Your Body Stops Making This Antioxidant After 30: What 17 Years of Algae Research Taught Catharine Arnston

0:00 ALGAE, MITOCHONDRIA AND THE ROOT OF CHRONIC DISEASE

Catharine Arnston: There are 1.3 million ER visits every year just for constipation. 76% of Americans, 76%, have at least one chronic disease. The average adult has 700 toxins in their bodies now. Heart disease and cancer are the two main causes of death in America. Drugs can't even get in to solve the problem.

Dr. Yi Song: Hi, welcome to another episode of Regeneration Effect. We're so thrilled to have Catharine Arnston here. She is from ENERGYbits. So we're going to talk everything about algae and what's the benefit algae can give us.

Catharine Arnston: Yes, yes, it's quite incredible. And thank you for inviting me to do this with you, because algae is a multi-billion dollar agricultural crop in Asia where it's been taken daily for over 60 years. And it still doesn't really have much of a presence outside of Asia, particularly here in the United States. So I've been devoting my career for the last 17 years to educating people about algae, what it does for them, why it's so important for them. And we're at a point in our health crisis where algae can probably correct or prevent almost everything. So I'm excited to share all that knowledge. And it's all science-based, so I don't make anything up.

1:26 HOW A SISTER'S CANCER DIAGNOSIS LED TO ALGAE RESEARCH

Dr. Yi Song: So how did you embark on doing algae?

Catharine Arnston: I know. I tell people I didn't pick algae. It picked me. I mentioned earlier I'm Canadian by birth, but I've lived in Boston, Massachusetts, where I lived for 38 years, and recently relocated to Miami where it's a lot warmer. And I mentioned the Canada part because up until I started the company, I had a business career. I have an MBA in international business and I was doing that. And then my younger sister in Canada, my baby sister, developed breast cancer. She's fine now, I just want everyone to know.

But when she was preparing for her chemotherapy, her oncologist, which is a cancer specialist, told her to change her diet to an alkaline diet because it would be important for her healing. Didn't tell her what an alkaline diet was. It was good for her, so my baby sister calls me. Not that I knew anything about nutrition, but I loved my sister, and I'm also a very good researcher. So I said, don't worry, I'll figure this out. And it turned out an alkaline diet was mostly a plant-based diet because of the phytonutrients and the chlorophyll that are found in plants that have been proven to build your immune system. And she wanted her to have a strong immune system as she was preparing for chemotherapy.

But as I dug a little deeper, I found out there was a German scientist by the name of Otto Warburg, who won a Nobel Prize back in the 30s for discovering that cancer cannot exist in cells that are slightly alkaline. So I have to believe that she wanted her to have an alkaline diet so the cancer couldn't spread to the other cells. So anyways, I found a bunch of research. I gave her some tips on food to eat, foods not to eat. She changed her diet. She went through chemo and she completely healed.

Meanwhile, I started learning all about this online website called PubMed, where you can find millions and millions of scientific papers. I had never done anything with science. I knew nothing about science. And I started reading about alkaline diets. And I thought, wow, this is really powerful stuff. And I'd not known any of it before. So I'm a very passionate person. Somebody needs to get this word out to people. So I decided I would do that.

And I realized I didn't have any education. I didn't have any credentials. So I went to a school called the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I got a health coaching certificate. I put a curriculum together teaching people plant-based nutrition. And this is what truly led me to algae, because as I was giving my lectures at corporations and hospitals, I was getting so many obstacles presented to me by the people I was talking to. They said, oh, I don't like vegetables, or they give me gas, or they're too much work. I don't live near a grocery store. My kids won't eat them. So, okay, I have to find a way to get the nutrition of vegetables into people without any of the work, without any of the gas, without any of the flavor. Didn't know how I was going to do it, but I went back to everything I'd found for my sister and looked at it closely.

4:19 WHY ALGAE IS A FOOD, NOT A SUPPLEMENT

Catharine Arnston: And when I got to algae, that's when the miracle happened. Because first of all, algae is a plant. We'll talk about that in a minute. It's not a supplement. It's been used safely, actually, for centuries, but the last 60 years in Asia daily, where it's grown in fresh water. So yes, there is algae in the ocean, but the algae, whether you buy it from Trader Joe's or from us, the little tablets, they're grown in fresh water, not the ocean.

Then I found out that the United Nations has endorsed spirulina algae, which we'll talk about today, for 50 years as the answer to world hunger, because it has the highest protein in the world. Spirulina has three times the amount of protein as steak, chicken, or fish. There is nothing in the world with more protein than spirulina algae. And we have a quote from NASA that says one gram of algae has the same nutrition as 1,000 grams of fruits and vegetables. So now we have stuff that's endorsed by international agencies, used safely daily by millions of Asians, and it's a food crop.

And the best part of all is that it came in these little tiny tablets. They're about the size of a baby aspirin. And each one of these tablets has the same nutrition as about half a pound of vegetables. That's about a plate of vegetables. Now you can chew them like I do, or you can swallow them if you don't like the flavor. No flavor, no gas. They last for about three years. No work, no prep. You can give them to your children, your pets, your teenagers, your grandparents. They have no contraindications. They are the most concentrated food in the universe, and the first life on earth as well, by the way, four billion years ago. And in tablet form there is no flavor, and it's so concentrated.

So I realized this was the answer to get green nutrition, protein, safely, effortlessly into people so we can change the trajectory of their chronic diseases, because chronic diseases are usually ultimately due to nutritional deficiencies and damaged mitochondria. And there's nutrients in the spirulina and chlorella that protect the mitochondria to reduce the inflammation and either prevent disease or correct it. So that was 17 years ago. And it's been quite a journey, because this is why food companies never launch new products, because there's so much education. I had to go be absolutely sure about the science. And remember, I didn't come from a science background. So I spent 16 years teaching myself all of the science.

I just wrote a book, actually, with all my science in it called Love Your Health to Bits with Algae. Comes out in January. There's 330 pages, 650 scientific references, and it's fun to read. So I'm really excited to get that out to people. But algae will change the world. People who know algae know that, but we're mostly scientists. So I'm trying to get the knowledge and the product out to consumers so it can make a difference in their lives.

7:23 ALGAE SOURCING: TAIWAN FARMS VS CONTRACT MANUFACTURERS

Dr. Yi Song: That's great. But what is the difference that your spirulina is special sourced? I think I read it's from Taiwan. So how did you choose that place to grow your algae and process it?

Catharine Arnston: Well, when I started, because I knew nothing about science and certainly nothing about algae, I had to do a lot of research. And we'll go through the different types of algae, because there's macroalgae and microalgae. And microalgae is what we're talking about. And the two main ones are spirulina and chlorella. Now, 99% of all spirulina and chlorella are grown in Asia. So that's India, mostly India, China, and Japan. Japan is mostly chlorella, China is mostly spirulina, and India is a combination of the two of them.

But as I was researching how they're grown and the nutrients that are in them, I found out that the vast majority of the companies growing the algae in India and China, and a little bit also in Japan, were basically what's called contract manufacturers. So they grow it. And then if any supplements company just wants to sell it, they just slap a label on it. And that's that. No quality control. Nobody ever goes to the farms to see how they're grown.

And because I wasn't intending on building a company, I just wanted to educate people about algae so they could learn about it. But then I realized, well, I can't educate them and then send them to a company that's selling poor quality algae that could be full of toxins or doesn't have the active ingredients. So I started researching where else algae was grown. And Taiwan grows a little bit of it, but they grow it differently than what they do in China and India. And it's much more expensive, and there are many more steps for quality control. So I thought, okay, well, it's got to be Taiwan then, because I need to be sure there's high quality control and the nutrients aren't damaged. So, to answer your question, what makes us different?

9:43 CLEAN WATER, MICROTOXINS AND THIRD PARTY LAB TESTS

Catharine Arnston: So first of all, algae needs to be grown in controlled environments, and that means not the ocean if you're going to consume it. Not the ocean and not lakes, because you can't control what's called microtoxins and now microplastics. They're just in the water, and algae will absorb whatever's in the water. So there's a company that's been growing it in Klamath Lake. I urge people not to use that, because you cannot keep the microplastics and the microtoxins out of the water. And so they just automatically go into the algae. So for us, we grow ours in triple filtered spring mountain water.

Now, in this day and age of AI, I thought, you know what? I've got to prove to people that I'm not faking this out. So I went to Taiwan two months ago. The flight was supposed to be 24 hours. It ended up being 48, because the flight was delayed 48 hours just to get to Taiwan.

Dr. Yi Song: Was that the first time you went?

Catharine Arnston: Yeah, the first time I'd been there. Then I took a train. It was about an hour and a half train to the southern part of Taiwan. Then it was another hour and a half on a bus to the mountains to get to the agricultural area, which is in the very southern part of Taiwan where the mountain is. And we had a video crew with us the whole time. I was there for three days at the farms. So they filmed me at the farms, showing how it's dried in the labs. And you can see the mountain, and it's not artificial intelligence. It's me. In fact, I call AI algae intelligence. So anyway, I want people to know that when I say we grow ours in triple filtered spring mountain water, I show them the mountain. There it is.

So very clean algae water. And we do third party lab tests, both in Taiwan, but more importantly here in the United States. And I don't know any other algae tablet company that does that. They take the lab tests that are provided to them by their supplier. But, you know, you can't trust that. So I have like five different labs here in the United States. We test for microtoxins. We test for heavy metals. We test for nutritionals. It took me two years to find a company to test just for microtoxins.

And then we make all these lab tests available to our practitioners, because we don't sell our products through chain retails. We sell through our website, energybits.com, or practitioners like yourself, maybe you'd like to sell some. And we make the lab tests available to you, and then we provide what's called a certificate of analysis to consumers, so they can see for sure that we have gone the extra distance to ensure the safety. Because also, about 50% of any supplements that you buy, when they test them, 50% of them do not have the nutritional contents that the labels say is there. And so if we have practitioners that are basically recommending our products to their patients because of the nutrients that are found in it, we have to be sure, and they have to be sure, that the nutrients are there. So that's what our third party lab tests do, is ensure that. So it's the water quality, the third party lab tests, and then the most important part is the production process.

13:01 HOW HIGH HEAT DEACTIVATES SOD AND PHYCOCYANIN

Catharine Arnston: Now, I make the analogy of growing algae and making it into tablet form to making wine, because growing algae is very complex, especially chlorella. And there's a whole chapter in my book about this. Spirulina is a lot easier, but it's not like growing broccoli or carrots. It's more like making wine. And when you make wine, there are many processes that affect the quality, the flavor of the wine, the type of wood in the barrel, the length of time it spends in the barrel. Well, with algae, the most important thing is how it's dried, because there are really critical nutrients found in, particularly in spirulina, but to a lesser degree, chlorella.

One is an antioxidant called superoxide dismutase, also known as SOD, that protects the mitochondria from free radical damage. Your body makes this stuff called SOD until about the age of 30, and then it slows down and just keeps slowing down after 40 and after 50. And this is why I believe chronic disease kicks in after 40 and 50, because that's when your mitochondria are getting so damaged, because it doesn't have this protective antioxidant any longer. Well, it's in the spirulina and, to a lesser extent, in the chlorella, the highest concentration in the world. And we have lab tests that prove this.

The trouble is this antioxidant called superoxide dismutase is also an enzyme. And so if you expose any enzymes to temperatures over 114 degrees, it doesn't matter whether you're cooking it at home or in the production process, you deactivate it. So it may technically be in there, but it's not active. And the way I describe it to people is, let's say you get a great deal on a Ferrari, except you lift the hood and there's no engine. Well, it wasn't such a great deal, was it? So the superoxide dismutase might be in the algae, but if it's deactivated, it's not going to do any work for you.

And the same thing happens with a lot of dried powders, because they have to use high heat to mix the powders. A lot of the dry powders, the first two ingredients are usually spirulina and chlorella. Well, maybe they're there, but the question is, are they active? So you don't want to use high heat, and we do not, which preserves all of our nutrients, which is why people get such incredible efficacy from our algae. They may have used it in the past and never found any benefits. It didn't help their health. It didn't correct anything. And probably it's because they were using a cheaper version that was dried with high heat that deactivated a lot of the nutrients. And we're talking about a lot of nutrients.

So the superoxide dismutase is one of them, because it protects your mitochondria, but in the spirulina there's a pigment. We'll talk about the two different algae in a minute. Spirulina is called a blue green algae because there's two pigments in it, just so you know. Chlorella is known as a green algae because it only has one pigment, the one pigment people are familiar with, which is chlorophyll. So spirulina is a blue green algae because it has the blue pigment, which most people have never heard of before and doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. And it's called phycocyanin. It's spelled P-H-Y-C-O-C-A-N-I-N, phycocyanin.

Now, what's so important about this phycocyanin, and again, it's proven in science and it's in my book, is that it kills cancer cells. However, I have papers that prove that when phycocyanin is exposed to high heat, it's deactivated. So a lot of heart disease is because of damaged mitochondria, because your heart has the third highest concentration of mitochondria. So when you use high heat, not only are you losing the protection from heart disease, but the high heat also deactivates the phycocyanin, which is in spirulina. Now you're losing the preventative capabilities to prevent cancer. Heart disease and cancer are the two main causes of death in America. So if you're buying cheap algae, you are losing the protective benefits that would avail you if you simply took something healthier.

Now, I will say you could also use fresh or frozen spirulina, because of course those have not been exposed to high heat. And there's a really terrific wellness center here in Florida, in West Palm Beach, called the Hippocrates Institute, and it's 50 years old, and anybody can go there for a week, two weeks, or three. They have a special program for cancer patients. It's three weeks, and I think they have like a 95% success rate. These are patients that have like stage three, stage four cancer, have been given weeks to live, and almost all the time they get their cancer stopped and removed. And one of the first things that they give them is fresh spirulina. And I believe it's not only because of the blue pigment that's going to kill the cancer cells, it's because of the superoxide dismutase that will help restore the mitochondria, and there's other nutrients that are very, very effective.

Now, the trouble with fresh or frozen spirulina is it's very expensive. It expires in days or weeks. You can't travel with it. You have to keep it in the fridge. So it's not as consumer friendly. So our algae is considered a raw algae tablet, because we do not use high heat. In fact, spirulina is not just raw, but live. Chlorella is not live. It's raw, but it's not live, because when you grow spirulina, it's relatively, I don't want to say it's simple, because it's never simple, but it's easier than chlorella. With chlorella, there are many more steps involved. And one of them is you have to crack the cell wall.

19:01 SPIRULINA VS CHLORELLA: CELL WALLS AND PROTEIN ABSORPTION

Catharine Arnston: Now, spirulina, I forgot to mention this. Spirulina is not even a plant. It's a bacteria. It's called a cyanobacteria, which is the first life on earth. And the reason why it's important for people to know that is that there's no cellulose wall for your body to break down to get access to the nutrients. And it has the highest protein in the world, and all the protein is already in individual amino acids.

Now, if people aren't familiar with protein or amino acids, your body can't absorb protein that way. It has to break it down into, they're like Legos, the smaller pieces called amino acids. And there's 20 of them, actually. Technically they're now 22. And so with animal protein, they're all bound up and they have to break all the bonds. Collagen is in what's called a peptide, which are smaller clusters. So there's maybe only three or four bonds. But with spirulina, the aminos are individual, no bonds. And because spirulina has no cellulose wall, the bioavailability of the protein and the other nutrients in spirulina is unmatched by any other food supplement in the world. So you get massive access to all the nutrients very, very quickly.

Chlorella takes a little longer because it does belong to the plant kingdom and in fact has the hardest cell wall in the plant kingdom. Not just a hard one, but the hardest. Now, the benefit of that hard cell wall is that it attaches to heavy metals, glyphosate, pesticides, mold spores, lactic acid, alcohol, anything that should not be in your body, and can chelate them, which means it removes them. But that hard cell wall has to be cracked during the production process.

And when you grow spirulina, you start it outdoors in this long, narrow, it's called a runway, but it's a farm. And it just grows for about a month or so. And then you pull it up and then you start drying it and whatever. With chlorella, you have to start it in a lab, in a test tube. And it grows a certain amount in the small test tube. Then they have to transfer it to a larger test tube. Then they transfer it to a vessel. And after about three or four transfers, then it goes outside and actually goes into a round pond, a small one, and then it has to be transferred to a larger one and then a larger one. And then once a month of it growing, they dry it and crack the cell wall, either by tumbling it with glass beads or blowing it against a wall that cracks it. Now, so you want to be very careful, again, that you don't use high heat during that process so that you don't damage the chlorophyll.

21:45 PLANT EXOSOMES AS NUTRIENT DELIVERY VEHICLES

Catharine Arnston: There's also interesting things in spirulina and chlorella called exosomes, also a chapter in my book. Exosomes are only found in things that are alive. So they're in our bodies, they're in plants, and they're actually little delivery vehicles that take the rich nutrition into the cells. And the way I describe it is it's sort of like having a FedEx delivery service, which, by the way, supplements don't have. And so with spirulina and chlorella, because they have the dense nutrition and then they have the exosomes, the exosomes are kind of like having a QR code on your nutrients. It knows exactly where to go so that you get maximum nutrition and maximum delivery. And that's why I say supplements aren't the answer, because they're individual and they don't have exosomes to help the cells absorb the nutrients like you do get from things like plants or food or spirulina and chlorella. So it's very, very effective nutrition.

Dr. Yi Song: So are those damaged by high heat too?

Catharine Arnston: Yeah.

Dr. Yi Song: So for exosomes, you know, I actually do stem cell treatment for people, so I understand exosomes. But in order to get the exosomes secreted by, say, spirulina or chlorella when they were growing in the pond, do you need to collect the water that they're in? Because that's where the exosomes are richest.

Catharine Arnston: No, no, no. They're in the material, the spirulina and chlorella. And they're being used, exosomes, you probably know. Maybe I'm just starting to learn about exosomes, so it's a relatively new topic for me, but the first market is beauty. They're being put in a lot of beauty creams and lotions and potions, right?

Dr. Yi Song: So those are from the stem cells or from the umbilical cord?

Catharine Arnston: No, these are exosomes from the chlorella.

Dr. Yi Song: Oh, I didn't hear about this. This is the first time I've heard chlorella or spirulina as exosomes.

Catharine Arnston: It's breaking science. And as you know, longevity is where all the research is going these days. And the reason why I'm so excited about spirulina and chlorella, particularly spirulina, is because of all the longevity research, and there's products coming out like peptides and NAD, which are really good for you because they help reduce inflammation.

24:20 MITOCHONDRIAL INFLAMMATION AND THE ELECTRON TRANSPORT CHAIN

Catharine Arnston: But what I ask people is, well, where is the inflammation coming from? Because 99% of chronic diseases are due to inflammation in the mitochondria. But where's the inflammation coming from? And so the inflammation, through my research, I have found, is coming from something called the electron transport chain, which is actually where the actual cellular energy is created within the mitochondria. People are becoming more familiar with mitochondria, but what is it in the mitochondria that's making all that ATP, and what is it that's causing all that inflammation? And what makes all that energy is this thing called the electron transport chain. And the thing that causes all the inflammation is when the electron transport chain gets damaged.

And the nutrients found mostly in spirulina, but also chlorella, restore and protect the electron transport chain. So now, with the electron transport chain working, you're not going to have as much inflammation. You're not going to need NAD. You're not going to need peptides, because everything's working the way it's supposed to be. It's the root cause of everything. And here's the other interesting thing. Drugs can't even get in to solve the problem, because the mitochondria is the only cell in your body that has two membranes. All your other cells have what's called a lipid membrane, fancy way for saying fats, and your mitochondria have that as well. But there's a second inner membrane that is impenetrable by almost all antioxidants, except things like superoxide dismutase.

And there are a few other nutrients. Chlorophyll can get in there. Melatonin can get in there. CoQ10 can get in there. And hormones like estrogen can get in there. And estrogen, by the way, acts as an antioxidant for the mitochondria. So the problem is people, as they get older, they have fewer mitochondria and they're damaged. So they're not working as well. So there's more inflammation, which is why people are getting sick and fat and tired and diseased. And so what we want to try helping them to learn is that you don't have to have a downward spiral, but you have to fix your electron transport chain. And drugs can't do it.

And by the way, the reason there's that inner membrane in the mitochondria is it's left over from when it was a single cell organism. Algae, cyanobacteria, was the first life on Earth almost 4 billion years ago. And it became your mitochondria. And mitochondria have bacterial DNA. It's all proven in science. It's called the symbiotic theory. So I tell people, if you didn't think your mitochondria were important, think again, because they make your ATP and your body can't store ATP. So you can live a few minutes without oxygen. You can only live a few seconds without ATP. And mitochondria are so important that you need to protect them. And that's why they have this inner membrane, to protect that electron transport chain. So if you protect your electron transport chain, you're protecting your mitochondria and they'll protect you. But drugs can't do it. And spirulina can.

Dr. Yi Song: So is your source in Taiwan? Are they the exclusive source for you?

Catharine Arnston: Yes. We actually have two companies to grow it for us, because one specializes more in chlorella and one specializes more in spirulina. And both of them are in southern Taiwan.

Dr. Yi Song: Yeah. And then do they also make fresh frozen?

Catharine Arnston: No. No. You'll find that fresh and frozen, and I learned this when I was doing my research, there are about 500 farms around the world growing fresh and frozen spirulina. And interestingly, the highest number of them, and there's 150 of them, are in France. Go figure.

Dr. Yi Song: Why is that?

Catharine Arnston: Well, they obviously found out there's nutrient value to spirulina. And every country around the world is in a race to find ways to feed their people better. But the thing with fresh and frozen spirulina is it doesn't require a large farm. It doesn't require a large investment. It doesn't require a lot of the technology, because all the technology is really in the drying and the packaging and the tableting of the algae. I'm not aware of any small chlorella farms, because it's so much more complicated to grow in the test tubes.

Dr. Yi Song: So what's the reason why you have to transfer? I don't know. Like, you cannot just throw it into the pond and let it grow?

Catharine Arnston: No, it doesn't.

28:55 HOW WAR AND HUNGER BUILT THE ALGAE INDUSTRY IN ASIA

Catharine Arnston: And again, there's a whole chapter called The Origin Story in my book. And the reason why the algae industry is in Asia is fascinating. Remember I talked about Otto Warburg, who discovered that cancer can't exist in cells that are alkaline, and he got the Nobel Prize back in the 30s. So all of his research, when he was doing the research on cancer, sorry, my glasses keep sliding down, he was using chlorella algae for all of his research. And he was probably one of maybe a handful of the most famous scientists of that time. He was very prominent. And so the rest of the world started using chlorella algae in their scientific experiments because Otto Warburg had been using it. But it was only being used in petri dishes for experiments.

Dr. Yi Song: So when he was doing it, he was doing it in his lab, right?

Catharine Arnston: Yes, in his lab. So then there was World War I, and in Germany, livestock and agriculture was destroyed. And somehow, somebody connected with Otto Warburg and found out about his research with chlorella. They found out at that time that chlorella had high protein, at the time the highest protein in the world. Since then, we found that spirulina has even more. And I believe some of the chlorella was grown for purposes of feeding the Germans. I don't have any science on that.

However, when World War II then happened and the Hiroshima bomb was dropped on Japan, there was massive hunger, because the war had taken up so many resources and so many people had died. Now everybody was trying to regrow. So there was a huge population burst and a concern about feeding them. And so the scientists who had been working with Otto Warburg and knew that chlorella had high protein started thinking, well, gee, chlorella has high protein. Maybe we could grow it for mass consumption. And this was back in 1948, and I have all the papers, all the research that documents it from here on end.

Because Carnegie Institute tried. They hired a couple of companies to grow chlorella algae quickly for feeding, you know, Americans, and they couldn't figure out how to do it. They hadn't figured out the transfer at that point. They were just trying to grow it in water and it wasn't growing. And they spent years doing this. In fact, one of the plants where they did it was actually in Boston, at the Arthur D. Little project. So by 1950, they were spending so much money trying to learn how to grow chlorella because it had so much protein in it. Finally, they just said, we can't do it. It's not going to work.

But the Japanese said, well, we've been working on it too. And we have figured it out. And they had figured out to start it in test tubes and then transfer, and then transfer again. And so all the research that had been done in America was shared with the Japanese, and this is why the entire algae industry started in Japan in the 50s and 60s, and then it spread to China and India and other Asian countries. But that's why it all happened. And I have all the scientific paperwork to prove it.

Dr. Yi Song: If this episode has been valuable for you in any way, please leave a review or a comment. It really helps more people to find more reliable, research-backed information in the space that's occupied with a lot of noise.

33:17 MACROALGAE VS MICROALGAE: SEAWEED IS NOT THE SAME

Dr. Yi Song: So does chlorella grow naturally in nature too, or it's more like man-made?

Catharine Arnston: No, no, it's not really man-made, but it's more like a...

Dr. Yi Song: Has to be, like, domesticated?

Catharine Arnston: Yeah, yeah. It's not man-made. So maybe this is a good time to back up and do a high level explanation of what algae is, because there's two main types of algae. One is macroalgae and one is micro. We've been talking about microalgae. Macroalgae is that stringy stuff that washes up on shore, also known as seaweed or dulse or kelp. And it's very high in, excuse me, very high in fiber, but has virtually no nutrition. You can buy a big bag of kelp noodles and it'll be like two calories, because there's fiber, no nutrition. But it has also iodine, because it's only grown in the ocean. That's why it's called seaweed, because it's from the sea and you can see it.

Microalgae is completely opposite. It's called microalgae because it's microscopic in size. You can get something like a million microalgae on the head of a pin. That tiny. And it's everywhere. It's in the oceans, the rivers, the lakes, the streams. And it is completely opposite to macroalgae. Either no fiber or virtually no fiber, and the most nutrient-dense food in the world. Now, with macroalgae, there's a few strains. There's red and green and brown. With microalgae, there are tens of thousands, possibly a hundred thousand strains. It's endless. But the two that are grown as food crops are spirulina and chlorella.

Now, they were found initially in the ocean. And chlorella was first discovered by an Austrian, sorry, not Asian, Austrian scientist in the late 1700s. And then Otto Warburg found out about it, but they took the strain that was growing in the ocean and started working with it to find the best environment to help it grow. Same with spirulina. So spirulina and chlorella are just one of a hundred thousand strains of microalgae that are drifting around in the ocean.

Dr. Yi Song: So I guess if you want mass produce, then you need this specific human-controlled environment.

Catharine Arnston: You have to control it, because again, you do not want the toxins and you do not want the microtoxins. They're not genetically modified. They're just grown very carefully to ensure they get the most hospitable conditions. They grow in alkaline water, and because it's so alkaline, you don't need any fertilizers. You don't need any glyphosate. It's the cleanest, purest, if the water's clean, food you'll ever put in your body, at least ours at ENERGYbits. So it's a strain that came from the ocean, but has been harvested under very careful conditions as a food crop. It's a whole food. It's not just a food. It's a whole food, just like an egg or broccoli, but it's more concentrated and more bioavailable.

Dr. Yi Song: So then when you say some people, they actually, like in the Hippocrates retreat, they actually give you the fresh frozen one.

Catharine Arnston: Yes.

Dr. Yi Song: Where do they get it?

Catharine Arnston: Well, they probably have their own farm. I'm pretty sure they have their own farms.

Dr. Yi Song: Okay.

Catharine Arnston: Because remember, spirulina is a very easy crop to grow in small areas, a small footprint. And I know they grow their own wheatgrass, and they grow their own, because it's farm to fork. They have to be very, they're treating very, very sick patients. So they need to be very careful about where they're sourcing everything that they give everybody who's there. And that's why fresh and frozen is an option in the future, but the real value is in mass amounts of it.

Now, the interesting thing is, again, I make the analogy to wine. Wine is affected by the angle of the sun. It's not just the production. Because I like Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand, and it tastes completely different from Sauvignon Blanc from California or Italy. And yes, it's partly the grape strain, but it's also the sun. And maybe this is one of the reasons why Taiwan has such high quality algae. I don't know. But it does. And it has really high concentrated nutrients. So I drew a line from Taiwan across the globe to see where it would get us in America. Boom, Florida. My long-term plan is to create large algae farms in Florida. Because right now, we import everything. And of course, we're hit with tariffs. And we have to order our algae literally a year in advance, because it's a crop.

Dr. Yi Song: What's the cycle, like how long you need to grow before you can harvest?

Catharine Arnston: Well, there's only a couple of seasons to grow it, because it has to have maximum value. There's like a spring and a fall season. So it takes four to six weeks to grow it and then a couple of weeks to dry it. So it's like a two-month end-to-end production process. But we have to determine the quantities, because it's an agricultural crop. And so we have to let our partners know how much we need. We're ordering now in July what we need for 2027. And we have to pay for it.

And so even after it's grown and dried and tableted and boxed, then it has to go on a cargo ship and it takes another two months. Of course, right now with the war in the Middle East, it takes even longer to get here. And then we ship it to our production facility where we package everything. So now it has to go through a whole packaging process. So it's a good nine months from when we place our order for our algae for the next year to when it's available on our website.

It's difficult as an entrepreneur because you have cash flow issues that you have to manage. And, you know, I've been doing this for 17 years. I've had to teach myself everything from packaging to supply chain to, you know, I designed all of our packaging, finance, hiring, training, education. Got my PhD last year. It's been a lot, but I'm so determined that Americans and anyone else in the world will start to enjoy the benefit of high quality spirulina and chlorella algae. And I think ours is the best.

Dr. Yi Song: Yes. So far from what I've read, yes, I believe what you have is the best source. And I was thinking, if it doesn't require very high temperature, like a hot weather, to grow it, actually Colombia can be a very nice place to grow.

Catharine Arnston: Yeah. Well, I don't speak any Spanish, so that's not going to happen for me. But, you know, I've been at this for 17 years. I'm turning 70 in six weeks. I figure I've got at least five, 10 years left in me. If I can set up the model of how to grow it, then other countries can start growing it. They could, but right now the knowledge is contained. The best way to grow it under our high quality standards is contained with the people that grow it for us in Taiwan, and, you know, they speak Taiwanese. And so...

Dr. Yi Song: Yeah. They speak Mandarin. I can go.

Catharine Arnston: Yeah. So the challenge is to bring all this capability and standardize it. Even in our company, we have what's called, in business language, your SOPs, standard operating principles or processes for everything that we do, so that if anybody wanted to do it, we would be able to show them how to do it. But we're not there yet. And that's a good eight to 10 years away. So until then, we're just going to continue to keep growing it in Taiwan, importing it, me being very careful.

And my priority was educating people. I've done 400 podcasts. I've recorded 300 teaching videos. They're only about a minute and a half, because on TikTok, that's all anyone will watch. But we seem to be making some progress. So I want to put algae on the food pyramid, because it's food. It sits right between protein and vegetables. And the book will help a lot.

41:55 SPIRULINA FOR CELLULAR ENERGY, BRAIN HEALTH AND GLP-1 USERS

Catharine Arnston: But I want to back up a little bit because I haven't explained the two different algae, because they do completely different things in your bodies. And so I want to make sure people know what they do. So spirulina, which is the blue green algae, we call ours ENERGYbits because what it does is it gives your body energy at the cellular level. This is not a stimulant. There's no caffeine, chemical, or sugar, which are like putting paper on a fire. So you get a burst of energy and then a crash. This is at the cellular level, the mitochondria who make the ATP. So the kind of energy you get from spirulina isn't a rush or a crash. It's just steady. I call it quiet energy. And you probably won't even notice it unless you're doing a workout.

Because when you do a workout and you take 15 or 30 tablets beforehand, you will have so much more focus, so much more endurance, so much more energy. You will run further, faster, lift more, lift longer, and you won't even notice it. It's amazing. But if you don't do a workout, the best way you'll feel is fresh, alert, not hungry. But you need at least 10 at a time. Now, they're tiny little tablets. I have over 100 a day. I mean, I have one meal a day, but I really live on these things.

Dr. Yi Song: Would somebody ever overdose with this?

Catharine Arnston: You can't overdose on it because it's food. It's just very concentrated food. And so we say 10 tablets of spirulina and then 10 chlorella is kind of a starter level for filling nutritional gaps. And for children, give them their same age or half their age. So if they're six, give them, you know, three or six tablets a day. If they're 10, give them five or 10. But for adults, 10 would be sufficient.

Now, if you're on a GLP-1 or losing weight, or you're busy and you don't have time to eat, you should be taking 30 a day, because there's so much protein in spirulina, it will protect your muscles. When you are dieting with or without GLP-1, you're eating less and you're eating a smaller variety of foods. So the opportunity to get nutritional shortages is very high. And so this has 40 vitamins and minerals, all these bioactive ingredients, phytonutrients. It's incredible what this stuff has. So 10 a day, 30 for lunch, you won't be hungry for three or four hours. And there's one calorie per tablet.

So spirulina is known for energizing you, giving you mental acuity, physical energy, but at the cellular level, and will really help with any kind of GLP-1. And one of the best things it does is it restores your brain health, because your brain has the most mitochondria. It has almost 2 million mitochondria per neurotransmitter. So when you have damaged mitochondria, and everybody after the age of 40 does, I can tell you for sure, everybody does, the first thing that this will improve is your brain health. So I call spirulina brain food.

We know that fatty fish are known as brain food because of the omega-3. Well, spirulina also has high essential fatty acids, including omega-3. And I remind people, where do you think the fish get the omega-3 from? They get it from algae. They don't make it, they just consolidate it. But a lot of fish oil goes rancid, so this is a much safer source for your essential fatty acids. So energy, hunger, brain food, protecting your mitochondria, helping with restoration or protection against chronic disease or accelerated aging. That's spirulina.

45:23 CHLORELLA FOR DETOX, SLEEP AND GUT HEALTH

Catharine Arnston: Chlorella, which is a green algae, and we call ours RECOVERYbits. It's a wellness detoxing algae. So it helps you recover your health. The way it does that, as I mentioned earlier, is the hard cell wall attaches to heavy metals, glyphosate, pesticides, lactic acid. It also has the highest chlorophyll in the world. That's why it's called chlorella, because of the chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is very cleansing to your body, has almost the same chemical composition as your hemoglobin, and it kills bad bacteria. Kills it in your mouth, kills it in your gut, kills it everywhere. It also has the very highest glutathione in the world, which is a very important antioxidant for your liver. And then it has fiber, which feeds your gut biome, which is important for maintaining your immune system.

Now, another interesting thing about chlorella and why it's a recovery and health algae is it has the highest tryptophan in the world. Now, tryptophan is a precursor to not just melatonin, but also serotonin. 80% of the serotonin in your body is made in your gut. And what most people don't know, and I didn't know either until I looked into this, serotonin is what triggers what's called bowel motility, also known as a bowel movement or a poop. I tell people, you got to get rid of that junk in your trunk. And if you're not having a bowel movement every day, this causes the toxins that are sitting there to be picked up by your bloodstream and recirculated. Colon cancer is escalating. And a lot of it is because constipation is a very big issue in America. There are 1.3 million ER visits every year just for constipation. It's amazing.

So this will help relieve constipation. So you need to get rid of toxins by breath, sweating, urine, and bowel movements. And this will help with a lot of it. So very much a wellness detoxing algae. Now, your body goes through a repair detox when you're sleeping. And this also triggers melatonin. So we generally recommend chlorella either after dinner, after a workout, or before bed, because it will help you get into a deep sleep. It will help with the detox process, because your brain actually shrinks while you're sleeping, so the glymphatic system can clean out all that heavy metals. And then it will help you prepare for a nice trip to the bathroom in the morning. So it's very much a wellness detoxing algae.

So that means it's a gut health algae, as opposed to spirulina, which is a brain health algae. So think of spirulina as brain health, chlorella as gut health, or spirulina as AM, chlorella as PM. And of course, they're connected by the vagus nerve, which communicates back and forth regularly. So they work really well. And the other way I say the way they work well is, you know, one of the problems we're having is there's so many toxins. The average adult has 700 toxins in their bodies now. And if you have toxins sitting in your cell receptors, it's very hard for the nutrients to get in. So think of chlorella as the tow truck or the police force that you would call if someone had stolen your parking spot. They pull the car out. So chlorella pulls out the toxins. So now you can park. And spirulina is the nourishment. Chlorella pulls toxins out. Spirulina puts nourishment in. So they work really well together.

49:01 CATHARINE'S DAILY ROUTINE AND PERSONAL HEALTH STORY

Dr. Yi Song: Great. So you say you've been doing these algae products for 17 years.

Catharine Arnston: Yes.

Dr. Yi Song: So then have you yourself been consuming this for 17 years? That's why you look so great.

Catharine Arnston: I attribute it, because I have two sisters, and one is younger and one is older, and I sleep well, I poop well, I run a company, I have only millennials working for me, I travel nonstop, I got my PhD last year, I just wrote, actually, a 400 page book. Yes, I attribute 90% of my health to spirulina and chlorella algae, because I've been taking them absolutely every day.

Now, I do have other healthy protocols I follow. For example, when I get up in the morning, the first thing I do is I drink fresh water, spring water with a squeeze of lemon, which is really good for cleaning your liver. I drink a tea called yerba mate, which is the national drink of Argentina, very high in antioxidants. And also it gives you a little bit of energy. And then I intermittent fast with spirulina, because you can do intermittent fasting with both of them, because there's no carbs. And there's also no lectins or oxalates. So anyone who's doing a carnivore diet or paleo diet, this is for you too, because it doesn't cause any stomach distress.

So I intermittent fast with these all morning. And then I usually have my main meal around three or four o'clock, and I eat whole foods. It doesn't matter whether it's grass-fed beef or eggs or, you know, any kind of animal protein, but I do have a full meal. The other things I do is I'm very active. I walk two miles a day with a weighted vest. I do yoga twice a week, hot yoga. I try to do more weight-bearing exercise. I need to do more of that. And I prioritize sleep. So I make sure I get seven, usually eight hours a night. I've never smoked. I don't drink. I drink a little bit of wine every once in a while.

Dr. Yi Song: That's Sauvignon Blanc, right?

Catharine Arnston: I have a very healthy lifestyle. I'm very engaged with life. I have a big passion, as you can tell, which is also very energizing. But all of that, I mean, I was always passionate and I was always relatively healthy and active all my life. But before I started taking algae, I had hypoglycemia. I had terrible gut health issues. I was always gassy and bloated. I was constipated. I was one of those kids who had a visit to the emergency when I was like eight. So I had health issues myself before I started taking these regularly. And all of that's gone now. Absolutely.

I weigh pretty much the same as I did almost when I was in high school. I'm the same size of clothing, which is unusual for someone my age. And I maintain my muscle mass as much as I can, anyways. And my skin, I can't believe my skin. I've always worn a hat, I will say. I've always worn a hat for 50 years. I don't go outside, I always have a hat. I have only started wearing sunscreen since I moved to Florida, but I always wore a hat. And I think that helps. One of the reasons I don't have sunspots. But the spirulina also helps with sunspots, and the chlorophyll acts as a natural sun protectant against the UV rays. So maybe that helps as well.

Dr. Yi Song: So do you use any cosmetics that use the algae? Because you mentioned some.

Catharine Arnston: I'm just starting to test a couple. I'm not going to mention anything yet, but I'm testing some. But if we do get into that, it won't be for a couple of years. We do have something new that's coming out. I'm not going to be able to tell you about that yet, but it'll be on our website in October. It's taken a year to develop. But the tablets are the most concentrated. A lot of people don't like the flavor, but you can swallow them and you get the same benefits. And then you can give them to your children, and kids love to chew them because they turn their tongues green. They think it's really funny. Pets love them, your cats, your dogs. They will just go crazy over this stuff.

We're building out a corporate wellness program, because we know 76% of Americans, 76%, have at least one chronic disease. And those are people that are going to work every day. So I don't know if you have a lot of practitioners who listen to your podcast, but we only sell through biohacking clinics, practitioners, functional medicine, spas. Any practitioners interested? It's the easiest product to share with your patients, because you don't have to worry about anything. It's just food. It's just very concentrated, very pure food. And for consumers who are listening, we have a discount code for them to get 20% off at energybits.com. This will change your life.

COVID changed everything for us, because that's when I'd been doing this for 11 years and struggling, trying to get people to pay attention to their health. And after COVID, people started paying attention. And so we're just trying to help elevate their knowledge, because if you don't know about something, it can be scary, especially if you get a diagnosis, very scary. And we want to prevent the diagnosis or, if you have one, help you recover from it. And it's food. It's not a drug. It's not a supplement. But to get maximum benefits, you need the highest quality possible. And then you need less of it when it's the highest quality too.

Dr. Yi Song: Yeah, if you get the not high quality one, it's possible it's contaminated with mycotoxins, and then that's actually doing the opposite.

Catharine Arnston: Right, right.

Dr. Yi Song: You're supposed to be taking chlorella and pull toxins out. And if it wasn't grown carefully, you're putting toxins in.

Catharine Arnston: And a lot of, I'm so sorry, but a lot of those less expensive companies, they put synthetics in there. They put filler in there. We don't even have a... it's just a tablet. It's just pressed. There's no container. It's as pure as you're ever going to get. It's the purest food you're ever going to get. I don't know what else to say. And we are deprived of our nutrients right now. We are overfed and undernourished. And that's not going to turn out well.

55:28 A PHD, A NEW BOOK AND SCIENCE WITH SARCASM

Dr. Yi Song: And your PhD you just got recently, was it on nutrition?

Catharine Arnston: It was on natural health. And I had to study for a year. I didn't have to write a thesis, which was great, because I'd done so much work on mitochondria health. But I had to write the exams. It was like writing the medical boards. I have a niece who is a doctor, and I'm so glad I don't have to treat people, because there's so much to learn of interactions and herbal interactions and drug interactions. So those were the hardest exams for me, but I did pass. And I only wanted the degree to pursue more research and to give people the comfort level that I've done my homework, because some places wouldn't let me speak because I wasn't an MD or a PhD. So I thought, okay, I'll get one. And then some people said, well, you don't have a book. Okay, I'll write one.

Dr. Yi Song: So is your book mostly about the benefits of the algae or the story? What is your book?

Catharine Arnston: It's a great read. And normally I try to be as, you know, uncomplimentary as possible, but I've been writing since I was five. I had three writers in my family. I've always loved writing. I've always loved reading. I have a library of probably 400 books. Books are very important to me. So this book is a science book written in a way that's fun.

And so what I do, the first couple of chapters, I explain why we're getting sick. I explain how the external environment is affecting us. I explain what happens internally as we get older, so that we set the stage about what's going on. Why are we in such trouble right now? Then I go into a long, it's called the origin story, the history of algae, first life on earth, the indigenous people around the world using it, all the science references. And then we get into the scientists using it, Otto Warburg for scientific purposes, and then after World War II for food consumption. Then I have a chapter on its sustainability. It's the most sustainable crop in the world. And then I explain how spirulina and chlorella algae are actually grown. And I have pictures of me at our farms in Taiwan.

Then we do start the deep dive into what algae is. Oh, and also there's a chapter on why Americans or anybody outside of Asia doesn't know about it. And it's partly because there are 100,000 studies. I don't think I mentioned this. There are 100,000 studies documenting the health benefits of spirulina and chlorella algae. The trouble is this knowledge is trapped in scientific journals, scientific silos, because scientists get rewarded for publishing papers. That's how they get tenure. That's how they get bonuses. They don't get rewarded for going on talk shows to talk about their science. So all of this amazing research that I have uncovered has been around for decades, but nobody's shared it with consumers. So there's a chapter explaining what that process is.

Then we finally get into the meat of the book, which is we discuss spirulina and chlorella. And we talk first about their similarities, which are they both have the highest protein in the world. They both have the highest chlorophyll in the world, and they both have these exosomes. Then there's a chapter just on spirulina, the properties that make it so special, what it does in your body. Then there's a chapter just on chlorella, the special properties it has, what it does in your body. And then, I don't know anybody else who's ever done this, there's a whole chapter on the mitochondria explaining what it is, why it's so important, what happens when it works, what happens when it doesn't. Then there's another chapter on the electron transport chain. What exactly it is. How does it work? How does it go offline? And how does algae... And then the final chapter is how does algae correct and fix the mitochondria and the electron transport chain? So that's the bulk of the book.

Then there's a whole other section where it's more of a guide for people to use for themselves. We cover how either spirulina or chlorella correct specific chronic diseases. I go into heart disease, osteoporosis, cancer, sarcopenia. Then we go into health conditions: detox, energy, sleep. Then we go into food types: paleo, carnivore, vegan, vegetarian. Then we explain why it's good for children, why it's good for adults, why it's good for pets. And then there's some basics: how to take it, when to take it, why to take it. So there's a 120 page guide on how to actually apply this to your own situation, your own health condition, which is an add-on to the actual book. There's about 230 pages of the actual book. Then there's another 120 pages of the guide.

And then as an afterword, I put my founder story, because I went through a lot to make this happen and I don't want to spoil the story. And I didn't want it at the front, because the book is really to help people. It wasn't to gain their sympathy about what I've had to go through to make this a reality. But it's there if they want to read it. And then I've indexed everything and there are scientific references. There's probably 30 pages of scientific references, because there are 650 scientific references. So I call it, I've created a new genre. I've called it science with sarcasm, because you will learn so much about your body and so much about algae, and it will be so much fun. You won't even realize you're learning science.

And that was my goal, because nobody knows how their body works. How are you supposed to correct it if you don't know what's causing the problem? Right? So that was my purpose, to make science fun. Because remember, I didn't come from science either, and yet I have found so much so fascinating. But when you explain it to people who were where I was 15 years ago, you have to make it fun. So it's as entertaining as you could possibly imagine science could be.

Dr. Yi Song: So are you self-publishing?

Catharine Arnston: Yes, I'm self-publishing because, even though I finished it in June, it's still almost a full year, or nine months, before it could get to the publishing date. And if I went to a publisher, it would have been another year and I didn't want to wait. So I'm self-publishing. I have an agent. And maybe when there's a second edition, we'll go to a publisher, but it doesn't detract from any of the quality of the work. I'm very proud of what I've written and I hope it really helps people. That was the whole intent. And it will be published in January. January is the release date. The release date is currently January 26th. We're doing pre-sales now, corporate pre-sales, individual pre-sales with lots of extra goodies. We're doing an Audible, a Kindle.

1:03:00 WHERE TO FIND THE BOOK, PRODUCTS AND FINAL TIPS

Dr. Yi Song: So if they want to pre-order, how do they order it?

Catharine Arnston: Come to energybits.com. There'll be a dropdown on the website for book, and you just put your name in for pre-sale. And we also have the discount code Zen to give them 20% off on any products on the website. And if you come to the website, you'll see we have four products. There are two spirulina. The blue one is the original spirulina called ENERGYbits, but I found that women didn't like the packaging or the name. And I started the company because of my sister, so women's health has always been important. And because it has more protein and aminos than even collagen powder, it's very good for your skin and very good for your hair.

So I called the second spirulina BEAUTYbits, and it's in a pink package with a flower, but it's exactly the same spirulina as the ENERGYbits. So that's the blue and the pink one. Chlorella is the green one, because it's a plant and it has a plant on the packaging. And then we have a fourth brand called VITALITYbits, which is a blend of the two algae. Now, I would just suggest to people, don't start with VITALITYbits, because you may find you like spirulina better than chlorella. But if you start with the blended, you will never know. So just try them separately. If you like them both equally and you want to simplify your life, boom. Then you get the VITALITYbits, which is a blend of the two of them.

Dr. Yi Song: Okay. And you also say you have something new coming out in October, right?

Catharine Arnston: Yes, yes. I can't.

Dr. Yi Song: I know. It's a secret.

Catharine Arnston: Yeah, yeah. So next year, and this new thing is only available on our website, but we'll share it with other organizations in the new year. So next year will be a really big year for us, with the book. I mean, we're going to really make sure the book gets to a lot of people, because I absolutely promise you, when you read this book, you will enjoy the ride and you will learn so much.

Dr. Yi Song: And what a great combination. Okay, so we're all looking forward to reading the book.

Catharine Arnston: Yes, and the stories. And you can start getting your health back now. We've got the product, we've been selling it for 17 years.

Dr. Yi Song: Yes. I just started taking it, and so I'll report to you later.

Catharine Arnston: Okay, all right. Make sure you're taking enough, because 10 is just the opening number of spirulina. You'll get better results if you take 15, 20, or 30.

Dr. Yi Song: And I actually took 30.

Catharine Arnston: Oh, good. Okay. So good girl.

Dr. Yi Song: I actually took, probably, I took 60 the first day.

Catharine Arnston: Oh, wow. Wow. Well, your poop will probably be a bit green. And just, before, because there's so much protein in spirulina, you want to be sure you're taking extra water, because protein can make you constipated. So if you're finding you're getting constipated, be sure you're adding chlorella, because that's got the serotonin, the high tryptophan. And I do have another tip for constipation that has nothing to do with algae: fresh pineapple. It's the bromelain found in fresh pineapple that helps with digestion and bowel movements. So anybody who's listening, if you have any constipation, and with stress, you get it from stress, eating too much dairy, too much travel, not enough fiber, not enough water, so that's about 90% of Americans. You can get rid of that with chlorella and fresh pineapple.

Dr. Yi Song: Okay. Very nice having you here today. And we learned a lot. We're looking forward to your book and also more talk on algae and how we can save the world.

Catharine Arnston: Absolutely. And come and visit us at energybits.com just to learn, because we have lots of blogs and good stuff there.

Dr. Yi Song: Thank you very much, Catharine.

Catharine Arnston: Thank you.