Longevity science often feels like a crowded field of trends, but few discoveries are as grounded in materials science as ESS60. In this episode, we sit down with Chris Burres, the founder and CEO of MyVitalC, to explore the surprising origins of this carbon-60 molecule—once used for superconductors, now researched for its potential to buffer oxidative stress and extend healthspan. We dive into the science of how ESS60 operates within the mitochondria to manage reactive oxygen species, potentially offering systemic benefits for sleep, focus, and energy. Whether you are a seasoned biohacker or just beginning your wellness journey, this deep dive into the “BOSS” (Buffering Oxidative Stress System) theory offers a practical, science-backed perspective on how we can fundamentally redefine what is possible in the aging process.

The information presented in Fully Alive is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment and before making changes to your health regimen. Guests’ opinions are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the podcast host, production team, or sponsors.

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Why ESS60 Is Changing The Longevity Game: The Truth About Carbon 60 With MyVitalC CEO, Chris Burres

Welcome back to the show, where we are unlocking the secrets to your healthier, happier, and longer life. Our episode is a fascinating one because we’re stepping into a part of the longevity conversation that sounds almost too good to be true, but it is grounded in real science and a very unexpected discovery. My guest is Chris Burres, the founder and CEO of MyVitalC and author of a book called Live Longer and Better: Your Journey to Living Longer and Better Has Never Been More Achievable Than Today.

Chris did not come from a traditional health or medical background. In fact, his journey started in material science, but along the way, he became deeply involved in one of the most intriguing compounds in the longevity space today, a molecule called ESS60. Some of you may have heard of C60, and this is another version of that compound that is safe for human consumption. Early in his research, this molecule was associated with a dramatic extension of lifespan in animal studies.

Since then, Chris has been on a mission to understand its potential, share that science, and really help people think differently about aging, oxidative stress, and what might actually be possible when it comes to extending our healthspan. Chris brings a unique combination of curiosity, persistence, and a willingness to challenge conventional thinking. You’re going to find this conversation both thought-provoking and surprisingly practical. Let us dive into our conversation with Chris Burres.

  

  

Chris, thank you so much for being with us. I am so excited for this conversation. Personally, I am a big fan of the work that you are doing and the products that you are creating personally. I am excited for my own benefits, but also just for our audience to get to hear from you and learn from you. Thank you so much for being here with us.

Zach, thank you so much for having me. I am excited. I would love to come on a podcast and get super geeky and then make sure everybody understands the super geekiness and shares the research behind this amazing molecule.

From Engineering To Longevity: The Origins Of ESS60

I would love to just start with your own personal journey a little bit if we could. It is always intriguing to me how people end up where they end up, and you are doing something that is very unique and studying a molecule that is not really broadly known. I am sure our listeners are going to be introduced to that here in a minute. Can you take us back and help us understand how you end up where you are? You said you have been studying this since 1991, which was twenty-plus years before it actually became known in the mainstream or biohacking culture. You have been at this for a long time. How did you end up there?

When you think about people who are typically in the health space or supplement space, or even just delivering wellness to people, health and wellness to people, there is often this pain-to-passion story. Part of me is envious of those. The other part is very glad I did not have the pain part. I should certainly have the passion part. The way I ended up here is that I always knew that I was going to be an entrepreneur. When I went to school, I chose a course of study. I am great in math, great in science.

The supplement industry, like when I send it to average Joe, average Joe does not have an HPLC, average Joe does not have a scientific scale.

I am like, “What is the fastest way to a high salary so that I can have money to invest in a business in order to be an entrepreneur?” I studied mechanical engineering, and a couple of things went wrong with my plan. First, it took a lot longer to graduate with an engineering degree. It is a really rigorous course of study. That took me six years. I did get a minor in computer science and math. The other thing that went wrong is that I actually started the company before I even graduated from college. My business partner, Robert, and I started the business. We started selling this molecule in 1991.

The way that that happened is that my business partner, Robert, was working at the Texas Center for Superconductivity. This is an institution that is housed inside the University of Houston campus, like go Cougs. He was separating this recently discovered molecule. The molecule we are going to talk about was discovered in 1985. The three scientists who discovered it won the Nobel Prize in 1996. It was discovered right here at Rice University, here in Houston, where we are based. He was working at the Texas Center for Superconductivity, and he was separating this material.

It turns out the material has amazing applications. One of them is actually superconducting. He is separating this material. One day, Dr. Paul Chu, by the way, incredibly famous, you have never heard of him, but incredibly famous in the superconductivity world. In fact, the building that was on the University of Houston campus, we called it Chu’s Castle because it was built in honor of Dr. Paul Chu. One day, Dr. Chu comes in and says to my business partner, Robert, and his lab associate, “You guys are young kids. This molecule is selling for $6,000 a gram. You should start a business.”

My business partner, Robert, is from an entrepreneurial background. I joke that he did a back-of-a-napkin calculation, which had only one line, $6,000 a gram, like nothing else, and he started building it. In order to manufacture this molecule, you actually have to vaporize graphite. By the way, it is a naturally occurring molecule, and we may get into that at one point, so everybody in your audience has actually been exposed to it. I am kind of sidetracked briefly. If you collect the soot of a candle flame, you will get that deep, dark soot.

That deep dark soot has parts per million or parts per billion of this ESS60 molecule. If you want to make quantities that are appreciable, that you can sell to scientists so that they can do research, you actually have to vaporize graphite in an inert environment. No oxygen at a slight vacuum. It is a vacuum chamber. These are all extremely challenging, not to mention that graphite is one of the hardest materials on the planet to vaporize. You actually need local temperatures of the sun to vaporize graphite.

You get local temperatures of the sun, you can have no oxygen present, and you also need to be in a vacuum. I am studying mechanical engineering. They brought me in to help manage the heat, to help design it, to help do the drawings. That is how we ended up starting. We delivered our first quantities in 1991, a full five years before the lead scientist won the Nobel Prize. I will share. I am not a very braggadocious person, so this is probably as extreme as I will get. It is not unreasonable to suggest that the fact that we were delivering commercial quantities of carbon nanomaterials.

This ESS60 molecule, to research institutions around the world, and scientists could now get their hands on it, do experiments with it, and understand its value, which is part of the reason that the three scientists who discovered it won the Nobel Prize, or at least in terms of the timeframe. I will share. This is part of the reason they won the Nobel Prize. This molecule is absolutely amazing. It performs as well or better than the current best material in almost every application.

It makes better inks, better batteries, better tires, better photocells. This is where people often get nervous. We are like, “This is the health and wellness podcast.” He just said inks, batteries, tires, and photocells. Probably no one in your audience woke up, looked at their car, and thought, “I wonder what part of my car battery I should be taking on a daily basis for my health.” I know I am getting a little long-winded, so bear with me. The story actually gets a little bit worse at first.

For various reasons, they thought this ESS60 molecule would be toxic. They put it in a toxicity study, and now the story starts to get better. Instead of being toxic, the test subjects that they gave it to, in this case, Wistar rats, lived 90% longer than the control group. The single longest longevity experimental result on mammals in history, peer-reviewed published research, is because of this ESS60 molecule dissolved in olive oil.

I’m very proud to share that my lab provided the material. My lab is mentioned in that original study. I will just share our most consistent testimonial. When people take it in the morning, they report mental focus and energy during the day and then better sleep that night. I have been talking for a while, lots to go. I will turn it back over to you in case you have some probing questions for this journey.

You are like the guru of this molecule. You are at, from the ground floor, from before the ground floor, from the bottom up. You are right there at the beginning. It is really fun to dive into a topic like this with someone like you who has really been at this the whole time that it has been going on. Okay, walk us through. Some people may have heard of C60. Before I met you, I had taken C60 and heard about C60, but this is slightly different, ESS60. Can you walk us through what this molecule is that you are talking about? We can dive into all the other benefits and how you make things like that.

I have got a model here. I will hold that up. This is a podcast. I know a lot of people may not be watching the video. Just imagine a soccer ball where the lines on the soccer ball represent the bonds between the carbon atoms. You have a spherical molecule of 60 carbon atoms in the shape of a soccer ball. It is 60 carbon atoms, carbon 60, C60. The way we think about it is carbon 60, C60, which is for industrial purposes. There is peer-reviewed published research that shows that if you improperly process it, it is harmful. ESS60, which stands for elemental safe spheres, 60 atoms.

The element is, of course, carbon. ESS60 is C60 that has been processed for people and pets. We think that is an important distinction. I will add on top of that, another reason that we really started moving ESS60 into the forefront is that we tested 22 of the products in the C60 space, and all of them, except for one, and we already talked about that, the one that you have tried. All of them, except for that one, and of course ours, were woefully low in concentration.

As I shared before we got started, there are actually two products that are on the market that claim they have C60, but they do not have any C60. If I come on every show I go on and it is my job to grow this industry, as I do that, if I am talking about C60, I am actually putting people at risk in my mind. At risk of having an inferior experience, that is probably the bigger risk. Potentially, we just do not know, most of these companies that were selling it used to buy it from us.

We have such high standards that our price held solid, and people just started buying from other places. I do not know where they are buying it from, which fundamentally makes me nervous. They were buying it from us. Now they do not. As I said, two products do not have C60 in them. Concentrations are low. ESS60 is a way that I can keep people first and foremost safe, and second, with a high concentration.

Understanding Carbon 60: The Science Behind The Molecule

Let us talk about someone, you know, a lot of people are probably just hearing about this for the first time. It is a carbon six. It is 60 carbon molecules in the shape of a soccer ball. The sphere you held up very, very much looks like a soccer ball. That is helpful to visualize, and it has these amazing antioxidant properties. Can you explain how that works physiologically when we take it?

If it is okay, because it is a fun piece of the journey. It is also in my book. I do have a book called Live Longer and Better: Your Journey to Living Longer and Better Has Never Been More Achievable Than Today. I talk about a lot of this stuff. This really was a fascinating journey because I am at this point, this study comes out in mid-2012, where the rats live 90% longer than the control group. At this point, I am the chief scientist of a carbon nanomaterial manufacturing business, so very happy delivering research-grade quality materials to research institutions around the world.

By the way, that is one of the most stringent markets you will ever sell into because they have grad students, they have researchers, so whoever we send it to, whether it is a research organization, whether it is an institution, a university, they have got people to test the material we send them, and they also have the equipment and the processes to test it. This is not what the supplement industry is like. The supplement industry, like when I send it to average Joe, average Joe does not have an HPLC, average Joe does not have a scientific scale.

  

  

We are selling into this really stringent market. The study came out in 2012, mid-2013, and we started getting phone calls from this crazy, wacky group of people called biohackers. I know you consider yourself one, and I can say that affectionately because I consider myself one. They were like, “We read this one study, how much should we be taking on a daily basis?” What we heard, what my business partner, Robert, and I heard was, “That stuff that you sell to research institutions to put into inks, batteries, tires, and photocells, how much should we be taking on a daily basis?”

Both my business partner and I thought zero. We have conservative carbon nanomaterial hats on. We actually added “Not for human consumption” to our labeling in mid-2013. Let me be clear, in the literature, it is understood to be safe. We are just conservative carbon nanomaterial scientists. We think from 1991 all the way to mid-2013, we do not have “Not for human consumption” in our labeling. Now we add it. This turned into an interesting situation where we are getting 2 to 3 phone calls per week, again, from this crazy, wacky group of people called biohackers.

They sounded something like this, “Chris, my knee pain is gone.” I would say, “Joe, you mean the knee pain of your rat because it literally says not for human consumption on the labeling.” He would go, “Yes, if my rat weighs 275 pounds and does HIIT training on Wednesdays and Fridays, should I take an extra, I mean, should my rat take an extra serving on Wednesdays and Fridays?” We knew what was going on, and we were okay with it because, really, when you dug in deep, it was safe according to the literature. Two to three phone calls per week.

My business partner and I are getting together every single quarter, literally in the conference room behind me. Do we want to get into the supplement market? Our answer was no. It is generous to say that the supplement market is challenged. We are just happy, lucky carbon nanomaterial scientists selling to research institutions around the world. That did not change until the latter part of 2017. In this timeframe, from mid-2013 to 2017, I found a research paper that showed that 50% of the supplements that this research group had purchased off the market did not have in them what they said they had in them.

It is generous to say that the supplement market is challenged.

This is exactly why Robert and I were deciding not to get into this industry, because it just does not have the credibility that we are used to. Finally, in the latter part of 2017, a guy with a big YouTube following, that is how everything changes these days. He starts talking about all the benefits he is getting, taking it on a daily basis. Our phone went from ringing 2 to 3 times a week to 10 times a day. In that quarterly meeting, Robert and I are discussing, do we want to get into the supplement market. First, it is a bigger business opportunity than we had realized.

We certainly wish we were smarter and had thought of that sooner or realized it sooner. We also looked back at that paper that I had found and realized that 50% of the supplements in the market do not have what they say they have in them,” was going to happen in this space. We are the oldest and longest manufacturer and distributor of this molecule on the planet. We have been delivering this research-quality material to research institutions around the world, which we still do today. We are in a unique position to bring a super high-quality product to market.

We asked ourselves two questions. The first question is a moral question. Are we comfortable selling it? I take it, my wife takes it, everybody on our team here takes it. By the way, that is not a requirement to work here. We do not have to clock in and take your shot of MyVitalC. Really, just everybody here has access to the research, as everybody does. They also, I think more importantly, have access to the testimonials. The customer service is managed here. They can hear the phone calls, they can read the testimonials, so everybody here does take it.

We are morally comfortable selling it. The next is legal. From an FDA and an FTC perspective, you have got to cross the T’s, you have got to dot the I’s. We are certainly doing that. At the beginning of 2018, we started bringing this molecule to market, which really was an interesting flip for me from just being the chief scientist for a carbon nanomaterial manufacturing business to now also being the chief scientist of a health and wellness business. I can talk a little bit about that journey, but let me see if there is anything, any questions I can answer, or anything.

Navigating Safety: The Difference Between C60 And ESS60

That is fascinating and very helpful. I want to understand a little bit about the difference between C60 and ESS60. At what point did that come into the story? How did you differentiate those two and determine that this one is now safe for human consumption? What is the difference in actual? Is there a difference in actual molecules, or how does that, is it how it’s made, or how do we get there?

The reality is, I will continue to call it ESS60. I know your audience might be interested in consuming it, but if you had a pile of this ESS60 molecule. It would be a black crystalline powder, like no surprise there, it’s carbon, like crystals, like sugar or salt crystals. You can consume that, assuming it’s ESS60, but it is not water-soluble. You would just excrete it. I am telling this for two reasons. One, that is why it is dissolved in olive oil. When you do dissolve it in olive oil, you break those crystals down to the individual molecules in the olive oil.

Basically infinitely more bioavailable. The fact that it is not water-soluble means that you need to use solvents that are aggressive in the process of isolating this molecule. I told you, you vaporize graphite in an inert environment, so that is already challenging. What I did not share yet is that the soot that comes out of this, that really nasty, dark, and horrible to work with, is only ten percent fullerenes. When I say fullerenes, that is a name for a collection of molecules. Carbon 60, carbon 70, carbon 76, carbon 84. That is a collection of molecules called fullerenes.

The fact that it is not water-soluble means that you need to use solvents that are aggressive in the process of isolating this molecule.

Only ten percent of that is fullerenes. The other 90% is amorphous carbon junk. It is just stuff that is in the way. How do you separate things like that? For example, if you had sugar and sand and you wanted to separate those two things, you would dissolve the sugar in water and then filter it. The sand would stay on top of the filter, and the sugar would go through with the water in solution, and then you would boil off the water, and now you have your sugar. Same thing here with the fullerenes and the amorphous carbon junk. You actually dissolve them in a polar solvent.

You filter it. The 90% of the carbon junk stays on top of it, and then through this solution come the fullerenes. You boil off that solution. Now you have your powder. That solution is not a pleasant solution. It’s things like toluene, hexane, and by the way, a lot of people immediately like, “This is a supplement, and there is hexane in the process.” Most extracts, when you are looking at plant extracts, use a solvent similar to this. The food industry knows how to work with solvents and deliver a quality product.

You use these solvents, you isolate this C60 molecule, and now your challenge is you have got to get these solvents off. I am going to just pause here for a second. There is a company that suggests that they make their C60 never exposed to solvents. That is not happening. That is just not happening. It is in the realm of possibilities, and we certainly know how to do it. We test these things regularly. It is outside the scope of being financially feasible. I have done videos on that, like this is just not happening. They are exposed to solvents. Now, the thing is, how do we get these solvents off?

I described that when you run this through a filter, you boil off the solvents, certainly, and you might have some interstitial. You boil and vacuum, and then we have a proprietary wash that really works to get these down to undetectable levels. That is the product. I have some people like, “If it’s ever been exposed to solvents, then I would never want to take that again.” A lot of plant extracts, a lot of products that are on the market, have been exposed to solvents that you would never want to consume.

The industry knows how to manage those. I also point out in that original study that my lab provided the material. My lab is mentioned in that original study. Those rats live 90% longer than the control group. Let us just pretend there were some solvents there. It did not negatively impact the rats. They live 90% longer than the control group. That addresses that. It is that vacuum oven baking process and that proprietary wash that turns it into this ESS60 that C60 that has been processed for people and pets.

Were you always making ESS60, or were you making C60? When you switched into the more supplement space, that is when you did this addition?

As soon as we came to understand that people were going to be putting this molecule into an oil for human consumption. That is when we kind of started processing this better. As I am selling it to a research institution, they know that there are some residual solvents, and they do not care about it because it is going into other experiments. As we came to understand these, I will give you an example. There was one company that was buying a lower grade. We actually did not really know what was going on with this. We were aware of the study. We’re kind of meeting. The sales of our C60 grade products were going up, and we did not know exactly why.

As we started putting the pieces together, we realized that there was one organization, and I think they are still around. The company is called Good and Cheap. They were buying a lesser grade material, and we told them, “You cannot buy that material if you’re going to put it in oil and sell it.” They stopped buying from us. We refused to sell them the lower grade, and they moved somewhere else. Again, to give you a perspective on this supplement space that Robert and I tried not to get into.

You mentioned just for our listeners to be aware, there are 22 different companies selling carbon 60 or C60 on the market, but only one other, including yours, actually has this process that you just described and is making high-grade ESS60, which is safe for human consumption.

I will say it two ways. One, we do not even have high quality. We do not know their manufacturing process. They do not actually buy from us yet. We’re trying to work on that because he is another brilliant scientist in space. I would love to partner with him and work diligently to keep everybody in the space safe. What we were looking at was the concentration. The claim that there was about 0.8 milligrams per milliliter in the product. His was the only product that did meet that. I will share the time when you get down to minimal residual solvents, and then you dissolve it into a large quantity of olive oil, it would meet basically any EPA spec or FDA spec in terms of solvents inside that product.

How ESS60 Enhances Mitochondrial Function

Let us shift gears and talk about what actually happens when you take ESS60. How does it physiologically work? I know it is an antioxidant and has all these amazing benefits for reducing inflammation and things like that, but can you break it down for our listeners? What does this do inside our bodies?

The answer is yes. I am going to kind of walk through my thought process, as okay, I am stepping into this role as a chief scientist of a health and wellness product. In the first place, like, why might we be getting these results? Why did Joe’s knee pain go away? By the way, let me just interject, the FDA has not evaluated our product. It is not intended to treat, diagnose, cure, or prevent any disease. I will be sharing anecdotes. Best to assume this will not happen for you. Kind of dig into the research, and if it makes sense for you, there will be, we will kind of share a link with you on how you might be able to try this.

Our most consistent testimonial was that people took it in the morning, reported mental focus and energy during the day, and then better sleep that night. If you improve your sleep, you will improve your mental, physical, and emotional well-being. That is the first place that we landed on. In fact, we did an ad hoc study, a small cohort. It was a survey study where we were asking things like, how well did you rest? How easy was it to fall asleep? How restless was your sleep? This crossover study basically collected ten days of data prior to taking the product, ten days while they were on the product, ten days off the product, and then ten days back on the product.

If you improve your sleep, you will improve your mental, physical, and emotional well-being.

Hundred percent of the participants reported improvements in sleep when they were on the product. Sleep is the first place that we hang our hat. The next thing is, I looked at these rats that live 90% longer. What does the medical community think about aging? They do not all agree, but they tend to think of it as an oxidation and an inflammation process. In terms of oxidation and more specifically antioxidants, there is an ad hoc study on the web showing us to be 172 times more powerful than vitamin C. There is peer-reviewed published research showing us to be 125 times more powerful than vitamin C.

I am in Houston, Texas, so we put a big old check mark on antioxidant. When it comes to inflammation, we have to be really careful because the FDA equates conversations of inflammation with the diseases of inflammation, which are also the diseases of aging. Arthritis, Alzheimer’s, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Because they equate these two, I come on your show. If I say I address inflammation, what the FDA hears me as is claiming I cure cancer, I cure cardiovascular disease. We are absolutely not claiming that.

There is so much research that would need to go into this molecule. Frankly, extremely expensive research to be able to make those claims. What the FDA does allow us to share is that we address inflammation at least as it relates to exercise-induced inflammation. We have all had a tough workout or maybe just walked further than normal, woken up the next day, and felt that sense of inflammation in our body. The FDA allows us to say we address that type of inflammation. What is driving this? What is driving this antioxidant benefit?

What is driving inflammation, at least as it relates to exercise? This is where we land on the BOSS theory. The BOSS theory stands for Buffering Oxidative Stress System. The foundations of this theory are that we know from peer-reviewed published research that this ESS60 molecule gets into the mitochondria. We also know from way back in the 90s that this ESS molecule can hold up to six negatively charged particles on the exterior of the cage. What does that ultimately look like? Quick refresher. The mitochondria are the powerhouse of every cell.

There are between 50 and 5,000 mitochondria in every cell in your body, except for your blood cells, which have zero, and your brain and neurons, which have two million. It is amazing how much energy our nervous system uses relative to our other systems. Any power source, the power source of every cell. With any power source, there is a negative byproduct. If you think about your car going down the road, you have got exhaust. You think about a power plant, you have a smokestack with smoke. In the case of mitochondria, it is a reactive oxygen species.

The way I picture these, left to their own devices, they are like little bumper cars running around your body, and everything they smack into, they cause rust, they cause oxidative stress, oxidative damage, ultimately, inflammaging. That sounds horrible, and it is. As with so many biological systems in our body, there is a way to manage this. The way your mitochondria manage it is with the internal antioxidants, glutathione and melatonin. I like to pause here for a second because melatonin is the sleep hormone, and our most consistent testimonial involves sleep.

We are talking about those two things and how they interact inside the mitochondria. You have healthy mitochondria, it is producing reactive oxygen species, and they are being bound by glutathione and melatonin. What happens when you stress a mitochondrion? Obviously begs the question, how do you stress a mitochondrion? I like to point out that if you are alive in modern society, you have stressed mitochondria. Smoking, drinking, smog, EMF radiation from your phone, off of your devices, maybe a plane flight, tough emails, driving in traffic, you have stressed mitochondria.

At that point, the mitochondria start producing more reactive oxygen species than can be managed by the internal glutathione and melatonin. That is when, if they are left to their own devices, they run around your body, causing that oxidative stress and oxidative damage. That is where the ESS60 molecule comes in. Remember, peer-reviewed published research, it is in the mitochondria. Back in the 90s, it could hold up to six negatively charged particles. The BOSS theory suggests that this holds on to up to six negatively charged reactive oxygen species, so they cannot run around and do damage.

When your mitochondria can replenish the glutathione and replenish the melatonin, then they can grab them off the ESS60 molecule and manage them properly. That is why we say the ESS60 molecule is the BOSS. Buffering Oxidative Stress System. A lot of mitochondrial talk, whatever. I do have a fun analogy, and I do not know if you agree with me. I feel like all biological analogies should start with Mardi Gras. Of course, of course they should. A lot of biology happens at Mardi Gras. Why not?

When your mitochondria can replenish the glutathione and replenish the melatonin, then they can grab them off the ESS60 molecule and manage them properly.

It is the end of Mardi Gras, and you have these drunk reactive oxygen species on Bourbon Street, running around, rusting, spray painting stuff, smashing windows. You have the New Orleans Police Department, the glutathione, and the melatonin coming onto Bourbon Street, handcuffing themselves to those reactive oxygen species and getting them off of Bourbon Street. What happens when the New Orleans Police Department gets overwhelmed? They take those reactive oxygen species, and they stick them in a paddy wagon.

They attach them to the exterior of the ESS60 molecule so they cannot do any damage. When the New Orleans Police Department can replenish the glutathione, can replenish the melatonin, then they can handcuff themselves to those reactive oxygen species and get them off of Bourbon Street. A summary of this is that we believe that we are reducing the negative impact of stressed mitochondria. If you reduce the negative impact of stressed mitochondria because they are in every cell in your body, you should have systemic benefits. You should have what we have, which are head-to-toe testimonials.

Thanks for breaking that down. Essentially, it is like this super-powerful, amazing antioxidant that does all those things you just mentioned. What happens to the C60? After those reactive oxidative species are taken back by the New Orleans Police Department, glutathione and melatonin, then does the C60 get flushed out through the liver, or how does it clear?

It is excreted, and the data in the literature suggests about ten days. Our testimonials suggest in about ten days. I have got a business coach, the way he describes it is, for 50 years, he needed an alarm clock to wake up when he was taking the product. He no longer needs the alarm clock. I like to point out whether it is a business late night, business drinks, or business dinner, or what, or none of that matters, except if he does not get the product for about ten days, then he starts to need the alarm clock, which again, coincides with what is in the literature.

We think of it more as a buffer than an actual antioxidant. I picture it almost like a bucket where you have these extra reactive oxygen species. They get stuck in the bucket. When those mitochondria replenish the glutathione and melatonin, then they go in and grab it. It is not grabbing these reactive oxygen species. It is not an additional process. It is actually a process that allows your body to do its job. It gives it that buffer so it can do its job.

It sounds like you can, you would be able to essentially, hypothetically or not necessarily hypothetically, anecdotally feel the benefits within a day or two of taking the product.

What To Expect: A Three-Month Roadmap To Systemic Health

People ask frequently what they might experience with the product. We think of it in terms of a three-month response with some stuff happening in the beginning. By the way, the three-month response has very significant parallels with our most consistent testimonial, taking it in the morning, mental focus and energy during the day, and then better sleep that night. Month one, we look at it as focus and energy. I lean on one particular testimonial for this. Got some products from an influencer. She took it in the morning, recorded her video that evening, and she pointed out that she did not finish her cup of coffee that morning.

If you are a coffee drinker, one, not finishing it, and two, even noticing that you did not finish it, sometimes you’re like, “Today I did not,” but to notice it and put it in the video, big deal. I will share that I used to have 2 to 3 cups of coffee per day. I am now halfway through a cup of coffee. It is a lot about the ritual. I come to the office, I make my coffee, and I will be honest, that is when I take my MyVitalC. I am nervous about changing that routine because I can tell you this. In 2018, when I started taking this on a regular basis, it was not yet part of my coffee routine.

  

  

I could get to 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon, and if I felt like I needed another cup of coffee or I needed a nap, I could always look back, and I had not taken the product that morning. For me, having it as part of my routine is pretty important. That is my month one. Focus and energy. It is very well documented in the literature. If you reduce saturated fats, if you replace them with something like olive oil, and we do use a high-quality extra virgin olive oil, there can be some weight loss benefits. In month two, it is really about deep sleep.

I believe actually sleep is happening across month one. The reality is, everybody gets a little bit more or less sleep every day, and so it can be really hard to go, “I started taking MyVitalC, and I noticed my sleep immediately,” because a little bit better sleep is something that happens regularly. I will share, and this is just in the last three weeks, a couple of people I have been on calls with, like, “Chris, I haven’t really noticed anything.” I have said, “How’s your dreaming been?” Their eyes get like Bambi big, because they are dreaming and remembering their dreams again.

That coincides with this better sleep. Really, what I think is going on, you have about, if you are getting the proper amount of sleep, you are having about 5 to 6 sleep cycles, which includes REM sleep, NREM sleep, and some deep sleep at the beginning of the evening. Each one of these cycles, this is how I picture it. You have got tasks that your physiology needs to do, like repair mitochondria, cement emotions, cement learning, and repair muscle. If your mitochondria are already managed, then you get to skip that piece and move on to the next one.

Cementing emotions is something that happens in REM sleep, which is where you dream. That is what is going on in month two. I shared the testimonial with my business coach, who needed an alarm clock. Finally, in month three, there are really systemic benefits. It is just that if you think about reducing the negative impact of stressed mitochondria, it should be these systemic impacts. We have to be really careful. We cannot share them until we actually do more research.

They are just so powerful and disease-focused that we cannot talk about them until we do the actual research. I will share my father-in-law. He was walking with a cane. When it came to about the three-month mark, he stopped using the cane and started walking farther. Not because of our product, but because of walking farther, he starts losing weight. That is the systemic benefit that we see in month three.

The Future Of Clinical Trials And Intellectual Property

There has been a study that has been done on rats, and they live 90% longer. Is there some pushback, or how is it taking such a long time? I know, doing FDA double-blind, placebo-controlled studies is extremely expensive and hard to do, but why isn’t there more human research that has already been done, or what is the pushback on that?

The short answer is intellectual property. There is no opportunity to patent this molecule in any of these applications. Big pharma, the organization that would have the money for big, expensive double-blind studies, is not interested. Having said that, we are planning to start. We have already started a headache study. It is actually a severe headache and a frequent headache study. That is already up and available, actually going through the initial process. People can sign up to be included once we launch it. We had a premature launch.

It did not go that well with a couple of clump participants. We believe that is all fixed. That is actually up and running. We’re doing another one for HSCRP. Here is why we are doing HSCRP. We had Dr. Lane Young come up to our booth at A4M in Las Vegas. A4M is the American Academy of Anti-Aging. He said the following, but by the way, he said it, and then I was like, “Dr. Young, I need to record this. You’ve got to say it again.” I know what he said. He said, “I do not care if you’re male, female, pre-surgery, post-surgery, cardiovascular disease, or otherwise healthy.

Your product is reducing elevated HSCRP.” He was talking about HSCRP, and HSCRP stands for high-sensitivity C-reactive protein. It is often used to assess cardiovascular risk and cancer risk. It was like reducing elevated HSCRP numbers from nine to the normal range. Zero point nine under one is the normal range in four to six weeks, and also seeing a 20% to 60% increase in HRV, which is heart rate variability and sleep. He finished the video with, “I just believe this is something we should keep in our break room for our employees.”

It is just like you want them to function better. Keep it in your break room for your employees. We are doing an HSCRP study. I already mentioned our kind of ad hoc sleep study. We’re doing a more formalized clinical trial on sleep. Finally, we have some cosmetic products. If you might be able to imagine how I hesitated bringing a supplement into the health and wellness space, I did not want to do that.

When a business partner suggested we should make a cosmetic, I was like, “That sounds amazing. That’s why I woke up today.” Having said that, we did in fact create a two-parter which has a peptide. All the rage right now, peptide. We call the peptide UTH-29, and it has our ESS60 as the activator. There are actually two separate bottles because the peptide is water-soluble and the ESS60 molecule is oil-soluble. You can shove those things together with an emulsifier, but an emulsifier, I do not like how emulsifiers sound. If you Google them, there are no health benefits. There are only health detractions from an emulsifier, so we decided to keep it separate.

The UTH-29, which stands for Youth 29 as the peptide. You do one squirt of the lotion and then two drops of the ESS60 activator. You actually activate it right there, in real-time, in your hand, and then apply it to everything that might show aging. We’re doing an age spot and wrinkles study clinical trial for that particular skin redo set. I will just point out that this makes us a very weird supplement company. Most supplement companies do not do any research, and even fewer publish. We published in 2024, we published in 2025, we will be publishing this year. We will be starting these clinical trials this year.

Addressing Safety: Side Effects, Medications, And Real-World Results

Congrats on that. That is super helpful. I love that you’re a scientist who is approaching this and an entrepreneur, but still, you’re having a high level of rigor. Are there any adverse effects or have there ever been published adverse effects of taking C60? Is there anybody who should not take ESS60?

At this point, there is nothing in the literature that suggests this has a negative interaction with any medication. If it is a serious medication, certainly have a conversation with your doctor. Also, no indications of counterindications with a different supplement or anything. People ask me things like, “Is there a toxicity?” I joke, the toxicity of our product is the same as the toxicity of olive oil, which involves drowning. Really, what will happen is if you get enough oil into your stomach, you will just throw it up.

That is probably technically poisoning, but it is not getting into your system and causing damage. You just cannot, you will not be able to keep it down. Really, we’re unaware of the toxicity level. I will share this as a fun testimonial. We have a guy, Anthony Kunkel. He is a two-time US ultra running champion, and absolutely loves our product. In my first conversation with him, I was just blown away. He shared, “I was taking one serving of your product, and I did not really notice anything.” By the way, he won the US championship at 50 miles and at 100K, like this guy clocks miles crazy.

He said, “I didn’t really notice anything.” I joke, like all good biohackers, he tripled the servings. By the way, there are things that you should never triple. Do not triple everything, but it is okay with this product. When he tripled it, he said, “I was blown away. I thought your product could be the difference between somebody having running as a hobby and running as a career.”

He went on to say, “I do not believe that your product speeds exercise recovery. I believe it prevents damage in the first place.” The reason he said it is because on the last five miles of a 50-mile run, which by the way is a phrase you may never hear again, where strength and stability used to be a problem, they are no longer a problem. That coincides with this. If we are being that buffer for that oxidative stress, then we are helping to manage the damage that is occurring while he is running his 50 miles, while he is running his 100K. That is, he tripled his servings right off the bat.

Optimizing Your Protocol: Cycling, Sleep Tracking, And Personal Anecdotes

That’s impressive. What about cycling on and off? Is this something you take seven days a week, or do you take it five days and rest for two, or how do you work that in?

I personally take it seven days a week. It is part of my coffee routine. I will sometimes fall off on the weekends because my coffee routine is not as solid as it is during the week, but that is not an intentional cycling on or off. I will tell you the last time I intentionally cycled off. I am just going to share this. This is an anecdote. This is not making claims. I am the geeky guy who is in front of you. I have a spreadsheet back to 2014 tracking my 4 to 5 migraines per year. I was tracking them to try. Migraines are horrible.

When you hear stories about going into a quiet room with no lights, it needs to be cold, no sound, that is where they were. I was tracking them to try to figure out what was causing them and how to get rid of them, 4 to 5 per year. When I started taking this product in 2018, I did not get a migraine for eighteen months. I should have had at this point, 6 or 7 migraines, but I did not have a single migraine. The reason I got a migraine is that I actually went off our product to join our sleep study. When I went off our product for those ten days, that is when I got my first migraine in eighteen months.

I will share, I am always transparent, I get about 1 or 2 migraines now, but they are extremely different from what they used to be. They used to be the debilitating go to bed, dark room, no sound. Now it starts, I can feel it. There is an aura in my vision. I get a sliver of my vision that looks like a kaleidoscope. It actually starts on the outside. It ends up in the center of my vision and then goes away in about fifteen minutes. I can work through it. I could easily record a podcast is a no-brainer.

If I am reading, I do not know if you have ever tried to read through a kaleidoscope. That is extreme. What ends up happening is if I have to read, I will read around the edges of it. It actually is a little bit painful. As I said, last for about fifteen. It is dramatically different. We have enough testimonials, including my wife, including a podcaster who shared the impact it had on her husband. That is, in fact, why we’re doing our headache study.

You’re receiving the benefits of your own research and labor here, too, then. I am curious, you are a self-proclaimed biohacker. I am assuming you are measuring your sleep data and things like that. Can you tell us a little bit about when you are on the product or off the product, what your sleep scores look like, or how much deep sleep or REM sleep you’re getting? Can you see that clearly?

I will tell you a couple of things that I cannot. One, I do not go off of it, so I do not really have much data. Again, full transparency, my Oura ring says I do not get much deep sleep, but I do not feel tired in the morning. Honestly, everyone I talked to liked, “The Oura ring is accurate,” and like, “I do not seem to need it because I am not.” I do not feel like I am struggling. I personally tend to eat later, maybe that is it. When I do not eat later, when I eat earlier, I do not see a change in that deep sleep score.

I will share this, the part of the reason we did the sleep study is I was working with Benjamin Smarr, who is an associate professor, he was when we were working together, at UC San Diego. He was also a consultant for the Oura ring, and this was pre-pandemic. We were batting ideas around how we can take advantage of this Oura ring data. One day, I was like, “You probably have data on alcohol and the impact that it has on sleep.” He goes, “Yeah.” He sends me something like, “Here are two glasses of wine.” What happens is your heart rate slow like typically your heart rate will drop pretty quickly.

It will drop a little bit throughout the evening, throughout the night. When you drink, it just takes forever to go down to its lowest point. I pulled up my data when I had more than two, and it just does not have that profile. It still has a lower heart rate. We actually do have a packaging for our product, the same product, but the packaging is called Party Recovery, because of the testimonials that we have related to that, and sleep is the biggest component. A parallel with that is in the original study, where there was a separate cohort of Wistar rats that were injected with carbon tetrachloride.

Now this is an oxidative agent that attacks the liver. There were three groups of rats. One was a control group given water, one was a semi-controlled group given olive oil, and then the other was given olive oil with the ESS60 molecule. The water rats, basically, they injected them with carbon tetrachloride, gave them 24 hours to process it, euthanized them, and looked at the livers.

The livers of the water rats were in just horrible shape. Significant oxidative stress, minimal recovery with the olive oil. Olive oil is amazing. You should probably take more olive oil than whatever you’re taking today. The ESS60 rats had significant recovery in the liver. As an antioxidant in the liver, which is the thing that processes alcohol, that’s absolutely on the table.

AI, Medical Research, And The Future Of Longevity

This is all super exciting and pretty amazing. I know there’s a lot more research and work to be done, but you have been at this for a long time. I am curious, what is your perspective on what is coming, what is ahead, and what is possible with a molecule like this? You are out there exploring all kinds of longevity modalities and therapies and biohacks and everything else, too. When you look into the future, 5 years from now or 10 years from now, what is on the horizon, both for you, but also just for humanity, and what’s going to be possible?

I love what’s possible because I think you know some people would argue pretty extreme views about that. Let me first start, if you’re thinking about longevity and you have not started any aspect of your journey, my product may not be the right place to start. You need to have your exercise in place, your nutrition in place, and your sleep in place. All of this is driven by your mindset. Your mindset really has to drive these first. I will share that there are some people who are dealing with challenges, and it is hard to get your mindset right when your current health status is not the greatest.

I do think that our product can play a role there. I also believe it can play a supporting role even as you’re going through that journey. That is where I sit. In terms of the product, basically, nobody knows about this molecule. I was recently on Dave Asprey’s podcast at the beginning of this year. I am looking to just get this message out to as many people as possible. I have the greatest job, I am geeky and sciency. I get to come on a podcast like yours, be geeky and sciency, and then reap the benefits on the backside, which are all these amazing testimonials coming in to our team and through our Google reviews, just so lucky there.

What I think is possible is that you’re probably familiar with this concept of the longevity escape velocity, which is the point at which the medical community extends life across the period of one year. They extend life by a year or two, which basically means they extend life to the point where, at some point, there will be a last person who dies of natural causes. I personally do not want to be that person. That person may not know that they were the last person to die of natural causes, but I would like not to be that person. It sounds very far-fetched, but I use this kind of data point.

In 1950, medical information doubled every 50 years, every 50 years. When I started talking about this segment in 2025, medical information was doubling every three months. If medical information doubles every three months, let us just say that number has held, has not gotten any faster. That means at the end of 2026, we’re going to have sixteen times more medical information than we had at the beginning of 2026, 16 times more total information. It’s crazy. That does not even really take into account AI.

I do not know that AI generates more information, but I think what AI does is make us do better experiments. A medical experimenter wakes up, and they have a thousand experiments they could do. They have got like a hundred that are on their radar and like ten, and they’re like, “I am going to do these three.” The logic behind doing those three is just their intuition and all the information that they have processed, where I think AI would go, “Those three, you should not do those. You should do these three.

Not only are they more likely to be successful, but they’re also going to have the add-on benefits of XYZ or whatever.” The research that we do is not only such massive amounts, sixteen times more information at the end of 2026, but it is also going to be better research, and we are going to be answering questions infinitely faster than we certainly were in 1950. That, for me, is the thing I lean on to say, “We’re going to live forever at some point.”

That is super exciting. Can you share with us just a little bit about how people can connect with you? I am assuming that your book covers a lot of these same topics, but in much more depth. Is that true?

Yes. It is the story of the molecule. It is everything. I do have a podcast. The podcast is called Live Beyond the Norms. I have had the privilege of interviewing people like Dave Asprey, Ben Greenfield, and Steven Gundry, actually twice, Dave Asprey and Steven Gundry. I was very lucky there. Great content. My social media is called MyVitalC. I am putting out lots of content there. My audience has just grown by 20,000 recently. It is pretty amazing. We have made a link for your audience, and the link is MyVitalC.com/FullyAlive.

A couple of tips and tricks for landing on that page, by the way, there is a deep 40% discount for your audience. Thank you for having me, and we want to make sure your audience has the incentive to try this product. First thing, when I interviewed, I did a longevity summit, interviewed 57 experts in longevity, and I compiled tips and tricks from them into 18 biohacking tips that are available on that landing page. You just need your name and email, so that is free. As you go down the page, we have our four-ounce bottle, and you can buy 2, 3, or 6. The six has the 40% discount.

The reason we put the 40% discount on 6 is this concept. “I mentioned we see this as a three-month experience. Three bottles for you, maybe three bottles for somebody else who would want this experience. You could just be like me, I would probably keep all six for myself.” There is also a subscription discount. Even if you just want to try one batch, go ahead and take advantage of that subscription discount. You can cancel at any time. Our customer service team has a thousand five-star reviews on Google. They are not trained to talk you out of canceling your subscription.

They are trained to help you. They do an amazing job. People just tend to stay on subscription. A little bit further down is really my favorite, it’s the Inside Out set, where you take the four-ounce bottle and the Skin Redo set that I mentioned earlier with the peptide and the ESS60 activator. Again, in the 236, there is a subscription discount. As you go further down the page, you will find my book.

This is something that I am extremely proud of. The book is called Live Longer and Better: Your Journey to Living Longer and Better Has Never Been More Achievable Than Today. It is available on Amazon for $19.99. It is also available at this link for $19.99. For $10 extra, I will sign the book for you. A hundred percent of that autograph fee goes to Operation Underground Railroad.

You may remember an amazing movie called The Sound of Freedom about a horrible topic. It is child exploitation. Operation Underground Railroad is doing an amazing job getting that off of our planet. Should have been on our planet, but to get that off of our planet. 100% of that signature fee goes to Operation Underground Railroad.

Thank you for doing that. Thank you for setting up a page and a discount for our audiences. That makes it easy to try. As you said, you have incentivized it and made it possible. Chris, this is super fascinating. I am excited to utilize your product myself and for my family as well, and reap those benefits. Thank you for the amazing work that you have been doing for all these years. Thanks for the work that you’re doing to share this molecule with the world through your podcast, your business, and your book. It’s very admirable, and I really appreciate it. Thank you for the work you are doing for the Underground Railroad.

Zach, thank you so much for having me.

It has been super fascinating. Thanks for being with us, Chris.

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I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Chris and are excited to learn about this molecule. Maybe you have never heard of C60 or ESS60 before, but hopefully, after this episode, you have a deeper understanding of what’s possible and some of the things that are happening as a result of people taking this amazing molecule and the health benefits that you can have. I would encourage you to check out Chris’s website. He obviously made us a generous offer and offered a 40% discount. You can find that at MyVitalC.com/FullyAlive for a discount page there. He mentioned there are eighteen biohacking tips you can download as well.

Check out his website, check out his book, Living Longer Better, and also his podcast, Live Beyond the Norms. There’s a ton of additional resources and information available to you there if you want to do a little deeper dive and more research there. Try it out. I am excited to try it out, and then we will have Chris back next time, and I will share with you my own experience if you want to wait and see what happens there. That is MyVitalC.com/FullyAlive. Thanks so much for tuning in. I hope you have an amazing day, and we will see you back here next time on the show.

  

  

Important Links

• Chris Burres on LinkedIn
• MyVitalC
• Longer and Better: Your Journey to Living Longer and Better Has Never Been More Achievable Than Today
• Live Beyond the Norms
• MyVitalC Fully Alive