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Restoring the Cellular Energy We Lose With Age With Baran Dilaver · Age Defiantly with Mark Young

• 0:00
  We're mostly concerned about the symptoms.
• 0:01
  You only go to the hospital when you have a problem.
• 0:04
  You go to the doctor, in most cases, when you have a problem.
• 0:07
  And unfortunately, the doctors are so busy, they don't have a lot of time to really dive into what the root cause may be.
• 0:13
  Our system is not able to invest in the preventive approach.
• 0:17
  We spend so much money in sick care, and then there are some real easy fixes, like change or...
• 0:23
  So I want to talk about what you guys are doing specifically with NMN because NMN has been a conversation and in some cases has actually been restricted from even purchase on Amazon.
• 0:33
  And there's a controversy, there's a buzz around NMN.
• 0:36
  NMN is actually a precursor to NADD+.
• 0:41
  But I want you to unpack the necessity of NMN in the body because to me, it is one of my five hallmarks of longevity.
• 0:50
  very basic things that people need to avoid, such as
• 0:56
  We are back with another episode of Age Defiantly.
• 1:01
  And I am joined by a guest who, for those of you who love the supplement world, and I'm going to say that the deeper dive supplements, not the vitamin C, vitamin Bs kind of stuff.
• 1:11
  But we're going to get a little bit of a deeper dive here today with some science that some of you may enjoy and some of you may just completely glaze over.
• 1:19
  But for the sake of longevity, I'm going to tell you, stay watching because this is a good one.
• 1:23
  Um, and truthfully, normally I come into these podcasts and know a lot about the topic already.
• 1:28
  Uh, but I'm here to learn today too.
• 1:31
  So you're going to learn right alongside me and I'm going to ask all of the questions that maybe you've been asking too.
• 1:36
  We are joined today by Baran Dilivar, and he is the co-founder and CEO of Wonderfield Biosciences, a longevity-focused bioscience company he launched in 2022 alongside Dr. Andrew Saltzman, who is a Harvard-trained MD.
• 1:53
  and Patricia Ryan.
• 1:55
  Wonderfeel's flagship product is Younger NMN, something I am fascinated by, and it combines high-dose NMN with resveratrol, egotheanine, you're going to question me on all of these things, and olive-derived hydroxytaurisol to support cellular NADD-plus levels.
• 2:14
  Before Wonderfield, Baran held CEO and COO roles at both public and private companies, including Longevity Biotech Fellowship, Futurescape LLC, Lifest, and AccessX.
• 2:27
  He's spoken at the Biohacker Summit, the Beyond Biohacking Conference, and has discussed NAD and NMN Science on podcasts alongside figures such as Dr. Mark Hyman and Dave Asprey.
• 2:40
  His stated mission, help repair a broken healthcare system by empowering human cells to prevent disease before it starts, rather than treating it after the disease has already taken hold.
• 2:54
  Baran, I welcome you today to Age Defiantly, which with that introduction, I don't think there's a better named podcast for you to actually be on.
• 3:04
  Paul, thank you so much for having us.
• 3:06
  We appreciate it, and I'm excited.
• 3:08
  A pleasure, because one of the things that I find a lot of, and I'm going to say this, I always want to know about the person behind this stuff first, because I think that all of the science and stuff that we could talk on a podcast—
• 3:20
  I want to know who I'm listening to, first of all, because if I don't find that person themselves is interesting, all of the things they share is kind of irrelevant to me.
• 3:28
  So I'm going to ask you this this terrible, awful question.
• 3:32
  Tell us a little bit about Baran.
• 3:34
  Like what brought you here?
• 3:36
  I know the worst question ever, isn't it?
• 3:39
  You're an expert on every topic except yourself.
• 3:43
  Yeah, I mean, I don't call myself much of an expert, but, you know, I do have great exposure to certain topics, which are exciting.
• 3:52
  And so if you're curious about my accent, it's a Turkish accent.
• 3:55
  I came to the U.S. about almost 30 years ago, went to college in Berkeley, and ever since, I've been in San Francisco Bay Area.
• 4:03
  doing mostly startups and turning them into companies.
• 4:07
  So it's been a good run.
• 4:09
  And what really brought me here is a wonderful encounter with Dr. Sossman.
• 4:14
  I watched him in one of the medical conferences and I was just blown away.
• 4:18
  The way he was answering questions, how humble he was, but how knowledgeable he was.
• 4:23
  And this guy,
• 4:24
  is one of those true geniuses.
• 4:26
  He's got over 170 papers cited over 12,000 times, Harvard Medical Doctor, inventor, scientist.
• 4:35
  And one of his discoveries, fixing the broken BRCA gene that causes ovarian cancer and breast cancer, is directly related to what we do, because while he was doing that, working with something called a PARP inhibitor,
• 4:49
  He's discovered a lot about NAD, cellular function, and his original papers are still cited today.
• 4:57
  So he was one of the pioneers.
• 4:58
  And one other thing that, you know, in the early 90s that he pioneered was understanding the leaky gut.
• 5:04
  Him and his mentor at the time, they were the first ones to talk about leaky gut.
• 5:10
  So I was just fascinated by him and I wanted to see if he will be an advisor to one of my future projects.
• 5:16
  And next thing we know, we were able to bring this genius who's a legend in the pharmaceutical space into our world.
• 5:24
  You know, we are in between.
• 5:26
  We are both doing nutraceuticals and then we are doing diagnostics.
• 5:30
  So we are a bioscience biotech company.
• 5:33
  So but it's really wonderful to work with him and his research team.
• 5:38
  I love that.
• 5:39
  Actually, I met you guys.
• 5:41
  You probably don't remember me.
• 5:42
  I crashed your party down in Austin.
• 5:45
  Oh, yeah, of course.
• 5:46
  Yes.
• 5:47
  At the biohacking conference.
• 5:50
  Dylan Gimeli.
• 5:51
  Yep.
• 5:53
  I was there with Dylan and Queenie.
• 5:55
  And what's funny is I was trying to catch up with Dylan that day, and we never did.
• 5:59
  It was just a nonstop passing each other at the biohacking conference.
• 6:03
  And Sean Drake and Kiki.
• 6:07
  Um, also very dear friends of mine and John Kim.
• 6:11
  Uh, we were all there.
• 6:12
  I mean, I'm close friends with Nat Nidham.
• 6:14
  I mean, they were all there, but the, uh, what's funny is that the last minute I said something to Sean, he's like, we have an extra seat.
• 6:21
  You're coming with us.
• 6:22
  And I'm like, I'm not crashing apart.
• 6:23
  And he's like, it's Wonderfield's party.
• 6:24
  You're coming with us.
• 6:25
  And I'm like, dude, like, I'd really rather stay back.
• 6:28
  And he's like, I didn't say it was optional.
• 6:29
  I'll pick you up at the hotel.
• 6:30
  Um.
• 6:33
  Next thing you know, I'm at a Wonderfield party, and I'll be honest with you, it was a great time.
• 6:36
  Like, I really enjoyed it.
• 6:38
  Well, I really enjoyed you guys coming.
• 6:40
  So it was really wonderful for us to, like, all of you are so curious with what you do.
• 6:46
  You ask such good questions.
• 6:48
  So we were just, you know, delighted to have you guys.
• 6:53
  Yeah, it was a great time.
• 6:54
  And it was, I laughingly say that, like, going into that room, it was kind of like a who's who kind of room.
• 6:59
  And it was, I mean, it was Sean Wells and...
• 7:02
  Dylan Jameli and Nat Nidham and I have the other people that were there.
• 7:07
  But it was like, it was like all of these people.
• 7:09
  I'm like, wow, it's like so cool to see everybody in the same room because I hate to say this, like we're all friends, except we only get to see each other at conferences and on podcasts.
• 7:22
  It's always like you get all these big names together in the room and it's like, oh, we all just get to chill out and, you know, have a drink and enjoy some music together.
• 7:29
  That's always exciting.
• 7:31
  Well, Buran, I've got a question for you, if you could help me start this conversation, because you use the words and you're not the only one to say this.
• 7:40
  So this is not unique to you.
• 7:41
  But I want to hear your perspective, because you say the health care system is broken.
• 7:46
  Yeah.
• 7:48
  And again, you're one of millions of people that have probably said this.
• 7:52
  In what way would you define that?
• 7:55
  And I want to know from your position, because my follow-up question to you, I'll put it in there and say, how are you helping fix it specifically?
• 8:04
  So in what way do you see the breakage?
• 8:07
  And in what way do you believe that you or maybe just the longevity movement in general is fixing this?
• 8:15
  Well, I mean, we're mostly concerned about the symptoms.
• 8:18
  You only go to the hospital when you have a problem.
• 8:20
  You go to the doctor, in most cases, when you have a problem.
• 8:24
  And unfortunately, the doctors are so busy, they don't have a lot of time to really dive into what the root cause may be.
• 8:31
  They do have some quick fixes and some of them are great fixes.
• 8:34
  There's no question about it.
• 8:35
  I mean, we absolutely need them.
• 8:39
  Very few people or our system is not able to invest in the preventive approach.
• 8:45
  Well, what if we can predict the things before they happen, right?
• 8:49
  So sure, you do your checkup, you get like, you know, 40 things measured, but that's not enough.
• 8:54
  That doesn't give you enough of a picture.
• 8:58
  And then you end up spending so much money, and you meaning like our entire country, we spend so much money in sick care.
• 9:06
  So sick care is very expensive.
• 9:08
  You're in the hospital.
• 9:09
  You're taken care of.
• 9:10
  You're trying to be fixed.
• 9:13
  So, I mean, as you said, I'm not the first one who talks about it.
• 9:16
  There are many people who are now identifying it.
• 9:19
  And then there are some real...
• 9:21
  Easy fixes, I will say easy fixes, like, you know, change or to change some of your habits.
• 9:27
  That makes a huge difference in, you know, preventing us from going to the hospital.
• 9:32
  And so the way we are trying to help with that is...
• 9:37
  We have a current product in the markets and we are thrilled to see the feedback from customers, how it's helping.
• 9:43
  But furthermore, we've been doing deep research in coming up with diagnostics that could be even used in ICUs that could tell you, that could tell the doctors what to prescribe, what not to prescribe and when to stop prescribing.
• 9:57
  Because even right now, doctors are prescribing based on the symptom they see.
• 10:03
  Well, what if they could tell that the recovery inside the body has been already happening and they don't have to continue giving these very strong pharmaceuticals that have side effects?
• 10:17
  Just as important as discovering something before it comes on.
• 10:21
  It's also important to get people off to pharmaceuticals once you know the body is already on its way to recover.
• 10:27
  So our approach is find ways to empower the body to do what it's best at.
• 10:35
  Your body is incredible in recovering itself, right?
• 10:38
  Absolutely.
• 10:39
  And, you know, one of the metaphors that I've used has been this idea that I, you know, I walk with crutches while my ankle is healing.
• 10:47
  But once the ankle is healed, I don't continue to walk with crutches, right?
• 10:51
  I will cause a hundred other problems in my body.
• 10:54
  And yet when it comes to pharmaceuticals, we put people on them as if this is now a lifetime event.
• 11:00
  And it's your body, when it learns to walk on crutches, stops building leg strength.
• 11:06
  Now it doesn't need it anymore.
• 11:07
  And it's one of the issues, and it's why I love what you guys are doing, actually.
• 11:11
  But I want to draw the connection between exogenous solutions and other types of ways to tap into the body's own self-repair.
• 11:22
  And that is, when we talk about things like exogenous ketones, exogenous testosterone, like anything that the body is taking in, the minute you start introducing this stuff en masse,
• 11:34
  you signal the body that it doesn't need to produce it anymore because it already exists in plenty.
• 11:41
  And one of the ways that we can actually get around that is by absorbing or ingesting precursors
• 11:50
  Rather than actually taking complete, I would say, molecules, if you will, like let the body do its work, provide it the building blocks so that it because it knows how to assemble these things.
• 12:01
  Right.
• 12:02
  It's the whole peptide story that I'm taking a peptide because my body knows how to move those into proteins.
• 12:09
  So I want to talk about what you guys are doing specifically with NMN, because NMN has been a conversation and in some cases has actually been restricted for even purchase on Amazon and like all of these other things.
• 12:21
  So there's a controversy, there's a buzz around NMN.
• 12:25
  And NMN is actually nicotinamide mononucleotide for people who are not familiar or care.
• 12:31
  But NMN is actually a precursor to NADD+.
• 12:36
  And NADD+, of course, is nicotinamide, adenide, dinucleotide.
• 12:41
  And we all hear about NADD+, like skincare now has NADD+, and every supplement in town contains NADD+, and we're doing NADD+, you know, IV drips and 4,000 other things.
• 12:52
  Yeah.
• 12:53
  But I want you to unpack the necessity of NMN in the body, because to me, it is one of my five hallmarks of longevity.
• 13:03
  You know, and yours actually contains resveratrol, which is a second of one of my hallmarks for longevity.
• 13:08
  So I want to hear all about this.
• 13:11
  Well, thank you.
• 13:12
  If you don't mind, I like to use your analogy of the crutches.
• 13:15
  It's a wonderful one.
• 13:16
  Oh, I'm the man of many metaphors, so please.
• 13:20
  And I would love to tell the NAD story with an analogy as well.
• 13:25
  I think it might give people a better understanding of what's going on, because a lot of my friends, they've heard about NAD, NAD+.
• 13:33
  NAD, NAD+, we're talking about the same thing.
• 13:36
  So I might call it NAD.
• 13:37
  You might call it NAD+.
• 13:39
  Yeah, a lot of my friends have heard about it.
• 13:41
  They know what I do, but they sometimes get confused.
• 13:44
  It's like, tell me again.
• 13:45
  So think about, first of all, NAD is crucial to our existence.
• 13:51
  Without NAD, you'll be dead in 10 seconds.
• 13:55
  Your body produces billions of it every day.
• 13:58
  And it takes place in over 500 enzymatic processes.
• 14:03
  And 70% of it goes into ATP production, energy production in the body.
• 14:09
  So a lot of terminology here.
• 14:10
  So that's why the analogy.
• 14:12
  Let me unpack it real quick to our audience, because we speak in acronyms here in our world.
• 14:17
  Yeah.
• 14:18
  And ATP, for those of you who are paying attention to the acronyms here, is actually the equivalent of like cellular energy or mitochondrial energy.
• 14:27
  So think of the electricity that's taking place at the cellular level.
• 14:31
  That's ATP.
• 14:32
  So NAT plus is or NAD is required in order to create ATP.
• 14:38
  And ATP is what keeps the cell active.
• 14:40
  So please go on.
• 14:43
  So now think about our bodies as a valley.
• 14:49
  It's a valley with like villages on it.
• 14:51
  And think about NAD as the life source, the water, the river that runs through this valley.
• 14:57
  And it's feeding the valley.
• 14:58
  It's feeding the people.
• 14:59
  People are using for irrigation, for their crops, for their orchards, for their farms.
• 15:05
  People are using the water in their houses to clean, cleaner dishes, for drinking water.
• 15:10
  They even fish from it.
• 15:12
  They use it for transportation.
• 15:15
  And think about, like, up the stream, there's a big dam that holds that water.
• 15:22
  So what happens is the problem, actually.
• 15:24
  NAD is, you know, something very functional.
• 15:27
  What happens is as you age, your NAD levels decrease.
• 15:32
  And in our analogy, think about the water level coming down or getting a little bit polluted.
• 15:39
  And what that means is not only one thing.
• 15:43
  So it could mean that your strawberry fields are not providing as many good fresh strawberries that year, or perhaps your apple orchards are suffering.
• 15:55
  Or from the same perspective, maybe you don't get as much fish in the water anymore.
• 16:00
  It's a bit polluted or it's fished out.
• 16:02
  So you're declining NAD levels.
• 16:05
  Everybody's different.
• 16:06
  Every valley is different, actually.
• 16:07
  Think about many different valleys in many different geographies.
• 16:11
  It could be like in the northern countries.
• 16:13
  It could be like in the Ecuador.
• 16:15
  So we are so different.
• 16:17
  That's why it's not just one thing, and that's why sometimes it gets confusing when we talk about the benefits bringing back to NAD levels, to your youth levels.
• 16:29
  And these are also long-term impacts and effects.
• 16:33
  Your NAD levels decline over time.
• 16:37
  In your valley analogy, the water may be declining all equally everywhere.
• 16:44
  So some people might not recognize much.
• 16:46
  Maybe your apple orchards are still producing great apples, maybe 3% less from a few years ago.
• 16:53
  Your strawberry fields may be producing a little less strawberries, but they're still great.
• 16:57
  So you don't really recognize much.
• 16:59
  because you're getting all the great stuff.
• 17:01
  But in some people, maybe the strawberry field is completely dead.
• 17:05
  So that means maybe your liver is not functioning well.
• 17:08
  Maybe your skin has problems.
• 17:11
  Maybe you're not able to cope with the sunshine.
• 17:15
  So the idea is, can you bring back any D levels?
• 17:18
  And this is why...
• 17:21
  NAD has become such a buzzword.
• 17:22
  NAD is not a new discovery.
• 17:24
  It's been discovered.
• 17:26
  It was discovered in 1906.
• 17:28
  The discovery is the precursors.
• 17:31
  Mostly Harvard and MIT medical schools have led the fields.
• 17:35
  And only in the last 10 years, we understood that you can bring back NAD levels in a healthy way using precursors like NMN and NR, nicotinamide ribosides and nicotinamide mononucleotides.
• 17:49
  So these are also molecules your body makes in billions.
• 17:53
  So they're also very natural.
• 17:55
  And then they go inside the cell.
• 17:59
  And that's where you need the NAD, inside the cell.
• 18:02
  That's where NAD matters.
• 18:04
  That's where the actions happen.
• 18:07
  Can I ask you a question, Baron?
• 18:08
  For the people who are listening to this, and again, I love the metaphor, the idea that as that water dries up or gets polluted somehow,
• 18:17
  every part of the ecosystem that's water dependent ends up being affected at some level and some faster than others.
• 18:25
  You know, my my original question was going to be, what does this feel like on a daily basis to a person who's struggling with with NAD levels being low?
• 18:35
  But I think I'm going to answer my own question and say, depends on the person.
• 18:38
  Right.
• 18:39
  It depends.
• 18:39
  I mean, one person's strawberry field gets affected.
• 18:42
  One person's apple orchard gets affected.
• 18:44
  Yeah.
• 18:45
  And it's the same as we talk in functional medicine.
• 18:49
  It's the same root cause.
• 18:51
  It's just manifesting in different symptoms.
• 18:53
  And to a Western medicine-minded person, if you're treating the symptom, the symptom may be 12 different systems that are all being impacted with one root cause, right?
• 19:05
  Fix the root and you may fix all 12 symptoms.
• 19:07
  Yeah.
• 19:08
  My question for you is, I'm going to throw out a weird one here for you and ask, we talk about as you age, right?
• 19:14
  And as you age to me, like it's such a repulsive phrase, trying to do it defiantly, Baron.
• 19:21
  The question that I have for you is, is the lower NAD levels in the body the result of aging?
• 19:30
  Or is aging the result of lower NAD levels in the body?
• 19:37
  That's a great question.
• 19:38
  I will answer that in understanding one other part of the biology in us.
• 19:45
  So why are the NAD levels going down is kind of the question, right?
• 19:50
  Well, maybe why are they going down?
• 19:53
  But again, to my question, am I aging because my NAD levels are going down?
• 19:58
  Yeah.
• 19:58
  Or are my NAD levels going down because I'm aging?
• 20:01
  It's kind of a chicken or the egg sort of situation for you.
• 20:04
  I don't know that there's an answer, but...
• 20:07
  I mean, I think the field has concluded that, you know, lower NAD levels are directly correlated with aging.
• 20:16
  So less NAD.
• 20:17
  Yeah.
• 20:19
  means your organs are not getting the energy that they need to function.
• 20:24
  So it depends on the person, but they're all suffering.
• 20:30
  But I do like to also think about why are the NAD levels coming down?
• 20:35
  What does that mean?
• 20:36
  You're aging.
• 20:37
  Why are you not optimally producing NAD?
• 20:41
  Is there a reason?
• 20:43
  We don't have the answer to that, but we have an answer to why are the NAD levels going down, because it's more than just one thing.
• 20:50
  It's more than NAD production going down, which we're not 100% sure like how that's if that's happening.
• 20:56
  But we know one thing for sure, that there is an enzyme in the body.
• 21:00
  It's an immune system enzyme, CD38s.
• 21:04
  And it goes up as you age.
• 21:07
  And some of it is good, but you don't want too much of it.
• 21:10
  And it just chews up NAD.
• 21:12
  So CD38 levels going up means your NAD levels are going down.
• 21:18
  So it does make sense to also address the CD38s eating up NAD, because you don't want too much of this enzyme in your system.
• 21:27
  Well, let me ask you a question.
• 21:29
  So why does that enzyme increase production?
• 21:34
  Is there a reason if that is what's eating?
• 21:37
  I'm thinking of it as, for instance, the difference between free testosterone and
• 21:47
  actual testosterone production, right, is because you're looking at like a sex hormone binding globulin, right?
• 21:54
  So I'm talking now about SHBG and how levels of SHBG are actually eating up testosterone.
• 22:02
  So you get a lot of men as they age
• 22:04
  that testosterone production may not have changed but the amount of available testosterone in the body is being reduced simply because of the increase in SHBG.
• 22:16
  Is it a similar type thing that you're talking about here?
• 22:18
  I think I can explain part of it with something very fundamental.
• 22:24
  And I think we can connect the dots that way.
• 22:27
  So it goes back into your guts.
• 22:32
  So your gut, your intestines, you know, it's one of the organs that work the hardest.
• 22:37
  You know, you eat one to three times a day and they are constantly working, trying to absorb these good nutrition and trying to keep away the toxins and the bacteria that the bad guys.
• 22:50
  And I mean, if you think about like how much energy goes into intestines, you know, how do you feel after you have a big lunch or big dinner?
• 22:58
  Yeah.
• 22:59
  I'm usually not ready to take on any cognitive tasks.
• 23:03
  I'm a little sluggish.
• 23:04
  I don't like to go for a run.
• 23:08
  That's because your intestines, they absorb incredible amount of energy to do their job.
• 23:14
  And to get into a little bit more detail, if you take your guts and intestines and spread it out, it will be as big as almost a tennis field.
• 23:23
  And every single square inch of that field is working hard.
• 23:28
  You know, we have the tight junctions there.
• 23:31
  So these tight junctions, they allow the good nutrition through, and they fight the bad toxins and the bacterias and et cetera.
• 23:41
  And this is where we are getting into the whole leaky guts and the vicious cycle.
• 23:45
  So what happens is if you don't have enough energy –
• 23:49
  then those tight junctions don't work as well.
• 23:52
  Then the bad guys get through.
• 23:55
  And then once they get through, what happens is inflammation.
• 23:58
  So the inflammation...
• 24:00
  You know, your body needs to react to these toxins.
• 24:02
  Some of them could be deadly.
• 24:04
  So your body is smart.
• 24:06
  So it puts the energy in there fighting these guys.
• 24:08
  And guess what they need to fight that?
• 24:11
  They need NAD.
• 24:12
  They need creatine.
• 24:13
  They need energy.
• 24:14
  But it's coming out from somewhere else.
• 24:18
  But the more...
• 24:20
  holes that you have, the more energy goes into fixing the problem, kind of what we were talking about, like the sick care, like the leaky gut you have, the more energy goes into fighting the inflammation.
• 24:33
  And now starts the vicious cycle, that more of your energy goes into fighting the bacteria, the bad guys, instead of recovering or sending the energy somewhere else.
• 24:44
  So CD38, that enzyme I mentioned, is part of it.
• 24:48
  It's part of that immune system response.
• 24:50
  So it's very, very likely, that's one of our theories, we're trying to prove it in the lab, is that leaky gut is directly related to aging.
• 25:02
  As we age, or guts, which are one of the most important systems in our body, is not functioning as optimally.
• 25:12
  And then taking up more energy.
• 25:14
  And that also, like if you have leaky guts or if you have issues in your guts, you have cognition problems.
• 25:21
  You know, people with Parkinson's disease, almost like, you know, 60, 70% of them have a terrible, terrible gut.
• 25:29
  Or even more, I think.
• 25:30
  So there's direct correlation with cognition and your guts.
• 25:34
  So to answer your question, so it could all start, you know, in some organs and very likely in your guts.
• 25:42
  No, that's a fantastic analogy.
• 25:44
  And I actually believe it's funny you say that because when you said something in there that made me just kind of go, huh.
• 25:51
  And it was the idea that we started earlier on in the conversation talking about we have a broken health care system because it's too busy chasing down symptoms rather than going to root causes.
• 26:00
  And I'm like, well, that's kind of the way our immune system works, too, right?
• 26:06
  Like the immune system functions more like an ambulance than a wellness clinic.
• 26:11
  that it's running to wherever the emergency is and then leaving all of the necessary functions get ignored often because there's an emergency.
• 26:22
  And then the metaphor that I use for the immune system is that it's like Wi-Fi, right?
• 26:28
  There's only so much bandwidth and the more things that we have running it at the exact same time, the less everything is going to function, right?
• 26:35
  Like everybody gets slow Wi-Fi
• 26:38
  you know, when there's 25 devices attached to it at the same time.
• 26:41
  And if one of those devices is doing a big download, it's even worse, right?
• 26:47
  So if my gut is having those same types of issues and my gut is leaky and my gut is causing infection and it's causing inflammation and my gut is leading to additional oxidative stress that my immune system can't keep up with,
• 27:02
  everything else suffers because all the bandwidth goes to the place with the greatest emergency and maintenance goes on hold.
• 27:09
  I do want to connect, like, you know, why is what we eat so important?
• 27:14
  Why is junk food harmful?
• 27:17
  So junk food...
• 27:19
  comes with actually more toxins, more bacteria, and it doesn't usually have all the fibers that the good food comes with.
• 27:27
  So you're putting actually so much more stress into what we call the tight junctions in your gut-gut barrier
• 27:34
  So they really, it has to work extra hard to keep all the bad guys away.
• 27:39
  So it's actually a simple energetics mathematics, if you think about it.
• 27:44
  It's like you're putting all this pressure on your system and asking it to do a phenomenal job keeping all the bad guys out all at once.
• 27:53
  I want to jump into Wonderfuel because obviously you work with a company.
• 27:57
  This is not a surprise, but you work with a company that and are part of a company, a founder of a company and not just work where I shouldn't minimize that, that actually produces NMN, which is the, as we announced earlier, is the precursor for NAD.
• 28:14
  But one of the criticisms that NMN has come under was that NMN itself doesn't actually produce NAD.
• 28:21
  Yeah.
• 28:22
  that it is one of the precursors, but your product, as we've unpacked all of this with Wonderfeel, you're partnering it with resveratrol, which, you know, for instance, resveratrol activates sirtuins, right?
• 28:36
  Like, and again, people start tuning out when we start saying these things, but
• 28:40
  The reality is that you're not delivering NMN by itself.
• 28:45
  You're delivering NMN with all of the parts that are required to activate it and build into NAD.
• 28:57
  Tell me what that is and how that works together and why this is different from me going and just ordering an NMN from Amazon, other than it's probably the real thing in the bottle.
• 29:09
  Right.
• 29:09
  So if you're ordering NMN from Amazon, be very careful.
• 29:11
  There are some good companies that sell NMN, and NMN is a good product on its own.
• 29:15
  There's no question about it.
• 29:17
  NMN and NR, both, even though we don't sell NR.
• 29:20
  We also think highly of both of the precursors.
• 29:22
  But the reason the formula...
• 29:25
  is bringing us such great feedback is, as you said, the combination.
• 29:30
  So we mentioned CD38, an enzyme that goes up, that chews up NAD.
• 29:34
  So resveratrol actually and hydroxytirosol from olive and olive oil, good olives, they are phenomenal at keeping the CD38 activity down.
• 29:45
  So they have a very specific actually role besides activating the sirtuins.
• 29:51
  Hydroxychloroquine itself has great benefits, great antioxidants.
• 29:56
  And then there's ergothionine, which I'm just such a fan of this ingredient.
• 30:02
  We don't sell it on its own like you can buy from the market.
• 30:06
  Or you can get it from certain type of mushrooms, like porcinis, like lion's mane.
• 30:11
  And it's such a phenomenal ingredient that not many people know about.
• 30:16
  And we actually, ourselves, didn't fully understand it.
• 30:20
  If you don't mind, I would love to jump into it a little bit.
• 30:22
  I would love to hear about it, to be honest with you.
• 30:24
  Because it ties in, yeah.
• 30:26
  Yeah, it's not really well known.
• 30:30
  When we first discovered it, it was through a friend who was taking care of his mom with severe case of Alzheimer's.
• 30:41
  And they did not want to put her into a caretaker's house.
• 30:44
  They wanted to take care of her in their house.
• 30:47
  And they were looking at all these different solutions.
• 30:49
  What can we do?
• 30:49
  And one professor at Penn State told them to feed her a lot of...
• 30:55
  mushrooms like porcinis.
• 30:56
  And sure enough, she will behave really well after she's fed porcinis, I mean, porcini omelets in the morning.
• 31:02
  I mean, given that porcinis are not easy to find, expensive, they're dried, like it's just a process.
• 31:08
  But we're like, why?
• 31:09
  It's because of ergothinin, ergo.
• 31:11
  So, and then we start digging further into it.
• 31:14
  And it turns out that it's the only antioxidant that we know of.
• 31:18
  that collects in the body for up to thirty days where there's tissue damage so it's an adaptive anti-oxidant very powerful one and then it turns out that it's prevalent in mother's milk and babies have a receptor for it and we don't know why
• 31:36
  And when we first started, it was so expensive.
• 31:38
  It was $100,000 a kilo.
• 31:39
  So we had to subsidize it because we believed in it.
• 31:42
  And in order to understand the dose, we had to find one of the experts.
• 31:48
  So this was a professor from Oxford University.
• 31:50
  He's in his 80s and...
• 31:53
  He's kind of forgotten, so he was really happy that we reached out to him.
• 31:56
  So he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in, I think, 2021 for his work on vitamins and antioxidants.
• 32:03
  It was his work in 1990s.
• 32:04
  And he's like, all that stuff brought me to ergothionine.
• 32:07
  He's such a big fan of ergothionine.
• 32:10
  And he started because, you know, he can't patent it.
• 32:12
  So pharmaceutical industry doesn't care about it.
• 32:17
  And nobody can patent it, so there's not many clinical trials.
• 32:20
  So he was raising money to do a clinical trial for Alzheimer's patients, and he's doing it.
• 32:25
  He raised the money, and the preliminary results are very, very, very, very promising.
• 32:31
  So somebody like a baby who's one day old to somebody who's 90 years old with Alzheimer's can benefit from it.
• 32:38
  It's prevalent in our... We have a receptor.
• 32:40
  We have a specific receptor for it.
• 32:44
  It's in our body for up to 30 days.
• 32:46
  It's adoptive.
• 32:47
  It's very interesting.
• 32:49
  And then what we discovered in our studies is it has majestic effects with NMN.
• 32:56
  So the inflammation levels come down dramatically when we combine these things.
• 33:01
  And so maybe that's one of the reasons that some people report great benefits when they take our product versus just the NMN or NR.
• 33:10
  And I know this is not our conversation right now, but you fascinated me with the herbothionine conversation.
• 33:15
  And that is, I mean, first of all, the porcini and so on.
• 33:19
  I know several people in my own life right now that have reached out and asked questions and are dealing with cognitive decline.
• 33:25
  And cognitive decline as a person ages is so hard to, you know, everybody, is it Alzheimer's?
• 33:31
  Is it dementia?
• 33:32
  Or is it just brain fog?
• 33:33
  Like, what's going on?
• 33:35
  And it's often hard to figure out.
• 33:37
  And for most people, you don't know the real answer to that unless you performed an autopsy to actually find out what's going on in the brain.
• 33:45
  but it feels terrible to the person who's dealing with it and for the people around them nevertheless.
• 33:52
  So I'm fascinated behind what you're saying with the ergothionine because I've not heard much about that direct connection.
• 34:00
  I've heard a lot about antioxidant properties
• 34:03
  But no more than, you know, carbon 60 or anything like that as an antioxidant, which again, like carbon 60 is amazing for eliminating brain fog and other sorts of antioxidant properties.
• 34:15
  But you're telling me something about herb refining that I've not actually heard before.
• 34:20
  And as I started our episode and said, I'm here to learn today, too.
• 34:24
  You've taught me.
• 34:25
  And I'm curious, like for the people who are dealing with what could be early onset dementia or early stage Alzheimer's or just having that type of cognitive issues, would just straight up ergothionine be something you would recommend?
• 34:42
  Or in the Wonderfuel product, is there a sufficient dosage of ergothionine in this product that would actually make a noticeable difference?
• 34:52
  Well, I absolutely cannot make any recommendations because these are medical conditions, Alzheimer's and dementia.
• 35:00
  But we can refer to that one clinical trial that's showing promising results with ergothionine.
• 35:07
  And the dosage is similar because we didn't know how much to put in there.
• 35:11
  So we had to ask this professor.
• 35:13
  for his recommendation.
• 35:15
  So, our dosage is very similar, but nowadays, people are really increasing the doses of ergothionine.
• 35:21
  So, this is all new.
• 35:22
  We're talking about very recent, like last six months to a year.
• 35:27
  So, there are not enough clinical trials
• 35:30
  For sure.
• 35:31
  I mean, there's really not much.
• 35:33
  But it's something, you know, something that there's a correlative studies where there's more ergothionine in the food supply.
• 35:40
  There's less cognitive issues.
• 35:42
  And I can tell you that customers who take our product who have cognitive issues, they report really good results.
• 35:51
  And it's not just because of ergothionine, in our view, it's because the combination, because NAD levels also have to be crucial to brain function.
• 36:00
  Yeah, cellular energy.
• 36:02
  Again, after you eat a lot of food,
• 36:05
  Your brain doesn't function as well, actually, and that's because your energy goes into your stomach, right?
• 36:11
  So your brain is 2% of your body weight, but it consumes 20% of your entire energy.
• 36:21
  So it's a real energy-consuming organ.
• 36:26
  It's the Wi-Fi analogy.
• 36:27
  If the gut's got a big download to do, all the other systems suffer.
• 36:31
  Yeah, if your immune system is fighting, your brain doesn't have enough energy.
• 36:36
  If you have gut issues, you might have Parkinson's.
• 36:38
  I mean, those are correlations.
• 36:40
  So, yes, I mean, we do have really good reports on cognitive improvements taking our products.
• 36:47
  And I think, I do think to answer your question, I do think that people who can, who will just take ergothionine, hopefully will get benefits, cognitive benefits, and we would love to hear back.
• 36:58
  So, you know, we are very curious.
• 37:01
  Sometimes like these biohackers, like you guys, you guys are sometimes so far ahead of science.
• 37:06
  Science and clinical trials take years and a lot of money, but you're out there, you're discovering, you're trying, you're reporting, and then science learns from you.
• 37:15
  And same thing, so our customers have told us some stories we never imagined, like their skin, their eight spots disappearing, their eczema disappearing, like we didn't expect that.
• 37:26
  Their white hair turning back to original color.
• 37:28
  We had no idea that's what we expected.
• 37:29
  Now you got my attention.
• 37:32
  Now you got my attention.
• 37:33
  If the hair's going back to its original color,
• 37:38
  I mean, there are many.
• 37:39
  We looked into it afterwards and it did make sense.
• 37:42
  We saw that there are a few of my studies on NMN and hair color.
• 37:48
  Just because there are a lot of different reasons, your hair might turn white.
• 37:52
  So it's not just one solution.
• 37:53
  Right.
• 37:54
  But, you know, the reports are real.
• 37:56
  Like, you know, people are even sending pictures.
• 37:57
  Hey, like, no, look at my hair color.
• 38:00
  That's so funny.
• 38:01
  Well, I want to give you the opportunity, Buran, and we got kind of caught up in an ergothining conversation.
• 38:09
  My original question to you, and you answered it in part, and then we got sidebarred a little bit, and that is your NMN product is...
• 38:19
  is paired with ergothionine, it's paired with resveratrol, it's paired with multiple other things.
• 38:24
  I want to give you an opportunity to make a differentiation between Wonderfeel and any other product that's out on the market when it comes to NMN supplements.
• 38:33
  Because the NMN NAD world, just throwing it out there, like that entire category is so claims heavy.
• 38:43
  I mean, I truthfully believe that from a consumer standpoint, and most of my viewers are, I hate to sound crazy here, but average Joe folks, right?
• 38:54
  Like they're listening to learn something about aging.
• 38:56
  They're not coming in this with a science degree.
• 38:59
  And I always try to speak in terms that people are keeping up with.
• 39:03
  And again, that's not to in any way discredit or belittle the audience.
• 39:07
  I love that.
• 39:08
  But it's like it's the biohack curious, right?
• 39:12
  It's the age-defiantly curious audience that are like, somebody tell me what I need because I don't have a research degree to figure it out for myself.
• 39:20
  So giving you the opportunity with the credibility that you have with me, what makes this so specifically better in the space?
• 39:29
  And what is signal versus what is marketing hype?
• 39:35
  like how do you create your point of differentiation?
• 39:38
  Well, thank you for the opportunity.
• 39:40
  And if you don't mind, I would like to also clear some misconceptions and misunderstandings or some bad marketing before we talk about our formula.
• 39:51
  There are some very basic things that people need to avoid, such as claims that liposomal NAD is better.
• 40:01
  It doesn't even work.
• 40:03
  Just taking even NAD does not work.
• 40:06
  NAD is a big buzzword.
• 40:07
  There are companies out there, they put NAD in their products.
• 40:12
  NAD doesn't get inside the cell.
• 40:14
  That's proven times and times over again.
• 40:16
  This was discovered in 1906.
• 40:18
  So you've got to be careful with these labels and these claims, or liposomal or sublingual, NMN or NR.
• 40:28
  Zero proof.
• 40:29
  And, you know, there are some tests that have been done in these products.
• 40:34
  They're not even stable.
• 40:36
  So stay away from those claims.
• 40:39
  Just regular NMN, regular NR is the best that we have so far in the market.
• 40:44
  We don't have NR, but a good company that makes NR is a good source.
• 40:51
  So stay away from those doze claims.
• 40:54
  dose matters a lot.
• 40:56
  If you take small doses, you're really not doing much.
• 41:00
  And small is not even the right term here.
• 41:02
  But you need to take the optimal dose.
• 41:05
  And even if you look back at earlier clinical trials with NMN, NNR, the results were not that convincing.
• 41:13
  And I think that's mostly because the doses were so small.
• 41:17
  So now the optimal dose is around between 600 and 1,200 per day.
• 41:22
  And you see results.
• 41:23
  You get results.
• 41:25
  So the dose we picked is 900.
• 41:27
  And that's based on the largest clinical trial to date that was out there.
• 41:33
  So now we can move on to the combination.
• 41:35
  So one of the main reasons that we have combination, and we only have five ingredients.
• 41:40
  It's not like, you know, we put everything in there.
• 41:42
  There's a lot of really good antioxidants that we could have put in there.
• 41:45
  But no, we very carefully selected them.
• 41:48
  Two of them, resveratrol and hydroxyrosol, great on their own.
• 41:51
  But they have a very specific purpose in fighting the CD38 levels.
• 41:56
  So, you know, if you're trying to fill a tub and if there are holes everywhere, so we are trying to fill the holes with those two ingredients.
• 42:06
  And ergothionine, as we talked about, is an incredibly powerful antioxidant that's natural that our bodies need.
• 42:13
  And, you know, our preclinical trials show that it has synergistic effects with NMN and the other ingredients.
• 42:21
  And then we have vitamin D3.
• 42:23
  It's just one of the most basic ingredients.
• 42:26
  inexpensive longevity ingredients that we all need and almost all of us are deficient and our vitamin d three is just a daily recommended dose by fta which most of you guys biohackers you take much more than that dose that's just a minimal dose
• 42:43
  Well, I appreciate that because that's a clear differentiation.
• 42:47
  And again, the point that we're trying to clear up some of the marketing noise, and I'm a marketing guy, so I 100% feel that because you want to make sure that we're creating differentiation in the space without over-claiming something.
• 43:03
  And that's always something that I'm very responsible about with clients that I work with is...
• 43:10
  Is what you're saying real?
• 43:11
  Because it's okay if you're number two or you're number three or you're even number four in your category.
• 43:17
  Let's be honest.
• 43:18
  Let's be honest.
• 43:19
  Like, you're number one, so that's an easy one.
• 43:22
  But Ron, as we're wrapping up here, I want to ask you a question.
• 43:25
  I think we all have an identity around what age looks like, feels like.
• 43:32
  measures like, and I laughingly say that I was raised by my grandmother who taught us early that it's better to look good than feel good.
• 43:42
  So it's become like we joke about it as a family motto that, you know, it's better to look good than feel good.
• 43:47
  So it doesn't matter what's going on.
• 43:48
  Just make sure that everything looks good.
• 43:51
  And so we were taught early on to keep the facade.
• 43:56
  But from your opinion as a researcher, as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, as a research scientist, how do you define aging well?
• 44:10
  I think since you mentioned looking good, I think I will have just one simple way.
• 44:16
  My version will be feeling good.
• 44:19
  How do you feel?
• 44:20
  How do you feel when you get up in the morning?
• 44:23
  Also, people forget about JoySpan, you know, like...
• 44:27
  Joy is so important, so integral.
• 44:30
  Joy meaning also like, or connections, of course.
• 44:34
  But that joy span is part of feeling good.
• 44:38
  So, and sometimes feeling good can take us to places that, you know, I mean, I don't like to go anymore.
• 44:45
  Going out and drinking, thinking that you're feeling good, but you don't feel good.
• 44:48
  You wake up in the morning and you didn't get a good sleep and, you know, you feel that two drinks, but, you know,
• 44:56
  When I was growing up, that's been like the very, very prevalent everywhere.
• 45:02
  You know, drinking was so, so, it's still very much promoted.
• 45:06
  My point being, feeling good, I think, is a good way to see where you're at in your aging journey.
• 45:13
  And I love that because especially in that biohacker space, like everybody's looking at their markers all the time and their blood read all the time and so on and so forth.
• 45:22
  And it's like, at the end of the day, it's a lived experience that the way that we look, the way that we feel, the way that we experience life is really what matters because your numbers may be perfect and you feel terrible or your numbers may be a mess, but you feel great.
• 45:39
  Like, and I would say that those things normally run pretty parallel.
• 45:42
  Yeah.
• 45:43
  But I've never heard anybody use the term joy span the way you just did.
• 45:50
  That's a first time there as well.
• 45:51
  See, I'm learning from you today.
• 45:53
  But you bring up a point that it's a great closing element.
• 45:58
  And that is, no matter what's going on with your health, it diminishes all areas of your life.
• 46:08
  And that is, I always look at, you know, we're mind, body, spirit, right?
• 46:10
  Like we're all of these things.
• 46:12
  We're relational.
• 46:14
  We're all of this.
• 46:15
  And it's like the minute one stool, one leg of that stool starts to suffer, it affects all of them.
• 46:24
  That if we physically don't feel well, if we don't have energy...
• 46:28
  Perhaps we're going to bed early.
• 46:30
  Perhaps we're just not going out with the people we love.
• 46:33
  And then it hurts relationships because I'm not investing in relationships because I just don't feel up to it, if I can air quote that.
• 46:42
  And it's like, so now I don't invest in relationships and now my relationships suffer and now I feel dissociated.
• 46:48
  Now I feel...
• 46:50
  you know, anxiety.
• 46:51
  And then, and then I'm just, I'm tired.
• 46:53
  I'm not, my brain isn't optimal when I get to work, which means the work that I'm producing is suffering, which leads to stress, which leads to more oxidative damage, which I mean, and that is like this vicious cycle begins for people.
• 47:07
  And often we don't even know what the first straw was.
• 47:11
  And then you're less motivated.
• 47:12
  You don't want to reach out to anyone.
• 47:14
  You don't feel good.
• 47:15
  You don't feel like reaching out.
• 47:16
  And it's hard to reach out.
• 47:18
  You know, we do have all of our shyness and people feel intimidated sometimes.
• 47:22
  But like, you know, as you said, the vicious cycle starts and then you're less happy, less energy.
• 47:29
  So, so true.
• 47:30
  And I'll go a step further and say that social media has even created this highlight reel for everybody that everything has to be perfect at all times.
• 47:39
  That, you know, to admit that something's going wrong creates a vulnerability.
• 47:45
  But I think that's amazing.
• 47:48
  Again, I love the stuff that you guys are doing, because I would agree with you that that health begins at a cellular level, right?
• 47:56
  Cells are not lying to us.
• 47:58
  And what you're doing is creating and supplementing in a very positive way the energy that our cells are producing.
• 48:06
  And when we're able to, again, NMN turns into NAD, which is producing ATP, which is getting your entire body functioning the way that it should, you get mental clarity, you get gut function, you get disease prevention, you get optimal immune support, all the
• 48:24
  all of these things, and they extrapolate into, now I'm successful at work because my energy levels are there and my cognitive focus is where it needs to be.
• 48:35
  And now I'm relationally vibrant because I'm actually enjoying the relationships I have because I'm present.
• 48:43
  I'm not tired when I'm there.
• 48:44
  I'm not all of these things.
• 48:46
  And I think in the healthcare world, you know, you get into problems that a man has or a woman has or a relationship has or somebody's health suffers.
• 48:57
  And I could rattle off a hundred people I know right now that are dealing with health issues.
• 49:03
  But it all comes down to usually, I say, I always quote Wayne Gretzky and say that you need to skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is.
• 49:12
  And we need to not look at what the symptom is right now.
• 49:16
  We need to look at what's causing that symptom.
• 49:18
  It's the upstream that we're not paying enough attention to, which is the entire...
• 49:22
  higher focus of functional medicine, which is my passion.
• 49:26
  So, Baran, I appreciate you being here on the show with us so much.
• 49:30
  It's been fantastic to unpack this for you.
• 49:32
  You've answered questions I've had in this category, to be honest with you.
• 49:35
  So to our viewers, I'm excited to have Baran here, and I thank him.
• 49:39
  Baran, of course, is one of the founding members of Wonderfeel.
• 49:43
  We will have links to his personal bio and social medias, as well as to Wonderfeel below in the comments and in the notes.
• 49:52
  I encourage you to check them out.
• 49:54
  Not just is Baran here as a guest of mine, but comes very well recommended by other people.
• 49:59
  people who I've mentioned on this podcast earlier, people like Dylan Gibelli, people like Sean Wells, people like Natalie Nidham, Sean Drake.
• 50:07
  Like, these are all people who are, who are powerful in this space, who are well-researched commentators as well as doctors themselves.
• 50:15
  And,
• 50:16
  Again, the recommendation of having you on this show, Buran, I'm excited to have you here and know you personally.
• 50:22
  But I'm excited for you, the viewer, to be able to check out what they're doing at Wonderfeel, because in the supplement space specifically, I'll just say there's a lot of crap.
• 50:32
  And I love when the good stuff bubbles to the top.
• 50:35
  And I want to be here to endorse that stuff when it comes my way.
• 50:39
  And this is one of the endorsements that I gladly give.
• 50:41
  So, Veronica, thank you so much for being here.
• 50:44
  I appreciate your transparency, your metaphors.
• 50:47
  You're speaking my language, buddy.
• 50:49
  And for those of you viewing, thank you so much for sticking around for another episode of Age Defiantly, where we're going to talk more about this stuff.
• 50:56
  It's not just about looking good, as grandma would say, but we're trying to feel good, too.
• 51:01
  So thank you so much for being here, Buran, and thank you for enjoying this episode of Age Defiantly.