Longevity Secrets: Beating Zombie Cells & Boosting Mitochondria

Ken Swartz, MS

Well, just for your listeners here, carbon 60 is a molecule of 60 carbon atoms shaped like a soccer ball. You can also see it behind me on the screen if you’re watching. It was discovered in 1985 and actually solved the mystery in astronomy. And they receive the people, Harry Kroto, Richard Smalley, and Robert Curl received a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1996, kind of because of its unique shape and technically its scientific name Buckminsterfullerene because Buckminster Fuller, decades before it was discovered, predicted this molecule would be discovered, and then it would have healing benefits, which is very unusual since it was decades you perceive predicted that decades before that was discovered. And for the healing benefits, you know, here’s this new molecule. It’s found in outer space. It’s also found like in a burnt wick of your candle like in 0.25%. And so they, you know, it took a while to learn how to make it in large quantities. And finally, when they got to that level and these guys, they basically started using it for testing for, you know, toxicity. Here’s a strange molecule and probably the most famous study is the buckyball study, which started early 2000s. And it actually found that it increased the lifespan of test animal Wistar rats by 90%. And yeah, that was a little bit surprising. And in the meantime, of course, that’s because the rats live a very, very long time. Obviously, much longer than they did. So meantime, there are a couple more studies.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Almost doubled their lifespan.

Ken Swartz, MS

Yeah, exactly. Well, actually, the last couple of rats had an unfortunate accident, you know, so their last C60 rats so that they could publish their, I guess that’s, and they published a paper, but they also did a study in the meantime when that was going on mice. And it was found that it increased the lifespan of mice and prevented cognitive decline. And with the wistar rat, wistar rats are a type of rat that is it’s sort of an analog of human aging. So if you’re looking at a lot of the problems that go wrong with aging and so like in the wistar rats, the primarily their lifespan was increased because it completely prevented the occurrence of cancers and cognitive decline and other degenerative diseases that are commonly associated with aging in wistar rats and to a certain extent in humans, you know, it’s analog. And so that was kind of the thing. Now how I got involved, I was actually working on the Metal Oxygen Fusion Reactor Project, which you’ll probably hear about the news one of these days. And, you know, there’s a lot of late professors this and dead doctors that associated with and so I didn’t want to end up in that category. And I had a crew, of course, that I was responsible for. I didn’t want that to happen to them. So I went out, you know, looking for something. And I discovered this stuff, this carbon 60 stuff and the buckyballs, that’s another name for them. 

And they basically had this thing with, again, one set of rats got C60, and the other set of rats, of course, controlled them. Hit them with a fatal dose of radiation. Pretty much all the C60 rats lived while the controlled rats, of course, all died. And when I learned about that, I got C60 from a couple of sources, and we’re still all around, by the way. So it must have worked in that regard. But I kept taking it after the experiment was over because, you know, it gave me a little bit more energy. I thought maybe better mental clarity. And some of the afternoon blows you get, you know, if you take lunch and you kind of have that crash that went way down. But what really kind of sparked it off is when I was about seven months after I’d been using C60, I went to see my eye doctor in my Drewes or dry macular degeneration had completely disappeared.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Wow. So you had this dry macular degeneration that was taking place. And how long is the process? You said six months.

Ken Swartz, MS

About seven months I did. And I had dry macular degeneration for many years. I was taking the Lutein’s and the Zeaxanthin and I’m doing, you know, what my eye doctor recommended. And I talked to him about other treatment options, but he said that he would never prescribe them because the actual side effects are worse than the disease. So I just maintained the medicines, it was maybe getting a little bit but a little bit worse over time. But it completely disappeared. And of course, in the meantime, my electrical engineer, Gary Rodriguez, he had type 2 diabetes, and so he had developed severe, wet macular degeneration. So I went out and made a, let me see if I could improve our functionality here and see if we could see, you know. Well, yes, we can. Yeah, that’s sort of the, just that was it was hard in a way and I put it in MCT coconut oil. So for your listeners are not aware of MCTs they’re medium chain triglycerides and they’re turned into ketones by your liver very quickly.

So it functions as a flex-fuel for your body. So, you know, so basically if you do have, I’m not a medical doctor, can’t give medical advice, but it’s a really good idea that if you do have glucose processing issues, having a little MCT around can really help you because it’s it makes, you know, makes those ketones so it’s flex-fuel for your cells so you don’t get the crash. And so he took a tablespoon a day for a year and his severe wet macular degeneration went completely away. We used to be able to post the pictures, the before and after pictures, but that’s making claims. Now, these are, of course, anecdotal situations, even though we’ve had many other anecdotal situations with customers. But that’s one of the key things that, oh, he has type 2 diabetes that’s subclinical.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

So yeah let’s talk about the mechanism for why both your dry and his wet macular degeneration improved. Let’s talk about what’s happening. What C60 is actually doing at the mitochondrial level?

Ken Swartz, MS

Well, first of all, let’s talk about mitochondria and, you know, there are certain cell types in your body which have a lot of mitochondria, the brain perhaps has the highest level of mitochondria. It’s, you know, 2% of your body weight uses 20% energy. I mean, I think half the physical mass of most nerve cells is mitochondria. So, because they use so much energy, the mitochondria are the organelles in our cells which make the energy. And so one of the things that C60 does, the C60 is characterizes it SOD-like catalysis mimic in dealing with the oxidative radical superoxide and you know, your normal mitochondria are, you know, they’re furnaces and one of the signs of furnaces make pollution and one of the side effects is superoxide is superoxide. And usually, as you know, especially when we’re younger, our larger cells make enzyme superoxide, dismutase, and catalase. And those two work together basically to reduce superoxide, which is an oxygen with an extra electron down to water and oxygen as well. Basically, SOD turns it into hydrogen peroxide. Then the catalase turns the hydrogen peroxide and water and oxygen and usually, you know, when we’re all young, that works great.

But as we get older, our SOD levels go down, and sometimes catalase levels down. So we can’t process that superoxide as much and it can leak out and cause damage. And you know what? What can you know, what are those oxidative radicals SOD could do I mean you can crosslink proteins, but they don’t work. You can damage cell membranes or things leak in or leak out that shouldn’t. And of course, you could damage RNA and DNA chemistry. Another thing that SOD sodium superoxide makes, it’ll combine with nitrous oxide, which is another common oxidative radical in our cells, and make a proxy nitrite. Which is really stable and that can kind of float even out of your cells. You can go a long distance before it could cause damage and they think DOMS delayed onset muscle soreness has a lot to do with peroxide nitrite production, especially when you do it like that massive amount of exercise. So when you take C60, C60 passes the blood, it passes the gut barrier, passes the blood-brain barrier. It’s uptake in the cells by endo psychosis that end the mitochondria by the end of psychosis where it works is that SOD catalase mimic and so what happens is now your mitochondria because they now have a SOD essentially, SOD catalase back they can turn their production levels back up. So now you have more ATP, which is the energy molecule, the cell. And when you have more energy molecules, well, then your cell can heal itself, basically. And that appears to be what happened with, because the retina, by the way, the retina is part of the brain. It’s neuro cells.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Super dense in mitochondria.

Ken Swartz, MS

And so that’s, which is interesting because when people take C60, the first thing you notice is like better mental clarity like the brain fog goes away and a better mental focus. And of course that would be associated with improved mitochondrial function.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yeah, it makes sense. Now, what’s different about C60 versus your typical antioxidants? Like if somebody is taking vitamin C, Lutein, and zeaxanthin? A lot of things that you talked about. What’s different about C60 compared to many of these other antioxidants that people are consuming in their diet as well as in supplements?

Ken Swartz, MS

One of the things is that C60 only reacts with two oxidative radicals. One is the superoxide I mentioned, the other is the hydroxyl ion. And that’s basically a water molecule that has the proton locked off. And those are the two most damaging oxidative radicals in the body. And the body doesn’t use them as signaling molecules. Okay, that’s really important. And that’s all C60 interacts with. It basically turns superoxide back into oxygen and turns the hydroxyl ion back into water. And what it doesn’t do, C60 does not interact with nitrogen oxide, which that’s a vasodilator vasoconstrictor depending on the levels it’s supercritical to the health. C60 doesn’t interfere or interact with any of the other signaling body’s signaling molecules, many of which are oxidative radicals.

Now, if you’re taking vitamin C, your vitamin E or something, or insulin, and if you take too much of them, they actually start interfering with a lot of the body’s signaling molecules which like nitrogen oxide and some others based around sulfur and zinc. And then you get decreased performance or decreased effectiveness because you’re actually interfering with the body’s signaling molecules and structures, and diuretics obviously cause problems. We have never actually done a meta-study. You can go online and find it, but they were they did you know, they took all these studies about athletes using vitamin C and Vitamin E to see if it can actually increase athletic performance. And they found. No, because as you get more above a certain level, then you just get decreased performance. So, you know, the basic recommendation was to eat a healthy diet and you’ll have enough for that. But with C60, it doesn’t really interfere with just the superoxide and the hydroxyl ion So C60 is actually the only antioxidant that can increase athletic performance.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

So in a sense, there’s good oxidative stress and bad oxidative stress. Typically in a natural health world, we kind of lump oxidative stress all in the bad realm. But that’s actually, you know, it’s an immature way of viewing it. We really need to understand it’s good and bad, right? We need a certain amount of it that actually helps our body produce endogenous antioxidants like our own glutathione levels and things like that. And so that’s one of the reasons why exercise can be so beneficial, creates resiliency because we produce all these all this oxidative stress, but then we adapt and we get better at producing our own endogenous antioxidants. And so taking too many antioxidants can be really problematic. But C60, what it does is it works on the bad oxidative stress, the kind of oxidative stress we want to reduce without affecting the good oxidative stress that creates adaptation in our system.

Ken Swartz, MS

Yeah, that’s correct. And like, for instance, basically four big antioxidants that your body really is critical to mitochondria function and that’s of course one of the most CoQ10, yeah, you can supplement for that and you probably should especially if you’re older. The second is glutathione now we couldn’t, we used to be able to supplement for glutathione but they actually have some pretty good like liposomal. Micelles liposomal.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yeah. liposomal.

Ken Swartz, MS

Yeah. They have some that are absorbed through the gum tissues and stuff with a few others, the patch types that seem to be doing actually rather well. Where do they get to the places they need? I am not sure. But one of the things that C60 does, C60 take care of the hydroxyl ion, which is usually dealt with by the glutathione antioxidant. But of course, glutathione has dozens of jobs. That’s just one job that would apply. And so and that’s in fact what hydroxyl ions, what radiation produces mostly because your body’s 70% water so it’s not. So kind of what if you take C60, it’ll take that one specific job of glutathione. So what glutathione you have can go do the other dozen important jobs that it does. But until C60 came along there was no way to produce S0D or catalase. There was, you know, if you had lower SOD levels, catalase levels because those are endogenous, they’re made within the cells and there actually isn’t any mechanism to get SOD inside of the cells. There are some exosome transportation systems, but we really haven’t developed exosomes that can pass the gut barrier or be so there just wasn’t any way to give to supplement for SOD.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

So basically we’re solely dependent on our own endogenous production of superoxide dismutase to quench that superoxide molecule until C60 came along.

Ken Swartz, MS

Yeah. And C60 is a mimic, it mimics, it does the job of SOD and catalase in one step. Okay. There’s back in the early earth there were actually geologic deposits of C60 around. And if you were at a really, really, really cool environment, you know, subzero, C60 would actually fit into the groove of the RNA molecule. The side room of the DNA molecule. So it’s suspected that C60 might have been the original antioxidant of life, which is why it doesn’t interfere with any of the body’s signaling molecules and only deals with superoxide and the hydroxyl ion which the body doesn’t use a single molecule. And it does the job of, you know, so do your catalase in one shot. That’s just a speculation on, you know, based on some evidence. But it’ll take some scientific research.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

That’s why you call it the Swiss Army knife, right? The Swiss Army knife of antioxidants.

Ken Swartz, MS

And so and that’s the key. Now, but it also gets rid of a lot of inflammation throughout the body. And that’s one of the things like, for instance, that’s it’s well known for that they did a study with rabbits and they gave the rabbits arthritis and then they injected C60 into the arthritic joints. And yes, but lo and behold, you know, the swelling went down. That’s not surprising, because one of the things is when you have inflammation, usually you have cells being damaged. When they’re being damaged, they give off. You know, superoxide and hydroxyl ions are very common and that causes more damage. You know, macrophages come in and they set out cytokines and then they bring in the neuropils, and especially with autoimmune diseases and stuff like that, neuropils are these white blood cell types and they actually use.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Neuropils or neutrophils?

Ken Swartz, MS

Sorry, they’re right, neutrophils and they actually use superoxide atoms or molecules as a machine that kind of take out bacteria. But if it’s, they’re just kind of spraying around, you got collateral damage. So if you take C60, it would suppress that excess damage, and of course, inflammation goes down but when they actually open up the joints they found the cartilage increased. The cartilage had regrown, which was really surprising. And from that, I went to more research and they discovered that C60 actually increases stem cells in people. Okay. And then. now, how did that happen? Let’s see, C60 is young, right? We’re just learning about it. And so one study leads to another, which leads to another. And basically, they found that we have a lot of things called senescent cells in our body.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Right.

Ken Swartz, MS

And these are basically zombie cells. Usually, it’s because their DNA is damaged, they can’t reproduce. And usually a mechanism of apoptosis, autophagy, you know, that basically wipes out these senescent cells but that doesn’t always happen a lot of these cells don’t want to die. So they go into this senescent thing which they basically go into the fermentation mode. They stop producing SOD, catalase, glutathione, CoQ10, and other antioxidants. And so even the mitochondria have to go into fermentation mode, which is kind of like a bacteria most like a primitive mode. And so like it, it’s like 1/20 as efficient as the oxygen burning Krebs cycle but the thing is their fermentation, right? We all know what fermentation does.

All fermentation makes alcohols and all kinds of other nasties, which then start damaging the cells around them and the body in general. And so one of the things is that when you take C60, C60 is uptake in by those senescent cells. It gets into the mitochondria and it restarts the mitochondria back into the Krebs cycle, the making, the ATP, and all that. Well, you know, that’s all well and good, but the mitochondria have their own DNA and they have a constant communication with the larger cell’s nucleus. You know, it’s part of their symbiosis going on. And when the mitochondria will send out messages to the nuclear DNA and if it’s a senescent cell, they’re not going to get the right answer back and the mitochondria will actually blow themselves up and cause apoptosis, which is a form of programmed cell death. And the cell breaks down into apoptotic bodies, which are non-inflammatory, by the way. And then the phagocytes come in and clean them up. And so that’s what appears to happen is that, you know, as people take C60, it kills off all these senescent cells. Now, your cell type or tissue doesn’t have as many cells as it needs. So it sends out messages, hey, we need more stem cells. And so pretty soon you got just really, really high levels of stem cells.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

So a lot of the same benefits of fasting when we fast or insulin goes down, the body starts going into healing and repair triggers autophagy. And as we’re going through on autophagy, there are certain cells that are so far beyond, you know, like autophagy trying to clean up cells so we can basically recycle the intracellular components so we can reprogram those cells. But if the cell is so far gone, like you were talking about, sends the apoptotic signals so that the cell gets rid of itself and then we need to replace those cells. So that’s when these stem cells start to rise. So basically C60, you’re getting a lot of the same benefits of fasting when you’re also taking the C60.

Ken Swartz, MS

And of course, we all times we put the C60 in MCT oil, by the way, which is yeah, because it’s basically ketosis. It’s not going to break your ketosis because of MCT oil. And so that’s, that’s, that’s, I often use that like in when I break the fast to the morning and stuff. Well yeah it’s a little bit off for sure but that’s, that’s, you know, because it just allows you to go on a little bit further.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yeah, definitely. MCT gets those ketones elevated, which makes fasting a lot more comfortable. Now you talked about how the science is evolving and a lot of people that are listening to this the first time they’re hearing about carbon 60 are really maybe they’ve heard about it, but they but, you know, it really hasn’t caught mainstream yet. But there are hundreds of studies. Is that correct? Like you guys have tons of money. You’ve been accumulating them on your website and you have a deep scientific understanding with this. Yeah.

Ken Swartz, MS

Well, we actually can only put up human studies and I mean, like and there’s not as many human studies as there are animal studies. So there’s this there’s a site called whatisc60.org. And it is like one of those 5136. We supported some other C60 companies who support it. And so you can go there and you can get like the human studies, the animal studies, what C60 is, what works and what doesn’t like. One of the things is only dissolved C60 works, you know, it’s got to be completely dissolved like that, which I don’t know how we’re going to sell this, but this is like C60 dissolved in coconut oil and you kind of get a purple color. That’s where, you know, our original brand name was C60 Purple Power. That’s where it comes from.

So that’s one of the key things like particles of C60 have no health benefit and can actually be inflammatory, like nanoparticles of any type, you know, and that’s just the thing. So you have to make sure, you know, you can get your C60 in the right form and all those. And that’s why what is the record is a really good place because I love to go there. There are a couple of industry hit pieces too, but they can’t really do too much industry hit pieces because they found C60, and they put ligands on C60. That’s little attachments for people and can attach pharmaceutical drugs. And C60 is actually for certain pharmaceuticals an HCL replacement. And so we’ve had the companies, pharma companies have taken out, you know, millions and millions of dollars worth of patents on the C60 as an HDL replacement. So you can’t really go after it because they’re kind of shooting themselves in the foot, which puts C60 in like a spot, but pristine C60 just the natural molecule can’t be patent and so that’s, you know, that will always be available.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Now, I know like with your brand with shopC60.com you guys have it 99.9% pure sublimated what does that mean for that and why is that important?

Ken Swartz, MS

Oh yeah, that’s what’s really important. Yeah. When C60 was a small, you know, just a handful of people making it. Pretty much everybody made a quality product for their customers. Okay. Because, you know, it’s their family and friends. It was it was a really small community. And but once it became popular, it just like any like the CBD market, anything else, we get all these fly by nighters and so it’s really important to know, you know, you have good C60 because there are ones out there that have no C60, low quality, low concentration. And so what it is, is we use 99.99%. That’s the purest you can get. Well, it’s even more important. It’s sublimated and sublimation. If you remember from your history class is the cousin of evaporation. It’s when a solid turns into a gas that back into a solid. So it’s it’s like distillation is the liquid evaporation concept so it makes a really high-purity product. And we basically take C60 in the ashes, carbon ashes as you put it, to sublimate or heat up to 40 degrees Celsius. And, you know, the C60 vaporizes into a gas flux on the other side or condenses and that’s how you get sublimated C60 and 99.99%. Now, a lot of companies out there actually get their C60 from a solvent-based method.

And the solvent that they use is something called methyl benzene, Ritalin, which is a known carcinogen and a toxic industrial chemical. And you generally don’t want to have that in the health product you’re taking to be against inflammation. So when you’re out there, always look for like 99.9% sublimated C60. Now, it’s really the one designed for people and C60 is also used in some industrial processes, and that’s why they use that. It’s fine, but and some other things too, because I did mention how C60 kind of had, I guess it had gotten out of a, you know, in as we after we make our product. Hopefully, we can do this. Yes, we can actually we have on our side of our product, we have the QR code and after our products are made, we send it to a third-party tester and they test for for purity and concentration of C60.

So, you know, what you’re getting is safe and effective. We also have certificates of analysis. You can also, you know, that our olive oil is real olive oil. It’s not something with, you know, color. Yeah, no, the same. And it’s all organic. We got organic olive oil, and organic all of avocado oil, which I find I did it, actually when everything came out first. I got I originally got it. Everything came in extra virgin olive oil which is great. Everybody knows about all of all how good it is. But the thing is, it can go through you. I have kind of a sensitive digestive system. So, you know, it was a little too if I took too much, that would be a problem. So I put in an avocado oil, which is really easy to digest and it’s not quite as has that bite. And of course, we put it in MCT coconut oil for my friend Gary and for people that, like athletes, love those too because you get that extra boost with we’ve had some mid-pack athletes go to champions in their field. Yeah, that’s one of the few other things we put in C60 now we put it in a sugar-free or sugar gummy. There are some people still like the sugar gummy. So it’s these are really convenient to do a couple of these a day. You can just put that packet in your backpack or purse or something.

And, and also there are two others. These are just as babies that we’ve come up with. And that’s some facial products because one of the very first human studies that we have on our website is where they actually put C60 in a face cream for Japanese women. It was found that C60 in the face cream would reduce lines and wrinkles in Japanese women.. So we produced and I guess we could see that it is anti-gravity serum so that’s like a C60 for your face basically. 

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Basically, helps enhance the mitochondrial function in all the collagen, and elastin tissue so that. When that elastin breaks down, you start to get the kind of the wrinkling and the sagging in the skin.

Ken Swartz, MS

We also think because it also increases stem cell production. More stem cells and so your skin turns over really rapidly. Actually, if you get more stem cells then that also helps. And by the way, your skin is also the same tissue type as your gut. So people that take C60 internally, which, you know, usually you do they find that a lot of gut issues like leaky gut and other things, you go way down there because what’s happening, we suspect, is just if it makes your turnover in your skin cells, it’s going to make the turnover in your gut cells good as well. And so you don’t get those gaps that cause leakage, which causes inflammation, which caused the whole, you know, cycle of inflammation because good gut health is probably the key to health.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

But yeah, so we can really break it down like excess oxidative stress, excess of the bad type of oxidative stress causes this senescence or aging process within the organelles, the mitochondria, and then overall the cell as though as all the organelles within the cell are aging and becoming dysfunctional. The cell as a whole becomes aged and dysfunctional and is no longer functioning well. And that drives up inflammation in the system. And then when we start to get rid of these senescent zombie cells. Right, because they’re obviously going to cause poor function in everything, including the skin. They’re going to cause more of that sagging and aged look. And then also age spots on the skin. We get rid of those and we replace them with new young stress, resilient stem cells and also repair the cells that we can. Now, obviously, their face looks better. The skin, you know, all of our organ systems start functioning better and that’s really the mechanism here.

Ken Swartz, MS

Yeah. So that’s yes, that’s and also it also goes with that, there’s also a C60 Youth Renewal Eye Cream, which has the C60, but we also have some of those copper peptides. So copper peptides have been really found useful in the rejuvenation of the skin and actually in the hair. But we don’t have a hair product with the copper.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

So there you go. You can put it on topically, or take it in orally. And you guys have found that it absorbs best when you’ve combined it with oil. That’s why you guys have products with MCT coconut oil, Olive oil, and then also the avocado oil.

Ken Swartz, MS

Yes. Yeah, those and those are the and those are also healthy and balanced oils. You know, there’s obviously there’s all those seed oils. Yeah. Which you don’t want to eat anyway, you know, canola oil, sunflower oil, all of that, you know, cottonseed oil, all that stuff. It’s really, you don’t, that doesn’t, those omega-6 don’t belong in your diet. It’s just I mean, that’s one of the we probably talked on your other health. It’s one of the main reasons why people have such poor health today is seed oils. 

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yeah, Huge. When it comes to diet, we always say more that we can reduce sugar and high glycaemic or high, you know, basically processed carbohydrates in general, processed seed oils, and then reduce toxins in the food. We’re consumed by trying to go organic as much as possible. Those are three big changes that we recommend from a nutrition perspective. So yeah, a lot of times people will take products and they’ve got seed oils in them, right? 

Ken Swartz, MS

Yeah. You have to read and read the labels. They’re just, it’s everywhere. I was reading in Science Digest today, they were just yesterday, they found that a lot of problems with the children and are used to having mental processing issues is actually a high level of pesticide herbicides and they found if you eat organic food for two weeks, it reduces the pesticide herbicide burden in the body by 90%. Wow. That’s important. So, you know, if you can’t, you know, you can’t always get, you know, organic. But if you can get organics and there’s also if you go look at it, there’s certain fruits and vegetables which are usually just saturated with pesticides and herbicides. And so, I mean, it’s like that good ten, the bad ten, which is your dirty.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Dozen and clean 15. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you know, if you’re going to eat the outer layer, like think about an apple or a berry. If you need the outer layer, it’s probably because the, you know, different insects like the outer layer as well, and they’re going to load it up. If it’s not organic, it’s conventional. They have to load it up with a herbicide, pesticide, and things like that. If you’re not going to eat the outer layer like avocado, for example, then typically it’s much lower sprayed. So you’re usually safe getting it conventional, getting it non-organic. You know, if you’re looking to, you know, pinch pennies with your budget, otherwise just try to go all organic.

Ken Swartz, MS

Yeah. So and so that’s yeah, that’s just those, those are just, you know, important things. It’s like if I do intermittent fasting, I, you know, I like my personal things. You know, I did all these diets, right? The three white things, you know, no milk, sugar, cheese, you know, and I do other things. And I always go down to a certain level. And that was it was only when I started doing intermittent fasting where I punched down past that barrier and a couple of times I’ve gotten to my weight in high school. Although I’m not perfect. I wandered off. So, you know, I usually have like three or four pounds over my ideal weight, but still, I mean, it punched through. It just went through those barriers I used to have. And so I really encourage people to do intermittent fasting to explore it. And it’s different for men and women and so you’ve got to know what you’re doing. But, you know, studied up. But it’s just something, especially as you get older, it’s something I recommend that people do in their lives.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yeah, you and me both. I found it to be just a huge, huge game changer for so many individuals when they start doing intermittent fasting. Now back to the C60. What is the like clinical dosage where people are going to start to see results? What are the what dosage do you take? What dosage do you recommend?

Ken Swartz, MS

Well, you know, for most people, if I was younger in my thirties, it would be probably maybe at least a teaspoon, maybe a teaspoon and a half. That would work for me. I’m not in my thirties anymore and so for me it’s like a basically my weight in age, it’s a tablespoon a day. And so it’s like weight and age and so yeah, typical tablespoon a day.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Most tablespoons, what, three teaspoons. Right.

Ken Swartz, MS

Equals three teaspoons. Yeah. And even if you’re really big above 2 to 2 tablespoons which is an ounce in a British ounce American ounces is are bigger, they’re actually 50% bigger but fluid ounces. And so that’s you know that’s basically that you will probably don’t need to do more than two tablespoons a day no matter how big or old you are. But it’s just the age and so for most people, a teaspoon a day is fine, which is about one-half of these.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

So a teaspoon a day is kind of like a good maintenance dose. A tablespoon a day for somebody that’s older and really looking to kind of supercharge their health up to two tablespoons. After two tablespoons, kind of the law of diminishing returns. You take more, but you don’t get any added benefit.

Ken Swartz, MS

Yeah. And they actually tested that one of the things I mentioned, C60 doesn’t interfere with any of the body’s signaling molecules. And so, you know, your doses in the body weight are like 0.1 milligrams per kg is 0.2 milligrams per kilogram and they actually took C60 in animal test studies and they took it up to one gram per kilogram of body weight. That’s like 10,000 times the health benefit. 10000 to 5000 times the health benefits. And even at those extreme levels, there was no toxicity. Obviously, they do have, they live long, healthy lives but obviously, there’s more than we more than needed. But because C60 doesn’t interfere with any of the body’s signal molecules, it just had no toxicity at any level. And so that’s just it’s good to know that you really don’t have to worry about toxicity with C60. And it doesn’t make really any permanent chemical bonds in the body. And so it kind of washes out somewhere between 4 to 10 days, goes to different tissue types. It goes out usually the bile products and also the kidneys will excrete it. So it doesn’t hang around that long and you need to renew.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yeah, that’s really good to know. And again, you guys got it in the coconut MCT, the olive, and the avocado. Now MCT oil. I’m a huge advocate of it because I put it in my smoothie every day and I’ll add it to different foods and my body is able to tolerate it well and it increases the ketones. But a lot of people, especially when they add in too much MCT oil too quickly. They can get, you know, disaster pants, right? So they can have a laxative-like effect on the system. So you want to start slowly, maybe like half a teaspoon, and then kind of gradually build up to see how your body tolerates it. Olive oil also, you know, like olive oil, some people do great with that, even people that struggle with them. But other people will have some digestive issues, especially when you’re trying to take a larger dose, like when you start thinking, hey, I want more than a teaspoon a day. You got to consider how your body’s going to respond to the oil. And you were saying avocado oil tends to be the most palatable for people that have more sensitive GI systems.

Ken Swartz, MS

Yes. And also, you can mix the C60 with food, the C60 out there, and that just slows the digestion rate. It maybe slows the absorption. I just don’t get it. And you don’t have to worry about, you know, just disaster pants and other problems and you never dissolve. If you never digested oil before you start taking your, is going to your pancreas have got to kind of adjust and figure that out and it takes a few months on that. So putting it with your food in the morning is fine and we recommend it in the morning too because it has a bit of a stimulatory effect, you know. So if you’re one of those people, you can take coffee after dinner. You probably do not have to worry about that. 

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

You know, it’s interesting because, you know, for me, I either use it, I either put a little bit in my smoothie and I’ll have to after my workout, you know, I intermittent fast in the morning, I don’t consume anything and then I’ll either do it there or I’ll just have it like on the side when I’m having my dinner. And you know, for me, I am sensitive to caffeine, but I don’t I mean, I feel good, you know, I feel good, but I don’t it doesn’t affect my sleep at all. Right So I think it’s you know, from the energy enhancing perspective, I think it’s probably energy enhancing for most people going to be more in line with your circadian rhythm, meaning that like your mitochondria, healthy mitochondria should be, you know, in a sense, your melatonin is going to rise. You should be winding down and going into sleep mode in the evening and  I just feel like I sleep better since I’ve been taking it and more energy when I wake up in the morning. So, you know, yeah, I would say I would think I would imagine that for most people, there’s going to notice kind of more smooth energy throughout the day. And then also, you know, better sleep overall at night.

Ken Swartz, MS

Yeah, that’s kind of what happens and that the people, one of the reason that happens is your mitochondria also make ammonia which is the precursor fuel for all your cells. So your mitochondria are kicked out in your endocrine system, which is the either the first or the second tissue type, which has the most mitochondria in it. So once those mitochondria get going, they start, they take it, you know, basically take that LDL cholesterol, turn it into pregnenolone. And then depending on what tissue type, or cell type it is, it’ll turn it into whatever. You get more melatonin in the pineal gland. We’ll get maybe more human growth hormone and other master hormones in your hypothalamus pituitary gland and then T3, and T4. And, of course, you know, for T3, and T4, getting fluoride out of your diet’s really important to it. Yeah. So we should say drink non-fluoride water if you can and even shower in non-fluoride water. And of course, your adrenals which is, oh, I should also bring up a counter indication if you’re on blood thinners you probably should consult with your doctor or health care professional before you take C60 because one of the things the C60 restarts, you know, the mitochondria in the adrenals and adrenals make mineralocorticoids, which are the thing that regulates your blood thickness. So if you’re on a blood thinner and your adrenal starts functioning again, now your blood can be too thin. And so, you know, and so really you need to talk to your doctor, and if you want to proceed forward, get more testing. You know tests don’t guess. So that, and we’ve had the same thing to a certain extent people on hormone replacement therapy typical case we have a guy 70 years old because it was doctors his testosterone is 350 which is low.. His doctor has given him creams that he’s up by like the low seven hundred, which is I get that’s a good place. He’s been there. Then he started taking C60 two months later he goes into his like maybe quarterly or biannual test and his testosterone is now 1200. So the doctor backs him off on a cream. So that’s something to be aware of because one of the side effects of C60 is a big increase in libido. So, which is a rise in the androgens obviously. And so that’s just something to be aware of when you’re taking C60.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yeah, that’s key. And you know, going back to sleep with melatonin. Melatonin is this amazing hormone, in particular we know like for example, a lot of research coming out about infrared light, increasing mitochondrial melatonin. A lot of times we think about melatonin just as a sleep hormone, which is super key for that. But also it helps to buffer oxidative stress in the mitochondria as well. And as people are aging, they’re producing less and less melatonin. So it affects their ability to sleep, get really, really good rest, and also their ability to repair their mitochondria. So C60 can really come in and help support that.

Ken Swartz, MS

Yeah, I actually have one of those Infrared things your head sticks out of it.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Definitely. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Ken Swartz, MS

That’s just, I find that’s really improved my health. Just, you know, I’m not a medical doctor to give medical advice, but my personal experience, you know, was, is little infrared saunas. They’re portable, they’re easy. They’re not too, and you can put them just about anywhere. And it’s really helped push my blood pressure I’m getting up a little bit that but when infrared I started doing that and she’s back down in the normal range.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yeah super powerful. So yeah you can stack a lot of these biohackers and that would just help support your health and your longevity even more. Well, Ken, this has been great. I mean, I always I always love talking with you. I love talking about mitochondrial science and nerding out on that and all the great benefits of carbon 60. And of course, people can find more information at shopc60.com and that’s where they can find the products you guys have researched there and then you also mentioned whatisc60.org for more research as well as.

Ken Swartz, MS

whatisc60.org and you can get in there and it gives you it has bunch of links to all these research papers and also a little synopsis off on the side and kind of you know what is this research paper about. Kind of it’s put in categories. And so you can you kind of learn a lot by just going there and learn, you know, all the different things the C60, the works, the C60, the dozens. And because it’s got to be dissolved, it can’t be particles.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Great stuff. Well, Ken, thanks again always enjoy our conversations look forward to speaking with you again here soon. Be blessed.