it's cool that it has been proven to extend lifespan. And again, in this 20 year history of this gold standard, um, lifespan model, uh, in mammals, um, which is the best that we can do because, um,

Well, it's not the best we can do, but it's the best we can practically do because ideally you would test this in humans to see how long people live. But, you know, say you and I start and then follow us for decades, you know, it's going to take decades to find out if it works from a true lifespan standpoint. Hopefully we sell millions of dollars of product in that 30 years. Yeah. And you can do epigenetic testing. Yeah. Oh, sorry. It didn't work. Right. Yeah.

But yeah, so that's why you have to have some other way to look at lifespan. And so therefore, in this mouse model, they live a few years. And so you can follow that and actually get some understanding that, okay, this looks to extend lifespan and impact these mechanisms of aging.

And so that was really exciting to see that astaxanthin, and in particular, the astaxanthin that we supply, extended lifespan in this model. And again, being the first supplement or kind of safe molecule to do so in their 20-year history. So that was a really big deal and kind of

distinguishes it from, back to your question about like versus resveratrol or versus maybe like rapamycin or the NAD related agents. I mean, these are all things that are very popular in the longevity space, but astaxanthin, I think, you know, should be just as popular. It just isn't yet, you know, and takes conversations to create awareness for astaxanthin.

Really cool, man. I really appreciate your depth in all this. It's really fascinating to get to explore all of these concepts. And I appreciate you entertaining my very elementary questions, which I think are probably helpful. It's fun to talk about this, for sure. Yeah. Is there other, any things else or any other things that would be worth mentioning before wrapping things up?

Yeah, a few things. One is just, I alluded to it, but there's...

Really interesting research showing that astaxanthin impacts all these different areas of health, not just longevity, but there are studies looking at liver health where you improve liver enzymes or other damage to the liver that can happen over time based on a fatty diet or alcohol consumption, things like that in our basic research studies or clinical studies as well. So if you're recovering from all the red wine from the resveratrol, that's bad. You can recover in...

liver and longevity. Yeah. And so, you know, astaxanthin not being a drug, you can't make claims for disease or being a hangover cure or anything like that. But like, for instance, we worked with an academic researcher who specializes in liver. And he had a model where the animals essentially develop liver disease based on alcohol, ethanol consumption. And so you can have a diet that contains ethanol with or without

astaxanthin. And it turns out that the liver damage as measured by the liver enzymes, which typically get elevated when your liver is not as healthy or functioning as well, those were decreased over time and kind of maintain the normal healthy range. And so it countered the impact of the alcohol in that particular basic research model. There's also studies in heart

aspects of heart health where, again, basic research where this was, we've been pursuing potentially pharmaceutical applications of astaxanthin as well, which is kind of analogous to the omega-3 space where you have

dietary supplement forms and you also have prescription forms that are indicated for particular disease uses. And so we've been trying to pursue both. And so some of our research was on the pharmaceutical side. So we looked at things like blood clots or atherosclerosis, and we saw improvements in those areas where you actually, for instance, image the arteries and saw reductions of the plaque buildup in the arteries on mice fed like a high fat diet that are prone to developing, you know,

you know, heart disease. And so again, that was really exciting research that we conducted. We looked at blood clots that formed in multiple different species and had positive results there as well, which was really exciting. There's the brain health, cognitive function and types of studies I talked about. And then even like skin health is another area that's really exciting because

the microalgae produce the astaxanthin to protect against the UV light from the sun. But just like they are protected against the sun, we can do the same. And so when you take astaxanthin, it can help to fight off some of the damage that you may, you know, get from the UV light from the sun. Do you think it's BS that if I'm in Hawaii or...

you know, whatever, a sunny place. I don't use a lot of sunblock. I like zinc oxide. Put it on places that might get burnt. I feel like the body's intelligent. It sends you signals when you've had too much sun, kind of like when you've had too much water, you like don't want any more water when you've had enough sun. It's kind of, but to each his own, cover your face up, whatever. Probably just wear a hat, you know, a shirt. But what I do, if I did get too much sun is I eat a buttload of saline.

salmon and butter and olive oil and all these healthy fats and omega-3 supplements. Do you think there's something to that or am I just lost? I think it probably helps to fix some of the damage that occurs, but also you want to try to

prevent damage from occurring in the first place. And so I think to your point, yeah, you are going to sense when you are being exposed to too much sun and starting to burn. But a lot of times it's kind of too late. You're like, oh my gosh, I'm actually starting to get burned now. And the thing is that even...

If you're not burning, just chronic exposure to sun, to too much sun or UV light, you know, can, can cause, you know, damage to your, to your skin cells, to your, to your skin itself over time. And so I think... What if you do it gradually and you build up like a, you know, like a quote unquote, like callous to the sun as opposed to overdoing it and blasting yourself and then, and then being out of it. And then like, what about that? Yeah.

I'm sure that would be much better. I mean, just going from nothing to total exposure, you know, your body would, that would be a crazy insult for the body. So I think...

If the body is more used to or has tolerance built up or other protections in place, then I do think that. But also, I mean, just different people burn more easily than others and are more susceptible to UV damage. So I think there's all of that going on. And so I think skin protection is important, topical, and you can try to find what works best and what, based on the types of chemicals and things that are used in skincare products.

With with astaxanthin, some people have referred to it as like an internal sunscreen, but that's something that we can't actually make a claim around that because sunscreen or sunblock is actually considered a drug type of claim by the FDA. And so unless we went through a full process to get it approved as like sunscreen, you know, we can't actually say that it's sunscreen, but it is something that.

mechanistically, there have been studies showing that it does, um, you know, reduce the UV damage from the sun to like the DNA in your, in your cells. Um, and it improves like moisture content and elasticity and wrinkles and things over time. And so both orally and topically, some people have done topical administration of, of astaxanthin, but, but even just taking it orally, it does get distributed throughout your body, gets to your skin and helps with that. So I think, um,

It's certainly something that if you are not using a lot of skin protection, you would definitely want this to give you that internal support. But then you should complement that with an appropriate topical, especially if you're exposed to intense sunlight or for long durations.

Could you take enough astaxanthin that it becomes like a melanotan type peptide situation where you start actually changing pigment of the skin? Like, could you turn into like a red lobster? I think it certainly could be possible at an exceptionally high dose. But for instance, we've done like a cardiovascular health study in humans that was for 12 weeks at

like eight of our 12 milligram capsules a day. So 96 milligrams, which is much higher than the normal dose of say one or two capsules a day, 12 milligrams. And there was, there were no reports of skin pigmentation issues at that much higher dose for three months.

We've also done studies where, uh, the same study people could continue open label for beyond a year at, uh, like a lower dose of like 24 milligrams a day. There was no skin pigmentation issues, but based on anecdotal feedback from our community, there are people that do are like power rule power users that take 12, 16 capsules a day, um, and really helps them with joint and muscle health, especially, you know, if they're older age. And, um, there've been some reports there of, um,

you know, skin pigmentation, but not like you're turning, you know, like into a lobster or a flamingo, which is actually pink because of the astaxanthin they consume as well in their diet. But you may get some, you know, reddening or pinkening of the skin to a degree, but I think it probably will depend on how different people absorb astaxanthin, the pigmentation naturally of their skin as well. But I think it's something that for most people, unless they're taking those mega doses, probably would never approach, you know, a level where that would occur.

All right. Well, I appreciate you. Uh, where I'd imagine people would probably be excited to try ask this, Anthony, um, what's, what's the best place to point people from here. And by the way, for context, I got turned on to you from one of my, my very good friends, Max Luga bear, who he's been talking about. I've heard him mention asses Anthony for like years and years. And, uh, he did a conversation with you. And then he texted me shortly after that saying, Oh, you should have, uh,

have David on to talk about this. And so now I'm taking astaxanthin. So I appreciate it. Thank you, Max. And thank you. Thank you, Dave. No, I love Max. And the fact that he has been taking astaxanthin for so many years and he really, based on his interest in brain health and longevity, discovered these carotenoids and in particular astaxanthin and some related carotenoids that impact brain health and longevity.

um you know it was great it's great to connect with people that uh are passionate about astaxanthin as well and i think he really liked our um you know what we've done uh with astaxanthin as well so yeah it was great to speak with max and to be connected with you and i think i love your approach um to overall health and wellness as well and so i think this integrates well with that and so yeah so if people want to learn more they can check out our website ax3.life and um

Also on Instagram, ax3.live. And the last thing I'll mention is that the reason for the name ax3 is abbreviating astaxanthin as ax or even as a. And then we have the x for the kind of times three. And the three is because we actually did a head-to-head Q&A.

human study with our product versus one of the leading forms of astaxanthin that's sourced from microalgae that's been on the market for many years. And we gave a group of human volunteers a dose of the microalgal astaxanthin, measured their blood levels, and then sent them home for a week and brought the same group back and then gave them our form at the exact same dose and measured their blood levels. And we got three times the amount of astaxanthin absorbed in

into the bloodstream. And so, because just cause you swallow a capsule doesn't mean it all goes into your body. Some will pass through into the toilet, unfortunately. And so that's the reason for the three in eggs three is that three times more bioavailable. So that's something that again, on our website, people can check out that, that data as well.

Awesome. Thank you. And do we have, I don't know if we've ever, do we make some kind of, I'm sure we'll probably make like a discount code or something like that. Is there some kind of code that you know of? Yeah, we can. Your community can use the discount code Align and that'll get 20% off the first order. Oh, cool.

So, yeah, happy to do that. And so there's like a promo code place on the site? Yeah, just in the checkout process, then there'll be a discount code location. Okay, cool. So AX3.life, not .com, AX3.life. Correct. And then you use promo code ALIGN and you'll get 20% off.

That's it. Freak out. Love that. All right. Thank you, man. I appreciate you. I really do this conversation. Hope you guys did as well. That's it. That's all. I'll see you next week. Hope you guys enjoyed that conversation. I invite you over to the Align Podcast YouTube channel. See the video version of this as well as subscribing for a chance to win sweet prizes. We pick a subscriber at the end of each month and we send you out some really cool stuff ranging from infrared panels to cold brew coffee to everything in between.

Pretty amazing. So if you're a fan of the sponsors on here, oftentimes the sponsors will be sending free stuff to you, the subscribers of the Align Podcast YouTube channel. So jump over there, press subscribe for a chance to win some cool stuff. Thank you for listening. Thank you for reviews. Thank you for sharing this with your friends. That's it. That's all. I'll see you next week.