Why Your Peptide Vendor Cannot Show You the Study | Elias Arjan | The Owner Seat

Speaker A: Welcome back to the Owner Seat podcast. I've spent this season interviewing founders in longevity and wellness. And you know, I help out a ton. Almost every one of them has a number. 90% bioavailability, 90% more effective. And I want to go looking in for a study behind it. Most of the time it's, it's pretty tough. I can't, I can't find too much and I don't think they're lying. I just think they really believe it. But belief is not evidence. My audience, you, you that own studios and clinics where you're being asked to put these products on the shel or maybe even start a digital menu. You need to repeat those claims to your members. And when an operator repeats a claim, you, the operator, own it. So today I brought on the man whose entire business is that problem. Elias Arjon is the founder of the Healthspan Collective and the co founder and CEO of ProVen Research in Los Angeles. I love it. ProVen helps wellness brands generate the actual scientific evidence behind their health claims. The Healthspan Collective convenes the clinicians, founders and investors building this industry, including the health band Stomach. I can't wait to talk about it. It's going to be their year four, October 1st through the third in Los Angeles. We'll get back to that here in a second. It's very exciting. The funny thing is his path. Here is the strangest resume I've read all year. He started as a fitness trainer, spent a decade as a circus performer and ringmaster, then years as a principal art auctioneer running million dollar rooms. Then went operator as a first executive hire at Biostrap, the clinical grade wearables company that you've hear and hours on a stage. And he continues to be in the limelight, which I love. Before he ever ran a research company. But one thing that explains it all and I want to get a little vulnerable here as Elias has. When he was 9, his mother nearly lost her life and he watched the hospital system fail her and it's never left him since then. His stated mission is to move the industry from hype and all this noise to evidence based. Elias, on this show. We're looking forward the framework, sir. And I love it. Our operators, they're going to leave this episode. I know you all will be excited as you listen in, knowing exactly what to ask for a vendor for before you put anything on the shelf or you bring wellness within the studio. Elliott, welcome to the Owner Seed podcast.

Speaker B: Wow. I think that's probably the most thoroughly accurate introduction anyone has ever Given me, you know, it's. I used to hide some parts of that because it doesn't all fit together. Like you said, it's a very eclectic life that I've had.

Speaker A: Well, I love it. It's you and so interesting. We obviously did our homework and I appreciate how vulnerable you get and how you've shared your story. Different platforms and we found it and I can't wait to dig in. Before I do, I mentioned it here very briefly, but this is a big deal. Year four of the Healthspan Summit. So Healthspan Summit 2026. It's October 1st through the third in my hometown. I actually went to Occidental College there in Los Angeles. So I'm excited, ah to see you and some others like Arvin and Sanjeev and some others that will be speakers on stage. But do you mind walking us through? What is it going to be all about? Why should we get excited about it? And why should everyone listening to this book their flight and get there?

Speaker B: Well, I think the problem I saw when I started in this industry, the reason I started the summit was I kept going to these, the big conferences that everyone knows, the biohacking conferences, A4M. All of these different, you know, health and wellness and longevity events. And there were some that were for doctors and there were some that for the general public. And they all kind of had their own little categories. But what I started to see was that they were all blending together and the medical grade conferences were starting to be kind of like biohacking conferences because it's the incentives of the model. It's a pay for play model. You pay money for a booth, you get a booth. And there really wasn't a lot of curation that was happening around evidence. Like this is best in class. So if, if 10 photo, um, photobiomodulation companies want to pay to be in an expo, there's 10 booths there of people selling the same product. So you walk in as a consumer or even as a clinician, even who's educated and you' sure. Like there's uh, 10 companies. Which is the best one? I don't know. So I read. I realized that there was a space where if we went and curated the event, we did it with a lot of intention. We set a high bar for evidence both on the exhibitor and the speaker side. And we only platform best in class solutions, maybe there'd be a market for that. And lo and behold, you know, four years later, we're, this is an exponential year for us. Uh, in fact we're reaching the point where we're already realizing for next year we're going to have to figure out what to do because, you know, the demand is very high. Like we wanted to sort of cap out on about a thousand people because we also felt like that sort of kept the intimacy of a B2B event. You know, like you go, so. So we're probably going to maybe expand a little bit, but I actually don't think we want even our numbers to get bigger. We like being a boutique conference. So if you're looking for that's in the longevity and health span sector, that's evidence based, that's curated and that's based on telling you how this industry is going to grow over the next two to five years. There's really not another event like ours.

Speaker A: Excellent. Well, I can't wait to be there. Can't wait to travel from Texas over down to Southern California. I know the weather is always perfect,

Speaker B: so it's going to be, yeah, it's a great time. A lot of people enjoy that early October vacation time. It's just when it's starting to cool off north.

Speaker A: Chris Bear. Yeah. Well, your background is very diverse as I had mentioned. Right. I'm sure there's a lot of people that were surprised to hear some of the things ringmaster, a fire performer, auctioneer. But as you go through and eventually got into clinical research, there's clearly a skill that you've been able to realize is your biggest strength that got you through each one of those successfully, including health span and proven. What's that skill?

Speaker B: Uh, I would say that it was basically all around. Ultimately it's really around communicating value to people. That's why like, I do feel like it was in some ways one skill, like you said. But I do have to admit, like my grounded foundation did start with that exercise science in college. And I was an exercise scientist, I was a triathlete and I was a personal trainer and I just became fascinated with this idea of optimal performance. And I was really, as an exercise scientist, I was really focusing on biology. You know, we were doing VO2 max testing, you know, like back then in the, you know, in the lab, like it was not like how it is today. You know, we, uh, had big machines and the treadmills and we were trying to understand, you know, if I wanted to just even shave a few minutes off my race, what did I have to do. And it was sort of very high tech and weird, you know, and I thought, okay, well this, I love this idea of optimal Performance. And I love the idea of fitness, so could I go take that into a career? And so I thought medicine would be the career. But when I went, you know, I finished my exercise science diploma, I started talking to physicians to explore what would be next. And I said, oh, I want to become a doctor because I want to make people healthier. And they said, no, no, that's not what we do. We give sick people drugs. And I realized that Even this is 30 years ago, that even then, you know, the healthcare system really was about managing disease. Right. Not optimal performance. Yeah, they call it sick care. But what was the main through line for me was I just said, okay, well, I love performance. How does that apply in as many different sectors as possible? So the physical side was the stage performance, the circus, the athletics. I started training with stuntmen. I started training with acrobats. I started training with these. Yeah, and this was tough. Like, man, these guys train. And gals trained at a level that I walked in as a triathlete, and they were just like, I could not even come close. I was like 10%, you know, like my first class that I walked into at stuntman, the warmup was going up to running towards the wall and then doing a backflip off the wall. That was the warmup in that class. So they're like, okay, everybody go. And I'm like, I can't do that. So it just sort of carried from there. Right. So I looked at performance in first at, uh, you know, physical performance through circus arts. Then the performance of communication to get an audience to laugh and understand a story on stage. That's another skill. Then I became interested in how do you translate that to the business sphere. Could you. Could you use those skills to become, uh, communicate things that generate high financial return and buy in that way as an entrepreneur? And so it just. It was one through line, you know. And I just came back 10 years ago to what was my first love. Because of the technology and the science that was evolving when I first met the quantified self guys, you know, 10 years ago. But that started this whole thing, by the way. I've been talking about that a lot lately, predating biohacking and all these terms we're using now was the quantified self movement. That's where all this originates. Maybe we can talk about that in a minute.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'd love to. And I've been loving your webinars. I mean, another thing that I love about you is education is really important to you. And as I'm watching Them watching your webinars, I'm like, wow, this is really good stuff. I can watch it for hours. Speaking of stories, and you actually wrote once that, and you speak about this, that, you know, it's really important. Founders in this space, they're typically responding to something personal. And I mentioned it at the top that this also hits home for you, right? You're 30 years later. You know, thinking back, you're in the hospital, your mom's in the hospital. Not a great experience through that hospital system. Right. How does that still come back and affect you today and as far as what you're doing and the impact you're creating today?

Speaker B: Well, I mean my mother definitely, yeah, I mean her large tell the bit of that story, you know, her large intestine exploded when I was nine years of age. So all of a sudden, you know, it was very shocking. She was just taken out of the house and more or less she was almost in the hospital for two years, two years of surgery. And so, you know, my mother was doing a, uh, you know, doing the best job she could. We're very poor family, but she was doing the best job we could to like help me get ready for school and get me. And my father really wasn't up to that sort of stuff. So at nine years old, like I was making my own lunches and getting myself to. And it just like I had to just grow up overnight. And then when I would go visit my mother in the hospital, I would see the doctors like pocking and proding her and just sort of, you know, the nurses are sort of flipping her out of the bed, like, oh, we got to change this. And I just was like, man, this is like, you know, you're hurting my mother. You know what I mean? As a nine year old boy. So I guess I had a little bit of a, uh, sense that I didn't like this system, you know, at the time. But so I think we all. But it also inspired me, I think partially into my own athletic pursuits, you know, because I was like, well, you know, I saw what happened. My mother, my father also, you know, never really took care of his health. He was a smoker, he was obese, he had breathing issues, you know, for asthma. And so I kind of was inspired to like try to see what is optimal health look like. I think that was also part of what framed my story. And like I, like you said, I, uh, bring that up that I. Most of the people I meet who are mission driven in the space, meaning that they're not in it for this is a good business opportunity. They're in it because it, like, the pain of the system hurts them at, like, a spiritual, emotional level. So it's like you. Yeah, you can't not do something or take some action, you know? And so I think for me, I feel like I was often waiting for the market to be ready for this moment, uh, my whole life. And what's amazing is, like, we're finally there. We're finally at the place where there's new messages, I think, that are coming through in our sector that have just never been possible before. So this really is a moment that is unique and I'm honored to be where I am.

Speaker A: So we're lucky to have you in the industry, for sure. Odd question, but odd role. Auctioneer. I love it. I'm like, wow, this is awesome. I've never met an auctioneer. How did that translate into the business world? I was piece this together. I'm like, oh, man, this is probably like a great gift when you think about persuasion and communication and all the different things that, let's face it, sometimes scientists aren't great at the business side of things, but you have just this multiskill type of approach to that. It's amazing.

Speaker B: Well, but it's because if you really apply the scientific method to everything, everything is a science. Everything is a science. So, you know, the science of persuasion, that's. You test that as an auctioneer or as a stage presenter. The same techniques that apply to being an actor and having an audience to cry also apply to make them laugh or to buy. It's the same skill. It's just slightly altered. You're applying different scientific principles to get an outcome. So it's all science in a way, to me. And auctioneering, I mean, brilliant science behind auctioneering. Brilliant. If you look, auctions are incredible revenue generators. And, uh, you know, you, you think about the big ones everyone sees, like Sotheby's or these car auctions. I mean, you're selling a car on these, you know, big auctions or a work of art that's millions of dollars or tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. And it's happening like that. They're doing $100 million an hour. Tell me any other sales environment where you can do that except a Sotheby's auction of fine art or, uh, a, uh, Barrett Jackson car auto auction, where they're doing millions of dollars an hour in sales because of the psychology of, uh, everything that comes together in auctions. And so doing that as an auctioneer and I Also applied it to benefit auctions. So I helped a lot of charities. I've raised hundreds of thousands of dollars through charitable auctions applying the same principles. So it's a science is the way I look at that, for sure. It's just a different set of techniques and a specific application.

Speaker A: I mean, what an icebreaker. I love it. It's so good. I've never met. Like I mentioned, that's so cool. And I didn't know that about you. I, uh, want to switch gears into the problem you're solving and why I say we're so lucky to have you because, you know, wellness and longevity, it's gone through its waves and we're at a high right now. There's a lot of noise out there. There's a lot of information coming at everyone, including the audience who's filled with founders in the wellness, fitness and longevity space. Owners, studio owners, operators. Right. And they're getting hit at every level to say, hey, your members are spending elsewhere. Why don't they spend in your four wall? So introduce wellness and longevity, whether it's physical or digital. And here's the thing, though, is how do you know what's good? So for instance, you have a wellness brand that's telling or a longevity brand that's telling. An operator, hey, this, this product is clinically proven. So I think from an education aspect, we'd love to pick your brain. I'd love to pick your brain. What does that mean? And what are some ways it can be technically true but functionally meaningless? And I think that's important for the audience to understand that there is a difference.

Speaker B: Yeah, this is a really important area. I think we should spend some time on this because there's a whole bunch of techniques that are being used again, to sort of manipulate perceptions. So clinically proven often is. It's supposed to mean something, but it's definitely used in a way that it doesn't mean what it, what they're presenting that it means. So ideally, what this would usually mean is there's some. Or what people think it means is there's some type of clinical trial associated with that intervention that prove their particular product. Now, that is a very expensive process. Right. The reason pharmaceutical companies are so aggressively protecting their patents is because it takes a billion dollars and 10 years to get a drug to. So I doubt many of these companies have actually tested the formulation of their products. So really what they're doing is they're saying that something is clinically proven where it's not evidence based. It's what we would call evidence informed and what that means. And I'll give you a really direct example. Uh, so everyone's, if they're in the clinical space, familiar with photobiomodulation or red light therapy, right? You go to these websites for these red light therapy companies and they'll say red light therapy is clinically proven. You've heard that right Albert?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I see it all the time.

Speaker B: Yeah. So they'll say this was clinically proven. And then they'll point to a whole bunch of studies on PubMed that say here's a bunch of studies on red light therapy, right? Originally they'll say things like this was discovered by NASA. It uh, was uh, developed to protect astronauts in space. These things sound really like scientific and high and powerful. But does anybody go read those studies? Do you think anybody goes to read those studies that they point to? Yes or no?

Speaker A: No, absolutely not.

Speaker B: Not. And if you were to go read those studies, you would find a couple things. One, you would find the company pointing it to those studies has never tested the final configuration of their product. So they're pointing to studies on the therapy in general, so not about their product. So you don't even know do they even have a product that has the same dose, has the same wattage, has the same signal, has the same quality, has all of these things? No they didn't. They're testing red light therapy. Now red light therapy is a category has been manipulated because it actually most of the research was, was on low level laser therapy which is called lllt. And that low, that laser therapy is a completely different therapeutic dose than what you're getting from these LED panels. So almost all of the data you're looking at that they're pointing to for these red light therapy LED panels that actually has nothing to do with the clinical evidence and definitely nothing to do with their final products.

Speaker A: So how do you know? So how do we know? Like what are some of the questions to ask whether it be red light. And let's think of the most popular, right Red light. And there's cold therapy or contrast therapy is like maybe it's coming back. I know it was going through uh, its ups and downs and on the science and then you know, between male and females or whoever, whatever different body type, like which one's better than the other. Now we have this like and, and uh, we saw the government and regulation looked like it, it ta tapered down on peptides. How do you know what questions to ask? Like how do we look at this?

Speaker B: So I would Just ask, I would just ask a couple very simple questions, right? One, have you tested your, your claims that you have a claim, right? This product will improve sleep. Have you tested that on your product? So they'll say melatonin improves sleep. Our product has melatonin, therefore our product improves sleep. Right? That's. What would they call, I guess, a logical fallacy, right? Like it sounds like it's logical, but it not necessarily is. It may or may not be accurate. Because what you also find if you go look at the study around, uh, melatonin, you may find that the dose of melatonin that is proven to be efficacious was 10 milligrams. This is not, I'm not saying that's how much melatonin you could take. I'm just using this as a general example. I told you the cat might make an appearance. There he is. And so, you know, is the dose equal to what's in the product? So this is the phenomena what people have called fairy dusting. So like the big brand that got accused of this recently was like AG1. They have a whole bunch of ingredients where all those individual ingredients on their own have been studied and could have value. But when you put the amount of that ingredient in a multi dosed product, will any of it have any efficacy? Probably not, because that's a fairy dusting technique, right? So you put just enough. Same thing with like functional beverages, right? So there's a lot of functional beverages that will talk about having say functional mushrooms or kava or some other product in them, but it may be in there. And even the way the label is written, you don't know how much percentage. I mean, they could be just such a fairy dusted amount that it's on the ingredient label. But it's definitely not enough to have an impact on the nervous system or on the body. Right? Like you need a certain dose of lion's mane mushroom to have an effect. And you also need to take that product according to a dosing schedule to have an outcome, right? So lion's mane mushroom has been proven to have, uh, neurogenesis, neurogenic properties on the brain. So people go, well, we have lion's mane's mushroom in our thing, therefore your brain's gonna get make, it's gonna make you smarter. Well, if I take one hit of your coffee once a week, is that gonna, is that enough Lion's mane mushroom that's gonna impact my brain? No, but nobody says that. They just make a claim. That's a blanket claim. So you Gotta look. So the devil is in the details I guess is what I'm saying. And I wish I could give you like a ah, playbook, you know. That was really easy. This is what we spend all of our time doing at the Collective is going through the data, going through the brands, selecting products that stand out that we can put at the summit or we can put at our events because we've done the due diligence for everybody and identified these people, have something unique and they are maybe doing even something that a hundred other companies are doing, but they're doing it better with better quality, better evidence. And usually we also look for people that are more fun to do business with.

Speaker A: You know what's funny? Now I'm going to walk around and as I reach into the fridge or, or grabbing another product, it's almost as if, and uh, I'll just use myself. I'm walking around drinking this stuff and taking the stuff. But I'm probably just in this place, world of placebo. It's not actually doing anything.

Speaker B: Okay, you wanna hear something crazy, Albert? There is a verified observational phenomena that the placebo effect has increased in potency over the last decade, Matt.

Speaker A: So now why is that? Is that because our, our, our brain trusts our eyes a bit more? The marketing is just that. That dang good.

Speaker B: Yeah. Well I think it is, is because I think, to be quite honest, I think social media and the algorithms have primed our brains to be hyper receptive to influence.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So this is something no one's talking about. But I just, I, I saw somebody talking about this and I was like, is that true? And yeah, there's clinical research that is they doing drug research right now. Because the placebo effect sometimes, especially on the particular study that they were having problems with was on, on uh, drugs that were impacting things like uh, cognitive problems basically. Like. Right. Like almost things like schizophrenia. And that if you gave a schizophrenic a uh, placebo they would be less schizophrenic because of the depth of their belief that they were not going to be schizophrenic anymore. And so, you know, this is in some ways a validation for the more, shall we say almost, uh, spiritually minded health professionals amongst us. Right. Saying that you're visualization. But the thing is, is, but the evidence here, I think people need to understand placebo works for things that have neurological and immunomodulation properties. Yeah.

Speaker A: Don't cut your leg off.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Or unfortunately, you know, I mean there's a Lot of people that are using a lot of like brain therapies on tumors, cancerous tumors, right? Like they're like, like any, almost anytime someone has tried to use, just thinking their way out of cancer by itself, without any other treatment, it has not been effective. These people die. So there's a line, right? Like if pain is a really interesting example of this, there is no quantifiable metric for pain other than self report. So uh, the doctor or the clinician asks you, what's your pain level? 1 to 10. So if you self report, my pain is at an 8. And I go, okay, well I'm going to give you a pain pill and this should put your pain down to a four. But it's sugar pill, it's placebo. The likelihood of you saying, actually yeah, I do feel like I'm a four is very high. Because if you believe in me, I'm standing there in a white coat in the lab with real authority and you're like, oh, this guy looks like he's sharp. You know, he's a bald guy, he knows what he's doing. Yeah, yeah. You see all that? You see all the, yeah, you see all these degrees on the wall and I'm in your white coat. I'm a doctor with my stethoscope and I tell you this will make your pain a four, right? Your brain is going to go, oh wow, this is probably going to make my pain a four. And guess what happens? You can create modulators, pain neuroceptor driven modulators of pain. Your brain will create to modulate your pain or to do something. Right. So your thoughts do impact your physiology. This is not just like a woo woo thing, it's actually a scientific look up nlp, right.

Speaker A: We're going the other direction of um, what do they call Neo linguistic protocol and positive energy or law of attraction, whatever people want to call it. But it sounds like you can go the other route is you can, you can change some negative things that are going on with you physiologically.

Speaker B: But there's also a phenomena called nocebo. I don't know if you heard of that. Yeah, have you heard of that? So that you could be actually getting a pain, an uh, actual pain modulator. But you have such a resistance to the suggestion that this is going to have an impact that you're actually going to overcome the power of the therapeutic and it's actually not going to affect you, even though it should. And so you can your, your thoughts, you know, so this is, this is why the Idea of going around, uh, I'll give you a real realistic example. I ride a motorcycle. I've been riding motorcycles for a long time, amongst my many other things. So when you're driving a motorcycle and you're going down the highway, if, let's say a car hits a tree and all of a sudden in the road, there's a car in the road and there's a tree by the side of the road and there's a little space for you to drive your motorcycle between. Now most people will be like, I want to avoid that car. But what happens when your brain is like, I want to avoid that car. You drive into the car because your brain is going, I want to avoid this thing. The way you actually do this to get through that narrow path is you have to say, I'm aiming for that space, that open space between the car and the tree. Your brain has to orientate towards the opportunity, not the risk. And if you orientate towards the opportunity, you're more likely to drive your motorcycle into that gap. And the reason this is important because on a motorcycle, a split second decision can be the difference between life and death. So they actually teach you this. If you do a, uh, motorcycle training course that you look to where you want to go, not to what you're trying, trying to avoid, that's actually, you're way more likely to hit it.

Speaker A: It's like exposure therapy, in a sense.

Speaker B: Yeah. So, you know, so there's a lot of, there's a lot more to the brain and to perception and even consciousness that impact physiology. So the people saying that aren't, aren't incorrect. But there is also some fundamental facts about biology, cellular function, how the body operates. And so, so we want to be able to allow both of these things to be true and approach this all with an open but critical mind.

Speaker A: Let's talk about bioavailability. So I'm a big, I, I love going and getting my IV therapy. Take supplements and all of that. Peptides. Yeah, play around with those too. And. But I always wonder, I always wonder, I mean, going back to kind of our, our conversation here on placebo or not, or what's really getting absorbed or not. And um, I'm hearing this a lot. I'm hearing about how much of this am I actually getting? 20%, 30%? Is it, is it better with a capsule? Is it better with, you know, iv? And there's not a lot of studies behind it. Again, we're just kind of trusting the menu, trusting the marketing. It's so good, right I mean, how do we know? What do we ask so that we know it's legitimate or not?

Speaker B: Well, I mean, I think we can start with, from at least my understanding. And again, I, I do have a, you know, I do a lot of scientific work and conduct research. However, you know, this is very complex. Like the human, human biology is ridiculously complex. And so there's a. So many things to factor in, right. So when you talk about bioavailability, like the size of the molecule, the type of the way it gets absorbed in the body. Right. So, you know, I think the big reason that this is becoming a topic of conversation is because for most of our training, if you will, in like, health and wellness and medicine, people take a pill. And the reality is, is when we look at it, you know, digestion is probably a really poor delivery system for a lot of these things because there's acidity of the gut, there's gut permeability, there's absorption issues. So a lot of people are talking about bioavailability because they're suggesting like liposomal or intranasal or, or, you know, IVs, or different types of injection systems, even topical treatments. Right? Because we're looking at, you know, could we absorb all of these compounds through different means and be more bioavailable than taking a pill? And so I think generally that's a, that's a good conversation to have. Right. And the reality is it probably varies product by product, you know, but if you're injecting something or getting something through an iv, I mean, it's in there, right? You're, you've cut through the chase. You don't have to digest that. You know, you're hitting the blood. And so, you know, that could be a good or a bad thing, depending on what you're injecting, right? Like, if you're injecting something that your body really needs, then great. If you're, if you're injecting a, uh, peptide that is like, filled with toxins because it doesn't have high sterility because there isn't good quality control because the market is a gray market and there's bad actors, and all of a sudden people are having an anaphylactic shock because they got a poor quality peptide, then, yeah, that's not a good thing that it, uh, bypassed your system because your body wasn't able to protect you from it. So, you know, this is one of the other things. Like if you get a bad supplement that doesn't have, it's just all filler or even if there's heavy metals, your body's probably going to be able to like if you're healthy, like it's not going to do damage. But if you're injecting something or getting something through an iv, you want to be damn sure that that's the best quality possible. You don't want to mess around.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: You know, and you know, so now that people are self injecting at home, you know, then we, you know, I do think there should be some boundaries around that. That's probably important for human health. Yeah.

Speaker A: I'm curious what your thoughts are around the regulation of all of this. And it actually seems like it's for the most part at least week or the week prior to this recording. It's lightening up on I think what was it, five or six items on the peptide menu, which I know there's a lot of people selling. I saw it all over LinkedIn. People are celebrating. And you know, part of me is I, I love that. I, I mean if it seems like it's been tested and there's great evidence, awesome. I just know there's a lot of bad actors out there. Right. And you're right, it's a great market, this peptide world right now and even some of the hormone side of things and I don't know, um, how, how, how deep you get into. I've been watching the webinar, so obviously very deep. But what are your thoughts on that? What are your thoughts on, on regulation? Is it too much currently? Is it not enough? What are your thoughts?

Speaker B: I mean I'm probably not going to be popular in some circles in this, but I do think we need regulators and I do think there should be regulation and I do think there needs to be oversight and there needs to be pathways where professionals are involved when it comes to certain compounds. You know, the practice. But here's the problem. The demand on the consumer side surpass. If every single doctor in America suddenly became a peptide physician, they probably still couldn't meet the demand. So we can't gatekeep it with doctors only, you know, and so that's maybe the problem, right? It's like it's not an easy problem to solve because the system we've built is designed for a very specific approach to healthcare, sick care, whatever you want to call it. And the public now is demanding a preventative health span adjusted world and we don't have an infrastructure for that. So the regulate regulatory agencies need to change the medical system, need to change the type of oversight and who is responsible for the oversight and then who is responsible for managing, you know, ma observing adverse events because you know, we need. So, so what I heard that I don't hear a lot of people talking about on that peptide, you know the pharmacy, compounding pharmacy, uh, commission or committee was the fact that their argument was not that these products were effective necessarily. There were some people saying these are effective. But they were saying it was effective because their patients were reporting effectiveness. They weren't saying we have bunch of clinical data that's third party independent. They said look, our patients are reporting these outcomes, we're delivering it to patients because it's the best tool we have in our toolkit. And the committee was saying, look, the reality is this is harm reduction. We either let this continue where people can get these peptides from anybody, anywhere anyhow, or we can put them behind 503A compounding pharmacies who are experts at creating injectable products safely. Who would you rather have have some guy putting this together in his garage and shipping it all over the country or a professional supply chain that's overseen by high quality professionals delivering compounding products for injection that we can be sure of their safety and sterility. It's a no brainer. It's actually a no brainer. Who do you want to trust? But one is not going to change the other. Like you know we've seen like you could say there's approved cannabis providers in a state and people are still getting their cannabis from wherever they want, want, you know, so this is, this is still a lot. This is going to be a long process.

Speaker A: I think so too. And, and you're right from a, ah, the consumer demand and I'm curious on your thoughts on this. The consumer taste. Right. I feel like there's always something to try to make things more convenient. We're seeing this in hospitals now with at home care. I'm seeing a lot of docs do this, what uh, is it called Async or the virtual. The virtual visit. And maybe you can walk us through what that means. Async versus just sync. Like how you can do things virtually without even seeing a doc sometimes. And you can just go through the forms or not. You know there's different ways to do this and there's clearly there's, there's clinicians or there's companies that are finding ways around or easier way to get it to people's homes. Obviously the consumer wants it, they want a virtual visit, they want it at home conveniently, uh, so they can inject right in the kitchen or what have you, right? And I'm just, how do we, how do we create oversight when it's a virtual, virtual, virtual trial or virtual visit or virtual anything at their home in their, in their privacy. It's just I see some, I see some problems with it or maybe eventual problems.

Speaker B: I, I, I mean a lot of people right now are already using wearables and at home testing and you know we actually are already being, our health is being pretty well monitored already. It's just not all interlinked. So you know, know like that's why Whoop and Aura and Apple are all trying to build these like infrastructure to be multi layered health companies. Because whoever kind of can crack this code, the AI companies want in like this idea that what's probably where this whole thing would probably go is you know, if people are open to sharing their data with an AI tool that they feel is secure and ideally maybe we need to build that like right now, you know, if you put all your health data into ChatGPT, who knows what is done with that information, right? Is that going to be sold through insurance companies like that? Now the insurance company knows. Well he's 60 but his biological age is 80. This guy, I don't want to give him life insurance now.

Speaker A: What do you think is more safe? Actually I had someone on the show, I won't name them, people can go research him but we talked about this both publicly and privately where he argued, you know what, I really would like the government to have this data and just allow us to track all of our health data. Is that the route we should go or is it more of a private route?

Speaker B: I mean if you think about it, the incentives for private companies to sell your data is the business model we have. And how's that going for us? Right? Like social media has broken our society. So if you give these private agencies access to your. Because what is the data that they have on us right now? Our attention. What will we pay attention to? So our feed is filled with data on how to hack our brain. That's the data we've given them right now. You want to hack my brain? Show me cat videos or show me, you know, show me videos of guys running marathons. Because like I want to run a marathon or whatever it is. Doesn't matter, no judgment. But that's what you've given these companies. How do I hack into your nervous system and activate your dopamine system so that I can control your attention? So the algorithms already have that information that, that was what the AI was trained on. So, well, let's do a better job. Let's train AI on how to optimize human potential and then give it the data to understand how to optimize human potential. Now, if that's left in the hands of whoever is paying the most money, I'm not sure that's going to work out so good for humanity. So, you know, there probably needs to be some system. The problem is now is nobody trusts the government anymore. People trust private business more than the government. The government's kind of lost authority. Institutions have lost authority. So really the problem we have in society is actually trust. That's actually our. We're in a crisis of trust right now and that's what we're trying to solve at the collective and not proven is the trust crisis. Because people don't talk about this. It's a trust crisis. That's what we're in. It's.

Speaker A: Yeah. When you speak of evidence based that you're. You're exactly right, it is. And you all are solvent for that, which is why I follow it and I love, and I think everyone listening should. And I'm curious. And so let's get to proven. I, uh, love the business model you've created and the community you created. And I'm sure there's people out there listening to this. A wellness company that's come to you with a product and a claim. So can you walk through that process? So a wellness company comes to you with a product and claim, what happens? How, how long does it take? Right. What's the investment? If you can chat about that, I'm sure it's on a based on case by case basis. What is the. What does that wellness company get at the end?

Speaker B: So, I mean, ultimately, clinical trials are usually conducted and of course I'm sure people heard various stages. You know, they're analyzed for safety first. You know, is this compound going to have an effect? But a lot of times you're doing very invasive things. Like imagine doing safety testing for heart transplants. You know, it's a pretty invasive safety testing protocol you got to go through. So assuming that they already have a product that's on the market that is, you know, kind of generally recognized as safe, I guess to use that term. You know, we do efficacy testing. So if they have a claim coming back to what I was talking about earlier, earlier, our product, it could even be that red light therapy company. I'm not saying I don't like red light therapy. I love red light therapy. But if they're saying, I have a red light therapy mask that's going to improve collagen elasticity. Okay. We can measure that. We can do a test where using cameras or different tools or dermatologists observing detailed wrinkle lines or elasticity of the skin, or using different tools to measure that. And then they could put on the mask, you could do a baseline, you do the test, okay, here's what your skin elasticity is. We're going to do the intervention and then we're going to retest and we're going to share the results. And we're a third party. We're not the company doing this. Right. And so even though the company is sponsoring the study, we're not required to essentially we're not going to fudge the results, right? So sometimes because we do products and there isn't a positive outcome like that

Speaker A: has happened, I mean that's the, that's the, that's a true scientific method, right? We have this hypothesis and sometimes it's not right. And I'm sure there's companies like, they're pretty, probably pretty bummed out, but that's how you know this is the real deal. We're not gonna just tell you it's right. You know, if it's not, if it's not a positive result, then it's not.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that's one of the problems is we can't guarantee outcomes because it's science. And two, I love that a lot of times the biggest, the reason that also clinical trials are so large that they will say we did a 10,000 person trial before we brought this to market and that's why they're so expensive, is because to go to very large sample sizes to see population change. Because if you think about it, all research happens on what's on a bell curve. So you have hyporesponders, meaning people who will under respond to the intervention. And then you have hyper responders, right. People that respond extremely well. And the vast majority of people are on that spectrum in between. And so what happens is if you have a very small sample group, right. Let's say you only have under 50 people. You, you know, typically we recommend like at least 30 people in a study because that's like almost the minimum amount to get a sample size. But a hundred is really actually a better number. And so let's say you did a hundred person study and you, what if you, you try your best to do this, but when you select those a hundred people, what if there were more low responders? Just because that just happened to be the randomization. So then what's going to happen is now your study, because it was underpowered, there's all these people that didn't respond well. Well. So it doesn't look like a bell curve, it looks like it didn't work. Right. The inverse could be true. It works extremely well. And then when it goes out into the market, people find this isn't working so good. That happens with drugs a lot of the times. Right. We see that all the time. Did you, did you take this drug in 1992? Now you can sue because you know there's a class action lawsuit going because the thing didn't work is presented. You know, some people blame the industry and yeah, there could have been bad actors. But also this is the problem with biological research. Humans are complex. There's a lot of variability. You honestly, they don't know what's going to happen. And even after a trial and you take it out into the world and you get millions of people using it, you'll discover new things. And uh, we don't monitor for that. So right now Peptides would be a great opportunity for this. Like let's monitor all these outcomes. If doctors are putting this in front of patients and people are taking it, let's monitor for adverse events, but let's also monitor for outcomes and positive outcomes. That's the clinical, the clinical study is happening, happening. We're just not collecting the data.

Speaker A: So good to think about. And you know, I want to switch gears. I'm curious on your thoughts on this on the liability side. And this is more for, for the audience as well. You know, they're, let's say it's a studio owner or wellness owner and they're repeating some of these vendors claims, they're repeating some of this what we'd call maybe statistics or lack of statistics and evidence to their members. I'm, um, big on protecting cash and mitigating liability loss prevention from the finance world. Right. Who owns the substantiation claim or the problem? Like is that the operator or is there, is that within the contract? Uh, do you get in a lot of that and do you educate a lot of that?

Speaker B: Yeah, actually, I know I, I can talk about this because I've proven we've dealt with this a lot that, so just so people don't understand how this works. Right. A lot of people think it's the fda, but in many cases in the wellness industry, the wellness, wellness industry, it's the Food and Drug Administration. So if you're Dealing with a wellness product, you're not dealing with the fta, you're dealing with the ftc, the Federal Trade Commission. These are the people that are responsible to protect consumers from unregulated or unproven products. Right? So if you release a product that, you know, a baby toy that's covered it, like, that's painted, it's a bunch of lead toys that are. There's lead chips in the paint and the kids are going to chew on the toy and get lead poisoning. It's the FTC that goes after that kind of company, Right? And that's their job, their consumer protection agency. Whereas the FDA is scientists and doctors, the FTC is lawyers. So they're going to sue you. I'm way more scared of lawyers than doctors. I don't know about you. I love doctors. You know, lawyers, you never know. So the FTC will come after and sue you. So technically, there is a very specific thing in the ftc. If the company who is producing the product provides a claim, and then the person is repeating that claim based on what the company provided them, the liability actually goes more back to the company. And, you know, the company is the one who's supposed to be essentially curating their content and providing the information to their people. Right? But there's one other piece to this. Let's say you're a clinic owner and you have somebody who's an influencer come into your clinic and say all these amazing things about you, and you compensated that person for those claims. Now, you own whatever they said. So if you said, this guy, this clinic, you know, cured my mom of cancer, right, Then that even though you're saying, well, we didn't say that at the clinic, they said that actually if you paid them, if they said that independently and there was no, there's no track record of compensation, you're safe. But if you paid them or even provided any type of incentive, like a significant discount or free product or anything, then you are liable for whatever that influencer said. So I bring that up because a lot of people don't know that. So. So it's very important. Whether you're a company or a clinic or a business owner of any kind, and anything the influencer says on your behalf, if compensated in any way, the FTC can go after you. Now, keep in mind, it's a small agency. They're not going after everybody. They're really looking for the worst actors. But just if people want, it's all about your level of comfort with risk.

Speaker A: So I know I, uh, Said odd at the top. I'm gonna give you an odd thing about me. So growing up, I loved watching. Watching Maury and Ricky Lake. And this is going to make sense here in a sec, okay? Because I've been seeing these commercials of this fatty 15, and I'm like, ricky Lake. I used to be a huge fan girl. I was an old soul. And, uh, the reason why I bring that up because, uh, I want to take this back full circle to the Hellspan Summit, right? Coming up October 1st through the 3rd in Los Angeles, California. Right. So it's your year four. And the tickets are live now, by the way, for those that want to go, um, if you put Stratego in the promo field, uh, you'll get 10% off. We're really excited about that. And thank you, Elias, for that, for the audience. But you had, uh. What was it, last year or the year before?

Speaker B: You had two years, actually.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Brian Johnson, we had in 2023. Before anybody knew who he was and.

Speaker A: Yeah, before anyone knew who he was. And then both you and he just seem to be always ahead of the game. Right. Whether you talk about fatty 15 or. And why I brought up Ricki Lake earlier or this whole peptide push. I mean, you've always been ahead of. Of it. So, one, if you can just remind us what we should expect. Who's going to be on stage at the healthspan Summit, for those that you can talk about yet, if you haven't announced it at this time of recording, no worries. We don't need to announce it just yet. But who should be going to this? And I guess what I'm trying to get to is how the heck are you always ahead of the game? Like, give us your secrets. Because it's really impressive and it's. And it's very helpful, too, to be positioned. If we just watch your webinars, and hopefully a ton of people listen and watch this too, to they can get out in front of some of these things to protect their members, to protect their community and themselves.

Speaker B: Yeah. Well, thank you, uh, for bringing that. All those kind words. I would say that, uh, I think, you know, I'm very fortunate that I have been at the heart of this industry for the last decade. So I just often will notice something pop up like that I haven't seen before, right? Because I'm like, oh, I've seen this. I've seen this. I've seen this. And I'm like, oh, that's novel. Like, fatty 15 came out and I. I'm like, oh, they discovered a new fatty acid that essentially is essential. That, you know, there really wasn't any history of this being an important essential fatty acid. That's fascinating from a scientific standpoint. And then I dig into the science, I look at the research, I looked at how they discovered it and I was like, oh, there's something here. We gotta get these people, you know, to the summit, we gotta talk about this. So same thing with Brian Johnson, you know, same thing with Peptides, you know, although those have been around for quite some time. Just popular now. So I think we're always looking for those things. And so this year is a little bit of a different model. We're not, I wouldn't say we have a signature brand or product or person. It's the whole event this year. So I mentioned photobiomodulation. So there's a company that's coming. For example, a lot of people have seen those red light therapy beds, right? They're very popular. People are buying them for their clinics. One of the problems is, is that you're spending all of this money on these things, making all of these claims. And like I said, a lot of them don't have any research behind them. Even though you're buying a product for over $100,000, a lot of times, little to no research. Well, we have a medical device company that has launched the first. Remember I said they were all based on laser therapy. They built the first laser bed in the world that's actually a red light laser bed, not an LED bed. So the science is proven. It's, you know, no pun intended, but it's like, it's a solid approach. So if you want to cut through the noise and not have to curate the 50 companies that are claiming that they have the best, you know, bed light, red light therapy bed, and you want to find the one that actually has an FDA cleared product that is clinically valid, then you come to the summit to find it. And that's kind of what we focus on is, is best in class solutions in those categories. And this year we're really focusing on longevity clinics, med spas and aesthetic centers and fitness and performance and wellness centers. So it's really designed for owners, owners that want to come to one place, learn the business, grow their business, find out what's best in class and also learn from each other. Because that's why in this era of AI in person, human connection is really one of the most valuable things you can give yourself.

Speaker A: This was perfect for the audience of owners and founders of fitness, wellness, longevity Clinics and studios and all of it. Right. I think we keep hearing you gotta bring wellness and longevity into your space. And before you do, and hopefully this is the message everyone's getting is one, go check out Elias's webinars. Get the education, ask the right questions. Don't think about it just as a consumer. Think about it as your brand. You have to protect your brand. You have to protect your members. This was amazing. So good. Ellis. If for those that want to connect with you or learn more about you, start tuning into your webinars, how can they learn more about the HealthSpank collective and proven?

Speaker B: So you can just go to our website, healthspan H E A L T H span Collective and then there you'll get the links on that page to everything. So that goes to our, you know, our community, the summit. Hssummit.com for the Healthspan Summit, our other events and programs and everything that we do can all be seen there. And proven research is spelled P R U V N I O. That really is, you know, if you're looking to either participate in one of our studies, you can just be a participant. But if you have a product that you want to validate the claims on, you know, we have a science and research team. I'm not the scientist, I'm just one of the co founders. You know, we have a chief science officer and a chief legal officer helping on the regulatory side. So we have the expertise and we have uh, a portfolio of about a hundred professionals in science and regulatory experts who we can leverage for research and studies.

Speaker A: Amazing. And I know we didn't get into too much finance today, but if you're a fitness, wellness or longevity operator, franchisor, a franchisee who wants that CFO level clarity, think financial modeling capital raised prep or private equity readiness unit economics throughout your longevity vertical. Connect with me on LinkedIn or@stratego intel.com there's also a section there. It's the AI Albert. You can ask me anything. Check it out. And uh. So excited. Ellios, thank you so much. This has been another episode of the Owner Seat podcast. I'm your host Albert Ramos and if this is your first time tuning in, all episodes drop every Monday and Friday at 8:00am Central. Elias, thank you so much watching for for your time.

Speaker B: Thank you Albert. It was an honor.

Speaker A: Thank you. Thanks everybody.