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For those of us interested in optimal health and a longer life, this is an exciting time.
Researchers are discovering new facts about how the human body works – how it doesn’t – and how to fix what’s wrong.
But we also must pay attention to facts, not hype.
Selling supplements is a huge and largely unregulated business. You always have to wonder if the capsule you’re swallowing contains the supplement you want (many studies verify capsules often contain more than the bottle claims, much less than the bottle claims or no active ingredients at all.)
If a new compound seems to have potential for health and anti-aging, supplement companies know SOMEBODY will buy it.
Just tell us it solves a problem we never even knew we had.
Enter C15:0 or Fatty 15
That’s Pentadecanoic Acid
It’s become a new online fad.
Pentadecanoic acid is an odd-chained, long-chained essential saturated fatty acid. It has fifteen carbon bonds and zero double bonds, which explains the C15:0 name.
It’s only the third discovered essential fatty acid, after Omega-3 and Omega-6.
(IMPORTANT NOTE: Medical science as a whole has NOT accepted pentadecanoic acid as “essential.” That’s a claim the supplement company is making. It’s not established science. It also doesn’t make sense. To be classified as “essential,” a nutrient must be necessary to maintain human life – AND our bodies cannot manufacture what we need. That means, since we can’t make enough, we must get it from food. But C15:0 is found mainly in high fat dairy products. However, most human beings in history have not had access to high fat dairy foods.)
C15:0 gurus Dr. Stephanie Venn-Watson and her husband Eric studied dolphins in the US Navy marine mammal program. Their assignment was to find ways to improve dolphin health and prolong their useful lifespan. Those dolphins with a high amount of C15:0 were generally healthier than those dolphins with a lower amount of it. Okay, great, especially for dolphins with high amounts of C15:0.
Unfortunately, the case for C15:0 benefiting people instead of dolphins is, so far, quite thin.
C15 does downregulate mTOR and increase AMPK, and both processes increase longevity, so that’s a start.
After determining C15:0 was an important compound (at least for dolphins), the couple founded a company to bring their version of C15:0 to market.
What’s Really Suspicious (to Me, Anyway)
Dr. Venn-Watson didn’t stop with bringing a C15:0 product to market and telling everybody what it did to improve human health and lengthen human life.
She claims C15:0 is the way to treat “Cellular Fragility Syndrome.” She says people with CFS display:
* Increased risk of cardiovascular problems
* Increased risk of diabetes
* Fragile red blood cells
* Anemia
Do you know anybody – including yourself – who’s ever been diagnosed with Cellular Fragility Syndrome?
No, because Drs. Venn-Watson coined the term themselves.
Otherwise, how could we escape it? According to her company’s website, one out of every three people have it without knowing it.
If we – and all the remainder of medical science – don’t recognize an important “syndrome” that supposedly affects every one out of three of us – it can’t be too dramatic.
In other words: she’s selling a supplement she found in dolphins (to whom it may be quite important). She not only founded her own company, she came up with her very own “syndrome” to convince people they need to buy her product to prevent or correct this “syndrome.”
Also, the Drs. Venn-Watson determined the optimum target range of C15:0 in human blood.
Those who have less C15:0 than the target markers the Venn-Watsons determined, have CFS and need to buy their product.
If you take enough of this supplement, then there’ll be more C15:0 in your blood, thereby “reversing” CFS. Remember: CFS is NOT a disease science discovered. CFS is simply the label this company puts on anybody who doesn’t have enough circulating C15:0 – according to them.
Remember: although one out of three of us supposedly have this “syndrome,” nobody else has ever heard of it. Especially doctors.
Nice work if you can get it, right?
Food Sources
These are primarily animal fats, including butter and dairy, beef and cheese. However, some sources indicate C15:0 is found only in certain very high-fat food products, such as dairy from New Zealand.
Two Human Studies
Maybe C15:0 is a magic pill for dolphins, but what about us people?
So far, there have been just two studies with human beings as subjects.
The first was carried out at least in part by the company themselves. This is common, but something to look out for. A financial conflict of interest can affect study results.
Thirty people took 200 mg daily of the C15:0 supplement or a placebo for twelve weeks.
Another study examined the effect of the Mediterranean Diet plus supplementation of C15:0 on Chinese women with NonAlcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD).
The eighty-eight women formed three groups:
1. Placebo
2. Ate Mediterreanean Diet with no supplementation
3. Ate Mediterranean Diet with C15:0 supplementation
This study lasted twelve weeks.
Both groups eating the Mediterranean Diet demonstrated improvement by the end of the twelve weeks.
Both of them lost weight, and experienced lower fat in their livers – at about the same rate.
The women who ate the Mediterranean Diet and supplemented with C15:0 lost about the same amount of weight as the other group. However, their LDL went down further, and their gut microbiomes may have shifted.
Therefore, the company is pushing C15:0 as a way to reduce LDL and improve gut microbiome.
However, the differences between the women who benefited from eating the Mediterranean Diet alone and those women who ate the Mediterranean diet plus took a C15:0 supplement were still quite small and undramatic – and could have been random differences in results from eating the same Mediterranean diet.
Conclusion
C15:0 may have some healthful impact on our cells, but, so far, the evidence is lacking.
Maybe future studies will validate the health and anti-aging claims of C15:0. Or maybe not.
Until they do, save your money for proven health solutions.
https://wholefoodcatalog.info/nutrient/pentadecanoic_acid/foods/high/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10649853/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBrvxD77EWA
https://jn.nutrition.org/article/S0022-3166(24)00411-5/fulltext
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-64960-y
https://www.mwhp.com/the-discovery-of-c150-aging-wellness-and-skin-health/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AP8wX_MhkE
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