Fringe Supplement Stacks You’ve Never Heard Of, The Best Nootropic Combinations, The Latest Keto Support Compounds, Supplements That Act Like “Exercise In A Bottle” & Much More With Shawn Wells

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shawn wells
Biohacking, Body, Diet & Nutrition, Health & Wellness, Nutrition, Podcast, Podcast-new, Supplements

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If there's anything people say they want more of these days…it's energy.

The world around us continually requires more from us while we give less and less thought to our long-term health. This distracted and overwhelmed mindset has landed us squarely in survival mode, depriving us of the necessary steps to create lasting, sustained energy. The truth is most of us are so exhausted and don't know how to find the energy to live our best lives.

My friend Shawn Wells just put the finishing touches on his new book The ENERGY Formula: Six Life Changing Ingredients to Unleash Your Limitless Potential

…which covers keto, Paleo, biohacking, stoicism, supplements, CBD, nootropics, MCTs, infrared saunas, cold plunges, how to create a sleep fortress, circadian rhythm, and much more. With about 60 full-color diagrams and over 100 scientific citations, Shawn gives you the knowledge you will not find anywhere else, including “Formulator's Corners” in every chapter that cover doses, brands, and forms of supplements you need to be taking as well as “Resource Hacks” that tell you the products, devices, apps, and more to use.

Developed by biochemist, dietitian, sports nutritionist, and formulation scientist Shawn Wells after surviving a series of torturous health battles, this pivotal and groundbreaking book is the product of meticulous and persistent research to find solutions to his personal and painful experiences—paired with two decades of legitimate clinical and scientific expertise.

Shawn previously joined me on the podcast episode “The Nitty-Gritty Underground World of Supplement Ingredients, Sports Nutrition Frankenfuels, Illegally Laced Compounds & More.,” and he's been studying up on plenty more since that show, so prepare for a wild ride on today's podcast.

Shawn, who is an MPH, LDN, RD, CISSN, FISSN, is a leading nutritional biochemist and expert on health optimization. He has formulated over 500 supplements, foods, beverages, and cosmeceuticals, has patented 10 novel ingredients, and is now known as the Ingredientologist—the scientist of ingredients.

Formerly a chief clinical dietitian with over a decade of clinical experience, he has counseled thousands of people on natural health solutions such as keto, paleo, fasting, and supplements. He has also personally overcome various health issues including Epstein-Barr virus, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, depression, insomnia, obesity, and a pituitary tumor. As a world-renowned thought leader on mitochondrial health, he has been paid to speak on five different continents. His insights have been prominently featured in documentaries, nationally syndicated radio programs, and regularly on morning television.

Shawn's expertise can help any health-conscious individual to better manage stress and experience higher performance and more energy through utilizing his practical research-backed solutions.

During this discussion, you'll discover:

-What Shawn had for breakfast the day of the interview…7:11

-Optimizing glutathione levels for optimal mitochondria…21:35

  • Mitochondrial glutathione is the main line of defense against cell death; prevents impairment of the electron transport chain
  • N-Acetylcysteine (NAC) is one of the best ways to boost glutathione
  • AlmsBio Mitotherapy, with PQQ and COQ10 (use code BENGREENFIELD10 to save 10%)
  • Bioadvantex's PharmaNAC
  • Thorne NAC (what Shawn uses)

-The criteria by which Shawn evaluates a supplement brand…25:30

-How Shawn discovered two substances and made them into supplement form…35:45

  • Theacrine and Dynamine
    • Worked with Dr. Hector Lopez and Dr. Tim Ziegenfuss
  • Methylliberine (Dynamine™)
  • In the methylxanthine family (of which caffeine is a part)
    • Enhanced energy and focus
    • Pain reduction
    • Stimulated NAD production
    • No habituation effect as you find in caffeine
    • Less adaptation effect
  • Biggest difference is the half-life
  • Infopathy generator (use code BENG10 for 10% off) (Ben's podcast with Anton Federenko will be published on February 27)
  • Hapbee wearable
  • Theacrine and Dynamine™ are full synthetic (GMP and informed-choice tested for sports – tested athletes can use it); natural extraction is cost-prohibitive, but it does occur naturally in tea leaves and cacao
  • Shawn's energy stack:

-The exercise augmenter that has been called “exercise in a bottle”…44:15

-Grains of paradise…49:55

  • Grains of paradise is a type of pepper, gingery taste; similar to capsaicin and ginger
  • Enhances metabolism without a stimulant effect
    • 40mg increased thermogenesis and caloric expenditure of around 100 calories a day

-Ben's super easy goals for his upcoming 40th birthday…52:15

-A different form of berberine that is used to control blood glucose levels…56:30

-Shawn's new formula for BHB and thoughts on exogenous ketones…1:03:30

  • HVMN ketone ester
  • Ketone Aid
  • Patent on active isomer RBHB (aka DBHB)
  • Exogenous ketones can carry excess minerals; causes some GI distress
  • All in powder form, very salty in taste

-Preferred medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs) to go with ketones…1:07:00

-The best way to raise NAD levels…1:09:20

-And much more!

Click here for the full written transcript of this podcast episode.

Resources from this episode:

Shawn Wells:

– Podcasts and article:

– Food and supplements:

– Other resources:

Episode sponsors:

Kion Coffee: Carefully selected and roasted for taste, purity, high antioxidants, and health. BGF listeners save 10% off your first order with code BEN10.

Chili Technologies: ChiliSleep makes both the chiliPAD and OOLER, innovative options that fit over the top of your mattress and use water to control the temperature of your bed and help lower your core body temperature to trigger deep, relaxing sleep.

Paleovalley Beef Sticks: 100% grass-fed AND grass-finished. Keto friendly and higher levels of Omega 3 Fatty Acids. Receive a 15% discount on your order when you use my link.

Butcher Box: Delivers healthy 100% grass-fed and finished beef, free-range organic chicken, and heritage breed pork directly to your door on a monthly basis. All their products are humanely raised and NEVER given antibiotics or hormones. 

Spiritual Disciplines Journal: The new Spiritual Disciplines Journal by Ben Greenfield is coming soon! Sign up to download a free preview and get notified once it's ready.

Do you have questions, thoughts, or feedback for Shawn or me? Leave your comments below and one of us will reply!

Ask Ben a Podcast Question

31 thoughts on “Fringe Supplement Stacks You’ve Never Heard Of, The Best Nootropic Combinations, The Latest Keto Support Compounds, Supplements That Act Like “Exercise In A Bottle” & Much More With Shawn Wells

  1. Mike says:

    Thanks for informative Podcast as always.
    Noticed Gains Candy MitoBurn contains Bioperine too.
    I’ve read black pepper/bioperine interferes with cytochrome P450 3A4 liver detox pathway. That liver detox pathway cleans out pollutants. I try not to take any chances with disrupting detox pathways.
    Curious what is your take about that Mr. Wells?

  2. What vitamin C are you using in the morning water?

  3. Brent Egan says:

    Listening to this episode now. Fantastic. Did think it was kind of funny how they mentioned that a lot of companies use “Proprietary Blends” and how this is a huge negative for the consumer as they don’t know exactly what they are getting. It was funny because Kion Lean and Kion Aminos both have “Proprietary Blends” on the Label.

    1. Random says:

      I hate to say this, the reason they do that is to thwart people like me, I look at an ingredient list and deconstruct it, buy everything individual and save money🤷🏻‍♀️ It’s smart business sense or anyone can take your formula and undercut your price, on things like that, you just have to test how you feel and decide if that trumps the fact you don’t know exact quantities of ingredients…

  4. David says:

    I bought some Theacrine and Dynamine from the Amazon links, and after purchasing noticed in the comments they are adding modified soybean oil as a filler. Any idea why they are adding this?

    I did like the Dynamine for pre-workout, and took it at 5:30 pm, and slept great that same night.

    I took Theacrine around 2 pm the next day and my HR was super elevated (5 beats more than usual) through the night, and the day was supposed to be a recovery day for me… strong mental response for focus, but seemed to really throw off my body.

    Wondering if anyone has similar experiences? Or any thoughts on the modified soybean oil…

  5. Meghan says:

    That L-BAIBA product contains titanium dioxide and several artificial dyes. What gives?? I thought this guy was supposed to make reputable supplements, so why is he adding in so many toxic additives? Anyone know where to get a clean version?

    1. steve says:

      I did buy the L-Baiba, and just saw the ingredients. I took a couple times, now we will see if they credit me back. LOL.

    2. Mike says:

      Also saw it contains Bioperine – which I’ve read black pepper/bioperine interferes with cytochrome P450 3A4 liver detox pathway. That liver detox pathway cleans out pollutants. I try not to take any chances with disrupting detox pathways…

  6. Tim Tole says:

    Theres no link to listen to this…

    1. James Newcomb says:

      Should be working now…

  7. Roy TOB in training says:

    BEN! Great info!, the supplemental comments by listeners mostly useful save for the whiners. Thanks again for all you do and working through Boundless and Fit Soul-great works!

    Player FM is the one I went to for listening, better work around than whining.

  8. Lazarus Long says:

    Garbage.

  9. Dave says:

    Why is there no option to download this podcast? I use an MP3 player to listen to podcasts while I exercise. Please restore this option.

  10. Mike says:

    Why is this show called Ben Greenfield Fitness ?

    I’ve been listening to this show for a long time and I can’t remember the last time the show focused on physical training. The only reason that comes to mind as to why this might be the case is that it’s hard to monetize physical training, after all it’s something you do yourself with your own effort. However it’s easy to monetize supplements, vitamins and the like. Maybe a more appropriate title would be Ben Greenfield Supplements and Vitamins.

    1. Eggs Tyrone says:

      That’s a stern way to put it. I do agree and would love to see a return to physical fitness advice with a focus on longevity. I feel that Ben is well suited for this.

    2. Random says:

      Part of fitness is recovery, in fact that may be considered the most important aspect, you’ll never come across someone involved in physical fitness that isn’t trying to optimize themselves with supplements…. there are tons of places to learn proper form and new lifting techniques, Ben has been the most informative on hacking your lifestyle, I love learning new tips and tricks, maybe you should checkout T Nation?

  11. Inogen MacKenzie says:

    Why can’t I download this to my mp3 player?
    Could you please add a button?
    Thank you.

  12. Brad says:

    There is one substance that may very well be exercise in a bottle. It is a common supplement, Unlike the fringe supplements, it’s inexpensive , has a good safety profile, and has been well studied for several years. I am not aware of any other supplement that has findings as good as this supplement. It’s Glucosamine!

    Glucosamine may reduce overall death rates as effectively as regular exercise, study suggests

    “After controlling for various factors — such as participants’ age, sex, smoking status and activity level — the researchers found that taking glucosamine/chondroitin every day for a year or longer was associated with a 39 percent reduction in all-cause mortality.

    It was also linked to a 65 percent reduction in cardiovascular-related deaths. That’s a category that includes deaths from stroke, coronary artery disease and heart disease, the United States’ biggest killer.”
    The results appear in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.

    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201201171726.htm

    There are other studies with similar findings. For example, see this British Medical Journal study:

    “In this large population-based cohort study involving 495 077 individuals, we found that regular glucosamine use was significantly associated with a 15% lower risk of total mortality and 18% for CVD mortality; 6% for cancer mortality; 27% for respiratory mortality and 26% for digestive mortality. These associations were independent of other potential confounders, including sociodemographic factors, lifestyle behaviours, health status, drug use and other supplements use. Furthermore, the protective associations of glucosamine use against all-cause mortality appeared to be somewhat stronger in current smokers than non-current smokers.”

    https://ard.bmj.com/content/79/6/829

  13. DK says:

    how come this episode is not downloadable on the page like the others?

    1. James Newcomb says:

      You should be able to download it now; we’re working out a few bugs on a fancy new player, it will be good to go before you know it.

  14. Brad says:

    I am curious as to why you go with Bitter Melon over water soluble extracts of cassia cinnamon (e.g. cinnulin) or Ceylon Cinnamon for blood sugar regulation.

  15. Brad says:

    It seems to me that exercise is the superior way to increase NAD and that NMN and NR may lack efficacy and safety.

    There is no study, to my knowledge, that shows that NR or NMN raise NAD levels in tissues in humans. In fact, we have one study where NR did NOT raise NAD levels in tissue in humans. I have no reason to believe that NMN would act differently than NR in this regard unless someone is aware of a human study

    In contrast to NMN and NR, with Exercise, we do have one study showing that exercise increased NAD levels dramatically in human tissue in older adults. In fact, in this study it raised NAD levels in 60 year old subjects to that of college-aged individuals (in just 10 weeks). Why go the NMN or NR route if exercise seems to work? Exercise is free and NMN and NR are expensive. Furthermore, NMN and NR have no long term safety data.

    See Ten Weeks of Resistance Training in 60-Year-Olds Doubles NAD+ Levels in Muscle Tissue
    https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2020/05/ten-w…

    If one wanted to hack NAD levels by using a means other than exercise, the safest way would seem to be through CD38 inhibition via dried parsley.

    DRIED PARSLEY is the richest natural source of apigenin; it has 137.7 mg per gram, or 13,770 mg per 100 grams, according to this study.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4942…

    Two – Four tablespoons of dried parsley daily would appear to give you a lot of Apigenin

    1. Brad says:

      One of the main problems with the coverage of NAD on this Ben Greenfield Podcast and other Ben Greenfield Podcasts is that Ben and Guests do not go through the studies and do not compare multiple mechanisms to raise NAD . Therefore, I will cover some basic issues below.

      1. Exercise seems to be the way to raise NAD in human. See the referenced study in my other comment. To my knowledge, Ben’s podcasts have never referenced any studies in this area.

      2. I don’t believe Ben’s podcasts have adequately covered increasing NAD through CD 38 inhibition in depth through natural CD 38 inhibitors such as dried parsley ( high in apigenin) . Humans have been eating parsley for perhaps hundreds or thousand of years, so it has a good safety profile. Evidence for CD 38 inhibition includes the observations that mice la
      cking CD38 or treated with the CD38 inhibitor apigenin have about 50% more NAD+
      https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/comments/S1550-4131(18)30122-0?fbclid=IwAR0uL4qAaC6djsu6o1gi0hEh_D632At-c9MQuZC8fgA7KExSscneyb4VOFc

      There are other natural cd38 inhibitors found in food besides apigenin. See
      How To Reach The 100-Year Life With NAD+ (Part II – Regulate CD38) for a list if 5 cd-38 inhibiting compounds that can be found in food.
      https://drjewilliams.com/how-to-reach-the-100-year-life-with-nad/

      3. Unfortunately, Ben’s podcasts have not adequately covered where NR and NMN have been shown to lack efficacy. I have previously pointed out where NR failed in a a study in Humans in the commentary of another podcast. I will now point out a study where NMN did not even work in mice. ” We next evaluated the efficacy of NR, NMN and NA to increase NAD+ in vivo by supplementing mouse chow with NR, NMN or NA at 400 mg/kg/day for one week. All compounds increased NAD+ levels in liver, but only NR and NA significantly enhanced muscle NAD+ content.” NMN could not even raise NAD levels in tissue (where it counts)in mice in this study. Should we really expect a different result in Humans?
      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3616313/

      4. Another way to increase NAD may be through The NAM salvage pathway. I don’t know how much Ben has covered this in his podcasts. “NMNATs are also attractive targets for raising NAD+ in cells because they have dual substrate specificity for NMN and nicotinic acid mononucleotide (NaMN), and they contribute to both de novo and salvage pathways (Zhou et al., 2002). ” The green tea compound epigallocatechin gallate has been reported to activate NMNAT2 by more than 100% and NMNAT3 by 42% at 50 μM, although this needs to be confirmed, as no data were presented in the paper (Berger et al., 2005). https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/comments/S1550-4131(18)30122-0?fbclid=IwAR0uL4qAaC6djsu6o1gi0hEh_D632At-c9MQuZC8fgA7KExSscneyb4VOFc

      5. I have not seen anyone in the field (Ben or otherwise) adequately cover whether there are known or theoretical risks from too much NAD or NAD stimulating substances. Sure I am aware you can create methylation problems, but what are the other potential issues. If I can increase NAD through exercise and a diet full of foods that are natural CD 38 inhibitors, do I really need to do anything else? How much NAD is too much NAD? Everything has a bell curve. Even too much water will kill you.

      Disclaimer: I am a layperson with no scientific background and I am not in business of health or nutrition,

  16. Ben says:

    This interests me as he’s dealt with similar things and looks in really good health and in good shape. Did Sean have lyme at all? Or mostly epstein barr and chronic fatigue? (this was also one of my infections along with lyme).

    I’ve been reading The Primal Blueprint again and am gradually shifting some things, like putting coconut oil in my chickory and dandelion drink (I have that instead of coffee now) but i’m going to get some MCT oil aswell.

    I found with the infections that alot of the healing for me was dealing with the actual infections, i’m still recovering but more recently i’ve also been interested in building my body back up again.

    I’m hoping there will be a transcript of this like other podcasts, as I do better with reading, if i’m listening to something I get distracted doing other things on my computer.

  17. Jacqueline M DeMaria says:

    if you are taking Kion Aminos, do you also recommend taking Thorn NAC?

  18. Kenneth Moran says:

    Any way to get some specific brands for MCT c8, Dynanine, and Teacrine that can be vouched for? Thanks 🙏

  19. Mike Roberto says:

    I’ve been working with Shawn Wells for several years, and he is easily one of the most innovative ingredient developers and supplement formulators that this industry has ever known. Glad to hear Shawn got to introduce some of these ingredients (like MitoBurn) that he’s been working so hard on. We looked into BAIBA in 2016, and at that time, nobody could produce a stable version of the L-isomer. Enter Shawn Wells, and the rest is history. What an asset to the community. Thanks for having him on Ben!!

    1. steve says:

      Why is titanium dioxide and F D & C #40 in this product ???

  20. Lindsey says:

    Hi Ben Greenfield Fitness team,

    I wanted to send a quick message about your bullet points here for the Shawn Wells podcast. The bullet points are showing HYPERnatremic as the condition talked about. I believe it needs to be changed to HYPOnatremic. I caught it before listening to the episode and was a bit confused so just wanted to give you a heads up. Thank you for the fantastic info you continue to provide!

    1. James Newcomb says:

      thanks, we’ll take care of it.

  21. Tracey says:

    My understanding is that Berberine shouldn’t be used long term since its function actually depletes energy due to its inhibition of the mitochondria. People who use Berberine often report being fatigued. Once they stop using it, they feel better.

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