Healthy Simplified
Welcome to the Healthy Simplified podcast, where we put personalized health and wellness in the spotlight. Join us for enlightening education, inspiring stories, and in-depth discussions with industry, medical, and scientific experts. Together, we’ll explore how to craft a unique approach to your well-being.
Healthy Simplified
Beyond the Science: Tom Riley on How IDLife Develops & Manufactures Products
We also dive into the extraordinary measures we take to ensure our products exceed basic CGMP requirements. Learn about the extensive testing processes, including raw material and finished product testing, third-party random testing, and informed sports testing that keep our products at the pinnacle of quality. Using the example of our product "Calm," which took over three years to develop, we highlight the balancing act between innovative formulas and marketability, and stress the importance of multiple manufacturing partners in this complex landscape. Mark and I also discuss our tea-based calming drink inspired by Hong Kong’s milk teas, which offers a unique solution for daily stress and anxiety.
Finally, we share our innovative R&D strategies and the development of our personalized supplement line, ID Nutrition. By integrating genetics and collaborating with industry experts, we've created a customizable nutrition delivery system with millions of personalized outcomes. We also preview a groundbreaking product set for a 2025 release, underscoring our commitment to quality, innovation, and science-backed solutions. This episode is a treasure trove of information for anyone interested in the meticulous behind-the-scenes work that goes into creating top-tier wellness products. Tune in for an enlightening discussion that promises to elevate your approach to health and wellness.
Welcome to the podcast everyone. We are back again with the Healthy, simplified Podcast here today with Mr Tom Riley, with IDLife. Tom and I get to spend a lot of time together, kind of what I say in the soup, if you will, in the product development category, but in doing a lot of other things as well, kind of envisioning what could possibly be talking about things that people need, that they didn't even know that they were missing in their lives. But, most importantly, we just get to have some fun and I would say that we probably say more no to things than we do say yes to things. But, tom, it's great having you here.
Speaker 2:Thanks, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1:One of the things I think is missed, especially from people that know a lot about IDLife, is they have a tendency to give me credit for a lot of things I have absolutely nothing to do with, because most of it's coming out of your brain and your relationships, and all I do is basically make your life miserable by asking why so many different times? But why don't you give the folks a little bit of your uh, a little bit of your background and how you got started in this industry?
Speaker 2:Sure so, and and that's not true Everyone contributes to everything and usually the best contributions are the no, we can't do that. So, um, anyway, uh, I am. I am an engineer, training both domestically and internationally. I have a master's degree in organizational behavior. But what brought me and got me going in this industry specifically was a client of mine back in the early 90s. A client of mine back in the early 90s we started a company called Horizon Laboratories and the original founder of the company was an old liner salesman and he didn't know anything about operations or machines or anything like that. So he brought me on to run the company and we did substantially. So there's a lot of empirical training and experience in that it substantially is. So there's a lot of empirical training and experience in that, from the easy part from my perspective on machines and building them, to the empirical part of experience where customer service and building companies and writing, you know, hr policies, etc. That part. So I've done that a couple of times in my career.
Speaker 2:But I think where I'm at now really began in the early 2000s when China really exploded onto the scene with cheaper materials and that whole offering to the United States.
Speaker 2:The issue was it was a lot more difficult to find good suppliers and I was working for a national distributor of raw materials and when I was brought on there I was charged with finding the best manufacturers in Southeast Asia, china, japan, europe, et cetera, because they were going to start expanding their line, obviously. And it's a pretty cool learning experience because I did have some background in processing and machines and things like that but how everything is actually made and how you get that 8% extract out of your echinacea and how that's monitored and how you make sure that it tests out and those types of things without getting into too much detail, that was the eye-opening experience. So that's um kind of where my experience started with this and that just that whole experience just tumbles and accelerates like a snowball, because the constant innovation in trying to make something better, more effective for the human body is an ongoing thing. It'll never end. So there's always innovation going on. There's always people trying new things to address a benefit for everyone a little bit better.
Speaker 1:You brought up something that's very interesting and I want to make sure people understand, because one of the most difficult things is not the product, it's finding who you're going to partner with to manufacture the product, and one of the unique aspects of your background is you're an engineer by trade. I mean, you actually know how the machine works. You know the aspects of what it's supposed to do. A lot of people that we deal with when we're talking to potential manufacturing partners don't know that about your background. They think it's supposed to do.
Speaker 1:A lot of people that we deal with when we're talking to potential manufacturing partners don't know that about your background. They think it's just an R&D thing. So they'll say, well, you know this, that or the other about a particular machine, or what the capabilities are, what the parameters are, and you have the ability to actually understand whether or not they're lying to you, which is the unique thing but let's talk about. So let's talk a little bit about manufacturer qualification first, because I think it's that's kind of where our R&D starts is. You know who is going to make it and is sometimes more important than what is going to be made.
Speaker 2:Yeah all the time. Because first, you know we could go through the checklist here and say, yeah, they're going to be GMP certified and they're going to have a robust quality control as well as in-process inspection caveats that you have to go through in each stage of the process where something can go wrong. Um, do they have they have this go wrong before? Um, have they ever experienced complaints of this type of nature? Depending upon what you're talking about?
Speaker 2:Um, how do they identify the materials when it's being handled so often? It's being pulled from the lot. It's being the correct lot is being pulled. You're following your fifa. You're getting the materials to the room in the correct quantities.
Speaker 2:With all that handling that's going on, how are they ensuring that process is correct and the correct ingredients are going into your blender? And then that process just keeps repeating itself, depending on how many, how many processes you get to your final product. So there's a lot of Achilles heels and there's always compromises that manufacturers will make and, knowing how to do this, candidly, there are cost compromises that they may not want to spend on. They may do, for example, just because it'll be easier to understand when your incoming raw materials are all tested. Um, almost every manufacturer you may be able to talk to will say yes, we test incoming raw materials, but are they doing an identity test or are they doing an acid test? Are they doing heavy metals test? Are they doing pesticide testing? What don't? Tell me more about what you're testing exactly and who you're getting the material from.
Speaker 1:And that's usually when we at IDLife step in and we say yeah, I'll tell you what I'll buy that material from, ongoing and I'll provide it for you and we'll take care of the testing and make sure it's great and that's an interesting thing that a lot of people don't understand is we actually have mandates with regard to what the testing protocol is of every raw material that comes in, because you know, we are basically certifying that things are non-GMO and gluten-free and all the other aspects of things, and we require those certifications and verifications. And you know, the other thing that I think is unique is we actually have established a quality program within ID Life that we expect manufacturers to adhere to. You know, a lot of people say CGMP, you know just good manufacturing practices, but that's a baseline just to have a conversation. That's nowhere close to what we follow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I heard, I had plenty of conversations with other manufacturers which you, which you know, say yeah, we're gmp, we've had audits before and we've still saw it well from our perspective. For everybody out there listening, our perspective is yeah, you're going to deliver our product on time, the way we want you to make it for a decent cost. Yeah, if, if you're not doing that, we're not talking anymore.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's, that's just, that's too ridiculous to um well, and let's be real, it's not inexpensive to have them manufacture it the way that we mandate that it be manufactured either. I mean there, there is a cost associated with that, and it seems like that's always kind of their, their pushback on us as well. You know this is going to cost more, and we're like. Well, lack of quality costs a lot more than adhering to a quality program.
Speaker 2:Mark, mark, tell everybody out there listening what you and I fight about most. Hey, tom comes in with a great formula and you're like how can we sell that? We can't sell that, that's too expensive. And it's like, okay, well, what a compromise.
Speaker 1:You know, and that's the funny part is, you know, as I tell everyone, when I travel and talk about our R&D group, I said at any given time, there's 50 things on the board. I mean, you have the board behind you. Thank goodness people can't really see it, but yeah. But I mean we always have tons of ideas and things like that. But at the same token, well, you know, one of the conversations we have sometimes is well, there's already five companies that are doing that. Well, why would we? Why would we want to do that? We don't necessarily need a me too. Let's get creative. Let's let's come up with something unique.
Speaker 1:But the interesting aspect of after we find manufacturing partners and we always try to have at least two on every different project we have, because you always want an A and a B, not only to keep one of them honest. But hey, let's be real, things happen. Manufacturers get busy and you want to make sure that you're getting your product on time and things of that nature. But a lot of things that people don't understand about that process is it used to be six, eight weeks. You could have a product on shelf, but then this wonderful event of 2020 happened and, all of a sudden, manufacturers got to. Oh, you mean, we can tell them 16 to 20 weeks and the world is going to be fine with this. Yeah, because that's never rolled back to the way that it used to be.
Speaker 2:Correct and that's the point All the testing and everything that adds. One way to look at it is if IDLife purchased all the raw materials and we shipped everything directly to our contract manufacturers and they built it for us, could we get that in 12 weeks? Yeah, probably. They're still going to do incoming raw material tests, but all the finished product testing that we do, which is quite extensive compared to other companies, but also informed support testing that we do on almost all our powder products, that takes two, three weeks to get those results back. So obviously it's not being released and from the manufacturer's standpoint, they will not let that leave their dock Because even if it's bad, that's okay, it's still in the facility, they can still dispose of it. It's not going to get out to the public, it's not going to miss a label.
Speaker 1:So, just so everyone kind of gets the process here, it's a testing of raw material first and foremost. It has to efficacy, purity, quality, contaminant, the whole gamut. You have to show us all those things. Then we have finished good testing at the manufacturing facility to give us the C of A. Is it what it's supposed to be within the specs?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because of all those human touch points.
Speaker 1:Even though the machines do most of the work, there's humans involved in running the machines. Then on top of that we have a random third party testing program where, hey, we will go in and randomly select lots for testing ourselves to verify that our manufacturers are actually giving us the correct results. But then we also have informed sports that basically test all of our powders to make sure that there's no performance enhancing ingredients or any other lacing items that are in there.
Speaker 2:And they also do not. They also do random testing. As you know, every product gets randomly tested at least twice, and when you say they, you're talking about them. We don't know about that. They will buy it from us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're talking about informed sports. They just buy our product product on a random. We don't even know they're doing it. They do, they buy it, we don't know that, and then they send us the results and say hey here's your result from your random you know blind testing that we did so yeah one other test, um, just to interrupt you.
Speaker 2:Um, one of the tests that we are doing is, uh, the finished blend. So once something is all blended together, they actually do a spot test on something like a multivitamin. They will test B12, which is incredibly small in that blend. So they'll test that two or three spots in the blender and obviously, if that comes out on mark, then the larger component ingredients in your formula are obviously going to come out.
Speaker 1:All right. So we have now chosen the manufacturer. We've got them to agree to our quality standards, our testing protocols. Let's talk a little bit about the development of the idea of a product. Let's talk about how we go through that process, and let's just start with something that we just recently launched. Let's talk about Calm, because most of you don't realize Calm was on the board for what? Three plus years. I mean. I think it was your wife's favorite product we never made for the longest time.
Speaker 2:The samples, which tasted horrible on the first ones, was my wife's favorite product and she's been yelling at me for I don't know, I guess it's four or five years. Anyway, yeah, calm was a unique product because it was kind of born out of a conference meeting that we all sat in and we decided that we wanted to make a groundbreaking product. So, um, the ideation I might I'm gonna take a little liberty with you anyway um, the ideation with this was when I, when I came out of that meeting, I'm like, okay, groundbreaking product. You know, we can't, we can't do a diet product or brain product or something like that, but we could do something or mimic something or IVI, something that doesn't exist in this country. I've been to. If anyone on this podcast has been to Hong Kong before, then you've no doubt there's no doubt in my mind that you've tried milk tea in Hong Kong. Then you've no doubt there's no doubt in my mind that you've tried milk tea in Hong Kong. The street vendors all have their particular recipe which will have different effects on you. So usually you have a favorite street vendor that you get your milk tea from. So that's how calm was originally ideized.
Speaker 2:What we want to come to be was be a coffee substitute. Because Gildi is charged, I still drink my coffee in the morning. I think it's just a psychological addiction that I have to a nice warm cup of coffee and you know, yeah, I throw some hazelnut creamer in there once in a while too, but lately I'm not. So, anyway, it's working. So what do we want to do? We wanted to do some market research on this and get some feedback from people in the field and from our customers, obviously, and then just brainstorm a little bit. So after we had that, after I had that idea in a general sense, then you want to kind of look at what we want to be able to say this product will do for you of clearing and the ability to release some of the tension and anxiety that you are experiencing from your day.
Speaker 2:This is a nice alternative to coffee, but the caffeine that's in there is from tea. It's about three to five percent. It's not too much, and it works incredibly well with theanine. Anyone who's ever tried it they need, every single person that has tried it says they have that effect. But what I'm finding, uh, since we've launched it, is it affects men differently than it affects women, where women, uh, definitely, um, express that they can turn some things off and they are able to relax in their minds, because, um, men are, you know, habitually handicapped by only being able to focus on one thing and make it the best possible thing we can possibly make, whereas women are, I think, multiple things at multiple times, and you know, they, I think they seem to get a better benefit to it, which is why my wife loves it. But after that. So I knew we would be able to do that because the ingredients are simple. The dosages are not. You have to get that right. So we did have a back and forth a little bit with the efficacy and how well it works, and then you have to go with your ingredient procurement. After that you have to decide where you're going to get it from or who you're going to get it from. So the theanine and the herbal extracts are from a very well-known company, interhealth. They have clinical studies on their herbs that we have in there, that we have in there.
Speaker 2:But the bigger question was going to be the tea. Which tea were we going to use? Because we wanted a tea-flavored type of drink and we could have used a flavor because we knew that the drink was going to be clear, it wasn't going to have tea floating in it and it wasn't going to be a teabag. It was going to be clear, it wasn't going to have, you know, tea floating in it and it wasn't going to be a tea bag. It was going to be a dissolvable drink. We could have gone the route of using something as a carrier with the tea flavor and it would probably it would taste the same.
Speaker 2:But we didn't. So we use american instance for that product. There's pure tea and chai tea in that product. They are all instantized so you're actually getting real tea. It's not some powder flavored tea that tastes great. So that was the way I wanted to go. There's some compromise in the solubility of that product very, very light. So you you might see a little bit settling at the bottom, but uh, it's a far greater um and efficacious product than using just something stupid like multidextrin and T-flavored.
Speaker 1:You said a couple of things I want to break in on here. One I want to explain. You know, one of my gifts is to take a very complex statement and simplify it. First, for the listeners that were just listening to Tom explain how it works differently for men and women, let me explain to you what he means. What he means by that, ladies, is when you ask a man what is he thinking, and he says nothing, he actually means nothing. He's not thinking about anything, and women have a tendency to think about lots of things at one time. As a result, it does affect women a little bit differently than men, because men it's more like a cognitive enhancer. It has a tendency to more focus them on what they're trying to get done, and for women it has a tendency to basically calm the mind down so that the thousand things that are happening all of a sudden kind of float away. It's not like they stopped, it's just you're not anxious about them anymore and you know the.
Speaker 1:The reason why that product was was so important to me personally is and I've told this story from stage multiple times now is my daughter was dealing with high anxiety. I mean, it was just one of the things she she dealt with. She, she graduated college during, you know, 2020, you can figure out what that was like for her. And that product was a was a genius addition to her daily life that basically gave her the ability to just calm the world down when things started getting a little hectic. But the the other aspect of what Tom was just talking about is there was a potential compromise that we could have made in the development of that product, where it would have tasted like tea, it would have looked like tea and would have smelled like tea, but it wouldn't have been tea. We chose to use the real thing, even though there was going to be some sediment at the bottom of the bottle, because we knew the real thing, the natural thing, was going to give a better, efficacious result and, sure enough, it absolutely did. So. You know, kudos to the development process.
Speaker 1:But you know, my favorite part about the Calm story was us sending it out about a year before we launched it and with the particular flavor, and us getting the response back of hey, you know this may not really work. I mean, I feel it, but the flavor just isn't there. It's just. You know, you've got to work on this flavor. A year later we launched it and everyone was talking about how amazing the flavor was. And do you want to tell them, or do I, or should I tell them? You know what? What did we change in the flavor? Yeah, I've told that story a couple of times now and people are like hold on, wait. I said you know the thing about product development, especially when you come to taste. It's all about a matter of timing and it's all a matter of you know where your mindset is.
Speaker 1:At the time it just wasn't ready to go, and that was a disappointing point for both of us, because we both wanted this product out a long time ago, but it just wasn't ready. There were things that had to come first. I mean, our amazing fitness line came before before calm got released and for some reason I kind of feel like calm came when it was supposed to, because it literally is one of those things that people are absolutely loving. But I love kind of the development story because it did take a long time to get to market, even though the product itself was what was really there beforehand. So, speaking of our fitness line, you know we we actually had some real fun in the development of that fitness line.
Speaker 1:Um, we got to talk to some really interesting folks. Uh, getting to know some I mean geniuses when it comes to ingredient profiles. And that leads me, before I jumped down the road of that product. I want to talk a little bit about that because part of our R&D process is, instead of having one or two people on staff full time, that that's all they do. Is they think about, hey, what can I create? Type thing? We actually go out and look for industry experts in particular fields and combine them together to work together.
Speaker 2:So let's talk a little bit about that. Yeah, the, the, the, the theories and the way we approach that whole area is look, we we're going to make a product that you're going to love and you're going to want to take it, um, but the branding part is important because we're trying to sell it to you, right, and that's that's where, in my case, I always um like to defer to the expert that we've brought on that's been doing something for 30 years. So the idea for our product line, for the workout line yeah, it was our idea and it was a fantastic idea because it was revolutionary. Simply because of all the tangential benefits of that product line, it was hard to actually dial in exactly how it was going to be marketed, how it was going to be positioned. Who are we really targeting on this, when every single person on the planet should be taking load? But once it was together, we knew it was great. And then the best part about it is the branding that we did on it, which it's heavily is probably the most heavily branded and clinically studied and proven product line in our entire product offering. Um, we can hand that over to the guys who actually make each individual raw material and in some cases, with a gentleman like Sean Byer from TSI who is supplying the peak ATP and the HMB. So these products have been around for 25 years 25 years. But the additional science, tangential science that I was talking about earlier, is so beneficial now for sarcopenia and bone loss and muscle maintenance when you get older.
Speaker 2:I think I used a couple examples on stage when we watched it. So the 72-year-old examples on stage when we watched it. Uh, so the you know, the 72 year old um woman who's concerned, you know, about bone loss and muscle pain and all the all the 24 year old gym rats who want to look like mark bennett. I mean it's that but it's. But yeah, I know it's.
Speaker 2:I know I kind of made a joke about it, but the truth is it's that broad um that that type of product should be being taken by everybody, especially women. So, yeah, bringing on somebody like Sean Meyer, who was one of the original research scientists at TSI, which it wasn't called TSI at the time, but when HMB came onto the scene back in the late 90s, he was one of the research people who started doing clinical studies. So he's been studying this product for 25 years. So I had a good idea and I put the product together, but do you really want to know the details and intricacies about how this is working and the new clinical studies and the new stuff that's not published yet about this product and what they're finding? Talk to this guy. He's been doing it for 30 years. I can tell you why you should be taking it, but he's going to be able to give you that.
Speaker 1:Let's get a little transparent about this, because I can still remember the very first conversation we had with Sean and he was basically telling us all about PKTP, and then he was telling us all about MyHMB, and then he was talking about a lot of the studies that they did. Let's be real. I mean, there's been more studies done since what happened in 2020 and supplementation and nutritional supplements in the last what, four years now than there was in the 20 years previous. I mean, it was crazy, all of the research that was done. Tsi was no different. They did a bunch of studies on their own products and he was talking about all of the great benefits and, of course, the question was asked is why hasn't anyone ever put them all together in a single product before? And I'll never forget his answer. He says because no one listens to us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we were like well, what if we listened to you and it was like a mic drop moment. I mean, sean was actually quiet for 30 or 45 seconds. We're like, hey, are you still there? And he's. He's like you guys are actually talking about putting all of this into a single product and it just kind of culminated together.
Speaker 1:But let's talk a little bit about it. I mean cause you know you've mentioned it's good for, you know, the elderly population. I always said it was more of a longevity product than it was a fitness product, though as a fitness product it's an amazing product. But let's talk a little bit about what went into it and what the benefits of it are, because a lot of people it's lost. They see it as part of the workout line. They're thinking, oh, this is a workout thing. I want to build muscle and I've told people this is really your muscle retention supplement so that you can go build muscle with other things. But the idea is you can focus on building muscle somewhere else. But this is really your muscle retention, though it can help build as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's one area that can be targeted. But I'll reveal something to everybody that few people know about. During that process we had five products for the workout line. So we had workload and recover. We had a gummy that we were going to give. That was going to be a creatine gummy that nobody can make a good creatine gummy yet, but it's coming anyway. But there was a third, a fourth product, excuse me, and it was called Rest.
Speaker 2:So, getting through to quasi-final stages of that product, there were some non-negotiables on that and one was it's going to be stimulant-free and the other one was it's going to be a fantastic recovery product as well, because building a pump product or building a pre-workout product is pretty easy to be candid. So I went a little overboard on the last two products originally, which were for recovery. So the one you know actually you know both of them, but the last product was called Rest, so there were four of them. But, um, the last, the last product was called rest, so there were four of them load, work, recover and rest. The rest product was a um, mental, uh, calm down product that would allow you to cool down. You know, you always get those, those messages on your phones that say okay, you know, do not immediately or abruptly stop your workout, keep your cardio rate up about 50%, et cetera, et cetera. This was going to let your mind calm down a little bit. This was not necessarily physiological. The recover product was your physiological recover and the rest was your mental recover product. Um, uh, recover product.
Speaker 2:So, as you know, as we were out in the kitchen testing flavors and whatnot, we finally came down to the idea that, yeah, these are good products, but really are we going to make everyone take three products every time they work out? So I said, okay, yeah, we'll, we'll dump the rest, you know, and we can. Um, you know, we can continue on, we can offer sleep and other things. It's not quite the same, but I kind of did something that wasn't known originally at the time, but it's known now that I just took all the ingredients from rest and put it into Recover. So you're actually getting it all. So the last few products the theamine, the mucurin purine and some others that you see in the label claim for Recover was actually the rest product. So we've combined them.
Speaker 2:So I know that you and Josh particularly enjoy the recovery product. I mean it could be the best product because I know I have Dom's syndrome, dom's marker, and I know you have it too, and Laura actually was also relating to me that she has that terribly. If she works out and when she's drinking that recovery, she has no late onset muscle syndrome. So, um, I know that it works and the reason it's working is, um, that one of the main reasons it's working is the amino acids, that l40 that is, fermented customized essential amino acid blend, heavy leucine, um, that is, you know, buffering all that lactic acid damage to your, um, damage to your muscles that you're doing.
Speaker 2:So, um, those were the two real main points when we put that all together and, um, you know, using the best, um, as everybody probably knows, we have a great relationship with the ginomoto in lean and all the other products and plus that go into our products. So, again, using only the best in the world, literally Ajinomoto, the best in the world. That's, that's why we have that. They're a big part of why we have these great products.
Speaker 1:One of the things you said and I want to make sure people understand is we're using fermented amino acids. Things you you said and I want to make sure people understand is is we're using fermented amino acids. Uh and uh. What a lot of people don't know is that there are a lot of amino acid products on the market that come from two sources duck feathers or human hair that's kind of where they get their amino acids. We get ours. They're plant-based, fermented. I mean amino acids, things that the body can actually metabolize, use, use, and they're more efficacious. So when we say Ajinomoto, I mean that's what we're talking about. These guys have been doing it forever. It seems like yeah.
Speaker 2:The thing about one thing I'll say about Ajinomoto is the level of science and development and clinical testing that they do, not just on their products but other products, is the largest I've ever seen. The problem is they don't publish everything all the time. They keep it as trade, they market as trade secret. But if you're, if you have a good relationship with them, as we do, you know, and as we as ID life has had for quite some time you know you have access to that stuff, and that's all I'll say about that, as we as ID life has had for quite some time. Um, you know you have access to that stuff and um, that's all I'll say about that yeah, we have to be careful there.
Speaker 1:You know you did talk a little bit about how recover and rest got blended together. Um, that's why I tell a lot of people that recover isn't necessarily just a post workout recovery, it's also a it's my favorite thing around eight o'clock at night, uh, just because it is going to help my body recover from what I've done throughout the day. It doesn't have to just be a workout, but it also helps, you know, kind of with the mind aspect of things, and some people are probably thinking well, doesn't calm do the same thing as the mental aspect of recovery? And I'm like, no, those are actually doing two totally different things. But work was also a unique thing in the sense that not only was it a hey, let's get something done. Supplement, because I tell people, yes, we called it work, but that doesn't mean it's just for workouts, it's a non-stimulant-based pre-work formula, but it also included ingredients that your body needed to be in the bloodstream immediately after the workout, which was a unique aspect of things.
Speaker 1:The thing about IDLife and part of the discussions that Tom and I had is why hasn't anyone ever done this before? Why haven't people given you what you need for your effort, in other words, the workout or whatever else you're trying to do, and then what your bloodstream needs immediately after. Why haven't they put those into a single product? And the only answer we could come up with is they wanted to sell two different things. Same thing with recover. I mean, we put a recover and a rest in the same thing because, let's be real, you tear muscle up in the workout, you build muscle, while you rest and recover and sleep. So we knew that recover was probably more important than the work was as far as actually building lean muscle on the body and also why load is there. But let's talk a little bit about work, because work is a unique formulation that pretty much doesn't have a competitor on the market space with regard to what it's doing.
Speaker 2:No, every raw material supplier that we partner with on that product is now taking that work because they know in some cases, for example, the beta carnosine, entire companies, multi-million dollar companies, are known for that particular ingredient. Only that's what they sell and they've been doing it for 20 years. So the efficacy of the hydrosiagine, which is arginine-based silicon siagine, and the beta carnosine, again the L40, and the workout at a smaller level, for exactly the reason that you were mentioning, all that has to be in your bloodstream by the time you finish your workout. Because even though there's been some new science on that metabolic window of hypertrophy 90 minutes you got to get all that protein into your body before 90 minutes. So even though that's been kind of extended to 24 hours, 36 hours, the greatest utilization of those nutrients that will repair a muscle is still within that first two hours. So it kind of trails off. So that repair mechanism that's going on is not as efficient. After about three, four hours it still continues, but not as good.
Speaker 2:But yeah, that work again, non-stimulant, some uh tingling in their fingers, which is paresthesia, um, but it's, it's, it's really nothing.
Speaker 2:It's it's actually pressure, um, that your nerves are experiencing from the bloodstream, which usually is the reason you're powering through those workouts, that one more, that two more reps that you that are kind of surprising you that you're able to do it. Um, I remember I took a break, uh, from them for about a week and, um, I was telling you the other day the uh, I got through about a third of my workout and I had to go lay down on the couch because I was done. That was it. I was like I can't even stand up, I have to go, I have to go lay down. So, um, yeah, it's a fantastic formula, um, and the clinical studies and the evidence. The best part about most of these formulas is the clinical studies and the evidence are there right on the website at these companies that you'll see that the ethics in who's funding these things and who's preparing it and how substantial these clinical studies are is there for everybody to see and how quality written these clinical studies are done and carried out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in fact, if I'm remembering right, there isn't there four branded ingredients in work? Yeah, and in each of these companies had never really combined their product into a product. And now, all of a sudden, we're like, hey, you four are going to work together on this single thing and we're going to, we're going to make this thing. And I think you offhandedly said all of these companies that are now part of their individual products are using this because they're like oh wow, this is the product we want to use.
Speaker 2:It was funny at that conference that I went to the ISSN conference last month. I had Erica Steve from Nutrition 21, steve from Chemineutra Shimpo from Ajinomoto and Kim Fernandez from NAI at the table with me. So work, I was having lunch with work.
Speaker 1:You were working with work. It was pretty cool.
Speaker 2:And I was telling them and that's kind of when everybody was like, yeah, I need to be, I need to start taking this or the other.
Speaker 1:You know I want to. I want to shift gears because, um, you know, we have what I consider to be one of the greatest delivery systems ever created. It was actually before it's time and now people are are catching up to the concept of it and we call it ID nutrition customized nutrition, you know, made just for you. 3.9 million possible outcomes, plus add genetics in there, and there's an infinite number of possibilities. But what's interesting about it is I call it a delivery system, because a lot of people think ID Nutrition is a product. It's really not a product. It's 32 plus products all in a single delivery system, so that you don't have to have a multitude of bottles, and it takes all of the guesswork out. In fact, one of the things I say about it in nutrition is the most important thing it does is keeps you from taking something that would otherwise be harmful to you, because, unlike Uncle Joe, who knows everything, or TikTok, or an Instagram reel, or some TikTok guru who we won't name or any of the rest of them yeah, we won't name names, though we know who they are and so do they the whole idea behind that system is it's purely objective. In other words, what it's doing is taking all of the science, all of the warnings, all of the information and basically saying, hey, you should not be taking these things. And here's the reason why you should not be taking these things.
Speaker 1:One of the interesting products within ID Nutrition is a product we call Methylation Plus, and the reason why I love that product one I'm compound heterozygous MTHFR. If you don't know what MTHFR is, we've done three different podcasts on MTHFR. I really highly recommend that you go and find that out. In fact, that just really hit home with me. I'm going to be a grandfather for the first time in December and just found out, hey, this is now going to touch the family in a whole different way. So I'm really glad I know a lot about MTHFR now. But you know, in the creation of that it was relationships. It was the way that we build things. It goes all the way back to manufacturing partners and our quality standards and all of the things that we're known for in the industry. It got you an introduction to someone that that introduction then led to the creation of something that wasn't on our radar but became very, very personal to us once we got, you know, kind of awakened to the concept of it. So let's let's talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:ID nutrition, the benefits of ID nutrition. There's a lot of hidden things in there. The amount of calcium and minerals and other vitamins that you're taking are spread out. So almost every single product in ID Nutrition is complementary to the next. And, as you said, being the science, research end of this, there are so many common combinations and there are so many benefits and there are so many things you should be taking. But for me, the number one thing and the most important thing about the entire system is it stops you from taking anything, uh, that you should not be. That's going to interfere with your drugs, interfere with your conditions or interfere with Even family history, for that matter.
Speaker 2:Methylation is a premium product. You may look at the label and you may think it's kind of a simple product, but it's not. Obvious things are the B vitamins that are in there. They're phosphate. They're much, much higher available than your typical B vitamin and your riboflavin. But the secret to methylation, explained to me in detail several years ago by a great man named Hector Lopez, is the trimethylglycine.
Speaker 2:So the body has the body is a fantastic thing, okay, it's, it's, it's almost. It's almost mind boggling to try and figure out how the body is regulating everything at the same time, but especially people with MTHFR. They have difficulty metabolizing any type of B vitamin, particularly B9, particularly B12, b6 as well, particularly B9, particularly B12, b6 as well. However, the body is able to convert B vitamins into certain forms so it can be used in different areas of the body, for example, in your muscle tissue, in your cells of your body, skeletal muscle, things like that, like that.
Speaker 2:The ability to change a b vitamin that's circulating in your body for lack of lack of more detail requires a free ion. So if you wanted to change it from hydroxycobalamin that you've consumed into something like an adenosine that your cell can actually physically use for energy, you need an electron donor, and that is what people with MTHFR have the greatest difficulty doing. That's what they struggle with energy Trimethyl glycine is a pure electron donor, your electron donor. So if, to your point, mark, if you believe you may have energy problems and you get B12 injections and you feel great, if you were to get an MTHFR test and you found that you were positive, you may be able to take this very, very simple vitamin and dramatically notice an increase, not an incremental benefit, a dramatic benefit because your body will now have all the tools it needs to convert the B vitamins to where it needs it most.
Speaker 1:You mentioned someone in there and I want to expound upon that a little bit, because Hector, mean, let's be real, I mean, he was the creator of this thing. He, I mean great, we knew what a methylfolate was. I mean, we, we were, we've been using it since the beginning of our life. But this whole concept of trimethylglycine and the electron donor and all I mean this was his, his genius, and he just kind of offered it to ID life as as uh, hey, you guys are doing the right thing. Have you thought about doing this? But let's talk about that chance meeting that you had with him and how this came about. Because for those that don't know Hector, I mean he's pretty well known in the industry, do you might not know his name, but you definitely know the products and the people that he's worked with.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So years ago I met Hector at Supply Side I think it was Supply Side West a conference out in California for raw material suppliers about various things, and he's well, very, very well known in the industry. But hector is a complete vertically integrated or was person in the industry. He actually his first company that he started was a clinical study company and he would perform his own clinical studies on new compounds that him and his partner would create. You may know some of these on the market known as dynamine and creatine, and these are metabolites of caffeine and other compounds that they perform their own clinical studies on and then they would license the information over form their own clinical studies on and then they would license the information over.
Speaker 2:But his research um is the is the shining star, I think with hector. Um he's nationally sorry, that's completely incorrect. He's internationally renowned, working with um, bobby robbins and uh book, contributing for uh and presentations, etc. Etc. He's he's's highly regarded, probably one of the most highly regarded sources and subject matter experts on physiology and human circulatory system.
Speaker 2:So when they are performing all these clinical studies, their goal just like with our experience with him their goal isn't to sell a whole bunch of product. Their goal is to give it to somebody else, and let them worry about that part. Give it to someone else and let them worry about getting that to all the other people who can use it. His mission was discovering new compounds because his belief in the herbal products industry and vitamins, minerals and specialty products was that the benefit is far yet to be realized. That potential has yet to be realized. He felt it was much, much more that potential has yet to be realized. He felt it was much, much more impactful than it even is even today. So that offering, you know, just to make that product perfect, that's what he did for his entire career.
Speaker 1:You know, and for us, I mean, it was unfortunate, I mean because Hector had an outpatient surgical procedure that took his life unexpectedly. But you know, this was the last thing that he worked on. That we know of, I mean, and really I shouldn't say he really worked on it. All he said to us was hey, have you thought about putting these things together? And here's why you would want to put them together, because you happen to be talking to him about, you know, methylation and MTHFR and all the other aspects of things that we have a very, very long history with, because it's one of the things that we we try to watch very closely, but Hector is just one story of 100 that we could talk about.
Speaker 1:With regard to ID nutrition, you know, one of the examples I always use is we have a very boring supplement in ID nutrition called iron, but we use a chelated version of the iron and most people don't even know what that means. But most people don't realize that iron is a positive or negatively charged supplement, depending on where you get it from and what it is, and, as a result, a lot of people can't even metabolize it as a result, because it's binding to something else and it can't be used. The chelated version makes it ionically neutral, which allows the body to actually metabolize it, which means your body can actually use it. And I could talk about iron all day long. Only because, while it seems to be boring, what we're using is a very unique aspect of it that a lot of people don't take the time and, of course, it's not cheap. It's not the most inexpensive version of it, but there's a hundred, if not thousand, stories about all of the products that make up the delivery system that we call ID Nutrition.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the other part that I always think about with isolating a single product into a capsule, like our calcium or magnesium or iron and things like that is we could roll them in with other products. You'll see that calcium is in our advanced daily. In other products there's this sprinkling of some ingredients across the line, but when we isolate it, there's usually a very good reason. One of the main reasons would be to eliminate that ingredient from compromising any drugs you may be taking or condition that you're taking. So there are a lot of different combinations that you can get, probably more than we would like. We would like to be incredibly simple. However, we want it to be accessible to everyone and that's the key to having a system like this.
Speaker 1:You know, and one of the things that people don't get about IDN Nutrition is we own the formulations on all of these things. I mean they're formulated for a particular reason, the formulations on all of these things, I mean they're formulated for a particular reason. One of the prime examples and it's apropos that science has caught up once again to what we have been talking about for a long time, which recently I think it was just in the last couple of days a study was released of, hey, all of these statin drugs that are being prescribed all across the world. Maybe not everyone actually needs those things, because the efficacious rate is 99 to 1. For those that don't know, that means 99 people have to take it for one person to get the benefit that was intended, though the 99 that took it got the side effect.
Speaker 1:But one of the main things we've talked about from the beginning is the biggest danger of statin drug is it stops the production of CoQ10 in the body, the nutrient necessary for heart health.
Speaker 1:One of the benefits of the assessment is when you're taking it and you say, hey, I'm on a statin, the system automatically puts CoQ10 in your supplementation because we know, hey, the body needs this now as a supplement because it can't make it on its own anymore. That's just an example of kind of what ID Nutrition does. Well, I mean, at this point, tom, one of the things that I always like to do when I'm kind of getting to the end of a podcast is I like to give the guests the opportunity to talk about something that, hey, maybe I didn't ask about, something that is important to them, that they want to make sure that the listeners get to know, either about yourself, or about ID life, or about manufacturing, or about R and D, or about, just in general, something you want to make sure everyone knows about. So I'm going to give you the floor to kind of help us bring this thing to, uh, to a wrap.
Speaker 2:Well, if you're, if you're watching this podcast and you're extremely familiar with Mark and you know that he is pushing for the very, very best possible outcome you can have if you involve yourself with ID Life, and that's just not supplements, that's everything.
Speaker 2:But I won't talk about myself because I don't.
Speaker 2:I leave that for everybody here internally ID Life to listen to me brag, but what I'm going to tell everyone listening to this podcast is this is going to be a breakout year for us, not just from our connections and our relationships that we've built over the last several years, but the new technology and the new studies that have emerged from the pandemic and from that entire era. We will have an amazing offering come 2025 that will be unmatched, and many of the reasons that it will be unmatched is because most people can't afford it, meaning they won't pay for it, not the retailers. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about manufacturers paying to have the product made, whereas that's usually fourth, fifth or sixth down on the list in our considerations. So I believe that, as we have broken ground 10 years ago or even before that with personalized nutrition, and now everyone is starting to mimic us, I think by the end of this year we're going to do that one more time, but in a different way. And now everyone is starting to mimic us.
Speaker 1:I think by the end of this year we're going to do that one more time, but in a different way. You know you're teasing and the good news is I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:Well, listen, it's better than all I can say is okay. So I've been doing this for from a formulation standpoint and a raw material standpoint. I've been doing this from a formulation standpoint and a raw material standpoint. I've been doing this for about 20 years. We have some of the most elegant and sophisticated products coming out that I've ever had a hand in developing. So stay tuned. What I've just said is better than telling you what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:I can tell you this I've been traveling this summer to different towns and one of the things I keep telling everyone is what we have coming in October is by far and away my personal favorite thing we've done, and I'm doing this for almost 11 years now. It literally is one of those things that I just I I still can't believe that that we got it done.
Speaker 2:Considering the well, you guys didn't believe me. I'm going to say this on your podcast.
Speaker 1:Well, let's be real, the first, the first attempt at the at. This didn't work out so well.
Speaker 2:Massive failure.
Speaker 1:It was like this. I mean, I think the exact words from from the partner was this is not possible, it cannot be done. And, hey, to your credit, you were like well then, watch me. And and as somebody who loves it, when you say I mean, the surefire way to get me to do something is tell me I can't do it.
Speaker 2:Tell me one more time, I can't do it.
Speaker 1:I personally can't wait for it to launch, simply because then you're going to get to show the person that said it can't be done. Oh yes, it can.
Speaker 2:And the stuff that we're not doing is even pretty amazing.
Speaker 1:Well, tom, I can't thank you enough. Obviously, getting an inside peek at RMD is a great thing for our listeners, you know. It's an opportunity for them to understand all the nuances. And still we just touched the surface. There's so many things that go into the process, from the qualifications of the raw material suppliers that they have to go through to verification of the paperwork, to the contracting. Let's be real. Our manufacturers have contracts with us that they don to go through to verification of the paperwork, to the contracting. Let's be real. Our manufacturers have contracts with us that they don't like more than one occasions, because then they make me be the lawyer that I used to be occasionally.
Speaker 1:But you know, at the end of the day, it's good that everyone gets an opportunity to meet you because truly, you are the brain behind a lot of the products that IDLAF brings to market, and a lot of that has to do with the relationships that you've developed over 20 plus years and people wanting to work with you and ID Life because of the. You know the criteria that we've established with regard to only having the best ingredients for the highest degree of science support that we can find, that we can find, and it's. It's interesting to me to the point that you were kind of making there at the end of hey, what we have coming. That's a direct result of doing it the right way for as long as we've done it, because people are bringing us the opportunities. With regard to hey, have you guys thought about, have you seen, would you consider? And uh, it's, uh, it's really neat to watch these things happen and and it's fun to do it with you. So I appreciate you being here and giving people an opportunity to get to know you. So until next time.
Speaker 1:This is Mark Bennett, on behalf of the Healthy, simplified Podcast and ID Live. We'll talk to you again real soon.