Separating fact from fiction in the nutritional supplement space

Finn Melanson [00:00:13]: Hello, fellow runners. I'm your host, Finn Melanson, and this is the Run to the Top podcast, the podcast dedicated to making you a better runner with each and every episode. We are created and produced by the expert team of coaches At runnersconnect.net where you can find the best running information on the Internet as well as training plans to fit every runner and every budget. Nutritional Limitation can play an important role in any runner's lifestyle, but it's oftentimes hard to separate fact from fiction when determining what to use, Why to use it, and how much you should be taking. Here to make sense of some of our questions in this space is David Bloch from Prevenix. From his career long exposure to the supplement and wellness spaces, David shares insights on how certain supplements contribute to health and longevity. Specifically, we explore the concept of clinically differentiated supplements and what's required to set new standards in a previously predatory industry, The truths about loose supplement regulations and the necessity of these supplements in our diets, how to interpret supplement labeling and understand product quality and integrity, What commitment to uncompromised supplement creation, looks like, and other valuable insights into optimizing overall health beyond just supplement consumption. This episode is a must listen for anyone seeking a holistic approach to well-being.

Finn Melanson [00:01:45]: If you're looking for the most effectively dosed electrolyte drink for runners, check out Element. It's loaded with everything you need to replenish your electrolyte balance, and you can get a free sample pack by going to drinklmnt.com forward slash runners connect. David Bloch, it's a pleasure to have you on the Run to the Top podcast. How are you doing today?

Guest [00:02:08]: Great, Fin. It's so good to be with you.

Finn Melanson [00:02:10]: I'm excited to chat, and, yeah. I think the first question is is mostly background related. What was your initial exposure to The health and wellness space and maybe more specifically, you know, what made an impression on you? What what what did you learn from it?

Guest [00:02:25]: Yeah. No. It's Good starting question. So I started my professional career as a research analyst in the nutritional supplement industry. And so What that meant was my job for many years was touring supplement manufacturing facilities, reading clinical studies all day, meeting with executives of companies, meeting with investors in the industry, learning the physiology of what different nutrients do at a cellular level, and I really just became an expert in this really niche super specialized supplement space and, and I think I just I just learned some things, in the journey that left an impression and really got me. I I'd say health and wellness was always part of my life. I was a division one scholarship athlete. I was I ate healthy.

Guest [00:03:09]: I I tried to maximize different markers for health and wellness, but when I professionally was all I was doing was Living in the nutritional supplement industry, it just, yeah, it just created this passion first for educating people. And so I guess you asked the question of of What impressions or what did I learn? And I think the 2 things that probably jump out from my days as a research analyst was, number 1, there was all this Proper peer reviewed clinical research that suggested taking advanced levels of certain vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, omegas, probiotics, Had a correlation to longevity, performance, everyday health and I think for me, I'd never learned that. I had a pretty negative view of the supplement industry. I never supplements even as an athlete. And first of all, I was like, why did I never learn this? Like, this is pretty important information. And so I just Became an evangelist. I was telling people what I was learning. I just thought it was so important and fundamental to health.

Guest [00:04:06]: And then the second thing I learned that probably tipped the scale and made me crazy enough to Eventually start a company in the industry was as I got to know the players, the companies, the executives, the marketing strategies, the, You know, distribution channels. The thing that really stood out was that the supplement industry was incredibly predatory and exploitative. And Unless a consumer has a background in nutritional supplements, I actually think this is still true today. Like, the consumer has a 0% chance of understanding what products or ingredients can benefit them. Mhmm. And I just thought that was a real travesty because done right, You can actually create health in people's lives, but the industry wasn't oriented around that, unfortunately. So, anyway, that's my background, And, those are some impressions for sure.

Finn Melanson [00:04:56]: What incentives do you think created the context for a predatory supplement industry?

Guest [00:05:03]: Oh, wow. Yeah. There there's probably a lot. But to point to a handful, I think I mean, so technically, the supplement industry is regulated by the FDA, but But not really. It's more of a self policing standard. And so when you have lack of regulation coupled with People policing themselves, I don't think that's a great recipe, for 6 well, for success for the consumer in a in a, you You know, a capitalism driven kind of market. And so I think, you know, supplements are regulated like foods, So the same kind of regulation that goes into making a loaf of bread, historically is is what has gone into making a supplement. And, The margin structure can be crazy.

Guest [00:05:46]: Like, I think what the consumer doesn't understand that I shouldn't say don't understand. The consumer, I think, is Lacks awareness that there's many different forms of vitamin a and the b vitamins and vitamin c and vitamin d. And the quality and effectiveness really depends on the form, But you will have companies using the lowest quality, least effective version of vitamin C, for example, that has the highest margin That, you know, you can get 90, 95% margins on some of this. And so when you kinda couple that lack of awareness education on the consumer front And high margin environment and lack of regulation, you can just get absolute craziness. And I I I've kinda seen it all, and, it's crazy. Yeah. So those are those are some of the reasons.

Finn Melanson [00:06:35]: When you think about the time that you've been in the space so far, Have there been any new consumer protections introduced, or does it really become a game of, like, having to out market These, you know, falsified companies with, I guess, the truth.

Guest [00:06:52]: Yeah. I mean, I'd say marginally it has improved, but but marginally at best. So There is currently the manufacturing protocols for the supplement industry is what's called cGMPs, which is Current Good Manufacturing Practices. So there are some baseline Practices and and protocols and procedures that companies are supposed to follow. And I'd say, you know, a a good chunk do, but the other chunk, like, You and I could go to the beach. We could put sand in capsules. We could put a fancy label on those capsules, and we could start selling them tomorrow. And That is an actual business strategy for some people.

Guest [00:07:30]: The only thing we would have to do is if someone had an adverse reaction to our product, We'd have to show safety data that our product was safe, but by then we could have made 1,000,000 of dollars, paid our 7 figure fine, banked the difference. And this is Actual business strategy for companies. I mean, I I won't call them out on here, but they're that's the strategy. And so I think Still, unfortunately, you know, a question that I would get asked is, like, how do you differentiate great supplement companies that are doing the right thing from The sea of just predatory marketing companies, and I think the question I would or my answer would say would be, is this a marketing company That happens to sell supplements? Or is this a nutritional supplement company that's, you know, based in principles of nutritional science? And So unfortunately, that number is very small compared to the marketing companies.

Finn Melanson [00:08:23]: I think you Started started to not hint at it, but answer this kind of next question there, but like when you think about setting a new standard in the industry or or acting against of the prevailing norms of, you know, just predatory stuff. What does it mean to set a new standard for Nutritional supplements. Like, what are sort of like the pillars of that strategy?

Guest [00:08:45]: Yeah. No. That's great. Well, I think We already alluded to the current kind of climate. Right? And so for me, when I started Prevenex 11 years ago, I looked at it as like, look, I'm consumer number 1, and so what would I demand as a consumer? What should this look like? If we had just a A blank canvas. What would creating a regulatory framework look like? What would manufacturing best in class products look like? And And that was fun. And I had a ton of expertise from just my analyst days. And so I think the way we look at it is maybe Threefold.

Guest [00:09:22]: So first is manufacturing. If the manufacturing protocols are light, You know, what does it look like to be create best in class manufacturing protocols? And so for that, we look to the pharmaceutical industry. And so I don't really have any commentary on on pharmaceuticals. I mean, there's certainly a place for pharmaceuticals, but something I can tell you with conviction is that the The regulation of making pharmaceuticals, it's just highly regulated. The manufacturing protocols, the testing protocols. Because For consumer protection, if you are making a pharmaceutical that has too little of something, it might not help the patient. If it has too much, it could harm the patient. And so we really looked at step 1.

Guest [00:10:04]: Like, why don't we just follow that? It's gonna be more expensive for sure. But, like, voluntarily following that, we thought would Was it a good idea? Because we wanna create products that people trust, at least what's on the labels and the bottle, and we can stand behind that. We've all all the sorts of testing. And so What that entails is raw material testing of every product that comes in the door, ingredient. We call it product. It's still product to us. But every ingredient that comes in the door Gets tested for contaminants, bacteria, metals, microbials, etcetera. Production run testing like US pharmacopeia testing on dissolution, disintegration, stability, hardness, thickness.

Guest [00:10:38]: Finish product testing to show people that what's on the label's in the bottle, what's not on the label isn't. So I'd say that's step 1. Yeah. Step 2 is, You know, the a product's only gonna be as good as the actual ingredients in it. And so for us, we just Philosophically, have this kind of no compromise mentality where we're looking to build in the highest quality, most clinically effective, and beneficial Forms of each and every ingredient regardless of cost, so you go line by line by line. But on top of that is can we introduce Ingredients that have gone through proper human clinical trials. And so you'll see a lot of little registered trademarks symbols next to ingredients on our labels because companies have spent tens of 1,000,000 of dollars running ingredients through clinical trials and We, we build those in. And so I think you kinda marry good science with good manufacturing with good ingredients.

Guest [00:11:32]: You get You get what I would call a much higher standard for safety, quality and effectiveness.

Finn Melanson [00:11:39]: You know, you hear I hear this a lot in, like, the organic food movement, for example, and you were talking about it there a bit, about how, you know, in their, supply chain process, they don't compromise And it sounds like you kind of meet a lot of those similar steps when it comes to, like, integrity, quality, effectiveness of the supplements. Is there any other, like, steps you take that go outside sort of like the no compromise values of a typical food product that listeners should be aware of?

Guest [00:12:06]: They go outside of the no compromise well, I'll say this. I mean, this is just an interesting tidbit that'll be new to many. So when we look at the highest quality, most clinically effective and beneficial ingredients, a question that will come up sometimes is, are your products organic? And we will say, well, no, but that's actually a good thing. And so I'll give you an example. So vitamin a, we use beta carotene as the form of vitamin A in our products. And if you look at the process for extracting natural beta carotene, It is a very heavy duty process. Chemical solvents are used. There's some petroleum based properties to extract the natural beta carotene.

Guest [00:12:52]: And if you look at synthetic beta carotene, which is beta carotene created in the laboratory, like, I could draw your blood Right now, I could give you synthetic beta carotene. I could draw your blood 30 minutes later, 60 minutes later, 90 minutes later. I can do the same with natural beta carotene. You'd see the blood serum spikes. You'd see all sort you could put it under a microscope. The synthetic performs absolutely identical The natural beta carotene, but it doesn't have any residue of the solvents, which which are in all natural beta carotene in supplement form. You're gonna have, Some residue of chemical solvents or petroleum based something. And so safety matters.

Guest [00:13:31]: And so for that reason, we will only use synthetic Beta carotene. But because of that, we can't say we have an organic product. So that that's like a little nuance of of the supplement world, but that's an example.

Finn Melanson [00:13:43]: Really interesting. So maybe for listeners and viewers out there, it's it's not always the case that, you know, Organic always makes sense and there are valid health conscious use cases for or manufactured or processed forms of some sort of nutrient.

Guest [00:14:04]: Yeah. I particularly in the supplement world. I mean, Health and wellness is in my DNA. So I am eating organic food whenever possible, fruits, vegetables, and But, yeah, I mean, there there is again nuance in the supplement world. Part of that is just there's there's, you know, so many different forms of of different vitamins, and they all kind of create a different health outcome, so to speak. And so, So this might be more specific to supplements, but yeah, I think I think you're onto it.

Finn Melanson [00:14:37]: Another thing I'm curious about is just, you know, increasing Customer, competence when it comes to, like, when they go down the the halls at Whole Foods or they're on Amazon Searching for products, you know, specifically in the supplement space, the tools that they can have in their toolkit to determine, you know, what's best For them, what's valid, all that kind of stuff. What recommendations do you have for the consumer when it comes to determining quality? Like, what signs on the bottle Or, you know, on the on sort of, like, the the product design should you be looking for, when making a decision?

Guest [00:15:11]: Yeah. Yeah. So I would say one of my superpowers is that I can look at any supplement facts label on a bottle and within 10 seconds know if it's a good product, a bad product, or anything in between. And so What I look for as I'm looking at products is and it depends on the product. Right? But, like, vitamin c. We know that ascorbic acid is the cheapest, probably least bioavailable form of vitamin c. And then we know on the flip side that mineral ascorbates are much easier on the stomach. They're more bioavailable.

Guest [00:15:49]: Your cells Intake them quickly, expel them quickly, get a better benefit, more expensive. Yeah. So very quickly, I'm like, well, is this brand using ascorbic acid? Are they using mineral ascorbates? So your calcium ascorbate, potassium ascorbate, etcetera. The B vitamins is another one. I'll look at B 12 quickly. So cyanocobalamin is the synthetic version of vitamin b 12, and that is just shouldn't even be really consumed, to be honest. But Methylcobalamin, the methylated form of cobalamin, is the natural form and, of course, more expensive. And, of course, It's but 95% of companies maybe not 95, but a a a good majority are using the The synthetic form of B12.

Guest [00:16:34]: And so it's really maybe getting a couple anchors of, like, alright, ascorbic acid, bad. Maybe not bad, but not preferable to mineral ascorbates. You know, cyanocobalamin is B 12 versus methylated cobalamin. You can kind of get a few of those under your belt and then at least kinda look at the label and say, well, if they're using this form For vitamin c, it's probably a good bet that they're they're cheaping out on a bunch of the other ingredients using the lower quality versions. And so, That's that's about as good as you can get. I mean, I can also say, like, the Linus Pauling Institute out of Oregon State has a really strong nutritional science program, think their website is just you just look up the Linus Pauling Institute. Bunch of good research, bunch of good information on supplements. But it's a it's a heavy educational lift.

Guest [00:17:28]: Like, I would have no shot at this had I not been an analyst and really learned this and just lived my life in this industry. So it's it's one of our biggest challenges as a company is how do you educate the consumer? That goes right to your question. Right? How do you what are the tools? And it's not easy.

Finn Melanson [00:17:48]: Another thing I'm curious about and I guess it's sort of in the same vein when it comes to consumer education, A lot of people, myself included, often see in the marketing the phrase clinically effective, to sell customers on, you know, why they should buy something. I've heard you and in Prevenex use the phrase clinically differentiated, which I've never heard before. What does it mean to make a clinically differentiated nutritional supplement in addition to clinical effectiveness?

Guest [00:18:18]: Yeah. I think for us, we are science nerds at heart. Like, we we have reformulated our our adult multivitamin price three times because the science has just called for it. So an ingredient that was 50.50 has maybe now it's 60.40, and we just wanna make The best products. Right? So we we don't have a problem doing that. And so I think clinically differentiated to us somewhat goes back to the question about, When I describe pharmaceutical manufacturing principles, ingredients that have been run through human clinical trials, and I think, Sadly, that's very rare in our industry. And so, maybe it goes to kind of our philosophy In general. So we're we're kind of a not a me too company.

Guest [00:19:05]: We have 8 products. We're an 11 year old supplement company with 8 products. We'll max out maybe at 15. And I think we never wanna be everything to everyone. We wanna go into categories where we can say we have the best joint supplement or muscle health supplement or immune supplement, etcetera, with a ton of clinical data to back it up. So there's no guesswork. With also all these we're happy to present our finished product testing and our so I I think we just look at that as different in our industry. And so when we say clinically effective and clinically differentiated, I think that's how we think about it.

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Finn Melanson [00:21:21]: Less sugar, more flavor, and I'm getting in my electrolytes. I highly encourage you to check them out before they sell out. Plus, you'll get a free sample pack and an awesome recipe book with any order. Just head to drinklmnt.com forward slash runners connect to get yours today. And I wanna get into those Categories later on. I think before that I want to ask you a pretty fundamental question. We actually just had, 1 of the guys, Saul, from examine.com on as well and I asked him a similar question, but I guess it just comes down to, like, the necessity and and the specific Use cases for supplementation. Like, I'm sure a lot of people in the audience are thinking, like, why do I need supplements When, you know, theoretically, all of this can come from a pure whole foods diet, how do you typically think about this question, and and how do you think about, you The right use cases for supplementation either on a daily basis or in like particular scenarios.

Guest [00:22:25]: Yeah. I love this question, Fin. I love this question. So I think 1 question that I had that I think many people have is can you get all the nutrients you need from food alone? Right. Because so why do you why do you need to supplement in the 1st place? Right? We get food, nutrients come from the soil, there's food grown from the soil that goes to the The the food we're gonna eat. And so I think it comes down to there there's a couple I mean, let's unpack this actually because it'll be interesting. Right? So Food today is a whole lot different than food 60 years ago. I think that's 1 piece of the puzzle.

Guest [00:23:05]: I think another piece of the puzzle, and I'll unpack that a little more, but I think another piece of the puzzle is you you've got population growth. So if you look at 1960, I think there was 2, 2 a half 1000000000 people on the planet. Now there's between 8 and 9,000,000,000 in 1 generation. So food supply, I mean, it's just a it's just a different business today. So my grandparents were getting fruits and vegetables from the farm. If they got to the supermarket, it was maybe a day or 2 removed from the farm where the nutrients weren't degrading. I mean, today now you have, like, soil degradation and, So much turnover because of just the massive demand for food supply. And, the other part is we're not You know, there there's a big distinction between eating to not be vitamin deficient And fueling to optimize health.

Guest [00:24:01]: And so this is, like, where the crux of it. And so let me get into that. I mean, let's take vitamin is a good example. So we know from the clinical research that 400 international units is the optimal level of vitamin E you should be taking per day, currently. This is the current research we have. The food equivalent of that is 28.8 pounds of spinach or 2.3 pounds of almonds, but that's for the optimal standard. That's if you're trying to optimize Against, you know, oxidation and just longevity, performance, and health. And so, that that's 1 letter vitamin.

Guest [00:24:45]: And so it's just Impossible. Again, if you're going for the optimal standard. I think that, you know, when we get into, like, the RDAs and the the percentage DVs, and This is based on not it's it's essentially like efficiency standard, not optimized standard.

Finn Melanson [00:25:03]: And, like, for example, with spinach in today's age, like, the the spinach of 2023 is not as nutrantly dense as the spinach of nineteen and maybe the people of that era were getting the full daily value of, you know, vitamin d or iron or whatever in that Serving?

Guest [00:25:22]: Yeah. I I think that's part of it, but I also think nutritional science has evolved since 1968. So we didn't know some of this in the sixties. So in the last 20 years, I mean, the field of nutritional science has evolved quite a bit. And We now, you know, can test for optimized levels against your blood and exposing it to oxidative markers and stressors and seeing like where at what levels do Vitamins alone or in combination protect your cells from oxidative stress. And you do that over Hundreds of thousands of people, you start to get a framework for what are optimal levels that people should be consuming to Maximize for longevity performance in everyday health. And so I think that's part of it. But, yeah, the other part, I I just think Apples to apples, like spinach from 1960 versus spinach today, you have less nutrients because of some of the issues I called out before, Soil issues and farming issues, and just like turnover issues.

Guest [00:26:23]: The other piece is it's just The time it takes from the the actual spinach being picked to getting to the grocery store might be 2 weeks now. So even in transit, it's it's getting nutrient depletion versus you probably I don't know this for sure, but I I'm assuming in the 19 sixties, A farmer was was picking the spinach and driving it to the grocery store, and and you're talking days to consumption versus, like, weeks weeks now Just with how, like, grocery store, you know, mass market stuff is set up now.

Finn Melanson [00:27:00]: But also, like, given that given that Balancing equation between, like, how much spinach you need, for example, to to latch on to spinach some more and how much you need of the given nutrients in there. Is it a possibility that until very recently when when people finally got access to, you know, certain supplements, the entire human population was Sort of walking around nutrient deficient?

Guest [00:27:25]: Well, I think that's a little tricky because certain regions are gonna have Bigger issues than others. Right? We're in a developed country. We're both in the US having this conversation. And, you know, we work with part of our business, we work with malnourished children. We serve malnourished kids, with our customer orders. And, and so there are regions of the world where there are kids Quite literally dying because they're vitamin deficient, not from food or starvation. They're eating nonnutritive foods like rice or corn, and They're just not getting nutrients and they're dying, which is a total is appalling. Right? So In a developed country, you know, you should be pretty clued good from not getting a vitamin deficiency.

Guest [00:28:12]: But that being said, I mean, I'm talking to you from just north of Indianapolis, and there are food deserts. And we know that there are malnourished populations here, which is in the United States. Right? Pretty wealthy country. So I think it's a little more nuanced. Yeah. I think it's a little more nuanced.

Finn Melanson [00:28:31]: One more question on this front and I'm just curious sort of about what we've learned from a research standpoint around the context of ingestion. So Can you speak to sort of how important it is to get these nutrients from a whole food source versus being isolated? Like, Have we reached a point where you're gonna benefit equally from either context or one is always better than the other?

Guest [00:28:53]: Oh, wow. Such a good question. Nutrients come from the soil. They're meant to be consumed with your food. I think we are very specific Even in supplement form that it should still be consumed with food because that is how our bodies typically Consume the micronutrients. Yeah. I mean, I eat, I would say like 10 out of 10 for health. Vegetables, fruits, you know, lean meats and proteins, and And still, I will not be able to get the level of nutrients that I can get from food supply.

Guest [00:29:37]: So then the question is, well, what if it's like a whole food supplement? Right? And I think there's some that's it's incomplete. Going back to what I said about beta carotene. Yeah. You could try to do a whole food beta carotene, but the extraction process is not friendly to your health. And I would never take natural beta carotene given what I know of it, and that's not the only example. And so I think it's a combo. I mean, listen. Health and wellness, you food is the foundation.

Guest [00:30:07]: You cannot get away from that. Like, Food is the foundation. Supplement supplementing is a tool. Yeah. But if you're not eating a well balanced, you know, healthy diet, you're You're not gonna maximize your health. You just won't. You can't out supplement a bad diet. It's just a tool in a bigger health and wellness pie, but an important one.

Finn Melanson [00:30:30]: I wanna get back into those categories you mentioned earlier in sort of how Previnix will Even specialize within the supplement space and, you know, I've got a couple listed out here like immune health, joint health, gut health. Maybe starting with immune health, how do you think about optimizing that category of of our diet and sort of our lifestyle.

Guest [00:30:53]: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Let's back away from supplements for a sec because I think this pulls it all together. So to optimize immune health, you have to optimize your diet. You have to be eating well, balanced and healthy protein, carbs, and fats, and Optimizing caloric intake. And so that's that's a piece. Right? Sleep. I mean, good golly.

Guest [00:31:15]: Sleep is So important for recovery and immune health, exercise is so important, stress management is so important, Supplementation is so important. So these are kind of the pillars of health that will lead to Better immune health, if you're optimizing on all those fronts. And so I'd say with immune health specifically, I mean, Gut health and immune health, there's a there's a big correlation. So 70% of your immune cells reside in your gut. 80% of the bacteria in your body is in your gut. And so if you, don't have good gut health, your immune health will be compromised. And so I'd say from my perspective, As I'm looking at, you know, maximizing or optimizing for immune health, if that's what we're talking about, I'd say it starts with a great diet. It starts with really good sleep, it starts with great exercise, so all that.

Guest [00:32:09]: But then when I look at the supplements, I would even start with with the probiotic level, like, flushing the gut with healthy probiotics Is one of the best things you can do for immune health. The micronutrients are really important because there's All sorts of benefits for just overall health, but but certainly immune health. And then we have an immune health supplement that, really the the kind of main active There's a lot of ingredients in there, but the beta glucans are are basically you know, they prime the immune cells Have these great responses when invaders like viruses or pathogens come in. And we have all this clinical research. It's super cool that they Supercharge your immune cells to respond to invading viruses and whatnot and just release chemicals to destroy them. And, So if you kinda do all that comprehensively, you're giving yourself the best shot at having outstanding immune health. But it's it's not a 1 size fits all or 1 tool, you know, and forget the others.

Finn Melanson [00:33:14]: Yeah. You mentioned that latter part is interesting to me. I I I wasn't aware of sort of that that priming mechanism that some of the pieces of your supplement can address. Maybe to that point or for anything else that you find interesting, what's what's what's something new you've come across in the research Relating to immune health that might interest the audience.

Guest [00:33:35]: I think for us, I mean, we were under development for about 2 years of our immune supplement. And one of the ingredients that's been written through human clinical trial trials, I'm under a nondisclosure agreement, unfortunately. I wish, Wish, wish I could share the research and the clinical trial data that I've seen, but it kinda borders on, you know, pharmaceutical type claims, which, we have to be careful about. What I can tell you is I particularly think beta glucans are fascinating. You know, derived from mushrooms, which in ancient times were kinda these super nutrients. People would go to war to harvest mushrooms in ancient days in Asia because of their superpowers really. And so I think the beta glucans to me are just it is amazing that our body is designed in a way where we can take in certain nutrients, And it's almost like your your immune cells become masters of self defense when they're fully supercharged. And, Yeah.

Guest [00:34:39]: I don't wanna I don't wanna go too much on, like, a Previnix pitch here, but you could go read some crazy reviews On our website from actual customers who just were struggling. I mean, I read one the other day where someone had pneumonia, I think, 5 times last year and just had this issue and super skeptical on supplements and, found our product somehow and went on it and was just like, hey. I was skeptical, but then I this. I was desperate and, holy moly, like, I have not been sick. My kids bring home all this stuff from preschool and I'm Normally would knock me out and give me pneumonia. And so, you know, there's a correlation between doing this right, getting good outcomes, but the beta glucans, Totally fascinating, when it comes to immune health.

Finn Melanson [00:35:24]: Yeah. New to me, fascinating for sure. Another area that I'd I'd love to get your sort of thoughts on is joint health. I know for probably everybody in the audience, at one point or another, This has been, is, or will be a concern. I know in my family, I've got people that have no cartilage left in their ankles or their knees, necessarily because of running, but just overall wear and tear from being a human being and this is something that I definitely want to, Pay attention to and monitor and and be proactive or preventative about in years to come. So I guess with that context in mind, Is there anything that you find interesting in in the joint health space that, like, a running audience would be particularly interested to hear about?

Guest [00:36:12]: Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. A lot. I'll try to be brief, but, this was a category when I was an analyst That drove me crazy. Glucosamine and chondroitin. When I referenced vitamin C and Yeah. Different forms.

Guest [00:36:31]: I mean, there are maybe hundreds of different forms of glucosamine and chondroitin, which are the most popular, Probably joint ingredients that your your audience would know of. And for for for me, it was like, well, if that's if those are the best ingredients, like, we wanna build the best product. But something that I mean, I'll just tell you about our product because I think, I don't know. I think it's interesting. We'll we'll to be determined. But, there's a an ingredient called natural exhale membrane That is the ingredient or the it's the kind of the film between the egg and then the shell of the of the egg. And someone took it upon themselves to test that filmy, you know, eggshell membrane and learned that there was naturally occurring glucosamine, Chondroitin, collagen, and high hyaluronic acid, all very beneficial for joint health, But they took it a step further, and they ran that ingredient through human clinical trials. And what they found and by the way, when I say human clinical trials, just to Level set this.

Guest [00:37:40]: This is randomized, multicenter, double blinded, placebo controlled clinical studies. So these these are real human clinical trials. And what was found was that this particular ingredient, would reduce joint pain, would reduce joint stiffness and improved joint flexibility in 7 to 10 days against placebo. There was a more recent clinical study run for just an exercise healthy adult Human population audience, same, you know, high rigor human clinical study. And we The claim we're able to make on this ingredient now is that it can protect joint cartilage from breakdown during exercise. And so we know that this Just this 1 ingredient in the clinically studied version that we use is up to 5 times more beneficial than glucosamine and chondroitin alone or in combination. And, again, like earlier, I referenced science and research and clinical data really matter to us as a company. And so this is an example of where we're, wow, this is impressive.

Guest [00:38:45]: This is impressive. This is real research showing up in peer reviewed medical journals. And, And then we test it ourselves. But I think here's the way I look at joint health. Right? So I was a swimmer, water polo player, non weight bearing. I'd I'd say I didn't have joint issues. Maybe shoulders just from swimming and and some water polo stuff. But For me, I'm looking at 3 things.

Guest [00:39:08]: I'm looking at maximizing my longevity, my performance, and my everyday health. And I now run. I do sprints and, You know, kind of high interval stuff, and then I do longer runs. And I wanna be 80 years old and absolutely crushing people. I wanna set world records at 80. I want but I know that what I do today will make an impact, and what I do tomorrow and next year will have an impact on Whether I'm able to accomplish that goal. And so I just look at, like, well, what's the best way to protect my joint longevity performance in everyday health? And I I mean, I've been taking our joint supplement every day since it came out in 2013 even though I've never had any joint issues. And we didn't even have The data back then around protecting joint cartilage from breakdown during exercise.

Guest [00:39:54]: So I think for runners, I mean, we I've been really fortunate. We love the running community. What a great community, by the way. But this is a product that has just grown a ton Amongst runners and athletes because of the clinical data we have behind this. And that's just one of the ingredients. You know? There's there's some Inflammation benefits that, there's a natural anti inflammatory in there as well that has been run through human clinical studies. And There's other things, there's other, you know, omega fatty acids could be really beneficial for joint health and some cushioning and, Hopefully, that was interesting. I don't know.

Finn Melanson [00:40:34]: Very much so. And yeah. I mean, this I think yeah. I think for many years, I have been attuned to Glucosamine just because of how it's been marketed for the last, what, like, 10, 15, 20 years and whenever I've thought of, You know, joint health preservation addressing that issue, turning to glucosamine. But for this to be 5 times more effective, I mean, that's your your ears, your eyes perk up and, yeah, very very interesting to me. I think off of that like, you mentioned, you know, you got a little bit into health span and longevity stuff there, and I think this is a really interesting to get into because it's certainly having a moment. You know, I think maybe 5 or 10 years ago, what I constantly heard was I want to live past a100, But now increasingly, I'm hearing I don't necessarily want to live to a100 or past a100. I just want all the years that I will live to really count and to be Good and to do as many of the activities I love.

Finn Melanson [00:41:36]: What are your thoughts there? And, like, what roles do these supplements have to play in either promoting a longer health span or longevity entirely?

Guest [00:41:44]: Yeah. No. I love that question. I'm gonna take it back to my research days And gonna wind my way to the answer. When I was a research analyst, one of my jobs was meeting with companies and executives of companies. And I remember the very first company I visited. The CEO of that company who started the company was maybe 69 or 70 years old. And remember meeting with him, and he looked like he was in his late forties or early fifties.

Guest [00:42:10]: And I just thought, you know, this is just like a genetic specimen, like, great genes. You know? He's just You lucked out. Amazing. And then the next founder I met with and the next founder, there was this correlation that all these guys who've been supplementing their whole life Just looked younger and more vibrant. And maybe there's part of it is if you're oriented to health and wellness, you're you're taking other steps. Not just supplementation as we talked about before, but that just struck me. And I as I was learning about the physiology Of nutrition, you know, on one hand, you know, there people who have smoked their whole life will look older than their age. And why is that? Well, they're introducing oxidative stress day in and day out, and oxidative stress attacks our cells and Pulls electrons from healthy cells and compromises the cell.

Guest [00:43:02]: So so on the one hand, you have smokers and I had a smoker in my family. So a front row seat at a at a grandmother who looked much, much older than her her numerical age. And it kinda was pretty easy for me to get kinda logic my way to this. I was, like, well, my grandmother smoked her whole life, And it wouldn't have been her whole life, but since she was 14. And she looks 20 years older, and she's been introducing oxidative stress. And these CEOs of supplement companies, these founders have been supplementing their whole life with antioxidants that are anti oxidation, And they look 20 years younger. I'm like, that's really interesting. That marries with, like, the physiology of of nutrition that I was learning.

Guest [00:43:47]: And so, So yeah. So I think supplements have a big correlation, but so does exercise and so does healthy weight and so does all these things. The way I look at this is just I think you framed it well and phrased it well, which is how do I Get the most out of myself for the longest period of time. And, I mean, It's so encouraging. We have people in our ecosystem that are in their eighties, and they are as fit as they've ever been, And they're as vibrant as they've ever been. And so I I would even call out strength training. I mean, that is a game changer Over a long period of time, if you are maintaining muscle mass versus not exercising and kinda, you know, starting in our thirties, our lean muscle mass starts to to decrease just naturally. And so strength training is so critical for lifespan and longevity, And not to well, I'll throw a shameless plug in.

Guest [00:44:48]: I mean, we're about to launch a muscle health supplement. This is super interesting to us. Like, how do you Protect muscles from breaking down and how do you optimize for muscle health over long periods of time. Right? This is something that's super interesting. And so, But I'd say that's an example of a supplement that could be a tool to help with a strength training and, just getting the most you can out of that. And, But certainly from, like, the antioxidant perspective, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, I mean, critically important from everything I know. Like, if you've ever seen the movie The Matrix, I don't know if you've ever saw it. You could, like, plug something in, instantly download.

Guest [00:45:26]: Like, I wish I could download everyone with Everything I know about nutritional science and what I've learned over the last 20 plus years, everyone would be taking supplements, like, For sure, a probiotic, an omega, a daily multi, and some other stuff.

Finn Melanson [00:45:42]: Well well, 2 things off first one, I love I love the prompt you gave, which I think is great to work back from, and that is how do I get the most out of myself for the longest period of time? I think that from a prompt standpoint for How to take action from here on out, that's a great one to work backward from. And then to your comment about sort of, like, always sort of Not pivoting, but turning as an additive to supplements, I think, is interesting too. And it reminds me because I I did wanna ask you this question, especially when you're, like, Well, again, walking through the halls of Whole Foods, we're out there on Amazon evaluating what's what's available. Can you explain why we see such High concentrations of particular vitamins in these supplements. Like, you'll see, like, a 16,000% dosage of vitamin c or, you know, a 400% daily value percentage of vitamin b 12. Like, why why do these supplements go to those extremes? Is there a benefit there? Is Is there any toxicity risk? Talk about that.

Guest [00:46:38]: Oh, Finn, I love this question. This could be a good one. Okay. Let's set this the framework first, And then I'll I'll answer the question. So to to really understand the answer I'm gonna give, we have to start with the RDAs, which are the recommended dietary allowance for all these nutrients. Right? So these numbers have been set to show at what levels do you need to take to prevent deficiency. So, again, it's a deficiency standard, but let's go even back in time. Why were these, promulgated in the 1st place or created.

Guest [00:47:11]: And the answer is during World War 2, the RDAs came to be and it was really a standard of, like, We have soldiers in the battlefield, and we need to keep them well nourished to maximize our chance for victory on the battlefield. And so a 100% was, like, we can't have them getting deficient or they're not gonna perform well, their energy will be down. So the RDAs are a deficiency Antideficiency standard, let's call that I don't I don't know if that's the best way to frame it, but that's what it is. It's it's a Here's what you should take to not become deficient, which is again totally different than what you need for optimal health. The other piece of this or the DV. So on a supplement, you'll see, like, percentage DV, which is daily value, which is the recommended amount of nutrient, nutrients to consume each day, broadly speaking. So let's say you're eating spinach and getting a little bit of vitamin e and then you see a percentage DV from supplement form and There's a little bit of a formula there, but here to me is the crux of the craziness. Like, the FDA, every year, We'll review standards and then kind of arbitrarily come up with new DBs.

Guest [00:48:25]: And so let me give you a concrete example of this because this is the stuff that drives me nuts about the supplement industry. Vitamin B 12. 5 years ago, 200 micrograms of vitamin B 12 represented 250% of the of the, daily value. Out of nowhere today so let's I'm gonna actually repeat the numbers because the numbers are so staggering. 200 micrograms, 250% d v. Today, 200 micrograms is 8,000 334% d v. No change to the dose. But the FDA, through this very kind of black box Arbitrary mechanism decided that, well, now 200 micrograms of b twelve is 8,334%.

Guest [00:49:20]: So, you know, that's a head scratcher. So well, why was it only 250% a few years ago? And, like, can you explain that? And we've tried to get an answer to that. We we we actually cannot get an answer, because it's just this arbitrary black box thing. So the the reason that you'll see higher percentages is, number 1, there are Company is trying to maximize for optimal levels, which are gonna be greater than 100%. Like, 28.8 pounds of spinach is not your daily value recommendation, But it happens that the scientific data clinical data, the research shows that, again, 400 international units is kind of that optimal daily intake. And the other is this kind of arbitrary mechanism that decides that, you know, next year it might be 55,000%, which for the same exact level. So this is this is why and and it goes back to education. I mean, To me, if I didn't know anything, I would be super intimidated.

Guest [00:50:21]: I'd be like, well, I don't wanna take 8,000% of something. That seems crazy. Like, I'm gonna harm myself. There's toxicity issues, but that's just not the case. Now we can call out some things that, yeah, there are real risks, like vitamin a in the non beta carotene, like in retinal acetate acetate, excuse me, retinal palmitate. These versions, if taken into a higher level, can lead to toxicity and cause blindness and all sorts of things. And so that's where you do need to be careful. But, like, Beta carotene almost acts as water soluble vitamin a, where your body just uses what it needs and it doesn't use the rest.

Guest [00:51:02]: And so There's nuance like that, but that's where I think I mean, ultimately, the consumer has to find a brand they can trust, and that is really, really hard in this industry. Again, it's why I was crazy enough to start a company in this overcrowded super shady space, but, but hopefully, that answers your question on the the high level.

Finn Melanson [00:51:23]: It does and I think, you know, what you said there at the end is is sort of the perfect place to wrap up this conversation. Before we go, I wanna make sure you have the opportunity to Offer just any further education around your company Previnix and any associated calls to action that you have?

Guest [00:51:39]: Yeah. Well, listen. I, yeah. So for us, I mean, we exist to create health. Our mission is to create health for our customers, our partners, the malnourished children that we serve. So maybe let me start with the 2 sentence Brevanex and then I'll I'll wrap up. So we make premium clinically effective supplements that promote longevity, performance, and everyday health. And we also donate vitamins to malnourished children with every customer order.

Guest [00:52:07]: We've donated over 2,400,000 Super Bites which is our Premium Children's Multivitamin, malnourished kids since that program started in July of 2017. Huge passion project of mine. I just don't believe Children should be dying in 2023, shouldn't have been 2016 either, dying because they're not getting vitamins. Like that is a solvable problem and I've kind of I'm dedicating my professional life to try to end that problem in my lifetime. I think that would just be such cool thing to eliminate from planet. But we do it through creating health for our customers. And so we believe creating health changes lives. We believe everyone deserves the opportunity to flourish and that at our healthiest, we can make our greatest impact on our families, communities, and the world, and and we do that through products that actually are backed by science and clinical research and create health in other people's lives.

Guest [00:53:00]: So, Yeah. Call to action is, we have a bunch of probably first time, like, 15% off customer codes. I know, Fin, we've been blessed to work with you guys. And so RTT fifteen, will get customers 15% off Their first order. And we have maybe 4 sales a year where you can lock in some savings. But, I think more importantly, like, we we stand behind our products. We have a 100% money back guarantee, which is probably not like today everyone does it from a marketing perspective, but People don't feel actual benefits on our products. They can return the products within 30 days from the date they receive it.

Guest [00:53:39]: No questions asked. Full refund, we stand behind our products, and, yeah. So, kind of a riskless way to try us out. And the good news is People actually feel benefits, and so it's a lot of fun to create health.

Finn Melanson [00:54:08]: Thanks for listening to the Run to the Top podcast. I'm your host, Finn Melanson. As always, our mission here is to help you become a better runner with every episode. Please consider connecting with me on Instagram at Wasatch Finn and the rest of our team at Runners Connect. Also consider supporting our show for free with a rating on the Spotify and podcast players. And lastly, if you love the show and want bonus content, behind the scenes experiences with our guests, and premier access to contests and giveaways, to our newsletter by going to runnersconnect.netback/podcast. Until next time, happy trading.