Why one new anti-aging supplement is great… if you’re a dolphin

One never knows what one’s media feed will present to one on any given day.

Last Monday morning, the following ad appeared:

My first thoughts were:

• Fatty15?
• FATTY15?
• Really?!
• THAT’S the name the marketing team came up with in order to SELL this to me?

Okay, what in the wild and unregulated supplement world is this FATTY15 thing? Here’s the TLDR version.

• There are a lot of fatty acids.
• They are found in lots of foods we eat.
• Omega-3 fatty acids are a good fatty acid. They’re found in e.g. salmon, walnuts and edamame.
• Trans-fats are a bad fatty acid. They’re found in e.g. many ultra-processed and fried foods, and many baked goods.
• C15:0 is a recently found fatty acid. We don’t know much about it.
• A new company called FATTY15 (again, wtaf) wants to sell it to you, promising you whole health in a bottle.

BUT BUT… HOW DID THE DOLPHINS GET INVOLVED?

Patience– I’m getting to this now.

It turns out that some dolphins work for the US Navy. They detect underwater mines and enemy swimmers (don’t ask me how). Part of their employee health plan includes research on and treatment of diseases related to dolphin-aging (they get some of the same diseases we do).

This person below– Dr. Stephanie Venn-Watson, the translational medicine and research program director for the Navy’s National Marine Mammal Foundation– led a crack team of dolphin health experts to manage their care.

Here’s some info from this article:

The team analyzed the dolphins’ blood samples taken throughout their lives to identify molecules present in the healthiest dolphins. One of the top nutrients was the molecule C15:0, a saturated fatty acid (pentadecanoic acid). In the human diet, C15:0 is present in dairy fat—whole milk, butter, and cheeses.

Obviously, dolphins don’t have that option after infancy, unlike humans. But don’t worry– your research dollars found a solution:

…when they fed [older] dolphins with chronic diseases diets higher in C15:0 (fatty fish), they became healthier. Further research supported their findings that C15:0 lowers risk and can actually reverse many chronic diseases [in older dolphins, maybe], making it an essential fatty acid, a nutrient that the body does not produce but is essential to health.

Venn-Watson co-wrote this paper to argue for proof of concept for C15:0, but with no human studies. Then she started a company to try to sell C15:0 to humans, since dolphins a) don’t carry credit cards; and b) C15:0 supplements are covered by their navy employee health plan. She also wrote a book to help shill this stuff. And gave a TEDx talk to shill some more. But we have any actual evidence that it works?

And is it FDA-approved? Hell to the no. Just like all those other untested supplements. Please, oh, please just save your money.

BUT BUT THE FATTY15 WEBSITE!

It says all kinds of things that maybe are true. What about their claims?

To sum up:

• The dolphins are going to be okay.
• We are going to be okay.
• Eating food and moving our bodies are good things to do, be we human or dolphin.
• The one supplement that I personally can recommend is to supplement your viewing by adding Heated Rivalry to your watchlist. You’ll be glad you did.