The Science Behind Better Sleep, More Energy, and Healthy Aging
Chris Burres
(YouTube Transcript)
Aneta (00:03): Chris, welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast.
Chris (00:07): Aneta, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited, like I mentioned before we got started, you're allowing me to be the geeky guy that I like to be and to talk geeky stuff, and we'll probably get into some business and success stuff today too. So I'm excited about that.
Aneta (00:21): I'm really excited for the conversation. I know my audience, and I am very curious about things that allow us to live a long, healthy life, but also one that creates quality of life and longevity. So wanted to start off and just ask you: how did you get into the line of work that you're in? Because you are a scientist, an entrepreneur, an inventor, but you also do stand-up comedy. So super curious a little bit about your beginnings.
Chris (00:48): Well, let's start on the fun one, which is the comedy. And I'm gonna make a little bit of a tweak. I don't do stand-up comedy, right? So I don't have a routine where I stand up in front of an audience. I did perform comedy improv, which is like Whose Line Is It Anyway, where you're on stage with another actor, you've got some rules to some game, like every sentence you start has to start with the next letter of the alphabet as you're passing the scene back and forth, and then the audience gives us a location and relationship.
And that was fantastic. I absolutely loved it. I know a lot of people say it sounds terrifying, speaking as the number one fear, even above death. And then to imagine being thrown into a situation where you're kind of dependent on the other person. And I think one of the best lessons that I learned from that process was that my job when I'm on stage with somebody else is to make the other person look brilliant. It's not to focus on me and make myself look brilliant.
It's to focus on them and make them look brilliant. And it certainly is very helpful to know that their focus is on me and to make me look brilliant So it's a really supportive environment. And I can share that at the end of an insanely busy, crazy week, I could go perform on a Friday. And it literally is a mental break, actually, because you cannot be thinking about anything. You have to be reacting, and that is in fact a mental break. And of course you're in front of people, so there's adrenaline. I just used to come off of stage so amped and excited and have totally forgotten about the week, however tough the week was.
Aneta (02:20): It sounds like you're describing being on a podcast and being the host and the guest as well, because it does require a lot of presence and being able to actively listen and then continue the conversation. So what made you curious about improv?
Chris (02:29): Yeah. So it was pretty simple. My wife was in a program, Big Brothers, Big Sisters. You've probably heard of that. And the organization, Third Coast Comedy, was putting on an event for Bigs and Littles to attend. And I kind of attended one of the, I don't know, kind of brainstorming meetings. They had a free class. I took the free class. I enjoyed it so much that I signed up for a whole kind of course. I took that course again. And at that time, they were starting an improv troupe. They didn't have a formal one yet. And they invited me to join. And my cheap brain was like, well, I could pay for another class, or I could just go do it and get paid. So, I did it and got paid.
Aneta (03:15): That's amazing. And let's talk about the science. So I see the sign behind you, MyvitalC, and I'm very curious about how someone interested in improv also finds themselves as a scientist working in the space, really creating products for folks and improving our health. So tell me a little bit more about that.
Chris (03:36): Yeah, I think in something you said it implies that I might have been a theater kid or something when I was in high school. And I was not. It wasn't. The closest I did was debate. I went to one debate. I had such a headache I never went to another debate again. I think I went into debate as everyone does. I like to argue with people, and I think I'm reasonably good at it.
And then it was significantly more stressful, and I don't know, not enjoyable. than I ever thought it was gonna be. So I didn't go back. So I wasn't in theater. That was just something that landed in my lap and worked out really well. So I knew I was a weird kid. At about age 14, I knew I was gonna be an entrepreneur. And I knew this because on my wall I had a picture of a red Lamborghini. And this candy apple red Lamborghini had the doors open, and I could smell the leather, and I knew I wanted one of these, and I happened to find an article
And the article said, if you want one supercar, then you should become a neurosurgeon. If you want more than one, you should become an entrepreneur. I probably didn't even know exactly what an entrepreneur was, but I'm a 14-year-old kid. I don't want one of those. Like, if I can get two by just making a simple decision to be an entrepreneur and not a neurosurgeon, this is not rocket science. It's also not neurosurgery.
So I knew I was gonna be an entrepreneur, and when it came time to go to college, in my family it was kind of understood you're going to college, but we didn't do any prep. I have boy-girl twins; they're sixteen years old now. So they're going into their junior year in high school next year, and we're gonna start doing stuff for college, right? I don't know exactly what we're gonna do, but we're gonna start doing stuff, applying, thinking about it, all that stuff. None of that happened as I was growing up. I graduated from high school and had no idea what anything.
My dad got his second, he was in the Air Force, so we moved every two years, and he got his second civilian job in Houston right when I graduated from high school. So I just came down and went to the University of Houston and applied and got in. And if you know you're gonna be an entrepreneur, what should you study? And today you might suggest you should study entrepreneurship. Because there are lots of colleges that have entire courses of study that are entrepreneurship.
At the time I was going to college in preparation for my book, I was doing some research. There was literally only one entrepreneurship class in the entire country. So it just wasn't a course of study. And I'm not sure I would actually go down the path of entrepreneurship. Because in my mind, I'm like, I'm good in math, I'm good in science. What's the fastest way to the highest salary so I will have money to invest into a business? Cause I know I'm going to be an entrepreneur.
And a couple things went wrong with that plan. One, engineering is a lot harder. You can do it in four years. I didn't. It actually took me six years. I did also get a minor in computer science and a minor in math. And the other thing that went wrong with the plan is I actually started the company before I ever started working as an engineer and making the money to invest in the company. So my business partner Robert and I started in 1991. So I was probably a sophomore in college, potentially a junior in college.
Depending on that time frame, I don't know how that math works. So we started the company before I graduated from college. So in 1991, we started manufacturing this molecule. And the molecule, it looks like this, right? So I'm holding up a model of a molecule. If you're listening, just think about a soccer ball where the lines on the soccer ball represent the bonds between the carbon atoms. So you have a spherical molecule of 60 carbon atoms.
The molecule was discovered in 1985 at Rice University. That's here in Houston, where we're based. And the three scientists who discovered it won the Nobel Prize for the discovery in 1996. So that's a short 11 years from discovery to being awarded the Nobel Prize. Our lab actually started manufacturing it five years before they won the Nobel Prize, so in 1991. We are the oldest and longest manufacturer and distributor of this molecule. We call the molecule ESS60 if you're going to consume it.
And we're the oldest and longest manufacturer and distributor of ESS 60 on the planet. The reason they won the Nobel Prize is that the molecule performs as well or better than the current best material in almost every application. So it makes better inks, better batteries, better tires, better photo cells. And this is often where people get a little nervous in this story, because like, this is a health word, aren't Aren't we talking about a health supplement? it's probably true that no one in your audience woke up this morning
Aneta (07:42): Yeah. Yeah.
Chris (07:48): Looked out at their car and thought, I wonder what part of my car battery I should be consuming daily for my health. Yeah. So, and the story actually gets a little worse. So this soccer ball-shaped molecule, ESS60, 20 of the shapes on the exterior of the molecule, right? The panels of the soccer ball, if you will, are the same shape, not the same formula, but the same shape as benzene.
Aneta (07:55): I hope not, yes.
Chris (08:12): Benzene is necessary in modern society, but it's known to be toxic and known to be carcinogenic when it's on its own. So because that shape occurs 20 times on the exterior of the SS60 molecule, they thought it would be toxic. They put it in a toxicity study. And instead of being toxic, the test subjects that they gave it to, in this case, Wistar rats, lived 90% longer than the control group. So the single longest longevity experimental result on mammals in history, peer-reviewed, published research is because of this ESS60 molecule dissolved in olive oil. And I'll just share the most consistent testimonial that we get is people take the product in the morning, they report mental focus and energy during the day, and then better sleep that night.
Aneta (08:56): Okay, there's so much I wanna know. First of all, Chris, my sophomore year or junior year of college, I was not starting a business, and I definitely was not starting one in some molecule that was just discovered. So how did you learn about this? What was your interest in it? Like, I'm just fascinated by that piece to start with.
Chris (09:11): Well, I think there's maybe just one little missing piece, and that is you didn't have a poster of a Lamborghini Countach on your wall. Like, if you had that poster, then everything changes. Again, I knew I was gonna be an entrepreneur. I just didn't know how that was gonna pan out. So my business partner, Robert, was working on the University of Houston campus at the Texas Center for Superconductivity. Yes, there is an organization called that.
And he was separating this molecule. It was discovered at Rice University just across town. He was working in this chromatography lab separating this molecule. And one day, Dr. Paul Chu- he's you have never heard of him, but he's super famous in the superconductivity world. In fact, the building that this happened in, we called it Chu's Castle, because it's Dr. Paul Chu's reputation that got the building built. And so Robert is separating these materials.
Dr. Chu comes in and says, Hey, you're young kids, this molecule is selling for $6,000 a gram. You should go start a business. And my business partner Robert is from an entrepreneurial background, and I joke he did a back-of-the-napkin calculation, which had one number on it only: $6,000 a gram, and he was off and running building it. Now it turns out this molecule is incredibly challenging to make. It is naturally occurring.
So if you collect the soot from a candle flame, right, you might put a cold steel plate over a candle flame; that deep dark soot that collects on that cold steel plate has parts per million or parts per billion of this ESS60 molecule in it. So everyone in your audience has been exposed just to tiny amounts. So he's separating this molecule. Well, so it's naturally occurring, but to collect it from the soot of a candle is never gonna work, like not at scale.
So, to manufacture this, you have to take two graphite rods and vaporize them. It turns out graphite is one of the hardest materials on the planet to vaporize. And so you actually have to use local temperatures of the sun to vaporize these graphite rods. You also need to do it devoid of oxygen, right? Any oxygen will kill the reaction, and at a slight vacuum. So it's a vacuum chamber, no oxygen, temperatures of the sun. I'm studying mechanical engineering.
And so I was brought on to help with the drawings, to help with the design, and ultimately to help build the piece of equipment that would manufacture the molecule.
Aneta (11:36): How long did it take from when you first started the business to actually start generating some revenue?
Chris (11:42): That's great. That probably took right at nine months. And we're figuring out how to do machining; we're figuring out how to communicate with machinists. You can think, hey, I've got these graphite rods, and they need to come through this space that's got to be water-cooled. And they would ask questions like, Well, what's your tolerance? And it was like, No, I just want it to be half an inch. I want the hole to be half an inch.
Yeah, plus or minus what? You start to learn. All of these different things about what actually happens in the real world because in your mind it's a half-inch hole and that half-inch rod goes right through it. But in the real world there are tolerances, and you need to make sure that it works. So we're figuring out all of these engineering and manufacturing processes as we go, then testing the equipment, and then at one point we're gonna be housed in Texas, at Chews Castle
But then the University of Houston was like, there might be some conflict of interest because you're selling this as actually a for-profit business. And so we ended up getting a warehouse. There are so many things that happened. It really is just problem solving, though. Like you wake up today and you're like, okay, now we need a whole bunch of electricity to go through these rods. How do we make that happen? And like, here's the processes. And I'm very lucky Robert is really a talented engineer. He didn't study engineering; he's studying physics. But is a was a is a talented engineer, and so like we just rolled up our sleeves and got to work.
Aneta (13:02): And was the first product that you added this to olive oil like today, or was it something different?
Chris (13:08): Great question. So really, we were just selling it; we had a it's kind of funny story. We had a UPS guy come in; he was like, so what do you guys do? And we went through this explanation. It performs as well or better than the current best material. So we were literally selling to research institutions around the world so they could put it into their experiments and understand how this might work. We got through this whole kind of diatribe.
And took probably way too much of this UPS driver's time. And then he finished with, so basically you're scientists. And we're like, Yeah, that's maybe a better answer for you. But yeah, literally selling it to research institutions around the world so that they could do research, that they could include it in their experiments.
Interesting point. In 1991, there was a service that would analyze every scientific paper that references other scientific papers. And so they kept track of who the references to all ten of the ten most referenced papers were related to this molecule. Like it was an absolute viral, scientific, viral explosion because it's just such a fantastic molecule.
Aneta (14:12): Wow. So how long were you just selling it to the research firms before you decided like, hmm, maybe we could be doing something with this?
Chris (14:21): Well, that's a great question. So really, we were just selling to research institutions. Things changed when this kind of pivotal study came out where the rats lived 90% longer. That was in mid-2012, right? So from 1991 to mid-2012, it's not even on our radar to consume this. There were theories about how this could be used for medical applications, but they were significantly more complicated, and they may never come to fruition.
But this study comes out, these rats live 90% longer. And something really weird happened. About mid 2013, we started getting phone calls from this crazy wacky group of people called biohackers. And I can say that affectionately now because I am a biohacker. And they're like, hey, that stuff that they gave to those rats where they lived 90% longer. How much of that stuff should we be consuming?
And my business partner Robert and I, what we really heard is, hey, that stuff that you sell to research institutions around the world to put into ink, batteries, tires, and photo cells, how much of that stuff should we be consuming? And this next sentence really kind of defines something for us, which is really a lot of this story has a bit of Robert and Chris wishing they were smarter and had made this is better decisions earlier. But in mid 2013,
We added not for human consumption to our labeling. So think about that. From 1991 all the way to mid-2013, we don't have to have not for human consumption on our labeling because, like, nobody's gonna consume this stuff. That study comes out. And I want to be clear, in the literature, this molecule was safe. These rats live 90% longer. We're just ultra-conservative carbon nanomaterial scientists, and we were like, no, you shouldn't be consuming this.
And that actually kind of evolved really interestingly to where we were getting two to three phone calls a week, again, from these crazy wacky biohackers. And the calls went something like this. Joe would call in, and he'd say, Hey, Chris, my knee pain is gone. And I'd say, Joe, you mean the knee pain of your rat. Because it literally says not for human consumption on the labeling. And then Joe would say, Yeah, okay, that's true. Hey, if my rat weighs 275 pounds and does HIT training on Wednesdays and Fridays.
Should I take, I mean, should my rat take more on Wednesdays and Fridays? So we knew what was going on, and we were okay with it because in the literature it was clear, but we still left not for human consumption on our labeling. And in fact, every single quarter, Robert and I would get together, literally in the conference room that's behind this wall behind me right now, and we would say, Do we want to get into the supplement market? And our answer was no.
I think it's generous to say that the supplement market is challenged. And we're used to selling research quantities to research institutions around the world. And so we're like quarter after quarter, no, we don't want to get into this. And that finally changed in 2017. It turned out in the middle of that time frame, I found a research paper that 50% of the supplements this research group had purchased off the market didn't have in them what they said they had in them.
Again, the opposite of what we're delivering. When we deliver materials to a research scientist, they've got a grad student or a research associate, they've got the HPLC, they know how to test it. They're confirming we shipped them what we promised them. That's not what's happening in the supplement industry. Finally, in the latter part of 2017, a guy with a big YouTube following, which is how everything changes these days, starts talking about all the benefits he's getting from taking it daily.
And our phone went from ringing two to three times a week to 10 times per day. And that's when, at that quarterly meeting, we're like, well, we probably could have recognized this was gonna be a bigger opportunity than we have thus far seen. And we looked back to that research paper where 50% of the supplements on the market don't have in them what they say they have in them. And we're like, well, that's gonna happen in this industry.
And we're the oldest and longest manufacturer and distributor of this molecule on the planet. We have the lab to build an exacting quality product. We probably should get into this industry just for the consumers. And then we asked ourselves two questions. First is, are we comfortable selling it? I take it, my wife takes it, everybody on our team here takes it.
By the way, not a requirement. Like you don't come into the office, clock in, and somebody makes sure you take your shot of MyVitalC. Really, our customer service team and our entire team have access to the research like anyone. But probably more interestingly, they have access to all the testimonials that are coming in. So everybody on our team takes it. We're comfortable selling it. The next is the legal side of things. So you've got the FDA and the FTC. You've got to cross the T's and dot the I's. In the beginning of two thousand eighteen, we started bringing this product to market in earnest.
Aneta (19:04): If you could break this down for maybe someone who's not a science major, what is happening to the body? How is this molecule impacting the body that leads to those types of results in the studies?
Chris (19:16): So I'm gonna walk you through my path. Because now we decided to bring the product to market. Now not only am I the chief scientist of a carbon nanomaterial business, manufacturing business, but now I'm the chief scientist of a health and wellness product. And my first thing is like, okay, what's going on here? Why do we have all these testimonials? And because our most consistent testimonial is related to sleep, that's where we first hung our hat.
Cause if you get good sleep, remember I said our most consistent testimonial is people take the product in the morning, they report mental focus and energy during the day, and then better sleep that night. That is profound for two reasons. The first is if we just improve sleep, we will improve your mental, physical, and emotional well-being. So that's already there. Second, to take something in the morning and positively impact sleep at night, there isn't anything else that I'm aware of on the market. Like, you can certainly get exercise in the morning. That'll help you sleep.
You can get some exposure to the sun, get your circadian rhythm in line with the rising and falling of the sun; that'll help you sleep. But to take something. So that's pretty f profound, and that's where we kind of first hung our hat. Then, as this chief scientist, I'm trying to figure out why these rats live longer. What does the medical community think about aging? They don't all agree, but they tend to think of it as an oxidation and inflammation process.
In terms of oxidation, there's an ad hoc study on the web showing our product to be 172 times more powerful than vitamin C. There's peer-reviewed published research showing it to be 125 times more powerful than vitamin C. So I'm in Texas. We put a big old check mark next to antioxidant. In terms of inflammation, you have to be really careful because the FDA equates conversations of inflammation with the diseases of inflammation, which are also the diseases of aging.
So arthritis, Alzheimer's, cardiovascular disease, cancers. So if I come on your show and I share that we address inflammation, what the FDA hears is us claiming we cure cancer, we cure cardiovascular disease. We are not claiming that. We have so much research that we need to do in order to be able to make those claims, and it's frankly incredibly expensive research. It is on our radar. We're actually hoping to start four clinical trials before the end of this year, but it is a daunting task.
So inflammation, what the FDA does allow us to say is that we address inflammation, at least as it relates to exercise-induced inflammation. So that's kind of addressing the aging piece. And then I want to dig in farther, like what's going on biologically. I'm gonna get a little bit sciencey, and then I'm gonna have a fun analogy for everyone to enjoy. And I'll do a teaser. It starts with Mardi Gras. All right, so here is the boss theory: buffering oxidative stress system.
The things that give credibility to this BOSS theory is we know from peer-reviewed published research that this ESS60 molecule gets into the mitochondria. We also know from way back in the 90s that this molecule can hold up to six negatively charged particles on the exterior of the cage. And here's where this really comes into play. Quick refresher: the mitochondria is the powerhouse of every cell.
There are between 50 and 5,000 mitochondria in every cell in your body, except for your blood cells, which have zero, and your brain and neurons, which have two million. It is amazing how much energy our nervous system uses relative to other systems. So mitochondria powerhouse of every cell. Like every powerhouse that you're familiar with, there is a negative byproduct. You think about your car going down the road; it's got exhaust. You think about a power plant; it's got a smokestack with smoke.
In the case of mitochondria, it's reactive oxygen species. I like to picture these, like like little, if they're left to their own devices, they're like little bumper cars running around your body, and everything they smack into, they cause oxidative stress, oxidative damage, ultimately inflammation- that confluence of inflammation and aging. And this is horrible, but like so many biological systems, there's a way to manage this. Inside the mitochondria, you've got the two key antioxidants: glutathione and melatonin.
Now, I like to pause here because melatonin is the sleep hormone, and our most consistent testimonial involves sleep. They're all working in the same neighborhood. So some nice parallels. So in a healthy mitochondria, it's producing reactive oxygen species. They're being managed by that glutathione and melatonin, no problems. But what happens when you stress a mitochondria? First off, how do you stress a mitochondria?
I point out that if you're alive in modern society, you have stressed mitochondria. It's smoking, drinking, it's EMF radiation off of your device or devices that you're around, it's tough emails, tough conversations. Modern society causes stressed mitochondria. And by the way, you should be stressing your mitochondria with something called movement and exercise. Like that's actually extremely healthy for you, and it does stress your mitochondria.
So when your mitochondria is stressed, it's producing more reactive oxygen species than can be managed by the glutathione and melatonin. And now they're running around like little bumper cars, everything they smack into causing stress. And that's where the ESS60 molecule comes in. Remember from peer-reviewed published research, it's in the mitochondria and it's holding on to up to six of those negatively charged reactive oxygen species. So they can't run around like little bumper cars.
And then when that mitochondria can replenish the glutathione or replenish the melatonin, then it can manage those reactive oxygen species properly. And the fundamental of that is we believe we're reducing the negative impact of stressed mitochondria. And if you reduce the negative impact of stressed mitochondria, given how many are in our body, then you would have systemic benefits. You should have what we have, which are head-to-toe testimonials. I promised you a fun analogy. I actually think all biological analogies should start with Mardi Gras.
I mean, a lot of biology happens at Mardi Gras, so why not? So it's the end of Mardi Gras, and you have these drunk reactive oxygen species on Bourbon Street, right? Running around smashing windows, spray painting cars. And you have the New Orleans Police Department, the glutathione and the melatonin coming onto Bourbon Street, handcuffing themselves to those reactive oxygen species and getting them off of Bourbon Street. But what does the New Orleans Police Department do when they're overwhelmed? They take those reactive oxygen species, and they stick them in a paddy wagon.
They attach them to the exterior of the ESS60 molecule, so they can't run around and do damage. And then when the New Orleans Police Department can replenish the glutathione, replenish the melatonin, then they can handcuff themselves to those reactive oxygen species and get them off of Bourbon Street. And again, that's why we say this ESS60 molecule is the boss.
Aneta (25:52): It's incredible to look at your journey and the path. And I love that you said it, it started differently. You weren't sure exactly what you were going to be doing, but you found yourself in a position to really start to capitalize on what people were already observing and sharing. So how many products do you have with this what do you call it? It's a molecule with the molecule.
Chris (26:11): Yeah, the ESS60 molecule.
Aneta (26:14): Yeah, how many products and what is the way that you like to consume it? Or does it matter? Is it different per person?
Chris (26:21): Yeah, so we really have three products. There's an olive oil product, an avocado product, and an MCT product. And it's really as much of the ESS60 molecule as we can get to dissolve in olive oil, avocado oil, or MCT oil. People will ask Which one should I start with? We always recommend the olive oil for two key reasons. The first is we are a science-based organization, and almost all of the research is on the ESS60 molecule in olive oil.
The next is that olive oil has the highest concentration of the ESS60 molecule. So you get about 0.8 milligrams per milliliter in olive oil, 0.6 in avocado oil, and then 0.3 in MCT. So I actually put together a landing page for your audience. On that landing page, I only have the olive oil, right? Just because that's where people should start. Those are the key ones. A typical serving is one teaspoon per day. I'll share with you my routine.
I actually put a teaspoon and a half in my coffee, kind of a bulletproof coffee kind of thing. I don't like the ghee. I don't actually like the taste, and it's a lot of calories. So I'm just putting MCT. While that's blending, I'm taking about a teaspoon and a half of the olive oil product. And then my favorite, we actually have a cosmetic product, which I think I did a reasonable job describing us not wanting to be in the supplement industry. And then when one of our business partners came to us was like, we need to do a face serum.
Aneta (27:18): No. Yeah.
Chris (27:41): I was like, yay, that sounds amazing. Always wanted to do a face term. But we ended up. My director of research came to me, and he said, I found this peptide with 30 years of skin and hair improvements and peer-reviewed published research. You should look at it. So I looked at it, and I was blown away. It's like just amazing. We call the peptide UTH 29, so youth 29.
Apparently, the age-old people want to stop aging at 29, the right amount of sophistication, right? The perfect amount of youth or whatever. So UTH 29. Now the peptide is water-soluble, and our ESS60 molecules are oil-soluble. We could have shoved these two together with an emulsifier, but I don't like how an emulsifier sounds. I want to use as few emulsifiers as possible.
And the health benefits: there are only health detractions of emulsifiers. So we kept these two separate. So every day I'll take two squirts of this UTH 29 lotion. It's a beautiful blue color. Based on the fact that it's not a colorant, it's actually the UTH 29 peptide that causes the blue color. And then I'll put two drops per squirt, so four drops of the ESS60 activator right there in my hand. I activate it in my hand, and I use that.
On everything that might show aging. And one of the clinical trials that we're hoping to start before the end of this year is an age spot and wrinkle-reducing study on this two-part solution.
Aneta (29:04): Wow. Do other companies use this molecule in the way that you do?
Chris (29:08): There are some companies, kind of I would say more in an industrial space. We kind of tested the products in that space. And the way that I would describe it is they were woefully low in concentration, except for one brand, and of course ours. It is an exacting science to make this stuff and then to actually incorporate it. It takes three weeks to mix this in olive oil. If I were to wake up today and like, hey, not being where I am.
Aneta (29:14): Okay.
Chris (29:34): I want to make money selling a supplement, I probably wouldn't choose this one. Because you're vaporizing graphite at the temperatures of the sun, you're mixing it for three weeks. There are so many reasons that this is a pain in the butt supplement. But we are doing a really good job putting out a high-quality product. And so very proud to have done that. I mean, you talk about how serendipitous.
Eight years ago, if you had said, Chris, you're gonna be a longevity expert, you're gonna have completed a longevity summit uncovering the secrets of longevity, where I interviewed 57 experts in longevity, including Ben Greenfield, Stephen Gundry, Dave Asprey, a bunch of authors of health and wellness books, that I'd have a podcast called Live Beyond the North. Like, I would have just said no. Like, that's pro- I don't know how I'm gonna get from wherever I was, right? Chief scientist of a carbon nanomaterial manufacturing business.
To the health and wellness space. I would have said that's not gonna happen. And I couldn't be happier. I'm living the dream. I get to be the geeky guy. I have always been, relative to the amount of geekiness, a good communicator. So I get to come out and communicate about the geekiness that I love and ultimately turn around and reap the benefits, which is all of these amazing testimonials of how this product is helping so many different people in so many different ways.
Aneta (30:50): Yeah. And so I'm really curious. I would love for you to share just because you have so many testimonials and people love it and you use it, and you said your staff uses it. If someone's listening, they're like, you know what? I'm having a lot of the symptoms that you talked about that are stress-induced. Maybe they're in their midlife, and maybe they haven't been taking great care of themselves, or maybe they've been taking those supplements, as you said, and they haven't seen the results. I know not all results are typical for the same person, but what are some of the things that folks can expect to see once they start taking this molecule?
Chris (31:20): Yeah, I like to think of the journey that somebody might have on the product as like a three-month journey. And it has a lot of parallels with the consistent testimonial of taking it in the morning, reporting mental focus and energy during the day, and then better sleep that night. So month one is really about focus and energy. And the one thing that kind of led me to think of it in terms of this is I got some product to an influencer. She took the product in the morning, sent in a video that evening.
In that video, she pointed out that she didn't finish her cup of coffee. Now, if you're a coffee drinker, there are two big things there. One is you didn't finish, and two, the fact that she noticed it meant that she always finishes it. It's like it's always done. I notice I didn't finish. And I'll share I used to be a two to three cup of coffee per day person. I'm now like a half a it's more about the ritual. I'm worried about messing with my ritual because, as I described it, that's when I take my product.
And when I first started taking this in 2018, if I got to two or three o'clock in the afternoon and I felt like I needed a nap, felt like I needed another cup of coffee, I could look back, and I hadn't taken my product that morning. So I don't wanna I kind of don't want to mess with it, but I am down to one, or a half a cup of coffee per day. So that's kind of month one: focus and energy. Month two is really that deep sleep.
In my opinion, the reality is people are getting deep sleep in month one, and that's part of what's driving better focus and energy. At the same time, everybody gets a little bit more or less sleep every night. Like one extra hour here, one less hour there. And so to equate, I started taking my Vital C, and as a whole, my sleep has improved. I'm getting deeper sleep, or I need less sleep, or whatever. That really lands at about the two-month mark. My business coach put it this way: he said, for 50 years, I needed an alarm clock to wake up.
Now, when I'm taking my Vital C, I wake up before the alarm clock. And he's a business coach, so he's got late-night mixers, late-night dinners; none of that matters. Except if he doesn't get the product for about 10 days, then he starts to need the alarm clock again. And that coincides with the data and the literature that this molecule clears out of your system in about 10 days. And then month three, it's just the systemic benefits. If you think about reducing the negative impact of stress on mitochondria.
The fact that there are between 50 and 5,000 mitochondria in every cell in your body, and your brain has two million, then there are these systemic benefits. And we can't yet talk about those. It's why we're driving four clinical trials. So one is already, we're already enrolling people. We have to call it a severe and frequent headache study. Cannot call it a migraine study, but it's a severe and frequent headache study.
Because of the test of mine, my wife. So my wife went through early onset menopause and struggled with migraines, struggled with hot flashes. I actually had to make this, which is our standard product. What I'm holding up is a label that says menopause support, because she's like, this is helping me. You need to throw that label on that bottle. So it's the same olive oil, high-quality extra virgin olive oil with as much of the ESS60 molecule as we can get to dissolve in it.
So migraines, we've just got so many amazing testimonials about migraines, not making claims about migraines, like that's a very specific FDA concern. But we are running a study on frequent and severe headaches. We're also running a study on HSCRP, so that's a specific inflammatory marker. I mentioned the FDA is very, very explicit that conversations about inflammation equal conversation of the diseases of inflammation, so we have to be careful there.
But we will be able to talk about very specific markers like HSCRP, which stands for high sensitivity C-reactive protein. It's an inflammatory marker typically associated with elevated risk of cardiovascular diseases and cancers. We just have a practitioner who gave us an amazing testimonial about his patient pool. At the end of his testimonial, he actually said, " We just believe this is something we should leave in the break room for our employees. Like that's pretty impressive.
Aneta (35:06): Wow
Chris (35:07): And then there is a study on beagles, right? The dog, the beagles, on HSCRP showing reductions in HSCRP. So we're doing that study. The next one, we already did an ad hoc small cohort study on sleep because it's our most consistent testimonial. The most important outcome of that was 100% of the participants reported improvements in sleep when they were taking the product. So we're doing a more formalized sleep study. And then finally, a wrinkle and age spot study. That's how we kind of map out month one, two, and three on our product.
Aneta (35:41): Sounds amazing. And I love that you have something for menopause, because a lot of my listeners are probably in a similar age group to me. So definitely something we talk about often. And so what are some of the things that excite you about the research that's coming up? Anything that you're super excited about?
Chris (35:57): Yeah, so we can we'll get a a little bit business here. I have a tough marketing time. So coming on a podcast like yours, great. I can show the story. Like, people get the sense I didn't really want to be in this space. I didn't just wait. In fact I I think of it this way. Most people who are in the supplement industry got there one of two ways. The first is they woke up one day, decided they wanted to be wealthy, and decided they were gonna do it with supplements.
And I have no problem with people being wealthy. That's just not how I ended up here. The other is people have health challenges, either of their own or of a loved one, and they go out, and they figure out the solutions, and now they want to save the world. Hopefully it doesn't surprise you. I am not against people saving the world. It's just not how I ended up here. And so I ended up here because I've been manufacturing this crazy wacky molecule since 1991. And then they put it in a toxicity study of all things, and the rats lived ninety percent longer than the control group.
So from the marketing perspective, it's hard to kind of like when I even when I say, hey, take it in the morning, get mental focus and energy during the day, and then better sleep that night, like I'll say that to some people. It's like, well, that's not possible. Like that's a marketing nightmare. So I am excited from the perspective of getting this into more people's hands. We get this severe and frequent headache study under our belt. We get this HSCRP study under our belt, which is that's harder to market. Severe and frequent headaches is pretty easy to market. There's
A lot of people who suffer from migraine, whether in menopause or not. And to have some sort of solution, I've interviewed people who are migraine experts. The medical solutions, the solutions that the medical community offers, are not that great, actually. And so to be able to offer something like that from a business and get this into as many hands as possible, that's probably what I'm most excited about.
Aneta (37:38): Yeah. And also, I mean, from a marketing perspective, I just think about how many people are spending money on supplements, trying new things. Every day I'm marketed to on Instagram or anywhere else, I mean, all kinds of products. And you don't know as a consumer what's in them. And here you're seeing not only longevity, which in and of itself is incredible, but also you're seeing all these additional benefits that are really tangible. And I just think about how many people can't focus. We know that our attention span continues to decrease, and students and people reach for energy drinks or caffeine, like you said, or even synthetic supplements or prescribed something. And there are always side effects to all of those things.
And so here you've got something so beneficial for so many different ways, which is really exciting. So I hope that people listen, and I'm so grateful that you created a landing page that talks about a special offer for the audience. But in addition to the product, I want you to spend just a little bit of time talking about your new book and then also your podcast because your new book is called Live Longer and Better. When did it come out?
Chris (38:35): Yeah. Yeah. That book's been out probably a year and a half now. It is the journey, right? And I'm trying to tie the stories to kind of business success or just success in life in general. And then the story of the molecule, and then kind of the early stages of my story into the longevity space.
Very proud of that book. I do a charity piece with the book. So we'll talk about that in a second. I do have another book called The Longevity Molecule, which is more about the science and kind of living longer and how to live longer. And I think so many amazing things are happening in the longevity space right now. I would just implore anybody who's listening to make healthy decisions so you can, like, extend your life to the point that science extends your life significantly. I think
that's gonna happen in the next 10 years. Like, AI is going to help us solve so many challenging I think I'm just about to interview. I was prepping for an interview, and one of the concepts is that AI will basically solve disease in the next 10 years. Maybe not all diseases, but a whole lot of them. So now these things and ultimately aging. So now these things allow us to live a lot longer. And then I would say, well, if you're gonna live a lot longer, you better have some really good purposes for living; it could be a lot longer.
Aneta (40:05): Interesting. And your podcast, how long's your podcast been out?
Chris (40:08): It's right at a year and a half also. So I've interviewed, I don't know, I think I'm like two hundred in or something. I love it. I put a lot in, I think, just like you; you've clearly prepared for this, and maybe you've been on podcasts where people have prepared less. I love the preparation. I love the digging in and then using the improv skills, which you would do well because you're actually listening and then asking relevant questions; you've seen podcasts where they just ask the next question. They don't actually kind of interact with the answers. So I really, really love that experience.
Aneta (40:41): Yeah, it's quite amazing to be able to meet people that you wouldn't ordinarily and to be able to have conversations. And it's so encouraging to me. I don't know how you feel, just knowing there are people like you who are doing great work in the world. And also, I love the audience to see that even if you set out to be an entrepreneur and you're able to find a really good purpose with what you're starting, the journey itself unfolds as you take action. The clarity happens after you start.
I am sure that you were not saying, I cannot wait to talk to the FDA and figure out what I can and cannot say. But somehow along the way and along the journey, you figure it out.
Chris (41:13): Yeah. I also wasn't excited about doing cosmetics. So here we are. And and I'll I'm gonna I'm gonna share this because it's kind of fun. The Boulder Longevity Institute, right? Their team came to our booth at A4M. So that stands for American Academy of Anti-Aging. So we had a booth at an event in Las Vegas.
Aneta (41:23): Yeah. Well, all the things that I think are
Chris (41:38): And there's a little bit of hyperbole here, but this is basically what they said. They said, Hey, that opportunity to live longer, potential opportunity to live longer, not interested. That potential opportunity to be healthier, also not interested. I'm actually here for your skin reduo set. So it's kind of fun.
Aneta (41:56): It is kind of interesting to see what people are motivated by. Chris, how can people find you? What is the best way that they can? How can they support you, work with you? I know I'll include all the links, but I would love for you to share maybe the easiest way for people to start to get to know you a little bit more.
Chris (42:11): Well, if they want to get to know me, I mean, just find MyVitalC, C as in Carbon, My Vital C on social media. I'm putting out a lot of content. The podcast is called Live Beyond the Norms. Anybody who might be interested in trying the product, I did make a special URL for your audience. There's up to a 40% discount there, which we don't have on the regular website. Yes.
So if they go to myvital c dot com forward slash live the width, then they will find the landing page. You'll be up top. There'll be a picture of you, and Live the Width of Your Life will be up there. So they'll know they're in the right place. When I did my longevity summit and interviewed 57 experts, I asked all of them to kind of provide some tips, tricks, really shortcuts, because everybody likes shortcuts. So I compiled those down into 18 biohacking tips. It's a free PDF right at the top of the page.
So go there and give your name and email, and you can have that free PDF. There's also a coupon. It's $15 off anything on that page. So take advantage of that coupon. You do have to go to the page to get the coupon code. As you go down the page, we really offer like two, three, six. So two bottles, three bottles, or six bottles. The thought process is we think of the experience on My Vital C as about three months. So the six is, hey, maybe you can get three months for yourself.
Maybe there's somebody that you know that could use the three months, or you might be like me; I would be selfish and keep all six months. That's fine. And the 40% discount is on the six, and that's the olive oil. There is an additional discount for subscription. You can cancel at any time. Our customer service team has a thousand five-star reviews on Google. So they're not trained to talk you out of canceling your subscription; they're trained to help, and they do an amazing job.
It's just that a lot of people stay in the subscription. So even if you just want to do it one month or two, three, or six months, go ahead and take advantage of that discount. A little bit farther down, we have an inside out. So that's the olive oil, the four-ounce olive oil, and the skin reduo set combined. So there's a little bit of discount in the combination, and also the two, three, six, with the best discount on the six, that 40% discount. As you go down, I do have a charity piece to my book that I'm very proud of,
Live Longer and Better is the book. It's available on Amazon for 19.95. It's available on that page, on your landing page, for 19.95, for an extra ten dollars. I will autograph the book, and 100% of that ten-dollar fee goes to Operation Underground Railroad. So you may remember a movie called The Sound of Freedom, which was an amazing movie about a horrible topic, which is child exploitation.
Operation Underground Railroad is doing a great job of trying to get that off of our planet shouldn't have ever existed to begin with. So a hundred percent of that signature fee goes towards Operation Underground Railroad.
Aneta (44:53): That's amazing, Chris. I'm so excited to purchase this for my family, for my husband and me, and for our two daughters. I think everybody would benefit from this. So I'm so grateful that you're offering this to our audience. And I ask everyone a final question, which is what does it mean to you to live the width of your life?
Chris (45:09): So the first thing that comes to my mind is I live the width of my life with my family. So I'm blessed with a family, and some people choose not to have children, not to have that style of family; that's fine. But that's where it first lands for me. Like, how can I impart whatever knowledge I might have into my children so that they can go out and have a fantastic life of happiness and joy?
And of course that includes sadness because that's always there, but how to manage it well. And then, as I said, I'm just in a lucky position. I'm kind of living the width of my life. I get to do something that I'm good at: science. I'm good at communication, and then getting this high-quality product out there, and like I said, reaping the benefits of people coming back to us and sharing all these amazing things that are happening for them and their pets.
We actually do have pet products. It's not on the landing page, but they can find it for sure. And pet testimonials are pretty fantastic because people, maybe even more than their kids, love their pets. And one kind of cool thing about pets is, as I'm talking today, part of you should be going, I wonder how much is the placebo effect? Because the placebo effect is real and it applies to everything.
It applies to the medications you're taking. It applies to the workouts. If you convince yourself that a bicep like a bicep curl isn't gonna build your bicep, it actually won't. So the placebo effect is everywhere, and it is some piece. But what's fascinating about pets is there is no placebo effect for pets. The irony that they're not smart enough to experience the placebo effect. So when we get testimonials about pets, they're heartwarming.
Right, 'cause their pets are so important to their owners. And then two, it's just confirmation that what's going on is real.
Aneta (46:46): That's fantastic. We definitely have a lot of pet lovers. So Chris, thank you so much for your time today. I just wish you continued success. I love the work that you're doing in the world. And it was just a pleasure to get to know you today.
Chris (46:56): Aneta, thank you so much for having me.