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Dr. Mark Hyman
Coming up on this episode of the Dr. Hyman Show.
Steve Martosi
Why didn't you take a blue pill or a red pill or have titanium dioxide or have dyes and chemicals?
Unknown
Yeah. These things that are not good, they don't need to be in your supplements. Steve Martosi is a serial entrepreneur and tech innovator who turned his own health journey into a mission to revolutionize the supplement industry. I wanted to live, but I was deeply unhealthy. I got up to £300 in college. I found a functional medicine doctor. We started doing lab work. Right. And we started experimenting and it worked. At that point, I probably lost £70.
Steve Martosi
I was trained that vitamins make expensive urine.
Unknown
Waste your money.
Steve Martosi
If that logic was true, you shouldn't drink water because you pee out.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Eating nutrient dense foods daily is essential for maintaining optimal health and vitality. One such superfood is Himalayan Tartery Buckwheat or htb, an ancient gluten free seed that's gaining traction for its rich polyphenol.
Steve Martosi
Content and effects on immunity and metabolism.
Dr. Mark Hyman
HTB is packed with quercetin, rutin and.
Steve Martosi
Other beneficial compounds that support immune function and overall well being.
Dr. Mark Hyman
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Steve Martosi
In the gym.
Dr. Mark Hyman
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Steve Martosi
Now, before we jump into today's episode, I'd like to note that while I wish I could help everyone by my personal practice, there's simply not enough time for me to do this at scale. And that's why I've been busy building several passion projects to help you better understand. Well, you if you if you're looking for data about your biology, check out Function Health for Real time lab insights. And if you're in need of deepening your knowledge around your health journey, check out my membership community, the Hymen Hive. And if you're looking for curated and trusted supplements and health products for your health journey, visit my website@doctorhyman.com for my website store for a summary of my favorite and thoroughly tested products. Welcome to the Dr. Hyman Show. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman. This is a place for conversations that matter. And today if you are someone who's taking supplements, who's confused about supplements, who thinks they create expensive urine or that they're essential, are completely boggled by all the brands out there, all the claims out there, all the people pushing it. You know what to do for yourself and how to stay healthy without harming yourself. You're going to love this show because we have Steve Martosi who's co founded an incredible company called Supco and he is a brilliant guy. I mean I just, he's a good friend of mine, we've traveled the world together but I was sort of blown away when he took his intelligence that helped launch GroupMe and Splice and Blade, a lot of different companies and he's taken all of his business know how his personal health story and and has created something that is missing in the marketplace which is A trusted source of navigating what quality is in supplements, what you need, and how to figure out what to do. Because it's a mess out there. And I think you're going to love this conversation. And we dive into why sepco is such a needed service in the marketplace to help you navigate this incredibly messy landscape of supplements and quality and cost and all the things we want to care about. So I think you're gonna love this conversation. Let's jump right in. Well, Steve, it's so great to have you on the podcast. You know, we've been friends for a while, traveled the world together, done a lot of cool stuff. We've, we're both involved in two companies that I think are going to change the landscape of health in America. One is Function Health, where I'm the co founder and chief medical officer. Another is Subco, which is something we're going to talk about today. And it's something that's been desperately needed for decades. Navigate the myriad of supplements out there on the market to find the quality that you want to know that you're not getting crap in it, to know that it's made in a way that actually meets pharmaceutical grade standards, to actually figure out what to do. Because it's a landscape out there that is fraught with all sorts of problems that I've tried to solve, but you've done a way better job. See, you kind of started, exited many amazing companies like GroupMe and Blade and Splice. And I think there's this interesting personal story that you have about how you have sort of understood your own health challenges and used your own way of navigating it. And this is really coming out of your own struggles to figure shit out. And now, you know, we have the opportunity to share this innovation around how to think about supplementation and whether you need them, why you should take them, what the landscape is out there, what the problems are with it and how to, how to solve that. So you, you know, you've, you've, you're sort of a multiple serial entrepreneur and you know, you've tackled this problem in a way that I, I'm just so glad because for me, as a practicing doctor, it's so hard for my patients to actually figure out what to take. And that's why I spent decades researching the market, visiting supplement manufacturers, factories, going in there, doing quality control, looking for third party testing, making sure their ingredients were pure, that they had no contaminants or chemicals or additives, which often they do, making sure that they're bioavailable that they're forms of nutrients that work. Right. And also that they're digestible when you eat them. They don't just poop out and that they're actually tested after for both potency and purity. So whatever it says on the label is what's on the label. And I spent decades doing this, and I've curated a small group of these supplements that I think work clinically for my patients. And we're going to sort of go into how you solve the problem at a much bigger scale because, you know, there's, I don't know how many products are in the market.
Unknown
We have tracked tracking about 200,000, 200,000 products.
Steve Martosi
So it's kind of, I, I, you know, it's kind of insane to think about how much is out there and how much noise is out there and where's the signal and what's good and what's bad. So let's just sort of start by diving into your story because you, you were, you know, a very overweight, unhealthy guy when you were in your 20s.
Unknown
I mean, 20s. I think it, my journey probably goes back to my childhood. I was always the fat kid. I was a tall fat kid. And I would make all the sports teams because they'd be like, oh, he's six, five. Like, he's going to, we can make him good, right? He's going to get better as time goes on. But honestly, nothing I would do playing football. You know, you do two a day practices and all nonstop. And I wouldn't lose weight. And it was pretty wild. My mom has hypothyroidism. She took me to an endocrinologist. This is like 1996, seven, something like that. And they did some labs and they just told me I was on the low end of normal and they couldn't do anything.
Steve Martosi
Yeah.
Unknown
And it was completely disheartening. I thought that medicine, like, completely let me down. And things got worse. Like, I got up to £300 in college. 299. I never saw 300 on a scale. I refused to get on a scale once I was 299. Like, it just was not, it was not good. And then, you know, I'm a, I'm a software engineer. I just love building. Code is kind of my canvas. It's just where I can lose days building. And it's so much fun for me. Built a successful company called GroupMe. It was kind of pioneering group text messaging. And when we sold that, we sold it quickly to Skype. You know, I was 270 pounds, I had just made some money, I wanted to live, but I was deeply unhealthy. And I found a functional medicine doctor. And this is like, this is 2010, you know, like, so kind of ahead of the curve a bit.
Steve Martosi
So I've been doing it since 96. So that was like ahead of the social media curve at least I was 14 years later.
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. Ahead of the curve of like the biohacker trend that I feel like is now. We started doing lab work, right. And we started experimenting and, you know, started with some thyroid medicine, kind of dialed in some hormones, and built a supplement stack. And it worked. And I committed to diet and exercise again with these helping me this time. And it worked. And people would ask me, they'd see my transformation and they'd asked what was I doing? And no one wanted to hear.
Steve Martosi
Diet and exercise and you lost almost £100.
Unknown
Yeah, I mean, at that point I probably lost £70. But they're asking me what I'm doing. And this is 10 years before Ozempic is a thing. Yeah, this is not the easy answer. And so I would share them. My stack, which was the list of supplements and medications I was taking, and it would be ugly, out of date Google spreadsheet. And honestly, people didn't really know what to do with it, you know, but a couple people would be like, cool. I talked to my doctor about this one thing and, you know, then I went on with my. My life happy. I started Blade and Splice and ran splice for 10 years. I was a little burned out leading through Covid and, you know, getting ready to have a kid and kind of wanted to step back and hire a CEO there, you know, it was time to build again. I'm just. The software itch is just always in me and I wanted to do something in health. I mean, it had been a transformative experience for me and it had become the zeitgeist. Your book was just coming out on longevity and Peter Attia's book, it just seemed like the dinner table conversation and the stack sharing on social media, it was happening. This wasn't just about, I'm taking this. Yeah, it's like this. What are you taking exactly? And so that was the core concept was to bring back the stack sharing concept. I saw what you guys were doing with Function and I was so inspired by it. I'm a function investor. I'm happy about that. But I wanted to tackle this space, which I found to be an incredibly gray area of understanding what to do. And so that's where it formed. I remember the first day I had the idea in my head, some friend of mine came over for dinner without me saying anything. She said, I spent four hours today going through all my supplements, putting them in a spreadsheet, figuring out how to save money and take less pills. Yeah, it's like, oh, this is like a pretty good idea then. And then like I had another friend in the first week say that their friend, they knew someone who, whose mom had taken so much vitamin D, they didn't know she had dementia, early dementia, like symptoms.
Steve Martosi
Yeah.
Unknown
And she was like totally misdosing vitamin D. And so I started to really like get in because it was, it.
Steve Martosi
Wasn'T what it said on the bottle.
Unknown
Or I don't remember too many pills. I think it was too many pills or not understanding the like IU dosing versus milligram dosing and was like, you know, that was the story I was getting. And so we're really here to help you make sense of supplements.
Steve Martosi
Let's talk about the landscape of nutrition because I think, you know, most doctors, and certainly I was trained that vitamins make expensive urine. Don't waste your money and your body gets everything it needs from food. You'll be fine and don't worry about it. You know, there's a big fallacy in that. First of all, if that logic was true, you shouldn't drink water because you pee out what you don't need. Your body takes what you need. So if you drink an excess amount of water, your body will just get rid of it. Right. And that's the way it is for most vitamins, not the fat soluble vitamins, you have to be careful. But, but it's, you know, it's crazy because you have 37 billion chemical reactions in your body every second. And every single one of those chemical reactions requires a co factor or helper. And those, those are facilitated by enzymes. The enzymes need various nutrients to, to activate that pathway so that one molecule can become another molecule, which is how your body works. And those cofactors are vitamins and minerals. And literally the grease lubricates the wheels of your metabolism and your, when I say metabolism, I mean you're, you know, from a medical perspective, which is every chemical reaction in your body. And on top of that, you know, there's other compounds that are phytochemicals that are, are also, we're learning, are so powerful. And we've consumed, you know, 800 species of plants and foods with all sorts of phytonutrients there's, you know, probably maybe 100,000 phytochemicals out there that have effects on the body. You've heard of some of them, like sulforaphane from broccoli or resveratrol from grapes, or, you know, curcumin from, you know, turmeric. Turmeric, you know. And so basically we've been consuming these things. Now we probably eat three main species of plants, basically corn, wheat and soy. And then maybe another total of 12. You had tomatoes, lettuce, celery, carrots, like it's like 12 foods. And you were missing all these important phytochemicals that also help regulate our biology and that we've co evolved with, I call it symbiotic phyto adaptation. And so whether it's an actual vitamin that's essential or an omega 3 fat or essential fatty acid, or it's a conditionally essential nutrient, there's many of those that you need more of depending on your state of health and what's going on. Like CoQ10 if you're on a statin. And then there's all the phytochemicals. And so there's supplements out there that contain all these things. It's a kind of a morass of, of a, of a landscape that's poorly regulated that, that is not well controlled. I mean, the, the Shay legislation in the 90s helped sort of set the stage for a supplement industry that you could, you know, kind of go wild and not make disease curing claims, which was good, but it kind of created a wild west where the whole supplement industry grew. The question is, you know, do Americans need supplements? Do people in general need nutritional supplements? Because if you listen to most doctors, you don't.
Unknown
I mean, I think that is the thing that is so hard as a consumer in this space is just the wildly different opinions. And it's the Dr. Gap of people who say expensive urine to the ones who are like, this is exactly what to do for this. And it's also like the explosion on social media. There's this whole kind of N equals one world right now where people are raving about this supplement is just changing my life. It makes me see in 4k, but then they also have their supplement store right behind it. So it's a extremely difficult space to navigate.
Steve Martosi
I mean, there's a lot of snake oil sales, by the way.
Unknown
A lot of snake oil sales.
Steve Martosi
Yeah.
Unknown
And look, there might be people who are having actual real great experiences, but they're not aggregating that Data in a way that allows anyone to make sense of it. It's just their individual story. And I think we're going through such a big battle right now in America around the individual and the institution. Right. And who to trust in this. And that trust is really eroded. Institutional trust is continuing to go down. And 51% of Americans say that they have bought a health or wellness product from a social media influencer, from something they sell on social media.
Steve Martosi
Well, I bought shorts and shoes. I see. Well, kind of dive a little bit deeper for us into what is Subco and how it works and why so important.
Unknown
You know, we like to say that we're helping users make sense of supplements through our website and app. We're helping you figure out what supplements are right for your health, what products and brands you can trust, how you can save the most money and get results. To do this, we've cataloged over 200,000 supplement products that you can search in our app or by their scanning the barcode. And we've built an in depth trust score rating from 29 different attributes that let you understand the manufacturing standards and quality of your supplements. For those looking to figure out what they want to take, we have 80 expert protocols that you can go in to find guidance on different health topics like brain fog or heart health and women's hormones. To get starting, it's pretty easy. You enter a little bit of information, start scanning your supplements to kind of catalog what you're already taking. We give you an analysis of your stack so that you can kind of get a score that's easy to understand how you can improve quality, how you can improve trust and make changes to kind of improve that. You also then can share your stack with your doctor, your friends, kind of get feedback from different people, create a conversation around it that helps you understand if you're taking too much or too little of something, which happens to a lot of people. And then we have a smart scheduler that lets you make sure you're taking your products correctly. Are you taking them with food? Are you taking them at the right time? Which will then also start tracking to see whether or not you're getting results. We launched at beta in early October. The response has been amazing. We're getting nearly 1,000 users a day right now.
Steve Martosi
October 24th.
Unknown
October 24th, yeah. And we're getting 1,000 users a day without even having your protocols. So we're excited to get your protocols in stack on the platform soon. And I think for us people to know right now, everything on CEPCO is free and we'll launch a premium membership later this year which will have some premium features and eventually help people save money on their supplements as well. We don't sell any of your data. There's no advertisement on CEPCO either. And yeah, we want people to come in and be aligned with them so that we're just as excited when they stop taking something that doesn't work as when they start taking something.
Steve Martosi
So you're not selling supplements?
Unknown
We're not selling supplements. And if we do, we will never profit from them. We want to.
Steve Martosi
We're guiding people on how to, we're.
Unknown
Guiding people on how to take the.
Steve Martosi
Best products, products for them that are the cleanest, that are actually matching their goals and needs. And you're just providing this incredible service which I think is such an important gap in the marketplace that you're filling. So what is the problem of nutritional deficiencies today in America? What do we know about the level of insufficiency or deficiency of nutrients? Is it widespread? Is it rare?
Unknown
I mean, look, I think this is your world. I think this is the one that you particularly would talk best about. I know my own individual struggles, but honestly, like you've got this data, this is, this is your world.
Steve Martosi
I mean the, the data is so impressive, you know, when you look at the. And I'll just sort of share a little bit to kind of set the stage. But you know, NHANES is called the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and it's conducted by the government. And every year they drive around, they get blood on a whole bunch of people, they chest their levels and they see what's going on of all sorts of things and nutrient levels. And what they found is, you know, 90 plus percent of Americans are efficient in one or more nutrient at the minimum level to prevent deficiency. And this is really an important concept for nutrients because if you look at for example, vitamin D, you need maybe 30 units, so you don't get rickets, but you might need 3,000 units so you don't get osteoporosis or cancer or dementia or heart disease or autoimmune diseases or a whole bunch of things that we call Long latency deficiency diseases. There's a guy named Robert Heaney who was a professors and brilliant scientist who wrote a paper called Long Latency Deficiency Diseases. What essentially was talking about was like, yeah, there's nobody walking around really in America with rickets anymore or scurvy or Beriberi or pellagra or Xeroxalma. These Are these severe deficiency diseases that we actually found in the turn of the century when we started refining our diet and taking, you know, white flour and white rice? That's actually how they found it was in prisoners. They gave them white rice, they all became deficient, had these horrib diseases that were cured in a second, essentially with minuscule amounts of nutrients. When you look at the amount of deficiencies, whether it's, you know, 90 plus percent deficient, omega 3, 80 plus insufficient, efficient vitamin D, and some people say even more, Magnesium is about 45%, zinc's about 40%, iron, you know, we have a lot of deficiencies. And with function, you know, we now have 150,000 members of function Health. And now, by the way, there's no waiting list, so you can just join. Go to functionhealth.com, you can get in and go ahead and check your levels. But we found that in looking at all the data, almost 70% of our members have a deficiency in a nutrient that is at the minimum reference range of the lab. Right. So in other words, for iron, this is an example, your ferritin level, which is your iron Source, should be 45 or more. To feel good, to not have fatigue, to have hair, hair loss, to not have insomnia, There's a whole bunch of things that come with low iron. The Reference range goes 16 or lower, but it should be 45.
Unknown
Sure.
Steve Martosi
Right. Or homocysteine is just like the levels 14, which should be more 6 to 8, which detects B vitamin deficiencies or vitamin D should be probably 45 to 60, not 30 or 20, which some lab reference changes are. And at the minimum level, which is how much you need to not get rickets or scurvy or any of these diseases, this is what the RDA is. It's not the amount you should be taking, it's the minimum amount you need to be taking so you don't get some of these horrible diseases. We're seeing almost 70% of people are deficient in these nutrients in a cohort of 150,000 people, which is a massive amount of data that we've collected at Function Health. And we're learning about the kinds of things we're seeing in the population. So it's a real issue where people are not getting the nutrients they need and they don't know why they feel bad, they don't know why they have these low grade symptoms. I had one patient, she came in, she was a radiation oncology resident at Mayo, and she had the most severe migraines she was on narcotics, she was on major anti vomiting medication and she could barely function. And she came in and she said, oh, I have terrible migraines. And I started taking her history. I said, oh, do you have other symptoms like constipation or do you have muscle spasms or do you have anxiety or irritability or palpitations or constipation? And she's like, yeah, I got all those things. I'm like, well, that's a magnesium deficiency. And it was so easy. And I gave her, she needed like a thousand or more milligrams of magnesium to get her going and clear everything out. And that cured her migraines. Wow. And you hear someone who was at Mayo Clinic saw the best migraine doctors, did everything she could. They couldn't even diagnose a deficiency. And by the way, magnesium deficiency. You can we test magnesium function and we get your red cell magnesium, which is a better indicator. Sure. But to do a real magnesium loading test where you give people IV magnesium and you see what they keep and what they dump out is the best way to actually really tell. But, but it, but even so, just by history I could tell and I, and after doing functional medicine for 30 years, I can tell you without a doubt. And doing nutrition testing on tens of thousands of people and deep analysis of minerals and vitamins and the oxygen levels and oxidative stress and CoQ10, all the things that people normally don't look at. It's so widespread, like nutrient deficiency is so widespread in America. So, you know, that kind of then leads into the question of, well, if that's true, then, you know, why is that true?
Unknown
By the way, what's shocking about that is 75% of Americans take a dietary supplement, 55% are regular users, yet 70% are still getting those lab results from you.
Steve Martosi
Right.
Unknown
So like they're definitely taking the wrong things or not enough of the right things, you know, like. So I think that just speaks to a lot of the, you know, stuff we're trying to sort out. Sepco is giving people the ability to actually know what they're putting in their body. One of the big features of being able to kind of enter everything that you're currently taking is you'll actually see your nutrient totals across all the different products. Vitamin D is coming from six of the products I take. You know, and like actually having a conversation with your doctor about what's actually going in your body doesn't really happen. I remember talking to a nutritionist in the beginning and they're like, she was like, very good. She said, yeah, I would spend four hours, you know, actually going over the nutrients that people are getting from the products. They told me, but most people don't ever do that. I don't know who has a conversation with their doctor, who knows actually what they're putting in their body.
Steve Martosi
I think this is really important. So Sepco is a, is a, is your company that you started to help solve this problem, what to take quality.
Unknown
Quality of, you know, how can you trust your outcomes?
Steve Martosi
You know, what's the total amount of nutrients you're taking? So people might be taking 10 different supplements and they, like you say, they all might have selenium in them.
Unknown
Correct.
Steve Martosi
And then you're getting toxic dose of selenium 100%. And you don't know that because you're not adding it all up, you're not putting a spreadsheet, you're not doing the math, math. And you create a product that does this. Now I, I believe in this so much because I, it's, it's what I tried to solve when I started my own sort of store for my patients, which was essentially trying to curate a small group of products that I personally had investigated, that I visited the factories that I did the analysis that I looked at the third party testing, my God, I mean, I curated basically 3, 400 products for functional medicine applications, for basically helping people with, you know, cardiometabolic issues, for hormonal issues, for gut issues and so on, so forth. So that was a lot of work. And I've been confident that I can recommend these things to my patients or people who follow me. But I don't think it really solves a bigger problem of how do you figure out everything all together? And I know personally that I don't have enough time to do this for myself. Even I'm buying different things or using things. How do I know that's really why I become an advisor to Sepco and I'm sort of helping you because I think this is such an important gap in the marketplace and it's such a need when you look at the landscape today, tell us some of the problems in the supplement industry. Why, why is this needed? Because people are just buying stuff and they don't know where it's coming from, where they get it. They can buy it on Amazon and often this stuff is sitting on a pallet for a long time or it's like it's some sort of ripoff product that doesn't have the nutrients in it. So tell us sort of unpack the real issues with the supplement industry as it is today.
Unknown
As I said, we've got about 200,000 products. There's like 195 already done and then a big queue, ones that have been submitted to us that we're going through and that's up from 4,000 products in 1994. That's all there was. Right. So it's been a 4,000. In 1984 there's 4,000 supplement products on the market and now there's over 200.
Steve Martosi
That's insane.
Unknown
And so we've kind of gone in and taken each one of the supplements, taken the supplement facts labels and kind of taken the data so that you can get an aggregate view of what you're actually putting in your body. So that helps you understand what you're taking. But addition to that, we've gone out and scored the top. There's 8,000 brands, which is insane too if you think about it. We've taken the top 500, which covers, you know, a big percentage of it and kind of expanding down the long tail now. And we've given them a trust score. And so we basically have gone in and done what you were doing kind of manually and doing all these individual reviews, built a 29 point system that goes in and you know, checks what certifications, what kind of testing they're doing and kind of breaks it down and gives them a score. That alone, that feature alone, you can, you can scan any, you know, supplement for its barcode and you take the.
Steve Martosi
Bottle, you put your, into it here.
Unknown
While we're talking too.
Steve Martosi
Yeah, it's a pretty cool thing. And you don't have to like manually enter it, you just type in your.
Unknown
Code and it pops up right away. And you know, you get the trust score and all the information about the product. It's super fast, it's super easy and the hit rate is really high. And if we don't have something, you immediately can submit it, you can AI scan the label and it'll put it in the system and the queue is insane. Like the long tail Here, there are 20,000 products in the system that only one person is taking. There's a long tail here that is, you know, absolutely insane. And that's, that's, there's unique products. Unique, yeah.
Steve Martosi
That are kind of not commonly taken.
Unknown
Yeah, like one person's taking. I don't know how they found it. I don't know if that's a trusted brand. And you've seen an explosion on Amazon of these kind of brands that are just quickly coming to market because there's no real thing stopping you from bringing a supplement to market. You know, there's a big difference in the FDA around the federal code between pharmaceuticals and supplements. Supplements are covered under federal code 21 CFR 111. Right.
Steve Martosi
What is that?
Unknown
And that's basically that like, you know, for pharmaceuticals there's a whole process that they have to get pre approved following CGMP standards and all these different things.
Steve Martosi
That's good manufacturing standards.
Unknown
Yeah, current good manufacturing process. You know, with supplements, it's not something that gets done upfront. You can be held to this standard retroactively, like if something comes up. But it's kind of up to you to just say yourself.
Steve Martosi
Pleasing.
Unknown
You can get retroactively. Someone can say they're having a negative experience, report it with the fda. They can come after you for not following the practice. But no one's checking upfront.
Steve Martosi
I mean the amount of attention that the FDA pays this is very, very little unless there's some serious adverse effect or somebody has this problem with it.
Unknown
Right. And those latent things you're talking about, the like ones that might be heavy metal exposure that take a long time to ever show up or you don't know the source of it, there's, there's no guideline.
Steve Martosi
I mean, a friend of mine was a researcher and he actually analyzed ayurvedic supplements and found extremely high levels of heavy metals. Totally. So you're like, you're taking some ayurvedic herb, which is some natural product and it hasn't been tested properly. And when they actually tested it, it was full of heavy metals.
Unknown
And if you, even if you follow cgmp, you're supposed to occasionally test your lots. I think it's like once a year. And then even then they don't provide the guidance on heavy metals. It's like kind of up to you to be like, well, for this type of product, what should. The Prop 65 helps a little bit, you know, in terms of making. You don't have to put the label on there if you exceed those numbers. But it's a pretty wild west, to be perfectly honest. And there are systems now that can say, come up with an idea and a brand and get a supplement and market in weeks. So that's why you're seeing the explosion.
Steve Martosi
Yeah.
Unknown
So we've gone in and we've taken 29 different points and we've built a scoring system.
Steve Martosi
This is your trust score.
Unknown
This is our trust score.
Steve Martosi
So basically you're taking 29 different attributes.
Unknown
Whether it's toxic blot testing, CGMP. The biggest one that makes a difference is whether or not you're getting a third party to certify your CGMP practices. Right. That's like kind of like the fundamentals. So instead of you just saying, yeah, I'm good, you know, I'm gonna self certify that I'm following these practices. There's NSF and ul, these two big, you know, firms that'll come in and do what you are doing, you know, go tour the facilities, kind of do make sure you're actually following, give you a certification. Yeah, that's like a fundamental big one. And there's a surprising number of brands that don't follow.
Steve Martosi
That means that the fact that the manufacturing plan is clean.
Unknown
Oh yeah.
Steve Martosi
The way they get sourced the ingredients.
Unknown
They'Re testing each lot, you know, and like there's a know to that to to figure it out.
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Steve Martosi
When I started in this field in functional medicine 30 years ago, there were, there were a handful of professional brands that were only marketed and sold through professionals, doctors, nutritionists and so forth.
Unknown
Chiropractors.
Steve Martosi
And you couldn't get them otherwise.
Unknown
Interesting.
Steve Martosi
Yeah, you couldn't get like Metagenics or Thorn or pure encapsulations. They only distributed, only distributed them through professionals because they were higher level, higher grade, a little more expensive, but you pay for, you get what you pay for. So for example, peer encapsulations, they, they actually test every single product, every lot. And, and what we do it before, they make this up with the ingredients and they do it after. And if it says, you know, it's supposed to say 400 milligrams of let's say magnesium on the label, if it's 350, they throw it out.
Unknown
Metagenics, who you brought up, is our 10 out of 10. They're our highest scoring brand on the platform. Yeah, they do like one thing that is rare, but we really, we give some points to it is they make every batch test coa publicly available. So you can like look at your bottle, look at the lot number, go online, pull it up and see the results from the test. That's like a gold standard for us. Pure ranks very highly. And there's, but then there's a big.
Steve Martosi
Spectrum, you know, I mean, and the stuff that you get in the grocery store or Walmart or the drugstore is generally crap. Like you sent me the other day, texted me a screenshot of Centrum.
Unknown
Yeah.
Steve Martosi
Which is, you know, this massive advertising. It's really a big product out there. Everything's Centrum. It's high quality, it's good. I mean, but they've got. Why didn't you take a blue pill or a red pill or have titanium dioxide or have dyes and chemicals.
Unknown
That was a super interesting thing about that Centrum pill in particular is that the Centrum brand ranking is pretty high. But we just started exposing the excipients, the inactive ingredients and it had titanium dioxide, red 40, red 5. These things that I'm sorry, yellow 5. These things that are not good, I mean titanium dioxide is not, it's banned in Europe, it causes DNA damage and they don't need to be in your supplements. So that's another thing we just rolled out was not just the manufacturing standards, but now we're going down to the product level and actually going in, we have forget how many, it's a couple thousand of these excipients that get added and bringing them out by how cautious you should be about.
Steve Martosi
Yeah. And there's a lot of stuff in them that we often are not known. Like there could be gluten or dairy, like lactose, other things that are in these, in addition to all the other kind of excipients, fillers, additives, colors, chemicals, things that make it look good or, or stick together. And I mean you don't want that crap, you want the nutrient.
Unknown
And I think it's going to be interesting. We're starting to send out, you know, different supplements for our own independent testing to do what you were saying, just kind of like verify that. Even if they're highly rated, are they, is it actually in there what they say it is?
Steve Martosi
Right.
Unknown
So the precision of the nutrients that they're, they're claiming are in there. It's a complicated market. And I think that what we've done though by just making a simple score, like making it out of 10 is like, it makes it really easy for people to understand. Right. The simple like red, yellow, green, like you can go deep and you can go look at each of the 29.
Steve Martosi
Trust scores, 1 to 10, like this is a 9, this is a 2.
Unknown
That has been helpful for people to just like simply take a glance because some, the user base we have. You know, one thing I like doing in general when designing software is it's gotta be easy enough for grandma to use, but powerful enough for, you know, the most hardcore user in the space to go deep on. Right. I did that with Splice, making sure that 40% of top 40 music, using it to create music, they're like the hardcore guys and the brand new music creators. So we're doing this in supplements, right. There's a way to dive way deep into what those 29 points are and each one of the excipients and all that. Or you can simply look at the score at the top and be like, okay, that feels good. Because some people just, we gotta be meet the consumers where they are because.
Steve Martosi
Nobody'S really doing that. There was a company called Consumer Labs that I used to kind of use to reference stuff where they would go and test products and I would rely on their independent analysis. But you know, they weren't, they weren't able to do the 200,000 products. So you basically just for the simple scan of the barcode, the technology behind it, the use of AI, I mean it's quite amazing. Now you can literally see what is the problem or how good a product is and whether or not it actually says what it is on the label.
Unknown
Yeah. And like, I think the big thing too is like we're not out here to, we just want to kind of arc the industry in the right direction. Right. Like some of our trust scores, if you find a negative one, we're not all doing the big gotcha story on it. We're having conversations. A lot of the brands have reached out to us first. The top end brands are like, thank you. Right, thank you for simplifying and raising to the attention how much work we are putting into testing this. So like super appreciative. Sometimes they'll clarify a piece of data that we might not have. Right. Because we've collected it through our teams reaching out to them and they might provide something which is great. And then we've had brands also reaching out. One, they want their trust score. The consumers are starting to care about this and then how do we make it better? Right. And that's our big dream. If we can just help the industry move in the right direction on this with the scores, I think we've done something really great.
Steve Martosi
I think what you're saying is also important because people are taking these things. There's a, I don't know, 40, $50 billion industry. It's not well regulated and nobody's sort of looking at quality or efficacy or bioavailability or what form the nutrients are in. I mean there's so many levels. Like if you take for example, magnesium oxide.
Unknown
Right.
Steve Martosi
A great example. I was in the hospital for a back surgery recently and you know, I was taking painkillers which can make you constipated. So I wanted magnesium. And I said to the, the attending physician, I said, you know, I want to get magnesium. Sure. And he wrote a prescription. What are you ordering? He said, well, it's this such product. I said, that's magnesium oxide. That's so poorly absorbed. And it's also something that doesn't work for constipation that well. I said, how about magnesium citrate? He's like, oh, he looked it up. He's like, oh, you're right.
Unknown
I'm not kidding you, Mark. This is a true story. My fiance Kelly, with her ob, her fetal medicine doctor, she was having restless leg syndrome and magnesium monoxide was the only one the doctor recommended.
Steve Martosi
Yeah.
Unknown
And we were like, where are we? And like, you know, like, it just felt very out of date. And he's like, you know, best in his field and all that. But for nutrition.
Steve Martosi
Yeah.
Unknown
We're not following his advice.
Steve Martosi
One, we don't. As doctors, we learn very little, if.
Unknown
Anything about is it like 20 hours or like less than a day?
Steve Martosi
And it's usually for me, when I learned nutrition, it was about all the deficiency diseases.
Unknown
Right.
Steve Martosi
That were happening in the developing world. So it was interesting. Like marasmus and kwashiorkor and xerophthalmia, which is vitamin A deficiency, cause blindness and. And beriberi and pellagra.
Unknown
So this is preventing the disease at the very low end.
Steve Martosi
I'm like, okay, great. I've never seen any of these diseases. I probably never will. I think I remember when I was a kid, I did know people who had had rickets and they had bowed legs and so I had met them. But they were, you know, the era before the vitamins were fortified in milk and in food. But, you know, these are things I didn't see. And that was my nutrition. My daughter just graduated, is graduating now from medical school, and I'm very proud of her. She got into orthopedic residency at Garment, so I'm super happy about that. But anyway, she's like. I asked her, what are you learning about nutrition? She's like, nothing, really. Zero. I mean, it's like amino acids, fatty acids, sugar, whatever. Like basic stuff. That's not. I think, what do you have your patient eat for lunch? And then supplements, Almost nothing. Right. You don't really learn about them, what they do, how they work. You know, the assumption that the food is adequate or getting it from our food, but our food's depleted. I mean, we look at that data back 40, 50 years are the quality of the soil, the organic matter is depleted because of our farming practices. The interaction between the microbes and the organic matter and the plants is actually how the minerals and nutrients are extracted from the soil and to get into the plant. So we're seeing between 5 to 40% decrease in a lot of key nutrients. And on top of that, we're seeing people eating more and more processed food and so not getting nutrients and eating more and more. You know, part of the. The. One of the things that happens when you have a deficiency is you try to find more nutrients somewhere.
Unknown
Right.
Steve Martosi
Like animals do this. There's. I remember being in the Amazon, there was this mineral sort of deposit across the bank of the river and there are all these birds are flocking, just eating the dirt, you know. And I saw this. I saw this also. Yeah. In the Amazon a couple of times. And I was like, wow, this is fascinating. You got like thousands of birds of all species coming to get the nutrients they need. So animals know and kids, kids will eat dirt if they're iron deficient because they want to get iron from the dirt. Somehow the body knows. But we're so eating such a shitty diet and so processed and it's so devoid of nutrients. Although some is, quote, fortified. It's like only fortified because it's so impoverished to begin with. Otherwise it wouldn't need to be fortified. And it's caused a lot, a lot of problems in the population that we're seeing increasing nutrient deficiencies. The problem is that people don't. I know how to diagnose it. They don't know that what their symptoms are related to it. They don't know how it makes them feel. And so they think this is just how I'm supposed to feel. You know, I feel like crap. Or I have this symptom or that symptom. But often it's related to their diet and their nutritional status. And this is the whole problem of like drugs and drug nutrient interactions. And there's a whole host of those totally. And so people are taking all these drugs, like statins, for example, which is the number one prescribed drug, you know, 100%. It interrupts the enzyme that makes cholesterol. That Same enzyme makes HMG, CoA reductase, makes CoQ10. So you're blocking CoQ10. What is CoQ10? It's essential nutrient for making energy from food and your mitochondrial function. So people get muscle injury and muscle pain and elevated what we call cpk, which is damaged muscle enzymes because of this. And doctors don't recommend, usually Coq 10 with statins.
Unknown
Personal story on that. So, you know, I got into this kind of longevity movement young at 30. And I did a calcium score at.
Steve Martosi
Age 30, which is like a heart scan for me.
Unknown
Heart scan. See how much plaque I have? 0 at age 30. At age 35, I had eight. So that was something. And I was off the charts. And so I went on a statin at age 35. Was not recommended to go on Coq 10 at the time.
Steve Martosi
No.
Unknown
It ended up finding about finding it myself. Right. Take MITOQ now, you know, it's just one of those things that feels essential.
Steve Martosi
It is.
Unknown
Life can be totally missed. It is, you know, in the doctor's office and it's.
Steve Martosi
And there's actually a book, a textbook, medical textbook on. On drug nutrient interactions because there's so many. The next kind of one of the class of drugs, I think it's third after two or third. Most prescribed drugs on the planet are acid blockers for reflux. Yep. Or heartburn, which is because our diet's so crappy. You know, I mean, if I. If I get stuck somewhere and I have to eat something crappy because I'm starving, I'm at an airport or whatever, and I try to do it, I will get immediate reflux or heart attack.
Unknown
Yeah, totally.
Steve Martosi
And I'm like, it's because of what I'm eating. It's not because I have some defect that caused me to have reflux. And you take this drug for a long period of time, it inhibits mineral absorption like zinc and calcium. You get osteoporosis, it inhibits B12 absorption, which is critical for so many functions and cause depression, dementia, neurologic issues. People don't know this, and we don't know how these all are interacting. And so we see another layer of problems in terms of nutrient deficiencies that's not being addressed. Yeah.
Unknown
And that's one of the things, I think, together as we keep navigating the space and increasing the functionality on Sepco, the interactions, I think they're gonna be really important to have on there. Right. And there's like, the ones that you should be aware of, like St. John's Wort, reducing effectiveness of birth control and antidepressants, vitamin K interacting with blood thinners. Like, there's a lot.
Steve Martosi
There's legit stuff.
Unknown
Yeah. And that's a layer that we want to get into as we keep going. We think that getting people's stacks on there now, knowing what they're taking and then giving them the jumping off points to improve things and find the warning, it's huge.
Steve Martosi
It's huge. If you're on a diuretic, which many people are for blood pressure, it causes you to leach out minerals, so you leach out magnesium and you pee them out. And so we've seen massive symptoms of magnesium deficiency, which are sort of doctors don't know how to diagnose, and it's pretty easy. But there's this moment where I think we're what you're creating with Sepco in this company. There's Going to be sort of a realization that one with a partnership with function, which we're working together, which is testing. So I say test, don't guess. Yes, we check your magnesium level, we check your level of B vitamins like homocysteine and methyllonic acid, which measure B12, folate, B6 effectiveness. We measure omega 3s, we measure vitamin D. We can measure zinc, we can measure copper, we can measure iodine, we can measure so many different nutrients, minerals that are commonly deficient in people, and then people can actually then go figure out what to do. Because we don't actually with Function Health recommend any particular brands, but we want some way to help people navigate what's going on there in the landscape and actually come up with a coherent strategy of what to take and where to find the products and how to trust them.
Unknown
And that's kind of a future for us, right? There's an evolution of ware. So we launched our beta in October. It was kind of an early beta that to just, you know, I had to update my LinkedIn, say I was working on something new. So we launched, you know, in beta, and it's going great. But exactly what you're talking about, why we're working together, why we have the function partnership, is, you know, we really do want to incorporate more data. And there's kind of a church and state mentality too around the product recommendations and the like, nutrient supplement recommendations. The product side feels like the things we were talking about, the trust score that's based on manufacturing, like quality, cost and then some of the dietary preferences, like you want vegan, that kind of stuff. But the nutrient recommendations right now, they're kind of generic. We ask you basic questions, height and weight. We have 80 protocols. You can go in for different health goals and kind of see the general recommendations there. But we really need to up the game there, right? And people want our number one most requested feature is a personalized supplement plan. And so that's what we're working on, right? It's a big thing to take in as much data as we can and help people understand what they need to take. Once they understand that need, how you get it in your body, the cost, which brands, all that, that can become an independent thing. That might even change over time, right? New products might come out lower cost options might come up higher. Trust scores may change, but we need to make sure you have a really good nutrient plan and that eventually you also need to track whether or not you are hitting your goal. And so, like, one of the things we talk About a lot is being aligned with the customer to be just as excited when they stop taking something that's not working as we are when they try something new. And so, you know, it's a big part of our overall kind of ethos is being your companion to navigate the space.
Steve Martosi
It's almost like Consumer Reports, that magazine that test products. It sort of checks quality, but it doesn't really exist for the supplement industry, which is.
Unknown
And it's not integrated into a flow. Right. Like, there are some websites that you can go to and look at some lab results and things like that, but there's not, like, action to take. There's buy, but, like, that's not really the thing we're looking about. We want to make sure that you can have a conversation with your doctor about what you're actually putting in your body. Look for alternatives that might be cheaper cost than the thing that you found through some influencer's website and that you're tracking results alone, our scheduler, 30 to 50% of supplements don't get finished the bottle that you buy. People just stop.
Steve Martosi
They stop.
Unknown
They forget a lot of things. They forget is the one thing. Right. And then, I don't know, some people have just very much the wrong expectations up front. Like, they think they're gonna feel something immediately. They don't understand what the protocol is to actually getting the results they want. They don't know that they should be actually checking their vitamin D levels in six months or, you know, three months.
Steve Martosi
And so you might notice the absence of something. Right. Like, in other words, I talked to this woman the other day who did her function test, and she had a vitamin D level of 20, which is extremely low. And I said, gee, your vitamin D is low. You could have more frequent infections. You could have seasonal affective disorder. You could have muscle pain, aching. And she looked at me, she was like, yeah, I have all those things.
Unknown
Yeah, right.
Steve Martosi
So when you take something and you go, well, I'm not noticing something, I'm noticing the absence of something. I'm not getting sick all the time. I'm not having muscle pain.
Unknown
I don't have muscle pains while I'm taking high doses statins. So that's the thing. We really want to set people's expectations. Right. And also that they're dosing it, they're taking at the right time. People don't follow. It's very rare that people follow the. With food, without food.
Steve Martosi
Yeah. Because talk about that for a little bit in terms of different nutrients and how you need to Take them with or without food?
Unknown
Yeah. I mean, the fat soluble vitamins like A D, E, K should be taken with a meal to help improve absorption and it can impact it by up to 50% with fatty foods. Fatty foods particularly.
Steve Martosi
Right.
Unknown
Let alone any food. Right.
Steve Martosi
Take your vitamin D. You have to have it with some fat as opposed to vitamin C, which.
Unknown
So we have a scheduler in the app too that lets you, you know, takes all your different products and then helps you build what time of day you should be taking it at. Set reminders for it and soon track whether or not you're experiencing side effects or the results that you're looking for. So we've got to kind of close that loop, then feed that data back in, help you optimize, make changes and kind of keep improving things. And it'll be a journey.
Steve Martosi
And then you get feedback from people about how they responded. So you get sort of data on.
Unknown
That's. That's gonna be the key. Right. Like, to me, the, that like right now we have the protocols. You can, you can. And the products. You can see how many people are taking them, but how many people are actually hitting their results. Right. And I, and I really struggle when I look at reviews, like on Amazon reviews for supplements, it's usually like one of three things. This changed my life. This did nothing. The package came damaged. Like, that's, that's all the, that's all that's happening on these Amazon reviews. There's no one actually seeing whether or not they're hitting results with it. You know, we definitely aspire to do that. We talk a lot about the creating that closed loop experience. And I think that's when The n equals 1 data starts to become really valuable.
Steve Martosi
So what Does n equal 1 mean?
Unknown
N equals 1 is like 1 of 1. It is my data. I am an individual in this. It is not the clinical result, it is not the aggregate. It is just my personal.
Steve Martosi
You know, you're testing your own biology against.
Unknown
It's just your own story. Right? It's your own. It could be subjective, but it's The n equals 1 is the sample size is me. And that is the, you know, as we talk a little bit about the battle of the institution and the individuals, you know, there's so many people on Twitter. If you, if you get caught up in your algorithm on kind of the supplement health Twitter, you just see people making some pretty outlandish claims about the impact of supplements, certain supplements on their life. And we need to start feeding that back into a system that can Aggregate whether other people are having those experiences or just the loud voices on Twitter are having those experiences on X, because those people stand out and people make decisions, as I said before, like 51% of people buying a health or wellness product because they saw it on social media. That's real. Even though the trust with them is not necessarily high, they are making these decisions. And until we can really find out whether or not these are working, because some of these things are in complete contrast to what the medical world banks, we need to build better data sets.
Steve Martosi
And you're also helping solve the problem of quality in the sense that there's so many products in the market that have stuff in them that should be in them, whether it's performance enhancing, kind of male enhancing drugs for sexual function, might have Viagra in it or you.
Unknown
Could have that came out recently. FDA went after a brand for having a bunch of these natural supplements have it Viagra in them and all that. And there was a scandal even in the kind of Amazon Basics world where they had tested some of their products and they weren't hitting the numbers that they said there was a ginkgo biloba test that the FDA I think did where there was 0 of the product, there was zero ginkgo in the actual.
Steve Martosi
So you buy products ginkgo, but there's like nothing in there, there's nothing activated. Yeah. And so you were kind of in a wild west out there and you're trying to help people solve it for many levels, like helping understand what they're taking, whether the dosing is right and that you're taking too much or too little of something, whether the quality is there, whether there's contaminants. These are, these are things that are so important. And you know what, what's really interesting to me, Steve, is, is when I, when I talk to doctors, you know, one, you know, you, you would kind of ask a group of doctors how many people recommend supplements to their patients. And very few hands go up or though more. It's more and more now if you ask that same group how many of you are taking supplements, like 70 or 80% go, hands go up. And when I got to CLEVELAND CLINIC Over 10 years ago, we did a survey of the physicians there of 3,000 physicians. And it was so fascinating because we wanted to know whether they were interested in having a source of trusted brands that were verified and certified in sort of a similar way that you've done and what their uses, recommendations are. So it's like how many are you actually recommending it was very few. How many I would like to actually. You have a source where you could trust. And it was like almost universal. Yes. 70% of the doctors were actually recommending stuff already. And, you know, the cardiologists were recommending fish oil or Q10.
Unknown
Totally.
Steve Martosi
The gastroenterologist were recommending probiotics. The OB GYNs were recommending prenatal vitamins. And, you know, the endocrinologists recommending vitamin D for osteoporosis. And so. But they didn't know what brand totally. They didn't know what to take. And, you know, for example, vitamin D is really a great example because when I learned medical school, there was a prescription vitamin D, which is vitamin D2, right. Which isn't really the optimal vitamin to take. You want to take vitamin D3 and doesn't work as well for many reasons. And so, but that's what we learned in medical school, that this is what you, what you do in your residency. And so was really interesting to see the number of physicians at Cleveland Clinic, which is a, you know, one of the top institutions in the world, who were taking them, recommending them, wanted to have a quality source. And there was just nothing. And so I think, you know, despite doctors being a little bit negative on it, it's partly because it's so unregulated. It's partly because people don't know what they're getting. It's probably because they don't have a sense of quality control or how to actually recommend stuff they know is going to be safe and effective and not problematic. Unless it's a prescription vitamin. And there are a lot of prescription vitamins. Yeah, a lot of prescription vitamins.
Unknown
You know, I mean, this is, this is what I'm so excited about, about us working together. Right. I remember when I showed you the, the platform initially, and it was like, whoa, I've wanted this for 30 years. But like, I'm a tech guy, right? Like, I love to build. The initial version of this is built out of the product that I really wish I had and for stack sharing and creating all that. And then my co founder, Nick came up with the trust score rating. And the other thing we have is this subscore rating, which is take everything that's in your stack, grade it against the brand quality's price. Does it hit your demographics? Are you aligned with your health goals and kind of give people an easy score to iterate on? Right. So they, these are some of the core functionality you have. But getting into the mind of the people in the clinical world and what they need and how to kind of interface with them where we're really focused more on the self directed health journey. But it seems like there's just so much, with your guidance that we're able to kind of tap into the mentality of the doctors and how patients can kind of interact and show them their actual supplement list. Right now you can actually share it with your doctor, which you go to those intake forms and it's just like.
Steve Martosi
Oh my God, I don't.
Unknown
How do you fill them out? Yeah, I know. Get so mad at me when I try to not fill them out.
Steve Martosi
You know, here's a spreadsheet.
Unknown
Yeah, exactly, right. And so now it can be a link to us and you can actually analyze it and we'll see what doctors really want to, want to take the time to kind of take action on it. But we're going to navigate this.
Steve Martosi
It's a pretty exciting moment with this sort of innovation in the industry that's been a gap for so long. It's been an area that's just been self directed, blindfolded, trying to find what's good. Right. Hoping, you know, the company that you buy the product from has got integrity, hoping that it's going to work. And it's a lot of money people spend on this stuff. How do you, how do you actually find the quality?
Unknown
And I think, I think the money side though, is a big one, right. So one of the things that we really want to do over time is drive down the cost of supplements. There's a big problem in the industry is that they're really not designed. Like, in my mind, when you think about taking a supplement, especially some of these, like, you know, core ones, you should be thinking about your customer's lifetime value in years or decades. But so many because of that, you know, 30 to 50% of people not finishing the supplement, not reordering the way the margin structures are and how much they're costing to acquire customers, keeps the price really high for people who are on stuff for a long time. I remember I was on year five of taking Elysium and I was like, guys, I sent customer support an email. I was like, you've made all your money back on me. I want to take this for my whole life. Can I get like a discounted rate on this? And they said, no. And I was like, cool, I'm out.
Steve Martosi
Like, why?
Unknown
I'm just, you know, why do they say no, their customers? They said they don't have that yet. And I was like, cool, like there's not, there's not a real reward for the people who are in this for the long haul who are taking. There's not a system designed for people who are in it for the long haul with their health. I mean, we should be measuring their LTV in decades, not months.
Steve Martosi
Lifetime value.
Unknown
Lifetime value, yeah. Of the customers. So we're trying to find the right intersection between capitalism and health and help drive that down on for people like. And see that from us later.
Steve Martosi
And what's kind of cool about Sepco also is you can put in what you want to be taking. Let's say Function Health recommends not products, but ingredients or nutrients you need. You could put that into the system and then it'll come up with a ranking of which products are the optimal ones. The best price, the best quality take.
Unknown
The less amount of pills, like that'll.
Steve Martosi
Be the least amount of pills. So you solve so many problems with this. I think one of the challenges that. That the regulatory environment has got to change. So I don't know if it will or not.
Unknown
I mean, I'm curious. You've done so well on the policy front, and I think a lot of change for things that you've been caring about for a long time are starting to come into taking action. What do you think of the regulatory side of this space?
Steve Martosi
I think the DSHEA regulation was a necessary set of regulations at the time because it was kind of the wild west. And there was just nothing guiding what people could say because you, you could literally say, you know, take this pill. It'll make your penis grow 6 inches longer or it'll cure heart disease or it'll. And people were just so. It kind of came up with some kind of limits on what you could market it as, which I think was good because they can create, you know, structure, function, clean. That's why I say it supports healthy blood sugar, supports a healthy immune system. But you can't say it treats diabetes. Right. Even though it might help like bitter melon or, you know, certain compounds actually can help with blood sugar regulation. Right. Or like berberine and so forth. You can't say that it actually. But they do.
Unknown
It works. Berberine's a good one.
Steve Martosi
Yeah. I think there's a lot of kind of messiness that kind of left got left over from that regulation, which was in the 90s, which helps sort of set a level of standards. You know, the FDA can't police it all. And right now the, you know, you know, you're kind of suppco. Is kind of like the police, sort of the FDA of supplements in my mind, because you're basically doing a lot of the work that they should be doing. Right, right. You're actually done the homework, kind of look at all the products, look at what's in them, kind of find the sources. How do you actually find, like when you look at a product, whether there's contaminants or fillers or excipients or things that shouldn't be there.
Unknown
For us, it's about bringing the awareness to what we have found. Right. So their manufacturing process, you know, do they have the coas that show this? Are they doing their lot testing? So there's of lots like, you know, are they following the guidelines that they should be? And then the excipients list that we have in there is helpful too, so that you can see, you know, the inactive ingredients. But then we're gonna try to do a bunch of our own independent testing as well to verify these things. Personally, I like the edge of medicine, where we have a lot of agency over what we're doing. Like, we don't necessarily need prescriptions for things. We can make our own decisions. But there does need to be something that's giving consumers guidance and that's kind of what we're trying to be. So in the absence of new policy, you know, we're going to keep trying to up the standards and push the industry in the right direction.
Steve Martosi
It's so important because, you know, as a practicing physician who's been doing functional medicine, using food as medicine, using nutrients, using herbs, it's a challenge because how do you, how do you actually find the right product for your patient that's going to work? And you know, it's sort of the. One of the. When I first started out, I would call the sort of the elders in the, in the field and say, well, which probiotics should I recommend or which magnesium product or which this herbal product is good? I mean, there was no way to know. And I began to see what was working clinically and what wasn't working clinically. And when you start to apply these clinically, you see changes in people's biology, you see changes in their biomarkers, you changes in their health and their well being. And this is kind of what, what, what's been missing is a way to sort of have a independent verification system that analyzes everything, that integrates with your product easily, and that you can use your phone and your camera to basically track everything in two seconds. You have to add everything into a spreadsheet.
Unknown
Right. And we want to be customer aligned.
Steve Martosi
Right.
Unknown
We want to find that intersection between capitalism and health that really looks out for the consumer. A big thing is we don't ever want to profit from supplement sales.
Steve Martosi
Right.
Unknown
We need to be just as aligned when you stop taking something as you are when you try something new. From the stories that we're hearing too, supplements for doctors, the doctors who are prescribing them and getting involved in the product, it's becoming like a bit of a revenue stream for them. And you know, I had a friend who said their doctor came up to them in the grocery store, didn't ask anything about how they were doing or whatever and said, why'd you stop buying your supplements for me? And that just doesn't feel, that doesn't feel right. That left a really bad taste in their mouth. So, you know, we're going to keep evolving in the direction that we think is going to best look out for customers and be their advocate.
Steve Martosi
It's so key. And what's also good about it is you're layering a lot of the science that's hard to get. What are the interactions between different nutrition nutrients? What are the interactions with drugs? What are the, you know, there's drug nutrient interactions and nutrient drug interactions because sometimes a nutrient will affect the drug function. Right. Like you mentioned St. John's Wort, which can affect medications. So you have to kind of be aware of all that. And, and, and even if you're a smart doctor, it's really hard, kind of figure this out. It was a big nutrient supplement database where it did a lot of this, but it was, I had to pay $3,000 a year for the prescription, right. Subscription to this platform. I had to actually be able to go in and search and read, you know, monographs that were like 30 pages long on each nutrient and talk about the issues. I mean, it was really, it was really dense and it's hard.
Unknown
What's crazy is you, you're getting that, right? But like the consumers are so much making their own decisions about the supplements, so they're never even touching a doctor that knows that. So there's just so much risk out there with them not, you know, having that information at their fingertips in a self directed way. And you know, it's one of the things we aspire to get on the platform. You're going to help us with it. You've already sent me some resources and you know, we think it's a big opportunity to consumers not make a mistake when they're doing things on their own.
Steve Martosi
Yeah, I think it's important. And you also created something called stacks. We just touched on it briefly, but.
Unknown
I don't think I talk about our stacks.
Steve Martosi
Whatever stacks mean.
Unknown
Look, so stacks is like, to me, a stack is like the. When you're taking a bunch of things together that, you know, have a. For either an individual effect, like this is my, you know, muscle growth stack, or this is my daily stack. This is the stuff that I'm taking every day and this stuff that's meant to be taken together. And so, you know, one of the, as I said in the beginning, the kind of core offering here was the ability to share your stack stack and see other stacks that people are taking. You know, my stack is on there public, your stack is going to be on there in public. And, you know, I think you can learn a lot from people like you or people facing the same challenges.
Steve Martosi
Right.
Unknown
You know, one of the things I love that I came across, you know, a year or two ago was the. The effects of Taurine on longevity.
Steve Martosi
Yeah.
Unknown
You know, right. Two grams of Taurine a day, it's kind of much more than people had thought about before. But in primate studies showing like really long extensions to 20% extension, I think, in primates to life and a bunch of cardiovascular effects too. No doctor has recommended me to take Taurine. I've had to find that on my own.
Steve Martosi
Yeah. You know, it's an amino acid that's really important for many functions and it's very good for regulating a lot of neurologic issues and kind of calming. It's very calming. Neurotransmitter, helps with preventing anxiety. And I actually use a product, it's a metagenic product called Tranquil for a lot of patients, which has taurine, magnesium, B6, a lot of things are very helpful and calming the nervous system, which, you know, a lot of people have a lot of anxiety and it's. And often, you know, part of the problem is we deplete our nutrients under stress. You know, we deplete our nutrients because we need more of them because we're overloaded with toxins. We need more of them because we eat shitty food that needs nutrients to be metabolized. In other words, when you eat food, it has to be broken down, absorbed, digested and actually turned into various pathways that are important for your body. And often if you're not taking the right nutrients, you're going to not have the right functions in your body on a cellular level. So whether it's CoQ10 or Taurine, these are. So these are not considered essential vitamins or nutrients, but I call these conditionally essential because of the increased load of stress, of toxins. It's interesting when you just stress alone will deplete eat magnesium. So if you're stressed, you're gonna pee out more magnesium. And guess what? Everybody's stressed.
Unknown
Everyone's stressed. But like this whole concept of sharing and learning from each other. Like, I remember I was over at your house for dinner one day and I saw you were taking timeline, you know, the urolithin A. Right. And you were like, I fucking love this thing. And I started taking it, you know, so like learning from each other, I think is such a big piece of it for people who are facing similar things or have similar goals too.
Steve Martosi
So the stacks are basically guiding you if you want to have a longevity stack or you have PMS or you have gut issues, or you have. It's like a protocol.
Unknown
Our protocols are very much designed for like the crossover between the nutrients and the health condition in the health conditions. Right. So you're going to be on there with a longevity one, a brain health one. That's really exciting to have those protocols on there. And the stacks to us are what, you know, what you're taking daily. And then you can see how they relate to the health goals, you know, the nutrient totals across all of them. You know, it's really fascinating to go look at other people's stacks and see what they're taking.
Steve Martosi
And you're also gathering information from the users about their own health issues, their health goals, their needs, needs, their age, their demographics and so forth.
Unknown
Yeah, when you come in, you give us some basic information which is going to be expanded more soon. And then you go and you scan your existing products so you can kind of get them in the system. And then we give you a score. Right. And that score tells you how well your supplements are aligning with your health goals, the quality of your supplements, the cost of your supplements. And people just seem to do really well with this. They want a simple, easy to understand number that they can go move. Well, I talked to all of my friends who are coming. They're like, I got a 75, I want it to be an 80. And so they go and do something. And the average person is right now making two to three changes to their product stack based on the subscore, which is amazing. These are potential decisions that could impact on their whole life.
Steve Martosi
It's really a way to personalize what you're taking.
Unknown
Correct.
Steve Martosi
It's really more of a data driven approach. Right.
Unknown
I think that's what it really fundamentally is like the structured data finally being available and the ability for us to soon provide recommendations that span, give you the info on whether it's an AI based recommendation, whether it's coming from Mark's protocol, whether it's been tailored based on some of the data that you provided us and actually give you a pretty comprehensive way at looking at why you are making this decision, why you are going to take this. And then the end game which we are working on is then to self report back in whether or not it will worked. And once that loop is closed, we think we've completed the journey end to end on supplements and we can just keep improving.
Steve Martosi
It's almost like you're creating a research infrastructure.
Unknown
I think so. I think it's a huge benefit. I think in the world of kind of an AI driven world too, there's this kind of blocked on human concept. I talk about where at some point the AI only has enough information it now needs to get from you. Whether or not you are getting results from this, whether or not you're taking your pill successfully. It doesn't have this information. And if you can kind of sit at the intersection of that, I think you found a very, very valuable seam as the collective intelligence grows and the individual intelligence gets fed back in.
Steve Martosi
It's powerful. I mean I think where can people learn about what we've discussed?
Unknown
Yeah. So Sup Co is the site. You can go on there, Supp Copp Co. And if you go to Supp Co, Mark, you'll be able to find a link to the protocols and Mark stack on there, which is pretty exciting.
Steve Martosi
My goodies.
Unknown
Your goodies. You'll get to see when that gets updated and when things change, which is very cool. And look, I think together we're going to build something, something better, something better for this industry and something that I know you've wanted to see exist for a long time. And so this is just the beginning.
Steve Martosi
So there's a website which is Sup Co. There's also an app.
Unknown
Yeah, the app though, you can get the, you can get it in the app store. Just search Sup Company, you'll see it in there. Or you can go to the site and sign up and we'll send you the links to it. You can go to.
Steve Martosi
And then you can share it. Like you can share that data with the community.
Unknown
You can share with the community. We've added a bunch of social sharing features too. You can build customized kind of Lists and stacks that you think work for you and share them to the community, which is kind of a fun new thing that's on there as well. So we have a mix of AI driven data, clinical data, expert data like from yourself and then users sharing their n equals 1 stories too. And so it kind of wraps it all up in an easy way for you to make decisions about the bottom up.
Steve Martosi
Data is really interesting because it's often dismissed.
Unknown
You know, it's so dismissed. There's a battle going on between them.
Steve Martosi
It's like, oh, I took magnesium or I took zinc or I took. Ok and here's what happened to me. Yeah, that data is really valuable. And an aggregate.
Unknown
An aggregate.
Steve Martosi
When you look at all the people putting the data in about how things are affecting them.
Unknown
Right.
Steve Martosi
And what works and what doesn't work, you know, we're going to learn a lot.
Unknown
We're going to learn a lot.
Steve Martosi
And I think for me I've learned a lot, a lot doing, you know, this clinically with tens of thousands of patients over three decades and doing lots of diagnostics to see what levels of nutrients people have, what their risk factors are, you know, and it's so important. I mean, you know, one of the things where I test for is glutathione.
Unknown
Yeah.
Steve Martosi
Which is a really important compound that's involved in detoxification, it's involved in regulating immune function and inflammation. It's sort of the most powerful antioxidant in your system. Them and there's genetics involved in what your needs are and how much you need. And, and there's a lot of toxic load out there and so the body uses it up very quickly and it's kind of the final common step to remove stuff from your body like heavy metals or environmental toxins. If you're urinally during the fires or house burn down, which is tragic and you're exposed to all sorts of things. So how do you upregulate your body's detox system? For example? And N acetylcysteine is a compound that boosts glutathione down. There's also other things like lipoic acid. And you wouldn't know this, you wouldn't know these things unless you test or, you know, you. If you are someone in la, I would say here's some things you should take.
Unknown
Someone has shared an LA fire recovery stack. You know, someone has shared that in our community.
Steve Martosi
That's amazing because I think there's a lot of value in that. And also, you know, even for basic Things that we think are kind of standard in medicine, like prenatal vitamins, most of the ones that are prescription are just full of all kinds of crap.
Unknown
Yeah.
Steve Martosi
And are including nutrients that are not the most bioavailable and not in the right forms don't work as well. And so women are just unfortunately getting stuff that is kind of second rate or third rate.
Unknown
That's a topic that's kind of near and dear to. While I was building the first Sepco, Kelly was pregnant and going through it. Yeah. And it was hard to get the right information. We had one saying only take magnesium oxide. We had another saying, buy my supplements. It was a wide spectrum. So we think those issues, menopause issues, things like that, that we really want to have have similar to yourself coming on the platform, another round of experts are coming on to tackle individual topics that they're the best at. So you'll be able to see a nice mix of what the individuals are doing, what the experts say and what is the kind of clinical.
Steve Martosi
And I think one of the things that people probably have ringing around in their head is gee, all these big studies on supplements show they don't work. Omega 3 vitamin D, B vitamins, beta carotene this and that. And so the doctors see these big studies, they show there's no benefit and so they basically dismiss it all. And so people have a kind of a in in their heads, this sort of background talk around. Well, my doctor said that there's been big studies and shows that vitamins don't work. And there's so many problems with those studies. One, they don't often measure the baseline level of nutrients. So if your vitamin D is fine and you take vitamin D, you won't notice any change. But if you don't measure vitamin D in the beginning or omega 3 fats, if you don't measure danger, if someone's deficient and you give everybody a thousand people vitamin omega 3 fats, some might be fine because they eat a lot of fish, but some might not be. And so you. So the effect size washes out. And also when you look at individual problems, there's a lot of data. For example, fertility is a big issue. Not just prenatal vitamin. But fertility is a huge issue, especially for men. Men don't realize that their sperm count, their sperm quality, there's sperm motility, their ability to, to be potent is dependent on certain nutrients like zinc and other things that are really key for men that they need to be taking in order to optimize their sperm production. If they want to have a healthy baby. But these are, these are things that people don't know and it's all in the scientific literature.
Unknown
Right. So, so we've packaged those up. Some of those topics, particularly fertility prenatals, they're like, they're on the platform with the, the protocols and every one of the recommendations has an explanation of why. Right. So you know, you have an ability to really understand why and you can pick and choose whether or not you want to follow it to exact or adap, adapt it to the fact that you might know that you don't need to supplement your vitamin D. You are okay. So that's, I think giving people the ability to either click the button and go for it or tailor it to what they know they need is a unique feature that we have.
Steve Martosi
To me it's so exciting because it's been a problem that needs solving for a long time and no one's really figured it out. And there were attempts like consumer labs or some of these natural medicines database which is, you know, thousands of dollars usually only really accessible for physicians to look at things in detail or some text sort of textbook that nobody looks at or it's like how do you actually solve the problem in the marketplace? And I think subco's done an incredible job and I think, you know, partnering with Function to do diagnostic tests. See what's going on is really helpful because we're going to be measuring a lot. We do already measure a lot. We're going to be expanding our testing to do more and more nutrient test testing because it's so widespread. And when people tell me, oh you don't eat any nutrients because it's not an issue, I go, well, here's our data. I mean I, I have my data from my own practice and the other five doctors in my practice, but we've got 150,000 people now who've tested their nutrient levels and the amount of just Frank deficiency, not insufficiency, but Frank deficiency is shocking to me in a population I think is probably more health forward, right. If they're using function, they're probably like a little more leaning into their health. They want to be healthier, they're probably eating better, they're probably taking vitamins. I mean it was like the average.
Unknown
Sepco user takes six products. They're probably, if they're correlating the same to your data, they're taking the wrong.
Steve Martosi
Thing and so you solve that problem. So I think, I think it's really exciting. I think we're in this moment where we can really give people the support they need to make the right decisions, to understand that they're not overdosing on certain things, to understand the quality issues and where to find the right product.
Unknown
Engage in conversation, be able to talk to your doctor about it, be able to talk to your friends about it. Share the things that are working for you. Aggregate n equals 1 data. There's a lot of like submissions in Making Sense of Supplements with supco.
Steve Martosi
So everybody just go check it out. It's sup co S u p p co. If you want to find out what I'm taking, go to Supp and you can see the kinds of things that I recommend or that I'm taking. And you know, I think we're at this really transitional moment with sort of a consumer empowerment, you know, AI data driven health care. You know, you're tackling on the supplement end, I'm doing on the biomarker testing lab testing end. We're combining forces and to me it's really an exciting moment where people can start to own their own health. They can be the CEO of their own health. They don't have to abdicate or wait till their doctor learns about nutrition, which might be 10 or 20 decades from now for sure. I mean, hopefully not. But actually Texas, where I live in Austin, where we are now, now I testified in front of the Senate Health Committee and this Health and Human services committee basically introduced a bill called SB25, where they said, which passed, which mandates that Texas doctors have to learn about nutrition, which is amazing.
Unknown
You're great at the policy stuff. It's amazing.
Steve Martosi
So it's like finally people are talking about it and I think it's exciting. I think so all the force are moving towards people being empowered, people being.
Unknown
Agents and agents of their health agency.
Steve Martosi
Over their own health. And, and what I like to say is being the CEO of your own health. So if you want to do that, you need the data, the information you need to know what you're doing. And actually the truth is I have been taking a bunch of stuff and I haven't run it through supply yet. And I want to go right now to my medicine cabinet or my supplement cabinet and actually scan everything and see what I'm doing because it's so fascinating and see where we are because I think we all try to out figure, figure it out. Even, even I try to figure it out and it's not as easy as you think. So thanks for what you're doing, Steve. Thanks for starting this company. And I Look forward to, you know, how we kind of unfold this in the future and empower people. So good job.
Unknown
Thanks for having me. This is great.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Have you ever wished there was a trusted space where you could get real support on your health journey? Where your questions get answered and you don't feel like you're doing it all alone? That's exactly what's happening inside my brand new membership community, the Hymen Hive, and I couldn't be more excited about about it. Thousands of members are already inside, sharing wins, asking meaningful questions and supporting one.
Steve Martosi
Another like never before.
Dr. Mark Hyman
The conversations are powerful, the camaraderie is real, and the community is growing every day.
Steve Martosi
Inside the Hive, you'll get monthly live.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Sessions with me, office hours with our resident, functional nutritionist, science backed protocols, monthly challenges, behind the scenes content, and so much more. All designed to help you create healthier.
Steve Martosi
Habits that actually stick.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Whether you're just getting started or fine tuning your routine, the Hive meets you where you are and gives you the tools and support to keep going.
Steve Martosi
If you're ready to take control of.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Your health with a community that truly gets it, join us at Dr. Hyman.com hive that's Dr. Hyman.com hive h I v E if you love this podcast, please share it with someone else you think would also enjoy it. You can find me on all social media channels at Dr. Mark Hyman. Please reach out. I'd love to hear your comments and questions. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the Dr. Hyman show wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to check out my YouTube channel at Dr. Mark Hyman for video versions of this podcast and more. Thank you so much again for tuning in. We'll see you next time on the Dr. Hyman Show. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness center, my work at Cleveland Clinic and Function Health where I am Chief Medical Officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guests opinions. Neither myself nor the podcast endorses the views or statements of my guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided with the understanding of that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, please seek out a qualified medical practitioner. And if you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, visit my clinic, the Ultra Wellness center at ultrawellnesscenter.com and request to become a patient. It's important to have someone in your corner who is a trained, licensed healthcare practitioner and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health. This podcast is free as part of my mission to bring practical weight ways of improving health to the public. So I'd like to express gratitude to sponsors that made today's podcast possible. Thanks so much again for listening.
Podcast Summary: The Dr. Hyman Show – "How to Choose the Right Supplements (and Avoid the Wrong Ones)"
Release Date: May 14, 2025
In this enlightening episode of The Dr. Hyman Show, Dr. Mark Hyman engages in a profound conversation with Steve Martosi, a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of SEP Co., a groundbreaking platform designed to revolutionize the supplement industry. Together, they delve into the complexities of choosing the right supplements, the pervasive issues within the current market, and innovative solutions to empower consumers in their health journeys.
Steve Martosi's Health Transformation
Steve Martosi shares his personal health struggles and transformation journey. Once weighing nearly 300 pounds during his college years, Steve's health took a critical downturn despite engaging in rigorous sports activities. His turning point came in 2010 when, at 270 pounds, he sought help from a functional medicine doctor. Through comprehensive lab work and personalized supplement regimens, Steve managed to regain his health, losing approximately £70 in the process (00:06-00:32). This personal success ignited his mission to address the deficiencies and confusion prevalent in the supplement industry.
“I wanted to live, but I was deeply unhealthy. I found a functional medicine doctor. We started doing lab work. Right. And we started experimenting and, you know, started with some thyroid medicine, kind of dialed in some hormones, and built a supplement stack. And it worked.”
— Steve Martosi [08:34]
Over-Saturation and Lack of Regulation
Dr. Hyman and Steve discuss the vast and chaotic landscape of the supplement market, highlighting the explosion from 4,000 products in the 1990s to over 200,000 today (25:29). The conversation underscores the absence of stringent regulatory oversight, leading to an environment rife with low-quality products and deceptive practices.
“Supplements are covered under federal code 21 CFR 111. Right. And that's basically that like, you know, for pharmaceuticals there's a whole process that they have to get pre approved following CGMP standards and all these different things.”
— Steve Martosi [27:36]
Quality Control Issues
The episode highlights critical quality control issues, such as the presence of harmful excipients like titanium dioxide and various dyes, which are banned in Europe due to their potential health hazards (33:13).
“You know, they have reductive ingredients and that's pretty much what we're talking about.”
— Dr. Mark Hyman [33:27]
Features and Functionality
Steve Martosi introduces SEP Co., a platform dedicated to helping consumers make informed decisions about their supplements. SEP Co. offers:
Comprehensive Cataloging: Over 200,000 supplement products are cataloged, allowing users to search or scan product barcodes for instant information (15:21-16:48).
Trust Scores: Utilizing a 29-point system, SEP Co. assesses supplements based on manufacturing standards, third-party certifications, and ingredient quality. This provides users with a clear, easy-to-understand trust score for each product (25:46-29:52).
Personalized Protocols: With 80 expert protocols addressing various health topics like brain fog, heart health, and women's hormones, users can receive tailored supplement recommendations (16:55-18:03).
Smart Scheduler and Tracking: SEP Co. includes a scheduler to remind users when to take their supplements and track their adherence and results, fostering a feedback loop for continuous improvement (48:03-49:24).
“We've built a 29 point system that goes in and you know, checks what certifications, what kind of testing they're doing and kind of breaks it down and gives them a score.”
— Steve Martosi [29:16]
Community and Data-Driven Insights
SEP Co. incorporates social features, allowing users to share their supplement stacks and experiences, fostering a community-driven knowledge base. Additionally, the platform aims to aggregate individual (n=1) data to build robust, actionable insights into supplement efficacy and safety.
“We have a mix of AI driven data, clinical data, expert data like from yourself and then users sharing their n equals 1 stories too.”
— Steve Martosi [68:24]
Alarming Deficiency Statistics
Drawing from extensive data, Dr. Hyman and Steve reveal that over 70% of Americans are deficient in one or more essential nutrients, despite 75% of the population taking dietary supplements (17:54-23:00). Common deficiencies include vitamin D, omega-3 fatty acids, magnesium, zinc, and iron.
“We're seeing almost 70% of people are deficient in these nutrients in a cohort of 150,000 people, which is a massive amount of data that we've collected at Function Health.”
— Steve Martosi [20:32]
Impact of Modern Diets and Farming Practices
The discussion highlights how modern agricultural practices have depleted soil nutrients, resulting in food that lacks essential vitamins and minerals. This, coupled with increased consumption of processed foods, exacerbates nutrient deficiencies.
“You have to be thinking about your customer's lifetime value in years or decades. But so many because of that, you know, 30 to 50% of people not finishing the supplement, not reordering the way the margin structures are and how much they're costing to acquire customers, keeps the price really high for people who are on stuff for a long time.”
— Steve Martosi [56:10]
Concept of 'Stacks'
'Stacks' refer to personalized supplement regimens tailored to individual health goals and needs. SEP Co. allows users to create, share, and compare their stacks, facilitating a collaborative approach to health optimization.
“Stacks is like, to me, a stack is like the. When you're taking a bunch of things together that, you know, have a. For either an individual effect, like this is my, you know, muscle growth stack, or this is my daily stack.”
— Steve Martosi [62:22]
Protocols and Personalization
With protocols addressing specific health conditions, users can receive recommendations that align with their unique health profiles. SEP Co. plans to integrate more personalized supplement plans based on comprehensive biomarker testing and user feedback.
“Our protocols are very much designed for like the crossover between the nutrients and the health condition in the health conditions.”
— Dr. Mark Hyman [65:04]
Enhancing Doctor-Patient Communication
SEP Co. facilitates better communication between patients and healthcare providers by allowing users to share their supplement stacks in an organized and analyzable format. This ensures that doctors have a clear understanding of what their patients are taking, enabling more informed medical advice.
“Now it can be a link to us and you can actually analyze it and we'll see what doctors really want to, want to take the time to kind of take action on it.”
— Steve Martosi [54:59]
Educational Resources and Community Support
Beyond the app, SEP Co. emphasizes education through expert interviews, protocols, and community-driven support, empowering individuals to take control of their health with accurate information and collective wisdom.
“They can scan their supplements, they take them, and they're going to save it and be on track.”
— Steve Martosi [68:48]
Expanding Features and Data Integration
Both Dr. Hyman and Steve outline future plans to enhance SEP Co. by incorporating more personalized data, expanding the supplement database, and integrating with functional medicine diagnostic tools. The goal is to create a comprehensive health management system that evolves with user needs and industry advancements.
“We really need to up the game there, right? And people want our number one most requested feature is a personalized supplement plan. And so that's what we're working on, right?”
— Steve Martosi [46:26]
Advocating for Industry Standards
SEP Co. aims to elevate industry standards by promoting transparency, quality, and efficacy in supplements. Through their trust score system and independent testing, they seek to influence manufacturers to adhere to higher production standards and reduce the prevalence of low-quality products.
“We're not out here to, we just want to kind of arc the industry in the right direction.”
— Steve Martosi [36:55]
The episode culminates with a shared vision of empowering individuals to become the CEOs of their own health. By providing access to reliable data, personalized recommendations, and a supportive community, both Dr. Hyman and Steve Martosi advocate for a future where consumers can confidently navigate the supplement landscape to achieve optimal health.
“You're the CEO of your own health. So if you want to do that, you need the data, the information you need to know what you're doing.”
— Steve Martosi [76:13]
Nutrient Deficiencies Are Widespread: A significant portion of the American population lacks essential nutrients, even among supplement users.
Supplement Industry Protections Are Lacking: The current market is overwhelmed with products of varying quality, often containing harmful additives and lacking transparency.
SEP Co. Offers a Comprehensive Solution: By cataloging supplements, providing trust scores, and enabling personalized health protocols, SEP Co. empowers consumers to make informed decisions.
Personalization and Data Are Crucial: Personalized supplement plans and community-shared experiences (stacks) are essential for optimizing individual health outcomes.
Bridging the Gap Between Patients and Providers: Enhanced communication tools within SEP Co. facilitate better healthcare guidance and more effective treatment plans.
Future of Supplementation: Continued innovation and stricter industry standards are necessary to ensure that supplements can effectively contribute to public health without posing risks.
Whether you're a healthcare professional seeking to guide your patients more effectively or a consumer striving to optimize your own health, this episode offers valuable insights into navigating the complex world of dietary supplements. SEP Co. emerges as a pivotal platform in addressing the deficiencies and challenges that currently plague the supplement industry, promising a more transparent and health-focused future.