Nootropics Mental Health with the Co-Founder and Executive Chair of H.V.M.N. Geoffrey Woo

Hey, doing great, KATIE. Really happy to be on, on, on this program.
Thank you. Thank you for being here. It really means a lot.
Yeah. I mean, it's kind of crazy times, but I think more than ever, people want to connect, learn about interesting things. And I think being the human performance space, especially biohacking, I think metabolic health, improving immunity, just keeping sane, I think are some of the top things that we're all thinking about right now. So it's a timely time to had to have a conversation like this. So again, appreciate that. The platform
Definitely, definitely we're an uncomfortable times and now is more time than ever to be talking about uncomfortable things. And now more and more people are talking about mental health and the importance of mental health, especially with what's happening. So let's dive right in and talk about Nootropics. What was your mission statement of starting it? Why like what is going on here?
So it might be helpful to just set some context. So my background, well, just even zooming all the way back, I grew up I'm a California kid grew up in Los Angeles, ended up going to Stanford to study computer science. And in the computer science program at Stanford, I met my eventual business partner with HVAC man, Michael Brandt grew up in Chicago and he's also kind of, kind of on one hand, kind of an artsy. He ended up, you know, early part of his career, actually teaching at the art academy in San Francisco. But I think what tied us together was this notion that we can enhance ourselves that humans were not this perfect entity that were unimprovable. And especially during the time that we were contemplating some of these early ideas in 20 13, 20 14, so many of our smartest friends at Stanford were working on making computers, smarter machine learning algorithms, data science, to target better advertising to, to push products.
Right? I think these are some of the, again, some of these themes that is now coming back in 2020, where we're talking about the impact of social media on our mental health. But it was really at that time when some of my smartest friends were working at these big eventually tech platforms and like really just the best advertising companies, if you talk about their business model, making computers better, essentially. So we really wanted to think about how can we apply the same engineering principles to making humans better. And obviously there's multiple aspects or attributes of what makes us human and cognition. Our intelligence is one very important aspect and that's where Nootropics or cognitive enhancers really target a Nootropics is an umbrella term for compounds that enhance certain attributes of cognition, like reaction time, long-term working memory processing volume, all sorts of things that you can actually measure and, and can actually be manipulated improves.
I think one of the interesting things, when you talk about human performance, it's easy to kind of throw your hands up and say, I don't know if it's too hard to understand why LeBron James is the best basketball player, or why is someone the best sprinter, but if you actually boil it down, all these attributes into measurable tactical attributes, like again, reaction time or foot speed, or how much weight you're pushing down your calf as you're sprinting, these are all very measurable and all very improvable. So that was the approach that we had with Health Via Modern Nutrition. We want to build enable better humans through metabolism, through nutrition.
And one thing that we really think about the modern health or modern food environment is that modern health or modern nutrition oftentimes is associated with processed preservatives. Very, very clerically dense, but very neutrally empty. And we want to reclaim modern nutrition and tanking the best science, the best engineering principles apply that to our nutrition and really take our nutrition to the next level. And I think a lot of it is combining the best ancestral knowledge of what has worked over the millennia and then tie that with the latest science in metabolism and physiology.
And that is kind of the dual principles that we take in terms of what we work on. It HVM N
Love this love, this, and my background is cross-country running. So I learned about short term medium term long-term goals. My father turned me on to cross country running. So I know about mind, body, spirit, and what you put into your body and like preparing yourself mentally, you know, and, and all, all of those things hydration. So with the Nootropics that you created, where are they sourced from
They're sourced from? Well, I guess the way we think about it is that in the umbrella term of Nutro Nootropics, there's a different types of things that can impact cognition. So we look at things that can benefit chronic long-term memory, right? So these are more chronic long-term habitual use products. And then there's more acute products that can give you a short term boost. So, you know, one of our most popular in tropics is a product called rise and there's three core and rise there's Bacopa monnieri, which has a traditional IRA genetic medicine. And it's an adaptogen, but I think what is most compelling for me personally, is that there's randomized control trial data in healthy humans showing enhanced longterm memory to pass the improvements versus placebo, right?
And the mechanisms there is increased neurogenesis, the growth of new neurons. So neuro neuron growth factor actually increases with this intervention. So to me, it's a very interesting compound ingredient because there is this long-term history of use in humans, but also that modality of randomized control trials that actually validate that this is not just a placebo effect, right? This is not just something that you're fooling yourself. Some of the other sources or other ingredients within rise also include ashwagandha, which has Alonda yeah. Which is another popular adoption with Ayurvedic tradition.
But one of the, again, from a scientific perspective, really good data around lowering cortisol and some of the impacts that sort of acute stress that, that, that, that sort of accelerated cognitive decline. So can we resolve that question? And then lastly, one of the key components of healthy brain function is enough acetylcholine, which is the neuro-transmitter associated with learning, right? So acetylcholine and what does, what does acetycholine made of, well, there's the Coleen and acetylcholine, which is found in different nutritional sources, but oftentimes it might be hard to get enough Coleen just through diet.
So we have a special form of Coleen called CDB Coleen or cyto Coleen, which is a very bioavailable form to have a very high quality bioavailable Coleen also as part of that stack. So when we develop these stacks or combination of Nootropics, we really look at the synergies in the, in the combination that makes sense to provide in a specific product
Really, for me to say, but so when you wake up, it's the first thing you do you take
I'll probably yeah. Drink some water first and then yeah. Rise and then like, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think for me, it's like, yes, but like, you know, some of the things that I found very helpful is I also try to just get some sunlight. I mean, I think in this video, you see a lot of sun coming into here. And I think one of the things I see now is that because we don't really have, like, we don't have to go outside right now. Right. Like a lot of us are working from home. Right. And by just forcing myself to have our circadian rhythm where I'm like, okay, I'm going to like go outside. I'm going to go into my rooftop and get a little bit of sun as I wake up that has been helpful, just as much, it's been helpful to have Nootropics and rise. And I think one of the things that we were talking a little bit about is that when I have my coffee yeah.
MCT, you know, powered coffee. Right. So I think it's like the nutrition and the lifestyle that standardizes really all together. So I don't want to just say, Hey, eat these things and you're going to be great. I think it's like styling your diet, but also dialing your lifestyle.
Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. Vitamin D is definitely super important. My sister got me one of those lights, you know, for like, when it's not in California, you know, for my place in New York, one of those lights that give you the same light as, as like a vitamin D would. So, okay. So we have the, the rise, you know, I have it, but I need, I need, I need to like be consistent with it. So can you sometimes take it in sometimes not, or do you have to like always be consistent taking the rise?
The best results are to be consistent while you're on rise. So like daily use for like, I would say two month blocks, some people will like cycling off off of right is like two months on one month off, two months on one month off to give some like, most things in biology, you don't want over adaptation towards any single stimulus. So I that's the way I would, I would approach it if I were to look at just like a more holistic long-term.
Yeah. And then, so if you have the rise and then with the, the MCT, you have the hazelnut, you have chocolate, you have four different flavors, right?
Yeah. And I think we actually launched two more, a lot in, in the last few months we have a coconut cream and a hazelnut, but yeah, it's we have a chocolates of vanilla assaulted caramel, so, and then a flavored. So it's been fun. I mean, it's been, it's been kind of crazy that like that business line has tripled in the last nine months.
You can not only have it in your coffee or smoothies, but you could bake cookies with it or bake cakes with it. Right. Can you, you can just put it in anything pretty much put it in your cereal, your out me.
Yeah. I mean, I just made a, I mean the, the Quito hardcore people will kind of will bust me on this, but I made some really awesome KIDO college in hazelnut waffles this last weekend. It was great. I mean, anything that's, you want a little bit extra collagen and high quality CA you know, medium chain triglycerides for folic acid. It just, it just gets like a little bit of a boosted Quito, macro profile to whatever you're making and baking. And it bakes really well. So, yeah, I think that's one of the use cases that we thought of when we're really focused on the product quality, because there are other MCT or oil power's out there. But when we were playing around with this, we weren't doing R and D. This is a couple of years ago. Like they comp a lot. They don't bake really well. They don't blend very evenly.
So it's just like, you might get the macros in there, but it's like not really delivered in a way that makes sense for a lot of like the actual real users. Right? Like you want something that just really easily blends in your coffee, right? Like you don't want to have a clumpy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Are you familiar with the brand Navitas? No, they're vegan. So they have this protein powder and literally I'll just like, make pancakes with it, but I haven't made pancakes in a while, but I'm going to try to do it with the MCT oil. I'm going to make some pancakes or even put it in the French toast mix. I'll let you know how it goes For, you know, the viewers who aren't Quito, who aren't hip taquito, who aren't going to be Quito, you know, and they're to MCT oil, you know? Cause I actually, you've seen some people who have products and it says MCT, but there's things in it. That's not pure. So what do you want the viewers to know? Cause I know yours is super clean.
So for the people who don't know, like when you're getting a pure MCT oil, what do you want to make sure that it doesn't have in it? Because you know, they, they add those secret things, natural flavors and things like that. So with your background, can you share so people can be educated and now yeah.
Yeah. That's, that's a good question. And I get in something that really focused on. So for folks who are just entering the Quito and they're just confused, like I don't, what is keto? Why do I even want to do this? I mean, I think to maybe answer the broad question and answer the specific question and what are some of like the adulterants or, or things that you don't want in, in some of the cheaper products out there? The whole premise of keto is like, the way I think about it is that ancestrally consistent diets don't have refined carbohydrate intake. Like there does not exist in nature, like a sugar bomb, right? Like sugar cane. If you've actually been out on a sugar cane farm, it's like very, very hard to extract like pure sugar from. So sugar consumption has been exponential.
Like there was two pounds of sugar consumed a year for the average American, the 18 hundreds. And now that number is like closer to 200 pounds and obviously obesity, diabetes, all these metabolic syndromes have skyrocketed since then. So one of the things that, you know, we're a part of, or we, you know, I like to claim or hypothesize is that we think that to be in a sensible state in terms of just healthcare costs, there will have to be a shift from our current Overconsumption of refined carbohydrates. And it's kind of a zero sum game in the sense that what are those calories go? We think those calories will go more towards Healthy fats and ketones. So getting into a key tonic state. So what is the state? Well, it's just when your body is a low carbohydrates state, it uses fat as its primary energy source.
So you want to be fat burning. So meaning that instead of storing fat in your adipose tissue, can you actually more actively use and burn that fat? So you're not storing it and for better for worse, you know, our evolutionary tastes buds and a lot of our food supply was designed to cure famine. So famine was the biggest killer of humans before the 19th century. Most of the first world, I mean, basically for most Americans, right? Like no one is starving. Of course there are small pockets here and there, and let's not discount that, but more, but I think just generally broadly speaking, more people are dying of diseases of Overconsumption. Like 75% of Americans are obese and overweight one-third of Americans are diabetic and then high sugar consumption is associated and drives Inflammation.
Right? So these are not problems of famine and starvation. We've luckily solved a lot of these problems. And even if it's almost like a food allocation problem, right? Like there's plenty of food. It's like maybe not going to the right places. And the people who have access to food are eating way too much. So the question here is, yeah, so the question is, okay, we were in a world of never going to ketosis, never dipping into our fat reserves towards accumulating fat and fat and fat, and we're never expanding it. So the whole point of eating keto is to up intake, your fat, healthy, fat consumption, lower your refined carbohydrate consumption. And that accelerates being in a state of ketosis, which is a fat burning mode. So a lot of people will talk about being ketosis, makes them feel more alert, more sharp, more clear, right on the enhancement side of house.
There's a lot of research around the therapeutic benefits of being in ketosis, mainly body weight composition. And it's been one of the, you know, it's a big celebrity of diet, you know, and I think Kim Kardashian Halle Berry are very, very vocal about, you know, their, their ketogenic diet for body composition. I know that I think Holly berries is diabetic and she uses keto to help control her diabetes. So that's, I think just kind of the background of what keto is. It's a natural metabolic state that our ancestors commonly dipped into as they went from feasting and famine. And they were able to use both their carbohydrate engine, as well as their fat burning engine in the modern food environment. We never run out of carbohydrates. We never switched into the fat burning mode and that's why we get fatter and fatter and fatter.
So it's almost like, again, that reclaimation of modern nutrition. How do we reintroduce this healthy balance of macros? Yeah. So that's, that's kind of the context of why even like, people should think about this and it's, and I think the easy entry point is not to say, Hey, like slap bread out, can't eat your spaghetti. You can't eat your ramen noodles. Like Don, I think even just, I think just, yeah, but I think even just replacing one meal, two meals, three meals a week that are keto, which is like no carbohydrate, I think puts your metabolism in the right direction. I think that's where we're trying to broaden our approach. So
Tension flows, energy goals. So if you're mindful not to put certain carbohydrates into your system and you're shifting to things that have protein in it, then yeah. It's a better balance.
Yeah. So now we'll go to answering a specific question. So for a lot of MCT oil powders, there needs to be something that absorbs the fat, right? So MCT is medium chain triglyceride. So when you see MCD and being marketed, it is short for medium chain triglyceride and a medium chain. Triglyceride is just a fatty acid. It's like a form of fat with, and, and what are fatty acids. They're just chains of carbon atoms. So medium chain is just means a medium length of these tiny acid chains. So like long chain fatty acids have like 22 carbons short chain, fatty acids. I'd like for carpets, medium chain are 6, 8, 10 carbons. And the most ketogenic, the most readily that the body turns into ketones being the ketonic state are C eight.
So if you're looking at a medium chain triglyceride product or MCT product, look for products that really focus on C8 for like acid eight carbon linked chain, because it is the most readily available that turns into ketones and ketones
And that what you have in your product for each CMN. Yes.
And yes. And so like for example, I, coconut oil is something that's very, very popular in terms of like something that's high in MCTs and
Coconut oil.
Right? Correct. And that's just a blend of and we just like only folks on the most kitchen inform of that, not to say like you, like, there's no benefits or value of other medium chain triglycerides. Like for that use of spiking ketones for like a morning cup of coffee to get as much ketones that like cue energy CA is going to do that job for you. And then there's like the,
And your body and in your mind, like what do people expect from it? Who haven't tried it yet? Do you see a result right away or weeks later? Or is it different for everyone?
So, interesting thing is that it's similar. If folks have heard about like fasting, like just shorting, shorting their eating windows for folks that are less metabolically flexible, meaning that they're always used to eating carbohydrate. It actually might feel a little bit worse for you because it's like exercise. If you have an exercise for a year and like, Hey, go do a marathon. Now you're going to feel crappy because you're just like, ah, my body's like, ah, like what would marathon? I've never done an official one, but I did 30 miles from my 30th birthday. So like my first quote-unquote marathon was an ultra marathon, but all my colleagues are crazy weird endurance people. So like, you would like Michael Michael was like a big runner. I mean, he's a, what?
A 2 45 marathon runner. Wow. Wow. So, so yeah, little bit like a, six-minute like somewhere on six minute miles for, you know, the marathon. Right. So he's a serious runner.
Yeah. I was doing six minute miles, but for 5k now a marathon. Wow.
Yeah. So, no, I mean, just like, not like it's yeah. It's, it's pretty, it's like subtle leaderly. It's like, it's like a fairly serious runner, right? You're not like you gotta be pretty damn good. Yeah. I mean, I think just our, like our community, like we, like a lot of our customers are like tour de France teams and endurance athletes. Like we work a lot with actually our iron man champs. Cause I think one of the interesting things with keto, because you are fat adapted and you can use fat as a primary source of fuel. The thing with being carbohydrate driven is that you have to constantly drink Gatorade or goose shots. Right. Bonk out. Exactly. So just getting sugar bomb after a sugar bomb,
I did that one as a teenager, I was just drinking after a race. It's like, I was just drinking these Gatorades, but it was just all sugar.
Yeah. We just didn't know any better. I think we were just like less and it's actually kind of funny. One of my friends who eventually started a company called Virta health, which is using a ketogenic diet to treat diabetes, he literally was an age group champion for an Ironman. And he was pre-diabetic and he didn't know any better about like just chugging down sugar water and like sugar bars through like these races. Cause he was very, very carbohydrate driven. But if you can be fat driven, you can, like, we just have way more fat on our bodies than glycogen reserves. So like we store sugar in the form of glycogen, which is in our muscle or in our liver. And you have about 20, 24 hours of storage there at rest. And obviously like, I mean, I've done like multi-day fast really pushing the, pushing my body, but like we can survive without eating for like weeks.
Have you done
Like your mentioned
Fasting? Yeah. It's a big thing that we experiment with. So the longest fast I Don is a seven day water fast, but I do like a 16, 18 hour eating, sorry, fasting window on a, on a daily basis. Yeah.
Yeah. I, I do. I'm I'm I'm doing intermittent fasting right now. Myself. Other rock is really big into intermittent fasting the creator from the zero app that I was doing it to go along with my fellow people in the beginning of the pandemic, I was actually, I did a 27 day intermittent fasting. That's the longest I've done it. I just started it a couple of days ago, but I stopped it because he said in the beginning when all this was happening in March, the there was a podcast and I'm the zero app. He was going to a farm for two years with his family with non-perishable foods. And he was actually not doing intermittent fasting. Cause he says like your immune system just goes below the breaking level.
And because of the immune system needing to be high and like the coronavirus and stuff, he was actually saying, it's not like a really good thing to be doing intermittent fasting right now. So he's like stopped and he's just indulging in all these foods, but that was just kind of food for thought. So then I stopped it for a while, but I psychologically and just physically, I just, you know, your body knows like if your body's very intelligent. So for me, I just tuned in and I actually started intermittent fasting on Sunday. I just did. I did a no fat. I did fasting just water. And then I started just intermittent fasting, you know, Sunday and
Yeah, yeah, no, I, I know the fasting team decently, well I know Kevin Rose, who was one of the big investors and Peter T who's the chief medical officer there. So yeah, I mean, I think it's, I think the point there is not that fasting is bad for immunity it's I didn't read the article or don't know what his concerns are, but like my thought there is every single adaptation is a stressor, right? So this is a sense of, for me, SIS, if you exercise that damages your body acutely, but as your body adapts and recovers and repairs get stronger for the next bout. So the question is if you are suddenly training for a marathon, intermittent fasting, eating keto, and you're stressed out because of COVID and you're trying to find a new job, that's probably going to stress you out with too many adaptations all at once is there to break you.
So to me, it's, if you are reasonably healthy and you're looking to improve your diet, I think it's completely fine and okay to adjust your diet over time, but there's like, and honestly there's no perfect time to do anything. It just like, I think just be sensible around not necessarily going in a seven day water, fast, straight out of the gate for no reason. I think maybe refinement of, of his point there is that just understand the Bazell amount of stress and adaptation you can handle at any given point. And don't get inspired by this conversation today. And in one train for a marathon goes dead, lift 500 pounds and eat keto and fast and you know, do brain training games all at once. Oh my God.
Right? Like take the, you know, introduce what these interventions are. One at a time.
Yeah. So on now let's see it to the extreme opposite for the couch potatoes for people who just aren't actively working out. They never have, they're not athletes, you know, they're active, they walk here and there, but maybe they're at an age or maybe something physically is going on with them. Or they're just not athletes. The Nootropics that you offer and MCT oil, it's great for your cognitive brain function. So these can still be beneficial without doing a keto diet. How can talk about the benefits of these without being maybe without coupling it with training physical training?
Yeah, I think that's just a very exciting area of research right now. Can ketogenic diet or ketones be useful for cognitive impairment, cognitive impairment, mild forms of dementia. So we're actually supplying an NIH study. That's ongoing right now looking at ketones, which is the end metabolic state of being a kid drank diet for mild cognitive impairment. And that's being done at, you know, some of the leading Alzheimer's dementia researchers in our country today. So that my, my, my point here is not to say that, you know, a ketogenic diet is going to necessarily reverse Alzheimer's, but it is being studied in very serious academic circles. And there's very interesting animal models, as well as mechanistic arguments of why this approach works.
So one of the common theories around Alzheimer's is that is Alzheimer's really a type three diabetes and insulin resistance or a Diabetes of the brain. So when you actually look at Alzheimer's brain, you actually have lower energy intake and lower glucose metabolism. So usually sugar or glucose is the primary fuel for the brain because Glucose is a small molecule. It crosses the blood-brain barrier. And it's a, yeah, it's a very nice available source of energy. But as we consume more and more carbohydrate, we build up a tolerance for Glucose. And like most things you always have a adaptation or a tolerance, right? Like if we are drinking a bunch of wine and we practice drinking wine for a year, we're gonna not get as drunk as quickly.
Right. Yeah. Right. And it just, I think that's like a very, and I use that example because I know that's like something that we all kind of understand, right. We haven't drank for a while and then boom, now we're cheap date, right? And the same thing with Glucose, if you constantly drip, a bunch of sugar into your system, your body builds a tolerance to sugar. So you need more sugar, more insulin got the same amount of response. So when you actually look at the glucose uptake in a brain in very advanced Alzheimer's, there's literally not enough energy in the brain. Like it looks like the brain is starving. So the interesting thing with ketones is that it acts in a very different metabolic pathway than Glucose. If you look at, if you remember from a high school biology, you might remember a Krebs cycle or mitochondria glucose goes in one, one path into the mitochondria and ketones goes into a separate path.
There's early data suggesting that if you have ketones or kitchen diet, you can bypass that Glucose dependency or tolerance that you've built up over that time and work around that Glucose a block. So you can recover a lot of the brain energy deficit from going in the kitchen and diet. So that's a kind of a long-winded way of saying that reducing refined carbohydrate intake one, which means like if you showed your eating window, reduce kind of the sugary foods and then, and then on converse side, things like MCT or ketogenic foods and Nootropics can enhance ketone metabolism and you can have that one, two punch together. Can you rest you brain function? So early data on animals, early, early human pilot studies suggest that that is very, very possible and excited to see and fall on the research and contribute to the research to see if this is more widely applicable on some of the early case, studies can really apply towards our population.
That would be not beyond.
Definitely. Definitely. I need to have you connect with my sister because the only thing she talks about is mitochondria. It's like, it's like her go to work. She said, yeah, she's like a genius, very smart, like you. And I think you guys would really hit it off and she's gifted me so much information about so many different things, but I would definitely love to put you two in touch. So, okay. So this is solely through the MCT oil and then also with the Nootropics, right? Can you speak about more of the other ones? Like our, we can just actually, if you want, we can just jump to the Yon one, because for me I'm very high strong, and I have a lot of energy.
And when I wake up in the morning, I don't need to have coffee. I love coffee for the flavor, the taste. And it's like that warm, like, you know, cozy, cozy thing when I'm studying or whatever like that, but I'm up and I'm doing work and I'll do three hours of work before I even have a coffee. Like some people like wake up and they need to have a coffee. It's their thing. It's the routine. But me it's like,
Yeah, rare unicorn, Katie. I feel like, I feel like our society is very Caffeine addicted.
So with that being said, I get so high on a horse. And I'm, I'm like, I'm at, I'm at the top of the mountains. And, and for me to transition to come down, like I need to have a massage put on Tibetan music. I need to remember to take my minerals and magnesium to kind of chill out, to take a shower, to, to kind of do a sound bowl meditation or something like that. And what I do. Cause I have to remember to do this, you know, I can't just set an alarm all the time, but if I'm like, okay, like I want to get a deep rest tonight. And I want to fill myself up with my minerals. I'll take the yawn, which is one of the HBM products. And that's usually, it's the one I've taken the most.
And I love it so much. Like literally, like when I take it, I make sure that I'm not going to be on the electronics. So, you know, my retina is not being stimulated with the circadian rhythm that you were mentioning earlier. And so I'll take the Yon and literally I'll have such a deep, deep restorative sleep. It's amazing. It's, it's so great. And I'm always like, I love the product. I love the glass. I love because it's reusable too. Like you can save and use it for other things, but it's so classy and sophisticated. And I just, I'm just like always like rereading the ingredients, but because I don't have the bottle in front of me, if you want to share about yawn, that would be amazing for people because I know it's a really, really big thing because I've talked to a lot of different people, sleeping.
It's so hard. People have restless sleep, they can't sleep, they can't get deep sleep. Like it's really important. And, and you know, for your neuro-transmitters to be long form and healthy, you have to have a deep restful sleep.
A hundred percent. I think just like Nutrition is I think one of the key problems with in population health, I think Sleep anxiety and sleep issues is like just another second as important. If not bigger, I know we can debate who, you know, what, what is the bigger problem, but sleep issues is definitely chronic through our population. So I think you're addressing some of the key points, right? Like if you're looking at led lights, there's high blue wavelengths of light and that triggers, it actually blocks natural production of melatonin, which is what signals sleep. Right. So I think some of these things that we can do to assuage or mitigate some of the damages of modernity, I think you're spot on there. So what's exactly in yawn. One of the key ingredients is that melatonin. But what we saw on the marketplace is that a lot of people are very simple.
They're like, oh, we need more is better. So they just jam a ton of melatonin in their product. So if you look at a lot of melatonin products out there, they're like 10 milligrams, right? And you actually look at the pharmacokinetics of melatonin, the best data suggests that you want 0.3 or 300 micrograms 0.3 milligrams to one milligram as like the optimal dose for people. And in a lot of products, they're just like, okay, people are kind of like bigger is better, more as that. Or let's just throw a bunch in there and it actually backfires. So one, that's just getting the proper melatonin dose of the thing. It is as critical. And then two, you actually don't want huge macro doses of melatonin. Cause you don't want to again, build habituation on huge melatonin doses.
Yeah. So like, that's like one thing I think you're talking about some of the minerals that I think are exactly what we identified. So magnesium one is associate with sleep and relaxation, but to most Americans are chronically under a deficient with magnesium. So there's multiple forms of minerals, right? It's usually magnesium with minerals are usually in salt form, right? Sodium chloride, magnesium, glycinate, magnesium chloride, right? There's like different variations of how you deliver magnesium properly. So what we used in Yon was magnesium glycinate. Now why did we choose that? Well, glycinate is just a salt form of glycine. Glycine is an amino acid that has been shown to reduce sleep time or, or slightly NC time.
So the amount of time it takes you to go to sleep. Glycine is a studies done, done in Japan, reduce that latency time and increased the subjective restfulness state. We use a salt form of magnesium that basically doubles down on that glycine pathway. And then we also have glycine itself directly as well as L feening, which is also shown to increase alpha waves and relaxation. So in terms of that nootropic stack, we thought of, and we were just thoughtful in terms of, okay, well, if you want the magnesium mineral, you got to use like the most sensible form of magnesium, the most sensible form of glycine DNA, et cetera. Yeah.
Yeah. It's for me, I always say it's like a fish being out of water, like, like a fish needs water and it's like, our body we're depleted, like you said, of our minerals. So we need magnesium. Like we need that mineral it's important. And then also all I was also hearing during the coronavirus that it's really good to have some melatonin. It was, you know, in the scientific friends, they were like, oh yeah, it's like really good to have melatonin. And then I was also informed that we only have one melatonin receptor. And so my analogy is like, if you're, if you have one melatonin receptor you need, like you said that 0.3 to boost it. So you activate your own melatonin. So then it's activating your own melatonin in a healthy way. Because if you're you're taking, you know, 5, 10, 20 milligrams of melatonin, you're knocking out your melatonin receptors and it's just like getting blacked out drunk.
Right. It's that's exactly like how I, I see it.
No, I think that's perfect. Yeah. That's a super good analogy. And I think that's where I think people need to just be nuanced with biology. Like again, like you talked about like the body being smart, the body being intuitive, it's like, you can't trick the, you do not, there's like no free lunch in biology, right. If you just like swarm, you get like a really huge melatonin dump. Okay. Your body's like, oh wow. We're going to have to like increase our tolerance. Same thing with alcohol. Right? Like you get only blasts that your body's like, oh, okay. That I'm gonna throw up. And then I'll have a high tolerance now.
And we're such sensitive beings. We're resilient, but we're very sensitive. You know, we don't need like all that stuff. It's, it's overkill. It's too much. Yeah. Yeah. But I know there are a lot of people out there who have big troubles with sleeping. So definitely yawn is the way to go for HTML. Like I'm a big fan. I don't take it every single night, but maybe like three nights a week. I do like every other day or something or if I just, I just like, I've had maybe a stressful day and I'm not driving. Like sometimes I've even taken it in the afternoon, one in the afternoon. Cause instead of my shoulders, just being like up here, all of a sudden I'm like I noticed like maybe my shoulders are coming down a bit, you know? Just, it relaxes you a lot of other, not a lot.
I've taken a couple other kind of things and one, it like, it blows you out. If you know what I mean, the flow section and the other area is a lot of people say they wake up like really groggy, like, you know, super groggy. So with the yawn, it's super clean. I wake up feeling refreshed like sometimes before my alarm clock and there's no grogginess, I'm like super rested. I feel like I just got out of a spa. So relaxing. I love it. So I'm, I'm definitely an advocate of yawn. Yeah. You know, being super like high strong and everything like that, like really intense it's, it's good for people who cannot sleep. I have a hard time sleeping need restorative sleep, which we all do so we can function properly.
Yeah. So that's, I think that's like my number one thing is, is the on right now
We should talk about it more, to be honest, I think it's one of those things where it's like, maybe not as easily shareable as something that we like. For example, we just launched today, these keto food bars, right? Like talking about a sleep supplement is not as terrible as like a really cool, interesting keto food bar. But I think it's something that's so important, right? Sleep is all of us have to sleep and it's literally a third of our lives. And if we're doing it crappily, like we're, we're a suboptimal for a third of our lives, which is a huge compounding.
Yeah. Arianna Huffington. She's my mentor. She's amazing. Greek goddess mentor. She personally asked me to write for the Huffington post and now for her platform thrive global and she has a Ted talk. It's a five minute Ted talk and it's called sleep your way to the top and the importance of sleep. And her mother taught her that. So it's super restorative to make sure, you know, so we're functioning as human beings that we, you know, Sleep. But tell me more about these bars. Like how many bars and
Yeah, no, they literally just launched today. So I think like, like we'll have like a platform or Podcast first here. So we just launched keto food bars. So they come in four flavors, chocolate chunks, I'm going to keep, we have vanilla short bread. And then we have some to kind of really quirky, interesting flavors, everything bagel, which is legit, like a savory garlicky, oniony, umami, savory bar, and then a Mexican hot chocolate. So literally has like high-end pepper kick and pepitas, pumpkin seeds. And yeah, I mean, they're one they're certified organic and two, they actually tastes good. I think what we saw in the marketplace when we're designing these bars were the last 12, 18 months was that one, all the healthy bars in the market, they actually have a ton of sugar in them.
Like if you just look at little looking in a black, like it's just like, they're pretty sweet. And I think, and then, you know, we're pretty nerdy at atrium. And so we wear these continuous glucose monitors. So these like pseudo implants, we can install into your, into your arm and it tracks your blood sugar in real time. Wow. You can actually see, like, I don't want to put any brands on blast. So, you know, we were literally measuring some of the top healthy brands that you associate with like a healthy bar and they spike your sugar, like a candy bar.
You're not putting anyone on blast. I mean, if you want to educate and share, that's totally cool. I mean, that's why we're here.
Yeah. I mean, so like cliff bar, for example, you know, it's something that I grew up kind of eating. And when we were just measuring the blood glucose performance, it literally spiked the blood sugar 30 times larger than what a keto food bar spikes like something like RX bar spike 16 times further. So you know what his blood sugar it's like when you eat sugar, there's a huge bolus or a huge amount of sugar being dumped in your system. And then your body needs to create a bunch of insulin and store that away. And when you have a lot of pie, variants of blood sugar coming in and out, that's what causes inflammation because your body needs a process and put all that extra excess sugar away. And this sugar hangs around too long. That's called Diabetes. And that's why diabetics in advanced forms of diabetes literally get their limbs chopped off because their blood vessels have been so inflamed that there's like literally gangrene and like muscle wasting and tissue degradation in advanced forms of diabetes.
And there's, you have to amputate legs and limbs. Right. It's like,
Yeah. And then, and just for the viewers, Inflammation is the number one root cause of any disease dis-ease inflammation. So turmeric is amazing for anti-inflammatory and then you have
Yeah. A hundred percent. So again, I think like some things like turmeric, right? You can take things to mitigate the inflammation you're causing, but you go, you can also just like stop doing the activity that gave you information in the first place. Right. So avoiding like all these things. I think that's kind of the premise behind our keto food bars where it's like, okay, well all of these healthy bars actually have a lot of sugar. Let's actually make something that actually solved that problem. But then too, a lot of the things that try to solve this problem, I think are kind of like frankenfoods that are just like a bunch of weird synthetic sugar, sugar alcohols we're like fibers. So we only use whole food ingredients. So it's certified organic it's. I mean, it's literally like the top four ingredients are almond butter, organic almond butter grass-fed collagen, cacao butter, right?
Like that's literally like, just like something you can make in your kitchen. That tastes really awesome.
Get H V M N right now, like the website Amazon
Right now, these just literally launched today, November 18. So whenever this airs we'll probably be out a little bit, so they will roll out in other platforms soon, likely e-commerce first and then a lot of retail interest. So hopefully it will be in a local organic grocery soon.
Yeah. Yeah. I actually have a hookup somewhere that I could probably get into.
Yeah, no, I needed to send you, I we're just sending out like VIP launch pack. So like we, we have, we have a nice little package for you waiting with your name on it.
Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much. And I have some friends I can turn you on to too, who would be like really super fans of what you're up to and you could align with them as well. So anyway, I can contribute and help. I was even thinking, cause we have a, this comedy web series it's improv. It's so good. And it's all about like, you know, things we're talking about and spirituality and growth and evolving and ego and being healthy. And in certain things I was thinking we could even like incorporate some of the products, you know, like in, in the web series, it's, it's a zoom web series. So I mean, that just came to me, but I'll talk to you more about that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Cool. So let's move on to the Fish oil, the new Tropic that has the Fish oil and
That's actually my favorite one actually. Okay.
Okay. So it's actually one of my personal favorites to beyond and that one. So the thing is where my laptop is, where, where my makeshift offices, I have it right on the counter. So I look at it and I make sure my brain function is optimal because I'm on the computer, I'm doing things. And I just want to be clear and fresh and I know important Fish oil is. So if you want to share about that one specifically and you know, who would be good for that would be awesome.
Yeah. So one of the considerations when we looked at Cato, which is, which is actually like the, the kind of the funny thing about the name as it stands for K antioxidant and which we chose, it was asked as Anthony, which is found in berries as well as krill oil and D is for vitamin D and then O is for omega-3. So it was kind of like a backronym in terms of like the core ingredients for why we chose keto or that, that, that name let's go, I guess, backwards first, like the star of the show here is the omega-3 or the Fish oil. So why do people like fishers or why is this like kind of people think it's generally healthy? Well, if you look at the types of fat, we consume ancestrally, we eat a lot more grass fed animals and seafood compared to seed oils or plant oils.
So plant oils oftentimes have a lot more omega six content, which is a different type of fatty acid than omega-3 content. So in early human diets, you had like a, more of a one-to-one ratio of omega three to omega six, and now in the standard, or kind of the common diet today because we have a lot more seed oils or vegetable oils, omega six omega three ratio. It's very, very extreme. It's like upwards of 20 to one now because a lot of Americans still have access to like seafood and like grassfed beef and kind of these more expensive or exotic fresh ingredients, which is, again, again, we should have availability for these things. So that's why there's a lot of Infosys and good positive data around.
Okay. If we can rebalance our omega three omega six ratio, that's more ancestrally consistent, that likely leads to better health outcomes. So that was kind of one of the like kind of starting working propositions, developing keto. And then secondly, as we looked at specific yet for Nootropics or cognitive function, there's two main forms of omega three there's DHA and EPA, and DHA is the form of omega-3. That is the main building block of brain cells, neuron cell membranes. So there's a lot of early data with, you know, supplementing newborn babies with a lot of DHA and omega threes and actually like very early versions of baby formula did not have omega three.
And those babies had neurological issues as they grow up because they did not have a mega three content, 50
Sixties or seventies. You now
Are all. Yeah. I mean, basically like kind of early when people got off of breastfeeding like that, those are some of the early data there. And so that's why we chose, like in our keto is a very, very high ratio of DHA to EPA. So typically in just normal fish, there's more EPA and DHA. So in keto, we specifically up ramped up the DHA content. And one of the things that standardizes really well with omegas is Antioxidants are asked as Anthony. So one of the reasons why krill oil is very popular, committed to standard fish oil is it asked as Anthem content. So we sure we had like a proper amount of assets and thin, which is one more consistent with how one consumes omega-threes or fats in nature.
But to one of the things that is risky or something that could be to look out for it is that these omega-threes are very delicate and can get rancid or oxides really quickly, meaning that they kind of go bad. So if you have Antioxidants, it prevents the omega-3 is from going rancid or sort of rotting. So that's something that you want to think about is not to like eat rotten fish oil, right. Which is not good. And then vitamin D and vitamin K2. So one of the interesting things, when you look at D and K is that D and K are fat soluble. So they transmit really well when you have fat content, when you consume these micronutrients and then vitamin K2 and vitamin D three standardized really well together.
So some of the, kind of the superfoods like natto, which is fermented soybean, and it's like a Japanese for a minute soybean, very high in K2 in D three. So that's like a very common pairing in nature. And when you look at supplementation of K two and D three together, you get added benefits either alone.
And people don't know that when they take their vitamin D they need to couple it with the K2. So many people do not know this.
Yeah. I think that's like a, yeah. I don't know. No one teaches you this.
Yeah. But it's normal for you. And I know about this, cause I was taught, you know, from my sister, she taught me this, but like my grandmother, who's 91 years old. Like she goes to the doctor and we send her like, yo, you have to have this when I send it, you know? And she has to talk to her doctor about it. Fine. Okay. Fine. But, and you know, she's at the age and when you get to a certain age, you're stubborn. You don't want to, you only, some people only want to do what their doctors tell them. And they get to a certain age, you know, where it's like, they may be, you know, on the 50, 60, 70, but they're not like hip to some of the things we're saying here, you know, and their doctors don't even know some of these things.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that's been one of the interesting things about speaking and working with doctors is that you, you talk to your primary care practitioner, you asked them how many hours of nutritional lectures. They have all of medical school. And they'll say they had four lectures, four hours of nutritional training. And it's not because I don't think doctors are trying to not know about nutrition. It's just not the emphasis in Western standard medicine these days. And then two there they're so busy just processing and going through the billing system and the healthcare system where they're just like coding, like, okay, you know, I need to give you this prescription. I get paid this much. I need to code it to this healthcare insurance. And like, I'm kind of like a technician here
And not for the people.
Yeah. So, yeah, exactly. So I think, I mean, it's, I don't know how to solve this problem. Right. I've literally been talking to doctors and healthcare administrators, just like the incentives. Like you need to incentivize people somehow, but it's like, I think the doctors want to help the patient, but I literally can only talk to them for 10 minutes. And it just like, if you have 10 minutes to treat a patient, it's like, all right, like, all right, what's the easiest way to like, get paid and like write you a prescription. They're not trying to ask you about like their diet and nutrition and get to know
You. And it's based on what you tell them. And sometimes you don't even know what you're telling them because you don't know what is going on. And it's like, you need someone to help you get to the root of what's going on. And then they want to give you some big bill. And then there's all this anxiety and fear. So it's like, we're not getting to the root of the solution.
Yeah. Which is a sad flywheel. Right. So you almost feel like you don't even want to tell them all your problems cause you gonna get a bigger bill and then just like this weird issue or it's like, you can't even trust your doctors anymore. And again, it's like, it's a weird system where like I talked to doctors, I didn't want to help people. I don't think that doctors are like, oh, I'm, I'm just here to like, not help people. Like clearly there's a lot of training, a lot of effort to even qualify for med school. And they're really smart people, but it just like the system is not designed to actually care for the human.
Yeah. So with that being said, I feel for me personally, the Quito is something good for me to take every single day for my brain function. That's one where I would, where I'm like, I don't take it every day. I'm like four or five times a week, but that's one where I want to be like, yeah, I want to be at my optimal for my brain function. So yeah. I mean, I do think that's okay to be taking every day. That's totally fine. You can't overdose on
No. Yeah, no. I mean, especially with keto, it's very, very well established in terms of getting the right omega three omega six ratio is like just the sensible, like we're chronically over doing omega six. So you were just like fighting the good fight to like help rebalance the force if you will. Yeah.
Yeah. So is there anything else you want to share? No, I think,
I think we covered it there. I mean, yeah, just personally I think it's one of my personal favorites. I mean, I think omega-3 is another thing is like, it's really good. And anti-inflammatory, and I think you touched on
It is, oh, I didn't know. It was a good anti-inflammatory. I didn't know that one. Oh. And the other thing is they're just, I love the color of them and like how they feel. They're like so small and they're just so easy to take with water. There is, there's nothing in your mouth. It's just like, what is it? So it's a, it's a vegan little capsule and they're not even like long capsule. They're like around like a little ball.
Yeah. Like a little diamond shaped little gem things. Yeah. I mean the color is not like we made it colorful. Just it's literally asses Anthony it's that, that antioxidant that's fallen krill. Right? Like that's like krill is like kind of orange and reddish that that's literally just what asses and Anthon color is. And you think the kind of the special sauce is a little bit of peppermint oil, so it's not like, so that's what makes it like a little bit pleasant. It's not like weird fish burps.
Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Got it. Got it. Yes. I'll sometimes out of the water and then I'll like a bourbon it's like a, like a peppermint kind of thing, peppermint, is it like, yeah, but I like it. It's like weird. I like it. Okay. So moving on to, I have a funny story about this one, but Sprint. So the sprint, right? I'm a cross country runner. So I'm all about the long distance. I have never been a sprinter and with my personality and the way that I am, honestly, like, let's talk about the Sprint, but I definitely have a funny story for you.
Yeah. So Sprint as a name, kind of hints, that is our acute Nootropics. So it's really built around a Caffeine Elfie stack. So we all know what Caffeine is. It's the most classically used stimulant out there to burning cups of coffee are consumed today. So one of the interesting things is that if you stack Elfie uni, which is an amino acid fund in green tea, it actually smoothed out the Caffeine profile. So like subjectively that's why when people drink tea, they sometimes talk about being a little bit more smooth or consistent off of a tea versus just straight black coffee. So that is often sort of credited towards L feeding content. So there's been a number of studies showing that a two to one ratio of feening to caffeine is oftentimes optimal for cognitive performance or cognitive cognitive focus.
So the way I kind of think about it is that we give you kind of the boost of Caffeine, but we attenuate a lot of the downsides through the L feeding content. So Sprint is just like a super solid, properly ratio, Delphine and Caffeine stack.
Yeah. Maybe in the near future, I'll just try taking one. So I had an experience that I had to share with you, cause it's kind of really funny. So I stayed the night at my girlfriend's house one night. I thought I had the Yon with me. They're clear and they're both white and I didn't look at the bottle cause I, you know, I I'll just pop to yawn. I pop two sprints and literally I was, she was sleeping and she got up at 6:00 AM to go to work and I'm literally lay up the whole entire night. My mind was just going like this and I was so excited and I just couldn't stop.
Like I was just like this for hours, like, like Spotify, I mean it works. The sprint really works, but like there was no way I was going to sleep. There was no way I was going to sleep. We laughed about it. We seriously laughed about it. It was the funniest thing. It's one of the, it's like one of the funniest things I've done in a very long time. Yeah. I was just like, I was so jacked. I wasn't jittery or anything, but I was, my mind was just so alert, like so alert. But you know, when you're wanting to sleep at 1, 2, 3, 4 in the morning and not be alert, but I just like, and I was at my girlfriend's house, so I didn't want to like get on my laptop and like, I don't know. I just, I didn't like, you know, but I was just, it was just, it was insane. And I just couldn't even believe that I did that, but, but Sprint is amazing for people who need it.
And a lot of people need it. Right. A lot of people.
Yeah. Just don't take it midnight and accidentally pull the whole night. I'm sorry. We probably ruined the next day for you. But I was just like,
No, I was up all day. I was fine. I was totally fine. I didn't ruin the next day for me. I was on the gut.
Okay. Yeah. No, but I mean, that's just that's yeah. It's funny. Don't mix. Don't mix them on accident.
Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. That was, it was quite the experience. I'll never forget it. And I just couldn't wait to tell you about it.
That's funny. I just can't imagine like having to like, just like lie there while your brain is racing for six hours. That's that's like a form of torture
And my friend's house. It wasn't even like I was at my place where I could, you know, Do something. Yeah. It was funny. So Sprint is good for people who need to do all those kinds of things. So for me, like if I were to be getting on a plane, it wouldn't be good for me to have that because I'm so sensitive. So for me to have a sprint, I would have to make sure I didn't have coffee with it. Like I wouldn't be able to have a sprint and a coffee, but if I need to be very alert and attentive, for example, like I love writing on thrive global and I'm a batcher. So if I want to do five articles in a row, it would be good for me to be able to take one Sprint and then get in the zone.
And then one after another and just go because a lot of the kids, they were taking the Adderall, right. To be able to focus for school and doing coffee. So I think an alternative for people who are wanting to take a prescription pill, Brandt is organic and it's clean. And it's a way for you to still have that same beneficial aspect without doing the prescription drugs. I've never done the Adderall. I just seen movies and friends and heard stories of why people take it. And it's very addictive. So I think a sprint would be a healthy alternative for anyone who's listening to this and want it, or maybe suggest it to one of their loved ones.
A hundred percent. I think one of the things we actually we talked about was the clearing quote-unquote war on Adderall, as we're introducing Sprint, what is Adderall? Adderall is a legal prescription version of amphetamines, which is speed, right? Like, and like Adderall is a proprietary salt of amphetamines. So it's a, it's a very powerful potent drug. And you know, definitely there's some use cases for something that powerful. But I think, I think we need to ask ourselves and I don't have a judgment on like the role or non role of whether things are legal or not illegal. It should be recreational, not recreational. It just like, just use the tool for the job. Right? Like we don't necessarily need a machine gun to like have a compound to do our homework, especially not like every single day.
And I think that's where I'm kind of concerned from a, just a Population society level where we're getting a bunch of kids on speed and like, and oftentimes they can't get off of it if they're just on speed for like 10 years, like your brain chemistry has permanently altered.
Yeah. Yeah. And then also some people who I've seen in life person who I know that are on it, they're so agitated. And like, they, they cut you off and they don't let you have a word end. And so I haven't done the Sprint too many times, but I I've only, I've actually only done the Sprint twice. I've taken it twice, but I didn't have an agitation with it. And wouldn't like wears off. It's like a green tea where it's like a natural where off where there's not like a jittery effect afterwards or like this abrasive thing that I've seen people who are on Adderall, their behavioral actions. And that's just like a, just a small, small slice of what I've seen and experienced myself.
Yeah, yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. And I think it's like, again, I think kind of just, maybe this is the engineer in me speaking here is that you have to just use the right tool for the job. And I think us as a Nutrition or something, and you're like, well, you want to just provide really, really good tools for people.
Definitely. Yeah. Well, I love the work that you and your partner doing. I'm so happy that your company is around HBM and I'm a big fan supporter. And this is off list is just like going full circle. Like how many years were you at Stanford?
Four years. So a typical undergraduate program. I was actually kind of a funny story, either going to a there's like a program we can kind of jam in your master's degree with an extra year. I had like an extra quarter two. I could've gotten my master's, but then was either going to do a PhD in computer science at Princeton, go work at Facebook or set up my first company. And it kind of decided to randomly start my first company, because at the time $170,000 out of college seemed like an insane amount of money. I mean, objective is like a pretty sizable amount of money to like start a company with. But that's what kind of brought me down that entrepreneurial journey, just like kind of, oh, like people would give like a random college Stanford graduate, like some money to like sort of a company.
Wow. Like Silicon valley is kind of crazy.
Yeah. And then I'm really big into Dr. Joe Dispenza, Brayden, who are your favorite scientists and go to people when you want to up yourself on information of what's going on, like the pulse of science, biology.
Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of the scientists I speak with on a more regular basis are not necessarily like public figures per se, but I think just within the Quito space, I think someone like a professor, Peter has bull has been doing some of the best human physiology work in ketosis for 11 Durance athletes. Peter has bull he's out of Belgium. Hesp L but like folks that might be more familiar names. I think Dr. Rhonda Patrick Fund my fitness. She's great. She, I think is very, very focused on the literature and the science. So she interviewed, she has a great podcast that talks a lot about kind of nutrition, metabolism, longevity, a lot of the same topics I'm interested in. I mentioned Dr.
Peter Attia, he's like chief medical officer for, for the zero fasting app. He has a great program. And I think he's also really tuned into metabolism, longevity, ketosis. So those are some of the, I think on, on the popular side, some of the resources that I like to track, but I think if, for folks who just want to go directly to the source, like I like just reading PUB MED and the actual research papers. Right. And oftentimes like the academics that are writing these papers, you'd be surprised that you think, oh, they're a busy professor, but they're probably love to hear from you and me, but someone's actually reading their work.
Okay. And then for the people who don't know, where would you go find these papers online? How can you find these papers?
Yeah. So there's like a website called PUB MED, right? Like just Google PUB MED. And it's like a little, it's like a web portal where you just literally can search for all the peer reviewed papers published in medicine and physiology. So if you want to like, look up ketosis papers, you literally type in Quito. And then like, there's like probably 10,000 papers. Yeah.
Yeah. And then you can like plant a seed and reach out to these people. And that's how the organic, natural mentorship and relationship happens when you actually reach out to these people and say, Hey, I read your work. I honor your work. Or I have a question about this or, you know, like that.
Yeah. And I think that's like the cool, I mean, I hope, you know, I've had a good experiences where oftentimes a lot of academics, no one reads their work. Right. Like, it's just like, I, for better, for worse, I think a lot more people would love to listen to our conversation than read a tri white paper published by some like Stanford professor. And like they're in a grad student. It just like the, the way the world works. But like, I think just like, we want people to enjoy this conversation. I think every person wants to work to be seen. So I think just reach out. I think people are very, very open to the chat.
Oh my God, I'm not going to do it. But I just thought like if there was a podcast that called it was called PUB MED Podcast. And it's someone who literally like honored the writer and they're like, it's from this school and here it is. And then you just like read about it, then people would listen. Cause people would be more in tune to listening to actually go and read. Right. So that could be an idea for someone to do.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's sometimes I think it is sometimes hard to read too dense, like, like academic literature, but yeah, that would be a valuable service. Just breaking down. We as taxpayers, we fund a lot of this research and law and I think it's, it's a shame that like, none of like, not more of us are like using the knowledge that is being produced at our top universities at NIH at these top research institutions. And I would try to apply these things in a way that's relevant for day-to-day happiness. Day-to-day living,
We're talking about this. Cause you know, it's what you said is what you said, but then there's the people who don't know. I'll also, so the people who don't know now they have a slice of knowing. And you know, I have a lot of artists, entrepreneurs who listen to this podcast and, you know, for a voiceover actor, for an actor, it would be a great place for them to go do research. I just went out for a film last week. She was talking about, you know, Paula and these different astronauts and different situations that happen. And so like there could be different websites and articles that I could look up for more research. I mean, Leonardo DiCaprio and all the best actors, they go to places and they actually, you know, go and do the research.
So these are either smart ways to do research on different topics, whether you're an artist or just an interested human being. Right. Yeah. It's literally
Like a government service, right? Like the government needs to like call it all their research papers. So it's literally like a government little search engine just for all the peer reviewed physiology biology research, which is, which is awesome.
And another thing that's really, really cool that I don't know if you know about it or not. It's called overdrive. Do you know about overdrive? Not familiar. Okay. So there's overdrive, there's hoopla and there's free Google and it's their apps and they're all through the library. So you just download the app, you put in your library card and whatever numbers associated and you can download up to 30 audio books every single month for free hoopla. If it's not on overdrive, like all these, all these books you can think about. And if it's not on overdrive, you can go to hoopla. Hoopla has TV shows some documentaries and free GL it's free legal, it's free Google F R E G a L. And it's like, it's like, they have a deal with Sony.
So if like Kendrick Lamar or Cassiar, whoever has like the newest albums coming out, you can download them and their MP3. So you actually get to keep them. But like, for me, I'm a fanatic of like education and learning and like, I love reading. Yeah. But sometimes it's just like a lot. Right. So I'll just listen to these audio books on overdrive. And I love holding a book. I love obviously having a book, I have the course in miracles right now. It's a 600 page book that I'm trying to get through here, but the overdrive it's so great and it's free, it's through the library. So, so that's why I like to have this platform to share information with people and to educate them. Because I mean, I honestly feel like education should be for everyone.
And so this is a way for people to find out about those kinds of things, but hopefully, you know, you'll check out the overdrive and you can find out some more resources. Yeah.
I mean, that sounds awesome. I'm like, I'm gonna check that out. Like 30 free audio books, man. Yeah.
So that's, you have 33 audio books per month on overdrive. Now, if you want to read them off of Kindle, like a Kindle or whatever you do the eBooks instead of the audio, you do the eBooks and it automatically checks it out from Amazon and then automatically it takes it away after 21 days, like you're in a library. And so you can do
It makes sense, right? Like libraries, like yeah. That's genius. Right? Like we get some, I'm glad someone's modernizing the library. Right. Like I don't want to go to the San Francisco public library right now. Hey, like a digital library. It makes sense.
Definitely. So speaking of books, you know, just to kind of hone it in and wrap it in here, what are your favorite go-to books? It can be in your profession. It could just be some, a passion of yours or something that's inspired your journey or choice along the way as a spiritual, human being, something that's impacted you, if you could suggest a book or two to the viewers, that would be really neat. Yeah.
Well maybe I'll, I'll suggest checking out The Immortality Key. So I recently met the author, Brian Murray rescue and he's so the, the premise of The Immortality Key is look tracing back some of the early rights of paleo Christianity and the Greek illusion mysteries, which were these kind of like very mystical ceremonies that Roman emperors like Marcus really is, or Play-Doh these philosophers like went through and had like these life-changing experiences. And he's relating that to some of the most recent research in psychedelics or psilocybin around how people are finding religion from psychedelics. So I think it just recently just made the New York best times bestselling list.
Super interesting. I think it's just a journey through both the Greek classics, as well as Archeo chemistry and just like actually applying lens of science. Can we find Arctic archeological, evidence of psychedelics and early rights of beer or wine, which I think is super interesting, like
Microdosing.
So I think the most aggressive thesis proposes the original Eucharist is that, is that Jesus is blood. Is that really wine? Or was that a psychedelic wine with, with mushrooms or LSD or some other brothers spike crazy stuff. So I'm like, you know, I, I, yeah, I think so. I think that was just kind of a mind opening from a possibility perspective, but also it made religion more, actually more human to me if that was really the origins of religion. Because I think when we read these spiritual books in 2020, it's like, oh, like, I don't know if I really like, literally believe in like a talking burning Bush or, you know, like, I don't know. It's like, it, it reads like a Lord of the rings novel to me.
Right. It's just like, just as kind of fantastical. Right. I don't want to be blast man, but it's like, literally, if you don't think about it too hard, it's like, oh, talking Bush or talking door, if it's like, you know, is it Zeus or whatnot? It's all kind of like arbitrary, but if it's like, oh, maybe some of these visions or these experiences really like amplify through psychedelics. Oh, I can actually like relate to that a little bit more personally. Oh. Like I get now that like the human experience of how some of these profits are early, you know, religious leaders were like really processing information at a very different dimension or level and okay. Like, I can now see like how they might be like kind of divine, you know, thoughts and instructions. So that, that I think was like the most interesting part of just like, this is like hit a humanizes religion a little bit more.
I love that. I love that. And we naturally produce DMT in our brain. Yeah. I'm Greek by the way.
Okay. Yeah. So you curious, let me, have you heard of like the, yeah, so I think it was interesting cause the author like could read ancient Greek and he was really comparing Dionysus the wine God with a lot of the same parallels with Jesus or like, again, it might sound kind of weird at first, but a lot of the language, at least in the ancient Greek, the son of God, that's like a very common nickname for diagnosis. The wine, God of Greece. I obviously Jesus, people describe it as son of God. And they both share wine as some of the earliest miracles, right? Like wine miracles was diagnosis thing. And Jesus is like first miracle. And the, in the gospel of John was like turning water into wine. So it was like very interesting to just trace Greek epics and some of these like stories about their diabetes and how that translated into early paleo Christianity.
Yeah. I actually, I love going to Greece. And one of the ruins on the island of Naxos was I went to one of his ruins there I'm actually, my mom sent me an app. It's the king James version of the Bible. So I actually started reading it because I read the Bible here and here, but they're in here and here, but I haven't read it all the way through. So I actually started Genesis two Sundays ago and I listened to all 50 chapters in a row and I'm on Exodus. So like I'm on chapter like 34 of that, but I'm going to, now that you've planted that seed when I'm listening and I'm coming up to these things, I'm going to, I'm going to implement that, but I'm definitely gonna check out that book and get it and tell my sister about it too, but I'm definitely gonna, hopefully it's on audio and I'm gonna read it or I'm gonna listen to it right away.
Yeah, yeah, no, I think especially from like Greek traditional Greek bank, I think it's especially interesting apparently is like the book of John that had some of the most interesting, like, like what the author positive was that it was designed for a Greek audience, like all the language and the metaphors were very sort of like the, the, like the, like the phrasings and the words were very designed for like what was at the time Greek culture, the translation stuff is also just interesting where he would just like really citing this details where when people would discuss communion, it was like you eat, you know, Jesus' body and drink Jesus's blood. But like the actual Greek word is like knowing and munching, which is like a very different like connotation than it's like eating and drinking for communion.
Right. And so it's just like, I think some of these details, which is lost in translation, I think it's fascinating to be able to, and again, it's interesting to apply that lens to history, right? Like there's so many things lost in translation too, as it missing through languages. And I think it's like kind of the same approach as we're applying to like the future with nutrition. Like there's so many layers of information that can be lost. And if you can actually read the source material, you can actually interpret understand better.
Yeah. And Addition have a clear mind and body and spirit through the Nootropics. So, you know, when things are getting lost in translation or lost in translation, at least we're at our optimal places when we're, you know, exchanging experiences and energies with one another, instead of it being diluted and clouded with all the processed crap. Right. So it can be like the ultimate truths. Right? Yeah. Any, any other last book you want to mention, maybe from your childhood, something that was a mentor maybe turns you on to
Some of the more interesting, I guess more on a philosophical side. I think I've another place that I found was interesting to kind of explore was reading Zen Koan. So like Zen Buddhist, koans like these like very like dense, very like almost like poet poetic nuggets of anecdotes that like don't really make sense. And then comparing some of the, I think the meaning behind the Zen, koans with the meditations of Marcus Aurelius, who is the Roman emperor, but also like a very famous stoic. And I think it's interesting that both in Western philosophy and an Eastern philosophy, I feel like they've both in stoicism and Zen Buddhism, they've found some level of truth from very, very different traditions into very, very different backgrounds.
Right. And I think for Marcus really is, so it's like, how do you handle stress and anxiety as a Roman emperor? Who's being invaded by barbarians and you're trying to like hold onto your empire and you're just stressed out. And how do you rationalize out of like that kind of that, that very scary emotional existence. And I think the Zen Buddhists, like thinking about that, that same level of attachment or enlightenment, how do you, I think it's just seek wisdom without like this, like the suffering or like the distraction of the day to day. So I think it's like very interesting. Maybe like just being overly philosophical right now. But I think through lockdown pandemic, we definitely have a little bit of time to self-reflect and think about our life philosophy and our, and the aesthetics of how we want to live.
And I think we can make them up as we go. Or I think what is a wiser path is try to learn borrow steal from like literally the smartest people in the history of humankind. Like let's learn from our customers, let's learn from some of the, you know, the top Zen, Buddhist monks, and try to tap into all those life experiences and come up with their own philosophy of how we want to live. So that was, I think, just in terms of just kind of a Mental contract in terms of like applying some of the best principles of stoicism and Zen Buddhism until just like how I want to live and how I aspire to live has been interesting and useful for myself
Sharing that. That's so cool. Epic. It's so epic. Yeah. The national reset and I hope, you know, oh, the, we do have some Greek fans and listeners here, so shout out to the Greeks and you know, I hope I'm going to check out both those books and hopefully the viewers will hear the books and then also look up HVM N and M the information the website will be in the show notes, and then you're on the social media. So people can look up H V M N. And one more time. What does H V M N stand for
Which stands for Health Via Modern Nutrition. Nice.
Very nice. Cool. Geoffrey, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate you.
Yeah, no, thank you, Katie. This is a fun conversation. I, yeah, it's fun to bounce around and explore. I mean, going to philosophy, religion and Dr. Ketosis and physiology, and it was fun conversation. Thank you.
Oh, thank you. Thank you. And then I'm gonna look forward to trying the bars and sharing them with everyone that I know. And then, you know, in the near future, whenever you're available, I would definitely love to have you back on she's all over the place and we can have a whole new conversation.
Awesome. Looking forward to that.
Okay. Thank you, Geoffrey. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll see you next time. Kyriaki over and out.