Transcript of Episode 543: Dave Watumull: The One Algae Your Supplement Stack Has Always Been Missing New

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

Hi everybody. Welcome to Habits and Hustle. We have a very special guest today. We have Dave Wademull, who is the co-founder and CEO of AX3 Life. Now, you might be wondering what that is, and what that is, is it's an astaxanthin company. So Dave is on a mission to bring astaxanthin to the world. There, it's a marine super nutrient that supports your whole body's health and longevity. It has captured his imagination for more than 25 years of research, development, and commercialization. He is the co-founder and CEO of AX3 Life, a consumer health company dedicated to astaxanthin products, education, and community. Now, just for your information, I just said that we typically don't even do— I don't usually read a bio, but I wanted to kind of get it out because I needed to practice the word astaxanthin.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I find, look, this is why I wanted to do this podcast is because I was saying to you off camera that it's one of these things that are so unknown, but yet probably one of the most effective, most powerful antioxidant there is. And so when there's something that hasn't been totally just kind of just spoken about ad nauseam, I really wanna deep dive 'cause that to me is when it's really the most interesting, right? It's kind of like we all, we all hear vitamin C, we all hear of like even like resveratrol, right? But not very many people, like even me, I was saying to you guys, I didn't even know what this was until like maybe 2 years ago or maybe a year and a half ago, Max Lugavere was here and he was talking about it to me and I was like, wow, that's something I, and so I did my own little deep dive and then I started taking it and now like I told you, I notice it much more because I'm aware of it. So with that little extra intro, tell me like what made you, like who you are and why you started a company just on this particular thing and kind of like give us a little bit of your origin story.

Yeah, so I've been working with astaxanthin for virtually my whole life, um, since high school. Initially as a summer job, I went to the Big Island of Hawaii, went to Kona, and there was a company there that had a group of scientists from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego, and they had a cool technology to grow a particular type of microalgae. That happens to produce astaxanthin as a defense mechanism against UV light from the sun. And so when you're growing this algae, it starts off life green in these big ponds. And then when the sunlight hits it in the brutal heat in Kona, where the Ironman train in the lava fields, they actually internally produce astaxanthin and turn bright red. And that is their defense mechanism. And it helps to absorb some of that light and protect them from oxidative stress and damage. And so this was going back to my high school years working in the production, the ponds, and then thereafter pursuing various pharmaceutical and nutraceutical applications of astaxanthin. Just given that at the time there was very limited research, there was less than 200 peer-reviewed papers, no human clinical studies.

And now over the last 25 years, there's now more than 4,000 peer-reviewed papers and like 100 human clinical studies conducted by not, not just us, but, you know, researchers internationally, just because it's such a molecule of interest throughout the world in the research community, although not really known in the consumer and mainstream community.

That was what I find very interesting. Like, why is it that most people have heard of— like, give us some other examples of other antioxidants. There's like— or where— like, we've all heard of vitamin C, vitamin E, all these other— beta-carotene. But why has this particular thing— like, I can say it again—

Astaxanthin.

Astaxanthin, thank you. Why is it so unknown?

Yeah, it just hasn't, well, first of all, it wasn't easy to make for a long time. It took some technology on the microalgal side to produce the algae to extract it. And then also if you wanna do a laboratory method to make it highly pure and consistent and bioavailable, that also is not something easy to do. So both of those were kind of barriers to entry, just as a product to be available to consumers. I was part of the team that brought one of the first astaxanthin supplements to the market back in the '99, 2000 timeframe. Wow. There's been products on the market for now more than 25 years, but they've just been, you know, sold through traditional channels and, you know, supplement, you know, brands and stores. But there hasn't been a major push, you know, in terms of there was no celebrity backing or partnership or major, you know, consumer health company that was marketing it or, you know, major like TV campaigns or social media campaigns. And so it's kind of just gone under the radar. It just hasn't had its time in the spotlight yet. But the science has just been continuing to grow over all these years.

And the more you dig, the more interesting it is. And so that's what really our mission now is to spread the word about astaxanthin because we spent the better part of a decade after that initial start looking at pharmaceutical applications of the molecule, thinking that maybe doctors could prescribe this for disease use for patients. And then ultimately came back to the supplement space with the learnings from, from the pharmaceutical research and manufacturing to bring a supplement that has that type of rigor around the manufacturing and kind of the knowledge behind how it works and the potential applications and bringing that to the consumer space. But for several years, we just worked on reaching out to doctors locally in Hawaii, selling in retail stores. But then with the pandemic, we figured we got to have a better way to reach people beyond just person to person, you know, with a doctor, with, you know, at a store. And that's why we formed AX3 in the last few years was really to create you know, a community and, and kind of a digital outreach through podcasts and social media to kind of reach more people and, and educate them about astaxanthin.

Tell people what oxidative stress is, because people use that term.

Yeah.

And a lot of times people don't even know what it means. So, yeah, let's talk to me like I'm like 7.

Okay, so, so we breathe the oxygen, we consume nutrients, and, and we produce energy in ourselves, right? Just to power everything, to move our muscles, to think. And oxygen is a big part of that process. As a byproduct of that energy production, some of the oxygen gets turned into reactive oxygen species, free radicals, that when you have too much of those, it becomes oxidative stress. Your body has endogenous antioxidant systems like glutathione, SOD, superoxide dismutase, that takes care of some, uh, of that free radical or reactive oxygen species, the oxidative stress. but it oftentimes gets overwhelmed and then you get oxidative stress, which is where you have more of these reactive oxygen species or free radicals than should be around. And then they, they are bad actors, you know, so you're producing energy in your mitochondria, the little power plants of your cell. As a byproduct of that, think of like an energy, you know, production facility. There's, there's, you know, pollution coming out of it. That pollution or byproduct can damage things and, and it can damage your cells, which can lead to health issues, aging, et cetera. And so that's oxidative stress. And at the same time, your immune system, when it's fighting off infections or, you know, wound healing, it can actually come in and create its own reactive oxygen species, which can be healthy for trying to kill like, you know, a virus or a pathogen.

It does that internally, but then it's meant to kind of turn off and go away. The problem is when you have this happening on a constant basis and you have too much of these free radicals attacking portions of your cell and then damaging whether it's your membranes, your proteins, which carry out all the activity in your cells or your DNA, you know, that can become damaged from oxidative stress. So that's really something that over time can lead to all these health issues and aging. So we want to try to reduce oxidative stress, which is also tied in with inflammation. There are inflammatory pathways that are triggered by oxidative stress in the cells when, when they sense that there's oxidative stress, there's a change in that redox environment in the cell. It turns on these inflammatory pathways. And then now you recruit the troops, you recruit the fire department, you know, to the cell and they're trying to fix things. But sometimes there's nothing to be fixed. And now it's actually causing damage because your immune system, rather than fighting off, you know, a parasite or an infection or bacteria or healing a wound from an injury, now it's just attacking your own tissues.

Right.

And you don't need that. And so it's really important to reduce oxidative stress and chronic inflammation for overall health and longevity.

You said something though, you mentioned glutathione because glutathione, I was under, I thought that was the most powerful antioxidant that there is that your body has. And then like the precursor is NAC, correct? So I've been taking that forever for years. Like, you know, I think a lot of people, what they do is they think that they are deficient in something. So then they end up taking it for years on end without, check in their blood work regularly, and so they don't even know what they're like, how it changes over time, right? Can you tell us what are the main benefits of astaxanthin? And then let's get into more Cephaloth after that.

So like you said, it's an antioxidant, but it's different. Not all antioxidants are the same.

Okay.

There's how potent they are and what types of reactive oxygen species or free radicals that they're best at targeting.

Okay.

With astaxanthin, it's uniquely structure to be able to quench singlet oxygen, which is a particular type of oxygen that's, you know, has kind of has extra energy, say from UV light that, that hits it. And that energy can be damaging to other components in your cells, like your lipids and your proteins and DNA. With astaxanthin, it can interface with that and actually absorb the energy and the molecule can vibrate and kind of dissipate the heat from that energy and, and then be back to normal and, and with no damage to the cell. And in that particular mechanism of targeting singlet oxygen, which is a reactive oxygen species, it's like thousands of times stronger than vitamin C and is similar compared to vitamin E and beta carotene. So in studies looking at its antioxidant ability, it was much more potent than all of the common antioxidants. In, in addition to that, there's other types of free radicals, which are reactive oxygen species that may be missing an electron. And oxygen loves electrons and, and in particular when they're free radicals, it's trying to steal an electron from the lipids or the proteins or the DNA, the components of your cells that, that build your cells and your tissues and the body that you are.

And so astaxanthin can actually donate an electron to those free radicals to neutralize them effectively. And then astaxanthin itself doesn't become reactive because of its molecular structure where it can distribute that, that loss of the electron. And actually it partners well with vitamin C to kind of get an electron back and then get back to normal. And we've done studies with a collaborator at Harvard that has a model that models a membrane, inserts things like astaxanthin or beta-carotene, and sees if the membrane is disrupted and/or oxidized. And we found that with astaxanthin, the membrane was completely undisturbed. It was just like perfectly situated in there. The membrane was super happy and there was, no oxidation of the membrane, whereas with other things, it disrupted the membrane. And so the membrane wasn't happy. It's kind of like messing up the walls of your house and, and now you have structural issues.

Wow.

And so, yeah, other antioxidants like beta-carotene or vitamin E can even become pro-oxidant at certain levels. If, you know, if they are fighting off free radicals, sometimes they can become reactive and damage things on their own. But astaxanthin is like a pure antioxidant that doesn't ever become pro-oxidant. It always remains an antioxidant, which is very unique. So it's much more potent than most anti-inflammatories. It spans the membrane in a very unique way that other antioxidants don't. It gets to all of the membranes of the cell, not just the outer membrane, but the mitochondria nucleus, and it gets naturally distributed throughout your whole body. And so when you take it orally, it gets transported to your liver along with other fats that you're ingesting in that meal. And then it gets packaged into— if you've heard of like LDL and HDL, those lipoproteins, it gets packaged into those and prevents them from being oxidized while using them as a transport, like a bus throughout the body to go to the heart and to the brain. So that's what they use. What, that's what astaxanthin uses to travel throughout the body. Then it gets to your heart, gets to your brain, gets to your other tissues and organs, and then gets into all the cells and, and the membranes within those cells.

So it's basically distributed throughout your entire body, gets into all your membranes and just kind of sits there and fights off free radicals, you know, that are kind of being generated and not being properly managed by your endogenous systems, but it's not chronically inhibiting or activating certain things. Like a lot of agents or drugs go in and just, oh, something's a little bit off, let me just go in and completely take it out or completely turn something on, which is not meant to be how your body functions. It may fix that limited issue, but then now you have side effects down the road because that's not how nature intended your cells to function. Astaxanthin basically is helping to just maintain or restore that normal function of the cells. Just let's prevent the lipids and the proteins and the DNA, which are all the key components that are basically what make your cells, the, your cells and your tissues, just preventing them from being oxidized and damaged by inflammation. And just so they can just do their normal job and function normally. That's really what it does is just, you know, allow for homeostasis and normal cellular function.

But in terms of say NR, that was tested in this longevity study that we were also a part of with the NIH called the Interventions Testing Program, which is probably the most rigorous mammalian assessment of lifespan. In the world.

What do you call the test? It's called— what's it called?

So it's the Interventions Testing Program, the ITP, and it's conducted at the National Institute on Aging, the NIA, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, the NIH. And so that's the, you know, the US government's, you know, institutes of science and medicine. And it funds a lot of biomedical research and conducts research as well. And so this program has been running for the last 20 years. Conducted at 3 different institutions. So it's very robust because you're not just doing a study in one place, you're doing it at the University of Michigan, University of Texas, and a research group in Maine. And you have this, the same setup at each site. So you're running basically 3 studies, but in parallel and hoping to get, you know, the same type of result at all 3. And they perfected this model over, you know, decades. And they have— ideally you would test in humans, but it would take decades to actually look at lifespan. And so, so mice are the best that we can get in terms of something that takes a few years to get, you know, an indication of, okay, this might be a viable longevity lifespan-enhancing agent.

And that's really the program that put rapamycin on the map as, oh, this actually— this old repurposed drug that used to be used for organ transplants now actually can extend your lifespan. It may give you kind of tolerability issues or side effect issues that, you know, are not optimal from a day-to-day dosage standpoint, but It looks like it would extend your lifespan numerically, although who knows about quality of life at that point, you know, but that is nevertheless, that is the program that really identified that rapamycin was a legitimate lifespan-enhancing agent. And other things like NR have also been tested in that model and did not extend lifespan. And not to say that NR doesn't have utility or NAD doesn't have, you know, benefit for health and for aging, but in terms of direct lifespan enhancement in, in this model, which was meant to replicate aging to the best extent possible in these mice. A lot of things— green tea, resveratrol— was tested, did not extend lifespan. So in a 20-year history, only 10 things have extended lifespan at all with statistical significance, and only 5 have actually extended lifespan more than 10%. And those 5 that have worked are things like rapamycin or other drugs.

And we were invited to supply material to the program back in 2019 based on preliminary research where astaxanthin was demonstrated to extend lifespan in other model organisms like worms and fruit flies and yeast, which are basic research models to look at things like aging or disease. So we extended lifespan in those models. We also showed that at the cellular level, the pathways that rapamycin acts on, like mTOR, or the sirtuins that resveratrol acts on, or AMPK that metformin acts on, all of these critical pathways astaxanthin also has an impact on them. So mechanistically, it makes sense that astaxanthin would support aging and longevity. And so we supplied this material to the NIH program, and after several years of following the mice, it turns out that astaxanthin did extend the lifespan by 12%. And so that's up there in the range of some of their top performers, but with the key difference that it actually has exceptional safety and tolerability. Or like in the case of resveratrol, There was research, you know, in at this point probably 20-plus years ago that, you know, came out of like David Sinclair's laboratory and people were really excited about it.

They formed, you know, the company Sirtus to create pharmaceutical versions of resveratrol. It was purchased by GSK for hundreds of millions of dollars, $600 million. Yeah. And then after a few years of research, it was shelved because it didn't seem to really, you know, have the science.

It was like there was no proof of anything.

Yeah. I think the mechanism with the sirtuins, I mean, there is something there, but maybe where resveratrol wasn't exactly, you know, the optimal candidate for that. And so—

Well, so what happens is you think of his— like, what happens to that $600 million purchase? Do they have to give the money back or—

Oh, no, no. I know, I'm joking. Yeah, they don't.

It doesn't work that way.

It's like, oh, sorry. But I mean, that's how drug development works. I mean, companies will spend hundreds of millions or billions trying to develop things and not everything works.

So NR never extended lifespan. NMN never extended.

NMN wasn't tested in that model yet.

It wasn't tested. Yeah.

So we don't know about that, but NR at least didn't. Resveratrol didn't, green tea didn't, omega-3s didn't.

Yeah, those green tea didn't either. No, for polyphenols and all that.

But again, all those may have other good health benefits, but maybe just wouldn't numerically extend your lifespan in a typical population based on this study.

All right, I want to tell you about one of the most powerful science-backed supplements I've come across. It's called astaxanthin. It's a marine antioxidant supported by over 4,000 scientific papers and 100 human studies. Astaxanthin works at the cellular level, protecting your DNA, reducing inflammation, and supporting your brain, heart, muscle, skin, and energy. It's one of the very few supplements shown to impact multiple hallmarks of aging and improving your endurance, recovery, and your overall longevity. And that's why I've partnered with AX3 Life. Their BioPure astaxanthin has been clinically proven to be absorbed 3 times better than standard astaxanthin and was actually validated in the NIH's gold standard longevity program. I've also had their CEO on my podcast, and the science is pretty compelling. Go to ax3.life and use promo code HUSTLE to get 20% off your first order. That's AX3.life and use promo code HUSTLE for 20% off your first order. So I'm curious if this is something that it's such a powerful antioxidant, like more, 1,000 times more powerful than vitamin C. Mm-hmm. And, and, and what I initially heard, what it's really great for your skin. Nails, hair, like a beauty— there's a big beauty element to this, right?

Why are there not any serums just like an— like an— as— how do you say it again?

Astaxanthin.

Astaxanthin serums and creams. I mean, this is a massive market in the beauty world. Like, it's a trillion-dollar market. There's a bazillion vitamin C serums. There's a billion serums, you know, pushing resveratrol. You know, because of all the— because of the ability to fight free radicals. Meanwhile, you know, there's been— it's come back that there's no real data that even supports that resveratrol is even effective. And yet it's a multibillion-dollar— it was a multibillion-dollar company brand.

Yeah.

So why are more people not creating beauty, beauty products with this?

There are a few, in particular in the Asian market. There's a Korean— like the Korean, Japanese, Korean. Yeah. Yeah. So there are products that utilize astaxanthin. You'll find some cosmetics. And so I think it will become more common just as more cosmetic brands are aware of the science and want to include it because there are studies showing that both oral and topical administration of astaxanthin do reduce fine lines and wrinkles and increase moisture content and elasticity, uh, prevent some of the DNA damage to skin cells that happens from UV light. Also promotes eye health, both based on strain, like, uh, from looking at digital screens.

Mm-hmm.

but also based on the light that comes in, you know, from the, you know, from the sun. And so it really is important. And I think that the one challenge though is that it's such a bright red pigment. And so you can imagine if you mix it into lotion, which we've done kind of on our own kind of crude formulations of topical, you know, lotions and creams, it's bright red. And, you know, and so you, if you have a high dose in it, it's like putting on war paint, like a red. Right, right, right.

Rouge.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So you may have to have, you know, a low level to not have it be something that like, colors the skin with, you know, with the application of the topical cream or lotion, but still is enough to be effective. Fortunately, though, astaxanthin, without needing to apply it topically, it naturally gets distributed throughout your whole body and even gets to your skin cells. So it can, it can be that internal, you know, protector of the skin just by taking it orally.

I think it's a beauty hack. I think it's like the best-kept secret that nobody talks about is that if you take this astaxanthin, as a, as a capsule, it will be a great thing for your skin, your nails, your hair. Everything grows faster, looks better, and like nobody's doing it. Nobody's talking about it. And like, it's, it's like the cheapest, the cheapest beauty hack you can do.

Yeah. A lot of those cosmetic products are quite expensive.

Very expensive. And like, well, that's a big deal because I think that the truth of the matter is everything now is about longevity. That's like the new buzzword of the day, right? Everyone, longevity, longevity, longevity. And so the assumption is to live longer. So everyone's doing all these things, taking these injections, these peptides, all the things, because they're expecting to live longer and live better.

Yeah, because you want to not just live longer, but have health.

And have health as well.

Yeah.

So if like a lot, and like if most of this stuff, actually almost all of it is a bunch of nonsense, you know, it's like that's the bottom line. It is mostly nonsense. I know it's nonsense because This is the thing, right? Like there's always certain things, like there's always so much you can do to really move the needle. You can only like, you know, you have, you can exercise, you can eat well, you can not smoke, drink less, all the things, right? But then there's other things that move the needle like a little, little, little bit. And those things I like from all of my readings, all the experts that I talk to, the top people in the world, and they, they say to me like off, you know, offline, like, nah, that most, like most of this stuff is not gonna really like help you. The sauna can be a great thing. Cold plunge, eh, some people are saying yes, some people are saying no. Are saying no.

That's mixed. Yeah.

There's only a few things that everyone's in agreement with, right? Like, so that's why this was very interesting to me because like it's usually the ones that are the most unknown, undetected, like less popular that actually like actually work. Like nobody— like exercise is very unpopular, but it works better than anything else. You know what I mean? Like unfortunately that's the way it works. Like this thing here, it's a very— it's actually a very moderately— it's a very inexpensive supplement, astaxanthin. Like, how much is a bottle of this stuff?

So ours is $50. You can find cheaper ones on Amazon for $25, but they are— ours is absorbed 3 times better.

That's good to know.

Yeah, you're paying half, but you're, you're taking 3 times as much, uh, you know, in that case.

So, well, that's good to know because, you know why? When I went on Amazon before I even met you and knew about your products and all this stuff and how How rigorous you are with your testing and all the things, that's very important. You know, you gotta be so careful with Amazon because I went on Amazon 2 years ago after Max told me all about all this stuff and I'm like, hmm, maybe I'm gonna find astaxanthin. And this thing had like, this brand had like 20,000 reviews and I'm like, oh, it must be good, right? So I bought it. Meanwhile, it's garbage and I didn't know, you know, because you gotta be careful. What are people supposed to look for? How do they know what works, what doesn't work? Like what's the most potent version of astaxanthin, how much they should take? And in terms of like, just like, like quality basically.

Yeah, so if you go to Amazon, and it's not to say that those other brands or products are garbage, you know, they, there might be some. Yes, they are.

And they probably use like such a little amount of, there's like 1% astaxanthin and the rest filler.

Yeah, so there are those products. Yeah. And, and, um, you wanna make sure you get, if you are getting one from Amazon, one from a reputable company that is either a direct manufacturer or your company.

Tell us why.

Or from us.

Yeah. Tell us why yours is like, how, why yours is actually special.

So we, um, having started in growing the microalgae, we noticed that that is prone to batch-to-batch variability, prone to contamination because you basically are growing algae in these big ponds. And you have the volcano nearby, you have the airport nearby. So airport, airplane jet fuel vapor.

You're doing it in Hawaii?

We used to. It was 25 plus years ago. We were growing the microalgae in the open ponds in Kona. And, but you are exposed to the elements. And so yes, you have the Hawaiian sunlight and air, but you also have vog from the volcano and the airport nearby and birds and rodents. And so it's outdoors. It's not as controlled. There are some groups like a group in Iceland and a group in Washington State that do it entirely enclosed, indoor. Tubes, so it's not prone to the contamination risks, but it's still an extract of the algae, which is only 5 or 10 or maybe even 15 or 20% if you're really doing like a high concentrated form. But most products on the market may be like, say, 5 or 10% astaxanthin. The rest is other stuff from the algae, which is related molecules or algal lipids or proteins that are, that are not going to harm you, but they're just not the active component that you want. And in our case, we, with a decade of pharmaceutical research, we decided to kind of produce it like a pharmaceutical in terms of in the laboratory, like highly pure, none of the other stuff, but just the active molecule that you find in nature with none of the other stuff.

So it's 100% pure.

It's 100% pure, but then we have to formulate it to make it absorbed because if it's, if we just take it off the end of the line, not formulated, you won't absorb it unfortunately. And so we have to formulate it to make it so well absorbed. But when we took our 12 milligram capsule or 2 of those, 24 milligrams total, versus potentially like the product you bought, which was like, yeah, very highly reviewed on Amazon, long-term, you know, brand on the market, same 12 milligram, 2 capsules of theirs. We got a group of human volunteers, healthy individuals, gave them the dose of the 2 12 milligram capsules of the algal form of the product, took their blood at multiple time points over 24 hours, sent the blood to the lab where we have methods to measure how much astaxanthin is in the blood. Then we sent them home for a week to let the astaxanthin wash out of their system. And at that point, bring them back. You can't— you don't measure any astaxanthin in their system anymore. So it's out of them completely. Then give them the same dose of ours, 2 12mg capsules, take their blood, measure it.

And we got 3 times the amount of astaxanthin at the highest concentration, but also the total exposure over 24 hours. If you add up all the concentrations at each time point, we had 3 times as much absorbed. So in the other case, you were passing some of it through into the toilet. You weren't actually absorbing it into your body. And so we have a much more effective formulation. And this was in the same group of people. So it's not just like, oh, it could have been a different group of people that absorbed it differently. It's literally the same people one week apart, just— and same dosage. And also the variability between each person was less in ours. And so you had a more consistent absorption. Oh, so in addition to 3 times as much. And our product is much more pure and consistent because we do it in the laboratory. And so it's, it's highly controlled and, and, uh, like pharmaceutical style manufacturing.

So it's basically a pharmaceutical grade product.

That would be, yeah, how you would describe it. It's still a natural, it's called like natural product total synthesis. So you're basically taking a natural product, making in the laboratory, but the exact molecular structure that you would find in nature.

So, okay. So then let, because, because the color of salmon, it's, okay, sorry. Salmon is pink because of astaxanthin. So what happens if we just— can't we just eat more salmon?

You could, but you'd have to eat about a pound of sockeye salmon to get 12 milligrams or like 4 pounds of Atlantic salmon to get the same. So, I mean, you can, but that's a lot, right?

And that's for— what, a day?

Yeah, for one capsule. And really, and a lot of people take, you know, 2 capsules a day or 4 or even 8 or more. And so in that case, it would be just like—

I'd be eating like 27 salmons.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's just, it's not really possible to eat that much salmon reliably. I mean, I think adding more salmon to your diet is great because you have omega-3s, you have astaxanthin, um, you know, but, um, it's just hard.

That'd be hard to eat that much salmon.

Yeah.

So for, for best use, I've been taking 1 capsule. Should I be taking more? 2? 3?

Yeah, the most studies show increasing like dose-dependent effects and say in that human study we did for cardiovascular health, we found better results at 8 capsules a day even versus 2. If you want just basic health and longevity support, 1 or 2 should be fine. But given that it's exceptionally safe, we, we and others have done safety studies showing that at high doses, long durations, there aren't side effects of anything of clinical significance. And so you have room to kind of find the dose that works best for you. And so you may wanna measure biomarkers like measures of oxidative stress or inflammation in your blood tests. And if something is, yeah, elevated, maybe you can see if that could come down and you could adjust your dose based on that. Or you could do based on how you feel like your joints or your muscles or your cognition, like, you know, brain fog. You can kind of subjectively see how you're feeling and then adjust your dose accordingly.

And have you been taking this for like how, like 25, like how long have you been taking it? 25 years? Like do you cycle on and off?

Do you? No, I've been taking it for— yeah, most of my adult life. Yeah, my father also has been taking it for decades, and, and he is a power user because— so he's in his, um, mid to late 70s, and he plays hard court singles tennis in the Hawaiian sun multiple times a week. And so he and his buddies that are in that age range, they all take— they take 12 or 16 capsules a day, and they found, you know, it really benefits their mobility. So they are kind of on the the frontiers of the, you know, the high dosing and have found benefits there. So that's not our recommended dose, but just to know that people have experimented with higher doses and found utility. So, but I think for general health and longevity, 1 or 2 a day is probably sufficient.

What does astaxanthin not do?

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, it won't make you live forever. I mean, that's one thing. A lot of people like are trying to do hacks that make you live to 150 or 200. I think this is something that allows your body to just hopefully function optimally and normally and live kind of a natural, you know, but hopefully, you know, as long of a natural life as you can with as much health as you can. Right. It's not something that's going to change your biology. Yeah. To somehow reverse aging, you know, or something like that. I mean, I know a lot of people are working on those things, but I think the problem is, you know, a lot of people just, you know, assume that aging is happening and it's just the way it is. But I think there's a lot of things you can do. And the other thing is, of course, it's not to replace the basics, which are not, you know, sexy, but like a good night of sleep, you know, a good diet, exercise, mindfulness, social connections, you know, all of these things really play a vital role in your health. And a lot of people would rather hack their way around them with other things rather than just fixing their lifestyle.

And so if you can do that, plus supplement intelligently with science-backed products like astaxanthin, that probably is going to give you the best chance to live a longer, healthier life.

I think you just said it perfectly there. I think that that's 100% true. People are looking for a quick fix. And looking for something that's sexy and like trendy. And the things that, the things that work the best through time are the things that have no sex appeal. Boring as hell. Yeah, but they work, right? Like exercising, sleeping, you know, probably like all the things I said earlier, supplementing properly, right? That's a big one. Yeah. It doesn't sound so hot, but actually, if you want to be hot, those are the things you kind of have to do.

Exactly.

You know, unfortunately, it's that that's the truth. David, thank you for being on Habits and Hustle. Thank you for coming and talking to me.

Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you.

No, this was a pleasure. Where do people find more information on you or more on your product? Which is, if you guys are gonna go and try astaxanthin, make sure you're trying David's product because it really, it's, it's definitely, it's, it's definitely a quality product.

Oh, thank you. Yeah. So ax3.life is our website and it's also our, our handle on, on Instagram. I'm also on Instagram at Dave Wadimal. So any of those sources are a good place to learn more.

Amazing. Thank you so much.

Thank you.