152- Formulating Nutraceuticals and the ENERGY Formula with Shawn Wells

Bryan Carroll: [00:00:15] I'm sure you've been to a store before and noticed all of the different supplements that they have available. And I bet you've wondered what do all of those do for you?

And do you need to take any of them? That is one of the questions that we're going to be talking about in this episode. What's up everyone. I'm Bryan Carroll and I'm here to help people move more, eat well and be adventurous. And today I have Shawn Wells joining me to talk about nutraceuticals, their importance and which ones to use and how they are formulated.

And we're also going to talk about different regulations around them and why some different nutraceuticals are pulled from the shelves and then converted into medications. That you can only get through prescriptions. So all of this will be in the conversation today. And Sean Wells is a world's leading nutritional, biochemist and expert on health optimization and has counseled thousands of people on innovative health solutions, his new book, the energy formula challenges, people to live a more passionate, energized life by exploring keto, paleo fasting, and supplements.

So let's dive into my conversation with Sean. Thank you, Sean, for coming onto the show. 

Shawn Wells: [00:01:26] Yeah, thanks for having me on Bryan. I appreciate it. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:01:29] Of course. Then before we start diving into nutraceuticals and different formulation processes, I'd love to learn a little bit more about you, who you are and what your background is.

Shawn Wells: [00:01:40] I'm a biochemist, a registered dietician I'm known as the world's greatest formulator formulated over 500 supplements that are out there on the market at patented about 15 ingredients. Including T Crean and Dyna mean that are super popular in the market for energy. I wrote this bestselling book right here, the energy formula that's been listed on USA today and Forbes, and it was the best seller in 14 categories on Amazon, a biohacking book.

I've done documentaries, TV shows, podcasts like Ben Greenfield show. I've, I've done a lot of cool stuff, like really well known in biohacking and in supplements and keto. So yeah, that's, that's me and, and I've had an amazing career and I'm excited to be here. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:02:30] And when you're talking about 500 different formulations, what does that look like?

Is that combining different ingredients or is it single ingredients or what is that exactly? 

Shawn Wells: [00:02:42] Yeah. 500 products. So things that you would see on Amazon. You know, things that you would see in GNC and vitamin shop and, you know, places like that. So actual products, so, you know, protein drinks, pre-workouts, fat-burners energy drinks you know, brownies, cookies protein bars, all those kinds of things.

Bryan Carroll: [00:03:07] Well, yeah, that's, that's quite a bit, so you've covered a broad spectrum of stuff. And I definitely want to dive into, you know, a lot of the nuances with supplementation and especially the difference between you know, some synthetic type of nutrients versus more natural type of nutrients. When you are creating supplements, is there necessarily a natural form or does it become something processed once you start trying to create a supplement out of it?

Shawn Wells: [00:03:40] There's there's natural versions of ingredients. But there's also synthetic versions of ingredients. It just depends. Some ingredients are only available synthetically. Some, some are available naturally. Like if it's an herb then obviously it's naturally sourced. But to your point, I mean, you can argue about like how natural is it once you're extracting for a certain ingredient you're using certain solvents.

You know, even if it's herbal and natural, like there's definitely some modification and chemical processes that are going on there that aren't necessarily natural. So yeah, but, but to me you know, I also think about like bio identical, like if it's. If it's the exact same thing, that's out nature, but it's made more purely in a sense like then that's actually something I'm I'm usually for.

So a lot of the amino acids for example, are things like Creotine that are popular are just pure ingredients that are made synthetically. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:04:47] Got it. And does the human body treat these synthetic nutrients the same as it would in a natural form, especially if you're getting a higher dose of it than you typically would find in a natural state.

Shawn Wells: [00:05:01] Yeah, that that would be a complex answer, but by and large, I would say yes, but it would depend like sometimes there are solvents that they're using or some of these chemicals that get used in these intermediate processes when they're making these chemicals that. These residues can hang around and it just depends like how well they're made.

So there can be a potential for some things that are not necessarily healthy to be there. But it just depends on the company who's making it. And then another thing I would say is that in nature, it's not always about just the pure ingredient. We'll, we'll do research on the pure ingredient. For example, let's say caffeine coming from green tea, we know the benefits of caffeine.

I've patented several other methods and things like the green and methyl Libertine and liberation and other ones. But caffeine has benefits. We know those benefits, but in green tea, there's also L-theanine and amino acid that helps relax you and helps get you into a more focused state and kind of smooth out caffeine.

And there's also a polyphenol called EEG CG that's anti-aging and is a vasodilator, meaning it improves blood flow. And so when you have green tea, these combinations of ingredients that occur naturally have synergy. And yeah, if you're just using caffeine, you're not getting the benefits of some of these other ingredients.

So, so on one hand it's I think it's, it's good to get something pure that could be synthetic. But on the other hand, you're, you're missing out on, on nature's formulations. If you will. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:06:55] Right. So to go along with that example of the green tea, if you see like a green tea extract or something similar, is that getting the same type of benefits as having a green tea itself or is that extraction process changing it a little bit?

Shawn Wells: [00:07:14] It's, it's changing it a little bit and it just depends what it's extracted for. Like, if it's extracted for EGC G extracted for caffeine, it just depends the level of extraction and what it's being extracted for in that process. You're increasing levels of one thing and then thereby decreasing levels of other things.

So, you know, in that process, like if you wanted a natural caffeine, that's 98% caffeine from green tea, so that you can say it's natural, you're removing all the El theming and the EGC G. So it just, it just depends like what the extraction is and how they're doing. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:07:56] Got it. And this is why you have 500 different formulations.

Cause there's a lot of different purposes that these different extractions and stuff can be used for. So now we're starting to put the pieces together here now. I'm sure you've experienced it before. And I know a lot of people listening have experienced this before as well. When you take something like a multivitamin and then all of a sudden your urine is like a bright orange color or maybe it has a certain stench to it.

Oftentimes that's nutrients that are exiting the body that came from that. Multivitamin. Is this an example of your body not being able to utilize all of the nutrients within that supplement or what's going on there? Why, why is all of that leaching out of the system? 

Shawn Wells: [00:08:42] Yeah, so that gets exaggerated a lot.

But the reality of that is it's really just one B vitamin that does that in particular, it's called riboflavin. And it's a B vitamin and it's responsible for that that color in your urine. And some people look at it like the way you're looking at it, like saying, oh, well, you're not using it at spilling out.

You know, you're just peeing it out and you're wasting it. And some people look at it as like, oh my vitamins working. Like I only trust it. Like when my pee is bright yellow, it's kind of like, there's an ingredient called beta alanine. That's often used in pre-workouts that can give you a flushing, tingling feeling called Paris thesis.

And some people hate that feeling and won't buy any products that have this pre-workout tingling effect. But then other things people feel like it's like, they only know it's working when they're tingling. And so I would look at it as It's more a question of, I think it's better to have additional than not enough in my mind.

So it's not a bad thing that you have bright, yellow urine. There's no like negative dying downside to that. Yes. Maybe you're wasting a little bit of money so to speak, but it's, it's hardly, hardly much money when we're talking about B vitamins. So to me, I think it's better to have more than you need your body handling it by excluding the additional than it is to have too little and not be able to maintain your body's optimal processes.

Bryan Carroll: [00:10:19] So speaking I'm too little, is there some at-home ways that people can recognize whether they are deficient in certain nutrients and therefore they need more of those nutrients or is this stuff that people have to go to a lab and get some lab work done? 

Shawn Wells: [00:10:35] Yeah, it is, it is going to a lab and getting lab work done, but that's so easy now.

Like it's literally, you can work with your physician. Like they send an order in, you go to like lab Corp you know, or something equivalent to that. And like now there's like in any given town, there's like several of these. And if you're in a city there's 20 of them that you can just run into. And and it takes, you know, 10 minutes to get your blood taken and you have the results like days later.

So. And there's a whole portal where you can check it on your phone and these things have like, you know, 10 next also because of COVID testing. So and now everywhere, like you can, you can do lab Corp and, and several other similar companies, but yeah, like it's, it's something you definitely want to look at as a nutrient analysis.

You know, especially like if you've already looked at your genetics, you've taken like a 23 mm. MI test. And you've seen that, like, for example you know, you might have an empty H F R a issue genetically, and that means that you can't convert full eight. From the typical dietary form or supplement form to the active form that takes several enzymatic steps to get to five methyltetrahydrofolic also called methylfolate.

And so there can be an issue that could lead to anemia. And so unless you've done that genetic testing, you don't know to supplement around that, to get these active versions of the B vitamins that are a little bit more expensive, but sometimes they're called active B vitamins. Sometimes they're called coenzyme mated B vitamins or methylated B vitamins, but these are all like the active forms, like methylcobalamin for B12 P five P for B6.

You know RFIP for riboflavin. Like some of these things would be an five methyltetrahydrofolic for fully. Those would be like the more active versions where you don't have to convert them in your body and some people have issues converting them. So that could be a reason why sometimes these, these multis might not be working as well as you hope.

Got it. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:12:56] Now if someone does go to a lab and they're doing a nutrient analysis, is that giving them a good insight into long-term nutrient deficiencies? Or is it more of a snapshot of a recent deficiency? Like within a couple of days? 

Shawn Wells: [00:13:13] It's going to be a more recent thing more of a kind of current snapshot, but like there's other indicators of disease and aging that I would be looking at in the process.

And there's three that I mentioned in the book that I think are super critical. It's going to be C R P C reactive protein, which is a marker for inflammation, a hemoglobin A1C, which is a marker for glycation or blood sugar damage. And then lastly, oxidized, LDL. Which is a marker of oxidation and collectively, those are going to give you speaking of snapshots, like a true snapshot of like now you're aging biologically versus chronologically and how you are likely moving towards disease because almost all diseases are a Balik in nature.

There's only about 1% of diseases that are actually genetic. Most diseases are correlated to the poor health, a poor diet, poor exercise. And certainly we're seeing elevated levels of insulin and blood sugar be correlated to all of that. So, you know, maintaining lower blood sugar, reducing your insulin levels over time is going to lower inflammation, lower glycation, lower oxygen, lower methylation issues.

Keep your telomeres longer, improve your cert gene activation. Like all this stuff we know related to aging and disease. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:14:55] That's that's pretty interesting. 1% of disease comes from genetics because I feel like there's so many people in the population that are trying to find a reason for their disease or chronic condition.

And a lot of people will look at genetics, you know, thinking that's playing a huge factor and there might be some factor in that. But like you said, lifestyle is a huge factor to contributing to disease. 

Shawn Wells: [00:15:22] Yeah. When I say 1%, that means like one that you're, you're born with. Like, you can be born with this disease, but like, there's certainly predispositions that we see.

But like, ultimately that doesn't mean a whole lot. Like you can have like a familial history and some, you know, genetic predisposition towards cancer and. You know, the majority of the time, you may never get it. And it's not, it's not even just diet and exercise. Some people that have bad diet, bad exercise, never get it.

You know, there's a lot to do with just happiness. There's there's data around happiness and relationships, quality relationships there's data with longevity that's related to grip strength and how strong you are and how well you can move your body throughout your life. So, you know, there's a lot of factors, but ultimately my point is that most diseases progress and damage is done to our bodies.

Largely due to metabolic dysfunction and, and we're seeing mitochondria drill dysfunction, be a big piece of that and mitochondria those little powerhouses of the cell that create ATP. So when you don't have enough cellular energy that ATP for your body to run on, it's kind of like not having enough gasoline for your car and your car is sputtering and clunking and you know, burning out and you know, there's smoke and pieces are breaking off and it's because you're pushing your car real hard and there's not enough fuel.

And it's because you're in an insufficient cellular energy state. And you're insulin resistant. So you can't take enough glucose into the cell. And this is where either exercising and eating right, is going to help or doing a ketogenic diet might help or doing intermittent fasting might help or working out, might help, you know, some of these things that we know that could improve that metabolic dysfunction and ultimately that mitochondrial cellular energy gap.

Bryan Carroll: [00:17:28] So that brings up an interesting question. As we age do we become more efficient or less efficient at utilizing nutrients that come into our system? And based on that answer, do we need more nutrients or less nutrients as we age?

Shawn Wells: [00:17:51] I think. By and large, you would say that we become less efficient you know, gut motility, absorption like the amount of hydrochloric acid in the stomach, which activates like B12, you know, like, oh, like are a number of gut microbiome. There's an important factor to aging called NAD and we make it a lot less of it as we age and we break it down faster as we age.

There's also, again, the likelihood that with protein, you need to actually take a lot more as you age to optimize muscle protein synthesis, which means to, to lean muscle. And so the problem is there again, it's related to insulin resistance and insulin sensitivity. Which usually gets worse as we age, we, we kind of like lean more towards type two diabetic in general, in our population.

Plus we don't have as much of the anabolic hormones, like testosterone and GH and some of these hormones that would protect lean body mass. So as we age, you know, we need more protein and you know, we see this in general, like we need more vitamins, we need more more everything. We need more acid, we need, we need more water.

We need more of these things, you know, barring that you're an athlete, that's a different situation. But yeah, I would agree that that by and large, you probably need more as you age, but I'll say this too, is that body is the great homeostatic adapter, meaning that like whatever you're doing to it, it's going to be adjusting.

So it could just be that like. You know, maybe as we age, we're just eating more of the same thing. We have less variety. We're traveling less, we're going to less restaurants, you know, maybe the box is just a little bit more fixed than it is variable, like when you're younger. So there's definitely in element.

There's something that's called . That's an idea of like the more you challenge your body in positive, stressful ways it's called the use stress. Like when a positive stress, the more you challenge your body, the stronger it becomes, it becomes more resilient. It's like taking, you know, your yourself to the gym and, you know, working out with weights, you're going to get stronger muscles.

It's a stress to work out with weights. But you'll get stronger. So this is true of like, this is the idea of like cold plunges and, and hot saunas and intermittent fasting and keto. And some of these things can be positive stresses to the body. Hormetic stresses to the body that help you adapt and grow stronger.

And again, as we age, we might be doing less of those things. So if I was taking testosterone therapy, if I was taking a glucose disposal agent like berberine or Metformin, if I was, you know, taking my vitamins, taking my protein, if I was doing cold plunges, if I was working out, going to the sauna, you know, doing fasting, would I experience decrease absorption or utilization of nutrients?

Maybe not. It's not necessarily an age thing. It could be a lot of what we do as we 

Bryan Carroll: [00:21:22] Hmm. So two. Apply some positive stress to your system. Would you look into potentially rotating different types of diets through your your body, especially throughout the year as well. And then would you also rotate your supplement protocol, your own personal supplement protocol?

Shawn Wells: [00:21:44] That is the perfect question. And I love that question. Most people don't even think to think of that question. And I think the answer is yes. I think, you know, just like there's an idea called metabolic flexibility where you do the ketogenic diet at times, so you can use ketones as fuel and then you have carbs at times.

So that you can use carbs as fuel, and you're not insane sensitive to either fuel. We used to be very highly variable because we went days sometimes without eating, because we went through the winter and just had meat, or we had more fibrous vegetables than we do now. And we didn't have like Coca Cola and a lack of exercise.

And, you know, we, weren't eating six times a day. Like, so it's a very different equation now where we used to be very flexible. Now we can just use glucose and we're becoming insulin resistant. We're not even able to use ketones. So that's where like the ketogenic diet comes in. It's not like the whole world needs it.

It's just our fat cells here in the United States that need it. But I love that, that idea because I think that really relates to do, you know, we're, we're only meant to eat also during the day, you know, meant to eat at night. There's research on circadian rhythms. By Dr. Satchin Panda. So like, you know, like during the summer it's longer days and, you know, maybe we're meant to eat more and during the winter we're meant to eat more calorie, dense stuff and in shorter periods.

So I think like, you know, we're meant to do longer intermittent fast in the winter. Sure. We're meant to maybe have something like meat or, you know, animal, you know, in the, in the winter, you know, that would have been typical. It depends on your you're, you know, genetic descent, but then maybe during the summer, maybe it's like almost a more vegan diet, you know, like, well, in the winter it's more carnival, this is actually stuff that I'm exploring right now.

So it's a great question. It does depend on your lineage and it does depend on what your goals are. But I do like the idea of flexibility and do doing different diets at different times. And creating for me says like what you're saying. And then I do do that with my, with my supplement too, especially with things like adapt the gins which helped you adapt to stress.

Like I, you know, I might take Rhodiola one month and, you know ashwagandha the next month and, and you know, all of these things, like it can be that if you chronically take them yeah. Every day, this is just like the idea of like exogenous, meaning outside the body testosterone. If I was to get testosterone every day, my body stops making testosterone naturally.

Cause it says, oh, we got plenty. We don't need to make it. So, if you're supplementing with something all the time, your body might say, well, we don't need to make this, or we don't need to do this anymore. And you can almost become dependent on it. And this is actually been seen with an amino acid called arginine that helps with nitric oxide.

They did a, a study where they supplemented with it and people had better nitric oxide release, but when they pulled it away, people actually like went worse than they were before because their body stopped making it all together. And so it actually became dangerous and some people got heart attacks and stuff.

So, yeah, it's just, it's interesting. I do like the idea of flexibility of variation. You know, I have like a hundred products in my pantry, so. You know, I'm just one of those guys. I'm just going to take so many pills here and there and you know, there's no, almost no rhyme or reason to it. It's just, I love the variability of it.

I'd take some things now and some things later, and I don't take the same thing all the time. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:25:45] Yeah. How much of that is intuition? Like you feel a certain way on one day. So you look at your, you know, a hundred products on your shelves and go, you know, I think this would be helpful today. 

Shawn Wells: [00:25:56] A hundred percent, a hundred percent.

Yeah. I mean, that's a phenomenal point as well. That's, that's definitely something I do. Like, you know, if I'm going to be playing sand volleyball for eight hours in the heat and Dallas, like, you know, on the weekend, like I'm going to be supplementing differently than if I'm working in my home office and the air conditioning sitting in an office chair, you know, like or if I'm feeling stressed or I'm like, I'm going out in crowds you know, I might take things that bolster my immune system or, you know, whatever, like it, there's definitely some intuition to it.

And it certainly helps that I know a lot about these, but I do go through all of them and the energy formula, like literally like energy is experiment. Nutrition, exercise, routines growth, and your tribe. And I can, each of those chapters, there is a formulator's corner where I go through all the supplements, you need to know the forms, the doses, the brands all that kind of stuff.

So, yeah. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:26:59] Perfect. Well I have a couple of questions left for you, and obviously it's going to be bio-individual the type of nutrients that people may need in their diet, but are there some really common nutrients that you've seen? The majority of people need more of

Shawn Wells: [00:27:20] nutrients that are already that like vitamins and minerals that you're already supposed to be taking? 

Bryan Carroll: [00:27:26] Just if people went and got tested today, they would probably be deficient in let's say, I dunno, vitamin D maybe. 

Shawn Wells: [00:27:36] Yep. Yep. No, I that's. That's dead on that one. Right. There is dead on. So easily over 75% of the population is deficient in vitamin D.

Especially if you're someone that doesn't get outside, doesn't take your shirt off. Or, you know, like doesn't get down to your shirt or shorts and may get near naked as you can. And the darker skin you you have like the more melanin you have. So if you're a person of color, especially like a darker skinned African American, you have an extremely high likelihood of being deficient in vitamin D basically, you know, yet sucks if you're really light-skinned, you tend to burn easily, but you also tend to get a lot of sun real fast and you can get a lot of vitamin D.

And when you're one of these people that like you can't burn ever. I mean, that's, that's a nice bonus, but you are really resistant to creating vitamin D in your system. So the problem is that you know, if you're talking about like a, you know, black male that's wearing, you know, winter coats and is up in New York city, I mean, there's like a 99.9% chance not getting enough vitamin D and here's the problem.

Vitamin D is so critical. It's way more than a vitamin. It's a hormone and hormones affect all the other hormones. It's called the endocrine cascade. So we see that vitamin D affects not only bones like we originally thought, but the immune system, like you're hearing about now with COVID depression and anxiety, obesity and insulin resistance.

I mean vitamin D three S testosterone and, and sexual desire. There's so much going on with vitamin D that like, I absolutely believe everyone should be taking 5,000 IUs of vitamin D three a day, plus K2, vitamin K2 to optimize it and get max benefits. So that's one, I definitely recommend another one.

Kind of the same boat is magnesium. Almost everyone is deficient in magnesium. It's one of the most important minerals used in hundreds of processes in your body. You probably think about it again, maybe with bone health but it's involved in muscular contractions. It is involved in the immune system it's involved in and gut health and, and motility.

You know, feeling regular and all that. So there's a lot going on with magnesium as well. It helps you sleep helps you feel more calm or related to neuro-transmitters. So those are two massive ones that, yeah, a lot of people are going to be deficient in four short, magnesium and dethrone. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:30:29] Perfect.

And then the other question I want to dive into is around regulations of supplements. So a lot of times you can look at the back of a supplement and it might say something along the lines of these statements have not been evaluated by the FDA or something similar along those lines. What, what are the regulations around supplements?

Who's a regulating organizations or companies and let's talk about NAC and the issues NAC is going through right now. 

Shawn Wells: [00:31:02] Yeah. So regulations around dietary supplements is not nearly as stringent to no surprise as, as drugs would be by the FDA. The FDA does have purview over supplements. And I would say that if you're a big supplement company, you're on the radar.

If you're doing things like sexual enhancement supplements or fat burners, you're on the radar. But by and large, if, or, you know, a smaller company, you know, you're, you're doing workout supplements. You're not using drugs in there. Chances are, there's just not enough FDA to really do a whole lot when it comes to supplements.

So it's more they're there, but it's more of like, you have to do something extreme. To have them come into the picture. So I look at, you know, supplement companies that have really good quality control that have great brands that have testing that have been around for decades. You know, these brands like designs for health and thorn and Xymogen and now, and Gero and.

Nordic naturals and Carlson's, and Barlean's like, you know, these are like life extension foundation sports, nutrition brands, like diamond ties and optimum nutrition. Like these are brands that consistently test out that have been around for 20 years that are, you know, quality brands that I would trust.

And again, it's something I go through in the book, like all the, all the brands, all the watch outs, all the red flags, but like, those are, those are ones that I would, I would look for are brands like those and, and, you know, can there be good new companies that you've never heard of that are only making one product on Amazon it's possible?

It's not likely. I mean, here's what I'll say is like, I've worked for a lot of companies and come in in those scenarios and there's companies that are doing things the wrong way intentionally, but there's a lot of companies that just don't know what they don't know. They don't know to do what is called stability.

Work that a product passed the test out at those numbers on the label for the full shelf life of the product. Two years later, they're not doing that stability work. They're not doing work on nutrients to nutrient interactions in the blending and having to put in overages of certain nutrients or work on the order in which they're added to the blend.

There's just, and they're not doing the raw material quality control testing. They're just taking the lab results from the ingredient supplier. And sometimes there's this dubious practice, this known as a dry labbing, where just means that. This manufacturer just typed up the results. Never actually tested it, sends it to you and says, yeah, it's good.

And if you're not like a big company that has the quality control, that's testing these things in verifying these things, third party, you don't even know. So you're just like, oh, well it says it's good. So it must be good. So like, this is like the stuff that you don't know, what you don't know, and it's where I can step in and, you know, and help with those kinds of things.

And that's what these companies that are more exposed that are, that are larger targets. They're more concerned about. And they have departments of 10, 15, 20 people doing quality control, whereas a lot of these small brands.

Bryan Carroll: [00:34:46] Yep. That makes a lot of sense. And then when like the FDA comes in and starts removing supplements. So obviously something got you on their radar or got the supplement on their radar. What, what are some of the reasons why that would be, is it dangerous to the population? Is it potentially something that they want to patent and use as a medication?

What what's going on there? 

Shawn Wells: [00:35:12] Yeah, it's, it's frustrating and sad. That's, that's going to be the majority of where this is coming from. Like you know, Stevia was pulled from the market when sucralose slash Splenda was coming out and they said that there was one lot in the entire world of all the production that was tainted.

And so Stevia was banned for it. 10 15 years and couldn't be used until the patent ran out. Wanda there's a federal Federation got banned at the same exact time that Fenfen was hitting the market as a drug for weight loss. We all know ephedrine was incredible for energy and weight loss. Did I have a potential to be abused and have side effects?

Yes. And for sure some people died, some people abused it, but more people died using it and fan and yeah, there's just a number of these cases where it's stuff like that. That's very frustrating that there's not like a clear agenda, I'll say and, and subtle sustain is no different. Like they're now saying, oh, it was some orphan drug back in the sixties, but meanwhile, it's been a supplement.

You know, and it's been out for, you know, 60 years and, and it's an amino acid. That's natural that boost glutathione, which is the master antioxidant in the body. Can't, can't be abused. It's natural. It's been used as a supplement, like I said, for at least 30 years and been out, you know, research wise for more than 60 years.

And so why is it leaving the market? I don't know. There's data now saying it's super effective with COVID. So I don't know. I, you know, I don't have all the insight there, but you know, sometimes I just say follow the money trail, you know, I hate to be that guy, but I mean, that's just the reality of the world we live in.

Like there's. There's people that, that have influence and, and people that want to make money and they don't like competition. So, or, you know, or we'll see, like you're saying N-acetylcysteine become a drug and you know, like, oh, it's found to be effective. Let's make it a drug. It used to be a drug, like let's pull this paperwork.

So, you know, it could be that, I don't know, you know, what way it's going? I don't have insight into it, but clearly it's not for the, the love and the benefit of mankind. It's, it's clearly something related to money. And I don't have insight into that. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:38:03] Yep. It's always sad when our health and our choices get put on the lines for the benefit of increasing profits, which is always a bummer to see.

Shawn Wells: [00:38:16] Agreed, agreed. It's frustrating. Yup. Well, 

Bryan Carroll: [00:38:19] as we wrap up here, what is your vision of what healthy looks like and what do you do every day to reach that vision?

Shawn Wells: [00:38:29] For me, it looks like the six ingredients that I, that I mentioned in the book of, of energy formula, the acronym, like it's, you know, the first chapter experiment, the E and energy, the first E is about testing. And bio-individuality that you mentioned and understanding your genetic variations, understanding your blood work and what that looks like and how to explore that.

Because you know, like we're saying, like all these supplements, all these diets may not work well for you. It's, you know, that's where you need to understand your individuality. The next chapter is nutrition and I do keto, paleo and intermittent fasting. That's what works for me. But I also got through things like Mediterranean vegan, carnivore, all those kinds of things, and, you know, explore what works for you.

The next one is exercise. I definitely. Move weights and heavy stuff. But I also like to do this new research called exercise snacks, which I cover in a hidden chapter. That's on a energy formula.com that you get free when you buy the book. There's all this new data that actually shows that yeah, it's great that you move your body for one hour, a day in a workout or going to a spin class, you know, going to the gym, whatever it is, but it doesn't undo all the sedentary newness of what you did.

The other 23 hours of sitting at a chair sitting in your car, laying down. So what they're finding now, it's more effective to your lungs. Yeah. Betty, and to disease that you move your body once an hour for like five minutes, whatever that looks like, do some, push-ups do some, sit-ups do some air squats, you know, run around in the yard, like whatever it is, move your body.

And they're finding that's actually more effective. Ultimately it'd be great that you do both, that you go to the gym and find a way to move your body every hour. That's something that I've worked on. And then routines, I mean, understanding circadian rhythm, having a dial D morning routine. That's a huge part of my day.

And then, and then learning how to have good sleep hygiene and going to bed at the same time every night and making the bedroom room a sleep fortress that revolves purely around sleep and making, see me relaxed and putting me in a position to fall asleep easily. And then growth is, you know, all about like nootropics, which I get into the, these brain boosting compounds, using things like MCTs doing fasting doing things like, you know, reading books and podcasts, especially ones that focus on resilience and stoic mindset that the obstacle is the way that's really important.

That's kind of like hormesis for the brain. And then lastly is your tribe. And that's something that I think is just, it's the most important thing. The Harvard study that's over 80 years running, that's involved. Thousands of people, the number one predictor of longevity is quality of relationships. So that's a massive one that you have purpose, that you have connection, that you have a network that you're talking to, people that you're interacting with.

People that you're hugging people. You know, this is so important. And on the flip side we found loneliness is one of the top killers it's associated with much shorter lifespans. So, you know, that's what I'm doing every day. And and I'm happy to be here and, and happy to support the summit for wellness.

Bryan Carroll: [00:41:58] Awesome, Sean. Well, that's a great lead way into the book. If people want to get it, I'm assuming it's on Amazon or anywhere people can get books at. You'll also have energy formula.com and Sean wells.com. The book is awesome because like you said, let's say today, you want to focus on growth. You can just flip to the growth chapter and go through some of the exercises in there.

So having that that book in your hands and be able to flip through your chapters is, is great. So. 

Shawn Wells: [00:42:28] Yeah, and it's full color front to back and there's, there's tons of like diagrams in it. And you know, it's, it's there's like these surveys that are throughout, you know, here's an example right here of like formulators corners where they go through the supplements and it's a, it's just, here's, you know, the surveys that test that you can take and there's chapter summary.

So yeah, it's, it's one of those things that there's tons of like little bits and pieces that you can grab here and there, you don't have to read it front to back, like on one sitting. There's just tons of information in there that you can grab. Perfect, Sean. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:43:05] Well, thank you so much for coming on and chatting with us about nutraceuticals, kind of the process around them and what to be looking for to get a good ones for your body.

Thanks brother. 

Shawn Wells: [00:43:18] And anyone can follow me at Sean Wells, the S H a w N on Instagram. And if you have any questions about what we talked about here, you can always DM me there and I'll answer your questions.