#54 Geoffrey Woo – CEO of HVMN – Ketone Esters

MEET GEOFF:

Geoffrey Woo is co-founder and CEO of HVMN. Geoffrey earned his BS in Computer Science from Stanford University with Honors and Distinction and specialized in Distributed Systems and Information Theory.

ABOUT GEOFF

• I was very interested in human performance and that interest came from my computer science studies at Stanford
• A couple years out of school, I realized all my smartest friends at Stanford are using big brains to make computers or robots better
• And I thought that we are all humans, and a lot of attributes are getting worse and worse over time
• So that was my transition into the human performance about 5 years ago
• I became plugged in into the bio hacking community, and I have done a lot of medical experiments on myself in the community
• I got interested specifically in Ketosis as a protocol to enhance different markers for longevity and also the cause and effects of it
• A lot of interesting development within Keto for the last 2 to 3 years
• I did training for the San Francisco Marathon
• I did a lot of calisthenics in between, it’s body weight exercises
• I am kind of inspired by these specific specimens, my colleagues, that I interact with on a daily basis
• I started intermittent fasting about 3 years ago now with the bio hacker community
• We came into intermittent fasting aggressively. We did 60 hour fasts
• Our bodies store around 20 to 24 hours worth of glycogen, so we were definitely going into ketosis

• The first few times I did the 60 hours fast, I thought I would die, but then I realized that there are people have been fasted for 40 days.
• It was really hard because our bodies are not adapted yet to Keto – the conversion process of breaking fat into ketones
• The 3^rd and 4^th time, it went really stable in terms of energy levels and there’s this sense of mental clarity
• And that became a regular practice not just me, but also my colleagues
• Most of us are not professional athletes, most of us are intellectual or creative workers, my self included
• So we need to reinstall physical exercise into our lives
• Exercise is one of the best protocols to improve health and longevity
• And I think that fasting will be very similar
• Just like exercise, fasting would be a helpful thing to consider
• I think people should look why there are 3 meals a day. Did God put that in the bible?  It’s not…
• If you’ll look into historical records, Romans eating pattern is 1 large meal a day and most Asians have 2 meals a day
• If you look at the history, it’s really an artifact to industrial revolution lifestyle, where factory workers have 2 different shifts to produce goods and needed fuel at the beginning of the day, mid day, and then end of the day.
• That was the history of the 3 meal a day system
• During my 60 hour fast, in the beginning I would just have black coffee and I would say that my routine nowadays is more closer to once or twice a week, a 24 or 36 hours fast and a 16/8 or 18/6 window, on other days, when not doing extended fasts
• I do a lot less extended fasts because I am doing a lot of physical training now
• People should also know that if you are training to be a runner or an event you don’t want to be on such a tight caloric window.
• Balance out your energy requirement with some sense of your food, training and eating protocol

• The longest fast that I did was for 7 days
• At this point, I was also starting to wear continuous a glucose monitor that takes your blood every 5 minutes, via a needle in a port,  that measures your blood sugar
• Wearing a CGM made us felt safe
• The biggest thing for me, most of the times when you think your body sends a hunger signal, it’s not because you are hungry. It’s often times a signal of being bored.
• After that experience, I started to realize that eating is a form of entertainment for a lot of people or distraction
• But it’s important to keep in mind when you are eating for pleasure and when you are eating for fuel
• I started experimenting with Keto around 6 months after doing regular fasting
• The thought process there was intermittent fasting works, and as you look at into the mechanism of why it works, you’re going to start seeing that one of the primary influences of fasting is inversely, elevation and presence of blood ketones
• And if you look at the bio chemistry on how ketones are metabolized, ketones are 28% more efficient than glucose
• Ketones are more efficient fuel for the production of energy for the mitochondria
• Ketones are a very important part of fasting, and other protocols that produce ketones is obviously the Ketogenic diet
• It was interesting because you are not going to fast to have ketones in your system
• That got me interested to Ketogenic diet
• When I was wearing my Continuous Glucose Monitor, I would always check my blood sugar after everything I did
• If you are eating fairly low carb and there’s an insulin response, especially if there’s protein, unless you are eating 100% fat
• You can see that reflected in your blood sugar
• Oftentimes, when you have a more heavy lunch, you’ll see that blood sugar jump and then you’ll see it crash
• Because your blood sugar is dropping, your body wants to eat sugar, but if you are on a Keto diet, your body is replacing some of the requirements from ketones instead
• You are probably more sleepy after a more carby meal than a less carby meal
• Protein has an insulin response
• Our brains are our highest leverage tools
• Some of the interesting physiological end points, when one is in ketosis, is that it triggers up the production of PDMF brain
• There are improvements in neurological conditions going through ketogenic diets or fasting. The biochemistry is being explained that being in ketosis jump starts the production of BDNS brain derived neurotropic factor, which is important for the growth of neurons
• The ketone esters that you drank actually came from 2003 and were called metabolic dominance to enhance and improve soldier endurance
• Our drink is a ketone ester. You are basically eating something that converts a 100% into a keto body in our system and it converts really quickly
• Oftentimes, you are going to go from 0.1 ketones to 3 to 5 ketones in 30 minutes
• It makes your blood look like you have been fasting 10 days in 30 minutes which is pretty stunning on how that impacts and improves your physiology
• Typically at rest, your ketone levels will remain elevated and you have that sharp effect for 4 to 6 hours
• Dr. Brianna Stubbs actually published in obesity journal in November last year showing that the Ketone ester and ketones themselves is an appetite suppressing hormone
• I hope that we can expand the understanding of ketones and ketosis in that, this is the first time you can have ketones as a food component
• You might have seen ketone salts on the market, but those are very different from ketone esters and even different from MCT oils or Bulletproof coffee, because those are fats that convert well into beta hydroxyl butyrate while ketone esters are directly the BHB ketones themselves
• Ketones are a macronutrient
• One thing that I talk about a lot is that every single food we consume is a mix of fat, protein and carbs
• Things like vitamin C, calcium, magnesium – these are micronutrients
• The difference there, is that macronutrients have calorie content and are a substrate that produce ATP. Vitamin C and calcium are micronutrients that help process so they don’t directly contribute to calories
• Ketones have caloric content, but these are fuel for your mitochondria and they are definitely not fat, protein and carbs
• 10 or 15 years ago, one of these drinks might have cost 25 thousand dollars
• Within the last 3 or 5 years, biology has really improved and I think it’s interesting to think about, is that a lot of organic compounds have optical isomers
• Everything you consume in our ketone ester drink is perfectly metabolized by your cells
• There is an active, on going area of research, in 2015, for Alzheimer patients who is drinking ketone esters every day and they saw really stunning improvements on recovering and reversing the Alzheimer’s symptoms
• We also have customers that have Parkinson’s and have tried the ketone ester and their subjective report is less shakiness and better muscle control
• We think this works because it’s a more efficient fuel for neurons, there’s a metabolic efficiency effect
• Alzheimer’s is type 3 diabetes and a lot of drug programs for pharmaceutical companies are more focused on amyloid or tau that block or clog up your brain cells and those drugs did not work
• A new hypothesis of what’s the cause is perhaps that these plaque are a symptom of deeper issues which is insulin resistance in the brain or neurons
• If glucose can’t be taken up by these cells, that means there is no fuel for the brain to function and clear itself
• One of the interesting things that ketone esters do is that they acutely raise your ketone levels to 3 – 5 minimally, in 30 minutes, and will also drop your blood sugar by 10% or 15%

WHAT DOES HVMN STANDS FOR

• It’s the word “human” spelled in a distinctive stylistic way

WHAT IS NEXT FOR YOUR COMPANY

• Hopefully reducing the cost of production more
• Continue to experiment

HOW CAN PEOPLE FIND YOU

• HVMN – on all social platforms = https://hvmn.com/
• HVMN podcast = https://hvmn.com/podcast
• Twitter: geoffreywoo = https://twitter.com/geoffreywoo

FAVORITE RECIPE

• Grill a rib eye steak with salt and pepper

FAVORITE QUOTES

• Food is medicine, medicine is food

FAVORITE BOOK

• The Body Problem

MOST GRATEFUL FOR

• Have a job and career that I am excited about

FAVORITE MOVIE

• Troy

GUILTY PLEASURE

• Listening to podcasts

COFFEE OR TEA

• Coffee
• I put heavy whipping cream of half and half

FAVORITE HEALTH BENEFIT OF ADAPTING THIS LIFESTYLE

• The energy level
• I feel sharper

FOR THE LISTENERS

• Practice the discipline around diet and exercise just like any other skill
• Be kind to yourself

To know more about HVMN, check their website here

Check out the last podcast here with Darius Pittman of Sugarless Crystals.

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