8: The Secrets of Cellular Health With Dr. Stephanie Venn-Watson (Fatty15)

What if one of the most important conversations in women’s health is not just about hormones — but about cellular health?

In this episode of The Ageless Woman Podcast, Dr. Cindy Grow, nurse practitioner and founder of My Venus Club in Ocala, Florida, sits down with Dr. Stephanie Venn-Watson, author of The Longevity Nutrient and one of the world’s leading experts on C15:0, also known as pentadecanoic acid.

Dr. Venn-Watson shares the fascinating story of how her research with Navy dolphins helped uncover the importance of C15:0 and opened a new conversation around cellular resilience, healthy aging, metabolism, inflammation balance, heart health, breast health, and long-term healthspan.

Together, Cindy and Dr. Venn-Watson explore why women in their mid-30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond often begin to feel changes in energy, recovery, metabolism, brain fog, inflammation, and vitality — and why those changes may be connected to more than hormones alone.

This conversation helps women understand how cellular health, mitochondria, hormone signaling, fatty acids, metabolic health, inflammation, and prevention are all connected. Because healthy aging is not just about living longer — it is about living with strength, clarity, energy, resilience, and confidence in your body.

If you are a woman navigating perimenopause, menopause, hormone changes, fatigue, metabolic resistance, inflammation, or simply want to be more proactive about longevity and disease prevention, this episode will help you think differently about aging from the cellular level up.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What C15:0 is and why it is gaining attention in longevity science
• How Navy dolphin research led to a breakthrough discovery
• Why not all saturated fats behave the same way in the body
• The connection between C15:0, cellular health, and healthy aging
• Why hormones need healthy cells to communicate effectively
• How cellular resilience may support metabolism, energy, and inflammation balance
• Why heart health, breast health, and metabolic health must be part of the women’s longevity conversation
• What women should know about prevention, healthspan, and aging proactively

Learn more about Fatty15 here: https://www.myvenusclub.com/fatty15

Learn more about My Venus Club: https://www.myvenusclub.com 

Follow My Venus Club on Instagram and Facebook for women’s health education, longevity conversations, hormone health resources, and upcoming events in Ocala and Central Florida.

Disclosure: My Venus Club / Cindy Grow is a paid affiliate of Fatty15 and may receive compensation through the Fatty15 link above.

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent disease. Please consult your healthcare provider before starting any supplement or making changes to your health plan.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Hi, today I'm truly honored to welcome Dr. Stephanie Van Watson, a veterinary epidemiologist, author of the longevity nutrient, and the world's leading expert on C-15, the first essential fatty acid discovered in over 90 years. Formerly with the World Health Organization and the U.S. Navy, Dr. Van Watson's groundbreaking discovery began through her work studying the health and aging patterns of Navy dolphins. That research opened an entirely new conversation around cellular resilience, inflammation, metabolism, and healthy aging. She holds more than 70 patents and has authored over 80 peer-reviewed publications and is the co-founder and CEO of Seraphina Therapeutics. Her work has been featured on NPR and CBS, BBC, and National Geographic, and she has been recognized as 2025 CNBC Changemaker, and she truly is. What I appreciate so much about Steph's work is that it gives women a new way to understand aging, not just as something hormonal or inevitable, but as something deeply connected to cellular health, prevention, resilience, and true vitality. So let's get started and give Dr. Stephanie Van Watson a very warm welcome to the Ageless Woman Podcast. Welcome, Steph. I'm so honored and just absolutely thrilled to have you here and have a very thought-provoking and just incredibly impactful conversation for women, talking about their health, breast health, heart health, and just overall vitality. Your story, how it starts with your incredible research with dolphins, and how that rolled into cellular health and the part of aging. And for women, this is huge. We feel like you are our Wonder Woman. You just swooped in and brought us all this incredible research to help us age so gracefully and so much better. So can you take us to the beginning and tell us all about the research that you were doing and how you got started and where we are now? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Well, Cindy, hi, it's great to be here. So wonderful to spend this time with you and with your audience. So uh yeah, so I'm a I'm a veterinary epidemiologist, which is not your typical uh profession, right? And so my job is to help find patterns um basically in diseases and health for all animals, including including humans. And so I was working for World Health Organization, CDC, helping to set up infectious disease surveillance systems all over the world, which was awesome. And then I was recruited about 24 years ago to help continually improve the health and welfare of Navy dolphins. So I was like San Diego, you know, uh dolphins, come on. So I thought I'd do that for a couple of years. And uh I ended up being there for over 20 years. Wow, wow incredible population, um, which is it, which was great. So the Navy has cared for this population of um about a sustained population of about a hundred bottlenose dolphins uh for over 60 years. Cindy, they they live in San Diego Bay, go out into the open ocean every day, every day they choose to come back. So it's really it's a pretty awesome place for for for dolphins to be, uh, as I quickly learned. And they get really good care. So dolphins at the Navy live a lot longer than dolphins in the wild. Dolphins in the wild live to about 20, and dolphins at the Navy are routinely living into their 40s and 50s. Two dolphins last year turned 60 years old. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Isn't that great? That's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

It's amazing. So we over a 10-year period, uh, this uh we were discovering that uh we basically shifted from infectious disease interest because the dolphins were doing really well, to chronic aging associated diseases. And that's where we started seeing that among the older Navy dolphins, about one in three were developing aging-associated diseases, just like you and me, right? So they were, we were seeing chronic inflammation, high cholesterol, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, fatty liver disease, even the full suite of changes consistent with Alzheimer's. So this um, you know, the the whole goal of this program of me being there was not to do research on dolphins or humans. The entire intent and all this funding by Office of Naval Research was truly to um protect and improve the health of the Navy dolphins, which is so wonderful, right? And so we then um you were able to leverage this Navy funding to then uh use an advanced technology called metabolomics, and we studied thousands of small molecules present in the dolphins all fish diet, as well as their archived serum. And that's and we want to wanted to see which small molecules predicted the healthiest aging dolphins, and that's when we first discovered that C15, um, this odd chain saturated fat, higher levels of it, predicted the healthiest aging dolphins. Fast forward 10 years, uh, and over now 150 peer-reviewed studies since then. And now, you know, uh, as we're gonna talk about C15 has emerged as uh the first essential fatty acid to be discovered in over 90 years since omega-3.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

It's all kind of that's just incredible. So when you were doing the research, at what point did you discover and say, hey, this could have real implications for human health? Was there like an aha moment or yeah, there there was.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

So as we were, you know, when we were finding these associations, we you know then went to the the literature because you know I didn't even know what C15, I've never heard of C15, didn't know what C15 was. So as we started looking into C15 in the peer-reviewed literature, there were an a number of early papers that were showing the same association that humans that had higher levels of C15 had a lower risk of having, um, and then now we know of even developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease. That's really where the focus, as well as some hints on liver disease. So when we started seeing that, it was like, aha, that was like humans, dolphins, great. This is, you know, this this um, you know, similarity meant that there could be something meaningful while these studies were really just saying it's association and not causation. We were the first then to be able to then go and say, hey, let's actually focus on odd chain fatty acids. Let's change the diet of the dolphins, specifically to increase their C15 and C17 levels, and let's see what happens. And that's where we saw an active improvement and started this, you know, wonderful decade-long journey.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

That's incredible. Um, what types of foods were you? Did you have to change up their diet when you noticed the ones, the healthier dolphins versus the dolphins that weren't so healthy? And then did you see differences in female versus male dolphins?

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Oh, that's a great question. So, so great set of questions. So, what we did, so we looked at when the we compared a couple populations. The first is we said we looked at Navy dolph dolphins within the Navy population, those that were like getting this syndrome, aging associated diseases, and those that were not. So those were that was one group. The other group was looking at dolphins in the Navy versus wild dolphins living in, you'll appreciate this in Sarasota Bay, Florida. And yes, and so that is also a really well understood, studied population of wild dolphins. While Navy dolphins live longer than Sarasota dolphins, we were seeing that the Sarasota dolphins were not getting this syndrome, right, that we were seeing. So super interesting. So we were able to look at their fatty acid levels, do metabolomics with those dolphins, and be able to look at their diets, right? This so the book was actually originally going to be called the Sarasota Bay Dolphin Diet, but we didn't want people to think that we were like eat dolphins. Eat the diets of the dolphins. So what we then found was that um, you know, so Sarasota Bay dolphins, um, lower insulin, lower, lower likelihood of having this syndrome. When we looked at their blood values, we saw that they had much higher levels of C15 and C17. Um, so then we looked at their diet, the fish they were eating in Sarasota Bay, which included things like mullet and pinfish that Navy dolphins don't eat. And those fish were higher, high in C15 and C17, versus the fish that were being fed to the dolphins were much lower. And in many cases, there were several types of fish they were being fed that had no C-15 in it. So, right, so then the study then we then basically gave Navy dolphins that were case dolphins, right? The ones that had the syndrome. We gave them the Sarasota Bay uh dolphin fishes. We gave them mullet and pinfish. We were able to show that their C15 and C17 levels um successfully increased. Um they increased the amount in their diet, increased the amount in their blood. And most importantly, Cindy, in that very first um study showed normalization of glucose, triglycerides, cholesterol, and insulin and ferridin, which we're incredible. So it was like, okay, this isn't just association causation. And then we moved um C15 and C17 into the lab and then started doing, you know, your standard work that you would need to do to really understand a molecule's efficacy.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

Wow. Was there a point in time where you said, okay, this is affecting all those different levels, triglycerides, insulin, glucose, when you really saw how important it was affecting the cells, the integrity of the cell membrane? How does that, what's the timeline with that?

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Yeah, so what we found was that um we, that uh one of the key findings from the the modified diet study in the dolphins was, which was unexpected, we weren't even looking for it, was improved red blood cell health. So we saw that there were animals, there were dolphins that we had in the population. One of them was Bertha, like an old, our old female dolphin, of course, named Bertha. And she had had chronic anemia for a long time, like for years and years, just like people, right? And and um one of the folks on our crew came back and said, and she was part of this study, came back and said, Bertha doesn't have, you know, doesn't have uh anemia anymore. Like her, like it's it's gone. And we're like, what? So then as we looked, and then we looked at all the dolphins that were part of the study and City, every single half of the 20 dolphins um in the study, half of them had anemia, had, and so we then saw then it they all resolved. And so we that's where we, you know, combined, you know, as we combined this pilot study and then a follow-up study together, really through this, you know, and really through this first study showing that it we it was having this improvement, the way, and then we were seeing strengthening red blood cells, we have to reach a certain level in the red blood cell level. And then when we then moved into the um, you know, into the lab, we were then um able, and now others to use, you know, well-understood preclinical models that have fragile red blood cells that have this syndrome that um to understand that C15 then stabilizes those red blood cells. And that not only is important for red blood cell health and anemia, but as we learned, ended up telling us the entire pathophysiology of a new syndrome that we reported in 2012 in dolphins, but now recently was published in Nature as a consensus statement for a disease called metabolic hyperferotinemia in humans in 2023. Very exciting times.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

Very exciting times. Wow. And going back to the female male, did you see any differences or no?

SPEAKER_01 13:12

No, we didn't. We didn't see any differences between the males and females. Um and I think but that could have been we that could have been because it's a small population number. So I wouldn't say that it did or didn't based upon our population size. But at that time, having, you know, the initial study was with six dolphins, and then the the follow-up study reconfirming those first findings were you know equal males and females, and we saw an equal response in that small population.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

Wow. So, and again, coming up and realizing this is all about cellular health, and your book talks so eloquently about the longevity pathway and the hallmarks of aging. So, as we're rolling into talking about the importance of C15 and cellular health, can you talk about what the longevity pathway is for all the women out there listening and the hallmarks of aging? Because we often think about hormones when we think about women's health. And this is really going to take the conversation to the next level. I think women will have that aha moment and say, wait a minute, cellular health is really where it's at. That's where we really need to focus on, and then everything else will start to fall into place.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

That's right. It starts, right? We're made out of cells. So every part of our body, and so I was like, and it's it is really increasing the awareness around this. And Sydney, this conversation is feeding that that movement, right? That people are really understanding cellular health is such an exciting time in science of being able to understand at the cellular level how we stay healthy and how we age, you know, and so these you had mentioned these hallmarks of aging have been defined as um specific ways that drive the physical aspects of aging. Um, as you're so there's chronological age, we can't really control that until somebody develops a time machine or something. So we're not gonna be able to do that. But biological age, right? How how old we're how much we're breaking down with age, we're realizing we can have meaningful impacts on that. And that's where, you know, not just C15Ns, but there's where there's a whole world of scientists working on these um hallmarks of aging and this longevity-regulating pathway, which has been literally mapped out to say that if we can tap into these specific pathways, you can extend longevity. And it's all, as you shared, at the cellular level. So what does this include? This includes um, you know, repairing and protecting mitochondrial health. I mean, that we all learn in third grade, the powerhouses of our cells, so important. Makes sense that we want to be able to keep um energy production that are cells, you know, in the core of uh C15, um, where it strengthens keeping those cells healthy for as long as possible. Um, we know that as far as um cellular signaling, the cells being able to talk to each other is critical. Some examples include things that C5, so we know that C15 strengthens cells. We know that C15 repairs mitochondria. We know that C15 um activates, uh has 36 different cellular activities, which is a lot of the cellular communication, which includes things like activating what's called AMPK, which is the heart of the longevity regulating pathway. It's also the mechanism of metformin, right? Of a first-line drug for type 2 diabetes. So that's how important it is to metabolism. And C15 also inhibits mTOR, which is the other, if you're gonna pick two mechanisms within the longevity pathway, that's the other one. And that's what um rapamycin does, which is if you ask longevity docs, like what's your favorite longevity um, you know, enhancing uh candidate, that rapamycin is almost always gonna be in the top um list, with the exception of its side effects, because rapamycin is a very complex molecule found in Easter Island. It's not something our bodies were meant to have. But now we have discovered, you know, that, and others have discovered C15, this natural molecule that we get from birth and from our routinely from our diet that we're supposed to have, also has the same beneficial mechanism. So it's probably what we were meant to have. So there's this whole list, like we said in the book, all these acronyms, like you know, that of all these activities that it has has these broad effects that then translates into longer um uh health that then translate into longer wellness and longevity.

SPEAKER_02 18:03

Without the side effects. Without the side effects, I know nature at its best.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

I know it's like just we just need to listen to nature, and that's what you know, Dr. Nick Short, he's head of NIH's longevity uh NIH funded um longevity consortium, and he's been in that role for uh over 24, 25 years. And when Nick was seeing all the science around C15, he said, Steph, I bet C15 is going to be a gyro protector. And I was like, awesome, what's a gyro protector? Right. So what is not yeah, and that's when Nick said a gyro protector in in the longevity space is the holy grail of healthy aging because it's a molecule that can effectively slow our biological aging to stem the onset of the diseases that kill us. And he's like that. And so it's not something you take and you hope and pray that you live longer. It's something where you would see and feel benefits within months. And so that's why he has like C15 has been his favorite molecule now for multiple years and that the data just keep coming in support of it. So it's all very it's great to have the initial discovery, and we're so grateful for the Navy and the dolphins. But it was so important is the outside world, right, is now working with it and proving it out.

SPEAKER_02 19:23

Seeing all the data supporting this that's right that's coming out, and hearing it from people that are taking it and how they're feeling, and then they see it on their lab results, specifically maybe just a basic CBC, like you were talking about with just looking at red blood cells. Can you speak a little bit to nutrient sensing and how C15 is so important in that and how that is important for women?

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, when we talk about uh nutrient sensing, it's basically saying how well are our cells responding to what we eat, right? And so it gets to, therefore, it means we have to eat the right things to trigger things. So I know that uh many of us will relate well to, you know, if you eat something that is whole dairy fat, like if you you know drink a cup of whole fat milk or you eat even the best option, right? Eat eat some cheese, some delicious high quality cheese. You don't have to eat a lot of cheese and you get full, right? And so this is right, and so versus if it's low fat, and then back in the days where we were like, oh, low fat, therefore high sugar. So we replaced fat with sugar, we stopped basically triggering the nutrients, and now we're learning C15 is a key one of them that helps to tell our brain, hey, I've had enough to eat, turn down the hunger, you know, signals for a sustained duration of time. When we removed C15 and these high some of these high fat um, high fats from our dairy, saturated fats from our dairy, especially C15 is this Goldilocks, healthy one, then we stopped signaling to ourselves that we've had enough and that we it's time to like calm down and not eat. Sugar was doing the opposite, right? Giving the up and the down, up and the down. So, so the the importance of um C15 now we're realizing um is helping ourselves to tell ourselves that um to be able to do things like these, there's these receptors called P PARs, P PAR alpha and delta. All the jobs of these receptors are not for the drugs, that even though drugs target these receptors for specific diseases, that's not why we have the receptors. We have these receptors to respond to what we're eating. And if we eat the right things, that keeps our body balanced. If we don't, then that nutrient signaling gets thrown off, and then we're hungry when we shouldn't be. Um You know, all the downstream negative effects of that, as we as I think many of us are have experienced through our lives, uh kicks in and it's really hard to beat.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

It is, it is. I often tell people, fat doesn't make us fat, sugar makes us fat. Right. That's right. And it doesn't, it's it's satiety. And and as you speak to how it affects the receptors, that that's a great way to talk about hormones because I look at hormones the same way, they're messengers. And in order for our cells to receive those messengers, they have to be healthy. The receptors have to be healthy, and that is just so important for both men and women's health because hormones, again, are another huge part to our vitality. Can you speak about how C15 plays a role with cellular health and those hormone messages that we get and how the receptors, how it all works together? So for a woman that's aging, maybe in perimenopause, um, and she's thinking about hormone replacement therapy, or even just how her own hormones that her body is making are working, how we'll feel better if our health of our cells are healthier and the receptors are ready to take on those hormones properly. Insulin, sex hormones, thyroid hormone, all those things.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

Yeah, so so what we've learned is that C15's core role with regard to stabilizing cell membranes is and keeping those cell membranes healthy because the cell membranes are not just protecting our cells, they're also hold all the control, all the signaling of what the cell is letting in, what the cell is kicking out, how the cell is responding to these different receptors, including hormones. So back in 2012, uh researchers at Columbia University discovered an entirely new way that our cells were dying, and they called it feroptosis. Um and this was published in Cell. And the way they described this new form. So when we went to like cell biology class, right, we learned there are only three ways our cells die: apoptosis, necrosis, and autophagy. This group discovered a fourth. So this was a really huge deal. And when they described how these cells died, they specifically said it's because of fragile fatty acids in the cell membrane that was leading to attack by oxygen, leading to increased oxidative stress, or what's called lipid peroxidation. That lipid peroxidation combines with the strange iron showing up in the cells. And that um that uh combination of lipid peroxidation with iron then leads to massive production of reactive oxygen species. They take out all the mitochondria in the cell and the cell is dead. Um, since that publication, Cindy, there have been over 20,000 papers published on ferreptosis, right? And most people have never heard of it, um, right. And and you know, I I talk to rooms full of physicians now who, you know, who, when I ask at the beginning of the talk, how many of you have heard of pharoptosis? There's one or two hands out of a hundred. So we now know that you know ferreptosis accelerates aging, it accelerates the the onset and the progression of type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, um, cardiovascular disease. And um, you know, the big question was why did ferreptosis show up? And then pharoptosis now leads to this new the syndrome called metabolic hyperferotinemia, present in as many as one in three. Another paper showed one in 10. So the big question is why were these, um, where did ferreptosis come from? And we now know that uh the dolphins taught us this that this syndrome, metabolic hyperferotinemia feroptosis, what we published in 2012, was it's caused by C15 deficiency. So going back to your to your question, when we look at ferreptosis, we look at metabolic hyperferotinemia, this is associated with um it of advanced aging, including with regard to associations with decreased hormonal health. So there are now questions about this iron overload and ferreptosis. What is it doing to kind of, like you said, disturb the ability for our cells to be able to respond and produce right effectively the hormones we need. And then there's just aging, right? When our hormones are we hit menopause, it is a wall, right? It's not like men, men get the gradual, like it starts earlier, they start aging earlier, and they get that like gradual decline in health as they lose, you know, their hormone levels. For us, we're fine until it hits. And when it hits, we hit a wall and our aging drops, our aging rate increases precipitously, right? As soon as we hit that wall. So the the importance of maintaining hormone health, you know, as early as and throughout our lives is really important. C15 supports through the cells, but it's working in concert with those hormones, right? And so it's a good example of synergistic effects where you need both, right, in order to be able to sustain the benefits of those hormones.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

Yes. Everything's interconnected.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

That's right. That's why C50 is not the solution for all, but it's there to be able to be this foundational support.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

Yes, that balance. You can't have one without the other, right really is part of it. Um, which brings us to another really important topic for women: breast health, and the incredible research that has been around C-15 and being able to maintain breast health and all the research now surrounding C-15 and its impact, um, the anti-proliferate effects that it has, the anti-cancer effects. Can you speak to us a little bit about all that research? It's so exciting, and I know there's so much ongoing.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

There is, and I'm gonna step really carefully uh into this area and make sure I provide all kinds of disclaimers. You don't hear me talk about it a lot, even though there's so much exciting research around it, Cindy, that I agree that it deserves a platform to be spoken. But make sure that I caveat it with a disclaimer of, you know, C15 supplementation and interventions involving C15 are not intended for, you know, for cancer. So this is not what we're gonna talk about, is not say, oh, therefore, go get a supplement. Exactly. Yeah, that's right. It is so that is not the intent of a supplements are not drugs. Um, and that's not what they're intended for. And there's a there's a process to be able to get drugs approved for diseases. So understanding truly that caveat, which is why we speak so carefully around it, there has been substantial research, um, preclinical research being done looking at cancer, um, including um uh concentrated work on breast cancer and fatty acids. And these teams look at all different types of fatty acids. And what's exciting in these studies is that when they look at many different types of fatty acids, C15 in multiple studies showed ends up being the one that is the best in many cases at being antiproliferative of stopping the proliferation and growth of many different types of cancer cells in a dose-dependent fashion. So the higher the C15 in cells and in cells, yes, not people, not taking it, um, is increases the its anti-cancer effects. There's studies, and this is now being translated in vivo, so like in mouse models using breast cancer, where when combined with gemcidabine, which is you know a standard uh intervention for breast cancer, gemsidabine combined with C15 had a greater effect, a synergistic effect, um, than just gemcidabine alone, um, really showing remarkable results in vivo in animal, a mouse model of decreasing proliferation of those cells. Another study showed that tamoxifen-resistant breast cancer cell lines, it that C15 helped um remove the tamoxifen resistance so that the breast cancer uh cells were now not resistant to interesting.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

Or is the research showing how the effect C15 has on the JAC stat and HDAC6? Do you think that is the driver behind the results that we're seeing?

SPEAKER_01 30:49

I do. I think it has multiple. What's exciting about C15 is that it has these, it's called pleotropic, right? So it means it has multiple activities, which is what an essential molecule should have. So it is exactly like you said, it inhibits um HDAC6, it inhibits JAXTAT, it inhibits mTOR. All of these are already established anti-cancer mechanisms that are ideal targets for drugs. And again, here we're talking about something natural. So when you look at human studies, um, these are not intervention studies, right? These are like you're looking at population studies and showing that um C15, that in multiple population studies, high people with higher levels of C15 have a lower risk of having or developing certain types of cancers. There are a couple on breast cancers um which are suggestive, but and but not as strong as like there's a study that was done on colorectal cancer showing that only C15 of all the fatty acids, only higher levels of C15 predicted people who didn't have colorectal cancer. So again, this is association, right? Not causation, but the fact that we know a mechanism of action and you know cancers that have been increasing recently, right? And and breast cancer remaining top on the list. And then, right, and then seeing the increase um in cancers happening in younger and younger people.

SPEAKER_02 32:17

Much younger, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:18

So the question is why is this happening? And so one of the hypotheses that we're pursuing and the world is pursuing is you know, our primary source, dietary source of C15 is dairy fat. As we've decreased our intake of whole dairy fat, we've reduced our bodies and our tissues, our cells levels of C15, which could be naturally there, not just to protect our healthy cells, but to prevent the proliferation of cancer cells. And if we don't have that C15 level in our tissues, could that be a contributor, a deficiency in C15 that to an environment that is more likely to allow these cancer cells to grow? So again, this is a convert, a much bigger conversation that needs a lot more work. But the the first levels of data, cell-based data, in vivo data, um, and um, and then human population studies warrant clinical trials.

SPEAKER_02 33:20

Yes. And your your incredible work and just having these conversations now is is so important. It's taking science and medicine to another whole level. This is such an exciting time for us. I really, I really see it that way. I think about in the 1980s where everything was low fat and high carb and and you know, we just and then the moms weren't having milk anymore, and then the babies weren't getting the C15 and the breast milk the way we used to, and just all of that. I remember growing up, like I just drank milk all the time. I still do milk and butter and and all of that. And I just think, wow, there's there's definitely the association there. So, and now you brought to the forefront the science behind C15, and now more research. People are listening to you, people are seeing and hearing and reading everything that you've done. And you've brought such eyes on this, it's so exciting. I know. I'm just like, I'm really excited. Oh, I just think your work has been great. Your work is really um, really, really profound. And this will help women's health tremendously because it will really help them think about cellular health. And I think so many of us just kind of, I mean, I didn't for years. I wasn't thinking like that. I wasn't like thinking, oh, I've got to maintain make sure all my cells stay healthy. And that's foundational.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

It is, it is, and now we're seeing things like um, you know, like PCOS just got renamed to PMOS, right? Acknowledging that this is a metabolic, like a dysfunctional metabolic condition. Same thing just happened with fatty liver, not with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, got rebranded to metabolic associated dysfunctional metabolism. And we're seeing all of this, like all of these syndromes coming together into, you know, for a an important subset being driven by and this metabolic hyperferotinemia, which is you know, kind of this insidious pathophysiology that, you know, like you said, is is correlated with this deep with the change in our diet that, you know, you one could write off, with the exception of the dolphins. This is like, because the dolphins had the same, they decreased their C15 intake at the same time for different reasons. They the navy had stopped feeding a very high fat fish around the same time we stopped eating high-fat dairy, but we know their C15 levels went down. They developed the same syndrome, exact same syndrome. And importantly, we were able to fix it by getting C15 back into their bodies and then prove it all out in the lab. So now it's like, okay, you can't explain C15 away anymore. So we really need to be talking about it because it's almost to the point where it's more harm to keep pushing it to the side because it's so safe. And it's like, and we're not, you know, when we talk about the supplement, supplement, we were funded by the Navy to develop the supplement as truly to supplement the diet. And if you have a nutritional deficiency syndrome that's emerging, you the first way to fix it is through the diet. So let's see that. And then exactly. And then let the supplement be, you know, an additive way to help address the issue. But these conversations are not to push pills. The the conversation is we have a problem that we think we can fix by just getting the right foods back into our bodies.

SPEAKER_02 36:58

Yeah, and it's very prevalent in the United States with this advent of all these plant-based milks and plant-based everything, nothing against plants. I love them. I eat a lot of veggies myself, but I also love cheese, love milk, love butter, love ice.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

I'm excited about my life without dairy. I know some people don't have a choice, but uh, I do love, love, love my dairy.

SPEAKER_02 37:25

I know. And that is now that you say that some people don't have a choice because there's so much lactose intolerance, and that is probably another whole podcast talking about the effects of C15 on the microbiome and the fermentation process that goes along. And I think there's a lot of research to be done there because we are supposed to have milk. We're I think that's a part, I mean, of our human biology. And every baby is born, and what's the first thing is milk. So I think that there's something there too that eventually we'd be able to hopefully figure out. So everyone can enjoy milk and cheese and butter and ice cream.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

I know, wouldn't that be great? And then um, right, exactly. And we're seeing that that C15 is both uh prebiotic and a postbiotic. So C15 helps beneficial bacteria grow, like uh by Fidobacterium adolescentis. It also is, you know, we can use fiber, for example, that fiber has inulin in it. Microbes in our gut can use the inulin from fiber to make C15. So the gut microbiome, like you said, it's a whole new conversation. It's exciting work that groups completely independent of us are doing all of that work. So really exciting. It can't, the gut doesn't make enough to get us up and over that threshold, but every bit counts. And it's yet another reason to eat fiber. It's like there are a lot of reasons. This is yet another one to feed our micro our gut microbes to make good all of those.

SPEAKER_02 39:03

Can let's pivot for a minute and talk about heart disease. Um, again, another huge topic for women. It is still one in three women die of heart disease. It is still our number one killer. And C15, again, is right up there to help us decrease our risk for developing that disease, uh, especially as women move into perimenopause and especially postmenopausal women, they are they meet men with the risk for heart disease. So, can you speak a little bit about how C-15 is such an integral part of this disease process, um, minimizing this disease risk and where we're going with the research on this, because this is so important for women too.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

Yeah, absolutely. I'm glad you brought up heart disease, right? Especially, you know, and around women, because it gets people forget, right? And like you said, like once we hit that wall, once we hit that wall, we're basically equal to men, and then in some cases, scary places, you know, places potentially surpassing them in risk. So the um the combining the data. So let's start with the um mechanism of action and what it's doing at the cellular level. Um, the some of the core benefits, I think, of C15 at the cellular level are going to be inflammation. So decreasing inflammation called, and with aging is called inflammation. I love that. Inflammation. So we know that C15 in a dose response fashion decreases 18 pro-inflammatory cytokines. So these are molecules that basically come into our uh vessels and say, get inflamed, which is great if you have an infection. But if you don't have an infection and those signals are going off in a way that they shouldn't, then you get this chronic pro-inflammatory state in your heart throughout your vessels that is a major instigator of heart disease. And this includes our specific cytokines called like IL6, MCP1, TNF alpha. Well understood to be just knotty players in our vessels. So C15 lowers this is in, you know, uh dose-dependent, well-established cell-based studies and platforms of like diseases in a dish showing that C15 is effective. Um, when we move to uh, you know, preclinical models, and we actually saw this in the dolphins as well, that C15, we also know because also possibly in part because it activates AMPK, it lowers um cholesterol. And so we're seeing a cholesterol lowering effect of C15. And we so we know that that is um heart protective. And then the pheroptosis piece may end up being one of the most important components that ferreptosis is becoming one of a major risk factor for heart disease. This includes um feroptosis feeding. So C15 causes ferreptosis, right? That's the hypothesis. And then this feroptosis affects uh usually it starts with the liver. People with um with fatty liver disease, they have a much higher risk of dying. And it's not from liver disease, they're dying from heart disease. So we're seeing this link between fatty liver disease and heart disease. So if we can address the feroptosis, both the liver and the heart, iron literally being deposited in the heart and the vessels, we can protect heart disease there. So then we can move into you know humans. And so C15, um, you know, is like you had shared um prospective cohort meta-analyses. So this is following tens of thousands of people over many, many years, not just one cohort, but multiple cohorts put together into a meta-analysis. There are now seven meta-analyses for on C15 that have C15, right? And this is following people. So they have high C15 or low C15 at the beginning, and how what happens at, you know, as the years pass. And what these studies reliably show, like you had shared, Cindy, is that the higher the C15, the lower the risk, not just of having, but of developing specifically coronary heart disease and stroke. So um and hypertension. So all of these things, right, are are then, and those are association. But when you combine all of these things, and the last piece is there's a clinical trial that was done in Singapore in which women who had a high BMI um had fatty fatty liver disease, were supplemented with C15. On top of the the other um groups were they were given a low calorie diet to help them lose weight. They were given a Mediterranean aligned diet to provide all the well established benefits of Mediterranean. Then the third group had uh low calories, Mediterranean diet plus C15 supplementation, and they showed that third group. Even above and above, above and beyond the first two groups, had lower LDL cholesterol and conveniently increased growth of bifidobacterium adolescents. So all of this supports that C15, you know, is again, why is it essential protecting so the as a gerro protector, protecting us against the diseases that are typically lead to our demise? As you would mention, heart disease being the number one.

SPEAKER_02 44:30

Do you see that this message is getting into the cardiology community? Is it starting to get more received? People are starting to listen.

SPEAKER_01 44:40

It is, yeah. So we're seeing cardiologists not just like listening and leaning in to the science, but but using um C15, testing their patients for C15 and using it, which is like entire clinics, cardiology clinics. There's still a lot of work to be done because it's sort of so ingrained and taught that all saturated fats are bad. And we now know that that you know is is not true. We now know that odd chain saturated fats, those that are have odd chain of nemocarping, C15, C17, and now we know C15 as this Goldilocks odd chain fatty acid, are anti-inflammatory, pro, you know, health, even chain saturated fats like C16, C18 are pro-inflammatory and you know, uh hurt our mitochondria and cause um all kinds of atum. So it's not, and cardiologists, right, have been we and we all have been so trained in saturated fats are bad for our heart. There's all the data are there. So we need to be able to sit and work with them to say you have to, you can't look at the data and just write it off. So let's talk about how what we need to do to do the appropriate studies to really play out how we can get the benefits and do we see the benefits right of C15 while not giving ourselves lots and too much of these pro-inflammatory fats.

SPEAKER_02 46:07

Yes. Can you speak to why C15, even over C17, we see so many more health benefits and so much more effect on the hallmarks of aging and how it's right up there with the acarbose and rapamycin and metformin, more so than any other odd chain fatty acid? Is what did you guys discover, or what did you discover with this?

SPEAKER_01 46:32

Yeah, it's it's been the world really, Cindy discovering. So we know that odd chain fatty acids as a group, especially C15 and 17, both of them have benefits. So there's there's C17 is is not, it's it's kind of like the the weaker sibling, but it's still a sibling, right?

SPEAKER_00 46:50

So uh uh the one that didn't didn't get all the attention, but still holds its own.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

So so uh C17 does have anti-inflammatory effects. It does have um, you know, some, it's almost like uh some of the effects of C15 is just more muted. So as a group, they're good. But then as we leaned in more, so we said, okay, odd chain fatty acids are actively beneficial. Let's now look at the differentiation of them. And that's where we and others, you know, around the world have been able to show that C15 holds its own, which is remarkable, right? That evolution will say, and our bodies actually use C15 to make C17. So that kind of gets to the heart of our bodies can't make enough C15 on its own, but it can make C17. So that kind of kicked C17 out as an essential fatty acid because our bodies so for that reason, C15 is the only one that qualifies as an emerging essential fatty acid. But there are even things that are really strange and surprising. Not only is C15 better, but there was a study done in nematodes where they were looking for essential um nutrients uh for neonatal growth. And so they took nematodes that when they're in this post-embryonic state, they basically just go into this hibernating state if you feed them nothing. So you give them nothing, they don't die, they just hibernate. So it's really a neat model because you can introduce specific one nutrient to that little hibernating post-embryonic state and see if it wakes up and develops. And so when they gave it C15, it just no no proteins, no carbs, no, just just C15, it woke up and it had normal neuronal development. They did the same thing with yeah, they did the same thing with C17, nothing. So it's like, but yeah, C16 in this model, C16 did help wake it up. So it's like when but C16 is pro-inflammatory, right? So it's more like C15 ends up being special because uh it is the only one that does all of the good things without the bad things and it makes it better. That's great. It's a little shining star in among that that group.

SPEAKER_02 49:15

Yes. So let's turn to a really fun part and talk about food, all the food sources you can get C15 in. This is my favorite part. Let's talk about more. What's your favorite food for C15?

SPEAKER_01 49:28

Cheese, high quality cheese. Man, I love my cheeses. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So we love, we I love my and and increasing numbers of studies are showing that when the C15, when C15 is coming, when its source is coming from cheese, um, it has the best benefits, which um could be for a couple of reasons. One is there are it it's concentrated, um, and and it could be coming with other things than cheese, right? That have other benefits as well. So it's like a combined package. Um, we know C15 on its own has benefits, but this is a food, a great source of C15 that's also seems to be delivering, like especially if you look at pregnant women, pregnant women who eat more cheese, more likely to have higher C15 levels and more likely to then those higher C15 levels translate into better fetal and infant growth and development association. So, so um cheeses and if it's if you're able to see that it's a cheese that comes from a grass fed, yes, right? Sheep, uh goat, or cow, that's the best. So cheeses are my favorite, clearly. Um some of it could also be that the cheeses that are are fermented, so uh fermented foods could be dairy foods, could be another potential good source because the fatty in fermented um dairy products, the C15, um, has a greater chance of being broken down into a more bioavailable form. So C15 in dairy food is in a triacyl glyceride form. So it's like a branch that has three fatty acids attached to it, hence tri. And we can't absorb that. We have to use our digestive enzymes to pull off that free fatty acid and absorb it. When you ferment a product, it can increase the amount of free fatty acid C15 that's available in that food. So it might, those dairy products might help. Um, and then we talked about grass-fed. So any, if it's butter, especially butter um or milk, if they share that, um, and yogurt, I know I have a great yogurt that's from grass-fed cows. Those cows um that are grass-fed have their milk has 50% more C15 than cows that are fed corn. And there's a recent, it was called the French uh market basket study that was done by another team, and they bought a bunch of dairy products in the store. And of course, it was France, so it was like eight cheeses, cheeses everything. And the French cheeses that they reported, like had just the French cheeses had 50% more C15 than we see in cheeses that are measured here in the US. So it's just some high quality. I know French cheeses.

SPEAKER_02 52:23

I know we have to go visit France and Sardinia more. Exactly, exactly. Oh gosh. So, from your perspective, what foundational lifestyle habits would you tell women that are an absolute must for them to really extend their health span? Obviously, start taking Fatty 15, eating healthy, let your food be your medicine first. What would you say? What are some of the things that you do share with us?

SPEAKER_01 52:52

Yeah, and this is gonna sound like a broken record from like what everybody says, but it's because there's so much science supporting like how do we support health with longevity? How do we live longer because we're healthier? We don't want to live longer and be sick, like for the right, like no, thank you. Like when we first came out with the book, The Longevity Nutrient City People, there were a lot of women who were like, I don't want longevity, I want health. And so, right, and so it's like what we want is we want to live longer because we're healthy. So that's the goal, right? And so, well established. And and you know, we really as we get older, we need to be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. It just we really have to work to integrate it into our lives, and by doing so, it becomes a positive feedback loop, right? And so once we find a way for to make it work for you, and then it works for you, and then it becomes, I don't want to say addictive, but you're positively fed back on being getting healthy, right?

SPEAKER_02 53:54

So sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep. Critical, critical.

SPEAKER_01 53:59

And so many women aren't sleeping when we start to age. Seven, like getting that seven hours of finding ways, routines, you know, for sleep um to be able to help is one of the top reasons why we have such strong retention, which we were completely surprised by and not expecting at all, is that um that women on, you know, with the supplement with the C15 supplement, uh, they're sleeping better. It's one of the first benefits reliably reported. So so much so that we're now doing a clinical trial on sleep. So finding things that have, and you know, it's like you look back, drinking a warm cup of milk was a great way to fall asleep. And everyone, oh, maybe was it was it because of in part because of C15?

SPEAKER_03 54:40

C15.

SPEAKER_01 54:40

So um so yeah, getting split, exercising, and it doesn't mean you have to then go into the gym, go work out with the gym bros, and you know, it's not, it doesn't have to be that. It could find something you love doing that puts your head in a great place. For me, I'm like, I'm not a huge exercise fan, but I love an excuse to be able to watch a TV show and not feel guilty about it. So I watch it while I'm on the bike. So it's like I don't I'm like, and now I those two are inextrical inextricable for me. And then I get the benefit. And by exercising, I also sleep better because all of these things are connected. So they'll find ways to be able to get your heart rate up and increasingly, as we know, you have resistance. You gotta use your muscles. You're gonna activate AMPK, you're gonna see that your glucose metabolism improves quickly just by putting those muscles to work, right? And so and then the last I'll share is um, because we already talked about diet, is socialization, of staying social, of interacting with the community, um, is where understanding is incredibly important. Part of that is also protecting our hearing health, that the more we understand that when we lose our hearing as we age, we um are we don't um uh stimulate our brain, we start pulling back from communicating with others, and it's a it's become a major driver for dementia is that combination of hearing loss with taking ourselves out of community. So all of those things are really important. And of course, I have to say, if they you you are moving along in life and you find a purpose, it doesn't matter what that purpose is, if it's purposeful to you, you lean in on it because purpose is gives us it's the reason for not just being alive, but for living, right? And that is such a major contributor to longevity and health.

SPEAKER_02 56:41

It it is. I had a patient a couple weeks ago share something with me, and I just loved how she looked at this. So she she's in her 80s. Um, however, she was just talking about how she's repurposing herself. So 80 is the new 60, she said, and she's repurposing herself, and she's doing all of this new work that she just finds so fascinating. And I just loved how she said repurposing herself.

SPEAKER_01 57:11

I love that. And that's great. And we can do that at any time in our lives, yeah. Like it's it's there is nothing, this is a conscious choice that we can make, and it's it it means everything, it just feeds everything. So that is a wonderful story.

SPEAKER_02 57:28

Yes, yeah, that just touched me, and I just was like, oh, that was so much wisdom in that one little statement. Yeah. So is there anything that we didn't touch on today that you that you think is an absolute must women should hear?

SPEAKER_01 57:42

I think just, you know, I I increasingly am so encouraged by how much women are taking ownership of their health, um, of their wellness, of their of a power. You know, it's just like their ability to say that we can find paths to be able to meaningfully improve our lives. We don't have to be passively accepting the fact that we're getting older and hearing like, well, don't worry about it. Of course, that's happening, you're getting older. And right, it we don't have to accept that statement. You don't, because it's still being said. And I think you know, that is, I think, one of the most important things. Um, you know, so whether you know, anything from from the conversations that we've had today, but just being able to lean in, you know yourself better than anybody else. And so be able to take ownership of your health, of your wellness, of your positivity um and contribution, right, to uh to life. And that that is, I think it it's everybody understands it, but really think about absorb it and do it. Like do it today. Yes, yes, don't wait, don't wait, don't wait. It's not another podcast. I just heard it, and yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like go find something today that is meaningful to you and just start making that commitment to yourself. And and it it pays off, pays off in droves quickly.

SPEAKER_02 59:09

It does for not only yourself, but your family, your community, everyone that you come in contact with, and you'll be so much happier. That's right. Yes. Oh, Stephanie, I just want to say I'm so truly honored to have you today in this conversation with me. And so many women are gonna hear this, and it's gonna be so empowering for them. And your work has just been incredible. Um, I just you've reshaped the way people think about aging and prevention, specifically prevention, which I think is huge. I have to tell everyone, please, everyone, go out and get her book, The Longevity Nutrient. It is wonderful to listen to or read. My husband, who's not even in medicine, loved it and understood everything. You you take it down to a level that people can understand. And the story about the dolphins is great for kids to listen to. I can't wait to share it with my grandkids. So, cellular health, that's where it's at. That's what really matters. That's what's gonna help us age gracefully and have long high health span. So I'm so grateful for all your years of research, your persistence, your dedication, everything that you poured into the work and your continued work. And I'm so excited to see what's gonna happen in the future, all the work that you're gonna be still doing. I can't wait. It's really, really thank you so much for being here.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:34

Cindy, wonderful to be here. And and the world is on it. We're all and thanks for being becoming part of the movement. We really, really I'm so happy to be here. Thanks, Jeff. Thank you. Bye, Cindy. Bye.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:49

You know that feeling when you just want to feel like yourself again, not perfect, not younger, just strong, present, and connected to your body. Well, that's why I've been learning so much about cellular health, because how we age starts deeper than what we were ever taught. Fatty 15 is a C15 supplement designed to support cellular health and healthy aging. I added a link at myvenusclub.com so you can learn more and get your Fatty15 today. Because feeling vibrant in your body again, that's what really matters. Thank you for joining me today and keep building those foundations. I can't wait to see you in the next episode.