The Antioxidant Exception: Why Astaxanthin Breaks the Rules That Broke the Others

In this episode of The Signal, host Andy Feltovich sits down with Susan Hamrahi, ND — naturopathic doctor and Scientific Communications Specialist at AstaReal, Inc., the world's leading producer of natural astaxanthin. The conversation opens with a confession: Andy rolled his eyes when he first saw Susan's presentation at the International Society of Sports Nutrition. He'd been down this road before. Identify an antioxidant that looks miraculous in observational data, isolate it, supplement it, watch it fail — or worse, cause harm. Some of those trials had to be stopped early. Susan convinced him this time is different. This conversation is about why — and what it means for every high-performing man trying to recover faster, stay sharper, and not get sold another miracle that isn't. 

What You'll Learn: 

• The salmon story: how a fish that stops eating, swims 900 miles upstream, and leaps seven feet in the air to spawn became the origin of thirty-five years of astaxanthin research 
• Why astaxanthin appears to thread the needle every other antioxidant failed — knocking out pathological oxidative stress while leaving the adaptive signaling your muscles need to grow intact 
• What astaxanthin means for delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) 
• What a firefighter fire ground test reveals about astaxanthin and stress physiology  
• The aerobic and endurance findings: fat oxidation, carbohydrate sparing 
• Early cognitive performance data: faster working memory, faster recall, faster reaction time  
• How astaxanthin crosses both the blood-brain barrier and the blood-retinal barrier — and what that could means for eye health and cognitive performance 
• Product integrity: how AstaReal grows astaxanthin indoors and third-party testing 
• What it means that the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN) included astaxanthin in its position statement  

If you train hard, recover imperfectly, manage high-stakes stress daily, or have ever wondered whether the antioxidant aisle has anything worth your time — this episode gives you the evidence to decide for yourself. The science is still maturing. But the signal is real. 

Guest Links: 

• AstaReal USA (research, blog, newsletter): astarealusa.com 
• Consumer product finder: astaxanthin.net 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to The Signal, the podcast companion to the only intelligence report in men's health and fitness that tells you what to watch, what to ignore, and why. I'm Andy Feltman, founder and CEO. Every episode, we go deeper than the newsletter. Longer conversations, harder questions, and the stories behind the data. We don't do pro science, we don't do wellness theater, we question everything except questioning. Every dogma on trial, guilty until proven innocent. If you're new here, the signal has been produced by Andy Feltman, the flagship company of the Collegium Order and Flow. Subscribe to the newsletter at the hypensignal.us. Don't forget the hyphen. If this episode is worth five stars to you, leave a review. It's the single best thing that you can do to help us cut the noise. Now let's get into it. Today we have Susan Hamarahi, a naturopathic doctor and scientific communication specialist at Astero Inc., the world's leading producer of natural astanthan. Susan has over 18 years of industry experience and oversees Astor Real's scientific education initiatives, including training, publications, and content development. She presents Astero's research at major conferences, including the International Society of Sports Nutrition, where I first met her. This is for informational purposes only and should not be interpreted as medical advice. Welcome, Susan. It's great to have you today.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Thank you so much, Andy. I'm excited to be here, and I really appreciate the invitation.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

How did you get to ask the Xanthan?

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Well, sometimes the path chooses you, you don't choose the path. And it was one of those situations. I um started practicing almost 20 years ago, and practiced only a couple years, and realized really quickly on that my passion was more so the educational side of it and working with people on how they actually can utilize nutrition and nutrients and the research available to us to better our health. So I jumped in and started doing uh supplements and worked for a company that was educating practitioners and loved it. It was uh primarily ophthalmology, so nutrition for your eye, some cardiovascular work as well. And I transitioned from there to a medical food company where I actually met my now boss, Karen Hecht, who is our VP of science. And Karen really is the one who turned me on to ask the Xanthan. Uh, at Asterial, we utilized their nutrient in two of our medical food products. And I was hooked. Like that was it. So that company actually was acquired by private equity. And when that happened, I thought, what do I want to do? What is my 100% best job ever?

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Sounds like it was very uh fortunate for both of you. So that was that was your origin story. Let's talk about the curious origins of Astaxanthin. So we have to remember that uh every supplement somebody had to say, hmm, I wonder what happened if I ate this. And we were joking on the pre-call that all Scottish food was based on a dare. Uh so tell us so tell us about Astaxanthin and its uh origin story, as it were.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

So Astaxanthin, the discovery of it as a carotenoid is not new. It was actually in the 1800s. But really digging into Astaxanthin started in the late 1980s by a scientist by the name of Akka Lingmel. He's a Swedish scientist, and he started researching salmon. And if you really think about it, Andy, I was thinking about that as we were prepping for this call, but salmon are the ultimate endurance athletes, right? They have these huge swims, these 900-mile journeys where they're jumping up seven-foot elevations to spawn, and they're doing it all without eating. And Dr. Lingnell started looking at how acid xanthan applies and is utilized to preserve their muscle stores and their energy stores in the salmon. And does that apply to humans? So he really started the research, and um fast forward now almost 40 years, right? We've been researching for over 35 years with asterial acid xanthan. We were the pioneers that started looking at this, and it all started with that salmon journey. And it does, as you know, and as we'll look at some of the research today, it does translate to humans.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

So let's talk about how we met because I think it's instructive. So everybody in the audience who goes to ISSN every year knows on the guy in front asking all the all the pesky questions. And uh we had never met before. I saw your uh presentation on asteroid xanthan, and I kind of rolled my eyes. I said, look, we've been down this road before. We every time we identify an antioxidant or a candidate antioxidant in food that prov that does wonderful things, prevents cancer, all all kinds of other oxidative stress. Then we try to isolate it and supplement it, and it either doesn't work or doesn't backfire. Most famous cases being uh vitamin E, uh beta-carotene. Some of those trials actually had to be stopped because they were killing people basically, doing more harm than good. So that's all to say. When you gave your presentation, I just I gave a big eye roll and said, I don't believe you. I've been down this road before. I know how this uh story ends. So tell us uh why am I wrong and why is this time really different?

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Great question. Uh acidanthin structure, so it's biochemical structure. It if you think of a dumbbell, so think of a bar and then two ends, it looks kind of like a dumbbell where it is able to span the lipid bilayer. And the ends of it are lipophilic, so it can embed into the cell membrane, and the middle of it is hydrophilic, so it is able to function in water, and it spans that whole cell, and it's able to neutralize free radicals and ROS and scavenge. It's particularly good at scavenging singlic oxygen species in the cell. So it really is very different as vitamin E. It's a lipid-based nutrient, vitamin C is a water-based nutrient, but aczanthin is able to utilize both ends and the middle to neutralize free radicals. So, yes, while ROS is bad on some level, we need to have ROS because it signals, right? It helps to provide signaling for exercise adaptation. And it's a threshold to activate pathways like AMP K and PGC1 that are critical for mitochondrial and metabolic adaptation.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Okay. So it sounds like, if I'm following correctly, part of the reason that it's able to uh sidestep uh neutralizing bad uh good oxidative stress and uh target the bad oxidative stress. I know I know uh broad uh simplistic categories, good and good and bad, is just the nature of the compound, fat versus oil, uh fat versus uh water-based, and also where it uh uniquely lives in the body, uh bridging the lipid bilayer in the mitochondria. Is that is that accurate?

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Yes, it is. And to be honest, you know, we're still doing that research. While we've been researching acid xanthin for many, many years, decades, as I mentioned, and Astoril, we are the pioneers of that research. So we have over 85 human clinical studies. We are still learning a lot of the mechanisms and the pathways that Astaxanthin is impacting.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Okay. So speaking of the pathways that it's uh impacting, one of them very near and dear to me and my audience is muscle soreness and recovery. And it this sounds like the uh thread Aftaxanthin was potentially able to thread the needle, helping uh a blunt delay DOM's delayed onset muscle soreness while uh not impeding uh training adaptations. So tell us about that research.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Yes, so that research, Dr. Gavin Barker in 2023 started looking at uh 19 resistance trained athletes, they were men, at 12 milligrams for four weeks. And what he found, they were looking specifically for delayed onset muscle soreness. They were doing leg presses, and they did leg presses to failure at uh 6570 and 75% of their maximum to specifically induce soreness. And what they found was the men on the Astasanthan supplementation reported 58% less delayed onset muscle soreness at 24 hours after exercise and 32% less DOMS 48 hours after exercise. The interesting thing as well is they also looked at intensity. So they did a vast soreness scale. And intensity of the soreness was 60% less at 24, 36, and 48 hours post-exercise. So quite significant while there was no significant effect on DOM's soreness in the placebo group. And then oh sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

I was I was just going to say I appreciate you talking about effect size and magnitude. One of my pet peeves is pet peeves is uh p-value worship, and it's like it was significant p-value of 0.001, 0.001 to the 27th power, and it's like, okay, that just tells me that something exists. It's it doesn't tell me about anything about effect size magnitude. So uh yeah, please please uh proceed. It um delayed not only uh the existence, but also the intensity of DOMS.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Absolutely. And yes, it was statistically significant, but I agree with you. The athlete, the real world application of it is what did these athletes feel like? Yes, it delayed their soreness, but it also delayed their perception and their um severity of soreness. And then Dr. Barker in 2026, and this is a head of publication, although we do have permission to talk about it. Okay, he replicated this research in women. So he looked at 25 resistance trained women at 12 milligrams for 12 weeks, and he essentially replicated the study. And um, interesting, they also reported a 58% uh reduction in DOMS after 24 hours. But the really interesting effect was that they only showed a 29% reduction in intensity of soreness. So it kind of leads you to think there's different different mechanisms or different pathways uh in women versus men, and I think more research needs to be done in this area in women athletes, in addition to male athletes. But one of the hypotheses is that potentially women have a better ability to um uh uh endure pain. So the pain threshold is higher in women. So potentially that is what the reduced VASCOR showed in that regard.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

Yeah, well, just um anecdotally have my experience working with both men and women. Yes, women tend to uh who who knows, maybe it's an evolutionary adaptation to childbirth, but uh or maybe men just like to complain. Actually, I'm I'm guilty of that, so I can that's one that's one data point in favor. So let's talk about a c a couple things, uh two things. Let's get the easy one out of the way. So that's 12 milligrams for for four weeks. So it's you're not you're not gonna pop this in in as you're in your pre-workout and uh expect to go to the gym and get results. 12 milligrams four weeks. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Correct. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Okay. Which which which makes sense. It's uh it's lipid-based, uh it uh takes a while to embed in the mitochondria and work its magic. So that that would uh tend to make sense. Now the the the big question, the money ball, yes, it uh blunted uh DOMS, but uh what what about the training outcomes? Were there any uh differences in strength, hypertrophy, performance?

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Yeah, there were not. So they did not show any exactly. In fact, there's a 2000 back as far as 2008, Malsom did a study in 40 healthy paramedic students at just four milligrams a day, but he doubled the time of the study. So instead of 12 weeks, it was actually six months. There were 20 in the treatment group, 20 in the placebo group, and what he found was, and it was squats. So how many squats can you do? And it was this question absolutely emphatically, and what he found in the treatment group, again, at four milligrams, that group had a 55% increase in the number of reps that they were able to perform after treatment. So there is also other areas we can look at cyclists as well. Um, cycling, the endurance athletes showed in some of the work there an increase in power output and a reduction, and a reduction in time in their cycling trials. So we're not seeing any impact on performance, yet we are seeing benefit for the ROS work and the resistance trained athletes for their uh delayed onset muscle soreness.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

So all the all the great antioxidant taste and none of the calories, it sounds like. So we'll we'll see what the catch is uh if if there is one. Uh let's talk about I'm glad you touched on not and actually I don't know if we had discussed the cycling research in our pre-call. I'm glad you brought it up. We did uh talk about the firefighters and their perfor and their performance in endurance. So let's transition from DOMS to uh endurance in the firefighter studies, if you will. What did if you will, what did they find?

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Yeah, sure. Um in the firefighter work, it was 12 milligrams. It was a crossover study also. Um what they were looking for was it was actually Drew Gonzalez did the work in 2024.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

And So actually I'm gonna uh interrupt you right now for uh real quick for for for two points. Um so one, yeah, Drew Drew is Drew is great. That'll that alone means something. He's uh he's one of the giants uh in the field. Uh he's gonna be really deadly when he's old enough to drive. Um he if you if you ever see him, he looks like a uh teenager. Maybe that's just because of my age, everybody um uh ever everybody looks uh that way. But um so that's important. The other thing I was gonna mention is uh the double blind placebo crossover. Okay. Yes, and for our folks in the audience, that is that is gold standard. So one of my pet peeves, if you see me rant on social media is people inferring things into surveys and epidemiological data. Uh uh controlled um uh double blind placebo crossover means that uh these subjects do not know what they're getting, and each subject acts as its own control. So first round one sub one group gets the get gets the treatment, the other doesn't. And then the um then the I think there was a washout period, that's pretty much standard procedure. Yes, and then and then when uh after the washout period they switched, so control became experimental, experimental uh became control. So that is as much as we can in something as complex as the human body, because remember that we're not doing chemistry, we're not doing uh physics experiments, these are living human bodies, and we'll only ever be able to control so much, but that's as good as it gets. Random, uh double blind, uh double blind randomized control, double blind placebo crossover. Say that ten times real fast. All right, now if I didn't totally derail you off your train of thought, Susan, please continue.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

No, absolutely not. And you're right, Dr. Gonzalez, what a brilliant researcher and wonderful person. And he looked at 15 male firefighters in a double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study at 12 milligrams, and the they supplemented for four weeks. And they did two different batteries. They did um a treadmill, so they looked at stress in that regard, so exercise control, and then they also did fire ground testing. So they went through nine different batteries of exercises in a simulated fire ground test, just like they would be in a fire. They were looking at several things. They were looking at interleukin 1B, so some inflammatory markers, or some indicators of that stress post-exercise and post-fire ground. They looked at cortisol levels and they looked at uric acid. And then they also um looked at ventilatory threshold. So, how long can these firefighters stay aerobic in while they're fighting these fires or um conducting their exercise? I didn't know, and I learned this from Dr. Gonzalez, that firefighters, their number one, I'm gonna ask you this what do you think the number one cause of death in firefighters is?

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Tragically, I think it's uh cardiovascular disease.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

You're absolutely right. So Dr. Gonzalez really started looking at, you know, like how can we help support their hearts, their cardiovascular um health through supplementation? And what they found was the participant increased their ventilatory anaerobic threshold by 8.8% on the acid xanthin supplementation. And if you think 8.8% is not a lot, but it is. It is quite a good, it's a 7.1% percentage point increase. So it is quite significant to be able to prolong and to be able to provide that benefit that they can stay longer in an anaerobic functioning manner.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

That's uh that's important. There's several things to unpack there, but let's just start there with staying aerobic for longer. Uh metabolic flexibility, the big social media buzz buzzword, uh, whether the progenitors, the purveyors understand it or not. So this this does, it sounds like it's is actually doing that though, uh using pre preferentially using the uh best energy substrate for the best purpose, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Yes. I mean that's what all the research is pointing to. Of course, again, you know, we're just kind of starting this research, so more needs to be done, but it does point. And there was other work done showing that um acid xanthin, and think of the salmon, I guess. You know, the salmon uh with all the acid xanthin in the muscle stores, also they were able to fuel their muscles without eating with this store of acid xanthin. So uh it potentially is is also beneficial for us in that same way, where uh we are utilizing fat for energy instead of carbohydrate for energy, so we can stay longer in an anaerobic state because we're using our oxygen more efficiently.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

So the other thing I'd like to unpack with the firefighter research is uh stress physiology. Uh Dr. Roberts, as you know, ISSN every year does lots of uh great work on that, very relevant to tactical athletes and also uh my um target niche uh executives, entrepreneurs, senior professionals. So this isn't just uh treadmills in a laboratory sterile treadmills in a laboratory. That firefighter test, they put them under real stress, real suffocating equipment and gear and real suffocating hot fires, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Absolutely. Yeah, the fire ground test was actually done in the training facility at the Bryant, Texas Fire Department, where they actually were in full gear, in full oxygen, doing their nine again nine different batteries of testing that they go through in their training regimens for fighting fires and saving lives during those fires.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Okay. So what if if you'll uh venture an extrapolation, what do you think that's the and then as you mentioned, they were able to significantly improve their performance. So what do you think are the implications for stress management, uh cortisol levels, pro possibly other implications?

SPEAKER_00 19:21

So, well, that study did show that the um interleukin 1B, so inflammatory markers and stress markers, the cortisol and uric acid, were all reduced in the acid xanthin group. It's hard to hypothesize, but again, knowing that acid xanthin is very, very efficient at scavenging ROS and the excess free radicals uh created, because you know, as we as you well know, um in mitochondria or energy production, one of those byproducts of energy production is free radical production and reactive oxygen species. So the fact that acetandin has this structure, that that superpower structure, to be able to scavenge very, very efficiently, it just if I'm connecting the dots, you know, goes to say that yes, in your daily life it is going to work efficiently for you, as it is the salmon, as it is the firefighters, um, to also help with that uh efficiency, if you will, in the mitochondria for your energy production and pulling off that uh oxidative stress.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

What you're saying makes total sense. So I train uh a lot with Strong First under Pavel Tatsulin, the the man who uh largely credited for bringing kettlebells and Soviet training methods to the US and the the Soviets always historically took a very different approach than the US. So instead of this uh metabolic uh theater this this metabolic sweat till you drop theater, they focused on uh anaerobic threshold training, so increasing the amount of work you can do before you go uh anaer anaerobic. And he's always uh preached the Soviets always preach that most of our uh it most of our oxidative stress comes from and is cured by our own mitochondria. So if you they always said if you want uh to combat oxidative stress, bigger, better, stronger mitochondria, or it sounds like anything that aids the mitochondria in their function, including astanthin.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

Absolutely. And astanthin has been shown also in research to support PGC1 alpha. PGC one alpha is the biogenesis of mitochondria. So it's not just supporting the mitochondria that you have, it's also supporting the biogenesis of your mitochondria.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Okay. Lots of lots of interesting implications for aerobic capacity, uh, mitochondria, oxidative stress there. Uh let's talk a little bit about uh cognitive performance because athletes anthon, the gift that keeps on giving, there's also been some uh findings that it might improve uh cognitive performance. So let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

And again, that work, Andy, is something that we've got to do more of, and in us that is something that we're very interested in. In for Asa Xanthanin looking at cognitive performance. Back in, I think it was 2012, Katagiri did some work and they were looking at um 31, actually, it was 96 participants. Their mean age was about 56. 31 was in the treatment group, and 29% was in, excuse me, I flip-flopped that. 31% was in the placebo, and 29 was in the Astaxanthin group. Again, 12 milligrams. And what they showed in that regard was that in the Astaxanthin group, they showed 7% faster delayed recall, 7% faster working memory, 6% faster choice reaction time, and 8% faster multitasking. So interesting there that they were able to show that. Then in the women's study that we talked about a little bit, they are also looking at markers of cognitive performance in that regard in task switching and reaction time. And again, that data is not published, it's not completely gone through, but I can report that there was a benefit in the task switching and the reaction time measurements there. I just don't have the final data. I don't want to provide anything that isn't 100% accurate.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Let's go back to your uh roots as in uh I believe those nutraceuticals with eyes. What do you think are the possible implications for um for vision for visual function and uh astanthin? And what's your and again that's we're conjecturing here, and I I I think everybody's under understands that and we're clear about that, but what what what are your conjectures for how much of that uh task switching and uh per performance due to uh reticular function and uh how much to other means?

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Yes, we don't know is the honest answer.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

Um in ophthalmology, it is super exciting though, because again, muscle, and I I always go back to our um most lauded endurance athlete, the salmon, and that acanthin is that mitochondrial, that muscular muscular nutrient, but we have muscles in our eyes. So muscles in our eyes that we know there is aczyxanthin is in the ciliary muscles. So the ciliary muscles are responsible for accommodation. What that means is it's distant vision and near vision. So those muscles flatten out to see distance, and then they, you know, start to round or they uh tighten up to see nearer, so you can see near and far quite readily. And if you think about your eyes, we talked a little bit about cognition, and acidanthin can cross the blood rain, the blood brain, and the blood retina barrier. So that is something else that is makes it a little bit unique in other uh antioxidants. So the ciliary muscle is responsible for that accommodation. Well, think about our lives now in this digital age. We sit in front of a screen all day for hours and hours and hours. So if you're nourishing your muscles, you're nourishing your ciliary muscles because it's going throughout your body, um, you're going to have, and there is work that does show that it does alleviate symptoms of computer vision syndrome. So it is very different. I know that isn't answering your question about cognitive, you know, is it potentially the same? Again, we don't know that research, and and we would suspect that it's different. Um, but reaction time, certainly, if you see it quicker for the athlete that hits a ball or is golfing, or I'm a squash player, so I know that for me to see a ball quicker and react quicker is a little bit to my advantage. Um, yes, certainly, certainly have a lot of applications for aczanthin cognitively, but also from a muscular standpoint in the eye.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

So one small correction about the ciliary muscles flexing and relaxing. They should flex and relax. If you're nearsighted like I am, then my ciliary muscles leave a little to be desired. But you bring up an interesting point about crossing the blood-brain barrier and a new term that I just learned now, the uh blood retinal barrier. So talk about the if you would please talk about the implications of being able to cross those barriers and how that uh makes uh xanthin potentially unique among antioxidants.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

So there are other carotenoids that cross the blood retina barrier, like lutein and zeoxanthin, which are part of your macula. So you're kind of the movie screen of your eyes that helps you with crisp vision. Um, we don't know if acid xanthin is in the retina. Um, it has not been shown to be in the retina thus far, but we do know that it does impact um the vasculature in the back of the eye. So a researcher by the name of Nagaki in 2005 looked at 36 subjects at six milligrams a day. It was a placebo-controlled study for four weeks. And what he found was the retina capillary blood flow increased 9 to 11%. So if you think about it, aging eyes or just nourishing eyes, you know, again, nourishment has to be vascular. All of our nourishment comes and our oxygen, right, to the muscles in the eye or the areas of the body necessary for nourishment and and also taking waste away. So it has this big implication in that regard. Uh, SATO in 2012, 20 subjects above the average age of 38 also looked at 12 milligrams a day versus placebo for four weeks, and also show the astro real group blood velocity at the macula. So blood bryology increased by 15%. So the fact that it is able to we can connect those dots in helping circulation in the eye. Um, certainly circulation in the brain is a big subject. Again, I'm connecting the dots a little bit there. I don't have the research in that regard, but it does show benefit for uh vascular health.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Let's let's talk a little talk a little bit more about uh vascular health. And this is where I throw out the disclaimer again. I did it at the top of the show, but uh always bears repeating, we're not trying to diagnose and treat disease. Don't call up, don't call up RFK Jr. and report us. But um want to talk about mechanisms because this is potentially critical for uh cardiovascular disease and also has implications for all the other things we're talking about, endurance. So let's talk about uh the vasodilator nit uh nitric oxide, uhstaxanthins, potential nitric oxide preserving uh functions and the implications for um uh arterial compliance and cardiovascular disease.

SPEAKER_00 28:44

Yes, so that work needs to be done too and mature. If, again, we connect the dots and think about how the body functions, um, nitric oxide is apparent to RNS or reactive nitrogen species, like ROS, reactive oxygen species. And RNS also has benefit, um, but it also has implications if there's too much, like ROS. And because acid xanthan is such an efficient scavenger of singlet oxygen and ROS, it potentially also plays a role for nitric oxide to help support that, because nitric oxide has, as you mentioned, a bearing on um your epithelium, which is the lining of your vasculature, to keep that healthy. And our capillaries, which are our very thinnest veins and source of blood, um, have that lining. And uh acid xanthin has been shown to help with that ROS scavenging. Therefore, the downstream effect would be keeping um or preserving, if you will, utilize I don't know if I want to use that word regulatory-wise, but I guess preserving is a good way, or maintaining um nitric oxide bioavailavailability because acid xanthin has reduced the superoxide and the lipid perioxidation.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

And I that's a big sorry, Andy, and that's a big circle of connecting the dots.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

Which uh which is why we which is why we have you, because that that's what you do. You connect the dots. I learned something new today. Reactive nitrogen species. That hasn't been on my radar. Would you just elaborate on that briefly, please?

SPEAKER_00 30:26

That is such a complicated pathway, other than to say nitric oxide is kind of the parent to that, like oxygen is apparent to reactive oxygen species. Um and nitric oxide is neutralized by superoxides. And then RNS is part of that whole pathway that, again, the balance of um healthy nitric oxide and suppression of nitric oxide by RNS.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

Okay. So let's uh kind of let's uh tie it back to the aerobic and the endurance improvements that we saw. And I'm gonna ask you to, you're doing such a great job of connecting dots. I'm going to ask you to connect some more. One of one of my theories for performance is so aerobic performance, think of it like a linear assembly line. Oxygen comes in uh top of stream, and out the other end comes uh c uh water and CO2, and a bunch of magic happens in the interim, and it's any bottleneck is gonna slow things down. And one of those potential bottlenecks is that the when you start undergoing uh vigorous activity, it takes the it takes a second for uh the blood to get to the cells. It's not just like a magic switch you uh use uh flip on and off, especially since you need to dilate those capillaries and get the uh blood to the uh cells where they can work their magic. So I'm gonna ask you to connect some other big dots, and if you can do this, it'll be pretty impressive because you'll have solved most of the problems and in science in in science and exercise physiology. Do you uh think in in addition to the uh antioxidative effects in the mitochondria that the um arterial compliance could play a role in the increased endurance that you saw?

SPEAKER_00 32:05

Well, it's certainly plausible, right? Just again, if we talk about how the body functions, as you mentioned, um we have seen in research, uh, I'm gonna go to the cycling studies for a minute, the endurance athletes. Um, Brown did a study in 2020 where they looked at 12 recreationally uh active or 12 recreational cyclists. They took 12 milligrams for just one week. And after that one week, their fat ox was greater between the 39th and the 40th kilometer. So they were clocking these athletes doing 40 kilometer rides, and they were able to um utilize their fatox or their fat for energy in a much more longer way than the other, the non-supplemented cyclists, where they went into a um a glycose store or uh carbohydrate in that 39th to 40th uh kilometer. And then also Wicca did a 2023 study in 19 overweight men and women. They were put on a treadmill and again looking at how they're utilizing their energy and their um their energy use at 12 milligrams a day for four weeks. And um they were it was kind of a broad range of cohorts, it was 18 to 45, so anywhere in there, and the aczanthin group decreased their carbohydrate oxidation by about 8%. And during the exercise after four weeks versus baseline, it decreased their exist uh their exercising heart rate by approximately 7%. So it kind of set up your question quite perfectly to answer. Yes, I mean the answer is more cardiometabolic research needs to be done. But from what we're looking at and what they are looking at, it does point to having quite a beneficial cardiometabolic uh benefit. Hunter Waldman, Dr. Waldman, also did some work in 2023 looking at 12 milligrams for four weeks in resistant trained men. And he showed that their resist uh their resting systolic pressure was lowered by about 7%. Their insulin values were lowered by up to about 24%, and their oxygen consumption lowered by 12% during the final and hardest stage of their uh exercise output. So it certainly points to that. I I do feel like it's my responsibility to say more research needs to be done. But yes.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

That's it, that's interesting, and I think a lot more not just research, but focus need needs to be on arterial compliance, not just from the standpoint of cardiovascular disease, because as we all know, the if the there's no not arterial compliance, then blood pressure can damage the endothelium, create inflammation, heart disease, blah, blah, blah. Uh but from a performance uh standpoint, we always talk about mitochondrial biogenesis and angiogenesis. But I think uh arterial compliance is a great big unturned stone because like I said, as those in the capillaries, people don't unless you look at it under a microscope, they don't fully appreciate just how small those damn things are. And we're talking about sometimes these those guys, those red blood cells have to file through their single file. So we're talking about small vessels, and if you can't dilate them, you can't get the oxygen to the muscles, and then that's when you go anaerobic, and that's where you create the oxidative stress. So, and and of course, take the performance hit because you've got to go anaerobic. So I think that's more science needs to be done all around. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 35:29

No, I was gonna say, and you reminded me also of something that we don't think about, but it's also not static. Like capillary, um, your capillaries aren't static. They are as a move it or uh what is it, move it or lose it, use it or lose it, is a use it or lose it scenario, right? So as we age and we come more sedentary, I think it's especially important to be able to continue to stay active. So if we're supplementing with acetanthan and we're continuing to stay active and we have left less DOMS and we have better energy efficiency through mitochondria, uh healthy mitochondria, then we're also supporting our capillaries and our vasculature and our heart muscle and our brains. It just is a huge uh homeostatic benefit in that regard.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

As the song goes, the hip, the knee bones connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bones connected to the hip bone, all one big happy system. Uh let's shift gears and talk about your product integrity and third-party testing. So now that I do this professionally, when I'm actually gonna tell point to a product and tell people to use it, I need to know that it's uh safe. And after Xanthan, you've done a lot of work with uh third with uh product integrity, third-party testing. Tell us about that work.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

So we do. Um we are true shield certified, which is through Eagle Diagnostics. Um, that is a third-party lab that provides uh testing um for a the WADA um and has over, you know, looks at more than 400 plus um band substances in that regard. Our soft gels are 4 milligram or 6 milligram and our 12 milligram soft gels are true shield certified. But before it gets to that point, we are looking at our aczanthin on a daily basis. So we grow our acid xanthan inside. It's completely done in a controlled environment in photobioreactors. Uh, acid xanthin, as we mentioned earlier, is from microalgae. So it can be raised outdoor in ponds, but it's very exposed to commit to potential contamination in that regard. So we grow it indoors in an enclosed environment that is um tested. I I don't know how many times a day, but it is tested constantly during the process of growing uh the aczy xanthan. And then, of course, when the batch is done, it is also third-party tested outside of asteroid to ensure its uh safety and efficacy and purity in that in that regard.

SPEAKER_01 38:06

Okay, let's uh let's hit on that for a second, the the origin. So the indoor-outdoor distinction, I hadn't thought about that, so I'm glad that you brought it up. Let's also talk about some of the other sources of astaxanthin. So obviously algae is uh that's how it's found in nature, that's how it's made at asteroid. Can you tell us about some of the other uh sources and potential uh efficacy of other uh ways to derive uh the efficacy of astanthin derived from other sources?

SPEAKER_00 38:31

So there are other forms of aczanthin. There's a synthetic version, there is a yeast version fafia, and there's also a bacterial version. Um research has looked at all three of those versions side to side, if you will, and what they showed was natural acanthin was 20 to 60 percent higher in its ability to be utilized and be bioavailable to the body than the synthetic version. And I'll tell you the difference from my understanding, which is very elementary, as I'm not a PhD, I'm an indie, but um, my understanding is that the synthetic form, in addition to the yeast form and um also the bacterial form, it's a crystalline form. So, what that means is it's very dense. So it's very compacted, if you will. So once it gets into the gut, the gut has to break everything down and utilize it. It's very hard to break down in the gut, in not a natural form. So the natural form is much more conducive to our bodies. I jokingly said this uh to a colleague recently, you know, we're programmed to receive nutrients the way we're programmed to receive nutrients. And that is true, even in our supplementation, and you touched upon it a little bit earlier, you know, saying when we start taking specific um components of a nutrient out, sometimes we get unintended consequences. And I feel like in a different version um of Astysanthan, they are seeing that that is not as bioavailable because we're just not recognizing it like we do a natural source of acid.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

It's like a play on the John Mellencamp song, When I fight evolution, evolution always wins. It's why why does natural work better? I don't know. It it just does. So Carlene Stark, she uh gonna be our guest next uh episode. She found that egg when you even after controlling for essential amino acids, whole eggs outperform egg whites, uh, whole milk perform outperform skin milk. Why? I don't know, it just does. We've we evolved, we co-evolved that way, and we'll never probably never unravel all of the inner mysteries. And the time we have remaining, we could go on all day. This is a absolutely fascinating discussion, but I want to touch on Astazanth uh the recognition by the International Society of Sports Nutrition, ISSN, the their recognition of Astaxanthin and their position papers, and just to t tee this up for folks at home might not uh uh who might not be familiar, the ISSN position stands, they're kind of gold standard by the time one of by the time they roll around the there's usually been hundreds of randomized control studies and there's definite and there's definitive things that they can say about it. So we joked in the pre-call that that's kind of like in the mafia becoming a made man once you uh once you get in in the ISSN's position stand papers, you're kind of golden and and untouchable. So tell us about Asta Xanthan's recognition there.

SPEAKER_00 41:28

Um we are very excited to have the ISSN rating um as a moderate value for an antioxidant. And um it is, as we mentioned earlier, there is more research to be done, but to be listed along with tart cherry and other antioxidants as uh in the ISSN position statement is truly an indication of all the research that has been done. And there is extensive research, not only in vitro, but also in humans that support acetanthin as it's as we've talked about all day today, it's powerful, uh a superpower of an antioxidant.

SPEAKER_01 42:05

We're coming up on time, so we're gonna get jump into the lightning round. What's the most overrated health and performance trend that you'd like to see uh go away or at least stop hearing about?

SPEAKER_00 42:14

Yeah, I thought about this as you sent me my pre-work, and I I don't I don't know. I kind of became a blank on that one, but I do want to say, answer that question by saying that what I do want to hear more of is personalized nutrition. I want to hear more because while we're all the same, we're not all the same. And I love the research and the data, especially uh, you know, ISSN uh has quite a bit of data looking at some of the um, you know, the personalized, the wearables, being able to look at people in an individualistic way and create programs around that aspect. So that's my number one answer.

SPEAKER_01 42:53

Well, that would uh we're each a sample size, we're each an experiment of sample size n equals one. So yes, absolutely anything that we could do to uh per uh personalize would uh probably be a step in the right direction. And uh for the listener who wants to follow your work or stay current on the research and Asteroid and all the exciting stuff they're doing, where should they go?

SPEAKER_00 43:13

So there's two websites. There's one which is Asterialusa.com. And please go on at the bottom, you'll see where you can subscribe to our newsletter. I do a blog there uh every month as well, but you can also subscribe to the newsletter and stay up to date on all the research and all the happenings that are Astysanthan and Asterial uh specific. Uh, we also have a site called Asaxanthan.net. And it's more of a consumer-friendly site. You can also go there. Our brand partners are listed by product. If you'd like to start taking Asta Xanthan, it shows you products not only human, but pets as well. Horses, dogs, cats are out there that have products developed with our brand of Asa Xanthan that you can connect through for them as well.

SPEAKER_01 43:54

Well, I'll definitely have to get my tuxedo cat buddy on on my I post something on Instagram as It's crickets. I post a a f a reel of buddy and you know two hundred likes like that. Well, uh Susan, it's been a great honor to have you today. And this is discussion was very helpful, very h informative for this very potentially impactful product. So I'd like to thank you again for your time and to look forward to having you again.

SPEAKER_00 44:17

Well, it was my great pleasure. Andy, thank you so very much for having me today.