Written by Christopher Kelly
June 17, 2016
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Christopher: Hello and welcome to the Nourish Balance Thrive Podcast. My name is Christopher Kelly and today I'm joined by Ryan Munsey. Hi, Ryan.
Ryan: Hi, Chris. Thanks for having me.
Christopher: Thank you. I've been very much enjoying your Optimal Performance Podcast. It's rather excellent. I was turned on to that by you recently and have really been enjoying that. I've just listened to the interview with Mark Sisson and that was phenomenal. I think you did a really good job of kind of grilling him a little bit and not giving him an easy ride.
Ryan: I appreciate that. You and I were talking before we record and it's always funny to think about who and how many people are actually listening to the show and it's kind of humbling but I think it does, when you think about it, it gives you that drive to make sure that every episode is exactly what you wanted it to be and it provides that content for your listeners. With Mark, he's been on so many shows and we wanted to make sure that it wasn't a fan boy moment that we try to bring out. We wanted to bring out his expertise and really help people which, I mean, he's great at doing that.
Christopher: I've certainly learned a lot from him over the years and I've just finished reading his book. I'm going to be interviewing him for the Keto Summit that I'm organizing. I've got a list of 33 experts that I'm going to be interviewing about the ketogenic diet and Mark is one of them. I've literally just finished reading his book. I know he's got a lot in his mind at the moment that he wants to get out but, yeah, it's difficult when you know he said a lot of it before. Yeah, congratulations on that.
Ryan: You've mentioned quite a few names already on this Keto Summit. I'm interested. I can't wait to hear that.
Christopher: Yeah. I'm a little bit nervous about getting all the interviews done, like 33 hours of interviews, a lot of books to read.
Ryan: You're going to be a really smart man at the end of this.
Christopher: I hope so. Yeah, I'll have to make sure I get everything transcribed, and I never it remember all.
Ryan: You need some CILTEP for that. It helps with memory.
Christopher: It's funny you should say that. We'll get into that. But before we get into that, I really wanted to know a bit more about your background. I read on the website that you're a former fitness model and then you turned into a writer, a speaker, a bio-hacker. I just want to know like how did that go down? So, you were a fitness model and then you realized you could get better results by being a bio-hacker or how did it work?
Ryan: Well, I think, my background was -- So, I also have a degree in Food Science and Human Nutrition. I went to Clemson University. When I was in school, in college, I wasn't good enough to play sports at that level. So, I grew up as an athlete my whole life. When I got to Clemson, like I said, I wasn't good enough to play so my outlet became the weight room. I kind of fell in love with lifting weights. My best friend from home was actually on the track team there and I got to hang out with Olympic level high jumpers and sprinters and guys who are to these days still playing in the NFL.
So, that was where I really fell in love with, performance training. And as I was doing all of this, I realized that the way that I trained and the way that I ate and the way that I fed my body had a huge impact on the expression of my health, how I looked, how I felt. And this was back in the early 2000. At that time, the word bio-hacking didn't exist but I was bio-hacking. I knew that if I changed my diet in this way that I'll get this result.
It kind of turned into an obsession with body building. I'm tall and kind of lanky so they said, "You're not built to be a body builder. You should try modeling." They said, "Hey, we'll set this up. We'll set this up." One thing led to another and I had a modeling contract in New York City and I graduated Clemson and went straight to New York City, became a fitness and fashion model. It didn't go the way I planned. When I was in school, I guess -- The one thing I always knew was I didn't want to be the person working a desk job for the rest of my life. I didn't really know what it was that I wanted. I just knew that I'd go crazy if I was in Dilbert cubicle.
Christopher: I can relate to the Dilbert cubicle. I spent most of my professional life in one.
Ryan: Look, that's not to knock that. I mean, for some people that works. I would not have lasted a week. It's just not how I tick. And when somebody said, "Hey, you can come to New York and get paid to have your picture taken and lift weights and be in shape," I said, "You know what, I'll give that a try." It didn't work out the way I planned. My build, I'm a little bit too big in structure to be a fashion model but I wasn't quite big enough in terms of muscle mass to be a fitness model. So, I was always either too small or too big, depending on which side I went.
Christopher: This is what Photoshop is for.
Ryan: Apparently. But, I guess, Adobe wasn't as good back then as it is now. When I got up there, I started helping people with their nutrition, the other models and sort of working as a personal trainer.
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And that kind of became a passion of mine and I started to realize that I could help people understand the same thing that I understood, that if you take control of your -- You can take control. You can take control of your health -- excuse me -- if you are diligent about what you, the practices that you put into or implement into your life whether it's working out, whatever your pursuit is, and the things that you eat.
I wanted modeling to become the platform that allowed me to help people with that. Like I said, it didn't. So, I came home, was a personal trainer for a few years and actually opened my own gym in 2012, ran House of Strength. That was a great thing. In doing that, became a fitness writer, written for Elite Fitness, T Nation, Men's Fitness, all those publications. And through that, I met the guys at Natural Stacks, started listening to Joe Rogan's podcast, started listening to Dave Asprey, really got into the whole bio-hacking thing once it had a name at that point.
Because that was right up my alley. I was already doing a lot of this stuff. I had the nutrition background so I really understood what was going on at the anatomy and physiology levels. So, it's been a really cool shift to go from in the gym to the podcast and the internet and being able to help people on this level as well. It's been a lot of fun and, like I said, it's been kind of a crazy journey. But I think that's part of my personality too. I think we do have control of our destiny and we only get one shot at this life so let's make it as cool as we can.
I don't know if you cuss on your podcast but I want to do cool shit with cool people and help as many people as we can. I rarely say no to an opportunity. If it has potential and it could be fun and cool and can help people move forward then let's dip our toes in the water and see if it works and keep going. And, I guess, that's kind of how I wound up here.
Christopher: What happened with the fitness model? You say it didn't work out with them. Were they not interested in your advice or did it not work for them?
Ryan: I mean, me as a model.
Christopher: Oh, you as a model. You didn't try and help other models at that time?
Ryan: No, I did. I did. And I helped quite a few. I'm still in touch with quite a few actually. It just didn't work for me to be a model. That's why you don't know me as a fitness model. That could be a whole another podcast. We could talk about the underbelly of the industry but that was just -- I had offers. I had offers to have big campaigns but what I would have had to do to land them was not something I was willing to do. Let's just leave it at that.
Christopher: We can do a whole another podcast on food science as well. My wife has a Masters degree in food science.
Ryan: Awesome.
Christopher: She's chosen not to go down the route of becoming a registered dietician or a nutritionist and instead helps people one on one with their diet and they're pretty much all athletes. But, yeah, that was kind of her destiny. There was the other destiny that was not practicing was to end up in a lab somewhere trying to make things taste like vanilla or something like that.
Ryan: Yes, that's so cool. It was like that's the same program that I was in at Clemson. So, Food Science and Human Nutrition, you could go one of two ways. It was like quality control where, like you said, I mean, all of our labs were making things taste better or learning how the ingredients affected, how cakes rise and making [0:08:37] [Indiscernible]. And then the other side of it was dietetics, which is where I was. I could have become an RD but I made the same choice your wife made.
I didn't want to pursue that route because even in college I disagreed with a lot of what I was taught. I'm sure that you would agree with that. When your programs are telling you that all foods fit, that there are no bad choices -- I'm going to steal a line from Mark Sisson on our show. I'm not condemning anyone's choices but I think we all are smart enough to know that there are some bad choices and that there are some foods that don't fit especially if your goals are to live more optimally and healthier and to thrive as opposed to suffer from a lot of the diseases of modern civilization.
Christopher: Right. It's taken me a long time to get my head around this because I just couldn't imagine it. I did Computer Science at university and the idea of being taught something that was probably wrong is unthinkable.
Ryan: It is.
Christopher: Like that couldn't happen in computer scientist. They're not lying to you about the way that transistor works or the way that a programming language works. It's really not -- you can test it for yourself. There's no scientific study and no probabilities and statistics. It just works. Yeah, it's so strange. But with the podcast, I was kind of expecting to learn all about supplements. Because when I go to naturalstacks.com, that's what I see.
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And then I listened to the podcast and then there's this disconnect where you're talking about all the same things I talk about on my podcast. And I'm wondering how this all fits together.
Ryan: I think you just caught me a terrible salesman.
Christopher: A terrible salesman. You talk about -- is this disconnect? So, which of the things that you think -- So, say, I'm an endurance athlete and a lot of the people listening to this podcast are endurance athletes. And we talk a lot about diet and stress management and getting adequate sleep. And then I also talk quite a lot about supplements. Which of the things that you think are the most important?
Ryan: That's really interesting that you noticed that, that disconnect. I think what we try to do in the podcast is talk about lifestyle things and habits and techniques and practices. Our approach at Natural Stacks is that those are the things, those are the foundation, those are the things that create health. No matter how many supplements you take, if you don't have those healthy habits and practices in your life, you're not going to thrive or be optimal, which is what both of our shows are about.
I guess, to get back to your question, I think that's the answer. I think it's looking at how you live your life trying to make all of your choices, all of your habits and actions be congruent with your stated goals. And when they are, then you're looking towards supplements to take you up a notch. So, at Natural Stacks, we have -- I guess, we kind of break out products into a couple of different stacks. We have a mental performance stack, we have a physical performance stack, and then we have kind of a performance essentials line.
Performance essential is going to be your Krill Oil, your Curcumins, our Prebiotic, MagTech, the things that if you want to live a long time and be optimal or enjoy optimal health, that's where you're going to be. The performance, physical performance stuff, we have an amazing protein powder. It's two to one ratio of grass fed whey protein and collagen along with colostrums from the first and second milks. And then we've got branch chain creatine, those are the things that are going to support whether you're a weightlifter or a cyclist, a hiker, any kind of physical performance.
And then the mental stuff, that's actually where it all started. Our first product was CILTEP and that's our flagship nootropic. And CILTEP is designed to increase your focus and it potentiates long term memory. So, more of the information that you take in when you're on it is you're better able to store and recall it, which is why I made that joke earlier when you conduct your 33 interviews. If you are on CIlTEP when you do it, you'll store those memories a little better.
Christopher: I've already noticed that. Sometimes I read the transcripts to my own podcast -- I've done over 100 episodes. I think I had done about 120 episodes now and I've transcribed every single word which costs me a small fortune.
Ryan: You do the transcriptions yourself?
Christopher: No. I pay someone. I pay a technical guy to do the transcripts. So, if you're listening to this podcast and you want to just read it, you can probably read at 400 words a minute, so you can probably listen or read the whole thing in 20, 25 minutes. Each episode is an hour. Quite often I'll go, "Oh, didn't Phil Maffetone say something to me about that?" And I'm like, "Yeah, he did. Here it is in the transcript." And I'll read it and it'd be like I was never -- I mean, this is me talking to me asking the question. I don't remember at all. I think it's just I had so much information come in the last three years with respect to the 30 or 40 that came before it.
Ryan: Right, right. And it's fascinating too because -- you can relate to this as a podcast host -- when you're listening to somebody else's show, you're listening for content. When you're conducting the interview or you're part of producing one you're focused on kind of where they go and what's the next question, how can I extract value from this for the listeners. So you're not really paying attention for content. It is a completely different experience.
Christopher: It is a different experience, you're right. And so the way that I overcome this is I developed this slightly OCD habit of editing the podcast where I go through this and I'll edit out all the ums and ahs. And I'm taking notes. So, if you look in the show notes for this episode, you'll see this ludicrous list of bullet points which is basically no use to you anyway. I call it a summary but it's not really a summary. It's nearly all of the content. But what this really is, and this is true with the whole podcast, is this is my learning experience. I'll take little tips and tricks, little clinical trials from people from all over the internet and--
Ryan: I'm laughing because--
Christopher: -- ends up in my little deck of cards that I play from. And when we're trying to make people feel good, I have this deck of cards I play from. And that entire deck, it's all come from the podcast, more or less.
Ryan: I do the exact same thing. That's why I'm laughing. That's kind of my work flow too.
Christopher: Yes. So, when you hear it the second time -- people talk about outsourcing staff and saving time and less doing all of that.
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I think that's all great. I've really benefited from that way of thinking. But there's certain things that you don't want to outsource, like that learning process to me. It's that second time around of hearing it, that's when I really start to take stuff in. So, yeah, I'm not sure you want to outsource that job.
Ryan: No, I don't think so either. I mean, as far as producing the podcast goes, we also outsource the transcription process and maybe at some point I will outsource the editing of the video and the show notes and all that for the blog post but, like you said, that listening to it and going through it, pulling out what's important, highlighting those bullet points for the blog post, I mean, that's really where it sinks in for me.
Christopher: It's that second time, the summary.
Ryan: Yeah. And we've had a couple of memory champions on our podcast and they've talked about the importance of hearing things the second time or going back. That helps move memories from short term to long term.
Christopher: Okay.
Ryan: So, there is something to be said for that. They call it -- I think it's a review process.
Christopher: So, I've done a lot of these massively available online courses. And I noticed in the last Eat To Perform Podcast, I have Brad Dieter on the podcast talking about that, and Mike T. Nelson is obviously a huge fan of summarizing. You watched the videos and you're like, "Wait, I've seen this one. No, I haven't seen this one." He's just summarizing again and again and again. And, I guess, slightly boring. But then you realize that you really know this stuff. When you get that point you realize it's boring that's when you realize that you've actually remembered it.
So, why don't you tell me about nootropics then because I know absolutely, sometimes I fake not knowing things about. But we are supposed to talk about something I do know a little bit about it, not a lot but a little bit. And in this case I really know nothing. Like I barely know what the word means, nootropic. So, why don't we start by me asking you what is a nootropic? What does the word mean?
Ryan: So, it actually comes from Greek, I believe, nous and trope. And that literally means mind turning. And nootropics, as we use the word, is anything that can be used to enhance your cognitive or mental performance. So, there are several different classes of nootropics. You have nutraceuticals, which are what you typically find on the internet, like what we make. The other category would be a pharmaceutical.
So, a well-known pharmaceutical nootropic is going to be Modafinil. So, that is a prescription drug here in the US. The only way to get it is to either have a prescription or to buy it from outside the country, which I didn't tell you to do that. So, with the nutraceuticals, which is where we live, it's less of that gray area. With Natural Stacks, every product that we make is going to have natural ingredients. With some of the gray area nootropics, they are not all natural.
Another one of the most well-known and commonly used nootropics is the family of Racetams. So, there's Piracetam, Oxiracetam, Aniracetam, the different prefixes correlate to each of those different versions of Racetam have different half lives and affect you slightly differently. So, as a lot of bio-hackers get in and tinker with the Racetams they find that some people like Oxiracetam, some people like Piracetam. The one thing I remember with all nootropics is that it's a very individual experience. We all have different neurochemical environments in our brain. We all have different personalities. We all have different goals and work requirements.
It's not a one size fits all thing. I think that's something that's really important for people to keep in mind as they experiment with nootropics. So, to kind of get back to nutraceuticals and what we do with Natural Stacks, what I said earlier, CILTEP is our flagship nootropic. That was our first product along with Smart Caffeine which I can tell you about later. But CILTEP is really cool. It was developed over a course of a few years on the LongeCity forums. And it was kind of a collaboration between everybody who used that forum and what finally came out was this product CILTEP. Abelard Lindsay was the formulator. He and our co-founders Ben and Roy actually started the company Natural Stacks around CILTEP and produced it for the public.
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We have a patent on CILTEP. So, it is a patented product now. And it stands for chemically induced long-term potentiation. So, the two main ingredients in CILTEP are artichoke extract and forskolin. And they serve to inhibit PDE4, which is an enzyme that down regulates cyclic AMP. So, by inhibiting this enzyme we stop that down regulation of cyclic AMP. So, you have slighter higher levels of cyclic AMP and then it also in itself boosts cyclic AMP, that combination of forskolin and artichoke extract. So, with the higher levels of cyclic AMP, you're going to experience a greater engagement in what it is that you're doing. It's almost like you want to read or learn or code--
So, a lot of coding if that's like, if that's the type of task where CILTEP really excels because you stay dialed in or if you have to read or if you have to listen to a whole lot of podcast and do a lot of transcriptions or things like that. So this elevated level of cyclic AMP leads to increased long-term potentiation, LTP. So, you're better able to store and recall those memories. So, CILTEP is marketed as something that increases focus and memory. It does not -- and this is where it differs from a lot of other nootropics -- it does not really work on the neurotransmitters.
The neurotransmitters, the four main ones -- A great book, if you recommend books on your podcast, Dr. Eric Braverman wrote The Edge Effect and he talks a lot about optimizing your brain. And he's actually developed something called the Braverman test. And in the Braverman test, the four neurotransmitters that he looks at are GABA, acetylcholine, dopamine and serotonin. So, acetylcholine is responsible for mental processing speed and a lot of nootropics will play on that. You'll see alpha-GPC or choline or some variation of that in a lot of nootropics.
Alpha BRAIN is one. Dave Asprey of Bulletproof has Choline Force. So, there are a lot of others I'm sure that are out there. I'm just not as familiar with the others. But those will obviously boost choline and you will kind of feel your brain working a little bit faster. All of the neurotransmitters can be -- So in the test, there's two parts to the test. You kind of learn in part one where your default setting is. And then in part two of the test, you're going to look at any deficiencies that you may or may not have. And these are all from Dr. Braverman. This is how he treated people. This is not us saying you have a deficiency. I have to be clear on that for the FDA.
So, back to the other neurotransmitters. GABA is kind of associated with feelings of calm and relaxation. A lot of people will just supplement straight with GABA in the evenings to help with sleep. One of the problems with GABA that way is that it does not cross the blood brain barrier. It's not very effective with that. And so one thing I'll mention now is we are -- So, since CILTEP does not operate on the neurotransmitter pathways, we have a line of brain foods. We have dopamine brain food and serotonin brain food out now. GABA is coming out very soon. And we will have acetylcholine out hopefully by the end of this year.
So, with GABA, our formulation will incorporate some ingredients that facilitate GABA crossing that brain, blood brain barrier, so that it actually gets to your brain. Dopamine is related to activity. It's kind of like the productivity one. So, from an evolutionary standpoint, dopamine was the thing that we got a hit of, "Hey, that was good. That produced a great result. Let's do that again." So, it kind of has this signal that keeps you going or gives you a jump start.
And then serotonin is the neurotransmitter that helps govern mood, anxiety, fear. We kind of joke when we call that the chill pill. I tell people that that's -- a lot of times I recommend people who seems stress to take that at 3:00 or 4:00 p.m. instead of waiting until 5:00 and having that pint or glass of wine after work. So, that, I think, is -- that's a lot of nootropic talk. Did I confuse you? Do you have questions? What do you want me to elaborate on or explain from there?
Christopher: I did actually go down the rabbit hole last night. Oh, I better prepare for that podcast tomorrow with Ryan. And I started looking at cyclic AMP and basically I went down this rabbit hole of looking at [0:25:02] [Indiscernible] of protein and the way that norepinephrine works.
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I resurfaced knowing absolutely nothing about nootropics. That's quite common for me. I don't really learn very well unless I'm kind of structured from the outside in some way sometimes. The first thing I'm wondering about, is that what you would do then if someone like me that's completely new, you would read a book and maybe do a questionnaire and that would help me assess whether or not I could benefit from something like CILTEP or maybe something else, I don't know. So, I'm just wondering how I know I need it.
Ryan: That would be one way to start. There would be nothing wrong with starting that way. I think that would have a higher barrier to entry. I think having to go through all those steps would turn me off from wanting to try it. When I tried these things for the first time I think it was because I heard Dave Asprey on the podcast and I was like, "Oh, that sounds awesome. Let me get some and try it." And that was what I did. But I realized not everybody is like me. So, I think, my recommendation is I would love for everybody listening to go to NaturalStacks.com and grab some CILTEP. And if you want maybe we can give them a discount code to do that.
Christopher: Yes, please do.
Ryan: Okay. So, how about we do--
Christopher: NBT.
Ryan: NBT. We'll call it CILTEPNBT. So, if you put that code in, you will get a discount of, let's go 40% off.
Christopher: Oh, blimey. Okay.
Ryan: Yeah. And you and I will talk after the show. We'll set that up. So, 40% off if you guys want to go try CILTEP, NaturalStacks.com. Use coupon code CILTEPNBT, all capital.
Christopher: And then how do you know it's working?
Ryan: And that's why when I describe it I always make sure to tell people that it doesn't work on that neurotransmitter level. You're not going to get jittery. You're not going to -- it's not like downing three shots of espresso and then you're wired and you're like, "Oh my god." CILTEP, we recommend taking it on an empty stomach first thing in the morning. And then if you're into the Bulletproof stuff, a lot of us are into that, we drink Bulletproof coffee, maybe 20 or 30 minutes later. If you eat breakfast, do your normal thing, whatever it is that you follow, keep following that. You're just going to add CILTEP in before you do anything.
So, for us, the flow goes, you get up, you take CILTEP and anything else that you might take in the morning, whether it's vitamins or whatever your routine is. And then you hit your desk or your office 30 minutes to an hour later. And by the time you sit down and actually start working, what you'll notice is what I said earlier where you have this increased desire to read or get things done. It's almost like you're easier to fascinate. You want to do these things. So, that's the increased focus.
At the end of the day or the next day -- so like studying is a great use for this. If you have to study then you may notice that when it comes time to recall it, so on the day of the test, you're better able to recall the information that you took in during that study period. One of our champions is Mattias Ribbing who is a Swedish memory grand champion. And he actually did some tests where he memorized decks of cards and his recall of those decks of cards was better, stronger faster, whatever qualifier he used on CILTEP. He was more accurate and faster.
Christopher: Interesting. That was going to be my next question. Is there any kind of evidence that we can look at? Has anyone done any studies on CILTEP?
Ryan: Well, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say this or not but we have secured funding for some studies. There will be some studies. You have that and let me double check if that can be released. And if it can, then you can let people know.
Christopher: But someone must have done some studies on some of the herb.
Ryan: Yeah, exactly. And that's--
Christopher: The forskolin.
Ryan: Yeah. There's tons of studies on -- So, back when CILTEP was being formulated on LongeCity, Abelard, the creator, noticed that some PDE4 inhibitors were producing incredible results in studies using lab, rats in labs. And then the [0:29:26] [Indiscernible] they were using a clinical formulation, not a natural version. And the rats were, they were getting really smart but they were having violent reactions. They were getting ill. So, he started thinking, okay, how can I get the good without the bad and do it naturally? And that's where artichoke and forskolin came in. And, yes, there are studies on the individual ingredients. Just CILTEP as itself is about to go under some studies.
Christopher: I know that makes a difference as well. People always want to do that. In fact, I was having that conversation with somebody this morning that like, "Well, I'm taking this thing. It's a proprietary blend and I bet it's just one of those things in there that's helping me feel better and I want to know."
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Ryan: And I'm saying [0:30:06] [Indiscernible] blend because -- and that's part of our mission at Natural Stacks is to disrupt what people know of the supplement industry as this kind of hidden thing and these people are trying to do shady things. All of our formulations are open source. We never use proprietary blends. So, in any product that we make, you can read the label and you'll be able to see the exact amount of every single ingredient. So that's what we mean when we say open source.
We want to operate with full transparency because at the heart of it all we're supplement users. And we were fed up with low quality ingredients and companies hiding behind those proprietary blends. I mean, that was the genesis. It's like, hey, let's do it the right way and let's put out what we want to take. We're always trying to operate with full transparency and be open about everything we do. And that's part of why we want to get these studies done, because everybody who's using these products is having anecdotal experiences that are positive. So now we want that clinical result to back it up.
Christopher: There's a lot of what you say resonates with me. So, just the word bio-hack resonates with me because I understand the word hacking from my computer science background. It's kind of [0:31:25] [Indiscernible] work with something.
Ryan: Yes, exactly.
Christopher: And then open source as well. Obviously, well, not obviously at all, my entire career has been based on open source software. So, I only worked with Linux and Python and--
Ryan: So, you're not a Mac guy.
Christopher: Well, I actually am a Mac guy but even that is still FreeBSD really underneath the hood. That was kind of when I started looking at the Mac with more interest was when it started using the FreeBSD operating. A lot of this is very familiar for me. But I'm just wondering whether you'll ever do it. So, one of the blends of botanical Rainforest Herbs that we use as an antimicrobial in our practice, there's a woman, a naturopathic doctor that actually went to the rainforest to try and figure these things out and to teach the people there that they could make more money by cultivating these botanical herbs rather than just cutting down the trees.
And she never really figured out how they worked. And the pharmaceutical industry just hasn't done a good job either because all they want to do is just take one thing. We want to isolate this one compound from this plant and then see if it has the desired effect. That's how they start with this database of common uses around the world. So, if somebody is using the same plant for the same use on different sides of the globe then you might have something there and then you drill down from there.
And that leads to failure more often than it does the success by a long, long way because the compounds in the plant, there's synergy there. And you can't just isolate a single variable and expect it to work in the same ways it did when it was the whole thing in the plant. And so that creates a problem. But, yeah, I see no reason why you can't do evidence based medicine with this CILTEP Natural Stacks. That sounds like a really good project and I'd love to hear that you're actually spending money on that stuff. That's phenomenal.
Ryan: Yeah. I mean, like I said, we want to have -- everything we do is based in science and research and we want to have that on our formulations, not just the ingredients.
Christopher: Right.
Ryan: One of our other products is Smart Caffeine and that is a two in one ratio of L-Theanine to caffeine. So that one pill has 200 milligrams of L-Theanine and 100 grams of caffeine. So, there's a couple of reasons we like that. One, you get a measured dose of caffeine where a lot of times with coffee you don't know how much you're getting. The other part of that is that exact ratio has been used and studied in numerous studies. So, you can look it up. We have a lot of the research on our website but there's tons of articles out there showing that that two to one ratio of L-Theanine to caffeine increases mental alertness. It increases attention, reduces distractions and it even reduces caffeine induced sleep disruption. So, that's one. I mean, that's our entire formula, just those two ingredients. And that has been studied. We want to have that kind of research for all of our formulations. And so we will do that. That's part of the long term plan.
Christopher: Do you know what you really need? You need an app to crowdsource this research studies. You could get thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people to do this or get them to take the drug or a placebo that you sent out. And you can have an app where they do some kind of cognitive test, some memory test or something.
Ryan: That would be really cool. I like that idea.
Christopher: And then you can get like a really powered test like [0:34:55] [Indiscernible] 500 or even 1000. That would be pretty cool.
Ryan: That would be really cool.
Christopher: I noticed that though with me and caffeine, I know I'm a fast caffeine metabolizer according to my genomic data.
[0:35:04]
And for me, I load up on it. I used to do this before cyclocross races. I take two grams of caffeine. That would get me going. There was a time I was pretty sick and over trained and I couldn't get going and two grams of caffeine would do the trick. But then I wouldn't sleep for two days.
Ryan: Right, right. That's a lot of caffeine.
Christopher: That's a lot of caffeine, yeah. And it would take that much. Like it's just like a cliff for me. I get nothing from caffeine, nothing from caffeine, and two grams and it hits me like a freaking, like a bowling ball. And the Theanine doesn't do that. I have to raise an objection here and just that why not have a cup of coffee or a cup of hot cacao or something like that? Is that not a better way to get these desirable compounds?
Ryan: You absolutely can. There are times where, let's say I'm traveling. Like I said earlier, I drink Bulletproof coffee every day. I'm just a person who loves coffee. Some people don't like coffee. Other people -- If I needed a boost or a dose later in the day, I won't drink coffee after 2:00 p.m. but I can take Smart Caffeine later like 4:00, 5:00, 6:00 p.m. because that combination with L-Theanine reduces that sleep disruption from caffeine.
We had a lot of, I guess, we call them testimonials or success stories come back from customers. I had email thread with one guy who was a Coast Guard patrol and he would have to wake up in the middle of the night to go out on a call and then come home and go back to sleep. And he's like, "Man, Smart Caffeine saves me in that instance because it gets me up, gets me going. But then when I come home I can go right back to sleep." So, it's a tool in a toolbox. Everything is a tool in a toolbox. The saying is you can build a house with nothing but a hammer but if you want a masterpiece or a mansion, if you're trying to be optimal or thrive, then you're going to need multiple tools in the toolbox. So, it's having the right tool for the right application.
Christopher: I was very impressed by your list of ingredients, actually. I spent quite a lot of time looking at supplements. I have some good connections now with the guys at Thorne Research and I think of them as being the Rolls Royce of supplements. They put quality first, absolutely no doubt. I don't know of anyone that's going to quite the same lengths as they are to do mass spectrometry on the supplements three or four times during the production process to make sure that it's not contaminated or degraded or anything like that.
Sometimes you see -- I look at supplements and I can just tell that it's not a really great quality supplement just by some of the ingredients. And I was very impressed by all of your stuff especially in the dopamine stack. This is exactly what we reduce in our practice. We measure homovanillate on an organic acids and low turnover of homovanillate, low turnover of dopamine, for me, personally, that was quickness to anger, so difficulty concentrating and quickness to anger.
Ryan: Right.
Christopher: Taking tyrosine really, really helped me and I see you've got a stack Phenylalanine, tyrosine and then B6, methylated, good form of B6. And then the fancy form of Folate and Methylcobalamin and trimethylglycine, which I've actually just started experimenting with as a methyl donor. I really suck at methylation. Now, we got a window on some of this stuff. We did this yearly hormone test that looks at the conversion of some of the estrogens and that's a window in methylation and just consistently suck at it. So, I just started experimenting with trimethylglycine. That's kind of cool that you put all those things together in a single stack like that.
Ryan: So, that dopamine that you're referring to is part of our brain food line and with -- That's one where currently we have dopamine and serotonin available. GABA will be coming out and acetylcholine will be out sometime before the end of 2016. But everything that we have in that brain food line is designed -- what we've done is we've studied the metabolic pathway of that neurotransmitter. And we are providing the vitamins, minerals, amino acids, all of the cofactors that are associated with that process.
So that we're just giving your body all of the raw materials to make this thing. And we're saying here take what you need and allowing the body to go down that pathway that way it wants to. So, our approach is not one of trying to force or skip steps in that pathway. Because that's a question we get a lot like with our serotonin. Somebody will say, "Well, why don't you have 5HTP? Why is it tryptophan?" Well, that's the reason. Because 5HTP is -- it's not the first step.
Christopher: Certainly. And we've heard this many times before. Maybe a good analogy or metaphor is you bring the lumber to the yard and you don't really know what the yard is going to do with it. And many of the supplements that we've talked about in the podcast before -- So Sleep Cocktails is another good example where it's not inducing sleep with the pharmacological agent. It's just bringing the lumber to the yard that's needed to make the things that send you to sleep. And it's really up to your brain to do what it does.
[0:40:08]
Ryan: Exactly.
Christopher: And then we talked recently about N-acetylcysteine, which is kind of the same. I mean, it is in itself an antioxidant of sorts. But really it's up to your body to make the glutathione with it. That's the main antioxidant you're after. Yeah, we've seen this before and it's a familiar concept to people that had been listening to the podcast for a while. And when would you say to someone, "Don't take one of these?" Like is there a situation where you'd say, "No, don't do that."
Ryan: If there was a doctor or an FDA rep standing right next to me? No. I think it's like I said earlier, they're all tools in your tool box. So like CILTEP is, for me, I take CILTEP on a day where I've got to get shit done. I have a heavy workload and it's mentally strenuous. For that reason, I'm not going to take CILTEP on a Saturday or Sunday. You could. You certainly can take it every single day. That would be probably an instance where I'd say maybe you don't have to take CILTEP on a Saturday or a Sunday.
With dopamine or serotonin, those brain foods, the more you play around with -- I think with those it's good maybe to start off with the Braverman test to see -- Any time you get into the bio-hacking stuff or the quantified self, as analytical as you are, you could probably appreciate this, it gives you a number or some kind of concrete thing to tie that feeling to in the beginning. So, you can say, "Okay, this is what's going on. I have, according to the Braverman test, I have this deficiency. This is how I've been feeling for the last few days."
Christopher: So we can quantify this much better than that now with the urinary organic acids. The trouble is it doesn't cover all of the neurotransmitters. So, I can give you a really good idea what's going on with dopamine and serotonin and epinephrine and norepinephrine but who knows with GABA and acetylcholine, I don't really know.
Ryan: Right. Got you. Let's stick to dopamine or serotonin, one that you can quantify on there. So, you're able to pair the data with the feeling. And once you can recognize the feeling, you don't always have to have the data. And I'm not saying that data is a bad thing but from a fitness standpoint.
Christopher: Oh, yeah, we get this. Like how many people listening to this podcast can tell you what the heart rate is once they've been running for an hour or biking for an hour? Most people know within a beat exactly what the heart rate is all the time. Even though they're wearing a monitor they don't have to look to know.
Ryan: Right, right, right. So, it's cool to have all these numbers and I think you need them periodically or at least to establish the baseline and then to check in. But I think logistics, on a daily basis, most people and the way we live our lives today, we're not going to spend that time. We're not going to invest that every single day. But when you start to, I guess, to try to get back to the answer, when you start to be able to realize, like, "Hey I'm feeling really stressed out. I probably don't want to take something that's going to promote more dopamine." Or if I am feeling kind of stressed out and like I want a beer or a glass of wine, then that may be a good time to try to take serotonin brain food and unwind a little bit.
Christopher: This has been awesome. Did I miss anything?
Ryan: Hopefully, that answered your question.
Christopher: It does answer my question, yeah.
Ryan: Okay.
Christopher: Did I miss anything? Is there anything else you wanted to talk about or where can people find you on the web?
Ryan: We are at naturalstacks.com. If you want to check out our podcast, it's the Optimal Performance Podcast.
Christopher: And I will link to that in the show notes for this page. You can go straight to iTunes and subscribe to that. It's been really good. I've been enjoying it.
Ryan: Awesome. I appreciate that. And, I guess, for your listeners, just remember, you guys can go to naturalstacks.com, try CILTEP, 40% off. Use that coupon code CILTEPNBT, all caps.
Christopher: Excellent. And I'm going to try that myself and I'll mention in the future podcast. And if you don't hear from me about it in the future podcast, it means that either it doesn't work because I've forgotten about it or I forgot to buy it. Someone's going to have to write in and remind me to talk about CILTEP in the future. Unless it's really good, and then you'll hear about it for sure. So, I will talk about it in the future podcast.
Ryan: I'll send you something to make sure you remember.
Christopher: That's why we have all these devices now. We have this [0:44:37] [Indiscernible] to try to remember sticky notes for everything now.
Ryan: Yeah, yeah.
Christopher: It's been fantastic, Ryan. Thanks so much for your time. I've really enjoyed this.
Ryan: Oh, this has been blast. Thanks for having me, Chris.
Christopher: Cheers.
[0:44:47] End of Audio
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