The Nobel Prize Molecule That Nearly Doubles Lifespan : 1407

Summary

Podcast Summary

The Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey

Episode 1407: “The Nobel Prize Molecule That Nearly Doubles Lifespan”
Guest: Chris Perez (comedian, entrepreneur, original manufacturer of C60/ESS60)
Date: January 30, 2026
Theme: Deep dive into the “Nobel Prize molecule” C60/ESS60, its origins, mechanisms, history, and potential for mitochondrial support, resilience, longevity, and performance optimization.

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Episode Overview

Dave Asprey and guest Chris Perez explore Carbon 60 (C60), also known as ESS60, a soccer-ball shaped carbon molecule famed for its radical properties and its astonishing longevity effects in animal studies. They discuss its history, how it’s manufactured for human supplementation, proposed mechanisms on mitochondrial function, practical use cases, scientific evidence, and personal anecdotes.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. C60/ESS60: History & Significance

• Discovery & Nobel Prize: C60 discovered in 1985 (Rice University); Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded in 1996.
  “[The scientists who discovered the molecule] went on to win the Nobel prize for that discovery. The molecule is amazing.” — Chris Perez (04:50)
• Manufacturing Origins: Chris’s company started making it in 1990 for research, long before mass awareness and Nobel recognition.
• Properties:
  • Electrically and chemically unique; forms “buckyballs.”
  • Strong, stable, and can withstand high-impact collisions.
  • Largest molecule known to display quantum behavior (double-slit experiment, 10:49).

2. From Material Science to Human Longevity

• Initial Use: Initially used in inks, batteries, tires, and other industrial applications.
• Health Space Entry: A 2012 peer-reviewed study showed C60 dissolved in olive oil increased rats’ lifespan by 90% with no observed toxicity (13:51).

  “That’s the single longest longevity experimental result on mammals in history.” — Chris Perez (12:07)

• Supplement Evolution: ESS60 is a purified, supplement-grade form. Dave and Chris reflect on early days when stability and purity were issues.

3. Proposed Mechanisms of Action

• Buffering Oxidative Stress System (BOSS) Theory:
  ESS60 acts as a selective antioxidant, quenching excess negatively charged reactive oxygen species (ROS) at the mitochondrial level, thereby buffering oxidative stress without blocking beneficial exercise-induced ROS.

  “It’s a selective antioxidant… only hydrogen gas comes close to that function.” — Dave Asprey (15:43)

• Mitochondrial Support:
  It crosses cell and mitochondrial membranes, potentially improving energy efficiency and reducing damage from excess oxidative byproducts.

  "It holds up to six negatively charged particles… can be stored and processed later." — Chris Perez (24:39)

• Analogies:

  • Mardi Gras: ESS60 as a “paddy wagon” for reactive species (26:12).

• Quantum & Electrical Properties:
  Possible effects due to its superconductive and quantum behavior.

4. Evidence & Human Observations

• Animal Studies:

  • Massive lifespan increases (rats, 90% longer).
  • Resiliency against liver toxins (carbon tetrachloride) (13:51).

• Human Results:

  • Subjective Reports: Focus and energy (Month 1), better sleep (Month 2), systemic benefits (Month 3+), migraine reduction, improved resilience and recovery, athletic performance (16:22, 39:59).

    “Our most consistent testimonials… focus and energy during the day, and then better sleep that night.” — Chris Perez (16:22)

  • Biomarker Changes: Lowered inflammatory marker HSCRP, improved glycan age and DNA methylation, reduced C-reactive protein and inflammation in humans and animals (20:15).

    “I regressed one year biologically when I had chronologically aged three years. I’m happy with that direction.” — Chris Perez (20:15)

• Migraines:
  Chris and others reported significant reduction in frequency and severity.

• Performance and Recovery:
  Noted by elite athletes (e.g., Anthony Kunkel) for reduced damage, not just faster recovery.

  “He felt like our product could be the difference between having running as a hobby and running as a career.” — Chris Perez (40:56)

5. Practical Usage: Formats, Dosing, Stacking

• Formulation:
  ESS60 is hydrophobic and delivered dissolved in oils (usually extra virgin olive oil, sometime MCT or avocado for preference).
  • Olive oil offers highest concentration (0.8mg/ml vs. 0.3mg/ml for MCT).
• Capsules:
  Now available for travel convenience (22:55).
• Dosing:
  Typical serving is one teaspoon (ampule format also available).
• Topical Use:
  New skin serum (ESS60 with GHK-Cu copper peptide) reported to improve complexion and support skin health (47:45).
• Stacking:
  Can be combined with most mitochondrial enhancers (methylene blue, red light, etc.). Only known caution is with intravenous UV therapy (43:28).
• Storage:
  Best stored in dark, cool places to avoid oxidation; oil may be better preserved with ESS60.

6. Safety & Regulation

• Toxicology:
  No toxicity seen in published animal studies and human use to date.
• Supplement Regulation:
  Thorough discussion of FDA and FTC regulation of supplements (32:09). Truthful scientific claims required.
• Internal Testing & Research:
  Chris’s company invests in ongoing research (34:01), including sleep and migraine studies and biomarker tracking.

7. Notable Quotes & Moments

On the magnitude of longevity effect:

• “If humans were to live 90% longer, the average human would live to 152… it’s the average human, not just the oldest." — Chris Perez (00:11)

On quantum properties:

• "This is the largest molecule to exhibit quantum behavior… if no one's observing it, the C60 will show up on both [sides of the slit]." — Chris Perez (10:50)

On the importance of biohacking:

• "If you're a chronic cardio person, you probably should be on this because you're not doing your biology." — Dave Asprey (40:35)
• “Every single one of them, when we enhance mitochondrial function, say the same thing: my powers got better.” — Dave Asprey (00:51 & 62:10)

On practical skepticism:

• "Some people will say, I don’t want to take something unless I know how it works… we don’t know how almost anything works.” — Dave Asprey (27:41)

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Timestamps for Notable Segments

• Origin & discovery of C60, Nobel Prize: 04:50–07:19
• Explanation of the buckyball structure: 05:42–06:19
• Quantum effects and analogy: 10:49–12:07
• Animal longevity study details: 12:07–14:26
• Mechanism: BOSS theory & selective antioxidant: 14:32–15:55
• Practical dosing & intake methods: 22:37–23:41
• Anecdotes on sleep, energy, migraines: 16:22, 36:16
• Human biomarker testing results: 19:08–20:15
• Athletic performance and resilience: 39:59–41:44
• Stacking with other biohacks: 42:58–43:28
• Regulation & research philosophy: 32:09–34:42
• Topical skin application products: 47:45–52:43
• Discussion on who benefits most: 52:48–54:57
• Deep philosophical wrap-up on mitochondria, consciousness, and altered states: 62:02–63:51

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Memorable Moments

• Dave realizing he took C60 made by Chris Perez nearly 20 years ago (04:08)
• The Mardi Gras analogy for oxidative species management (26:12)
• Chris's honesty about being a conservative scientist, initially labeling C60 as “not for human consumption” despite biohacker demand (28:59)
• Dave’s insistence on improving mitochondria for not just lifespan, but consciousness and happiness:

  “If it can make my mitochondria work better… actually would increase consciousness, not just human performance. And that’s really the game.” (63:08)

• Humor and improv banter, including the Schrodinger’s Flirt joke (61:10)

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Final Thoughts

• ESS60 (purified C60) appears to be a uniquely promising mitochondrial and anti-aging molecule, with both striking animal results and compelling clinical/personal data suggesting improved energy, sleep, inflammation, resilience, athletic performance, and even mental focus.
• Still, most existing evidence is preclinical, anecdotal, or based on small studies—self-experimentation and caution are encouraged.
• The biohacking movement played a key role in popularizing this once-obscure lab chemical.
• ESS60 is available as an oil-based supplement and in topical formulations; capsules now exist for easier travel.
• Guest Chris Perez offers legitimate research, careful science, and a willingness to engage in ongoing studies rather than unsubstantiated hype.

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Resources

• Product/discount: myvitalc.com/humanupgrade — Listeners receive a significant discount and option to donate to anti-trafficking charity with book purchase.
• Book: “Live Longer and Better” by Chris Perez.
• Further studies: Research ongoing into sleep, migraines, markers of inflammation, and potential longevity effects in humans.

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Summary by The Human Upgrade Summarizer. This summary captures key scientific, technical, and practical aspects of the episode, along with timestamps, notable quotes, and episode highlights in the original tone of the conversation.

Transcript

[Dave Asprey]

Sometime around the late 90s, early aughts, some papers came out showing that an unusual form of carbon was extending life in rats by about 90%.

[Chris Perez]

If humans were to live 90% longer, the average human would live to 152. And if you're like me, when you first hear that number, you're like, oh, the oldest human. No, it's the average human.

[Dave Asprey]

This is electrically unusual. Human nerves are room temperature superconductor. These are things that can transfer electrons with zero drag. And it turns out that our body has of those capabilities.

[Chris Perez]

There are so many theories as to what positive things this molecule could be doing and it's already fantastic that it is crossing the cell membrane and then also crossing the mitochondrial membrane. Strength and stability used to be a problem. They're now no longer a problem. Could be the difference between somebody having running as a hobby and running as a career.

[Dave Asprey]

Every single one of them. When we enhance mitochondrial function, they say the same thing. My powers got better. One friend who's in his 80s called me with tears in his eyes and said, thank you, you gave me my powers back. You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey.

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[Dave Asprey]

Today's episode's recorded live here at the studios in Austin, Texas. And we're going to be talking about something that brings me way back in time in the longevity field. Sometime around the late 90s, early aughts, some papers came out showing that an unusual form of carbon was extending life in rats by about 90%. And no one knew about this. And we didn't have a longevity movement the way we do today, but I did run a longevity nonprofit in Palo Alto. So I found this mysterious molecule, and there was a guy selling it in some Yahoo Group forum or something like that, and I got some. And the compound is known as C60. And since then, there's been evolutions in the industry. But in this episode, we're gonna go deep on what this compound can do for longevity and mitochondrial function, why and how it works. And our guest today is not only a comedian, he's also the original manufacturer of this molecule, going back to the time it turns out I actually took the molecule he manufactured. And sometime around 2004, 2005. And I quit taking it for a while because there were serious concerns about stability and purity. And at the time, I spent a huge amount of money, and I got some little jars of leaky olive oil impregnated with it, and they had to be stored in the freezer because it would degrade. And we're going to talk about where this supplement might fit in a longevity or cognitive performance or even a sleep stack. What it is, how it works. And our guest is Chris Perez.

[Chris Perez]

Dave, thank you so much for having me. This is. I'm. I'm excited. We just figured out that you were taking probably my molecule so long ago. That's very really cool.

[Dave Asprey]

It's totally, you know, 20 years ago. And it was funny there. There was a group of probably 25 very early radical life extensionists, and I was involved in that. That for a long time and still am. And life extension is different because it's one thing you got all these people like, oh, well, I'm afraid to say that people want to be healthy and live twice as long. So I'm just gonna say health span. And these are people who just like, no, healthspan's not enough. That's table stakes. Of course you want that. Like, how do we better. And I'm definitely in that camp, and I. I think this is a unique thing. So you call the modern incarnation of this ESS 60. What does that stand for?

[Chris Perez]

So the ESS stands for elemental Safe spheres. And the element is, of course, carbon. And we really kind of put together ESS 60 because we. Well, first, we're the oldest and longest manufacturer of carbon 60 on the planet. We've been manufacturing it since 1991. Maybe a little bit of background. Right? So the molecule was discovered in 1985 at Rice in Houston. That's where our lab is based. And the three scientists who discovered the molecule Went on to win the Nobel prize for that discovery. The molecule is amazing. Performs as well or better than the current best material in almost every application. So it makes better inks, better batteries, better tires, better photocells. This is where some people get nervous. I know maybe not you, but some people don't think about what in their car battery they might take on a daily basis.

[Dave Asprey]

Humans are electrical. We do have batteries in the body. And I actually have tires.

[Chris Perez]

Okay.

[Dave Asprey]

This is the molecule. This is a. A structured lattice of 60 carbons stuck together in a bucky ball sphere.

[Chris Perez]

Yep.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay.

[Chris Perez]

And for those listening, just imagine a soccer ball where the lines on the soccer ball represent the bonds between the carbon atoms. So you have this spherical molecule of 60 carbon atoms. And as this was growing into the health space, and we'll probably talk about that kind of journey because it's, it's, it's pretty fascinating. We tested 22 of the products in the space and we found all but one. And of course ours to be wo low in concentration. So as I attend your event, an amazing. Actually my favorite event. Beyond biohacking now, right, that's the new.

[Dave Asprey]

Name beyond conference dot com. Guys, may Austin. 5000ish people, massive concert and all the latest biohacking and longevity and consciousness stuff in one place.

[Chris Perez]

It's. It's five. That's not even the vendors. Right. It's 5,000 people who are on the same journey year on. It's really cool to get around those people. I, I couldn't recommend going to the event more. And also stop by the My Vital C booth.

[Dave Asprey]

Oh, yeah, of course. Thanks. Supporting the conference and for supporting the show. It's a, it's a sponsored show. And guys, what I do is I find inventors and crazy scientists and people like that. And the vast majority of shows are authors of books or something like that. But when someone's got a really cool product, they help support the show. So thanks for supporting the show.

[Chris Perez]

Absolutely. No, what, what you're doing is amazing and in fact part of the story. Well, let's get back to the story. Right, so the molecule's amazing. It was discovered in 85. The scientists who discovered it won the Nobel Prize in 96. My company started manufacturing it in 1990. Wow. Five years before they won the Nobel Prize.

[Dave Asprey]

And what were you making it for? I mean, it had just been discovered.

[Chris Perez]

Well, so my journey, actually, I have a book called Live Longer and Better. And my journey was I knew I was going to be an entrepreneur when it came time to go to college. Like what does an entrepreneur do? Back then there was no entrepreneurship programs. And my thought was, I'm good at math, I'm good in science. What's the fastest degree to the highest salary so I could have money to invest in a company. Right. Good thinking, engineering. So I studied mechanical engineering. A couple of things went wrong with that story. First, it took me more than four years to graduate.

[Dave Asprey]

Me too.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah, I did get a minor in computer science and in math. And then the other thing that went wrong is I actually started the company before I graduated from college. So about three years before I graduated, my business partner was working for Dr. Paul Chu with the Texas center for Superconductivity. Now, Dr. Paul Chu, you've probably never heard of him, but he's extremely famous in the superconductivity world. And there's a whole building on the University of Houston campus. We used to call it Chew's Castle because that's why it existed. My business partner Robert was separating this molecule from the other molecules that tend to come come with it. And one day Dr. Chew came in and said, hey you, you're a bunch of young kids. This molecule is selling for $6,000 a gram. You should go start a business. And so it's like better than heroin. It's way. I don't know, I haven't tried. But $6,000 a gram is a. I joke. My business partner did a back of the napkin calculation which just said $6,000 a gram. That was it. Like, that was all the calculations. He's from an entrepreneurial background. He's off and running, starting a company. They bring me in to actually help design the equipment, to help help do the drawings. I stuck around. And so, yeah, we're the oldest, longest manufacturer since 1990. I'm not a very braggadocious person, but it's not unreasonable to suggest that's, that's as far as I go, that the fact we were delivering commercial quantities of carbon nanomaterials, specifically carbon 60, to research institutions around the world probably played into why the Nobel Prize was granted, because people had the material and could figure out what to do with it.

[Dave Asprey]

And this is electrically unusual. You mentioned superconductivity. Now, this is not a popular opinion, but it seems very scientific to me, is that human nerves are room temperature superconductors because they exhibit something called the hall effect, which is really. You look at superconductors, these are things that can transfer electrons with zero drag. Yeah, right. And it turns out that our body has some of those capabilities. And when you get into quantum biology, which is a real field with PhDs, not the, you know, quantum meditation kind of stuff, which also seems to work. But, but there's, there's something interesting going on there. And that may be why this superconducting molecule that's not found naturally in the human body, as far as I'm aware.

[Chris Perez]

Of, not in the human body. It is found in nature, just not in the human body.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay, where's it found in nature?

[Chris Perez]

So if you collect the soot from a candle flame. Okay.

[Dave Asprey]

Right.

[Chris Perez]

So usually we'd put a cold steel plate over a candle. That deep dark soot has parts per million or parts per billion of this molecule. By the way. Anybody who's listening to or watching this has actually been exposed to this molecule. It's just at such low quantities, you know, you actually have to manufacture it in order to put it into a supplement. Compliment. Got it. And I'll add one more thing. Yeah. This is the largest molecule to exhibit quantum behavior.

[Dave Asprey]

What does that mean?

[Chris Perez]

That's the slit. You know, the slit study. That's like kind of the origin of. Hey, there's a thing called quantum out there. So it goes like one molecule goes through both slits.

[Dave Asprey]

So you guys have heard of Schrodinger's cat or you've heard of the quantum slit experiment on multiple episodes. But you're saying this molecule, when they send it through the slit, if you're observing it, it'll. What'll it do?

[Chris Perez]

Because they're both just like quantum, like. Oh.

[Dave Asprey]

And so if no one's observing it, the C60 will show up on both. Oh, that's weird. Yeah. Because most particles, it's one or the other.

[Chris Perez]

Wow. The molecules, like the fact that they won the Nobel Prize is absolutely appropriate. Right. Because it is. So it's got six fold symmetry. You can actually fire this molecule at 16,000 miles an hour at a plate of steel. Most molecules just shred apart. I like to picture it like a little ball compressing and then bouncing right back.

[Dave Asprey]

Wow.

[Chris Perez]

It's. The space inside of it is big enough for any element on the periodic chart to fit inside of it. So there's a new symbol in chemistry because of this molecule. So you're familiar with the at symbol, right? That's your email address. So C60. Lanthanum. At. C60 means a lanthanum atom physically trapped inside of it. So it's not covalently or ionically bonded with the exterior. Wrapped, it's just wrapped.

[Dave Asprey]

This is really cool.

[Chris Perez]

No, no. So here's really cool let's talk about this. So they thought the molecule would be toxic. And the reason is, is because there's 20 shapes that are just like benzene on the exterior of this cage and benzene ubiquitous in our society. There is no plastic, there's many medications don't exist. Benzene is important, but when it's on its own, it's known to be toxic and known to be carcinogenic. So they thought the molecule would be toxic. They put it in a study instead of being toxic. The test subjects, in this case with star rats, lived 90% longer than the control group. So that's the single longest longevity experimental result on mammals in history. Peer reviewed, published research. Now turns out all the chemistry that we know how to do on the benzene ring actually works on the exterior of this cage. So conceptually, wrap a radioactive atom inside of the buckyball, attach something that will go to cancer, and deliver a radioactive payload directly to a cancer cell. Wow, great concept. And it's absolutely feasible, just like in exorbitantly expensive. So it's probably not going to happen, but I think maybe that's how you know you're going to win a Nobel Prize is when they add a new symbol to the language of chemistry because of the thing you discovered. Wow.

[Dave Asprey]

What we've found is that manipulating carbon to make these carbon nanotubes or nanotubules, there's all kinds of interesting electrical and magnetic and paramagnetic effects. And so this is a cutting edge material science. And when you say, well, what happens if you upgrade human biology by embedding something that behaves different and better electrically in a cell membrane, that you might get an improvement. Did they find any downside in the rats?

[Chris Perez]

No, absolutely not. In fact, one group of the rats they injected with carbon tetrachloride, which is an oxidative agent that attacks the liver. There were three groups. It was obviously separate from the ones that lived 90% longer. One group was given water control group. One was given olive oil, a semi control group. And the last one was given olive oil with the ESS 60 molecule. They injected them with carbon tetrachloride, let their, you know, let them process it, euthanize them, and inspected the livers. No recovery in the water rats, very minimal recovery in the olive oil rats, almost complete recovery in the olive oil with the ESS 60.

[Dave Asprey]

So they were just more resilient to environmental toxins because of their exposure to ESS360 or ESS60.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah, well, it's, it's actually the, the antioxidant capability. Okay. Right. And, and our current theory, the BOSS theory, buffering oxidative stress system is what we believe this does in the mitochondria working with the reactive oxygen species in there.

[Dave Asprey]

Is there any risk of ESS 60 maybe stopping exercise from working? Because if you take too many antioxidants, even vitamin C or vitamin E when you work out, you don't get enough oxidative stress.

[Chris Perez]

So this is going to be great. So I attended a talk at not your most recent conference, but the one before. Yeah. By Chris Gethin. He's a natural bodybuilder. Amazing guy. He's. He's a great. You know, a lot of times you see a guy who's super muscular. Like, is there anything upstairs? He's all, he's got it all going on, right? Yeah.

[Dave Asprey]

He's a smart guy.

[Chris Perez]

He stops by my booth and says, hey, my talk at your conference tomorrow, I'm going to talk about your product. And I again, not very braggadocious, I think, oh, he's going to talk about like antioxidants and inflammatories in general. I happened to get to his talk the last five minutes was actually about my vital C because it's a selective antioxidant.

[Dave Asprey]

This is really important. What kind of oxidants does it capture?

[Chris Perez]

Yeah, negatively charged particles.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah.

[Dave Asprey]

And so this allows the beneficial oxidative stress from exercise to take action. So the mitochondria still gets stronger, but it takes the negative ones. The only other compound like that is hydrogen gas that I'm aware of.

[Chris Perez]

Me too.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah.

[Dave Asprey]

So the difference is hydrogen gas is short lived in the body and it'll take out something called peroxy nitrite, which is a major form of oxidative stress. That's just bad news. And so we're taking the, the my vital C E SS 360. It's actually here in my danger coffee right now. We added some MCT oil that you make that's impregnated with ESS 60. What am I going to feel from it?

[Chris Perez]

So the way we think, I wish I'll describe kind of my experience. My experience is I wish I was super sensitive. We give our product to some people who are, I think, really in tune with their bodies. And they're like, oh, I feel it right away. It turns out I'm not that guy. Like I have doctors ask me questions and they're. And I give them an answer and they're like, are you sure? And like, no, you're right. Like I do feel pain when I walk or whatever, right. So I'm not that guy. For me, our most consistent testimonials, people take the product in the morning. They report mental focus and energy during the day and then better sleep that night.

[Dave Asprey]

Interesting.

[Chris Perez]

So I think in terms of like a three month timeframe, if, if somebody wants to, you know, experiment with this, where we're looking at month one sleep. I'm sorry, month one is focus and energy. I've got a testimonial, it's pretty fantastic. Lady takes the product in the morning, records a video in the evening, sends it in and she shares that she didn't finish her cup of coffee, right? I like coffee. You like coffee. Most people out there like coffee. And if you notice you didn't finish your cup of coffee, like that's a big deal. She just didn't need that energy. We really think about month two as sleep. I think month two, it takes two months for sleep because we all kind of get one a little bit more, a little bit less sleep every day. And to attribute it to the new protocol, especially like you and I, we're trying all sorts of things, to attribute it to one protocol can be really challenging. And so, so sleep really kind of sets in. The, the testimonial I'll share here is I have a business coach, he shares that for 50 years he needed an alarm clock when he started taking this product. He wakes up before the alarm clock, right. And he's doing late night dinners, late night mixers, whatever. None of that matters, except if he doesn't have the product for about 10 days, he starts to need the alarm clock again. And that 10 day mark, it shows in the literature that this, this molecule gets excreted from the body.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay.

[Chris Perez]

And then on month three and we'll get into the mitochondrial benefits. But if you're, we believe we're reducing the negative impact of stressed mitochondria. And if you are doing that, then you should have what we have, which are head to toe testimonials. And month three really starts to wrap into these kind of systemic benefits.

[Dave Asprey]

So month three is systemic. And are there any studies in larger mammals than rats on life extension?

[Chris Perez]

Not on life extension. Aware of. By, by the way, if humans were to live 90% longer, the average human would live to 152. And, and if you're like me, when you first hear that number, you're like, oh, the oldest human. No, it's the average human. There's a bell curve around 152. So there will be no longevity experiments on this molecule if that's. If that's the target.

[Dave Asprey]

Have you seen reductions in some. Like a true age or a DNA methylation?

[Chris Perez]

Yeah, well, I can share my own experience.

[Dave Asprey]

Yeah.

[Chris Perez]

First one I was at one conference, next to me was you. You. You'll like the of this was a former Apple employee who built a device to measure esr. Erythrocyte sedimentation rate.

[Dave Asprey]

Yeah. Kidney function.

[Chris Perez]

Yep. It's a indication of kind of systemic inflammation. Basically, you take a drop of blood.

[Dave Asprey]

Oh, oh, sorry.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah. Yep.

[Dave Asprey]

Different sedimentation. Yep. So.

[Chris Perez]

So you drop a blood and a.

[Dave Asprey]

Capillary stick is your blood.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah. And then. Yeah. So I took that test, that particular test. He has a biological age component. 20 years younger. The next is glycan age. I'm sure you've played around with glycan age. Glycans and how they attach to particular molecul feels really an indication of inflammation. Right. That one had me 34 years younger than my chronological age, which at the time it had me at 21. It's like, can you drink if you're biologically younger than 21?

[Dave Asprey]

Right. Good question.

[Chris Perez]

So that was. That was really good. And then the next test that I've done, I didn't like the result, but I liked the direction. So I took my DNA age. I took that when I was 51. It had me at 59. I was not real happy about that.

[Dave Asprey]

Right.

[Chris Perez]

I'm doing a lot of stuff, but I took it three years later and it had me at 58. So. So I regressed one year biologically when I had chronologically age three years, I'm happy with that direction. And when you talk about bigger animal models, there is an HCRP study in beagles where it showed, you know, this molecule showed reduction in hsrp, which is an inflammatory marker in beagles.

[Dave Asprey]

And guys, for reference, C reactive protein is one of the three most important things you can measure to see how you're. If you look at homocysteine C reactive protein. And then the third one I like is LP PLA 2, which is a marker of damage to the lining of your arteries. If you're getting those three things, your cardiovascular risk is very low if you keep those low. That's why if you go to AXO Health, which is part of upgrade labs, those are part of the panel we run. Even though those aren't always the cheapest tests, those are the ones that tell you, are you doing the right thing. There's many more that you need, but the. Those Are important. Important.

[Chris Perez]

We're actually doing an HSCRP study. Oh, cool. And the reason we're doing it is at a conference. I had actually met Dr. Young at your conference. He came up to us at another conference and he said this, and I actually recorded it. So I, like, I share it. And he said, chris, I don't care if you're male, female, pre surgery, post surgery cardiovascular disease, otherwise healthy. Your product is reducing elevated HSCRP. And he's talking about a patient who is at 9, 2.9 and 4 to 8 weeks.

[Dave Asprey]

That is a massive drop.

[Chris Perez]

He also went on. And we'll come back to that.

[Dave Asprey]

Right.

[Chris Perez]

He also went on to say we're seeing improvements in H HRV. Right. Heart rate variability and sleep improvements between 20 and 60%.

[Dave Asprey]

Whoa. Okay. This is some powerful stuff. And I haven't used ess60 in the last couple years. And it's because it's in oil. And it has to be in oil, but I don't know why. And I've been traveling excessively. I've been on 90 travel. This is stuff that would break most people. I've been in the last three weeks, Dubai and Paris on separate trips. I'll be in Ecuador in February for unlimited life. Like, I'm. I've never traveled this much, and I'm staying biologically really resilient. But it's hard to travel with oil. Why does ESS 60 have to be in oil?

[Chris Perez]

So 1. It wouldn't surprise you if you had a pile of the ESS 60 powder. It's going to be a black crystalline powder, like a sugar or. Or salt. And you can consume it, but it's hydrophobic, so you would just excrete it means it's not water soluble.

[Dave Asprey]

It can't get into cells if it's not mixed. Can you make gel caps or something?

[Chris Perez]

Oh, we do have gel caps.

[Dave Asprey]

Oh, I didn't even know that.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah, I did. I didn't bring any, but I can arrange it.

[Dave Asprey]

Hook me up. I'll add it to my stack. I mean, that. That would be an obvious move. Okay.

[Chris Perez]

The challenge is a typical serving is one teaspoon. Yeah.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay. This is the. You just showed me these two, too. So these are little terror. What do you call these little ampules?

[Chris Perez]

Little ampoules. Yeah. Okay.

[Dave Asprey]

So what do you twist the top off?

[Chris Perez]

About a twist and a half? Pull it off.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay. What's in here is this.

[Chris Perez]

This is a high quality extra virgin olive oil. We get ours from Tunisia.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay.

[Chris Perez]

With as much of the ESS60 molecule as we can get the dissolve in it.

[Dave Asprey]

And this is like a daily dose.

[Chris Perez]

This is one day daily dose. It will leave a peppery flavor at the back of your throat.

[Dave Asprey]

Am I going to overdose if I also had a daily dose?

[Chris Perez]

We fine here.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay. All right.

[Chris Perez]

You'll be very fine.

[Dave Asprey]

Tastes like high quality olive oil.

[Chris Perez]

And it might take 10 seconds every now. And it catches me off guard, the peppery flavor at the back of your throat. By the way, we have a super small percentage of our customers like, oh, it's burning my throat. Is it rancid? I was like, no, that's a high quality extra virgin olive oil. You may have been to an Italian restaurant where they'll put olive oil on a plate and then crack pepper onto that olive oil. They're cracking the pepper so it tastes more expensive.

[Dave Asprey]

Oh, no kidding. Interesting. Yeah. There, there should be a lot of that. That phenolic flavor in a good olive oil.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah. Okay. Oleocanthal is the one that really does the peppery sensation.

[Dave Asprey]

Got it. It makes sense. And hydroxy tyrosol is the longevity compound that's found in olive oil, I guess. Unless it's ESS 60, in which case it's the carbon 60 that's in it. Okay. So now I've got this fat entering my system and the fat's impregnated with ESS360 nanosp. Where are they going to go in my body?

[Chris Perez]

So it goes into the mitochondria. And here's where its real value is according to the BOSS theory, by the way. The BOSS theory is the buffering oxidative stress system. We know from way back in the 90s that it can hold up to six negatively charged particles on the exterior of the cage. That's also why it's that selective antioxidant. We also know from peer reviewed published research that it gets into the mitochondria. Here's what we think is going on, right? Mitochondria, powerhouse of every cell. It has a negative byproduct, Right. Producing energy typically produces a neg byproduct. In the case of the mitochondria, it's these reactive oxygen species. I like to kind of picture them like little bumper cars. Everything they smack into their rusting. Oxidative stress, oxidative damage. And internal to the mitochondria, you have glutathione and melatonin, Some of the key antioxidants that manage them. Also sod. And they manage those reactive oxygen species so they don't do damage. But what Happens when you stress a mitochondria. Well, first off, how do you stress mitochondria? I like to point out you're alive in modern society. You have stressed mitochondria, then they start producing more, more reactive oxygen species then can be managed. And that's when they're running around smacking into things, causing oxidative stress, oxidative damage. And that's where this ESS60 molecule comes in. It holds on to up to six of these negatively charged particles, so they can't run around like bumper cars and do damage. And then when that mitochondria replenishes the glutathione, replenishes the melatonin, then they can manage those reactive oxygen species appropriately. I've got a fun analogy. So. And I think all biological analogies should start with Mardi Gras.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay, explain this.

[Chris Perez]

Well, one, a lot of biology happens at Mardi Gras. So, like, let's go there. So it's the end of Mardi Gras. And you have these drunk reactive auction species on Bourbon street running around and smashing windows, painting. And you have the New Orleans Police department, the glutathione and the melatonin coming onto Bourbon street, handcuffing themselves to these reactive oxygen species and getting them off of Bourbon Street Street. But what does the New Orleans police department do when they get overwhelmed? They take these reactive oxygen species and they stick them in a paddy wagon.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay.

[Chris Perez]

They attach them to the ESS 60 molecules so they can't do any damage. And then when the New Orleans police department replenishes the glutathione, replenishes the melatonin, then they can handcuff themselves to those reactive oxygen species and get them off of Bourbon Street.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay. So it's like a sink where you can store these things, and then that allows the body to process them later. Yeah. Do you think that's the primary action or is it more around making cells more electrically efficient?

[Chris Perez]

Well, I mean, there are so many theories as to what positive things this molecule could be doing. I mean, it's already fantastic that it is crossing the cell membrane and then also crossing the mitochondrial membrane. Right. Is it?

[Dave Asprey]

My understanding is that it sits in the mitochondrial membrane and makes it more efficient. Is it actually going all the way inside the mitochondria?

[Chris Perez]

Well, I guess the data knows that when we take mitochond and we spin them down, there is the ESS60 molecule available. So whether they're in the lipid layer or actually internal to it is, you know, there's Some debate. Okay, got it.

[Dave Asprey]

So we're still figuring that out. One of the things some people will say is, I don't want to take something unless I know how it works. Which is really funny because we don't know how almost anything works. We just have really good stories. They're called science. Yeah. And about every three to 30 years, like, oh, we were totally wrong about our story, but it was a useful story. But now we have a better one.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah.

[Dave Asprey]

And eventually everything comes down to quantum biology. And it's just we can't really see that stuff without a lot of instruments. So, guys, if you need to know how and why it works, leprechauns, that's how I. But, like, at end of the day, whatever story makes you feel safe, It's. If you do this, do you get this? And then we do our best to understand all the mechanisms of action. So we can. We can either create studies to look at possible negative effects, or we can predict them and things like that. But this has been around now. Now as a supplement, I think I first used it in 2004. Ish.

[Chris Perez]

You were way ahead of the game. You were. You were ahead of the paper.

[Dave Asprey]

I'm very early on in what I do, and there was one weird guy making it. You know, it was. It was pretty sketchy. Yeah, Same thing. Same thing with methylene blue. Back then, we were afraid to use more than one drop of methylene blue because we saw the studies, like, and it probably wasn't the cleanest methylene blue back then, but, you know, if. If you're at the cutting edge of longevity, sometimes you. You got to play with it.

[Chris Perez]

So I have a funny story about your biohacking crowd, right? This crowd that you've put together. So this. This study where the rats live longer comes out in mid-2012. By mid-2013, we started getting phone calls from this crazy, wacky group of people called biohackers. And I can say that affectionately because I am now one. And they were like, hey, how much of that stuff should I be consuming? And my business partner and I, what we hear is, hey, that stuff you sell to research institutions around the world to put into inks, batteries, tires, and photocel. How much should we be consuming? We. We literally, because we're current conservative scientists, we're like, we think zero. We added not for human consumption to our labeling in mid 2013. So think from 1991 all the way to mid 2013, no label. And then that kind of led into about two to three phone calls a week again of these crazy wacky biohackers. And the call sounded like this, hey, Chris, my knee pain is gone. And I was like, Joe, you mean the knee pain of your rat, Right?

[Dave Asprey]

Because.

[Chris Perez]

Because it literally says not for human consumption on the labeling. And then Joe would say, yeah, yeah, hey, if my rat weighs 275 pounds and does hit training on Tuesdays and Thursdays, should he be taking more on Tuesdays and Thursdays? So we knew what was going on. And the only reason we were comfortable with it is because in the literature, it was safe. Right? We were just being conservative carbon. You know, sometimes my story sounds more like Chris wishes he was smarter and had done things faster. But we, we eventually got there. Finally, a guy with a big YouTube following started talking about all the benefits he was getting, taking it on a daily basis. And our phone blew up and ringing ten times a day. And, and so we asked ourselves the two key questions. The first is a moral question. Am I comfortable selling it? I take it. My wife takes it every back. Everybody back in Houston on the team takes it, by the way, not a requirement.

[Dave Asprey]

Like, you don't.

[Chris Perez]

You don't clock in and take your shot.

[Sponsor Voice]

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[Dave Asprey]

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[Sponsor Voice]

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[Chris Perez]

They just have access to the research and also to the testimonials. I think that's the, that's the key. And then the last question was, here in the States, the FDA and the ftc, you got across the T's and dot the eyes. Yeah, so we're doing that in 2018 is when we really started bringing this to market.

[Dave Asprey]

I love it that you mentioned the ftc. And people always say, oh, Supplements are unregulated. The FTC is a government agency, and their job is to make sure that companies don't lie.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah.

[Dave Asprey]

Right. And if you're a company and you lie, you should be held accountable for that. And so they're actually a stronger enforcement authority than even the fda. And so I like that you bring that up, because every time someone goes, well, they're not regulated. No. If you run a clean supplement company, you must talk about science and you have to say truthful statements.

[Chris Perez]

Yep.

[Dave Asprey]

And so the guidelines are always, you know, changing, like what you're allowed to say or not say. But we all do our best. So thanks for bringing them up as well.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah, well, I think it's important, and I think, you know, a lot of people will give a hard time to the fda. They're, you know, for. For what people think they're doing. So I have to share this. So when I was shifting from my role as a chief scientist of a carbon nanomaterial manufacturing business to the chief scientist of a health supplement business.

[Dave Asprey]

Right.

[Chris Perez]

I'm digging in, like, what does the FDA say? What does the ftc? Let's talk to some consultants. And I found a page on the FDA website that said. And I took a screenshot because, like, this is coming down tomorrow. There's no way this should be up there. And it says, the FDA does not. You don't have to prove that something, that a supplement is safe before you bring it to market. You just have responsibilities there. And I thought, this seems crazy. And then I started to think about it, and the reality is you have your amazing product, Vitamin D. Right. I could just do a DA or a dk. There'd be reasons not to do that. And we now have different supplements. The FDA isn't funded well enough to have to show that these are safe supplements. What their role is is to make sure that, you know, nobody's getting injured by these products on. On the downstream side.

[Dave Asprey]

Yeah.

[Chris Perez]

I have to share. We're kind of a weird supplement company.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay.

[Chris Perez]

We are continuing to do research and we are continuing to publish research, which is not normal for most. Actually, a lot at your conferences do, but you go.

[Dave Asprey]

Most of the ones I work with.

[Chris Perez]

You go to other conferences. And, like, they're, you know, there. I mean, the reason is, is they have a story and they're afraid and it's working for sales, and they're afraid if they do the research that the story is going to be ruined. And now they don't have any sales. And I'm entirely, you Know the scientist that I described. I want to know what is the reality, right? If. If by some chance we dig into all this research and this molecule doesn't actually do anything. Not that worried about it. I'd rather do something else that's productive with my life. Like, that's more important.

[Dave Asprey]

If you want to sell stuff that works. Oh, my gosh.

[Chris Perez]

Who would have thought, right? I know. It's crazy. It's crazy. Yeah. So one of the things that I want to share is we're doing. Not only did we publish a paper in. In June of last year and in May of this year, we're working on some act. A lot of people ask, hey, are there human studies? Well, I can share that. There's one small one. We did a small cohort on sleep. It was a crossover study. 10 days of survey data prior to taking the product. 10 days on it, 10 days off of it, and then 10 days back on it. 100 of the participants, small cohort mention shared that there were improvements when they were taking the product.

[Dave Asprey]

Were they measuring their sleep?

[Chris Perez]

They weren't at the time. That whole thing was really fascinating. I was in contact with. With a consultant for Oura Ring, and he's actually a professor out of San Diego. And this was pre pandemic. And so we were going to get, like, with customers permission, access to data on the back end. Turns out the Oura Ring was pretty good at identifying Covid, and so he disappeared, you know, through Covid. But we continued to do study. There's a. There's an interesting piece. So that's sleep. We're actually working on a migraine study. And one of the reasons that we're working on a migraine study is my own experience. So I am the geek who went to school because I'm good in math and science. And I have a spreadsheet back to 2014. I was tracking my four to five migraines per year. Migraines suck. Trying to figure out how to stop them. When I started taking this product in 2018, I didn't get a migraine for 18 months.

[Dave Asprey]

Wow.

[Chris Perez]

Have been at 6, 7 migraines. And the reason I got the migraine is because I went off the product to join the sleep study. And. And I'm always transparent. I get about one or two migraines per year now. But they're not the things that take me into a dark, cold bedroom with no noise. It's literally just an aura. Right. This kind of little sliver of my vision that is like a kaleidoscope starts out here, goes in the middle. It's about 15 minutes. I can work through it as long as I. I don't know if you know this. It's hard to read through a kaleidoscope. I don't know if you've ever tried to do that.

[Dave Asprey]

Yeah, just. Just to challenge myself, it.

[Chris Perez]

I've.

[Dave Asprey]

I've got a lot of experience with migraines because a family member had consistent issues with them. And I've gone through a few phases, usually with a lot of mold where I've gotten them, but they're not a normal part of my life unless you give me msg and then I deserve it. But fixing mitochondria typically will reverse a migraine. So you, you put true dart Gl to cut down the stimulus, noise canceling headphones, dim the lights, take espresso and a little bit of sugar, which is a mitochondrial stimulant, and ketones and all the mitochondrial things. And most of the time it goes from a 10 to a 1 or just goes away if you catch it early. And I've not considered adding the ESS 60 into it if someone has a migraine in the study. Again, you aren't done with your study, but would you just take it right away if you're starting to get a migraine or do you take it preventatively?

[Chris Perez]

So the craziest thing happened to me, I think, think about a month ago, I was, I was recording a podcast and we were talking about migraines, and this guy actually had some of our bottles and they were, they were empty. Right. So we hadn't gotten some to him. And in about 10 minutes into it, as we're talking about migraines, he starts tilting the bottle and he's like trying. You can see him trying to get something out of this empty bottle. And you know, as a business owner, I'm like, that looks good. And then about 20 minutes and. And he shares, listen, I wasn't going to say anything, but at the beginning of the show, I was starting to get the aura of a migraine and I was thinking, am I going to finish the show? What am I going to do about the show that I had later? Just whatever he was able to eek out of that bottle stopped the migraine.

[Dave Asprey]

Interesting. So that's got to be some electrical effect versus an oxidative, I would think. Yeah, well, I don't really know that.

[Chris Perez]

And, you know, like I said, Chris wishes he was smarter. I have a powerful testimonial. My wife has a powerful testimonial. Finally I got on a show and, and this LA Ashley, she just for 30 minutes was sharing how the product had changed their life because her husband had such severe migraines. The kind of stuff like is today a good day or is it a bad day and are we going to be able to go to the grocery store together? And everything that he had tried hadn't worked. And by the way, no claims here. These are the reasons we're doing a migraine study. Okay. And, and so now he's got something that reduces the severity, reduces the, how frequently they happen and even when they're coming on something that can help mitigate them. I mean it's, it's amazing. And that's why we're doing the, the migraine study.

[Dave Asprey]

And so guys, that's not a, not a claim that it will do this. Um, there's a reasonable mechanism action. It's an observation. We call it a clinical observation, which is an absolutely useful form of evidence and data. And Big Pharma has trained us if.

[Chris Perez]

It'S not double blind, placebo controlled, it's not data.

[Dave Asprey]

No. When doctors and laypeople notice something works consistently, that's what drives us to do something studies. And as long as it's not a harmful practice, you can probably try it out and see if it helps you. And it may not help the guy next to you because there's a lot of science hasn't been done yet.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah.

[Dave Asprey]

Have you seen ess60, like raise someone's maximum lift or change VO2 max or any kind of exercise performance variables.

[Chris Perez]

So the one I'll share. Well, Chris Gethin loves, loves the product and he actually loves it for kind of two reasons. One, the fact that it's a selective antioxidant. And two, he tried travels, maybe not as much as you, but quite a bit. And the impact on jet lag is, is just phenomenal. Right. The same thing happens for my wife and I when I start talking about kind of athletes and in this case an extreme athlete, there's a guy by the name of Anthony kunkel, he's a two time US ultra running champion, won a 50 mile race, one 100k race. Yeah. And if anybody's stressing their mitochondria, Anthony is doing that.

[Dave Asprey]

If you're a chronic cardio person, you're, you probably should be on this because you're not doing your biology.

[Chris Perez]

Right. So our first conversation was fascinating because he said, I started taking one serving and I didn't notice anything. And then, then I joke like a good Biohacker. He tripled the servings, by the way. Don't triple everything. Like, there are things you should absolutely not triple.

[Dave Asprey]

Hashtag, disaster pants.

[Chris Perez]

And he said once he tripled it, he felt like our product could be the difference between somebody having running as a hobby and running as a career. Wow. And the way he describes it, and this fits in with this boss theory, is I don't believe it speeds recovery. I believe that prevents damage in the first place. So he said, where? Where on the last five miles of a 50 mile run. Which is a phrase.

[Dave Asprey]

Yeah.

[Chris Perez]

You may never hear again. Strength and stability used to be a problem. They're now no longer a problem. Wow. Right. And that really fits into. If you're reducing the negative impact of stressed mitochondria, then you would be limiting that damage. So it's. Anthony's pretty amazing. And he's also an amazing biohacker. Or like, I'd love to introduce you because you could geek out on all sorts of things.

[Dave Asprey]

That'd be fun. And one of the things that, that intrigues me is the highest performing and most resilient humans are the ones I love interviewing after 1400 episodes. It's a mix of people who've exhibited that and then the people doing the research and the science and figuring it out. And I don't really care if it's, you know, spiritual stuff, emotional, psychological, biological, lifestyle, all of it's fair game. I want people who are grounded and high power because I think those are the people who are kindest to other peoples when we have all of our energy.

[Chris Perez]

Well, and maybe it's even like you've just been on a quest. Right. Like you started in, you know, the. In this mold condition and you've been on a quest. Anthony is absolutely on a quest for like, just optimizing human performance. And he's also very analytical. So those things really fit well together. He's fat. He was just at the conference we were at, and it was really at a 4m where I bumped into you. And it's just fascinating to be around him. He's. He's working so many cool biohacking angles.

[Dave Asprey]

And you can stack biohacks. I mean, that's what I've been teaching for a long time. Is there anything that doesn't stack well with the ESS 60?

[Chris Perez]

I'm not aware of anything I have heard. You know, there are people who talk about potentially methylene blue, which really works kind of in the electron transport chain. So inside the mitochondria where we're. I Think we're on the back end. Just, just reducing the negative impact of stressed mitochondria.

[Dave Asprey]

Yeah.

[Chris Perez]

So there's some synergies there. Also some red light therapy tends to be good for the mitochondria. So like maybe the trifecta of, of mitochondrial health is the ESS 60 molecule red light therapy and methylene blue. But there's, there's no research to, to point in that direction.

[Dave Asprey]

The only thing I've heard that could be a contraindication would be if you're doing ultraviolet light intravenous therapy.

[Chris Perez]

I, I've heard that you don't mess around.

[Dave Asprey]

No. And so this you might do for toxic mold or chronic fatigue or something. And they basically put a, a laser inside your vein where the blood flows over it. And that can radically increase vitamin D production inside the body and has all sorts of other antibiotics, biological effects. You know, it kills viruses and whatever. So I've heard just anecdotally that if you're on any C60 that's actually getting into the body, as you said, a lot of it isn't in the body. The products that you don't want to do intravenous UV light at the same time. It's the only contraindication I'm aware of.

[Chris Perez]

Okay. Yeah, I really. And some people will talk about concerns with light. We think of that more in terms of like, how do you store it? It's in a dark bottle. Keep it in a cool place.

[Dave Asprey]

Yes. It'll oxidize, right?

[Chris Perez]

Yeah. Okay.

[Dave Asprey]

So that's one of the reasons it's in oil. It absorbs in the oil, protects it from oxygen.

[Chris Perez]

We think potentially the opposite. Right. So. So olive oil typically has a shelf life of three years in study, which was a, ended up being a five year study. They pulled the olive oil off the shelf at the end of the study and the, the olive oil was still good. And because it's an antioxidant, we believe that the ESS60 molecule is actually providing some protection to the olive oil.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay, that would make sense if it's an antioxidant.

[Chris Perez]

Right?

[Dave Asprey]

Yeah. Because then the polyphenols in the olive oil aren't taking the hit. The molecule itself is taking the hit head.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah.

[Dave Asprey]

Interesting.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah. And if you're holding up the six negatively charged particles, then you have quite a, quite an antioxidant cap. You know, as an example, there's an ad hoc study on the web showing us to have a, to be 172 times more powerful than vitamin C. There's peer reviewed Published research showing us to be 125 times more powerful than vitamin.

[Dave Asprey]

C. Why do you call your company my vital C? If you're making ESS60C, that's hundreds of times better.

[Chris Perez]

Yes. Well, so this is. That was early. And I'm, you know, some people have said, is it vitamin C? The first thing that I wanted people to know it's healthy. Right. So my vital C, people might have a confusion. The C is for carbon in this case. Right. And so, yeah, people still do that. You know, maybe as we grow as a company, there might be some rebrand at some point.

[Dave Asprey]

Folks, this is why you don't let engineers do product naming. I say that I am an engineer. I just learned how to engineer product names. I. Mostly because of neurofeedback.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah, that was the kind of thought process in the beginning. And then the ESS 60 molecule elemental safe spheres. You know, that's still pretty engineering. And it doesn't roll off the tongue like I, I hear. I watch people painfully squeeze out ESS 60 sometimes.

[Dave Asprey]

Yeah, the S60 is hard to say, but it's, it's got a name. So maybe you should just name the company ess60.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah, that's.

[Dave Asprey]

That's what I would do.

[Chris Perez]

That, that's maybe on the radar are. Yeah, okay.

[Dave Asprey]

Yeah. And my vital C, I'm like, oh, it's liposomal vitamin C. But it's not.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay. You can put the ESS molecule in different kinds of oil. Yeah. What's the difference?

[Chris Perez]

So we actually have a product with olive oil with avocado oil and MCT oil. Right. And so we're having the three different products.

[Sponsor Voice]

Yes.

[Chris Perez]

Okay. And if anybody ever asks which one do we recommend? We always say the olive oil for two key reasons. First, we're science based organization. Almost all the research is in olive oil and the ESS61 molecule. And then second, you get a higher concentration of the ESS 60 molecule in olive oil versus the other oils. You get about 0.8 milligrams per milliliter in olive oil, 0.6 in avocado oil, and then 0.3 in MCT oil. So, okay, so less than half in MCT.

[Dave Asprey]

So why don't you just mix all three kinds of oil in ones?

[Chris Perez]

I have done an immunity blend where we've actually combined two of them. So the olive oil and the MCT ct. I think we're looking for maximum saturated, well, maximum amount of the ESS60 molecule. And. And that is an olive oil.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay. I'm looking for a Tissue targeting. Like how do I get it where I want it? Does it work topically? Like can I smear? Can I spin on my skin? Am I going to look all young?

[Chris Perez]

I didn't put it out for a display. But I do have, I do have something down here. Now you'll appreciate this. Let me grab it. You'll appreciate this because what we have here is, is two parts of the same cosmetic. So the one on that one is our ESS 60 molecule.

[Dave Asprey]

So this is a serum.

[Chris Perez]

An ESS 60 activator is what we call it. Okay. And then the other one is a peptide. Now that peptide we called Uth 29. Which is kind of cool because it's youth 29.

[Dave Asprey]

So this is a new peptide or it's.

[Chris Perez]

It's copper peptide. We just, we just brand it Uth 29 GHK. Right.

[Dave Asprey]

Which well known.

[Chris Perez]

Which, yeah, you know, is amazing. Yeah. When my director of research came to me with this, I was like, I'd like to put these together and you can shove water soluble and oil soluble things together with an emulsifier. I don't like how an emulsifier sounds. There are no health benefits to emulsifiers. So we kept it as a two part. So you do one squirt of the Uth 29 lotion and then two drops per squirt and you activate it right in your hand. And, and I literally have testimonies. This. There's a little bit of hyperbole, but the Boulder Longevity Institute, their group came to my booth. You know, just twist and that comes up.

[Dave Asprey]

Cool. I see it.

[Chris Perez]

Came up to the booth and they said, yeah, that potential to live longer. Not interested. You know, being healthier. Not interested. I'm here for your skin reduo.

[Dave Asprey]

No kidding.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah.

[Dave Asprey]

Yeah. Dr. Yourth has been on the show. She's smart.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah, she's amazing.

[Dave Asprey]

Now I gotta, I just gotta say this. So I have lots of skin care. Like the cutting edge peptide people. Probably four or five, five different. Just amazing. I use all of them and I mix them up and put them on my face and I think it's working. But the standard of practice is these big plasticky bottles that have a tiny little vial inside. I can't travel with this. What I normally do is I rip the top off. So I just have the little thing. And I know you're doing it because that's what the market expects. So if you run a skincare brand, I know there's a lot of entrepreneurs listening to the show come out with a lightweight bottle and Just pass those savings on and just tell people, here's why we do it, because this drives me nuts. But it's the standard.

[Chris Perez]

Or maybe a travel kit like that. That makes a lot of point.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay. Oh, this has got a lot of GHK in it.

[Chris Perez]

Yes, sir, it does.

[Dave Asprey]

If you look at that color, a lot of things with GHK aren't a blue color. And wait, two drops does that? I gotta add two drops of the other stuff?

[Chris Perez]

Yeah.

[Dave Asprey]

All right. Is that per one pump?

[Chris Perez]

Yeah, one pump, two drops.

[Dave Asprey]

And what's in this activator?

[Chris Perez]

That is the ESS 60 and MCT. Okay. And then you'll notice this, the scent, which is a Damascus rose oil. Absolutely amazing.

[Dave Asprey]

You have to put a scent in there, huh?

[Chris Perez]

Well, yes, it's not. It's a. It's a damask. You know, it's this essential oil. Not a. Not a fragrance.

[Dave Asprey]

So I just don't like when my face smells like stuff.

[Chris Perez]

We, you know, we have had some testimonials where, you know, the husband's using it, and she's like, hashtag, smell my face.

[Dave Asprey]

Cool. I smell like I'm wearing perfume, though. All right, make an unscented one, please.

[Chris Perez]

Okay. I guess I can work that up and send it to you. I'd be happy to do that.

[Dave Asprey]

Nice. This is a cool idea. What do you see when people are getting this combination? Like, what is the ESS60 molecule doing for skin specifically?

[Chris Perez]

Well, well. And you already know the Uth 29 peptide. It already is good for collagen production. It's good for kind of wrinkle reduction and also for pigmentation, reducing pigmentation.

[Dave Asprey]

A lot of good evidence. I'm just going to call it G bhk.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah, that's fine. Yeah.

[Dave Asprey]

I mean, that's not really a proprietary peptide.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah, no. And there is actually similar Data on the SS60 molecule.

[Dave Asprey]

Oh, interesting. So this stacking of them makes sense. I'm going to add this to my stack. I don't know if I want to smell this all day long, but most people like rose oil, so I just. Maybe I'm. Maybe I'm sensitive.

[Chris Perez]

It is kind of funny, right? Because we're born out of this longevity space with, you know, this mitochondrial benefits. And then you put something together that feels good and smells good. And then people at our booth, that's what they often buy.

[Dave Asprey]

It feels good on the skin. But how long does it take to see a difference from it?

[Chris Perez]

I mean, we have people who report. I think that's why the. The. The Boulder Longevity Institute, like they came right away because they're seeing, saw results pretty quickly. And, and I think the experience is just amazing.

[Dave Asprey]

Yeah.

[Chris Perez]

And to have a two part like which what kind of cosmetic are you activating in your hand before you apply it? Like it's a pretty spectacular kind of product. Cool.

[Dave Asprey]

Does it do like sun protection or anything like that or.

[Chris Perez]

We looked at it. So when you change your manufacturing facility ability to get into SPF now you're an over the counter drug. And so we were like, we're not ready to go down that path.

[Dave Asprey]

Oh yeah, you're not going to sell it for that. But I mean in anecdotally does it make people more resilient?

[Chris Perez]

We, we. I think it's great after like if you do get some sun damage, no testimonial, I mean no claim there. But the benefits of the ghk and the ESS60 molecule are, are pretty phenomenal. Okay. And so that's, that's where I would lean on it. It's, it's the thing I use every day. It's pretty amazing.

[Dave Asprey]

What kind of person is least likely to notice a difference from ess60?

[Chris Perez]

I think if you are pretty optimized, right. And you're not really pushing yourself. Right. So you're just kind of content and you're doing, I don't know, 20 minutes of light cardio, not excessive cardio. You're barely doing resistance training. Your meals are pretty dialed in. You might not know much, I mean notice much. But if you're you, you know a lot because you're doing all that stuff. But if you really are pushing yourself and really trying to optimize yourself, I think that's where you're going to notice a difference.

[Dave Asprey]

You'll notice it most there. Okay.

[Chris Perez]

And, and I'll also share. We do have, you know, we have thousands five star reviews on Google mostly because of our customer service department is absolutely amazing, super knowledgeable, super helpful and we do get testimonials every now and then. Hey, I've taken your product for three weeks. I didn't notice, you know, cancel my subscription. And then a week later they're like, hey, turn that subscription back on. No kidding. I actually now I know what I'm missing.

[Dave Asprey]

This is one of the problems in biohacking. If you make a product that you feel the first day people are like, yeah, but some of the most impactful things take a while like timeline instead of two months of doing this increases ATP output very meaningfully. But if you take it on the first day. Unless you take a whole handful of the stuff, you're probably not going to feel it. Yeah. So this is where science gets really interesting. And some things if as long as you know, know how long to use it before you just sit down and say, hey, am I really feeling it? And one of the problems we have as humans, you're not going to notice that you gained 15 pounds until you look in the mirror one day and go, what just happened? But it happened every single day. But it was slow. And so setting something on your calendar that tells you like, okay, I've been doing this for a month. Do I really notice the difference? And you look at your sleep score or you look at whatever and go, oh, wow, it did make a difference. So the subtle change range, it's harder to market. And it's funny because the things I make, like vitamin D and Minerals101, they're not going to make you feel different on the first day unless you're really deficient, but they're foundational for everything else to work. And I would even argue that something like ESS 60, if you're lacking zinc and magnesium, it's not going to work as well. Yeah, like, but these are almost.

[Chris Perez]

Take care of that first. Yeah.

[Dave Asprey]

Like the least sexy supplements on the planet that you're not going to of feel. But. And that means they're the hardest to market. If I added caffeine, then people would probably buy them more, but I don't want to do that.

[Chris Perez]

So we had a marketing company like, yeah, you need to add a laxative to your product so that people have a sensation when they're on the product. Right. And then, then like, we know it's working. And I was like, I get where you're coming from. We're not going to do that.

[Dave Asprey]

That's crazy pants.

[Chris Perez]

Right? Wow. Right. But, but the. You're exactly right. Like if, if not nothing is happening in that moment. And like, oh, I didn't really notice anything. That's why we think in terms of the three months. Right. Okay. Focus and energy month one, sleep month two. And then really kind of more systemic benefits in. Got it. 3.

[Dave Asprey]

And if you're in a mitochondrial crisis, you might feel it a lot sooner, like in a migraine or after a long workout or something like that.

[Chris Perez]

Absolutely.

[Dave Asprey]

Okay. We've got lots of oxidative stress. This, this is an interesting tool. And given that we've got that first mouse study was what early 2012 was.

[Chris Perez]

When it came out. Yeah.

[Dave Asprey]

There was, there was a study in longevity way before that.

[Chris Perez]

Really?

[Dave Asprey]

Yeah, that, that was why we were doing it back then.

[Chris Perez]

So you, it was probably the first.

[Dave Asprey]

Anecdotal study or something.

[Chris Perez]

Probably.

[Dave Asprey]

It might have, in fact it might have even been just a guy who did it on his at home or something. I, I, I, I, I always read the first thing and go do it.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah.

[Dave Asprey]

Same thing with metformin. When the first paper came out from BioMarker Pharmaceuticals in 2003, I'm like, I'll take metformin for longevity. It worked in mice. And it turns out I don't think it's a good longevity anything for humans. But it's like someone's got to try it first. And the right, it's usually somebody in.

[Chris Perez]

Your clan now like whoever's, whoever's trying it first.

[Dave Asprey]

And you just got to look at are there risks and all. And you know, we have a right to self experiment that is I will say God given. And no government or insurance company or anything else has the right to tell you that you're not in charge of your biology because you are.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah. So I want to, this just came to my mind, mind, you know, as we were having not for human consumption on our labeling and we're getting these, you know, amazing testimonials. You know, Joe doing hit training on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I mean Joe's rat. We were really looking at, it was my job as the chief scientist to figure out, okay, what's, what's the mechanism of action? Right. And we kind of landed on the BOSS theory, Buffering oxidative stress system. We started with just sleep. Right. Because if you, you know, it's our most consistent testimonial by the way, taking something in the morning, morning and sleeping better at night. Right. You're, you're probably one of the most knowledgeable, kind of across broad spectrum. What can you take in the morning to positively impact sleep at night?

[Dave Asprey]

Sunshine.

[Chris Perez]

Sunshine and exercise. Yeah. Right. So it's pretty fantastic and really goes to support that, that BOSS theory. So that's where we hung our hat. If you're just improving sleep, you're going to have mental, physical and emotional improvement. Kind of stuck there. Next I was like, well, what does the medical community think about aging? They don't all agree, but they tend to think of it as an oxidation and an inflammation process. Right. Like Those are the two kind of guideposts. I already mentioned 120 peer reviewed published research, 125 times more powerful than vitamin C. We're in Texas, so we have a big old check mark Next. Antioxidant. When it comes to inflammation, you have to be really careful, as I'm sure you know, with the fda. Fda? Because the FDA equates conversations of inflammation with the diseases of inflammation. Yeah. Which are also the diseases of aging. So Alzheimer's, arthritis, cardiovascular disease. So if I come on your show and I say, hey, we're addressing chronic inflammation, what the FDA hears is, I cure cancer, I cure cardiovascular disease. We are not saying that. Obviously, there's so much research that would need to go, expensive research that would need to go in improve that. So those are kind of the two checkbox. And then we're doing that HSCRP study, which is an inflammatory marker. Excited about that. Those are really kind of core mechanisms that we're. We believe that we're addressing through this boss theory.

[Dave Asprey]

Wow. It's amazing that you started out making a molecule for ink and for, you know, high energy physics experiments and things like that. And just through the process of really human experimentation. Not that you did, but that humans did on our, ourselves. We figured this out after seeing what it did in rats. And years later, now we have something that's working certainly with superconductive properties, probably some quantum properties and some pretty convincing longevity and human performance data. So I'm really interested and you've convinced me that I'm going to get the capsules I didn't know you made, so I can add those to my sack when I travel, which is much easier than bringing a bottle, which I used to try to do, but it was just too many. Too many, no checked bags trips. We only have so much capacity. So you just solved a major problem for me. And I will be religiously taking this stuff. So thank you. Thank you for just doing the science and all that, but I. I have a bone to pick with you.

[Chris Perez]

Okay. All right.

[Dave Asprey]

You said you were a comedian, and you don't seem. You seem like you're funny at all.

[Chris Perez]

I don't. I feel like the Marty Gro analogy. Right?

[Dave Asprey]

That was. That was the best you got?

[Chris Perez]

Yeah, that was the song. So remember, I'm a improv artist, right? So, like, whose line is it anyway? And I used to say when I was high. So I, I performed professionally for about five years and I would share with people that I do improv and they're like, say something funny. I was like, that's not exactly how it works. Give me a location and a relationship and another actor. Boom, We'll. We'll do really well.

[Dave Asprey]

My. My former girlfriend and I signed up for an improv class here in Austin, but it got canceled because not enough other people signed up for it. So we were kind of bummed.

[Chris Perez]

I could not recommend it more like, and one, I think you would, you would thrive on the creativity that's, that's there. I, I, you know, at the end of the toughest week possible, I would go on stage as the, you know, as the entertainer. And it was just a total mind erase because everything that I'm going to do is going to come from you, my fellow actor. Right?

[Dave Asprey]

Yeah.

[Chris Perez]

And I'll have an idea. Hey, this buckyball is about to fly. And then you see squish it. It's not going to fly anymore. So we got to move on to some other aspect and, and you really just have to, like, come up with ideas. Let them go. Come, come up with ideas, let them go.

[Dave Asprey]

It's, it's kind of a flow state thing.

[Chris Perez]

It was absolute flow state and it was, you know, you come off so energized, so excited. It was amazing.

[Dave Asprey]

I got one for you. We talked about the Schrodinger's cat. You know, it's either dead or alive and all that. You ever heard of Schrodinger's flirt, flirt.

[Chris Perez]

Flirt, is that she either gave you your number or not.

[Dave Asprey]

So, so here's what it is. You say something. Of course I'm joking. Unless you're really into that.

[Chris Perez]

We're both. Yes, I'm very serious. Unless you're really concerned about it, then. Yeah, it's, it's a good. I'm sure I've used it at some point. Yeah. Yep. In, in the past, so for sure.

[Dave Asprey]

No, that was my best, my best attempt at humor. And I, I feel like it felt kind of flat, but I might have used that a few times and it seemed to work pretty well.

[Chris Perez]

So it is, you know what it is? It's a kind of, in business parlance, it's asking for the clothes, but not really like, it's a tentative ask for the clothes.

[Dave Asprey]

Yeah, yeah. And it's when people can say things that are a little risky but not.

[Chris Perez]

That serious unless we're good.

[Dave Asprey]

Yeah. So that name, Schrodinger's Flirt made me laugh. So one thing about humor, about intuition, about creativity, about any of the altered states of consciousness business, including shamanic work, qigong, psychedelic work, all of them are better with functioning mitochondria. And I've had the, the honor of working with more than a few really big name, very powerful, energetic people. And every single one of them, when we enhance mitochondrial function they say the same thing. My powers got better. And one friend who's in his 80s actually called me with tears in his eyes and said thank you, you gave me my powers back. Like I'm so old, they were fading and, and now like I, I do these things and, and it works again. And I, I learned this because at 40 years was then that we're pushing the limits of what humans can do in altered states. And these are self induced altered states. Unless you're doing the ketamine option, which you don't have to do to enter altered states. But mitochondrial function is foundational for consciousness. And that's why I'm really interested in the ESS60 molecule because if it can make my mitochondria work better, have more capacity, actually would increase consciousness, not just human performance. And that's really the game. If you're going to live for hundreds of years, you might want to be happy and fully awake the whole time.

[Chris Perez]

It can help you with that reset process. I had the pleasure of interviewing you about Heavily Meditated, which is, is still an amazing title. I love that. And, and that is, I actually listened to it as I was driving up from Houston that episode. And yeah, you talked about how it's in the mitochondria and if you can improve your mitochondria, you're going to improve your consciousness. That's fantastic. And then that's a way to help facilitate that reset process. So cool.

[Dave Asprey]

So guys, make your mitochondria work by any means necessary. And who knows, you might have some superpowers you don't know about or at a minimum you'll just enjoy your life, life more. And this is one additional way to do it. You go to myvitalc.com humanupgrade and what, they get a discount?

[Chris Perez]

Yeah. Well, let me explain because there's a couple things going on that I'm really proud of. One, yes, there's absolutely. Discount is a 30 discount. We have really mapped up as you scroll down the page, lots of testimonials, lots of fine stuff you'd find on a, on a regular web page. We have a two bottle, a three bottle and a six bottle offer. We really put. And it's at a 40 discount. So we're hooking, hooking your audience.

[Dave Asprey]

That's a hu.

[Chris Perez]

Yeah. Plus the $30 off the six bottles. We were really thinking, you know, I kind of mapped out three months and if you wanted to share that with somebody else, go through that experience together, that's, that's the key offer. If you scroll A little bit farther down there's actually the cosmetic that we talked about, the skin reduo and the bottle. Right. So you have a two, three and six month option there and then at the very bottom. So take advantage of that. Obviously giving this stuff away for this huge discount. Then we have another discount for subscription. And I always share, go on subscription, take that extra discount. As I mentioned, our customer customer service team has a thousand five star reviews on Google. So they're not trained to talk you out of canceling your subscription. They're trained to help you take advantage of that discount. By the way, most people just stay on the thing that I'm proud of, the most proud of on that page on the bottom you can get my book. So it's live longer and better. It's on Amazon, $20. It's on the website. $20 for 10 extra dollars I'll autograph the bucks book for you. 100% of that fee goes to Operation Underground Railroad.

[Dave Asprey]

Oh wow.

[Chris Perez]

So you may remember the movie the Sound of Freedom, which was an amazing movie about a horrible topic, child sex trafficking. Operation Underground Railroad is doing an amazing job of working to get that off of our planet. So 100 of that signature fee goes to that.

[Dave Asprey]

So there you go guys. Go to my vital c.com human upgrade. You're going to save 30 bucks. You're going get 40 off and you spend an extra, extra 10 bucks. You get a signed book and you support Thunderground Railroad to end child sex trafficking, which is just a horrific thing. So thanks for doing all the good stuff. And you're the OG C60 molecule guy on the planet and you've got a pretty convincing story here about why you make it the way you do and why there are issues with this molecule and supplement business of efficacy and concentration. And you've sold solved all that. So thanks for doing the good work my friend.

[Chris Perez]

Man, thank you for having me.

[Dave Asprey]

See you next time on the Human Upgrade Podcast.

[Narrator/Disclaimer Voice]

A Human Upgrade, formerly Bulletproof Radio was created and is hosted by Dave Asprey. The information contained in this podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended for the purposes of diagnosing, treating, curing or preventing any disease. Before using any products referenced on the podcast, consult a with your healthcare provider, carefully read all labels and heed all directions and cautions that accompany the products. Information found or received through the podcast should not be used in place of a consultation or advice from a healthcare provider. If you suspect you have a medical problem or should you have any healthcare questions, please promptly call or see your healthcare provider. This podcast, including Dave Asprey and the producers, disclaim responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained herein. Opinions of guests are their own and this podcast is not endorsed or accept responsibility for statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guest qualifications or credibility. This podcast may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products or services. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to herein. This podcast is owned by Bulletproof Media.