66. Steve Martocci: Inside the $50B Supplement Scam, But With a Fix

Most supplements don't work. Some might actually harm you. That's the hard truth no one in the $50 billion supplement industry wants to say out loud—but we will. In today's episode of Extend, I'm joined by Steve Martocci, co-founder of SuppCo, to expose what's really going on behind the labels. We break down why "clinically dosed" means nothing, why the FDA isn't protecting you, and how two identical bottles can deliver completely different outcomes. We also dive into the myth of "FDA-approved" supplements, the loopholes brands exploit to mislead consumers, and why Europe bans ingredients still allowed in U. S. formulas. If you take supplements—or recommend them—this episode is essential listening. It's time to stop guessing, stop wasting money, and start demanding real data, transparency, and strategy. Steve Martocci is the co-founder of SuppCo, a platform bringing science-backed clarity to the chaos of the supplement industry. We Also Discuss: The dirty truth behind supplement "trust scores" How shady supplements keep making it to your shelf Supplement demand is exploding… but quality isn't Why "clinically dosed" doesn't mean clinically effective How professional brands still get away with underdelivering Why you're probably taking the wrong supplements for your goals How SuppCo is flipping the industry on its head The tool that finally helps you trust what you're taking Thank You For Our Sponsors: Deliverance: Give your liver the care it deserves! Deliverance is a powerful plant-based formula designed to support and restore liver health. Get 10% off your first order with code DRSHAH at loveyourliver.com https://loveyourliver.com Timeline: Upgrade your energy from within! MitoPure by Timeline helps power up your cells, supporting muscle strength, mental clarity, and overall vitality. Stay active, sharp, and strong at any age! Claim 10% off your first order now at timeline.com/DrShah Learn more about Dr. Shah: Website: https://www.drshah.com/ Clinic: https://www.next-health.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darshanshahmd/ Learn more about Steve Martocci: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smart/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joinsuppco/ Website: https://supp.co/ ➡️ Listeners can use the code "EXTEND15" to receive 15% off their personalized supplement protocol on https://supp.co/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Welcome to Extend with me, Dr. Darshan 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 and board-certified at 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're 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 I interview world-renowned experts, offering you a step-by-step guide to proactively avoid disease, and most importantly, extend your health span.

• 0:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Did you know that many of the supplements that you buy from the supermarket actually don't work at all? And some might actually be harming you. There's a lot of hard truths out there for the supplement market, and many companies won't tell you what you need to really know about your supplements that you're taking. And that's what we're going to explore in this episode of Extend. I'm going to sit down with a good buddy of mine, Steve Martocci. He's the co-founder of an incredible new company called SupCo, which has an app that helps you figure out which supplements are actually right for you and what's going to work. He's one of the only people brave enough to call out the dark side of this $50 billion unregulated industry. I'm a board-certified doctor, and I've seen so many patients waste thousands of dollars

• 1:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  and even risk their health on supplements that don't do anything. In this episode, we're going to expose many truths. We're going to talk about why the words clinically dosed really doesn't mean much, why the same supplement brand can have completely different formulations in different bottles, and you just think it's the same thing. And while you can't really rely on reviews or fancy labels, or even the things that they tell you on the labels when it comes to the supplement industry, we're going to dive into how Supco is building a system to finally bring truth and transparency to this market using hard data and not marketing. If you're taking supplements, or if you're one of the practitioners out there that listen to this podcast and recommend them, you're going to want to know what is actually in

• 2:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  that capsule that you're taking. This is the episode that's going to help you figure this out and how to think about this industry of supplements, big picture, and how you can really understand how to create the most ultimate supplement routine that really works for you and at the lowest possible cost. Steve is a co-founder and CEO of Supco. He has a background in healthcare technology and data analytics. He's actually an entrepreneur that's had other exits in apps that I've used personally in the past. So I know he's an incredible app designer. And finally, he's putting his talents to great use in our health and wellness world for supplements. Let's listen in on this conversation I had with Steve, and I guarantee you're going to learn a lot today.

• 3:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Steve, thanks so much for joining. This is awesome having you here.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  I'm so excited to be here. We were just like jamming right before this started on all the stuff we're going to talk about, and it's, it's exciting me.

• 3:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's so exciting. I love this. And so for the listeners, Steve Martocci is a serial entrepreneur. He and I became acquainted because he started an incredible company called Supco. And for those of the listeners of these podcasts that know, like, you know, we do a lot of episodes on supplements and the pros and cons. And what I love about what you've started is really you've gotten to the heart of the matter around supplements, many of the different matters around supplements. And you've really figured it out from a, I would say, a technological perspective, but also what do people really need to know? So today's episode is all about learning more about you and doing a deep dive into the world of supplements. I think

• 3:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  our readers are going to learn so much from this episode. And I appreciate your serial entrepreneurship as well, because you have taken your knowledge and your experience, and you've put it into something that into a tool that we can all use. And I can't wait to talk about that. So Steve, I'd love to start off with like, tell me a little bit about where you're from, what brought you here?

• 4:17Speaker 01

  I'll give you my journey. So, you know, as a kid, I grew up on Long Island and I was, I'm, I'm six foot five, I'm tall, but I was always so overweight. And I would play all the sports because the teachers would, the coaches would want me on the team. But I was always a big disappointment, like literally doing two a day football practices and still being gigantically overweight. I tried to get help, went to see a doctor, my mom took me to an endocrinologist. And she said, they said I was on the low end of normal, so they couldn't do anything.

• 4:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Low end of normal of what?

• 4:48Speaker 01

  My thyroid.

• 4:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Your thyroid?

• 4:49Speaker 01

  She was hypothyroid, you know, so this just went on and I was always just known as the, the heavy kid. I was probably, I was two ninety-nine on a scale and I know I was over three, but I never got on the scale again. You know, to see that number, I didn't want to see it. And then built my first company, GroupMe, which was a kind of pioneering group text messaging back in two thousand and ten. Sold that to Skype and I just was like, man, I want to live.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  So found a functional medicine doctor and started doing labs. And had great success, you know, took some thyroid medicine, dialed in my medications, dialed in my supplements, got my diet and exercise. Right. And it finally worked. Everyone asked, what are you doing? No one wanted to hear diet and exercise. This was 10 years before Ozempic was a thing. So I would share this like ugly Google spreadsheet of my medications and supplements. That was my stack. And I, I tell you, like I'd share it, I don't know if people understood what to do with it because they were not really talking to their doctors about this kind of stuff yet, but they were excited by it. I went on and built two more companies, a music collaboration company called Splice and a helicopter company I co-founded called Blade.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  And then after I was done at Splice, I did 10 years running the company, hired a new CEO. And was like, kind of having some downtime and just got the real itch to build again. And wanted to get back into the health space or get into the health space because I like, you know, I'd seen how stack sharing and supplements, this was now dinner table conversation. The stuff that I was doing with my doctor like 10 years earlier is all of a sudden like everyone is doing this now. And I was like, okay, I remember having the idea for it. And the first day, I haven't even told anyone yet. A friend came over and said, I spent four hours today going through all my supplements to figure out how to save money and take less pills. I was like, oh. Okay, you know, this is interesting.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  And then I remember like, you know, a week later, I talked to a doctor, a nutritionist about it, who was like, you know, I don't know if I actually going to analyze what my patients take. It would take me four hours to go take the products, find out what actual nutrients are in those products, and then, you know, sum them all up. And no doctors are really doing this. So it quickly became clear there's a ton wrong in the space and that, you know, I really had a drive to solve it. And so we built SupCo, started out with the concept of being stack, sharing your supplement stack, but it's really grown into something to, to help you make sense of supplements, right? And it's an app, you can scan a barcode of any of your existing products, build your stack, get an analysis on what you can be doing better, how you can save money, how

• 7:19Speaker 01

  you can reach a higher quality. We do a trust score for, for every brand and, you know, 20,000 of the individual products now scored on a 29-point criteria. And, uh, and it's really been just an amazing way for, for people to get more agency over their health when it comes to supplements.

• 7:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love that. I love how you found a problem, solved it, and then added more tools into that solve.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  The only thread for me of like, okay, you did a text messaging, a helicopter, music, it's just stuff I want to exist.

• 7:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, what's the thread? You're solving a problem.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  The thread is software that I want to exist. And this is what I want to do this. And man, I have never, we, we put the beta out in October, very early beta that was designed to just like update our LinkedIn's, you know, tell people we're working on something. I've never seen a response like this, like people, you know, 55% of Americans are regularly taking a supplement, 70.

• 8:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  55%.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, 74 take, have take them, but struggle to, to stick with them. The, the demand, everyone knows that they want to be taking them, they just can't make sense of it. So the, I just love that the consumer reactions have been so, and, and the doctor reactions.

• 8:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, going back to your health journey though, I found that interesting. How long were you overweight for? What, what age did you finally figure out the thyroid was the issue?

• 8:35Speaker 01

  30.

• 8:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  30, so you spent 30 years. Because your traditional doctor cannot get you into an optimal range with your thyroid.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  Wouldn't even try.

• 8:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, wouldn't even try.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Like 90s medicine like just completely failed me.

• 8:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 8:50Speaker 01

  And, and really like you go to any doctor unless, until I found like, kind of like what we would call a functional medicine doctor. And it's someone who was like, no, we're going to solve this, you know? And me, I don't know if that was an insurance thing, they couldn't take the risk, they had to cover their ass or what. But like, it, it was a really long and, and hard journey to find the right person to help.

• 9:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Well, yeah, and I think a lot of it has to do with just the fact that, you know, in Western medicine that we're taught, until it reaches an abnormal number, you're not supposed to prescribe anything because insurance is not going to cover it, et cetera, et cetera. And so it's really, you know, as we all know, those ranges are built on averages.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 9:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And you are a six foot five guy that's 300 pounds, you're definitely not average, right? So you need more thyroid hormone support than the average.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  My mom was hypothyroidic.

• 9:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  You're so right though, too, when I, you know, cause I've also been tracking my heart plaque since, since I was 30. My friend's dad was a cardiologist and he's like, he was preaching calcium scores, you know, 15 years ago. And 30, I had nothing. And then I had a score of eight when I was 35. And I remember going into a cardiologist being like, you know, hey, I, I want to prevent a heart attack, you know? And they're like, they didn't know how to do anything but treat, treat you if you were already sick.

• 10:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  So, you know, that it's, you know, the, the beauty of what's happening now is that there is a self-directed health movement going on.

• 10:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  There are doctors and clinicians who are pushing the boundaries, you know, forward into preventative care, even if the insurance system has not yet caught up.

• 10:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  But it, it's kind of, I, I wouldn't call it even the golden age yet, because I think it's going to get better. But it's the beginning and emergence of the signs of what a healthcare system could be.

• 10:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  If we can scale this.

• 10:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes, exactly. And so, you know, part of my point of bringing up your thyroid is because it's the same problem that exists with a lot of what's going on in the supplement space, right? A lot of times in Western medicine, you don't even measure a vitamin D level because you, there's nothing you can really do about it, except tell someone to take a supplement.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Most doctors, there's no. Description form of vitamin D that I know of. So it's just not even part of the conversation, but we know there's so many other levels such as, you know, we talked about vitamin D. It's your normal level somewhere between 50 and 80.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Most of the United States population is somewhere below 40 right now. And so that's where a supplement can be extremely helpful.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  That was probably the first one, first blood test that I remember doing where I was like in the 30s or something like that. And vitamin D was the first one to go. First, it was like, you know, the clearest cleaner, like it is the thing. I wanted to start a site called free vitamin D dot com at one point, just because everyone should be taking this thing, you know, like really for the most part. And but there is a problem with it. I remember in the first couple of weeks of having the subco idea, talking to someone whose parents or their mom had dementia like symptoms. And they finally found out she was like mega mega dosing vitamin D, like like an absurd amount, just not reading the labels and doing that stuff. And it was getting dementia like symptoms. And so like a vitamin D is right. We just still need to follow, you know, there are limits.

• 11:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly, exactly. And that's kind of the inherent issue as well in the whole supplement space too, is it is unregulated. We talk about this a lot. You know, a lot of people throw around terms like wild, wild west, it's unregulated. Could you kind of maybe talk to us a little bit about what that means? What does it mean to be unregulated?

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, you know, there they tried to figure out what to do about this. There's a standard, the federal code 21, the CFR 111. This is basically the manufacturing standards for supplements. Medications are in 211, which is like much more, you know, strict. These are the things you have to do to be able to go to market.

• 12:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  111 is, these are the things that you should be doing. We're not going to actually regulate this. But in the aftermath, if someone turns out that they're having a reaction or a problem from you, these are the standards we should be holding you to. And so this creates a real problem. So there's a manufacturing practice. It's CGMP certified and basically they allow you to self certify. They you say you're doing these things. And this is the kind of inherent like, okay, cool. It lets things get into the market. But when they built these rules, there were 4,000 products in the supplement market. There are over 200,000 products now in supplements. And so they're they're kind of being churned out at a rate now that this self certification process is coming with a lot of pitfalls.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  And even as you get into the certifications, things like heavy metals, there's not actually, they're like, you should check for heavy metals. But there's no actual ranges for what your heavy metals should be. They're like, it should be in the acceptable, you know, amount of what you think it should be. So you have things like Prop 65 in California, that if the the levels are above certain thresholds there, then you have to put a warning label on it. But, you know, even that, in some independent testing we've done, we see people blowing out those numbers. So it's a. So what we've created with our with our trust score system is basically to say, you know, there are ways, there are there are standards brands hold themselves to. That are not just self certification. There are bodies like NSF who will go out and certify your your practices. Make sure you're actually doing the the things that CGMP says.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  And that also includes things like needing to do lot testing. They don't specify how often to do lot testing. They said, you should do lot testing. I think some people do once a year, but there are brands that will actually go out out of their way to lot test every, you know, lot that they do. And then there are brands that go even further, like our highest rated brand on our platform is Metagenics. They actually publish online for consumers to go look at every, you can look it up from your bottle, you get the lot number, you can go search it online, see the test results that come back. And so, you know, the while it is self certify, it is a little bit of like, well, if something goes wrong, we're going to hold you to these standards. There is, there are brands that are working very hard to create very high quality products.

• 14:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  And one of the things we wanted to do with the trust score system was kind of show those brands off. You know, that's been such a reaction from the from the, you know, the thorns, Metagenics, these top momentous, these top brands.

• 14:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Finally.

• 14:53Speaker 01

  They're like, someone's showing us, we did so much work. And the other thing I love is there, the brands that are not even at the top, they want to be at the top. So one of the things that we're not trying to do this to try be a gotcha system, we're trying to bend the. Arc in the right direction.

• 15:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  So, you know, one brand had those studies available, like, we can put those online so consumers can look those up. And that raises their score because that's what they should be doing. They're capable of doing it. So, you know, it is a wild west, if you will. But I think it's also a wild west on multiple fronts, right? There's these manufacturing standards we're talking about. And then there's just the like, you know, there's the whole claim side of it about like, if you go on Twitter right now, or sorry, X these days, and you kind of look at some of these stories, they're like, methylene blue makes me see in 4K. And you're like, what? And then it's like, buy methylene blue from my store. You know, it's like, who do you trust on what to take as well?

• 15:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Sure.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  And, you know, we're going through the wild west of this is we're going through this like, battle these days of the institutional data and the research that, you know, people stood by for a long time. And this real emergence of N equals one data. Right, you've got so many people who are doing their independent research that are taking things, you know, off from each other's kind of reports. You saw it a lot on Reddit years ago. You see it a lot on social media. And they really believe themselves. But that data is not institutionalized at all. And it's like, can be very extreme. It can lead people down paths that are wrong for them. But it is also really fascinating. We're no longer, in my mind, at the like, battle where one of them is right. The answer is actually forging ahead and merging these in a way.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Starting to categorize these N equals one data points. So that they can act more institutional and, you know, provide data back so that people can make good decisions.

• 16:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it. Yeah, and finally, we have technology now that can enable N of one actually coming together into where you can see the distribution curve of all this N equals one in a platform like yours.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, like, that's what we're gonna keep building tools to feed that stuff back in. One of the features that's, you know, kind of in development for later this year is the ability to really put all your supplements to the test in yourself, right? Like, here are the expectations of what I'm trying to achieve with these. And am I getting those results? And we want to be, you know, aligned with the consumer so that if they start that. If it's not working, we want them to stop taking things.

• 17:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  You know, like, and that's, that'll be a big driver. How do you, in, in your practice, you know, you only have so much clinical data to go on. How do you balance the kind of N equals one or your experience with your own, you know, customer, your own patients?

• 17:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. So the way I look at supplements for every single patient that I've come in is I show them always a bell shaped distribution curve, right? And I say, look, here are all of my patients on a curve. And when you look at a bell shaped distribution curve, you can divide it up into four segments. You know, in business, there's early adopters, late adopters, evangelists and naysayers, right? But supplements are the same way. You have people that want to take zero supplements. There are people that only want to take what's necessary. Then there are people that want to take what's necessary, plus a few things that might be cool. And then you want, then you have the people that are like, I want to take everything that Brian Johnson and Mark Hyman and, you know, all, all my favorite influencers take all the same time. Just give me a list of everything they take.

• 18:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And I ask people, where do you fall on this bell shaped curve? Most people will fall somewhere between the middle two, right? Of course, right? I always have a few people that are like, I don't want to take anything or give me it all, right? So the give me it all, I try to dial them back. And I say, look, let's start off and do a very mindful and of one experiment, experiment on you, on what's working and we'll add things as, as we go. On the ones I want to take zero, we show them their blood work and say, look, like, here are your deficiencies. We gotta plug these holes, you know? And so then we meet, we meet somewhere closer to the middle on those people. And I think each one of those categories has data points, right?

• 19:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So the people that want to take nothing, I can show them a ton of data on why D3K2 is important.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 19:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Why omega threes are important, right? The ones that want to take a little bit more than the basics, we have a lot of data on certain supplements that are very convincing. Things like Urolithin A, Nicotinamide Riboside, Taurine, those kinds of things. And then the people that want to take everything, I'm like, like, let's hold back on, you know, some of these, right? Because I, the data is not only not convincing, but this can be harmful on you.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  And so expensive.

• 19:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And expensive, right, exactly. But that's a lot of information for people to wrap their heads around, right? And so tools like SupCo, your app SupCo, can really help people sort through this information, I think, with better resolution and also be able to do the constant N of one experiments as time goes on. Because, you know, supplements are one of those things that they're constantly evolving and changing. There's new supplements coming out, new data coming out. And this is, you're not going to be in the same supplement program you are today, as you will be five years from now, 10 years from now, 15 years from now. We need to evolve with what's going on in your biology and with the science. And it's hard to track this for most people. And that's why we need tools like this.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  And that's, you know, I love that you're saying that. It's such a big, you know, vision of what we're trying to accomplish. And like, you know, I watch people who, you know, even take something like Blueprint, where it's like 75 things that are all of a sudden in your body that weren't in your body. And I have friends who've taken it. And all of a sudden, they're like, yeah, I had bad side effects from these things. Because you're adding all of these things at one time.

• 20:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  And to me, it's like a good stack evolves over time.

• 20:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It evolves.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Right? You know, you plug those initial holes, like, okay, you know, we have these essential health protocols on the site that you can grab, which has the vitamin D and the fish oils and things that are like basics that you know, most people need. And then you can get into more of acute, you know, symptoms that you might be having, or, you know, heart health and things like that, that you're looking for. And I really believe that we need to give people the ability to evolve with it. Because I think that some of these things also are either subtle, or either long term, hard to measure. And if you overload and try to do so much at once, you get exhausted. Like, I think people get exhausted by their stacks. I think it's, I think the stat is something like, it's between 30 and 50% of all supplements purchased do not get finished.

• 21:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I believe that 100%.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Do not get finished.

• 21:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  Which is like, it creates tremendous difficulties for, you know, figuring out how to price them appropriately. You know, the, the business model in these things, like so many of the brands really have to spend a lot of money to acquire a customer. And then they get stuck with that. That person only sticks around for a month, two months at best, you know? And that, that creates a pricing curve where the long-term people are not really rewarded. They end up spending a lot of money and these things should be measured, the LTV of supplements should be measured in decades in a lot of cases.

• 21:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  So that's something also we want to play in over time, is helping consumers get that and really be rewarded for, for taking the long journey on these things.

• 22:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, exactly. No, I'm, I'm, I totally believe that because as a clinician, you know, we have thousands of patients now in Next Health and we struggle with supplement recommendations because number one, we know people will not be compliant is what we call it in medical terms.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, dude, that's, that's a big push for us. Right now you can just log what you're taking, but like, we really want to incentivize people for logging it and taking it. Cause it's hard and people also don't take them at the right time or with food or without, you know, the absorption.

• 22:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  So that, we do, we have a smart scheduler to help you actually take them at the right time.

• 22:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  To get the, the dosage and also want to start plotting how long until you're going to see effects.

• 22:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  Some people think that they're going to feel something in a day and you're like, man, that's not, that's not going to work. They give up.

• 22:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And the, you know, the whole problem of supplements not getting taken, that's, that's a huge problem. I mean, how many people do we know, you open their cabinet door and there's like 50 bottles there and they don't even know what half of them are. They just bought them.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  They just bought them.

• 22:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  They sat there or they decided to take them and they haven't thought about it for a while and now the bottle's expired. And then they get bummed out because they're like, I bought all these supplements and now I'm going to take just nothing. And they get, there's a lot of paralysis analysis, right? By over analysis too. Some people are like.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  That's the thing. It's just like, we're trying to hit them at every single step of the, make it easier. It goes wrong at so many steps.

• 23:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It goes wrong so many times.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  What should I take? Who do I trust? Where do I buy this? When do I take it? Is it working? Like that whole journey, it falls off for people.

• 23:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  And so we're, we're really trying to play on, you know, almost every step. To to help people, you know, get the results of the

• 23:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, no, exactly. And that's why, you know, I'm so excited to have this conversation with you because I I think, you know, one of our companies do the supplement packaging, the vitamin platform. It's a great way to mitigate all these problems. So people will just get daily packets. Everything's curated. I think tools like this, people need better access to, and they need to stop living in like the dark ages of Amazon supplements where you buy cheap supplements just because of the star rating, you end up with massive bottles at home. You end up taking none of them. Most of it's garbage inside of it anyway.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, look, the explosion of Amazon brands. I hate necessarily calling them Amazon brands, but they're brands that, you know,

• 24:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Just brands in general.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  Winning the the rankings on Amazon, right? They they're they're some not, we have some some independent testing coming back on some of these brands and they are they're rough, like they're not, they're they're just winning the optimization of the search engine versus actually delivering the product. And look, it's a big, a big shift that has happened kind of in the social media era is just that distribution and marketing and being loud and getting it out there has so vastly outweighed the quality of the product at this point. And, you know, it's one of the things for us that we just really want to start shedding light on that. Because this is people's health. This is people's bodies. Like, you know, with the the trust score system, you can you can go up and look a bunch of the brands up. But I encourage everybody to kind of pull out your phone, grab the Sepco app, scan the

• 25:00Speaker 01

  everything in your cabinet, you know, take a look, see what, see what the, see what the ratings are. You can also put everything in there and get a score of your stack. And like, you might be shocked. There might be, you know, real opportunities to save money. And, you know, I had a, I had a Kirkman product in my stack that was like, no good. I think I had a five point something trust score. And I didn't know that until we built the software. So, um, so, yeah.

• 25:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love it. Let's unpack a few of these Wild West concepts around supplements. So I think we have the quality issue.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right? We also have the issue of research and what works and doesn't work, right? It's supplements are held to a much different bar than pharmaceuticals. And we know that, right? And then you also have the issue that we just talked about right now. Is the marketing and I think people shouting from rooftop their N of one kind of data. I think all of those deserve a little bit more unpacking. So let's talk about first the quality issue. Okay. So quality, you mentioned there's 4,000 brands when and now there's 200,000.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  There's 4,000 total products, total products. Now there's over 200,000.

• 26:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Total products.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  And we total products and we've seen 20,000 of those emerge, I think in the last quarter. So the, so the product catalog has grown, you know, 10% in a quarter. And you're seeing more of these, like there's more and more services for people to create white labeled, you know, supplements and that's if you've got an audience and you've got a voice and you can push product. You know, there's companies ready for you to launch a supplement any day. And remember that the self certification thing allows you to go do that.

• 26:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  So, you know, the rate at which they're coming out is pretty, is pretty amazing.

• 26:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So talk to me about someone. So I have a social media presence and I've been, I've been talked to by supplement companies. Let us give you a white label version of our product. Right? And so because I have an audience, I could obviously put this on my Instagram and say, take Dr. Shaw's vitamin D3 K2. Right. But in reality, what is the process of that going from raw ingredients to getting my white label on it?

• 27:08Speaker 01

  I mean, I.

• 27:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Worst possible scenario.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, the worst possible scenario, you've got, you know, these kind of white label people have already sourced the materials, who haven't really done the vetting of their supply chain. And they're willing to put it in a bottle and put your name, you can get it out in a week.

• 27:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  You can literally get it out.

• 27:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  In a week. Right.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  It's not, it's not a joke.

• 27:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And to be clear, no one needs to be involved from raw material to putting in a pill, to putting in a bottle, to then having on a website to be sold.

• 27:37Speaker 01

  No one needs to sign off on it. Right. Right. Now, you know, Amazon and other places are starting to require independent testing to be listed. But technically you can be in market in a week.

• 27:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  It is literally just repackaging it. And like, you know, what I would say to the, to the influencers and, and people who. Want to do the way you should do the vetting. Like it's your name that is going on the line. Right. There are more people who are out there doing testing of independent testing of these brands and exposing heavy metal levels. That are not okay. And it's a major credibility and brand hit as this stuff comes out. So if you are an influencer and you're ready to do that, you know, I was gonna say, where is the best place to figure that out? But do your diligence.

• 28:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 28:21Speaker 01

  And because, because if without it, the brand hit is real.

• 28:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, exactly. And also, I would say it's not just heavy metals in the supplement. It's also what you're saying is in there is not in there. You're getting like sawdust.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  Specificity is a thing, inactive ingredients. So one of the things we added is an analysis of all the inactive ingredients of product. And you, you know, there's thousands, there's I think 6,000 products in our system that have titanium dioxide in them. Titanium dioxide is does DNA damage. It is banned in Europe. Like it is, it should not be in our products. You have the red 40s and the dye, red five, the dyes. So you can actually look all that stuff up on Subco for products as well and get warnings about. Some of them are, some people are more sensitive to different inactives as well. Like they get stomach issues, GI issues from, from different things. You can look all that stuff up. Yeah. So, you know, if you're in the grocery store making a decision, you can scan a product and, and kind of get that full analysis.

• 29:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I use this app called Think Dirty to scan all my cosmeceutical products, like lotion and everything. And it gives the same kind of thing. It gives you a score. And I'm like, why would I buy something with a score of three? When I could just easily switch over to sometimes even a cheaper product that has a score of eight or nine. Obviously I'm going to make the switch and then now that's my lotion that I use at home. And I'm going to use that, you know, how often you switch lotions, right? Like rarely, once you find a good one and you know, you've already checked it. So I think the directionality of where you head after making a one time switch like this, the compounding effect is incredible.

• 29:51Speaker 01

  I think so too. Once you're like, oh, once the filter is up to just give it a look. I think you generally have done something really good for your health.

• 30:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  And what I, what I also love is that we have had multiple brands now changing their formulation. Because we've exposed.

• 30:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Interesting.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  You know, and we're really not the like, I definitely could do more social media, blow up, gotcha stuff here. But like, as I said before, our goal is to shape the industry in the right direction. So we care about those stories. And and really, when we get to make those changes, much more than just the initial kind of exposure stories. But that's where that's the cool thing. And what we're seeing is that the brands, when you bring it to their attention, they understand consumers now are starting to care. They understand tools like this are showing up to be able to scan these things and get to the to the truth. And they want to be better.

• 30:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right. And that's awesome. The brands are doing that versus suing you for doing.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  I mean, I saw a post, I saw a post, and we had only vetted one of the creatines in this list. But there were like 10 10 of the top, like, Amazon creatine products had no no creatine whatsoever in them.

• 30:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I don't doubt that, right?

• 30:59Speaker 01

  None? Like, what's going on here? You know? So? So yeah, so I think that, again, the specificity is the thing in there that they say they are that they say is on the label. That's another one.

• 31:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I think it's huge. And then also, there's this problem of where was it made? How was it shipped to its final warehousing location? What was the storage like? How's it shipped to you? I think you know, you look at that whole supply chain, and a lot of active ingredients become inactive as well during that whole process.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  The fish oil going rancid and oxidizing and things like that along the way. I think that also for the people who have stuff in their cabinet and have been sitting around for a while, they got to realize that that stuff goes bad.

• 31:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It really does go bad.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  It does, you know, like, yeah. Yeah. So there's a layer that we can get to information wise. And then there's this independent testing that we can do as well, which we've started doing with different brands. But there is, I think, always the reason why they do lot testing is because even in a different batch, because the materials that came from, you know, their suppliers may have changed, that you have to recheck. And like microbial testing is kind of one that they basically do, because if they didn't, you'd get sick right away.

• 32:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  Like, you have. Now, if you get an outbreak of that, like you're, there's no hiding, right? So that kind of testing generally gets done. But the heavy metals and, uh, you know, the specificity and all that is, is one that we have to hold everybody accountable to.

• 32:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, exactly. And so some companies do perform these tests themselves, like Metagenics you mentioned, and they publish the data, which is incredible. Other ones perform it and they don't publish it. They just tell you they're performing it. They have it and you can request it. You got to call the 800 number.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, we've gotten the COAs before. You know, that's how we.

• 32:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  CAAs, right? Certificate of Authenticity. And then some people don't do any testing. And then you're sending, you're actually buying the supplement, taking.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  Taking it off the shelf, putting it in as a third. That's like for us, as we, we, we developed the initial set of data from, you know, all those sources, reaching out to the brands, getting the publicly available information, seeing if we can get COAs, all that work. And then, you know, now we've been in touch with a lot of the brands who are coming in to either clarify or start posting their stuff online and, and doing that. But even after all that, we think it's important to just pull an item off the shelf, give it a, send it to a lab, get the data back. And like, honestly, like we've gotten some results so far that I've had to tell the team I need to go retest. Because like, if it comes out, like some of these brands are, are pretty big. And we're not trying to post wrong information. We're really trying to be accurate with all this.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  But as the third party testing continues, you're going to continue to see brands that, that need to increase their, their quality standards.

• 33:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I remember 10 years ago, I saw this article in the New York Post where all the supplements are pulled off the shelves of CVS. And I was like, what happened? They go bad? What, what happened? Turned out that, um, the local New York governing body actually sent someone into secret shop, buy every supplement on the CVS, um, shelf, sent it for third party testing. All of it was shown to have none of the ingredients that they said they would have. And they had to send, they notified CVS and CVS had to take them off the shelves.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's tough. Like, look, I think the thing that we've had is such a great response from the high end brands, as I mentioned, is like, they're so excited that we're showing

• 34:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  That they're working so hard. So really, go in, take a look at the trust scores, you know, anything that's in the eights and up is like, they're really working hard at this stuff. The big thing is that independent CGMP certification, too.

• 34:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  If they're just not, not take our word for it, but someone of reputation has come in and verified this is like a first precursor to, to, to being, doing things the right way.

• 34:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. Our facility that we use, Evitaboom,

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  even though we don't make supplements, we repackage them.

• 34:49Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 34:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  We got CMG, CGMP certified.

• 34:52Speaker 01

  Great.

• 34:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And they sent someone over.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 34:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  From a certifying body to do an entire evaluation of everything. And I think it's necessary, because if you're not following CGMP standards, there's a high chance of contamination of all the bad things that we're talking about. So it's, it's every bottle, you should be able to look at it and see either NSF or CGMP on there.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And if you don't, that's a problem.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I like that the independent certification, NSF is the biggest certifying, you know, group. There's, there's other ones, too, but that, that's to look out for. And then the, you know, that more brands are actually interested in the supcos, trust score being on their labels or e-commerce sites having them on there. So it's a beginning, you know, it's like, you know, we were excited about the consumer response to this, but then the brands being excited about it, too, has been, has been really, it's really good.

• 35:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, no, that's, that's a game shifter.

• 35:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

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• 36:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  younger from the inside out, my friends at Timeline are offering you a 10% discount on your first order. Go to timeline.com slash Dr. Shaw to get started. That's timeline.com slash D R S H A H. Your future self will thank you.

• 36:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

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• 37:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  day to profl actively make sure that my liver stays healthy. It's super easy to use and actually tastes good, too. You can save 10% on your first order when you use the code DRSHAH, that's D R S H A H, at the website loveyourliver.com.

• 37:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Let's talk about a little bit about, you know, the number of supplements people take and are people taking the right supplements or not? And this whole concept of stacks, right? So I know on your app, you can share your, what you're taking with a friend or, you know, or a family

• 38:15Speaker 01

  member. Or your doctor.

• 38:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Or your doctor, right?

• 38:16Speaker 01

  Honestly, that was like the first thing there is like, one, for yourself, you can see your nutrient total. So you know how much, you know, as I was talking about overdosing of vitamin D and stuff before, like, there's a little bit of something, and if you take a lot of things, you might be getting a little bit of a Of something from six different sources.

• 38:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  You don't know that. So, so the ability to share your stack to your doctor, to your friends, to inspire them, to post them publicly so that you can inspire other people and show them what you're doing, kind of a core thing on the site. The average person that has signed up so far, we're seeing like, so we have a nice power user group, we're seeing like six products in people's stacks. And what's been amazing is because of the sub-score analysis we give them, it's an analysis of their stack, we're seeing the average person change two to three products that they were taking to something of higher quality or at a higher cost. So, so you know, that's often, and there's an interesting long tail too, where there are 20,000 products that are only showing up in one person's stack. So there's an incredible long tail. Like there's, you know, where people are finding these things,

• 39:16Speaker 01

  where, you know, like how obscure they might be. And we had a big, when we first got on the platform, we had a big issue with, you know, product, even with, you know, 190,000 products at the time, there would be still people every day getting mad that we didn't have their product. So now when you scan it, you can, if we don't have it, you can actually take a picture of the front and the back, we do an AI analysis, it pulls it in as an unverified, we then verify it. And that's what we're seeing so much of the growth of all these products coming in from, from this.

• 39:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I have a feeling that there's going to be way over 200,000 products out there in reality, right?

• 39:48Speaker 01

  At the pace that it's going, yeah. Like, you know, the one thing there is that that's like, there may be three different SKUs of, or, you know, 30 day, 90 days, that's making that number so big. But the rate it's growing is just crazy.

• 40:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  And then, look, I think it's fun to see, you know, what people now can publish their own, like Nick has a hangover support protocol. You guys get, the experts get to make their official protocols and then we can share lists, which are like, this is what I'm doing for this. And people are having fun and getting a little social with it.

• 40:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love it. Yeah. And so you asked me to put some protocols on there. And one of the ones I was really excited to do was, we have a lot of people on GLP-1s now, semaglutide. And I think that they could be incredibly useful drugs if done correctly. Part of doing them correctly are things like, you know, adding strength training, making sure you have adequate protein. But a huge part of it is getting your supplement regime right. Because when you're losing weight, you're not eating enough, you're going to get micronutrient deficient. You're going to need various support. And so I put together for Subco my GLP one protocol, which you guys now have on there. So I think it's a great tool that people can look at that and say, okay, you know, my doctor just slung some GLP ones at me. Didn't tell me anything about what else I should be doing.

• 41:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  This is a great tool for, for people to give me some information about how

• 41:06Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 41:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  They can augment their journey on GLP ones and not become micronutrient deficient during the journey.

• 41:11Speaker 01

  I think it's so important. I think one of the things that's really cool about that too, is, you know, my brother was early into the trisepotide train and he lost a ton of weight. He was also very heavy. It also curbed his alcohol.

• 41:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It does, yeah.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  Did a really good job. It's really changed his life. But what I've loved the most is it has inspired him now to be healthier on all fronts.

• 41:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  And like, he now is willing and excited about building his supplement stack because he's like, medicine works. You know, like, I, I think that, that the thing that's so cool is that with the GLP ones is they have had such a profound impact that they've reinvigorated people to their health.

• 41:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 41:49Speaker 01

  My mom, same thing. My mom's, you know, she's struggling, I think with the protein intake a bit, you know, as an older woman who's, who's doing this. But like, that, that, that has probably got me so excited about the GLP one space and to have the, the support. Cause I think they've turned immediately to what else can I be doing?

• 42:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  And then, or how, how do I handle, you know, the side effect I might be having? And those are great protocols to have on the platform.

• 42:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right. Some of the other protocols you guys have are hormone replacement protocols. I know Dr. Hyman has a protocol on there too.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, he has a brain, uh, brain fog one and a longevity protocol on there.

• 42:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, from Dr. Hyman, who's arguably, you know, the, the, one of the creators of functional medicine.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  I know.

• 42:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  If I have brain fog, I'm thinking what Dr. Hyman thinks.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  It was so funny. I remember I did his podcast and I was like, oh yeah, I was doing this kind of like biohacker-y stuff before people were biohacking. He's like, excuse me? I've been doing this for 30 years.

• 42:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly, exactly. Yeah, and so then I know you have also some protocols for my friend, Robin, Dr. Robin Burson. What protocol does she have on the?

• 42:52Speaker 01

  She's got health protocol. She's got health protocol, and I think one or two more coming on.

• 42:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's fantastic. Yeah. So you know, it's a great way for us to be brand agnostic and still be able to tell people, here are the things that I think could be useful for you, and have people pick their own brands in those categories as well if they want to.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  I think that's right. I think the big thing for us is we want to separate, you know, why you're taking something and like what nutrients you're trying to get in your body versus the products, right? Because like, you know, if you if you know that you're trying to get a certain amount of magnesium or a certain amount of, you know, fish oil and these, the products can change over time. You know, they can get better, they can be more bioavailable forms, there can be cheaper alternatives. And I think too easily or too often, people just recommend a product, you know, as opposed to like, well, let me explain why and what it is in this product. That is so important. And the protocols do a really nice job of the kind of separating those things out. So you can track the nutrient levels. You might already be getting enough of a bunch of the things in there. And then there are product recommendations from the experts and what they use to fulfill those

• 43:54Speaker 01

  nutrients. But that is that is totally decouple from, you know, the nutrient recommendations.

• 43:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right. Exactly. Yeah, I think that's so important because I think, you know, when I tell people what supplements to take, there's always, they're like, okay, yes, doctor, I'll take them. But then it's like, okay, wait, wait a minute, wait a minute. What's my dose? When should I take it? Should I take it with food? Which brand should I get? What happens if I skip a dose? Like, there's all these questions. And I think they get, once again, both as a physician and my patient, we get analysis paralysis because there's too much information, too many questions to answer. And so by having a list like yours readily available on app, it cuts out all those questions.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  Dosing guidelines, the why. That's a big thing for us. We've got to expose why.

• 44:39Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  You know, and it's not just to take my word for it. It's not just to like, this is a good product. It's like, here's, here's why. And showing that off is really good. And we want to give people the ability to also, you know, ask those kinds of questions. We have an incredible Probably, you know, great data set for people to do research on what could work for them, expand their health goals, find better matches. There's, you know, and this thing's going to just keep evolving or building, we're building fast. It's fun. We're kind of building software in the age of AI, which is an incredibly fun experience as a software guy myself. I was writing code this morning before coming over here, you know, just continuing to deliver these value to consumers.

• 45:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Do you use AI to write some code?

• 45:18Speaker 01

  So much AI.

• 45:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's so incredible, isn't it? Are you using lovable?

• 45:21Speaker 01

  No, I, I, lovable is great, I think, for a little earlier stage.

• 45:28Speaker 01

  But I'm very, I, I, this is the most productive time in my life by code by far. I really love focusing on health because I think that, you know, the AI is getting so good and software is, the cost of developing software is dramatically going down. The experiences we can give to consumers are going to be top notch with incredible sets of data. And if you can find the kind of interaction between where the AI falls short, the AI doesn't know if you put your supplement in your body. They didn't know, you know, if it's having the effect on you until you go do the blood work or, or, you know, give it the data back. So if you can kind of sit at that intersection of, you know, AI, software and health and your body, I think you're in a good spot.

• 46:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I agree. I think there's so much incredible software coming out, incredible tools, all the software being enabled by AI just creates this virtuous loop, I think.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  It really does.

• 46:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You know, you look at Dr. Hyman's company, for example, Function Health.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  We have a partnership with Function, yeah. And they're the best at the biomarker game for sure. And like, you know, he cares, he personally cares so much about seeing the out, patients getting the outcomes from this.

• 46:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  And like, look, we're in a time where, you know, also policies he's created for, been working on for decades are coming into reality, you know, the food dye is getting banned and things like that. It's like a health, as I said, I don't think it's a golden hour yet, but we're, we're trending in a, in a better direction.

• 46:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I definitely agree. And having tools to put together, I think supplements are a very important part of people's health regime, right? It's like, there's a lot of things that people Need a doctor to help them with prescription medications, for example, getting advanced diagnostics, like you mentioned, the calcium score, et cetera. But there's also an equal amount of things that people can do at home that they should be doing on a daily basis. That includes their exercise routine, their movement, their diet, their, um, their stress management, their sleep. And we're getting so much data now as far as how we are doing along all these different factors, like with wearables, et cetera. Supplements falls right in there, right? This is something that people can do on their own that can really supercharge their health journey

• 47:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  and keep them directionally headed in the right place. And I think now with tools that you can now check your own blood test with like function, then, or you can come to a clinic like Nex Health that will do it for you.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  You're also doing for Vitabloom, right?

• 47:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, exactly. Vitabloom as well, yeah. Yeah, well, we, we're blood test agnostic. You could just take any blood test you want, as long as you have the data, feed it to us. We'll tell you what supplements are going to be, work great for you. And then we ship them to you in like individual daily packets. I think all of these things can work together in someone's health journey for them to take this off of their doctor and do it themselves to such a high level of precision.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 48:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right?

• 48:11Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 48:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  High precision, especially now your tool enables people to say, I'm getting the best brands. I'm getting the, the trust score, et cetera.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  I know, you know, I've never had, you know, other than me updating my spreadsheet back in the day, the history of like, you know, what, we have Apple Health Integrations coming. That's going to be able to show like, oh, these were the supplement stack. This is what my stack looked like on this day when my biomarkers or my, you know, sleep scores looked like this. And have that longitudinally over time, like we just don't have that data. Like no one's really, Apple Health doesn't even have a way to log supplements. They have a couple of nutrients that you can do. You have to write it as like a clinical record kind of entry. So like, we're just at the beginning of what quantified kind of self will look like.

• 48:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  And, um, and I think it's, it's really exciting because I think this stuff is working. And it's starting to get, there's starting to be more research and more N equals ones that are, that are showing how powerful it can be.

• 49:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, absolutely. So on the N equals one point two, you know, the way I look at supplements is you have Nutrients that every people can be deficient in.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 49:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's always a good idea to not be deficient in nutrients.

• 49:15Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 49:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right? So we should take our vitamins, our minerals. And there's some special nutrients in there that I think we can now test for, we can take. But then there's now this whole other group of like longevity supplements.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 49:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  What do you think about that group of supplements?

• 49:30Speaker 01

  Well, look, I, I, you know, I, I nerd out on reading some of the papers and stuff. I remember reading last year or the year before, there was a paper on primates and longevity from taurine.

• 49:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 49:43Speaker 01

  And like primates, like most of these things you read are mouse studies and you're like, I don't know if it's going to translate. But if you get up to primates and you start seeing a 20% increase in, you know, lifespan from the deficiency of taurine after they're like 40 plus years old. I'm like, I'm taking taurine.

• 49:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Mm hmm.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  You know, that was enough for me to do two grams a day. And then all of a sudden you start seeing like a lot of doctors and people recommending multiple grams of taurine a day. That wasn't a thing two years ago.

• 50:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  No.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  So, so I love staying up on this stuff and like, I don't know if I have a biomarker. Like, I think there's, when I'm, what I'm thinking about now a lot in designing our, our success for these different supplements. Is like, some of them are going to be measurable and other ones are going to be, this is based on a study. Are you following and adhering to what this previous study has said?

• 50:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Because that's all we got, you know, like, but look, I, I feel like I've been doing this. I 43, probably the healthiest I've, you know, ever been, you know? I like, I, I think that sticking to this stuff is working for me and I've watched biomarkers move, right? My, I had high homocysteine for a while, started homocysteine supreme, which is a mix of B vitamins. Brought me down to a great, great level. I watched it in my blood work. Dialed in the vitamin D, like, you know, it's been, and now, you know, I do have to battle the heart plaque, which is an ongoing thing. I take the natto quinase and.

• 50:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Natto quinase, I was going to recommend that for you.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  Come on, it's in there. And I was like, and for me, there are a couple that I'd say that I'm like, okay, there's data and I don't know if I'm going to be able to measure these, but I'm going to follow the trends.

• 51:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  And then there are other ones I think are much, much harder data than that.

• 51:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I think my perspective on it is, like you said, there's data. There's a lot of data on certain supplements. There's not a lot of, maybe in the future version of

• 51:24Speaker 01

  I'm feeding it back in so that it can become the data. That's what I want. That's a big piece of what I want to empower people to do.

• 51:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right. I think that's fantastic. So there's certain supplements that I like in that space. I like taurine. Even though there's no biomarker of creatine, for example.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm a, yeah, the data on the creatine looks great. It's like the going up to the 10 grams are also for cognitive is the trend now. You know, like which is, which is very interesting to see.

• 51:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, it's one of the most well researched supplements on the planet.

• 51:53Speaker 01

  It's our number one in our platform of research.

• 51:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So we'll see more and more like that. There's Urolithin A is another one.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  What do you think of Urolithin A?

• 51:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I love Urolithin A. I think there's great data on it.

• 52:02Speaker 01

  Timeline guys have done a lot of work on making sure that that gets clinical.

• 52:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Brands like Timeline, they put the money and the time into the research.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  Pendulum, like we really, that's a thing for us. We think these high end brands like the, the ones that we've mentioned, but then the ones that are doing very specific things too. And like doing it to their absolute best, investing in the research, the quality standards and all that. We want them to shine as well.

• 52:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes, I agree. You know, NR, Nicotinamide Riboside is another one.

• 52:27Speaker 01

  What is your NAD family one that you're, that you take?

• 52:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I mean, I look, I just go on the research and I love True Niagen. I think that they have great research about showing how well it gets into the cell.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so I think that's extremely important because one of the problems with NAD is, yes, you can take a lot of it. It'll end up in your gut and your bloodstream, but it'll take forever to get intracellularly. And so Nicotinamide Riboside just easily gets into the cell. And so I take that one as well. You mentioned Pendulum products. This is, this is all the products around gut microbiome and probiotics, a whole other category.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  A whole complicated, I mean, honestly, probiotics create some of the hardest problems for us.

• 53:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I bet.

• 53:06Speaker 01

  Because when someone's like recommending, okay, take a probiotic. It's like, well, what strain of these tons of different strains of probiotics are you trying to add up in your system? And like, there are, there are edges to what we are building that like, if I said, oh, I'm going to perfectly nail the probiotic dosing, you know, on day one, I'd spend, you know, six months just building that one feature before you can build anything else. But we're continuously trying to improve things like that. All the different magnesiums. Like, what's your magnesium, you know?

• 53:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You know, there's so many different magnesiums out there that I just take, um, I just take a combo form of all the different magnesiums.

• 53:41Speaker 01

  Breakthrough. I take it too. That's so funny. That one's trending a lot too. And that one came, um, I first heard of magnesium breakthrough through my fiance was doing IVF. And it was the one that they recommended. That's how it's so interesting how you come across these things.

• 53:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  No.

• 53:57Speaker 01

  And it was, that was, you know, two years ago now too. So.

• 54:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And I felt great taking magnesium breakthrough. I mean, I sleep better, guttage, no guttages, you know, so.

• 54:06Speaker 01

  Have you seen boron work for lowering SHGB?

• 54:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes, I have. Yeah.

• 54:11Speaker 01

  I'm trying that right now.

• 54:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 54:13Speaker 01

  You know, so tracking, tracking my levels and, you know, experimenting with different dosages in there.

• 54:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So this is a good point, you know, there's certain supplements you take if you have a certain condition that you're going after.

• 54:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  A lot of people don't have any way of researching this or understanding.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Well, it's hard.

• 54:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Where to go.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  Because there's a, you know, the law is very, uh, this is where the line gets drawn.

• 54:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  On what claims there are, they're not allowed to make disease claims on supplements.

• 54:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 54:38Speaker 01

  And so you see a lot of like supports heart health, you know, and, and these kind of like more abstract claims. And very much for us, we, we want to separate the product side of things. Like I'm not recommending you this product for this thing. But these nutrients are studied for these different reasons. And we think if there's a very clear line kind of between those two worlds where the products are more recommended on cost and quality and those things, not on it's going to have any impacts on any of the, there's a separation there.

• 55:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes, I like that.

• 55:07Speaker 01

  I think it's really important to helping people because, because honestly, people are doing all this freaking, the amount of getting the recommendation from social media or going into chat GPT at this point, like the intentions of the laws that were made in the nineties have not adapted to where we are now. I think it's something that we could see ourselves getting very much involved in going forward. I, you know, when I was, uh, in group me, uh, land, I got sued for one trillion dollars. There was a kind of ambulance chasing law firm that was going after, they used a 1990s fax law to go after us on a per message. They wanted $500 per message sent in the thing. And Facebook settled with them. It was just like, literally, it's just because they were

• 55:51Speaker 01

  on a group thread with someone. How many group threads have you been added to now? Well, they wanted a 500 message for us for all the... And we went and changed the law. We went and, you know, I literally went down to DC, went to the FCC and said, hey, this is the way the world's working now. And like, we changed it. And I think for us, trying to be involved in policy going forward, in what, how we can protect consumers with all these things we're talking about trust wise, and then also encourage, you know, I'm very into the like, you know, if you're going to take, do N equals one or experiment, feed the data back. Make it N equals one. Make it N equals many, you know, like, so, you know, I want to be on the cutting edge of this stuff.

• 56:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I think in a technology-enabled world, we have to adapt our laws to meet meet us where we are now. And supplements has definitely stuck back in the 1980s and 90s as far as a legal.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  It's a hard, it's a hard one, right? And like, you know, you always hear about the big pharma and like not wanting these because these aren't patentable or they're defending their, their world. So there's also those interests that are, that are kind of at play. I think, you know, the peptide space, which we haven't really got into at all, is another one of these that's even more kind of pushing the limits on things right now. And, you know, right now, we really stay, we want to be, there's so much great digital health stuff happening right now. We just really want to stay focused on being the best in supplements. Because it's, as we just talked about, there is a chain of things that go wrong to not getting results from these things that can cause you to stop or not trust it. We want to help people on that journey. But there are so many great, you know, topics in health that this kind of digital era is ushering in.

• 57:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, no, I totally agree with you. And I think the supplement space was a big hole until, you know, you guys have come in and tried to fill it and it's working great. I know, it's love. I love it. And I would love to make it part of all my patients that have their supplement list on their phone. Like, why not? Why would you not do that?

• 57:40Speaker 01

  I had the original intention was that my doctor could, I got so tired. You go to the doctor and you get this freaking, all right, well, list all your medications, list all your supplements. And you're like, first off, I know you're not going to read this thing, you know, in most of these cases. And then I just want to like give them my link and just be like, here, here's my stack, go check it out. But I'm not writing out all these because you're not, you're not even doing anything with it.

• 58:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Is there a world where you tie in medications people are now the supplement is going to affect the medications as well?

• 58:08Speaker 01

  I really want to. I, I think that that will come from us, but I do want to, I, I think people want interactions. People want medication, you know, situations and stuff too. So, because there really, there really can be interactions with them. So.

• 58:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And I'm sure you've already thought about this, but you know, taking someone's blood data, whether you get it from next health or function and saying, what, what would be the best supplements for me?

• 58:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, personalized, personalized supplement plans, incorporating more data like that all on the way.

• 58:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  All on the way. I love it. So.

• 58:41Speaker 01

  It's gonna be a long road, right? Like I'm really happy with what we've built so far. You know, I'm excited for your listeners to check it out, but like what I think is even more fun and what I've gotten, you know, the amount of feedback we get on the platform is just amazing. Like people are writing in like paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs of like, hey, you're checking this level. I could do this. Like they have so much, they love what we're doing. And so that's the thing. It's like, what we have today is so much farther ahead than where the industry has been, but where it is going. And the pace that we're going to build at, if there's something that users want, I'm ready to, I'm ready to deliver it. That's what I do. That's what I do.

• 59:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, no, that's fantastic. Finally to have a tool. That's why people are writing you these big, long notes is they finally have a tool that works.

• 59:27Speaker 01

  And some of them have been doing it. Like it's like, we're just making it so much easier. Yeah. Like, you know, we, we have people who do all this research and, oh, I was looking for the things that were NSF certified. I was looking for where the vegan products were and like to be able to have that stuff accessible now. You know, they're just appreciating it. That's what's saving them time.

• 59:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. Save people time, save people money.

• 59:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. Save people money is a big one. You know, like I really think that. You know, as a lifelong supplement user, I won't blow up the spot of the, the brand that I remember taking them for five years and then messaging being like, can I get a discount? Like you've definitely made your, you know, CAC back on me multiple times, customer acquisition cost. They said no. And so I bailed. And so that, I think fundamentally, when you think about us, business model wise, we want to always be aligned with the consumer. We don't want to profit off selling them more. So, you know, our goal is going to be also to not just help them make sense of all this, but, but to really, uh, you know, help reward them for, for sticking to these things long-term and getting to their outcome. So more on that in the future.

• 1:00:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love that. Great. Well, I mean, I'm so glad to have you here.

• 1:00:33Speaker 01

  I'm excited to have your protocols on the platform, your stack on the platform. You all are going to get to see what Darshan takes every day. This is exciting. So, you know, check us out at sup.co/darshan for his, uh, his link to, to all of his great materials.

• 1:00:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you.

• 1:00:49Speaker 01

  And thanks for having me.

• 1:00:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thanks for doing what you do and creating a tool for all of us that we can all benefit from.

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 1:00:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Awesome. How can people find supco again?

• 1:00:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, sup.co. Best way to find us. You can also search in the app store for it. But, you know, come to the site, get the nice little marketing page. I'll guide you to where to download the app.

• 1:01:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love it. I'll do a quick plug for me too. Once you get your supplements all organized, yeah, go to VitaBoom, get them fulfilled for you. There you go. We'll send you daily packets every month and they won't expire. They won't sit on your shelf unused and also save you some money.

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  Love it. Aligned, alignment.

• 1:01:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes, exactly. And we're brand agnostic. Whatever brand you want, we can get for you.

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  That's like the coolest feature.

• 1:01:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I like that. Awesome, man. Can't wait to have you back again to tell us about the next new feature.

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  Give you the next update when it, when it rolls out.

• 1:01:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Let's do it. Thank you, man.

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 1:01:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I was really glad to have that conversation with Steve and I learned a lot with this conversation. Here are my top five takeaways. Number one, the supplement industry has a major trust problem because no one is really policing it. So there's a lot of problems with the supplements that you can buy at the store. Uh, first of all, two bottles can look identical, but completely have different ingredients. Or dosages, no one's really checking if what they say is in the bottle is really what's in it unless they've done a self-analysis. And you're really on your own unless you know to decode these labels. And many labels actually misrepresent what's actually in the supplement bottle. Lots of supplements also have not really gone through many clinical trials.

• 1:02:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so even though they might be trending on TikTok or you see them on the shelves at Whole Foods with claims about what they can help you with. They really don't have good clinical data. So you're basically a guinea pig for this supplement. And so you really got to have some level of scrutiny about what's working and what's not. And podcasts like this can help you figure this out. Um, there's also great resources online. Supco is also another great resource. Number two, there's an FDA standard called CFR 111. It sounds official, but it's pretty useless. And that's because it's just a self-reported checklist. It doesn't really require companies to prove that their product works, that their product is bioavailable, that their product is effective. And just because they're checking the boxes doesn't really mean it's a quality product instead.

• 1:03:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So instead, what you want to look for on supplement bottles is labels like CGMP or NSF certified. Or better yet, you want to look at what's called the Certificate of Analysis, which many reputable supplement companies put on their website. Number three, there's no such thing as an FDA-approved supplement. So the FDA has very little policing that's done of the supplement industry. But in reality, the FDA doesn't approve or verify supplements at all before they hit the shelves. Many US supplements actually would be illegal in Europe. Europe bans dozens of fillers and additives that have been linked to gut issues and inflammation. And these are still found in the supplements on the shelves. Number four, the supplement industry is booming, but quality control is getting even worse and worse.

• 1:03:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So as I said before, it's the supplement industry is a $50 billion market. But testing, transparency, and actual education have not kept up. And that's because many supplement brands now sell themselves online on sites like Amazon. And they look very official, they have great marketing labels, they have lots of star reviews, but really that means very. Very little. And what you're seeing a lot out there is tons of options with fake star ratings that actually have very poor products behind them. And finally, number five, supplements, in my view, should be prescribed like medicine. They should be individualized by medical practitioners based on your blood work beyond the core supplements that I believe everyone should

• 1:04:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  take. So if your supplements that you're taking are not based on your blood work and they're not specific goals you're trying to achieve and we're not watching what kind of effect that supplement is having, you're just basically wasting your money and paying for expensive urine. So work with a practitioner that's familiar with supplements, familiar with what brands are the best ones to use, and can really help guide and hold your hand through the whole world of supplements, especially if you're taking supplements beyond the core supplements that we talk about at this podcast. And use the SEPCO app. I really love this app. They have some of my protocols on there and the supplements that I use that I've done a ton of research into. I think it's a great tool for the supplement industry. Thank you again for joining this podcast.

• 1:05:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And if you know someone that's struggling with their supplement regime, send this to them. They might be very appreciative of you for for doing that. And give us a star rating if you like this podcast. And please tune in for more. Thanks again.

• 1:05:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  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, and it's always important to seek their guidance.

• 1:06:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  The.