177: Dr. Stephanie Venn-Watson, Veterinary Epidemiologist & CEO of Fatty15, What Research From Aging Dolphins Has Found To Support Sleep & Health!

Welcome to the Sleep as a Skill podcast. My name is Mollie Eastman. I am the founder of Sleep as a Skill, a company that optimizes sleep through technology, accountability and behavioral change. As an ex sleep sufferer turned sleep course creator, I am on a mission to transform the way the world looks sleep.

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Each week I'll be interviewing world class experts ranging from researchers, doctors, innovators and thought leaders to give actionable tips and strategies that you can implement to become a more skillful sleeper. Ultimately, I believe that living a circadian aligned lifestyle is going to be one of the biggest trends in wellness, and I'm committed to keeping you up to date on all the things that you can do today to transform your circadian health and by extension, allowing you to sleep and live better than ever before.

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Welcome to the Sleep is a Skill podcast. In our discussion today, we'll examine fatty 15, a pure vegan friendly supplement and its implications for overall health and sleep. Fatty 15 is structurally similar to omega 3 fatty acids, which are widely recognized for their role in cardiovascular and neurological health.

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Recent studies have demonstrated that fatty 15 contributes to cellular integrity, heart reduces inflammation, supports metabolic homeostasis, and plays a critical role in maintaining mitochondrial function. You've probably heard us talk about the importance of mitochondrial health to get great sleep on this podcast, and this is a pathway to achieving that.

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Now, mitochondria, often referred to as the powerhouses of our sleep. This emerging research suggests that fatty 15 may play a significant role in optimizing sleep quality by supporting these foundational physiological processes. We'll explore the current scientific evidence behind this molecule and how it might be effectively incorporated into a sleep focused regime.

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So our guests. Dr. Stephanie Van Watson is a CEO of this company, a seasoned veterinarian, epidemiologist, and public health scientist. Stephanie previously served at the World Health Organization and U. S. Navy with a lifelong mission of helping people and our fellow animals age better. Stephanie's award winning approach to improving human and animal health has been featured on NPR, BBC, CBS, and National Geographic.

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In her time as CEO. The company has been recognized for its extensive research and education around C 15, which we will get more into on the podcast. And if after listening to this podcast, you're interested in checking out fatty 15, seeing if it can help you with your health and sleep. Thankfully, the company has given us a discount code so that you can get a little discount with your first purchase and it is sleep is a skill all one word.

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So again, check out fatty 15 and sleep is a skill is the discount code all one word. I think you're going to really enjoy this conversation that we get into today. First, a few words from our sponsors. Please do check them out. They really do help keep this podcast alive and running and getting free information out to you all.

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So if you can check out their websites, look at some of their offerings, we only partner with companies that we truly believe in and that also I myself am using. So do take the time to check them out. If you're listening to this podcast, you're likely looking to improve your sleep. And one of the first places that many people begin when they talk to me about sleep is they want to know what's the supplement I can take.

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Well, I got to say, I honestly don't take that many supplements nowadays for my sleep. And I'm very grateful for that. A lot of things you can do for free. However, one of the supplements that I do consistently take and have taken for ages is magnesium, specifically magnesium breakthrough. It's an all natural supplement that helps you reduce fatigue and sleep more peacefully.

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So I think we all know that temperature regulation is key to getting those deep, restorative stages of sleep. But how many times have you woken up in the middle of the night, tossing and turning because you're too hot, thanks to your subpar bedding materials? I know I've certainly been there. This is where Coop Sleep comes in.

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You're investing in your health, wellbeing, and quality of life. So again, go to you block out spelled the letter U block out. and use code sleep as a skill for a discount and welcome to the sleep is a skill podcast. You are in for a treat on today's conversation. Never have we touched on the topics that we're going to be talking about today on this podcast.

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So Steph, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. Yeah, Molly thrilled to be here. Oh, amazing. So why don't we just start at the beginning a bit? And how did you find yourself in this position? How does it relate to sleep? Tell us everything. Sure. Well, I am a veterinary epidemiologist, so probably not your typical guest.

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Molly. Totally not. Yes. I love it. We do care about our animals sleeping well, too. They're just as important for them. Yeah, totally.  But, uh, my, I had previously been working for CDC and World Health Organization, um, helping to, you know, set up infectious disease surveillance systems all over the world. So and chronic conditions and sleep disorders and things like that.

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But then, about 20 years ago, I was invited by the U. S. Navy. to help, um, continually improve the health and welfare of maybe dolphins, which is fascinating. That's a whole nother separate story.  Amazing. So amazing. And dolphins are really interesting, just as a quick aside, um, because, uh, you know, dolphins have hemispheric sleep, so they can actually sleep right one half brain at a time and they can stay vigilant.

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24 hours a day, which, how great would that have been? How great would that have been? Totally!  Fun facts. Right out of the gate. I love it.  Unfortunately, I'm not coming with you with the solution on how to get hemispheric sleep. But! Stay tuned, all.  But the dolphins did, um, help as we were looking, we were really looking at aging dolphins, uh, at the Navy has cared for the sustained population of bottlenose dolphins for over 60 years.

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They live in San Diego Bay, Molly, so they, you know, come and go, they choose to stay at the Navy, uh, and because they get such great care, they live a lot longer than dolphins in the wild. So they live on average into their 40s and 50s, while dolphins in the wild, live to maybe 20. Oh, wow. That's interesting.

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So they kind of brought me on to say, Hey, Stephanie, we've got these older geriatric dolphin population and we want them to be, of course, as healthy and as happy for as long as possible. So I ended up, you know, really learning a lot about aging and dolphins and what we found, Molly, were that dolphins age a lot like us.

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They can get high cholesterol, chronic inflammation. We didn't quite know, um, as much about their sleep, um, yet, but we were seeing a lot of other signs that they age a lot like humans. And so we found that some dolphins, but not all, um, aged. Some dolphins were healthy agers and others were less healthy agers.

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So we did this, um, Um, science project and we looked at thousands of small molecules in their blood and in their fish diet called metabolomics. And long story short, we discovered C 15. The small molecule was the best predictor of the healthiest aging dolphins. And today we now know it's the first essential fatty acid to be discovered in over 90 years since Omega 30.

So thank you, Dolphins. Thank you, Dolphins. That is incredible. I did not know that backstory and that is so interesting and to your point, the interesting parallels with, um, Dolphins and sleep as a quick aside. So, pulling that in is so eloquent and so befitting that we would begin there and that is really, really exciting.

exciting information and part of the reason that I was curious to have you on to share more about fatty 15 is just because of what appears to be this dearth of science that if you are going to supplement in this arena that to have something that appears to really have a lot of information behind it as far as its efficacy is really exciting.

So maybe diving in a bit more into that and why might we consider that in the conversation around sleep? Absolutely. I like how you use diving in. Yes, exactly. No puns  intended. So with, uh, so C 15, it's, uh, basically it's an odd chain saturated fatty acid. So it kind of goes against everything we've been taught about all saturated fat.

So it ends up there is a healthy fat, um, in our diet, uh, and it's called C 15. Uh, uh, our primary source, uh, of C 15 is actually from whole dairy fat. Um, dolphins get it from certain types of fish. Uh, the, um, for us, it's mainly from dairy fat and, you know, as we have decreased our intake of, uh, cow's milk and of dairy fat, population wide C 15 levels have been declining.

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So once we understand more about how C 15 works, so C 15 works at the cellular level. It's a  fatty acid. And so it literally goes into the Cell of our membrane, um, uh, cell membrane and it helps strengthen it and it literally armors ourselves against age related breakdown. It's a very simple evolutionary trick that nature has used  for thousands of years to more stable our cell membranes.

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The longer as a mammal we live, it's why we live, we and dolphins live longer than mice in the first place. So it does all kinds of great things with regard to metabolic and liver and heart and immune health. Um, but you know, important for today's discussion is we made, uh, you know, as we got, we developed this pure C15 supplement, um, brought it to the world in cooperation with the Navy and, uh, you know, it started going out and we were taking it and my parents were taking it.

Now, many, many, many people have taken it. And Molly, one of the three most common things people were reporting to us within weeks was I'm sleeping better.  Hmm. Like, huh, well, maybe it's a placebo effect and it wasn't kind of dolphins couldn't tell us they were sleeping better. And then I realized I was sleeping better.

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Right. And so I. Was a hall walker. Like my sleep pattern Molly was pretty reliably. I go to bed, you know, by like 10 or 11, wake up at two,  walk the hallways until like thoughts, whatever thoughts were out. Yes, go back to bed. And you know, that's just not a good, it's not a good night's sleep. Yeah. So, um, once I started taking fatty 15, I was realizing, oh my gosh, wait a second, I'm sleeping through the night and I hadn't even, you know, thought about it.

So  as our sciences continue to progress, this has been a 10 year scientific journey, understanding C 15, um, and fatty 15 and. As the science progressed, we actually went back to the dolphin data and we found a second molecule that was predicting healthy aging dolphins. And it's called pentadecanoyl carnitine.

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Let's just call it ADC. Yes. Great.  And it ends up that our body uses C15 to make the second molecule, this metabolite. And as we published last year, that this molecule is the second ever discovered full acting endocannabinoid.  Which means it activates the same receptors that cannabis does in our brain and our body, which helps explain  the improved sleep, less pain, calmer mood that was coming from, you know, taking this nutrient that we all are supposed to have in our diet.

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Wow. So interesting. Okay, so with these discoveries, and you mentioned that this has been kind of a 10 year journey, and you've touched on what appears to be some of these differences from, if someone's listening, they're like, okay, is the takeaway that then I just supplement with some omegas. And it's not like that.

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What you're pointing to is that this is a whole new realm, right? Is, is that accurate that you're going to get those different results than traditional supplementation?  And we have seen for over the years that so many people will speak to even from a mental health perspective, which of course can spill into sleep, the approach for supplementing with some of these omegas, but.

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This is a different conversation, correct? Outside of that? You're spot on.  So yeah, this molecule is, you know, when we talk about omega, so that what they share, the umbrella that they share is that essential fatty acids include omega 3 and omega 6. And then now in this, like you had said, this completely different category of a fat acid in this, um, odd chain saturated fat world.

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So, uh, a whole new giant discovery that the dolphins gave us of an entirely new fatty acid family that is essential for us, especially as we age for protecting our cellular health. But now we're also understanding it's protecting our mental health and wellness. too, including sleep. And, you know, we talked about how C15 levels have been going down because we're eating less C15 in our diet.

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And one of our hypotheses are as  there are now global nutritional C15 deficiencies, evidence of this, and are those deficiencies feeding the rise in sleep disorders  that aren't activating these receptors the way we should. Because those receptors are sitting there waiting for us to give it the right molecules.

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And if we aren't eating C15, we're not making the second molecule that is really meant to be the ultimate body balancer in the endocannabinoid system. So really fascinating. Um, and the fix can be so easy, you know, it's getting C15 back into, into our world. Totally. Okay, so a quick tangent to behaviors.

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Are you someone that likes to advocate for getting more of this into your diet from a diet perspective? Or do you have concerns from like sourcing and issues there? Is that where it gets layered? It is. It's layered. So, you know, I think that we're, you know, the evidence is pointing that probably kids, right?

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Our youngest.  Most, most kids should probably go back to whole fat milk. It's, you know, when they're two years old, the nutritionist tell every parent to take your kid off of whole fat milk. Yeah. Evidence isn't really pointed now because our understanding of C 15 is like, gosh, these kids probably need that C 15 all the way through, you know, early development and whole fat milk is how they used to get it.

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So it may still be the right choice. thing for them. Sure. As an adult, we're living a long time, which is great. And so, but our bodies weren't necessarily made to  take, use dairy products throughout our whole life. And so the layers that you're talking about, Molly, um, absolutely. So, uh, when we look at our dairy fat as a primary source of C 15,  milk fat has only 1 percent of milk fat has C 15 in it, but over 40% 40 percent of that milk fat are these pro inflammatory saturated, even chain saturated fats like C 16 and C 18.

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So it becomes really hard for C 15 to to basically compete against the  Bad fats, which is why new studies have shown people with higher C 15 levels lower have a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, fatty liver disease, um, anxiety with depression, while people with higher levels of C 16, C 18 have a higher risk.

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Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, so it's this complication that we weren't intended to get milk our whole lives if you look at other mammals, right? Other mammals don't keep drinking milk as an adult, but can we leverage science to be able to You'll find individual ingredients that have, you know, a lot of power that can continue to help us longevity wise, sleep wise, and be able to bring that out so that it can then function in isolation, uh, without having to compete, uh, with other, you know, pro inflammatory fats.

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Sure. Okay. And so that's what fatty 15 is aiming to accomplish. So by extracting those components that we're going for less of what we're not going for. And so what might that look like if someone is tuning in and struggling with their sleep? Is there a different dosing schedule or kind of way that they should approach this for a sleep support?

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Or is that Just something that they would expect, uh, or not expect, but might see as a potential result in addition to some of the other reasons that people would be supplementing with fatty 15. Yeah, so fa yeah, so fatty 15 is, you know, all it is, it's a super small pill, which is really nice, and it's just a hundred milligrams of pure C 15 like that, is it?

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Yeah. So it's very easy to take and 95%, 99% of our customers report that it's become a routine part of their day, which. As you know, like developing new routines is like the  whole game. Yeah,  that has not been a problem because it's so easy. It doesn't there's no smell. There's no taste. It's yeah, it's easy to take.

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Um, and so, you know, I would have thought Molly that if you're taking it for sleep, probably better to take it in the evening.  Because are still. in eating it, and then the levels are going up in your blood. There's, you know, and then they will come back down. They still go into your cells, but as far as that activating these receptors that will help us with a calm mood and deeper sleep that you kind of catch that wave, you know, within two to four hours of going to bed.

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But I will say I take mine in the morning and I get the same benefits. So it's most people take it in the morning, but we just tell people to, um, kind of find their own fatty 15 journey. And I, we definitely know people who do take it in the evening and it works better for them there. But I, I, you know, it works for me just.

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By taking it in the morning. Great. No, that's perfect. If you've tuned into the show or followed any of our content here at Sleep is a Skill, you may have heard that everyone that we work with wears the Oura Ring. And as a result, we have amassed a very large database of Oura Ring users and get to see what really moves the needle for people when it comes to their sleep.

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Today, I want to talk to you about something that often flies under the radar, but is absolutely crucial for great sleep minerals. Now you've heard me talk about circadian rhythms, light exposure, temperature control, and more, but let's dive into the foundational elements that fuel our body's ability to sleep deeply and restoratively specifically minerals.

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our modern lifestyle with its processed foods and environmental stressors. can leave us depleted of essential minerals. This depletion can mess with our sleep quality, leading to issues like restless legs, poor sleep initiation and waking up in the middle of the night. Enter beam minerals. Beam minerals are designed to replenish your body's essential mineral levels, providing the building blocks your body needs for optimal health.

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And this includes better sleep. What I love about beam is that they use a hundred percent bioavailable liquid minerals, which means your body can. actually absorb and utilize them instantly without any fillers or additives. Magnesium for example, is known as nature's relaxant, helping to calm the nervous system, support muscle relaxation, and some argue by extension can promote deep, restful sleep.

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Beam's magnesium is sourced in a way that ensures maximum absorption and effectiveness, making it a key part of my sleep routine. But beam doesn't stop there. They've created a comprehensive blend that includes other vital minerals like potassium, calcium, and trace minerals that work synergistically to support your overall health.

And of course your sleep. The result, you wake up feeling more refreshed, more balanced and ready to take on the day. So if you've been struggling with sleep and feel like you've tried everything, it might be time to look at what's happening on a cellular level. Beam Minerals can help fill in those gaps and give your body the support it needs for truly restorative sleep.

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So head on over to Beam Minerals spelled B E A M. today and use the code sleep as a skill. All one word at checkout to get a special discount on your order, your body and your sleep. Well, thank you.  I love your website does a great job of kind of speaking to some of what distinguishes this from other companies or, you know, kind of products in this arena.

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And I'm wondering if you can speak to some of the science that that you share that kind of is out of the norm. So some of these other companies that might be aiming to support in the similar way might not have this on hand and certainly not these specifics that you're speaking to. So I'm wondering if you can just share a bit more about that research you've done.

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Yeah, absolutely. So there is, there's a lot of research on C 15 now and chances are a lot of your listeners may have Never heard about C 15. So the science world has been working on it for like 10 years, but now we're getting to the point where it's like, okay, it's starting to spill over, um, in a good way, um, into, into consumer world.

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So, um, you know, with, uh, C 15, uh, we've done a lot of work with it. That first round of science we did was really focused on, What level of C 15 do we need to have in our bodies for it to be active and beneficial? And we really focused on things like, you know, with regard to metabolic health and liver and cardiac health.

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And so we're able to show that it helps with regard to protecting, um, the, our livers, you know, fatty liver disease. is a major issue, uh, present in one in three people globally. It's absolutely tied to poor sleep. Um, we work with Rady Children's Hospital here with the first ever, uh, fatty liver disease clinic opened by, uh, Dr.

Jeff Schwimmer. And he says his kids are not sleeping, um, that have fatty liver disease. Sure. And that, as you know, that just snowballs into your body. Yeah, of course.  Just feeds the whole beast of poor metabolism. So. Yeah. Um, so as we're doing this work, it's, we're seeing, okay, it's helping with the liver, it's helping lower cholesterol, it's helping with glucose control, it's helping lower inflammation.

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Um, so all of these things that we expect for an essential nutrient that is meant to keep us healthy for as long as possible. Um, so then, um, research we then did is once it was recognized as an essential fatty acid, which there are only two prior to,  essential fatty acid means that our bodies must have certain levels of this nutrient or we fall apart and our bodies can't make enough of it.

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So it means that we have to get it from our diet or from supplements.  So once we made that distinction, Molly, we then said, well, let's test it.  C 15, pure C 15, fatty C 15, head to head against pure omega 3 EPA.  Let's see how it does. And that's where we did this really extensive study. We did over 12 different human cell systems, mimicking various disease states, 148 different biomarkers.

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And in the end, what we found was that pure C 15 had all the same benefits as omega 3 EPA. Plus three times more. So it had 36 cellular benefits that is that has benefits across our entire body, really showing that C 15 is emerging as the essential. essential fatty acid. Um, so that's been, uh, been a lot of fun.

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And then our last most recent study, uh, was we then put C15, uh, fatty 15 head to head against the leading longevity molecules, things like rapamycin, metformin, and carbose. And Molly, we showed that C15 was better than those.  a big paper on that, um, and nutrients just last year. And, uh, you know, showed that it is a leading molecule that is nature has intended this to help us live long, happy, healthy lives.

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Oh, my goodness. Well, that's very exciting. And just pulling from some of the things that are on the site one thing because we do talk a lot about mitochondrial health on this podcast for getting great sleep for mitochondria is ability to help us in the production of melatonin and many other reasons why kind of that strong mitochondrial functioning could support improved sleep results.

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And one of the notes here says keeps mitochondria working for a 45 percent improvement in mitochondrial function and a study supporting that any. callouts there because that's quite fascinating and big numbers. Yeah, I mean mitochondria, right? It's at the heart of everything, right? Aging is at the heart of chronic diseases, is at the heart of quality of, you know, of our wellness, including our sleep.

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And so if the batteries in ourselves go out, peter out. We paid the price for that pretty quickly. So, uh, we, we were able to show in our studies that, um, that when mitochondria, uh, that were dysfunctional were then treated with C 15,  we were able to get back what you shared, which is that we could actually repair mitochondria, um, and increase that energy production by 45%,  which is Which is great.

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I mean, and again, all of this speaks to  it's essential. Like, this is like, no, really, it's really essential. Like, our bodies are using it in many different ways. And another one relevant to sleep is we also found that C 15, um, activates this receptor called PPAR alpha.  And PPR alpha, we have these receptors throughout our body and our brain.

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It's long been used to look at things like metabolism, um, helping to keep things like triglycerides low and balancing our immunity. But more recently, they're finding that PPR alpha activation is also important for our brain health, including sleep. Uh, so C 15 has a lot of, um, basically, uh, shots on. a goal to help us with our sleep.

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Uh, and you know, it's, it's been, it's been a great journey. So interesting. Well, one, thank you so much for the work that you're doing, the enthusiasm that you're bringing to this topic. And this is very illuminating for me because Heard amazing things about this and I've just started to be supplementing it myself and I'm excited to keep following the and see how this all comes together.

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So to hear some of this background information is very encouraging. And now I'm pulling up some of these studies, so I'm excited to dive in. So before we shift over into learning a bit more about how you're managing your own sleep with all this knowledge, dolphin and otherwise, is there anything you want to make sure that we hit on or that we didn't properly address thus far in this topic of, you know, this fatty 15 and sleep?

Yeah, I think, you know, the main thing is it's reiterating this. You know, understanding that, you know, C 15, this nutrient that most of us have never heard, heard of, is the science behind it, which is available at discoverc15. com, has all of the peer reviewed science. But what we're learning, it's not just us anymore, right?

So this is, the world is turning its attention onto C 15 and discovering how essential it is. The urgency, is really coming from the fact that, you know, The belief and understanding that low C 15 levels can be driving this rise in type 2 diabetes, heart disease, sleep disorders, even certain types of cancer, especially among younger and younger people.

And so, you know, the urgency comes from this is something that could be relatively easy to fix. Um, Not just through a supplement, but how do we just get C 15 back out as an ingredient to the world? Um, or, you know, it's not often you get a chance to, you know, like we say it in our company to save the world.

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And we're, you know, we always say save the dolphin, save the world, uh, here, here at our team. Oh, I love that. That's amazing. And so I'm actually just now thinking out loud. I don't know if this would apply, but one of the things I've seen, I have certain clients that have come my way that they're psychiatrists have then had literally prescribe omegas for their mental health and I know I keep kind of blanket and we're talking about different things I know but I'm just curious if you think that there would be application from a true kind of mental health support I know and this is we're just chatting not certainly and not prescriptions or anything.

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But do you think that there's an application there from that anti anxiety perspective or lowering of some of that kind of rumination patterns? Any callouts there? We think so. So studies are early, um, for sure. But what was interesting was when we were initially studying C15  and trying to understand, you know, how does it work and at what levels, one of the studies we did was called, um, cell based phenotypic, human cell based phenotypic profiling.

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And what it does is it gathers a whole lot of data on how the, how, um, cells respond to C 15. And it has a bunch of data points and they then compare it to profiles of known, um, drugs and nutrients and compounds. And at low levels, um, with fatty 15, remarkably, it matched with bupropion, which is one of the most common antidepressants.

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Yeah.  Steady. What that study tells us is it predicts that C 15 has the same behaviors at this lower dose to bupropion, uh, which is fascinating when you add on top of this, this metabolite of C 15 we talked about called PDC.  Being an endocannabinoid and being able to calm anxiety and recently an epidemiological study where they looked at a bunch of people in the US population and they showed that people who and these were people who are diagnosed with major depressive disorder.

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And they showed that, um, people, uh, that had higher C 15 had a lower risk of anxiety as part of this disease. So you know, it's the, it's building and we have a lot of customer testimonials, um, a lot of talking about how it's lowering their anxiety. It's lowering mine for sure. Um, but we want to step into it carefully.

you know, we're just going to keep following the science and moving forward on some clinical trials. Um,  so exciting. Well, that's fascinating. Thanks for sharing. Even just, I know that piece is kind of new and still exploring, but that's fantastic to hear. So encouraging. And so curious to hear some about how you're managing your own sleep as someone who's clearly thought deeply about some of these topics.

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So exciting. So we ask every person that comes on four questions. And the first one is, what does your nightly sleep routine look like right now? Right now, I basically I, uh, aim to go to bed at about 10. I  definitely in bed by 11. Yes.  totally,  as you can imagine, brain constantly like running. A hundred percent.

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So, um, and, uh, what, and I'll, I'll leave it at that. I, so yeah, and then my, and then I'll wake up, um, reliably, um, even without an alarm. At six. At 6:00 AM Sure. Um, so sometimes it gets pushed a little or,  uh, but. That's the general goal.  Love it. Okay. Amazing. And so, so, um, the structure around the consistency of bedtime and wake time sounds very clear.

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What might we see in your morning sleep routine with the thinking that how we start our day could impact our sleep results? Yeah, I, uh, I start with a nice hot shower in the morning. I just, I get up, um, and it just helps me before I go into like zoom mode that, uh, it's, it's, I'm, I need to take a shower.  I have to lay my shelf.

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Yes. It's like your morning coffee or something. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So that, and then I, I do, I have my coffee in the morning uh, along with uh, my Baddie 15. That's when I take mine. Oh, nice. Very cool. Okay. Perfect. And so what might we see on your nightstand? Or maybe if you're traveling, you know, just in your environment, supplements, apps, etc.

Yeah, I try to have as little as possible on my nightstand. Beautiful. We've seen that as a real through line as like a true strategy, the minimalist approach.  Exactly. So, um, it's hard to have my phone completely out of reach. I know. I know. Yeah. And I will sometimes use, you know, sometimes use like word games or things like that to calm my mind down.

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Yep. Non exciting games, non stressful, kind of like a routine that I know my brain can just go through. Yeah, totally. Unwind and uh, allow myself to then be ready for bed and the phone is, is, there's no sound, there's no, it's, it's not allowed to interrupt the sleep. I love it. Okay, great. And then what would you say so far has made the biggest change to your sleep game or said another way biggest aha moment in managing your sleep?

Right. So in addition to FAT 15, of course,  not a blatant, solid, it's genuine.  Totally. Um, but the next biggest Molly is Exercise is like,  that's sometimes, you know, schedule gets busy and exercise falls off as a priority. And then I'm not, you know, not sleeping as well. And then it's just, I'm always reminded that  being even just going for a walk, but even more importantly, you know, where I'll aim to get like an hour of exercise, like 30 minutes of aerobic and 30 minutes of resistance training.

And I'm one of those weird people that does it at night. Sure. I, I, it always improves my sleep and it's always,  it's always in a hollow. It's like, oh yeah.  That's so good. And I so appreciate the two. That's so funny. I just led a talk earlier today for this big group. And one of the things that we were touching on was exercise timing from a circadian component.

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And it was one of the aspects that was, it's like this odd anomaly or not anomaly, but it's a little outside of some of the more clear, you know, zeitgeibers or time givers, you know, with our light dark and our meal timing and certain things, whereas exercise so odd, where we can see some first off so crucial, so important, like you're pointing to.

And so like, truly pretty much anywhere we can get it in as long as maybe not like right before bed. But for the most part, as long as we can get that in that can be so, so beneficial. And then there's much more. bleeding in where we're seeing evidence where people are able to work out later into the evening and have great results is, you know, and of course we're mindful and we're testing and seeing how that's working for each person, but for the most part, that can be great.

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And it sounds like it's working for you. Yeah, it works great for me because I am a morning person. And so when my brain is on, I'm ready to put it to work.  And my brain is a bit fried by the time I get to early evening. Yeah.  It's an exercise is a great is a great way to use that time. And so it's worked for me, but I get it's definitely not the norm.

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But for me, it works really well. 100%. And we also have some of the evidence to support the late afternoon time zone for now where our body temperatures up less likelihood of injury. So certain things there, and then we also see, depending on the type of exercise, obviously, I'm like, you know, blanket, um, pointing to exercise, but there can be so many.

And some people we've seen to actually think of it as a true, like, wind down when they'll do like an evening yoga with candles or whatever. And that can be really relaxing and kind of a nice top off to the end of the day. So love that. Great. Amazing. Okay. So for anyone that now with some of the great information that you've brought, might want to learn more about fatty 15, you beyond what are all the steps to take to do that?

Absolutely. So you can go to, uh, fatty 15. com and that's where you can, uh, See the supplement and read all the science, um, behind that, uh, learn more. There's an hour story page. So we have a cute little, um, Ted talk about the whole dolphin discovery, uh, with the Navy. Uh, there's a lot of fun stuff, um, to, to look up there and to understand how it works and all of that good stuff.

Uh, fun testimonials a lot. So you slicking ones. Um, and yeah,  There's a lot of them there. Uh, and, uh, to learn more about C 15, um, as shared, if you go to  discoverc15. com, uh, that's really the heart of why we're doing what we're doing. Um, the science has been coming out and, and really excited. And Molly, thank you for helping to bring C 15, uh, awareness to the world.

Oh, well, thank you so much for taking the time and for the work that you're doing. I mean, I was already excited about this topic and what this could make available. But now after having this conversation with you, I'm even more excited. So now I'm going to go down the rabbit hole a bit more. So I've got all kinds of tabs open now, right?

I'm gonna need to explore. So thank you. Thank you for the work that you're doing and the enthusiasm that you're bringing to this topic. So, so cool. And dolphins, I didn't even quite know what I was in for in this conversation. So I love it.  Thanks, Molly. It was fun. Thank you.  You've been listening to the CBC.

Sleep as a skill podcast, the top podcast for people who want to take their sleep skills to the next level. Every Monday I send out the sleep obsessions newsletter, which aims to be one of the most obsessive newsletters on the planet. Fun fact, I've never missed a Monday for over five years and counting.

Welcome to the Sleep as a Skill podcast. My name is Mollie Eastman. I am the founder of Sleep as a Skill, a company that optimizes sleep through technology, accountability and behavioral change. As an ex sleep sufferer turned sleep course creator, I am on a mission to transform the way the world looks.

sleep. Each week I'll be interviewing world class experts ranging from researchers, doctors, innovators and thought leaders to give actionable tips and strategies that you can implement to become a more skillful sleeper. Ultimately, I believe that living a circadian aligned lifestyle is going to be one of the biggest trends in wellness, and I'm committed to keeping you up to date on all the things that you can do today to transform your circadian health and by extension, allowing you to sleep and live better than ever before.

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Welcome to the Sleep is a Skill podcast. In our discussion today, we'll examine fatty 15, a pure vegan friendly supplement and its implications for overall health and sleep. Fatty 15 is structurally similar to omega 3 fatty acids, which are widely recognized for their role in cardiovascular and neurological health.

Recent studies have demonstrated that fatty 15 contributes to cellular integrity, heart reduces inflammation, supports metabolic homeostasis, and plays a critical role in maintaining mitochondrial function. You've probably heard us talk about the importance of mitochondrial health to get great sleep on this podcast, and this is a pathway to achieving that.

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Now, mitochondria, often referred to as the powerhouses of our sleep. This emerging research suggests that fatty 15 may play a significant role in optimizing sleep quality by supporting these foundational physiological processes. We'll explore the current scientific evidence behind this molecule and how it might be effectively incorporated into a sleep focused regime.

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So our guests. Dr. Stephanie Van Watson is a CEO of this company, a seasoned veterinarian, epidemiologist, and public health scientist. Stephanie previously served at the World Health Organization and U. S. Navy with a lifelong mission of helping people and our fellow animals age better. Stephanie's award winning approach to improving human and animal health has been featured on NPR, BBC, CBS, and National Geographic.

In her time as CEO. The company has been recognized for its extensive research and education around C 15, which we will get more into on the podcast. And if after listening to this podcast, you're interested in checking out fatty 15, seeing if it can help you with your health and sleep. Thankfully, the company has given us a discount code so that you can get a little discount with your first purchase and it is sleep is a skill all one word.

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So again, check out fatty 15 and sleep is a skill is the discount code all one word. I think you're going to really enjoy this conversation that we get into today. First, a few words from our sponsors. Please do check them out. They really do help keep this podcast alive and running and getting free information out to you all.

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You're investing in your health, wellbeing, and quality of life. So again, go to you block out spelled the letter U block out. and use code sleep as a skill for a discount and welcome to the sleep is a skill podcast. You are in for a treat on today's conversation. Never have we touched on the topics that we're going to be talking about today on this podcast.

So Steph, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. Yeah, Molly thrilled to be here. Oh, amazing. So why don't we just start at the beginning a bit? And how did you find yourself in this position? How does it relate to sleep? Tell us everything. Sure. Well, I am a veterinary epidemiologist, so probably not your typical guest.

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Molly. Totally not. Yes. I love it. We do care about our animals sleeping well, too. They're just as important for them. Yeah, totally.  But, uh, my, I had previously been working for CDC and World Health Organization, um, helping to, you know, set up infectious disease surveillance systems all over the world. So and chronic conditions and sleep disorders and things like that.

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But then, about 20 years ago, I was invited by the U. S. Navy. to help, um, continually improve the health and welfare of maybe dolphins, which is fascinating. That's a whole nother separate story.  Amazing. So amazing. And dolphins are really interesting, just as a quick aside, um, because, uh, you know, dolphins have hemispheric sleep, so they can actually sleep right one half brain at a time and they can stay vigilant.

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24 hours a day, which, how great would that have been? How great would that have been? Totally!  Fun facts. Right out of the gate. I love it.  Unfortunately, I'm not coming with you with the solution on how to get hemispheric sleep. But! Stay tuned, all.  But the dolphins did, um, help as we were looking, we were really looking at aging dolphins, uh, at the Navy has cared for the sustained population of bottlenose dolphins for over 60 years.

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They live in San Diego Bay, Molly, so they, you know, come and go, they choose to stay at the Navy, uh, and because they get such great care, they live a lot longer than dolphins in the wild. So they live on average into their 40s and 50s, while dolphins in the wild, live to maybe 20. Oh, wow. That's interesting.

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So they kind of brought me on to say, Hey, Stephanie, we've got these older geriatric dolphin population and we want them to be, of course, as healthy and as happy for as long as possible. So I ended up, you know, really learning a lot about aging and dolphins and what we found, Molly, were that dolphins age a lot like us.

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They can get high cholesterol, chronic inflammation. We didn't quite know, um, as much about their sleep, um, yet, but we were seeing a lot of other signs that they age a lot like humans. And so we found that some dolphins, but not all, um, aged. Some dolphins were healthy agers and others were less healthy agers.

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So we did this, um, Um, science project and we looked at thousands of small molecules in their blood and in their fish diet called metabolomics. And long story short, we discovered C 15. The small molecule was the best predictor of the healthiest aging dolphins. And today we now know it's the first essential fatty acid to be discovered in over 90 years since Omega 30.

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So thank you, Dolphins. Thank you, Dolphins. That is incredible. I did not know that backstory and that is so interesting and to your point, the interesting parallels with, um, Dolphins and sleep as a quick aside. So, pulling that in is so eloquent and so befitting that we would begin there and that is really, really exciting.

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exciting information and part of the reason that I was curious to have you on to share more about fatty 15 is just because of what appears to be this dearth of science that if you are going to supplement in this arena that to have something that appears to really have a lot of information behind it as far as its efficacy is really exciting.

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So maybe diving in a bit more into that and why might we consider that in the conversation around sleep? Absolutely. I like how you use diving in. Yes, exactly. No puns  intended. So with, uh, so C 15, it's, uh, basically it's an odd chain saturated fatty acid. So it kind of goes against everything we've been taught about all saturated fat.

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So it ends up there is a healthy fat, um, in our diet, uh, and it's called C 15. Uh, uh, our primary source, uh, of C 15 is actually from whole dairy fat. Um, dolphins get it from certain types of fish. Uh, the, um, for us, it's mainly from dairy fat and, you know, as we have decreased our intake of, uh, cow's milk and of dairy fat, population wide C 15 levels have been declining.

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So once we understand more about how C 15 works, so C 15 works at the cellular level. It's a  fatty acid. And so it literally goes into the Cell of our membrane, um, uh, cell membrane and it helps strengthen it and it literally armors ourselves against age related breakdown. It's a very simple evolutionary trick that nature has used  for thousands of years to more stable our cell membranes.

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The longer as a mammal we live, it's why we live, we and dolphins live longer than mice in the first place. So it does all kinds of great things with regard to metabolic and liver and heart and immune health. Um, but you know, important for today's discussion is we made, uh, you know, as we got, we developed this pure C15 supplement, um, brought it to the world in cooperation with the Navy and, uh, you know, it started going out and we were taking it and my parents were taking it.

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Now, many, many, many people have taken it. And Molly, one of the three most common things people were reporting to us within weeks was I'm sleeping better.  Hmm. Like, huh, well, maybe it's a placebo effect and it wasn't kind of dolphins couldn't tell us they were sleeping better. And then I realized I was sleeping better.

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Right. And so I. Was a hall walker. Like my sleep pattern Molly was pretty reliably. I go to bed, you know, by like 10 or 11, wake up at two,  walk the hallways until like thoughts, whatever thoughts were out. Yes, go back to bed. And you know, that's just not a good, it's not a good night's sleep. Yeah. So, um, once I started taking fatty 15, I was realizing, oh my gosh, wait a second, I'm sleeping through the night and I hadn't even, you know, thought about it.

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So  as our sciences continue to progress, this has been a 10 year scientific journey, understanding C 15, um, and fatty 15 and. As the science progressed, we actually went back to the dolphin data and we found a second molecule that was predicting healthy aging dolphins. And it's called pentadecanoyl carnitine.

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Let's just call it ADC. Yes. Great.  And it ends up that our body uses C15 to make the second molecule, this metabolite. And as we published last year, that this molecule is the second ever discovered full acting endocannabinoid.  Which means it activates the same receptors that cannabis does in our brain and our body, which helps explain  the improved sleep, less pain, calmer mood that was coming from, you know, taking this nutrient that we all are supposed to have in our diet.

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Wow. So interesting. Okay, so with these discoveries, and you mentioned that this has been kind of a 10 year journey, and you've touched on what appears to be some of these differences from, if someone's listening, they're like, okay, is the takeaway that then I just supplement with some omegas. And it's not like that.

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What you're pointing to is that this is a whole new realm, right? Is, is that accurate that you're going to get those different results than traditional supplementation?  And we have seen for over the years that so many people will speak to even from a mental health perspective, which of course can spill into sleep, the approach for supplementing with some of these omegas, but.

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This is a different conversation, correct? Outside of that? You're spot on.  So yeah, this molecule is, you know, when we talk about omega, so that what they share, the umbrella that they share is that essential fatty acids include omega 3 and omega 6. And then now in this, like you had said, this completely different category of a fat acid in this, um, odd chain saturated fat world.

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So, uh, a whole new giant discovery that the dolphins gave us of an entirely new fatty acid family that is essential for us, especially as we age for protecting our cellular health. But now we're also understanding it's protecting our mental health and wellness. too, including sleep. And, you know, we talked about how C15 levels have been going down because we're eating less C15 in our diet.

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And one of our hypotheses are as  there are now global nutritional C15 deficiencies, evidence of this, and are those deficiencies feeding the rise in sleep disorders  that aren't activating these receptors the way we should. Because those receptors are sitting there waiting for us to give it the right molecules.

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And if we aren't eating C15, we're not making the second molecule that is really meant to be the ultimate body balancer in the endocannabinoid system. So really fascinating. Um, and the fix can be so easy, you know, it's getting C15 back into, into our world. Totally. Okay, so a quick tangent to behaviors.

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Are you someone that likes to advocate for getting more of this into your diet from a diet perspective? Or do you have concerns from like sourcing and issues there? Is that where it gets layered? It is. It's layered. So, you know, I think that we're, you know, the evidence is pointing that probably kids, right?

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Our youngest.  Most, most kids should probably go back to whole fat milk. It's, you know, when they're two years old, the nutritionist tell every parent to take your kid off of whole fat milk. Yeah. Evidence isn't really pointed now because our understanding of C 15 is like, gosh, these kids probably need that C 15 all the way through, you know, early development and whole fat milk is how they used to get it.

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So it may still be the right choice. thing for them. Sure. As an adult, we're living a long time, which is great. And so, but our bodies weren't necessarily made to  take, use dairy products throughout our whole life. And so the layers that you're talking about, Molly, um, absolutely. So, uh, when we look at our dairy fat as a primary source of C 15,  milk fat has only 1 percent of milk fat has C 15 in it, but over 40% 40 percent of that milk fat are these pro inflammatory saturated, even chain saturated fats like C 16 and C 18.

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So it becomes really hard for C 15 to to basically compete against the  Bad fats, which is why new studies have shown people with higher C 15 levels lower have a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, fatty liver disease, um, anxiety with depression, while people with higher levels of C 16, C 18 have a higher risk.

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Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, so it's this complication that we weren't intended to get milk our whole lives if you look at other mammals, right? Other mammals don't keep drinking milk as an adult, but can we leverage science to be able to You'll find individual ingredients that have, you know, a lot of power that can continue to help us longevity wise, sleep wise, and be able to bring that out so that it can then function in isolation, uh, without having to compete, uh, with other, you know, pro inflammatory fats.

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Sure. Okay. And so that's what fatty 15 is aiming to accomplish. So by extracting those components that we're going for less of what we're not going for. And so what might that look like if someone is tuning in and struggling with their sleep? Is there a different dosing schedule or kind of way that they should approach this for a sleep support?

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Or is that Just something that they would expect, uh, or not expect, but might see as a potential result in addition to some of the other reasons that people would be supplementing with fatty 15. Yeah, so fa yeah, so fatty 15 is, you know, all it is, it's a super small pill, which is really nice, and it's just a hundred milligrams of pure C 15 like that, is it?

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Yeah. So it's very easy to take and 95%, 99% of our customers report that it's become a routine part of their day, which. As you know, like developing new routines is like the  whole game. Yeah,  that has not been a problem because it's so easy. It doesn't there's no smell. There's no taste. It's yeah, it's easy to take.

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Um, and so, you know, I would have thought Molly that if you're taking it for sleep, probably better to take it in the evening.  Because are still. in eating it, and then the levels are going up in your blood. There's, you know, and then they will come back down. They still go into your cells, but as far as that activating these receptors that will help us with a calm mood and deeper sleep that you kind of catch that wave, you know, within two to four hours of going to bed.

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But I will say I take mine in the morning and I get the same benefits. So it's most people take it in the morning, but we just tell people to, um, kind of find their own fatty 15 journey. And I, we definitely know people who do take it in the evening and it works better for them there. But I, I, you know, it works for me just.

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By taking it in the morning. Great. No, that's perfect. If you've tuned into the show or followed any of our content here at Sleep is a Skill, you may have heard that everyone that we work with wears the Oura Ring. And as a result, we have amassed a very large database of Oura Ring users and get to see what really moves the needle for people when it comes to their sleep measurably.

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Now, because we have so much data around sleep optimization, many ask what they can do to improve their sleep quality. And for years, my answer has been that one of the few things I've seen makes such an overnight difference is the use of a quality cooling mattress topper, not just any ordinary topper that claims to be cooling with like gels or what have you, but an actual cooling topper that uses water and can be dynamically adjusted to suit your needs.

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There's more, more, more. So the system even includes a smart alarm feature that wakes you up during your lightest sleep phase. I know a lot of people have asked me about this, and this is included in here within a customizable time window, ensuring you wake up feeling refreshed and ready to start your day.

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Today, I want to talk to you about something that often flies under the radar, but is absolutely crucial for great sleep minerals. Now you've heard me talk about circadian rhythms, light exposure, temperature control, and more, but let's dive into the foundational elements that fuel our body's ability to sleep deeply and restoratively specifically minerals.

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Our modern lifestyle with its processed foods and environmental stressors. can leave us depleted of essential minerals. This depletion can mess with our sleep quality, leading to issues like restless legs, poor sleep initiation and waking up in the middle of the night. Enter beam minerals. Beam minerals are designed to replenish your body's essential mineral levels, providing the building blocks your body needs for optimal health.

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And this includes better sleep. What I love about beam is that they use a hundred percent bioavailable liquid minerals, which means your body can. actually absorb and utilize them instantly without any fillers or additives. Magnesium for example, is known as nature's relaxant, helping to calm the nervous system, support muscle relaxation, and some argue by extension can promote deep, restful sleep.

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Beam's magnesium is sourced in a way that ensures maximum absorption and effectiveness, making it a key part of my sleep routine. But beam doesn't stop there. They've created a comprehensive blend that includes other vital minerals like potassium, calcium, and trace minerals that work synergistically to support your overall health.

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And of course your sleep. The result, you wake up feeling more refreshed, more balanced and ready to take on the day. So if you've been struggling with sleep and feel like you've tried everything, it might be time to look at what's happening on a cellular level. Beam Minerals can help fill in those gaps and give your body the support it needs for truly restorative sleep.

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So head on over to Beam Minerals spelled B E A M. today and use the code sleep as a skill. All one word at checkout to get a special discount on your order, your body and your sleep. Well, thank you.  I love your website does a great job of kind of speaking to some of what distinguishes this from other companies or, you know, kind of products in this arena.

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And I'm wondering if you can speak to some of the science that that you share that kind of is out of the norm. So some of these other companies that might be aiming to support in the similar way might not have this on hand and certainly not these specifics that you're speaking to. So I'm wondering if you can just share a bit more about that research you've done.

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Yeah, absolutely. So there is, there's a lot of research on C 15 now and chances are a lot of your listeners may have Never heard about C 15. So the science world has been working on it for like 10 years, but now we're getting to the point where it's like, okay, it's starting to spill over, um, in a good way, um, into, into consumer world.

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So, um, you know, with, uh, C 15, uh, we've done a lot of work with it. That first round of science we did was really focused on, What level of C 15 do we need to have in our bodies for it to be active and beneficial? And we really focused on things like, you know, with regard to metabolic health and liver and cardiac health.

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And so we're able to show that it helps with regard to protecting, um, the, our livers, you know, fatty liver disease. is a major issue, uh, present in one in three people globally. It's absolutely tied to poor sleep. Um, we work with Rady Children's Hospital here with the first ever, uh, fatty liver disease clinic opened by, uh, Dr.

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Jeff Schwimmer. And he says his kids are not sleeping, um, that have fatty liver disease. Sure. And that, as you know, that just snowballs into your body. Yeah, of course. Just feeds the whole beast of poor metabolism. So. Yeah. Um, so as we're doing this work, it's, we're seeing, okay, it's helping with the liver, it's helping lower cholesterol, it's helping with glucose control, it's helping lower inflammation.

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Um, so all of these things that we expect for an essential nutrient that is meant to keep us healthy for as long as possible. Um, so then, um, research we then did is once it was recognized as an essential fatty acid, which there are only two prior to,  essential fatty acid means that our bodies must have certain levels of this nutrient or we fall apart and our bodies can't make enough of it.

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So it means that we have to get it from our diet or from supplements.  So once we made that distinction, Molly, we then said, well, let's test it.  C 15, pure C 15, fatty C 15, head to head against pure omega 3 EPA.  Let's see how it does. And that's where we did this really extensive study. We did over 12 different human cell systems, mimicking various disease states, 148 different biomarkers.

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And in the end, what we found was that pure C 15 had all the same benefits as omega 3 EPA. Plus three times more. So it had 36 cellular benefits that is that has benefits across our entire body, really showing that C 15 is emerging as the essential. essential fatty acid. Um, so that's been, uh, been a lot of fun.

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And then our last most recent study, uh, was we then put C15, uh, fatty 15 head to head against the leading longevity molecules, things like rapamycin, metformin, and carbose. And Molly, we showed that C15 was better than those.  a big paper on that, um, and nutrients just last year. And, uh, you know, showed that it is a leading molecule that is nature has intended this to help us live long, happy, healthy lives.

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Oh, my goodness. Well, that's very exciting. And just pulling from some of the things that are on the site one thing because we do talk a lot about mitochondrial health on this podcast for getting great sleep for mitochondria is ability to help us in the production of melatonin and many other reasons why kind of that strong mitochondrial functioning could support improved sleep results.

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And one of the notes here says keeps mitochondria working for a 45 percent improvement in mitochondrial function and a study supporting that any. callouts there because that's quite fascinating and big numbers. Yeah, I mean mitochondria, right? It's at the heart of everything, right? Aging is at the heart of chronic diseases, is at the heart of quality of, you know, of our wellness, including our sleep.

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And so if the batteries in ourselves go out, peter out. We paid the price for that pretty quickly. So, uh, we, we were able to show in our studies that, um, that when mitochondria, uh, that were dysfunctional were then treated with C 15,  we were able to get back what you shared, which is that we could actually repair mitochondria, um, and increase that energy production by 45%,  which is Which is great.

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I mean, and again, all of this speaks to  it's essential. Like, this is like, no, really, it's really essential. Like, our bodies are using it in many different ways. And another one relevant to sleep is we also found that C 15, um, activates this receptor called PPAR alpha.  And PPR alpha, we have these receptors throughout our body and our brain.

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It's long been used to look at things like metabolism, um, helping to keep things like triglycerides low and balancing our immunity. But more recently, they're finding that PPR alpha activation is also important for our brain health, including sleep. Uh, so C 15 has a lot of, um, basically, uh, shots on. a goal to help us with our sleep.

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Uh, and you know, it's, it's been, it's been a great journey. So interesting. Well, one, thank you so much for the work that you're doing, the enthusiasm that you're bringing to this topic. And this is very illuminating for me because Heard amazing things about this and I've just started to be supplementing it myself and I'm excited to keep following the and see how this all comes together.

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So to hear some of this background information is very encouraging. And now I'm pulling up some of these studies, so I'm excited to dive in. So before we shift over into learning a bit more about how you're managing your own sleep with all this knowledge, dolphin and otherwise, is there anything you want to make sure that we hit on or that we didn't properly address thus far in this topic of, you know, this fatty 15 and sleep?

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Yeah, I think, you know, the main thing is it's reiterating this. You know, understanding that, you know, C 15, this nutrient that most of us have never heard, heard of, is the science behind it, which is available at discoverc15. com, has all of the peer reviewed science. But what we're learning, it's not just us anymore, right?

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So this is, the world is turning its attention onto C 15 and discovering how essential it is. The urgency, is really coming from the fact that, you know, The belief and understanding that low C 15 levels can be driving this rise in type 2 diabetes, heart disease, sleep disorders, even certain types of cancer, especially among younger and younger people.

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And so, you know, the urgency comes from this is something that could be relatively easy to fix. Um, Not just through a supplement, but how do we just get C 15 back out as an ingredient to the world? Um, or, you know, it's not often you get a chance to, you know, like we say it in our company to save the world.

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And we're, you know, we always say save the dolphin, save the world, uh, here, here at our team. Oh, I love that. That's amazing. And so I'm actually just now thinking out loud. I don't know if this would apply, but one of the things I've seen, I have certain clients that have come my way that they're psychiatrists have then had literally prescribe omegas for their mental health and I know I keep kind of blanket and we're talking about different things I know but I'm just curious if you think that there would be application from a true kind of mental health support I know and this is we're just chatting not certainly and not prescriptions or anything.

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But do you think that there's an application there from that anti anxiety perspective or lowering of some of that kind of rumination patterns? Any callouts there? We think so. So studies are early, um, for sure. But what was interesting was when we were initially studying C15  and trying to understand, you know, how does it work and at what levels, one of the studies we did was called, um, cell based phenotypic, human cell based phenotypic profiling.

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And what it does is it gathers a whole lot of data on how the, how, um, cells respond to C 15. And it has a bunch of data points and they then compare it to profiles of known, um, drugs and nutrients and compounds. And at low levels, um, with fatty 15, remarkably, it matched with bupropion, which is one of the most common antidepressants.

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Yeah.  Steady. What that study tells us is it predicts that C 15 has the same behaviors at this lower dose to bupropion, uh, which is fascinating when you add on top of this, this metabolite of C 15 we talked about called PDC.  Being an endocannabinoid and being able to calm anxiety and recently an epidemiological study where they looked at a bunch of people in the US population and they showed that people who and these were people who are diagnosed with major depressive disorder.

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And they showed that, um, people, uh, that had higher C 15 had a lower risk of anxiety as part of this disease. So you know, it's the, it's building and we have a lot of customer testimonials, um, a lot of talking about how it's lowering their anxiety. It's lowering mine for sure. Um, but we want to step into it carefully you know, we're just going to keep following the science and moving forward on some clinical trials. Um,  so exciting. Well, that's fascinating. Thanks for sharing. Even just, I know that piece is kind of new and still exploring, but that's fantastic to hear. So encouraging. And so curious to hear some about how you're managing your own sleep as someone who's clearly thought deeply about some of these topics.

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So exciting. So we ask every person that comes on four questions. And the first one is, what does your nightly sleep routine look like right now? Right now, I basically I, uh, aim to go to bed at about 10. I  definitely in bed by 11. Yes.  totally,  as you can imagine, brain constantly like running. A hundred percent.

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So, um, and, uh, what, and I'll, I'll leave it at that. I, so yeah, and then my, and then I'll wake up, um, reliably, um, even without an alarm. At six. At 6:00 AM Sure. Um, so sometimes it gets pushed a little or,  uh, but. That's the general goal.  Love it. Okay. Amazing. And so, so, um, the structure around the consistency of bedtime and wake time sounds very clear.

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What might we see in your morning sleep routine with the thinking that how we start our day could impact our sleep results? Yeah, I, uh, I start with a nice hot shower in the morning. I just, I get up, um, and it just helps me before I go into like zoom mode that, uh, it's, it's, I'm, I need to take a shower.  I have to lay my shelf.

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Yes. It's like your morning coffee or something. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So that, and then I, I do, I have my coffee in the morning uh, along with uh, my Baddie 15. That's when I take mine. Oh, nice. Very cool. Okay. Perfect. And so what might we see on your nightstand? Or maybe if you're traveling, you know, just in your environment, supplements, apps, etc.

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Yeah, I try to have as little as possible on my nightstand. Beautiful. We've seen that as a real through line as like a true strategy, the minimalist approach.  Exactly. So, um, it's hard to have my phone completely out of reach. I know. I know. Yeah. And I will sometimes use, you know, sometimes use like word games or things like that to calm my mind down.

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Yep. Non exciting games, non stressful, kind of like a routine that I know my brain can just go through. Yeah, totally. Unwind and uh, allow myself to then be ready for bed and the phone is, is, there's no sound, there's no, it's, it's not allowed to interrupt the sleep. I love it. Okay, great. And then what would you say so far has made the biggest change to your sleep game or said another way biggest aha moment in managing your sleep?

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Right. So in addition to FAT 15, of course,  not a blatant, solid, it's genuine.  Totally. Um, but the next biggest Molly is Exercise is like,  that's sometimes, you know, schedule gets busy and exercise falls off as a priority. And then I'm not, you know, not sleeping as well. And then it's just, I'm always reminded that  being even just going for a walk, but even more importantly, you know, where I'll aim to get like an hour of exercise, like 30 minutes of aerobic and 30 minutes of resistance training.

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And I'm one of those weird people that does it at night. Sure. I, I, it always improves my sleep and it's always,  it's always in a hollow. It's like, oh yeah.  That's so good. And I so appreciate the two. That's so funny. I just led a talk earlier today for this big group. And one of the things that we were touching on was exercise timing from a circadian component.

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And it was one of the aspects that was, it's like this odd anomaly or not anomaly, but it's a little outside of some of the more clear, you know, zeitgeibers or time givers, you know, with our light dark and our meal timing and certain things, whereas exercise so odd, where we can see some first off so crucial, so important, like you're pointing to.

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And so like, truly pretty much anywhere we can get it in as long as maybe not like right before bed. But for the most part, as long as we can get that in that can be so, so beneficial. And then there's much more. bleeding in where we're seeing evidence where people are able to work out later into the evening and have great results is, you know, and of course we're mindful and we're testing and seeing how that's working for each person, but for the most part, that can be great.

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And it sounds like it's working for you. Yeah, it works great for me because I am a morning person. And so when my brain is on, I'm ready to put it to work.  And my brain is a bit fried by the time I get to early evening. Yeah.  It's an exercise is a great is a great way to use that time. And so it's worked for me, but I get it's definitely not the norm.

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But for me, it works really well. 100%. And we also have some of the evidence to support the late afternoon time zone for now where our body temperatures up less likelihood of injury. So certain things there, and then we also see, depending on the type of exercise, obviously, I'm like, you know, blanket, um, pointing to exercise, but there can be so many.

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And some people we've seen to actually think of it as a true, like, wind down when they'll do like an evening yoga with candles or whatever. And that can be really relaxing and kind of a nice top off to the end of the day. So love that. Great. Amazing. Okay. So for anyone that now with some of the great information that you've brought, might want to learn more about fatty 15, you beyond what are all the steps to take to do that?

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Absolutely. So you can go to, uh, fatty 15. com and that's where you can, uh, See the supplement and read all the science, um, behind that, uh, learn more. There's an hour story page. So we have a cute little, um, Ted talk about the whole dolphin discovery, uh, with the Navy. Uh, there's a lot of fun stuff, um, to, to look up there and to understand how it works and all of that good stuff.

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Uh, fun testimonials a lot. So you slicking ones. Um, and yeah,  There's a lot of them there. Uh, and, uh, to learn more about C 15, um, as shared, if you go to  discoverc15. com, uh, that's really the heart of why we're doing what we're doing. Um, the science has been coming out and, and really excited. And Molly, thank you for helping to bring C 15, uh, awareness to the world.

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Oh, well, thank you so much for taking the time and for the work that you're doing. I mean, I was already excited about this topic and what this could make available. But now after having this conversation with you, I'm even more excited. So now I'm going to go down the rabbit hole a bit more. So I've got all kinds of tabs open now, right?

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I'm gonna need to explore. So thank you. Thank you for the work that you're doing and the enthusiasm that you're bringing to this topic. So, so cool. And dolphins, I didn't even quite know what I was in for in this conversation. So I love it.  Thanks, Molly. It was fun. Thank you.  You've been listening to the CBC.

Sleep as a skill podcast, the top podcast for people who want to take their sleep skills to the next level. Every Monday I send out the sleep obsessions newsletter, which aims to be one of the most obsessive newsletters on the planet. Fun fact, I've never missed a Monday for over five years and counting.

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And it contains everything that you need to know in the fascinating world of sleep. Head on over to sleep as a skill. com forward slash newsletter to sign up.