195: Jeff Byers: Inside the Supplement Industry: The 4 Supplements That Actually Matter

0:00Before we get started with this episode, I'd like to invite all of you to the first ever Next Self-Long Jevite Summit happening in Nashville, Tennessee, the Conrad Hotel on Saturday, September 12, 2026. This isn't all day summit where you're going to be hearing from some of the best speakers in longevity medicine, including Dr. Vanda Wright, Dr. Luis and Nicola, many of the podcast guests that you've heard here on the extent podcast. And of course, I'm going to be there curating the entire day. We also have incredible vendors coming so you can try the latest technologies and health wellness and longevity. Go to next-health.com-summit and buy your ticket today. We only have 400 spots and they're going quickly. That's next-health.com-summit. I look forward to seeing you all there. Welcome to Extend with me, Dr. Darjean Shah. A podcast dedicated to cutting-edge science, research, tools and protocols designed to help you extend your health span. Having become one of the youngest doctors in the country at the age of 21 and trained in

1:01board certified to the Mayo Clinic, I've accumulated three decades of practice as a board certified surgeon and longevity expert. Over that time, I've discovered that a mere 20% of health knowledge yields 80% of the results when it comes to your health span. We are living in a new era where we are creating a new healthcare system, no longer focused on disease management but achieving optimal health and vitality. Join me as a interview, world-renowned experts, offering you a step-by-step guide to proactively avoid disease and most importantly extend your health span. Welcome to Extend. This is Dr. Shah and this is the podcast dedicated to helping you optimize your health span. Today, I'm joined by an extraordinary guest, my friend Jeff Byers. Jeff has a unique journey. He started off as a former NFL player, a two-time USC team captain and earned his MBA while still on that scholarship. He then transitioned into the world of biotech and government contracts. After his career in biotechnology, he transitioned into the world of supplementation,

2:05co-founding momentus. One of the leading wellness companies focused on science-backed performance and health solutions. Jeff experienced fans from the elite world of professional sports that a cutting edge of human performance nutrition. In this episode, we're going to be doing a deep dive into clearing up all of the confusion around supplements, exploring the wild west nature of the industry and discussing how to cut through the noise to find where truly moves the needle of your health. Jeff shares invaluable insights on resilience, the importance of mastering fundamentals, and always forward never-straight path of entrepreneurship. Get ready for an awesome conversation that will change how you view your health and your performance journey and give you a completely new understanding of supplements. Jeff, this is such a pleasure to finally get you on the podcast. Thanks for being here today. Yeah, excited. Yeah, this is this is something I've been wanting to do for a while with you just because I feel like you have such an incredible depth of knowledge

3:06about one of the most interesting group of questions I always get from my patients is on supplements. I say it's interesting because people are wild in their preconceived notions about supplements, what they think works, what doesn't work, and some people have such an incredible depth of knowledge yet still miss the big picture. Yeah. And the people with no knowledge are also out there giving other people advice with zero knowledge at all. It's such a wild industry, right? Yeah, it is definitely the wild west and I think the noise and the confusion in the and maybe in our category might be the greatest of any category that's out there. I think part of that is there's very low barriers to entry to be a company in our space and very easy from a marketing perspective to get big very fast, right? Using TikTok, Instagram or whatever that may be because the virality of health and wellness and claims can go big really fast. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And

4:07especially if so accelerated now with social media, Amazon, you can launch a brand within months, I think now and just, you know, go get out there and get pretty big pretty quickly with like zero credibility. Yes, 100%. And I think, you know, that's the problem is our category is huge. Like multi-billion dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars may be globally, but the trust in our category is so low from a consumer standpoint. Like consumers do not trust the category, yet they still use it, which is one of the craziest things in my mind that happens. Yeah, it's crazy. And I, you know, I've said it many times in this podcast that I feel like supplementation is essential in this day and age for my view of all the literature and the science and the medicine around it. And I've seen thousands of times now, you know, we have tens of thousands of patients in the next out there. I've seen supplements really move the needle for people in ways that pharmaceutical medications can't even do too. Right. And so I think it's, this is such an important episode because I mean, the title is let's clear up the confusion on supplements today for people

5:08listening. I think it's super important. Awesome. Yeah. So before we do that, though, I want to dive into your history because you have such an incredible history. Yeah. Starting from the NFL, moving to government contracts. And now here we are. So why don't we talk about that a little bit. Like where did you start off? And how did, how did you make the transition from a pro in the NFL to being entrepreneur? Yeah. Man, that's a, it's really interesting because like many kids, I dreamt of being a pro, right? And I was obviously incredibly approach something. I thought I was going to be a pro basketball player. Michael Jordan was my hero. I just turned out that I couldn't shoot or jump. And therefore I didn't play basketball and I was big and strong. So I played football. But I feel very lucky that I was able to live that dream. And a lot of things went right my way to to be able to play in the NFL. But I went to school at USC. I guess for me, I had a, the game was taken away from me really young. And all athletes, like everybody stops being an athlete at some point

6:08in their lives, like playing that sport that they grew up playing. And when I was my true freshman year, I started, I started as a true freshman on SC's National Championship team. I blew my hip out. And we basically told I was never going to really play football again. I had two major hip surgeries. But when you're a 19 year old kid, that was like devastating. But it made me realize that there was more to life than ball. And I started taking school very seriously. You know, I remember, I was that, I went to Southern Cal and like we're in LA and I was talking to my dad after visiting the doc after my first hip surgery and being told I need to second one, crying. Like I don't know what I'm going to do with my life. Like football is my life. And he's like, grow up, you know, and he had no pity. I like, I remember the story. He probably remembers it differently. Like, I remember getting zero pity of like, you're at one of the top institutions in the world. I know. Go, you're getting it paid for. Nobody feels bad for you. Right? Go figure it out. Anyways. And that really like threw into the football does not define me. I define me. I get to choose my path forward. And so at 19, I really started a plan for life after football. And so I got,

7:09I got on track to graduate undergrad in three years, which I did. And then I got into the master's schools, the Marshall School of Business. And I got my MBA while still in a scholarship. And then with my MBA, I went into the NFL. So I had a really unique kind of path. And so while I was putting that in a fell out of MBA, I was working full time in the off seasons. It was really important to me to stay relevant because I saw that football was going to end. Right? And often you don't get to pick when it does. And I just really became passionate about building, creating, impacting the world. But I didn't quite know what I was going to do. So when I retired in the end of 2013, 2014 season, I jumped into finance because I had a long standing job offer in finance. And I realized very quickly that that was not who I was. And that was just my personality, my wiring as an athlete. And I learned what I loved about an athlete was, right, really being impactful and all the things that you do, taking risk, right, moving fast and like really truly, like betting on yourself and betting on those around you. And ultimately, I joined an early stage

8:10biotech that led to what is now momentous. So in 2018, my co-founder and I spun out of a biotech, we won a $1.8 million contract with the Department of Defense, which was a huge coup. But we were in the supplement space. We did not start our business in the supplement space. But what I found out I loved is I loved building. I loved team. I love this concept of, I call it like the ball always gets snapped, meaning like you always got to move forward, right? We're not operating around the fringes. Like we're trying to do real things, real meaningful things and big. And that's what I loved about entrepreneurship. So anyways, like that's kind of this journey outside of football. I knew there was life after football. I also really cared about traumatic brain injury and, you know, honestly started to scare the crap out of me of like the longer I played because that era of like 2010 to 2014 is when all the TBI CTE, all that stuff started coming out. And it was like, we don't know like we don't know anything. And you're like, oh man, like this is scary. Yeah. So we got to dive into that a little later because the role of creatine in traumatic brain injury. We

9:13should talk about that. Yeah, which is great. But that was not a thing that was not a thing, right? And I've done a couple of episodes and spoken to a few audiences on CTE, traumatic brain injury. And I mean, it's still a big problem, right? Yeah. For athletes. Huge. It's especially now it's soccer becoming a huge deal in the United States. We're seeing more and more kids with concussions. Yeah. And yes, something we should talk about a little bit later on how supplementation can be a piece of the overall protective protocol on that, right? But before we do that, you know, I think as an athlete, I think you have to go into every game just giving it your all, but then you still fail, right? And I wonder, did that resilience to failure help you in your entrepreneurial journey? I mean, when I think like it's that grit that like is what comes from failing. It's like being a piece of gristle. Like you just got to be so tough and never go away, right? And that's what it takes to be a great pro athlete. That's what it takes to be a great, right? Uh, husband, father, it's what it takes to be a great entrepreneur. It's like it's so hard, right? And you just

10:19got to bear down sometimes and just say, you know what? I'm going to eat this crap sandwich. I'm going to go forward. And so the sport taught me, right? As long as there's an ounce of energy in you, you continue to go, right? And it's uncomfortable and it's hard. And also plain at the level, I did you learn to love that. Like it's kind of sick when you think about it, but it's like you learn to love to suffer, right? And that suffering becomes actually not suffering, but your happy place. Because you know when you're pushing yourself to the limits, really good things come, but it doesn't always come right away. But you've seen it enough that if you just keep pushing and you keep pushing, special happens. Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. And like, you know, you told me a couple stories, the stories about making this company momentous that like massive challenges where you know, you probably thought at some time like, this is all going to die, but you keep going, right? There's a, I mean, in everybody's journey, all right? We do such a job painting,

11:21like the Cinderella story of companies and entrepreneurs and like you as an entrepreneur, it is never that, right? And like when you look back, it's like, oh, man, we were up into the right, and this was great. It was like, oh, man, I know about those five times we almost died, right? You know, and like, what about the time that I didn't take a salary so we could pay, right, make payroll? Right? Like those times, that weren't that long ago in our business, that people that I even forget about, right? And like you do too, it's like, because we were in the, in the forest, and it's like when you step back from the forest, you realize that it's not always smooth, right? It's not always up. And when you look over a long period of time, it looks like it's up. But when you look at a short period, it's, you know, like, it's, you know, there's a great line. It's like always forward, never straight. Yeah. That's so true. It's never straight. Yeah. So you know, you then transitioned into kind of biotech and getting these government contracts, which is like such a major shift from, you know, playing NFL football. But I think like, you, you know, you were kind of built forward with your MBA and your entrepreneurial drive.

12:24Yeah. What did working with a government and government contracts kind of teach you about the next phase of your life? I think that early phase of our business, like 2018 to 2020, it really taught me around what is your core ethos and like, who are you? And like for us, it was we wanted to be at the forefront of high performance because we ultimately believe what was happening there, right? Could and should be democratized out. But that is where the leaders are. That is where we can build something special. And I thought, I think what it taught me too was the people we worked with, they like, they were black and white either did what you said you were going to do or you didn't, right? And what I saw was a lot of other people that were in in the same types of areas we were that said they were going to do something that didn't and they ultimately just got out. And we just continued to make progress. And like if I said, yep, we're going to do that. We did it. And if I said we're going to show up, we're going to show up,

13:26right? And I think that attitude of like, if we say we're going to do it, we're going to do it, and we're going to show up and we're going to be curious because also during that time, we're like, we had early clinical data on this really niche performance product. That's not like not really even part of the business anymore. And we didn't have all the answers. And when you're talking to like the head is the high performance of NFL teams and head researchers in the department of fence, like if you say you know, if I sat in the room and like, here's what it does, here's all the answers, they had been like out, yeah, right? And it was like, here's the early data says, what questions do you have? Like we don't know like enough, like we know outcomes are happening, but we're trying to figure out why what should we study? Where should we go? And that was a big thing for me of a learning of like being humble, being curious, surround yourself with the best. Like I don't need to be the science nerd. Nobody expects me to do that. What I know how to do is a very different skill set. And what I wanted to do is aim the smartest people in the right direction. And I wanted to go execute on that. Right. So keeping that performance

14:29core and being very curious and asking questions, right? And humble, I guess. Yeah. And the humility that comes with that because we don't know everything. Yeah. You know, working with some athletes and both former athletes and current athletes, I think they are very in tune with what's going on with their biology, right? So if you give them something that works, they can feel it more than the general public can. Yeah. But more importantly, if something is not working for them, they know, they know that they just shaved off a half a second of their time. Yeah. And it was like due to this product, right? And so it really, you know, you get real time feedback. I think a lot of times do from from high performers because they know if something is working or not. I think high performers are they have like really elite athletes have two things, right? They master the foundation, right? And they do it over and over and over and over again, like for decades, right? Tom Brady did this like did the right things. And then he found out what are the little bit of handful of things that he can do that create incremental gains. And so athletes do both, right? But I think

15:35the incremental gains piece to what you just said is something that is really unique to really high performers. When you've mastered everything else, it becomes easier to measure incremental gains. But also what athletes don't do is they don't do a hundred things, right? They do one or two. And the one that works, they keep doing, right? And then they'll add one or two more, right? And so they're very thoughtful in how they do it. And they have a very clear response loop, right? Because it's typically a closed system. But I think the biggest thing that I took from athletes that the consumer doesn't do is this bone con, this bone crushing consistency around fundamentals. Because like what makes you great is that. And what makes you healthy is that. And then it's finding the one or two things, right? And maximizing those. But so many people gloss over the boring front end of like the fundamentals of health and wellness or of being a great athlete. Sure. Like you got a train, you got to take care of your body, right? You got to eat well.

16:35All of those things still exist, right? And I feel like it's the same thing in all of like all of this health and wellness categories. Like we can talk about, you know, you doing a hundred, a hundred step routine every day. But realistically, two of those things drive 80% of the impact. And then pick one or two more. That's four. Four is way more manageable than 100. And four is actually going to try to change. And then you add one more and add one more. And that's what athletes do. That's such great advice. Because I think a lot of people watch social media and they're following like, you know, the biohacker of the, you know, Dejua right now, who's doing like a thousand things and people just get paralyzed because they're overwhelmed with all the things that they think they have to do, right? Yeah. Like get in the sauna for 20 minutes and get in the go-plunge and then do this and then do that. And it's really just like, you're right, there's two or three things that move the needle 80%. And just pick like and just pick and stay with it, right? Consistency drives, right? Almost all outcomes and all the things we do. There is no magic pill or no magic bullet, especially in supplements, right? Nothing is going to fix you overnight. Like very few things

17:40give you the automatic return loop because that's not how these things work. It's like great. You ate healthy twice this month. Has no impact on your life, right? Good for you. But it's a lifestyle, right? And it's how you make those decisions over time that matter. And that's the same as an athlete. Like, and it's like, I get, I live in an industry. I'm passionate about health and wellness and I get paralyzed by the amount of things that people have out there. Because I'm like, you know, somebody on my team will be like, have you heard of this? I'm like, no. I was like, I can't keep track of all of the things that are continuously to come out and that you're supposed to do. I know. It's hard to keep track of it completely, for sure. So, you know, working with these high performers, obviously, they're going to demand high levels of quality and efficacy for you, right? And the products you provide. And I think a lot of people have heard of some of these like quality seals, like NSF. But could you like kind of give my audience like how do you know when a product is quality enough for a pro athlete, right? Because they have a high high bar here.

18:44Yeah. So in the US, if you are a pro athlete, the team will not buy you any product that does not have a logo that's NSF certified for it on it. What's NSF? NSF is a third party body that certifies all sorts of things. Like they certify toaster ovens and frigerators and supplements. They have this whole supplement line. And basically what it is is like you don't like you pay them $3,000 or whatever it is per production run to verify that your product is safe on there. And so NSF is the only one that the pro dietitians really recognize in the US as a whole. It is because they're testing mechanism and how they test lots and not just band substances, but also label claim accuracy and they're testing randomly throughout the year. They'll buy commercial lots and test those as well. And so it's not it's not just a you know, okay, we check the box because we're a GMP facility or you know like the label is clean. It is a every production run.

19:48We send finished product and it can it like we cannot release it until it passes NSF. Wow. Okay. So you have to do that like as a rule to be NSF certified, you have to send them a sample from every line. Yeah, all of it. And they all get NSF certified on there. And so for us as a brand, like our roots are in elite pro sports. And that's where we built our standards. As you know, like our business is far beyond that. Like it's such a small percent of our like pro sports is going to be a percent maybe of our company this year, not even like we've been selling to 32, 32, 2 NFL teams for a while. It's really hard to grow that. Yeah. On there. And so it's you know, for us, it's our roots in elite performance is that center of the ecosystem that ultimately is a reason why we're partners. Right. Because they have the highest standards in the world. And they know the consequences are the highest for lack of quality and lack of transparency. And therefore there are very few brands that they actually trust and they buy.

20:50And that has been able for us that trust that we've earned. Because ultimately consumers care about trust. They just don't know where to go. And we have said we believe in NSF certified for sport. We believe it's a really, really high. It's our roots are that. Therefore, that's what we believe in. It tests label claim battery. So what is actually on the back of a label? Right. We have all of this. What is on the back of the label is actually in it in the right amounts. Right. It is critically important. Right. And it doesn't contain any band substance. That's the key. Right. And those things, I mean, it's like my dad's like, well, I'm not an athlete. Why do I care? And it's like, you care about quality. This is the standard of quality. There's another one that's really great. That's called usp. Right. They're more practitioner focused. Right. But there are great certification as well. And those are the two, you know, if people are say, what should I look for, those are the two most important. Yeah. I think it's super important because you touched on this. There's really three things like what's in the label is really there. Yeah. And it is there in the quantities that you say. Right. Because everyone's like, how many grams of creatine should I take?

21:54And I'm like, well, you know, somewhere between five to 10, but most creatine you buy online doesn't even have create that much creatine in it. And people are buying it, you know, in the form factor that is the one they want to choose. So they'll choose a good gummy. And then they'll choose a lowest price gummy with the highest Amazon rating. Yeah. And then they get tested. You know, I the gummies get tested. Yeah. The gummies get tested, right. And then they're just like, there's nothing in them at all, like zero. And so all they're doing is ingesting sugar, right. And so I think it's fine to understand the dosages, but you have to really make sure you're getting the dosage. The second thing, like you mentioned, was there's nothing in there that's going to cause you harm, right? Like these band substances. Well, the band substances for a pro athlete will cause harm in that they could potentially lose their career. Yeah. And so millions of dollars is millions of dollars, right? But also these band substances cause unintended biological consequences, right? And side effects and problems. And I can tell you the number of people that, you know, I keep saying Amazon supplements. I hate to say that. But it's like, you know, the low quality supplements, right? Yeah. With no, with no NSF or USB on it that say, like,

22:57I took this supplement and I got really sick afterwards. I'm like, wait a minute. It's, they'll say like an omega three for example. Yeah. And I mean, what omega three did you take? And then they'll show me I'm like, what I'm not even hurt at this. Yeah. And so that makes sense. Like that can happen. And then lastly is I wanted you to touch on this more heavy metals and other other toxins in the product as well. Yeah. That could potentially cause issues. Yeah. I mean, it's it's kind of that full, full, full of what what it is. Like it like you said, I like repeat what you said. First, the dosage Matt Matt, right? Right. Right. You have to do an efficacious dose. And I think you as a as a doc like that's the role that's one of the most important is like take five to 10 grams. Don't take two. Don't take one. Right? Like efficacious dose. Number two is, are they sourcing really high quality, which ultimately leads to heavy metals and all that? Is this sourcing component is so important because where you source your fish from matters? And like we talked about it for heavy metals. And then it's the certification at the back end that

23:58actually, you know, trust but verify everybody's like, Oh, we're great. We're high quality. But like that's trust but verify. Yeah. Right. Like we verify everything like we source better than anybody else. Like, but lots of things can happen in in a manufacturing process from cross contamination or whatever. And so trust but verify is like one of those core components of what it is. And so for us, like we use, you know, like we use subco and light labs and these other businesses too to show what our heavy metals are because heavy metals are in everything as you know. But it's the transparency of like people want like, what are they? Where are they from? Why are they there? So it's that transparency that we really believe in because like you can't get heavy metals out of cocoa as an example because cocoa is natural plant and cocoa naturally has heavy metals. Like that's just the fact of the nature. It's a problem is if you don't know and you're not tracking, right? And if you're not tracking, therefore, then you don't have standards. Right. And then you're just saying what is, you know, like it's got to be low that the like the dangerous amount which

25:00the dangerous amount is actually pretty high. But the danger is not hitting that amount. It's the compounding effect of like all of the heavy metal exposure that we have in our life. And allowing consumers to actually be smart about where that is. Yeah. Exactly. And like you said earlier, you know, supplementation, the the best effect is going to be from being on a good routine with it and being consistent with it. And you definitely don't want to be consistently putting heavy metals in your body every single day at high levels. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So let's talk about a little bit now about, you know, the whole world of supplements out there. There's like you mentioned earlier, there's like thousands of ingredients, potentially, right? And so people get really focused on and I get this every day in my practice. They hear about some new ingredients that someone they heard on social media is taking. And they ask me like, what do you think about Sheila Gith? What do you think about like this thing or that thing? And I'm just like, I don't even know anything about that. Like I've never I've heard of it, but I don't know about the efficacy, what it really

26:01does, mechanism of action, who should be taking it? And so, you know, just like to your point, there's so much noise out there. And once again, people get paralysis by over analysis. And then just like, I don't want to take any of it. Right. And how do you tell or how do you talk to people as a company about why you picked the ingredients or the skewers that you have in your line and momentas? How many do you have? We have about 30 different products. Great. Like so, Q versus product is the two. Sorry, products. I bet that's skewers are products. Right. You have 30 different products, right? And obviously you could have made 50 or 100 or a thousand, right? Why these 30 products? Yeah, I think I mean, I'll go back to like I get three questions when people when I get introduced people like, Oh, you know, what is momentous? I'm like, oh, supplement company. You can automatically see their eyes roll. They're like, Oh, God, one of these guys, right? Because there's so little trust. And then I start talking about, oh, man, this is who we work with. And these are our roots, right? And like, and they're like,

27:01oh, well, you're different, you know, and then the next question is, what do I take? Everybody's like, or this is what I take or what do you take? And that's like, that's the questions that I get. And I used to answer it bad. I used to tell people what I took, right? And what I realized was, I'm an N01, right? Like ex pro athlete, I care a lot about my CT. I also run a supplement company. So I do more than I would if I was paying dollars, right? Because the economic, I don't have an economic, you get a free, free. Yes. But like that changes my perspective. So what I did was kind of what we did early on is like, we pooled our advisors and we said, okay, what, what actually matters and what drives impact? And it came up with what we call is the momentous three, which are like, creatine protein omega's. And we kind of said, like, that's the core foundation of, right? Of health and longevity, right? And it's like, three things very hard to get from your

28:01daily dialet in the right doses. Can you? Yes, right? But also, no cross reactivity, thousands and thousands of peer-reviewed published clinical trials, no safety, no safe, high, very high safety profile, right? And so that's kind of how we went is like, hey, master these three. And then guess what, blood work, doctors, conditions, specific things next. So you master this foundation and you build it on the one caveat is we decided to launch a fiber product earlier this year. And we would throw fiber into now the momentous four because it's also so foundational as a whole. And but like, then, then it's like, okay, magnesium, VITT and all those ones, but those things are condition specific or blood work diagnostic that you don't need to guess. You just can go get the answer if you need to do it or not, which I think is really valuable. So how we pick the portfolio is like, we centered around the core foundation. And we also said, you know, like this 80, 20 rule is like 20% of what we do drives 80% of the value. Let's build a portfolio around that. So like, we don't

29:02need to have every mineral or every vitamin or every dose of everything. We just need, right, the core that's going to drive the biggest impact of somebody has a corner case, they can go find that someplace else. But we want to be that core. Like if you said, I want to open up your cabinet, I want to be, you know, I want to I want to be 80% of the bulk of everything that you use. But, you know, not only 20% of the products on there. And that was a very important decision that we made. And how we bring products to market is we have had this advisory board from day one of elite practitioners, dietitians, right, we kind of call them performance engineers, but heads of HP, high performance, sorry. And then researchers and we go and say, Hey, this is what we're thinking about. How do how would you build this best in class? And so they've really given us the guidance because I don't believe the smartest people in health, wellness and longevity live inside a supplement company, right? I believe they're out there doing practicing researching. And that's super important. And that's a different approach than most business in our space. Because we don't

30:02make products based upon like, how do we make the greatest margin profile? We make products based upon where is our where is the research on health and wellness going? And what do our what do our partners want? And so that's how we picked that portfolio. And we also was like, do we want to play in every category? No. Because I to your point is like when we started this, I was like chaos is what our industry is. Yeah. And I would rather be the core foundation of what people need for life. Right. Then to be a fad or a trend or something that you might only need for a couple days or whatever that may be. Like I want to like let's win serving the customer with the highest quality. And where quality and sourcing matters is when you do things daily. And that's like, it's a really easy to story to tell is like, why do we care so much about quality and sourcing certification? Quality compounds over time. Like use like, it just matters. And like, and so let's focus on those

31:02things. I love that. And I love the momentous three, which is now the momentous four. Because I truly agree with you that that is kind of where every human for the most part needs to kind of start. Like these are extremely well studied. We've know that every human could benefit from fiber, protein, Omega's and now creatine as well, which I think creatine is a little bit different than fiber and protein and Omega's because there's not, you know, people don't aren't usually thinking about that as part of their normal diet, right? But and so like, but the research around that is so incredibly voluminous, being beneficial for most people, I do create think of it like you do as a core supplement. So I would love to talk about those a little bit deeper and kind of like the differences between other products out there and why you settled on the specific mixes that you have here at momentous. But I also want to say that like, you know, the other piece of this too is vital vitamin and mineral deficiencies, right? And so you look out there and you see most, I was a 75% of the patients that I see in our clinic are vitamin D

32:05deficient. They have some sort of B deficiency that don't methylate well and magnesium, for example, is also an issue. So I also look at and you have these products iron, we have here, which is also an issue in many people. These are all things that if you get tested, then you know if you're deficient and then you can supplement. You don't have a supplement forever. Yeah. But at some point, you know, you might need these supplements because you're deficient and that is affecting you. And if you stay deficient for year after year, decade after decade, it is going to negatively impact your exactly. And getting tested is key. Getting tested is key and blood work is so democratized now. Right? Right? Whereas it was really hard even three years ago. And that's where it's just like, you don't need to guess on vitamin D. And maybe the right vitamin D protocol is do it for a month and be off. Maybe you're going to do vitamin D for the rest of your life. But blood work can set you free. Right? And it like blood work will actually probably save you a lot more money and keep you focused. Right? Right. On there, when you think about like, what's the cost of these things over time?

33:08Because the last thing we want to do is like invest in super in super expensive P. Right? Which is like one of the knocks on the supplement industry. But it's rightfully so. You can, like, you can go into one of your clinics and you can find out exactly mineral and vitamin deficiencies. Yeah. Right? Yeah. It's quick. It's easy. Right? And it's like, anyways, absolutely. You know, you're absolutely right. And so just for my audience, I think, you know, the best way to test for these is a specific test called a micro nutrient test that we use. And this measures both the concentration of these vitamins in your blood. But more importantly, inside of the cells, because you know, if it doesn't make it inside the cell, it's not going to be efficacious. Right? And so we do a micro nutrient test and measures both. That's very important, actually, with like magnesium to see what's actually getting into the cell. Exactly. And then for iron deficiency, don't wait until you're anemic. You should be measuring ferritin levels. I can't tell you the number of people we see men and women with low ferritin levels that need to be on an iron supplement. Vitamin D to your point, very easily measured 50 to 80 is where you want to be. Your doctor will tell you you're normal.

34:12If you're a 30, you're not. You should go 50 to 80. And yeah, that's, that's, and then for the B vitamins, too, I think, you know, measuring, like, homocysteine tells you if you're not methylating your B vitamins well, because some people, actually 30% of people have a methylation defect. Yeah. And they're not going to have adequate conversion of vitamin B to an active form. Yeah. And therefore a B supplement, specifically, I think you guys make methylated Bs. We just know we have that in like iron plus has B and our multi vitamin has got it. Got it. Got it. So sometimes you might have to get a specific supplement or taking with iron and multi vitamin. Yeah. I just want to throw that all out there because a lot of times my audience is like, well, you never told me what to do. And so this is, this is a protocol that I use in my brain. Exactly. Do you agree with most of that? 100% added anything to it. Yeah. And then, then, like, then it becomes, like, people are like, whoa, what about sleep and what about this? Right. Then becomes conditional. Then it becomes condition or goal specific. But if you start with just that and you haven't mastered the fundamental and, and focus on deficiencies, then, then you're

35:15just putting band-aids on a Titanic on the Titanic. And it's like, no, that's not the goal. Like, the goal is to build a robust right system underneath. And then you build a pollen condition specific. And like, like for me, like, a great example is like for me, like, I have a ton of connective tissue health issues. So joints, they give me its tendons. Right. Because of that, collagen is really important to me. But I also played a very violent game, right, that I put my body through the meat grinder. So collagen rises to the level for me that it might not for a lot of other people. Right. And that's what I, that's where I learned in, in like my time when people ask me what to do. I was like, that's not relevant. Like, it might be relevant to you, but it might not. But I know that getting your blood work tells you what you should do. Right. I know I'm like, always, every time I've ever been tested for vitamin D, I'm low on vitamin D. Yeah. Just just me too. Yeah. And that's, but that's me. And that's not everybody. Right. You know, like, there are other people in our company that are not that way. Right. That, well, I've like, that, that common blood work. And they're like, Oh, I'm crushing it, Dean. It's like, you don't

36:17need to take vitamin D. Yeah. Don't take it. So I agree completely on, on that stance. And then it's condition specific. Yeah. And I think like, you know, people gets supplement over a while. Very easily. Because, you know, sometimes I'll go to like a functional physician and some functional physicians, they'll check a bunch of blood work and give them like 30 supplements a day. And now they're carrying on lunch baggies with, you know, three times a day of handful of supplements. And then they just don't do anything because it makes them sick. They get tired of taking it. There's too much work, you know, and so I think supplement overmill is real. So starting with like, the basics and building on top of that is the way to go for sure. Yeah. I mean, it goes back to, like, if you don't do it consistently, it drives no impact. Great. You took, you took a baggy of supplements every day for two weeks. And then you're like, ah, this is a lot. And then it's nothing. Right. Exactly. Right. And so it starts by, like, people who are early on their supplement journey start small. Just do one thing, right? Or supplement nutrition. It's just, anyways, then you build

37:18and you build. And for those, you know, like, there are also like these people that are like, well, I take these nine things. What are these four things? Do I don't know why I take them? And I'm like, oh man. Oh man. You know, and you just like scratch your head and you're like, you, like, I heard it somewhere. I can't remember. I was like, if you don't remember why you're taking it, you're wrong. Right. Right. And that's another thing that like, getting people into the right products is just as important as getting people out of the wrong products. Right? Because they might be in the right products. They might just be taking also a lot of wrong products that are conflicting with the right products. Yeah. Absolutely. Creatine isn't just the most research supplements is actually proven to deliver results. So whether you want stronger muscles or you want a sharper mind, creatine is the energy source you're going to need to get there. Momentus just introduce signature spec creatine is their highest quality creatine to date. It is 10 times fewer impurities and two to five times stricter heavy metal limits

38:20than even other premium creatines. And it's all backed by six stages of testing and certification. Not to mention the ultra fine micronized powder makes it so easy to mix into your favorite drink or smoothie. Try it yourself and live momentus.com slash Dr. Shaw. And you'll get up to 35% off your first order using the code Dr. Shaw. So let's talk about the momentus for. So let's do protein first. Right? Yeah. I'll say everything starts at the scientific level. Exactly. And it's like, okay, what is the research actually say matters? Yes. Right? In these products. And the momentus for us actually pretty simple because the research is so strong in all of their cases. But an Omega is a great example of like dosing matter. So if we go, if we take a step back, it's all about sourcing sourcing from the highest quality, right, is the next step. And so we go and say, how do we find the highest quality most pure form that we can in whatever that is? Right? So first science,

39:23then quality. And so our way protein, we source exclusively from, right, European cows, European dairy industry has very, very high standards around grass fed and the use of hormones and antibiotics. And so way protein, it's interesting as it's a lot of people don't even consider it a supplement. It's a dehydrated milk, right? But way protein comes in many different shapes in forms. So you have way protein concentrate, with rate protein isolate. And you have different levels of that. And as it becomes more and more pure, there becomes less and less impurities. And so like there's a way protein concentrate, which is, right, it goes like, you know, milk gets turned into cheese, right, way as a byproduct of cheese, right? And then way, right, gets condensed into way solids, which goes into way concentrate. And then it continues to get filtered up. And ultimately, we have the highest grade of way protein isolate, which is a 91% plus way protein isolate on there. And that is the highest amount of filtration, which means the

40:24least amount of impurities in there. But when you have a really, really pure formula, right? And clean, you don't have to use, right, added flow agents, added, right, like anti clumping, right? And you can flavor a lot of these here. So it allows our way protein to be very minimum, like have very minimal ingredients, right? And be really high quality, right? And a great amino acid profile. So where it comes from is we selected the highest quality dairy that we could find. We use a dairy out of Ireland called turlan. And they're the largest Irish dairy anyways, like, and they have very different foreign practices. And they own it from, right? There's co-ops. So the families who own these cows and milk them every single day, right, own the actual company that we're buying the way protein powder from, right, to make it. So the next thing is it's all about added ingredients. And so for us, when you turn over our way, what you'll notice is it's very, very limited ingredients. We will never use artificial sweeteners and artificial flavors.

41:26That is like quarter who we are. Why would you put something in your body? That's, like, that's artificial for your health. And like, yes, like using stuccolyt or aspartame, like, is it, is it necessarily bad? No. But quality compounds over time, right? The thing to me is that you don't need to put those things in it. It's just a little harder, right? To formulate high quality without the high quality taste good. It takes a little more time, right? But it can be done. Like, we've shown it like over and over again that you don't need artificial things to make your products taste good. And that's an important thing for us. So that's our way protein isolate. So I can ask you a couple questions. So first of all, I love the cows from Ireland because, you know, if I've been Ireland like six times, I've driven the entire island, like, it's a completely different way that they raise the animals out there. I mean, these, these animals are being raised in the most idealic situations on the planet. Like, and they're out there just grazing and you tell like, you know, green pastures that have been there for centuries and decades. It's really cool. You know? And so, and also the way they treat the cows and the animals. And all of this matters because

42:31if the cows are eating inflammatory substances, that same inflammatory signal gets transmitted into the milk. And then to you, right? As if you, if you are consuming the cow's milk as well, or the, or the way. So I think it's, it's really important to know where that way is being sourced from. Now, I think most of the way protein, I, I thought out there, correct me if I'm wrong, does not come from Irish cows that comes from like United States. I come from all over the world over the world. I mean, dairy is a global industry for sure. And they're like Irish dairy is, the Irish dairy, and you pay a premium for the highest quality deer in the world. That's like when you go and you buy, right, Irish butter in the grocery store, it's more expensive because it's Irish dairy and they have higher standards. And that ultimately dictates quality at the end of the day. Like, you know, when you have a good carry-goal butter or, you know, a truly grass-fed butter from Ireland, it is a different, it's a different experience. And that's how I would

43:31explain momentous way protein. Yeah. And then you bench into like, when you go from concentrate to isolate, you're getting obviously like more just isolated way protein. Yeah. What is being removed in the process? Yeah. Lactose is the main one being removed in there. And lactose fats, like other solids, fats and sugars, right? As a whole, are being removed out and further, and further taken in filtration process. So it's like, it's just filtration. It's not like a processing anything. And so like this micro filtration, they basically just run it through hundreds of thousands of filters and they just like continue to run. And the more and the tighter the screen, right, the less impurities that are in it because the filters are creating those securities. But also that means, right, the higher the filtration in it, the, right, more you lose from a yield perspective and the longer it takes. Right. So, right. And then do you have different flavors available? Or how does, how do you, yeah, we are way isolate. We have, oh man, now 10 flavors I want to say.

44:32Maybe it's less than that. Maybe it's eight. I forget because I get to taste a lot of flavors that we haven't launched and we're, we're, uh, taste testing. So we have like our big three, our vanilla chocolate and strawberry, right? Like all, all of those. We also have an unflavored, that does very well. And unflavored is literally just way protein-ice. If you put in a smoothie, etc. And then we have some especially flavors. We have a pure cinnamon, which is only cinnamon and remem. Remem is essentially stevia or the two things in there. And that's a great one. It tastes like cinnamon toast crunch milk. And then we have mint chip. Anyways, we have a, I'm like, like I'm gonna forget some, some that we might be out of stock and people get mad at me. And then you said, you know, a lot of the lactose is filtered out because in the process, the someone who's lactose intolerant also try this. All things that come from dairy, right? All way proteins, you have a lactose warning on it. So I will say that as a whole of like, if you're lactose sensitive, what we find is most people have a really easy tolerability of our way because of

45:37the quality aspect of it. But if you're like, it's one of those things to try into. And I'll just say from like, if you're dairy, like really dairy sensitive, like really, really like, you should just use a plant protein. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay. Can we talk about creatine? Oh, no, let's talk about fiber next. Yeah. Let's talk about fiber next. So, you know, I think there's a lot of confusion around fiber. There's insoluble soluble fiber. Yeah. I think, you know, you're not this conversation. Most people just take you met a mussel right now. Is there only source of fiber? Yeah. Can you break it down for us? I think like first off, like fiber was a, oh, that's what old people do. Yeah. You know, not that long ago in my work. Right. If you're concentrated, you take fiber. Yeah. And it's like, oh, my parents take fiber every day. Like what fiber? You know, like, I'm, you know, I don't need fiber. And that was probably my perspective two and a half, three years ago. Right? And then we like, you know, the science team and our advisors kept talking about like fiber is not an old person or a constipated or whatever. Like that's not what it is. And it is misunderstood.

46:38And it is a core foundational, right, performance for life product. Right? And we go like, that's what we call longevity or healthy aging. Yeah. And so there was also, and then it was like, everything's just silly musk, which is just one form of fiber. And then it become a, then it became a, well, the market hasn't had any, any innovation in it in a really long time. Plus, there's a giant consumer base that I was one of those that never thought fiber was for them, but it is. And so there's like, hey, we can go win a big market and build something meaningful and innovate. And we can tell our core customers that fiber is actually foundational. So that's kind of how we got to a fiber. Then it becomes like, how do you build an actual meaningful fiber product that is differentiated and innovative and has efficacy on there? And so we came up with, you know, through our advisory board. And, you know, we really, this was a product that Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is one of our partners, was like, you need a fiber, you need a fiber. It's something that I, like, I'm really passionate about. So it was like, we used him as like a launch

47:41point, which was awesome. But we said, let's build a comprehensive fiber that's not just a psyllium husk. And so we put soluble and insoluble fiber, which is psyllium husk and rice brand, right? One helps like, like psyllium husk really helps digestive regularity rice brand helps strengthen your gut lining, which is incredibly important. And then we use a resistance starch, right? And that resistance starch is really important because it feeds the good gut microbiome, right? And ultimately those, we all have the that microbiome in our stomach. And we said, well, we just need to feed the good stuff more of what it needs. And that's what the, you know, the potato resistance starch does in there. So we put three and one really, really comprehensive formula that we're excited about, right? That is very different than a psyllium husk because a psyllium husk is just one, right? And for us, gut health is comprehensive. But also this is a way for us to, you know, enter into gut health in a different, in a different vein to our core consumer, as a whole. And I will say, like, of all the products that we've made, very few of them

48:44was like a light bulb. Let me be honest, we phrase that. No product in our category has a, a noticeable impact like fiber. When you start taking fiber in your three weeks in, you're like, why didn't somebody tell me this? This is, this is like the gut health change that you feel is really like, like, my mind blowing. And I'm just like, hey, creatine is amazing. But you don't have that protein. You don't have that omega. You don't have that. But fiber, you feel, right? And I think that is something that is so impactful. And especially given that 90 plus percent of Americans do not get enough fiber. Yeah. So yeah, I really love that. I'm changing the narrative around fiber from it's an old person's, you know, thing that they take to poop better. Yeah. It really is a performance substance where it is, you're regulating your gut health. And we all know the gut is connected to your hormones and your brain and your heart. All of it is, there's a gut, there's a gut brain connection that is incredibly important that leads to depression, attention deficit,

49:49etc. If you've got microbiomes unhealthy, and most people's guts are not healthy nowadays. And the treatment is not like more probiotics is getting your gut lining in your gut bacteria happy again through the use of fiber. And, you know, also like, you know, people are jumping to statins and other medications like mitformin for high glucose levels and high cholesterol levels. But they're completely skipping the fiber piece. Exactly. Like foundational foundation for cholesterol, heart health, and also for absorbing less sugar in your gut and regulating your metabolic health. So so many benefits. I think the other thing that's interesting about fibers, when you look on the market, many of them are sweetened with artificial sweeteners or artificial flavors. Yeah. And artificial sweeteners and artificial flavors definitely get a bad rap. There's something we've chosen to be our standards. But realistically, the data around a lot of those, the only thing that the data is really bad on is to get out of the way. Right. And it's almost ironic that so many of these products are using these things as their sweeteners or their their flavor profiles when

50:51they're trying to prevent, right, gut health. But the only but those added ingredients actually are kind of counterintuitive to that. So for us, like it's again, why are standards matter is because we believe you don't need to use those things to make products taste good. Yeah, that's a really good point. You're doing fiber. But then you're the same bacteria you're trying to feed. You're also poisoning them with like these artificial flavors and sugars and things. So let's talk about the dosing on fiber a little bit. Like how does someone work through the dosing? Like, you know, we know that most people just don't get enough fiber. But if someone's really trying to optimize their diet, how do you talk to people on how to start fiber and dose it? Yeah, I mean, generally broad brush people should get 30 plus grams of fiber a day, which is crazy. It's a lot of what do you think, right? And it's a lot more fruits and vegetables than you think on there. And so just 800 grams of fruits and vegetables. It's a lot. Leaves of 40 grams of fiber. It's like, you might have fiber in it. You're like, that really didn't have that that much fiber at all. It's like, you know, it's like we did a fun exercise of like,

51:56hey, chat GPT, like show us pictures of, you know, what 30 grams of fiber look like in fruits and vegetables. And it was like this plate of broccoli. And you're like, oh my gosh, like you're like, you don't, you don't realize it, right? You still need to eat your right fruits and vegetables. And you should always try to increase that content. And so I just like generally speaking on that, if you're new to a fiber supplement, right? You start small, right? As a whole. Why? Because if you do a huge bowl of the fiber, right? It is going to, right? Clean you out. And that is not the goal. The goal, so, you know, for us, we did a two serving size scoop and we did it for a reason so that people could write dose up, right? To start, it's like, hey, start with one scoop. If you're new to fiber, right? You'll get, you know, a half a dose, like three ish grams and then work your way up to two. Two scoops. And some people might do more. Some people might do it multiple times a day as a whole, but I would say if you're new to a fiber supplement and you start with two big scoops,

52:59you're going to know about it. Yeah, don't go so too far from the bathroom, right? Yeah. And so I think that's super important. I think the good, cool thing about fiber is you can incorporate a lot of different ways. Like you can put in your smoothie, your shake. Like we bake with it a lot at home. So like we put in our pancake mix, we have a cinnamon, or a cinnamon flavor fiber that's really, really good in baked goods, right? But also like I'm a big like yogurt granola in the morning and berries. And I just put a scoop of fiber and a scoop of way protein in my yogurt and I mix it up. And it's like really, really delicious. That's a great idea. So it's just like how do you incorporate it in? Because think of like I think a fiber and protein is a food, right? And it's like, okay, like when do I incorporate it into food and like it's easy to bake with. It's easy to like it's easy to throw into a smoothie. It's easy to throw into every time I have a protein shake or in my yogurt, granola or whatever that may be. Anyways, or you know, like we got, you know, we have a ton of people that just, you know, do it like you would put in your glass of water and mix it up and down the hatcher goes. Yeah. I love mixing it in food as well. And you know, every time

54:02we do pancakes on days, sometimes at our house, we just throw the fiber and the protein in there and it just makes us feel better about having pancakes. That's what I'm like, I'm like, that's my job. Yeah. One of my jobs on the weekend is pancakes. My board's like, it was not a weekend if your dad didn't make pancakes. And it's like, cool. I'm just going to dunk protein and fiber in it. Yeah. Because, you know, we're all going to eat slam pancakes. Like what's better than, you know, saturday or sunday morning sandwich pancakes. You know, you and I do the same thing. I love it. We should do a protein pancake day together. One of these. I'll challenge you. I've got some recipes. Okay. I've got a lot of recipes. I've got a lot of very particular testers at home. That will tell me when my, when I've done it wrong. Challenge accepted. Yeah. Let's do it. I love it. I, this is my favorite things to do with my family. Just have breakfast on a Sunday. It's really good. Cook it together. So much fun. Okay. Let's talk about omegas now. Because this is also a topic of mass confusion, I think, specifically when it comes to dosing of EPA, DHA. So can you break down a science level before I said it? Yeah. So EPA and DHA

55:04are two of the three essential omega three fatty acids. They are the ones that are very, very hard to get from your diet and not produced in your body. And so we're typically, we're typically deficient in both of those. And they both play a different role, but they're both really critical as a whole. And most omega three's DHA and EPA comes from fish. You can also get it from algae. And we have a vegan omega three that comes from algae as well. But I would say EPA and DHA are really important. So number one rule, momentous standard follow the science. What is the science say? EPA, DHA, right? Or not the same as fish oil, right? EPA and DHA can come from fish oil, but just because a bottle says it's fish oil doesn't mean it has high amounts of EPA and DHA, right? And so fish oil, all EPA, right, like not all fish oil is EPA and DHA. So, okay, then what is the dose, right? And the dose is actually pretty important here, right? And it's, you know, most of the research is around this 1.5 gram a day or more of EPA and DHA combined.

56:08And that is a lot more than people are thinking because they're buying it and they're taking the serving size. But when you flip over a bottle and you're like, oh, this is a gram of fish oil, but it's only 200 milligrams of EPA and DHA. And then you do the math and you're like, oh, I have to take how many eight capsules, right? And I thought this was a, you know, 180 day serving and you're like 180 divided by eight. It's actually the math doesn't matter right on there. And so dosage is incredibly important and not just a fish oil of DHA and EPA. We chose a one-to-one ratio for very specific reason, right? Because we believe that EPA and DHA both play an important role. Like if you're looking just only solely for brain health, then you want a really high DHA, right? And if you, anyways, and so, but we just believe that people should be taking high doses of both because of research suggests you should and you don't need to prioritize one or the other. So we did a one-to-one ratio on that. And it's actually very hard to create a one-to-one ratio

57:10of DHA and DEPA. So ours is 1.6 grams per serving, two caps per serving. So it's 800, 800 of each EPA and DHA that we're super stoked about. Then it ultimately comes down to sourcing, yes, right? Because you're sourcing from fish, fish generally have heavy metals, right? As a whole. And so where you source those fish from, a sustainable fisheries are really, really important. And the type of fish are very, very important. And so that's for us. We source our omega-3s exclusively from Norway. And those fish are kind of caught in off the coast of Morocco and Peru. And what those fish are anchovies, macaroles, and thardines, right? So that family of fish, right, are typically lower in heavy metals, right? And and sustainable fisheries as a whole. And this sourcing where we source from also really matters is like you might have been pointing to like there's a lot of things around omega oxidation matters. Oxidation is basically, right, as the fish oil turns in, as the fish oil touches oxygen, it starts to get rancid. Oxidation is

58:16incredibly, incredibly common in the omega-3 industry. And so what you want is from when the raw crude oil is made to when it's made into our one to one and filtered, it can never touch the air. Because once it starts touching the air, right, oxygen, it starts oxidating. And so everything has to be nitrogen-filled, right? And that is a really important step that we take that is that is not that common in the category because it's expensive and it slows the process down. What happens when it's oxidized and turns rancid? If someone takes a bill of this is ineffective. It's just an ineffective. And it smells bad. And it tastes bad. And the cool thing about oxidation is you know. Right? And that's why people are like, oh, I don't take fish oil because I get fish burps or I hate the taste. And it's like, that's oxidation. Right? And that happens. Right? And like, for example, like if our product gets shipped and you know, it sits in the sun for too long and it bakes and it capsules bursts, then it starts oxidizing. Right? And like for us, like, we'll send

59:18you a new one, right? Because what you don't want is oxidation and it happens. It's unavoidable. But you need to take all the steps necessary. And then there's this whole what type, right? What type of omega-3? And so when you look at when you look at our omega-3, so so you take an omega-3, right? The raw crude. And then you have to remove all of the right heavy metals, impurities. So you run it through that. And then ultimately, you know, you break it down to concentrate it. Right? And then you bring it back to its its natural form, right? Which is the most bile available. And that's what's so critical is the filtration, right? The the concentrating of it, right? So that you can get one to one ratio in 1.6 grams without having 10 grams of fish oil. And then ultimately bringing it back to its natural form that makes it the most bile available. And so for us omega-3 is actually to me one of the in our category, the I think of it like the Grand Canyon, the difference in quality and is as wide as the Grand Canyon as deep as the Grand

1:00:23Canyon. Yeah. It's like Nike, you know, and my dad who's been like a huge nut in the health and wellness space for forever has been taken Omega's since I was a little boy, right? Right? And it like he was just buying the, you know, from the giant Costco, from the giant membership store and Omega. And he's like, oh, I get 180 day supply, right? It's great. And I was like, turn around and tell me what it's this, right? And this was like a he was like, oh my gosh. I like, I he wasn't even thinking like, you know, he was like, I thought I was getting the right dose. He was getting 1.5 grams of fish oil, but he was getting 200 milligrams of omega-3, right? And that was like somebody who was incredibly well educated in the category and been doing it for a long time. But that's what I mean. It's like, it's not like consumers are putting a lot of money in omega-3s that are not actually efficacious. Yeah. And we check a lot of omega, we do like this test called omega-quant, right? Yeah. And it tells us, we actually had the founder of that test here on this podcast and he said it himself. He's like, almost 100% of people are deficient in Omega's.

1:01:28Mike, but why? Like people take Omega's and it's because of this exact reason. They're taking fish oil, not a concentrated omega. And who wants to take like eight pills a day of fish oil? Like, yeah, these are huge pills, right? And so you just have to be very, very knowledgeable about the quality. And to your point, too, like not getting the heavy metals, not getting the impurities in there. So yeah, that's fantastic. And so I think that, you know, this is one of those for me. It's another foundational supplement because the research shows very clearly that people that are deficient in Omega's have a much higher risk of cardiovascular disease, right? And so go ahead. I mean, I'm sure you've seen that study that's like compares people who don't take Omega's, who don't take Omega's in smoke, who take Omega's in smoke. And right, like, it's like basically more unhealthy to not take Omega's than it is to smoke, right? Like smokers that take Omega's are more healthy than non-smoker. Yeah. Mokers who don't take Omega's crazy, which is like, I'm like, oh man, that is a mind blowing study on the impact that Omega-3s can actually have.

1:02:33Right. And especially on cardiovascular health. And probably like even way further than that, we just don't know all the benefits. Yep. Okay, let's talk about the supplement of the year. I like to call it creatine. Maybe the decade. Maybe the decade right now. It's on this crazy tear and it should be, right? The amount of research around creatine over the last three, four decades is immense. Yes, it started in, right, in gym and gym. But the fundamentals of how creatine works is essential to every cell in our body because our cells use energy ATP, right? For all activity that does, and that's what creatine helps, right? It helps with ATP production, which is the critical energy source for all of ourselves as a whole, whether it's muscles, whether it's brains, whether it's heart, whether it does not matter, which is why we're finding it has such broad implications across all a lot of things in our in our body because it's it's a critical step in energy and our whole, that's what we run off of as a whole. And so,

1:03:33creatine is a fascinating one to me because I obviously was a gym guy. I play in NFL. Creatine was like early early days when I was a young, young kid. Creatine was almost like, oh, that's bad. You know, it almost had this like, it's a steroid on a chest. It's a testosterone vibe, right? Yeah, very, very much because it was really effective in body building and weightlifting. But also that was back in the day where creatine might have other things in it other than just creatine. You know, right? And so it had this bad vibe and it's like, oh, creatine killed this kid and it's like, creatine never killed anybody, right? I think that's and it's like we've we've positioned that back all the way through there and then like, okay, I retire from NFL and stop taking creatine, right? It wasn't a thing. And then I'm like so passionate about brain health. And then we start learning about creatine and brain health and creatine and TBI, traumatic brain injury and CT. And like, it became this thing that the military and then I fell and all these things were talking about. And like, there's just whole flood of data essentially.

1:04:35And so anyways, creatine came back into my life with it's just a huge like, yeah. And it's because all the people that I trust, dieticians and scientists are like, creatine for cognitive is real. Yeah, right? And this was like four years ago and nobody was talking about it. And we saw like because of the place of it, we saw this wave coming, right? Before a lot of people, which was really, really cool to be on the front end of creatine, right? And then we got to thinking like, what actually matters in creatine? So creatine monohydrate is essentially the powder creatine you get. It's 99.9% bile of bile. Almost every clinical study, the tens of thousands of clinical studies are out there are on creatine monohydrate. It is a molecule like, that's just what it is, right? No different than protein, right? Molecule. It is very well studied. Like it can come from lots of different places. For us, right? We believe in quality and sourcing. And so what made me so bullish is we've continued to say sourcing and quality matters. We will go find the best and we

1:05:37will go make the best. And so creatine for me, like, yes, creatine monohydrate, awesome. You can get it from a lot of places. Ultimately, quality compounds over time, we talked about that. And with creatine, if you're going to use it every day for the rest of your life, quality compounds, therefore we continue to invest in how do you make the highest quality creatine possible as a whole. And that's the momentous creatine. We call it our signature spec creatine. Why? Because we were not built our own creatine spec sheet. We said, we believe we can demand better from this space. And we can get the purest creatine possible that has the fewest amount of impurities, right? On market. And that's what we did with our our momentous creatine, which we're super excited about. And like recently, we just launched this. We had we had what has been the gold standard for a very long time on market. And we were really, really proud. But momentous is not our goal. And our vision is not to sit in our hands, right? Leaders lead from the front and they push to find better. And so we went on built our own, which we're really excited about. It also is a much finer powder as you've

1:06:41seen. And what that means is the mixability and the grittiness. And we talked about this like consumers need to stick to behaviors to have impact. And so by creating a finer powder that has more mixability and less grit actually helps people stay on their rituals and habits. It's one of the things we got huge complaints about surprisingly or not in customer service. Like, oh, it's gritty. It doesn't mix well. It's like, well, that's just creatine monohydrate, right? And then it's like, oh, we can find out. We can get a tighter mesh size, which basically means we can make it finer, right? And it stays in solution longer and is not as gritty. And that was a huge evolution too. So higher purity, better mixability is the momentous things to respect creatine. I love that. And you know, like, do your point almost every supplement company out there is now making creatine, right? And a lot of it is sourced from really questionable sources. There's tons of heavy metals and other, other ingredients. Yeah. Ingredients are not supposed to be in the gritty in there. Yeah. And Subcode did a big study on

1:07:42creatine as well. And they found that most of the creatines that they tested off of, like, you know, direct to consumer brands that were on Amazon, for example, had a very low concentration of creatine, but a very high concentration of heavy metals. And so it's incredibly important on the sourcing on this. Yeah. I mean, oh, man, that's where that's the dirty secret of our industry. Shorcin is everything, right? And sourcing ultimately dictates the end outcome of a product. And so you can't, you can't get around bad sourcing, but our industry is full of layers, layers, and layers. And so it's like, you can go buy a creatine. You don't know where it came from. You don't know what factory it came from. You don't like, because you're buying from a middleman, he's buying from a middleman, he's buying from a middleman, right? Or you're buying from a co-manufacturer, he's buying from a middleman. And so the transparency in the industry is so tight. And ultimately, what we said is we can't do that. We have to know exactly where is it coming from, what region, what country. And then we control that, right? Because ultimately sourcing is where quality starts

1:08:46from, right? And manufacturing, like putting it in a tub is commoditized, like creatine monohydrate, all we do is put it in a tub. We're not adding anything to our creatine monohydrate, like that skew. And so it's not manufacturing is not where a lot of things happen. It's all upstream. And creatine, like a lot of supplements are made via chemical process. No different than our body, like our body produces creatine via chemical process. Our body is a chemistry set. And that's like people at first were like, oh, it's just chemistry. They're like, oh man, this is chemistry. And you're like, that's the human body. And we are just creating it outside of the human body and therefore we use chemicals. But those raw ingredients to make creatine matter, right? And how it's reacted, how it's washed, right? So you can chemical wash creatine or water wash creatine. And those both have chemical washes really cheap, right? But chemical wash, right? It spits off DHT and other types

1:09:49of impurities. And water wash also has implications. If you wash it too much, you get increased your creatine levels, which is an impurity. If you wash it with bad water, you get heavy metals in it, right? Because heavy metals are in water. And like you have to wash it off. Anyway, so there's all these steps that matter in the purity aspect. This one is washed with reverse off most of the most filtered water. And that is no heavy metals in it by definition. Exactly. And that's how, like, I hope more people do that, right? The goal would be to continue to set the standard because you can do it. It just costs a little more, but it's not even that much. A creatine is so affordable, right? But when you buy, you buy quality, right? No difference in food, no different in everything in life. Like if you want quality, it does cost something because using a water wash, using chemical wash is cheap. A regular water wash is a little more expensive than using a reverse off most of this water wash is even more expensive, right? And then like the wrong reason. So it compounds, but at the end of the day, when we're talking about like our 90 serve of

1:10:53creatine is, you know, a dollar, two dollars more expensive than generic creatine, 90 divided by three dollars is three cents. Yeah. You know, like three and some change. You're like three cents a day for quality that compounds. Like it is a very different playing game. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. You know, I think it's pretty intuitive that we can give our kids way protein and fiber. What about kids and creatine? So, you know, a lot of kids are playing soccer, they're playing football, they're hitting their heads and, you know, creatine can be protective, right? And so I'm sure you get this question. When can you start a kid on creatine? I would ask a doctor. Yeah. I'll take I'm not a doctor on any of this. And I'm incredibly passionate about the space in the category. There are not a ton of clinical studies around creatine and adolescents as a whole, but the mechanisms of how creatine work, unless you have a kidney disease, creatine doesn't have any

1:11:54real long term implications. And if you have a creat, kidney disease, create like you might be one of the few people that creatine you should not take creatine on that. So for that, I would say when we think about a young adult, you know, high school age kid, it changes my perspective then, a below high school age. Right. Absolutely. Like below high school, right? Like you need to really be conscious of what you do and you need to make very educated decisions for yourself and what those things do. If you're a high school kid, right? And you are playing contact sports or potentially in a sport like ski racing, as an example, that it's not contact into. You have to contact right now. And I soccer is not a contact sport, but lots of traumatic brain injury in there. And so the data around creatine being neuroprotective is incredibly rich. Now, right? And it continues to grow and grow and grow. And it is something that, right? The top dieticians in the military and the top dieticians in pro and college sports are giving

1:12:58to their athletes proactively because of its neuroprotective abilities and the ability that when you do sustain a traumatic brain injury, right? It will be minimized and you will recover faster, right? Because ultimately you have creatine on board in your brain and creatine is what helps produce ATP and ATP is the main energy source your brain needs, right? And therefore that is important. And again, an adolescent young adult, it is a question that you need to ask and you should never supplement your kid willy-nilly on there. But for me and my family and how I think about it is drag brain injuries a big deal and has long lasting implications in life. And we know creatine, right? The body of literature is not rich in adolescents, but we understand the mechanism of actions that we that I would make an educated decision that when my kids play sports, creatine is a valuable thing. Am I giving them 15 grams? Hell no. Right? Because they aren't the size of me. They're not a grown man. Right. And so, but I do think like the number one

1:13:59questions we get is what I do with my kids, right? And it's a really tricky one, right? Because kids are kids and you need to teach them really good habits. But there are certain nutritional things that you can do that can have an impact, right? On kids like fiber and protein, like those are easy. Like it's the same as drinking like the same as drinking milk or eating tons of vegetables. Like good. And omega-3s like like kids omega-3s have a like brain health is like and brain formation. But creatine is the one that's the question. And I hope the research continues to progress. But I do think from an adolescent perspective in contact sports or sports that you can have like you should do your own research. But because there are some neuro protective and the long term implications of of traumatic brain injury and CTE are real that you can do your own research and make that judgment. But there is you will find that and you'll be able to make a decision for yourself. But to me, we get one brain is very important to me to think about

1:14:59brain health long term. Absolutely. And that was all very well said. When my patients ask me, I say, look, you got to check with your pediatrician because your pediatrician knows the history and everything that's going on with your child. But I do feel that high school age kids to your point it should be considered as well. But obviously, you know, people listen to this podcast, it is something to talk to your pediatrician about because I think that too many kids out there are getting head injuries and doing absolutely nothing about it because you know, kids are resilient, right? Yeah. And they come home, they from a game, they hit their head and then the next day they're back to normal and they're heading their head again the next day, right? And so I think is definitely something to consider. And I hopefully one of these days to your point, it becomes more of a standard rather than something that's not known, right? And the reach is just going to take us there. And I think the challenge is the other end of the spectrum is, well, then just don't play sports. And you're like sports are such a core community builder in society. And they teach so many intangible lessons for kids that it's not a black or white situation. And so therefore, you know,

1:16:03it's like, like as an elite football player, like you knew that was a risk. I ultimately knew that was a risk, right? And then you make decisions on how to minimize risk, right? And that's where the, like there's better helmet technology and like all of those things that matter. And you should as a parent, you should unturn all stones to help, right? Do that. And it's like, if your kid plays, you know, football in high school and neat, like you should make him wear the goofy helmet, that's better because it matters, right? But you shouldn't say don't play football, right? You should educate. Yeah. And you're the perfect example of that. Like the lessons that you learned from your NFL career and its sporting career made you the or gave you the skills that you got to like form this incredible company. Yeah. And really, you know, take the risk and do it the right way. And it's not easy doing things the right way, but just holding yourself to that level of quality and even like holding your team together through, yeah, through, you know,

1:17:07starting a company as we all know is very hard ups and downs. It's just all the lessons you learn playing a sport go way, way, way beyond actually making that a career or not, right? Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Well, this has been fantastic. What an incredible masterclass and supplementation. I hope this cleared up a lot of the noise out there for my audience in the supplement space. And I'm a big believer. You know, I think whenever you have a supplement coming that dedicates itself to high performing athletes, and you look at the science that you guys have looked at and you guys have done as far as the quality goes, it very easily translates into the medical field, right? And so there are medical grade supplements out there. And I think momentus is definitely one of them. Yes. And we use it for our patients and we don't have to worry about the quality. We don't have to worry about the sourcing that the serum levels, if it's going to work, etc. It just kind of makes it very easy for us to prescribe these to our patients. So I really thank you for the work that you've done. Yeah. Thank you. It's an honor to partner with you as well. And right for us, that's the, that's the greatest compliment we could ever give. So thank you.

1:18:12No, no, thank you. So where can people learn more about you and momentus and yeah, Google is a dangerous place for me because I have old Jeff as a football player. That's all I see when I Google it. Oh gosh. I know. If you want to have a fun rodeo, Google me because I was an offensive lineman, which means I do not look like this on here. Oh gosh. That's a scary thought. You can find us live momentus is our website as a whole. We're on Amazon. And like super exciting news. We're launching a target. We're in vitamin shop as well. Go to one of those great places to experience momentus as a whole. But yeah, our website is the best place to learn more and dive in as a whole. And I'd also say like our customer service, we call it customer success is great. Like we have a team of maybe 10 people that sit in our office, right, that are incredibly passionate about this space that don't have all the answers, but we'll go find all the answers.

1:19:14Right. And so if you have questions reach out to them or if you have problems and for us, like trust is earned every day. And we don't we don't know everything. And we're not perfect. But we want to know if you have feedback. And that's important to us. So we have a great a CS team, but our website is a really good place to find stuff. Awesome. Thank you so much for doing this with me today. You're welcome. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. Please remember to subscribe if you like this episode and give us a good review and share a link with your friends. It really helps to support all of our efforts. I also want to remind you that the information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only. And is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Please consult with your healthcare provider or physician before making any decisions or taking any action based on what you hear today. Especially if you have any underlying health conditions or on any medications. Your doctor knows your personal health situation the best. It is always important to seek their guidance.