← Biohacking Beauty: The Anti-Aging Skincare Podcast
Biohacking Beauty: The Anti-Aging Skincare Podcast
Paul Sorbo: Performance vs Longevity: Are You Sacrificing One?
00:52:35
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- [00:00]
Amitaj Eshel
Foreign welcome to another episode of Biohacking Beauty, the podcast where we break down the science of skin health and explore innovative ways to age gracefully and beautifully. I'm your host, Amitaj Eshel, and I'm here on behalf of Young Goose Skincare, the company I co founded with my lovely wife Anastasia Skincare that is biohacking your skin's youth. So at Yungoos, we are dedicated to empowering you to take control of your skin's aging process with the latest in skincare and biohacking research. Today, we are excited to welcome PJ Sorbo to the show. PJ is a prolific entrepreneur that is behind some of the probably the most talked about the most used ingredients and mechanisms in supplements. His background in entrepreneurship is anything from brain health to again, supplementation to really anything that involves longevity ingredients. PJ has been there and done that and has succeeded there. In this episode, PJ and I will share insights into the industry of longevity, how, you know, strategies to choosing the right supplements, choosing the right skin care. That is really going to move the needle. Looking beyond the veil of advertising, of messaging, what really works, what messages are truthful and which ones aren't. And we're also obviously going to. There is something really cool in the end, if you're going to wait until the end, you are going to be very happy you did. Before we jump in, make sure to subscribe to the Biohacking Beauty podcast and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your support helps us continue to bring you top skincare experts and valuable biohacking insights. But now, without further ado, let's welcome PJ Sorbo, the great and powerful pj AKA Paul Sorbo. Welcome to the Biohacking Beauty podcast. Finally. Thank you, buddy.
- [02:40]
PJ Sorbo
It's good to be here.
- [02:41]
Amitaj Eshel
First of all, I love the background. Hey, I love the background. Very cool. Yeah. So pj, you and I have known each other for a long, long time and we have run in the same circles and obviously you are a kind of a unicorn in the business world where because you only mean well and you're still here and you and you're thriving. So it's pretty rare to see.
- [03:10]
PJ Sorbo
I tried to do my best. Cool, cool stuff with cool people.
- [03:14]
Amitaj Eshel
That's all that matters, definitely 100%. So basically, you know, it's the, I think a question that I, that Chelsea shout out to Chelsea, the producer, she doesn't like that I. That I asked. But I think it's a good question to start especially, especially you, where you come to this Field of longevity Wellness. As an entrepreneur, I think the people who, who deal with, who, who deal with, you know, wellness or alternative health for a living, they come from like two different areas for the most part, and I don't know where to put you. So first is people who have dealt with a personal issue. It, it kind of solved something for them. They became passionate and they, and they, they're now kind of sharing their passion. And then there are people like myself that are just complete nerds for like a specific, you know, that that is their journey, right? Like, they are interested in something specific and they have committed to it as far as their life. What created the passion for you? Where are you in all of that?
- [04:20]
PJ Sorbo
It's a good question. I actually kind of feel like I'm a hybrid between the two. So first, I grew up as a action sports athlete, for lack of a better term. So downhill mountain biking, competitive snowboarding. And I broke everything that you could break. And I had more concussions than most people should. And so I had my last really, really big concussion when I was 15 on my last snowboard competition. And that was it for me. Brain injury, the whole shebang. And we won't go into that story, but when I was starting one of my other companies, my health and wellness company, and as we were exiting it, I was getting, I was really tired of the brain fog. And you and I got connected originally through the brain scanning company that I worked with, Wabi. And I had not heard about Wabi. I didn't know what it was. And a life mentor of mine before I was going into hyperbarics or stem cells or whatever else I was going to do it, looking at healing or trying to heal my brain was like, you need to go get a Wabi scan before you do anything else. And so I did. And I saw this opportunity to change the way that people or think of, you know, the brain. Right. Is neuroplasticity real? Is it not real? What actually can improve your cognition? What can't improve your cognition? What is cognition? What is mitochondrial support? The brain? And so that opened up this whole pathway of like, exploration into really like neuroscience. I always wanted to be in the medical field. I went to school to be a neurologist or an orthopedic surgeon for my undergrad. But while I was there, I got really involved in bodybuilding and I have this controversial kind of take. I think that bodybuilders were the first biohackers, like years ago.
- [06:02]
Amitaj Eshel
I think the two drivers of longevity are bodybuilders and Cancer research. I think these are the two goalposts.
- [06:12]
PJ Sorbo
I agree with you. Spot on. So, I mean, dude, I was playing with hormones. Not that you should be white. This is not a proponent of this, but I was playing with substances and hormones when I was 19, 20, 21, 22. And it was all through exploration, right? Growth hormone upregulators, testosterone, different compounds. And there was no. I mean, there was, bro, science. That's all there was out there, right? There was bodybuilding.com threads and there was just reading everything you could.
- [06:38]
Amitaj Eshel
And so ultimately, from the university of. Trust me, bro.
- [06:42]
PJ Sorbo
Exactly. Just trust me, bro. It's exactly what you need to do. Breast milk, it's what you need to do. Like, it's just. It was the dumbest things on planet Earth. So you ended up becoming your own science experiment. Yeah, and I became really passionate. I mean, I got up massively in weight. I mean, I went. I graduated high school at 135 pounds. And then my freshman year of college, I was 210. Right. Obviously, something changed. As I'm telling my parents, oh, I'm not doing anything. I'm just eating more. Right, of course. But then there's a negative side to all of that as well, right? Like your body is chronically inflamed. You're not healthy, you're tearing muscles, your muscular structure. I was not designed to be 260 pounds. That was not what my body frame was supposed to be. And so getting your body back from that other side of, you know, chronic abuse and issues, trying to restart your natural test testosterone production, going through the fertility journey with my wife, which obviously you know about. So that's where a lot of the passion came from. But I've never not had the passion for the human body. I mean, even in high school, I was at a two week long, you know, young entrepreneur slash young medicine thing where I got to be in cardiovascular surgeries and arm surgeries and open heart surgeries. And so I've always loved, you know, this whole concept of medicine.
- [08:04]
Amitaj Eshel
Very cool. Yeah, yeah. You know, to your point, before we continue, that's something I try to explain a lot, like in long form lectures, which is really, you know, the whole idea of longevity. First of all, maybe we'll talk about longevity as being usurped the word the same as like anti aging. I mean, I just recorded a podcast, a very interesting podcast, but it's a dermatologist that still used the word. And that's not an OC on her whatsoever. But to describe the achievement of result, she used the word anti aging, which anti aging has nothing to do with, you know, age reversal or the appearance of youth? No, anti aging means resisting aging.
- [08:52]
PJ Sorbo
Right.
- [08:53]
Amitaj Eshel
But I think now longevity is being usurped in the same capacity where longevity. I'm sure most people are still thinking of longevity as the extension of lifespan. Longevity now means something completely different. It's going to replace, by the way, anti aging.
- [09:11]
PJ Sorbo
I agree with you.
- [09:12]
Amitaj Eshel
It's going to mean what anti aging means. Now. That's number one.
- [09:15]
PJ Sorbo
Yes.
- [09:16]
Amitaj Eshel
Even a 4M American Academy for Anti Aging Medicine. I mean, it's even in, you know, even the, the.
- [09:23]
PJ Sorbo
But, but now it's. It's being referred to as longevity fast.
- [09:26]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [09:28]
PJ Sorbo
There's some, the synonym. The synonym there is just. They go hand in hand. But I do agree.
- [09:35]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah, but to my point was that you could really look at three things. You can look at optimal performance or your current performance, optimal performance, resilience and longevity. So health span extension.
- [09:51]
PJ Sorbo
Okay, so I look at healthspan and lifespan differently.
- [09:55]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah, yeah, 100%. But I would say, like, these are the three things that you could think of, you know, and normally they don't. The Venn diagram is very finite. It means, like, if you are trying to max out one, you will pay for it with the other one. So for example, you talked about bodybuilding and, and using different compounds to increase optimal performance. But you're paying for it both, by the way, with your health span. Right. With the years that you'll be able to continue your healthy with a healthy body. But also resilience, like you mentioned, tearing muscles, you know, and in skin, we see it all the time. We talk about, you know, whether it is devices that we don't recommend or, you know, anything that you're going to do right now. And you're going to say, I want to look my best for that wedding that I'm going for or whatever that is. You're going to pay for it in other things. So anyway, the three things should always be in balance. But that was just to your point of bodybuilding and why it's not ideal for the human body.
- [11:06]
PJ Sorbo
Well, it's unhealthy for the human body. That's the reality of it. There's a point where things are good and then there's a point where you can take it entirely too far. Right. So just because something is good does not mean more is better. Yeah, right. Caffeine can be good. More is not better. Nicotine can be beneficial for a certain individual. More is not better. Testosterone, hormone Therapy good in certain aspects. More is not better. We have to remember that things especially like testosterone, hormones, any of that kind of stuff, overproduction and, or a surplus of those do become. They become extremely inflammatory to the body.
- [11:43]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah.
- [11:43]
PJ Sorbo
Nobody needs, you know, I was taking, you know, 500 to 1,000 milligrams of testosterone a week. That is not that, that is not a longevity dose. Nobody needs that circulating level of anabolics in their, in their bloodstream.
- [11:58]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah.
- [11:58]
PJ Sorbo
So to your point, you know, healthspan is. I do view healthspan and lifespan differently. Lifespan is how long we're going to live. Health span is, is what is the quality of those years?
- [12:09]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, I agree 100%. I would say, you know, to connect to your point, something pretty interesting to look at is most of what we're going to do with kind of maxing out performance or by the way, you know, you know, maxing out resilience or maxing out health span. I'll give example to all three. So it's going to make sense. They normally are not really about introducing other ingredients into our body. It's more like bypassing the natural, the natural stop gaps and processes our body naturally has. And we need to understand that they are there for a reason. So we talked about obviously testosterone, but, but we also, you know, we know that exposing our, ourselves to pathogens improves our immune system. Right, Right. But it also ages you. So. Yeah. E Coli, for example, is obviously it's going to make your stomach more resilient. Resilient if you did it slowly or whatever. But E Coli also depletes your nad, just as an example. And also lifespan, like fasting. Right. Intermittent fasting, but like long, long, you know, three day, seven day fast. Fantastic. Probably increases autophagy if you have enough spermidine. Probably increases autophagy. Autophagy and maybe extends your lifespan. But you are becoming less resilient if you get.
- [13:32]
PJ Sorbo
Yes.
- [13:33]
Amitaj Eshel
You know what, let's talk about, you know, maybe fasting is controversial. Rapamycin, a longevity drug that, that reduces senescent cells. Right. If you get, if you sc. Get scraped while doing a rapamycin dose, you might like not heal, I mean, or heal significantly slower. Slower. Yeah. So that's to the point of, of balance.
- [13:58]
PJ Sorbo
There's a, there's positive and negative feedback loops for everything.
- [14:02]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah.
- [14:02]
PJ Sorbo
And I think that's the reality. Like every action has an equal and opposite reaction. And that's what we need to take into account with a lot of these things. Everyone can say that, you know, it's so funny because this is welcome to life longevity or health banner.
- [14:17]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah.
- [14:17]
PJ Sorbo
Or anti aging as a whole. This is my problem with this industry right now as a whole is that there's conflicting opinions everywhere.
- [14:26]
Amitaj Eshel
Right.
- [14:26]
PJ Sorbo
And I would call, I wouldn't even call you and I experts in this field. I don't know who is an expert. I think we're enthusiasts of this field. I think that we are people that stay up to the most recent, you know, science and, or studies and. Or clinicals that are coming out regularly. But I think about the general consumer, the general population. What, what do you trust? What is the right thing to listen to? Because I feel like I go on social media nowadays and everything is going to kill me. Right. Or, or here's the top five things that are depleting your testosterone count the fastest. The top five things that are killing your sperm count. The top five things that are, you know, destroying your longevity, your health span, your lifespan. Your top five things that are causing inflammatory, inflammatory complex. And you look at it and like, you know, you could make an argument for the carnivore diet. Right?
- [15:15]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah.
- [15:15]
PJ Sorbo
But the reality of the fact is that, you know, MTOR has been shown to potentially not be the most highly great contributor to longevity. So you're going on this massive protein diet, protein fat, but you're up, like you're probably going to upregulate your mtor.
- [15:30]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah.
- [15:31]
PJ Sorbo
And then you look at the science behind that and some of the science would say probably shouldn't do that for longevity. Hence you have the spike of, you know, vegan diets or the Mediterranean diets, which is limiting mtor. And so you look at those things, you're like, well, is that the right thing? Is the carnivore diet the right thing? Is the Mediterranean diet, Right. What is the right thing? And I think you and I talk about this all the time. I think the reality of the fact is it's finding the right thing for you.
- [15:59]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah.
- [16:00]
PJ Sorbo
And there are blanket principles that I think that are good to follow. I think there are great educators in the space. I would consider you a great educator in this space because I think you're willing to have open conversations about a lot of these things and both the positive and the negative side of most of this.
- [16:16]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah.
- [16:17]
PJ Sorbo
You and I both own supplement companies and, or skincare, whatever else you want to classify those as. And we can both say, you know, hey, they're the magic pill for a lot of things. But we also know there's no magic pill. You know, a supplement is, is Is that right? And without a lot of these lifestyle factors, there's only so much that we can do.
- [16:36]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah, I, I couldn't agree more. Especially when I'm going to throw something under the bus. Cause it's owned by Monsanto, so I don't care. Especially things like urology, for example, like. Oh yeah, you know, company called Mito Pure again, actually I used to really like them, but then they got bought out by Monsanto. But you know, I see ads like, oh, increase your muscle mass by like 12% without exercise. Or like, things you're getting into the realm of, of like educating people for, for like bad habits. You're like going against health basically because you are committed to selling an ingredient. Like it's a, like it's a holy grail ingredient or something like that. And I think it is a combination, you know, looking from the side and being in, the obviously being, being in business in, in biohacking and longevity. It is the combination of raising money and having a bias towards a specific ingredient that you're telling the story of that ingredient in order to raise money and then to justify the, the money being raised.
- [17:49]
PJ Sorbo
Well, if you really want to go down the rabbit hole, let's go down the rabbit hole of, you know, David Sinclair and looking at ingredients and how they get monetized. The amount of. I mean, I think he's done great things for the longevity field, anti aging field from an awareness perspective. But when you look at NMN or when you look at resveratrol, I don't think the data's great. Right. If you really dive into it, I think there's, there's positive correlations, no if, ands or buts. But then there's also how many millions of dollars have gone into, you know, publicizing those ingredients. And when you look at it from a topical perspective, I love the data there. But the ingestion side of things, we need to look at and we need to ask the questions. We need to be able to, you know, we need to look at things not too in depth because we're also early adopters. Right. Let's look at hop. A lot of the ingredients that I, Amy and I had formulated HOP with, with the help of our good friends. You know, we believe that there is massive positive correlations and there is a lot of clinical efficacy behind it. But we're also early adopters. We don't necessarily know. And what are the lifestyle factors that are actually counteracting what these ingredients can potentially do in the body? We don't know.
- [19:00]
Amitaj Eshel
Well, I will play. I agree with you and I will strengthen your argument. I would say so. I don't know if it's about early adoption per se. I think we are, and I think the industry is driven by early adopters quite certainly. And I think also probably most of our, the people listening are early adopters or else they wouldn't have found the podcast, et cetera. But I think that it's a discussion, it's a slightly different discussion. It's about the, the, it's kind of what we started with. It's about the ability of allopathic medicine, of substantial medicine and the gateways that are now imposed on that industry and the inability to provide solutions that have gone through all of the qualifications needed that gives birth and, and, and gives legitimacy to say, to saying something like here is a mechanistic approach. That's what the mechanism does. Which, that's where I think I agree with David Sinclair. David Sinclair says, hey, if you have less than ad, you are, that's like not your best strategy for longevity. Okay, couldn't agree more. Nad. No NAD equals you die. Okay, it's big. It's big. As our next president is going to say, it's big, but it's big. But the problem is when you are, as you said, is when you start needing to make money off of one of those things and you are starting to, I would say, overhype the possible benefits without taking into consideration that more data needs to be uncovered, et cetera, I think the honest person would say, hey, this is what we know right now. We are quite certain that more data will show we're right, there is no risk, therefore, or there's very little risk. Low risk, low risk. From whatever we've observed and studies studied, there is no risk unless you are, you know, and then you give parameters, right? So you should, you should try it. You know, I feel like this is.
- [21:26]
PJ Sorbo
Going to nail this point home. I'm on a conference call the other day with a company that I've been working, building out a longevity clinic for and I. They implement wabi. They use WABI in their, in their, basically call it basecamp. So every patient that comes in is getting a cognitive assessment. The reality of the fact is that when they ask me, well, what do we do once we have this data? And I'm going to give a very high level overview of wabi. The bread and the butter of the WABI system is measuring something called P300 in its voltage and speed. So how much energy your brain has to process information with as well as how quickly it is able to process that information with, in layman terms, I call it a representation of mitochondrial energy in the cortex. And so the question is, well, does red light therapy improve it? Does cold laser therapy improve it? Does hyperbaric chambers? Does sauna? Well, there is a number of things that can cause mitochondrial dysfunction, right? It's not just one thing. Inflammatory complex can cause mitochondrial dysfunction. Lack of perfusion can cause mitochondrial dysfunction. Lack of methylation or a methylation problem can cause mitochondrial dysfunction. Right. The influx or the overproduction of senescent cells that are unable to be drained and cleared out, causing inflammatory complex and neurological issues can cause mitochondrial dysfunction. And so it's really easy to want to look for a blanket answer and say red light therapy improves P300 voltage by X percent. But we don't actually know what the limiting factor of that mitochondrial support is.
- [23:01]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah.
- [23:02]
PJ Sorbo
And that's why it's important for us to have measurements. It's important for us to be able to ask the question, both subjectively and objectively, what is working? What is not working? Because not everything is going to work for everybody. We know that there are things, there are principles that work for a mass majority of the population. Increasing nad support, no offense or bots, a great thing. I think most people have metabolic damage and or mitochondrial dysfunction. Right. And so things that help support mitochondrial function, metabolic support, things that help support collagen production in the skin, like there are things that we can make absolute blanket statements and the risk is very, very low. I just, I think it's important to realize that we still do need data on some of these things. Yeah, that's the point that I like to kind of pinpoint on.
- [23:53]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah, yeah, good point. Hey there.
- [24:00]
C
This is Amitai, co founder and CEO of Young Goose and host of the Biohacking Beauty podcast. I wanted to take a brief moment to share something really special with you, our dedicated listeners. At Yungoos, we've always been about more than just skincare. We are about cellular care. We believe in not just addressing the signs, but truly diving into the very source of skin aging. The reality is, as time goes on, our skin undergoes damage and this damage accumulates gradually, leading to those signs of aging we all see and know very well. But what if we could hit the rewind button? What if we could delve deep, not into the layers of the skin skin, but into the life sustaining mechanisms of our skin cells? That's exactly what we're doing at Young Goose. We're pioneering a renaissance in skincare by employing principles from regenerative medicine. By rejuvenating and restoring the cellular functions, our products aim to rewind time, gifting your skin a youthful, vibrant glow. And for our biohacking beauty listeners, we have a special treat. Head over to Yongoos.com right now and use the code PODCAST10 to get 10% off your first purchase. Discover the magic of truly transformative skincare. And hey, because we value our returning customers just as much, use podcast five on your subsequent purchases to get 5% off. And the best part, that this discount can be combined with subscriptions and our already discounted systems. So why wait? Dive deep into the realm of regenerative skincare with Yungoos and let your skin. Thank you. Remember, it's not just skin care, it's cellular care. And now back to our conversation.
- [26:05]
Amitaj Eshel
You know, talking about, like I mentioned spermidine before, like spermidine is, is. A lot of people like to think about it as this crazy strong longevity ingredient, but it covers nine out of the 12 hallmarks of aging. Well, guess what? If you are effing up in the other three, sperminine is not going to be much good. So, you know, you know, so. And anyway, yeah, we're on the same page. What is interesting is like how did you transition? Like what drew you to transition from a person that's talking about brain health and things that are more brosy, to be honest with you, because obviously men get more brain damage than women, I would assume.
- [26:49]
PJ Sorbo
Yes.
- [26:50]
Amitaj Eshel
So like I would say like things that are more bro oriented, you know, whether it is the obviously go mix which is like, hey, you, you can take, you can, you can drink protein anywhere. Which is like the most male thing ever.
- [27:06]
PJ Sorbo
It is.
- [27:07]
Amitaj Eshel
Even though now everyone knows that protein is important. So like obviously go mix and like brain damage to. I believe like in the last few years you have become more and. And having like an automotive wrap company to. In the last few years you really made the change and you became more of like your products are more female oriented. Whether it's morning routine. I think the principles. We didn't even talk about morning routine but like the principles of drinking lemon and apple cider vinegar in the morning are like, you know, it's almost like they've been passed from mother to daughter or something. Like men have never heard about that. And obviously hop, which is I believe.
- [27:47]
PJ Sorbo
The most female forward.
- [27:49]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah, yeah, I believe the most comprehensive longevity stack currently on the market.
- [27:56]
PJ Sorbo
I agree with that.
- [27:57]
Amitaj Eshel
It is, it is. You know, you guys kind of chose the female side of the equation. You said, you know, there are probably ingredients that are going to help men or women individually, and we kind of choose more the female side of the. Of the stack, right?
- [28:13]
PJ Sorbo
Oh, absolutely. Well, there's a couple of things. A, it's a very good question and I don't think I've been asked it before, so I like it. B, I actually think I have a really good answer for it. So, number one, I have been in the supplement industry or health and wellness for years. I mean, my entire career has been in health and wellness. And I own or have owned a portfolio of health and wellness companies, supplement companies, you name it. I've kind of been on every side of it, all the way from retail to manufacturing to brand distribution. I've done kind of all of that side of it. The reality of the fact is that to this day, and I love my beautiful wife desperately for this, if my wife does not put my pills into my pill container, I don't take them. It's just the reality of it. I think men are worse consumers from a business perspective, but it goes much further than that. I think that women in particular in the longevity industry are. Or just supplement industry is the most underserved market that we have.
- [29:17]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah.
- [29:18]
PJ Sorbo
You and I have a very good mutual friend of ours, Amy Killen. Dr. Amy Killen. Shout out.
- [29:22]
Amitaj Eshel
Who is.
- [29:23]
PJ Sorbo
Shout out to the best who has her hands. And I think she's really one of the leaders in this kind of. I don't want to, I don't even want to discredit it by saying female empowerment, but I really do believe it is this female movement for longevity, anti aging and really saying enough is enough. We need to put kind of draw a line in the sand. We need to have women as a represented demographic in this industry because their bodies are different, right?
- [29:50]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah.
- [29:50]
PJ Sorbo
The way that they age is different, the way that we age, hormones are different, all that kind of stuff. Now, to get specific on hop, you know, I believe when we were putting hop together, we put the 19 most clinically backed supplements, for lack of a better term that you can't necessarily find in food together that we believe help combat the downfalls of aging is what we call them or the hallmarks of aging is everyone uses. And I believe in my core that it is the most comprehensive longevity stack out there. No if answer buts.
- [30:23]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah.
- [30:23]
PJ Sorbo
What we are finding is that there's a lot of where. What we found is that there was a ton of companies that were, you know, going towards men and it was very masculine feeling and, you know, with Amy being our CEO and the head of our company, I just felt as though we felt as though not I. That there was an underserved market that really needed to, you know, be addressed. And, you know, when you look at things like that, I just think that that's the right patient demographic, the right market to go after, because they're also your best product champions.
- [30:55]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah.
- [30:55]
PJ Sorbo
You know, I think when you talk about something like morning routine, it's probably my favorite hydration. Obviously I'm biased. I own the company, but it's my favorite hydration product on the market. Right. It's got digestive support. It's got natural vitamin C. We do all of our flavoring with just organic lemon, crystallized organic lemon and monk fruit. That's it. And I do believe it's how everyone should start the morning. I think that if everyone started, you know, with something like that, our digestion would be better, the acidity of our gut would be better. I believe that people would be more hydrated. But I also believe in Hop in the sense that we need to make things more accessible to the general consumer. We need to make it easier, and we also need to have it not be intimidating. Most supplement companies out there, you know, if we were smart with Hop, what we would have done is we would have taken each one of our capsules, right. We have Hourglass Tipper, and we. We have Bees needs, and we have the Equalizer, and we have Daily D and we have, you know, we would have made each one of those their own individual capsule. And each one of them, each one of them would have been, you know, 50 to $100. And, you know, you end up spending 4, 5, $600 a month to have your longevity stack. And that's just not sustainable for most people. And so when Amy and I and the rest of the team got together, we wanted to give them a fun way to be educated on what is actually happening in their body. And we also wanted to give them a way to do it affordably and accessibly to really help combat the downfalls of aging or the hallmarks. And I think that we've done our damnedest to be able to do that. And obviously, you and I have a little collaboration coming, which I'm super excited about, which I guess we can touch on without giving too much away, but really attacking aging from the inside and outside of the body.
- [32:38]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah, I agree. I think there is a challenge, and I want to touch on the collaboration, but I. You've said something that I think should be Addressed because it is, it is the real challenge for just people who just want to be healthy, continue with their lives, not, you know, get a PhD in what supplements I need, et cetera, which is first of all the real problem of decision fatigue. People don't know, and I've spoken about it before extensively, we are able to make about 25 good decisions a day. That includes what I would wear, what I want to eat, should I take that route to my job or this route. Every decision we make gets into this decision fatigue tally. And I would say first of all, something for example, like hop, which takes the most needle moving elements of supplements available as far as like longevity and that triad that I spoke about before or morning routine. Who takes this ritual really, whether you want to do it or not, of mixing, you know, apple cider vinegar and lemon and making it taste good in the morning, really condensing it into a pouch or a sachet for that matter, and being able to drink it. You really are strategically improving your ability to make other decisions. What is the problem here? The problem is that there is no regulation around it. Like, you need to trust PJ and for that matter, like Dr. Amy Killen, like that's the truth. If, if PJ were to put their ground sawdust with different colored, you know, tablets, no one would know. Like the fda. Now I saw Brian Callan, the comedian post about it. Yeah, the FDA uncovered like randomly tested an ingredient because Joe Rogan posted about it and that was supposed to be some natural shilajit derived anti inflammatory and it was called gold something or whatever. I saw this and they found out it has like ibuprofen or something like that, or Tylenol. So you, that's one example out of a million. We see it in skincare where clean skin care companies, everywhere, it's everywhere we sit. So, so we see it in clean skin care companies. We look at the ingredients, we're like, hey, you have no way of stabilizing this. Like two things may happen. Either you are serving mold in a jar, which is possible, or you are lying about your ingredients. You are omitting, you know, preservatives basically to be able to, to what I call clean wash your product. So that's the problem is I think supplements has this by far the biggest problem, you know, by far.
- [35:44]
PJ Sorbo
Well, look at, look at the studies that came out on Amazon, the amount of Amazon tests that they did. And there was like, it was like 70% of companies that were like not label accurate. Right. Not every company does what I do. I Manufacture, Not I, we manufacture. Every one of our companies is an NSF certified manufacturing facility. So every wrong. I am in charge of the raw ingredient ordering, which is I source from FDA pharma grade, you know, manufacturing facilities which it is ID tested the minute it gets shipped out. It is ID tested for concentration and transparency and purity the minute it gets in the manufacturing. Then right after the manufacturing it is then ID tested again to make sure it is the actual concentration that we are claiming on the labels. And then we have a quality test where we actually leave product in reserve that we test, you know, four weeks later before anything is batch shipment, you know, approved to make sure that it is still the same. That all the moisture testing, the concentration, all of that is done for every company that I'm involved with. Not everyone does that.
- [36:52]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah.
- [36:52]
PJ Sorbo
And I think that's a problem. You know, I will always fall back on our quality. I will always fall back on your quality. I know that people are doing it the right way and I hope that these are the companies that people are exposed to because it is a ridiculously important thing.
- [37:09]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah.
- [37:09]
PJ Sorbo
You have to a trust the supplements that you're putting in your body or topicals that are going on your skin. It's ridiculously important. And I think it's where we as smaller companies do have to band together that are doing the right thing, that are trying to put our best foot forward. We don't have the marketing budgets that some of these massive, massive conglomerates have. And when you see these companies exit, you see their quality drop and we see it time and time again because it's all about the bottom line.
- [37:34]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah.
- [37:35]
PJ Sorbo
When Amy and I put hop together, I remember calling you and saying, dude, I'm going to put together this company called the Human Optimization Project. And I don't care about the cost, I don't care how much it costs us to make this product because I want to make sure that it is everything that we take on a daily basis. And you were a big part of a lot of the thought process behind some of the ingredient portfolio to make sure it was the clinically backed, most efficacious version. Version. Whether it was the apigenin in there or the spermidine in there or you know, NR versus nmn. We are definitely not the cheapest manufactured product and we're never going to be.
- [38:11]
Amitaj Eshel
No for sure. And it's very tempting. I mean because at the end of the day it's just you looking the other way. Like I remember we talking with this nad like precursor manufacturer and you know, they have a specific claim, hey, this is what we can do. Or these are, these are, you know, our products like 10 times more bioavailable than something else. And all you have to do is like, oh, I'll take it, I'll take your word for it and I'll run with it. Right. The story is actually you didn't, you just didn't continue with them. We brought the products in, kind of tested them for their claims and the claims were actually it wasn't a bad product, but it was not what was claimed. Right, right. And that's the biggest NMN manufacturer in the world. Number one making supplying element for 2000 companies sold in the United States. Yeah, so that is for sure. Another thing that I think is really, really overlooked is dynamic lifestyle because preach. Because you know what we can talk about what I call, by the way, I think supplement. Most supplements especially, especially supplements that are very traditional, which is kind of what you guys didn't do, which is every ingredient gets its own, its own bottle. I think it's what I call the Planet Fitness model, right? It's like, hey, you know, subscribe to this, you need that amount a month, I cost this much. And subscribe. And then you hope that the person never unsubscribes, you know, Planet Fitness. The statistic is that 90% of the people subscribed to Planet Fitness never entered Planet Fitness. And what I love about insane, right? And when, when I was traveling a lot, I actually had a Planet Fitness subscription. And when, you know, we, we, we stopped traveling so much, you know, we have a baby, stuff like that, I wanted to cancel it. Well, apparently they make, they say, oh, you want to cancel it, you've got to come to us. Which is nuts. Like the two, the only time you'll come to life and fitness is to Planet Fitness is when you want to cancel your subscription. But that's what they count on, right? And I think in both skincare, but also obviously supplementation first and foremost and health. I think in general we have a dynamic lifestyle. We travel, we are people that are interested in health optimization. Normally they are go getters, they go out and get. And sometimes they forget themselves within the hectic life of you know, work, travel, vacation, whatever that is. There is no, no easy again decision fatigue averse product. And that maybe is what I like about hop the most actually also morning routine. But that's what I like about hop the most, which is the ease of travel. You know, once sashay has everything, it's.
- [41:23]
PJ Sorbo
Just easy to use I think you and I talk about this all the time. I believe that in today's world, I don't even believe. I think it's a fact. People are busier than ever, right? Whether it's to and from kids, sports, whether it's on the go for work or for travel or for pleasure, whatever it is, we have the most available. You can get on an airplane today and go wherever in the world you want outside of, you know, restrictions. But your. Your accessibility to go anywhere. And kids are able to do that, families are able to do that, you know, outside of the monetary perspective. But it is very easy. Like, I did 90 flights last year, just under.
- [42:04]
Amitaj Eshel
Wow.
- [42:05]
PJ Sorbo
You know, my travel schedule. And so when. When it becomes complex. Am I going to travel with 400 different supplements? No. Am I going to travel with 20 supplement bottles? No. No way. In that.
- [42:16]
Amitaj Eshel
First of all, I got stopped in the airport because they thought my glycine and nac powder from pure encapsulation, by the way, does not taste good. Pure encapsulation, please change the flavor. Horrible. They thought it's cocaine.
- [42:31]
PJ Sorbo
Dude, I have a story for you which we will not do on this podcast. The first time I traveled to Mexico with a business partner of mine, where he actually got arrested.
- [42:40]
Amitaj Eshel
Oh, wow.
- [42:42]
PJ Sorbo
Oh, yeah, dude. It's.
- [42:43]
Amitaj Eshel
What's.
- [42:44]
PJ Sorbo
It's. So it's. That's. Number one, that's an issue, right? Like just the accessibility. Number two, to your point, whether it's decision fatigue or just your ability to try and keep up with everything that all of us have going on a regular basis, it becomes exhausting. And if you expect me to put 20 different capsules into a plastic baggie before I travel, it just ain't gonna happen. I'm not gonn do it at home, if I'm being honest, right? To give a shameless plug to Young Goose. I've never been a skincare guy in my life. I've never used it until I met my best friend. And I use Young Goose products. I don't use the whole product line, but it's something that I can use every single day, twice a day, whether it's the youth reset, whether it's the care cream. Like, those are things that, A, I notice a substantial difference with, but B, they're easy for me to use. And I can throw. I have the travel size. I can put it into my, you know, which I don't know if those are live yet, but they will be live yet.
- [43:44]
Amitaj Eshel
You have, you know, preferential treatment. But.
- [43:48]
PJ Sorbo
Yeah, sure, but I put Them in my. I put them into my travel tote every time I travel. And those are like, it's. It's built a consistent routine for me when I am traveling or when I'm on the go. I have my morning routine in the morning. I get up, I shower, I do my thing, I put my, you know, my care cream on my youth reset. Like, those are all things that I can do consistently. I have two hot packets for every day I travel because I know that I'm probably not going to be able to eat the best. I know that I'm not going to be sleeping the best. So if I can have these small little wins, that consistency is key, right? It's not intensity, it's consistency. But on top of that, it's easy for me to do.
- [44:28]
Amitaj Eshel
It's so simple, 1 million percent. So the story goes like that. So I was in Atlanta and I took with me Hop. And normally, the true story is I am the worst. The worst. I'll quote you. I'm a bio slacker. When I travel, just I have, like, you know, I need to have a. I cram my schedule, basically. You know, I prepare, you know, three days, wherever it is, and I tell my team, hey, just load the schedule.
- [45:04]
PJ Sorbo
Just go.
- [45:05]
Amitaj Eshel
Some people know, like, this is actually. No, it was in Hawaii when I thought about it. But some people know, I don't. I'm not going to be in Hawaii for the next couple years again. So whoever wants to meet me in Hawaii, here's your chance. Go. Right. And normally I just, you know, basically I resort to, like, bunless burgers and, you know, the lettuce wrap they come in and hope that everything's going to be okay. Well, I had in my little fanny pack in my. What's it called? The man purse that I carry.
- [45:42]
PJ Sorbo
The man purse that you carry?
- [45:44]
Amitaj Eshel
The man purse that I carry, I had hop and I took it after my bunless burger, and I was like, oh, my God, I have an idea. Everyone that uses Yang Goose, it will behoove them. You know, it behooves us as a company that at the end of the day, we benefit from someone having a better lifestyle because it then reflects on us. Their skin looks better, and they use our products. And I call you and actually text you, and I text Amy and I say, I have an idea. We should basically create a pack for people who are traveling. It's not going to be out for a while. Probably this podcast is going to be out a few months before this pack is out, but I think it's also. I think it's also important for people to know what's going on behind the scenes. And we said, let's make a pack for people who are traveling. Going to call it, boom, Going to call it Travel Younger and pow. And that is going to allow people to have the basics to thrive in a very hectic environment. Hey, this is what you need. Put it into your, you know, pack, and you're good to go. That's it. Decisions, done, decisions done. Concentrate on what's important for you with your. With your life.
- [46:58]
PJ Sorbo
I love the campaign.
- [47:01]
Amitaj Eshel
You.
- [47:02]
PJ Sorbo
I have to give credit where credit is due. You came up with this concept of travel younger, and I didn't like it at first. I pushed back. I was like, I don't know, let's see, you know, let's look at some other terms. But I think it encompasses. I think you and I both have a similar definition for what travel younger means. And I think it's the accessibility to things that help benefit your life when you're on the go. It doesn't mean that you're living this luxurious travel on a regular basis and you're going to Bali and Hawaii and you're traveling younger. No. The reality of the fact is, travel is anything.
- [47:37]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah.
- [47:37]
PJ Sorbo
You know, it's my on the go lifestyle. It's you're on the go lifestyle. You and I have a for M coming up. We have trade shows where how do I have a small win on a regular basis when I am traveling or when I'm on the go, or when. When, you know, the soccer mom is throwing her kids in the car trying to get out the door, or when any of these people are just go, go, go, go, go. How do we make it more accessible? And that's what I love about the Travel Younger campaign. And obviously, we have been working very hard on it. There's a lot to come.
- [48:04]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah.
- [48:04]
PJ Sorbo
But I do think there's two things that get me extremely excited. Number one, I use the products. My wife used the products. We use them habitually every day. They are part of our daily routine. And the fact that we're able to help people combat aging both from the inside and outside. And that's. They are such complementary products. Right. All the way from the hallmarks of aging, what we call the downfalls of aging, but also to just genuinely, your skin appearance, your skin health. The ingredients, they pair, in my opinion, perfectly together.
- [48:37]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah.
- [48:38]
PJ Sorbo
And the format that we have coming and kind of the. I don't want to call it exclusivity, but there is going to be some really fun things and I think we should probably get a sign up list put together for this when this podcast drops.
- [48:53]
Amitaj Eshel
Let's go, let's go. I'm putting it right now in the.
- [48:56]
PJ Sorbo
In the notes because it is a limited quantity.
- [48:59]
Amitaj Eshel
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [49:00]
PJ Sorbo
To start, it is something that we are always going to be doing. We are always going to have this collaboration. But as far as the way that we are announcing it, there's going to be a little bit of a collectibility to things and a limited quantity. And I think we've kind of goosed down, pun intended. See what I did there? I think we've goosed down what that quantity is. But also if anyone is going to be at a 4m, we are going to have some there or we're going to have the collaboration there too, probably. What soft launch, maybe official announcement, soft.
- [49:29]
Amitaj Eshel
Launch, official announcements, some nice things for people to experience. And I would also say, you know, really, if someone listening to this podcast and it piqued their interest, we're going to have only in the show notes a sign up sheets or whatever we are going to wrestle up and that's going to be it. It's like a hidden. What's it called? It's like what's it called in video games?
- [49:53]
PJ Sorbo
Oh, it's an Easter egg.
- [49:54]
Amitaj Eshel
Easter egg. You see, I'm too Jewish to know anyway, so it's an Easter egg. If people didn't last, you know, the 50 minutes that we're talking until now, they wouldn't know about it. So to the people that stayed until now, if you register, you're the first to know about, you're going to be the first on that list. So it's pretty cool, I think. Good job, pj. Good idea.
- [50:19]
PJ Sorbo
I'm excited about it. I think. I don't want to give too much away, but all I can say is that I genuinely believe if you were to pick three longevity products that you could put together that are genuinely what I believe that every person should take, I think these are the three products. I think this is like, I think this is the go to. This is the baseline that every single person, man, woman, obviously we are targeting a female demographic, but I genuinely, genuinely believe that that is the go to.
- [50:50]
Amitaj Eshel
Me too. And I would say like that, that is these are the products to take to a deserted island. And for two reasons. You know, you want to live long enough for you to be rescued and you also want to look well when they rescue you. So, you know, they need to want to rescue as well.
- [51:08]
PJ Sorbo
Yeah. I mean, and it's overall, it's everything. Not that we'll go all into it, there'll be information, but it's overall skin appearance, it's skin health, it's mitochondrial support, it's metabolic support. It's those hallmarks that we are attacking. And I am A, honored to be in collaboration, but B, I am just super excited to get this launched and for the future adventures that we'll have in this campaign.
- [51:33]
Amitaj Eshel
Amen. Amen. Well, listen, I am getting pinged that apparently it's time for me to be a dad. And pj, I appreciate your time. I obviously love, love, love everything that you're doing. Love, love you, love our collaborations and what you are doing as an individual. And I congratulate you for the amazing things you have done until now and that you will do. And thank you so much for, for coming on the podcast. It was. It was great.
- [52:02]
PJ Sorbo
My friend. I love you as always. I cannot wait to see you at a 4M. Thank you for your time and I will talk to you very soon.
- [52:10]
Amitaj Eshel
Amen. Thank you, guys. Bye, everyone.