#123 | Nuritas x AN Performance | Ai Discovered Peptide |

In this episode, we revisit an insightful discussion about a new creatine + peptide formula, breaking down its potential to revolutionize muscle gains and recovery. We explore PeptiStrong, an innovative supplement derived from fava beans that promises enhanced muscle protein synthesis and reduction in chronic inflammation. With the help of AI, Nuritas has optimized this formula, validated through comprehensive clinical trials.

Neil Foster sheds light on the importance of practical applications over mere theoretical discoveries and emphasizes the unprecedented recovery results seen in trials. We also discuss the challenges of creating effective supplements that survive digestion and the broader benefits of plant-based peptides over animal-based sources.

Join us as we unravel the science behind Peptistrong, its synergistic combination with creatine monohydrate, and its potential in sports nutrition and healthy aging. Plus, get insights into the future of supplements, the role of AI in research, and industry trends that are shaping the market. Don't forget to use the discount code "Rizzles" for 20% off at ansupps.com.

Let's dive in!

AN Supps Instagram
Nicky Rizzles Instagram
Nick Karalekas Instagram

00:00 Consolidated brands for streamlined marketing and unity.
04:35 Nuritas peptides: AI-driven discovery, practical results.
08:05 PepiStrong enhances muscle synthesis, reduces breakdown, inflammation.
12:02 Novel discovery requires self-validation; initial study conducted.
12:57 Study examines muscle recovery after immobilization.
16:13 Muscle function recovers slower than muscle mass.
21:15 Plant-based, bioactive, nutritive, diverse, easily digestible solution.
23:25 Creatine improves muscle synthesis, facilitates exercise recovery.
27:47 Exercise elicits quicker, amplified response; myostatin analyzed.
35:25 PeptiStrong boosts recovery and strength endurance.
38:39 Keep it simple; effectiveness over quantity matters.
43:51 Gradual lifestyle change preferred over quick fixes.
46:39 Gym helps recovery; drugs risk yo-yo effect.
49:34 AI for good

Transcript

0:00

Honestly very underrated. Yep. Getting down on a blue lagoon. These are still like the UK once right? Made them. Yep, made in the uk. Yeah. So it's. We're redesigning the all Black everything can and brand aside so yesterday we just I mean a blessing we consolidated all of our socials So a few months ago we had on the US side of the business we had ABE Nation which was our black label products we had and performance which we just launched a few months ago with the Vitamin Shop. And then later this year we have a brand called an Essentials coming out. So that being said we just consolidated everything under one roof under a n subs so it will have our and performance brand with Vitamin Shop we'll have what's going to be called A and black. So All Black everything is the best selling pre workout in the uk in Europe, Australia, the world and that will sit under an Black at least in the States. So it just makes more sense. And performance an Black and then coming later this year an Essentials and that's kind of like the full Systems go in 2025 for an here in the States we redid all the labels, the design concepts, new team, adding full time video, creative marketing efforts. Sales team is extremely robust. So from the top down design, brand messaging, family, all of that stuff. 2025 was 2024. Excuse me. Still can't believe it's 2025. Yeah, I'm actually, I'm actually doing quite well on getting the dates right on naming folders and writing checks. I haven't done the 24 yet so it actually feels pretty good to not well Cheers. Yeah, cheers. Ed, let's, let's crack please. So we all need it. So yeah, we're redesigning the ABE Can All Black everything can and we actually have some really exciting flavor collaborations coming with that which is. Yeah, I saw them being. Yeah, yeah. So we're, we're. We're locked and loaded from a licensing strategy standpoint now it's just execution. No pressure whatsoever. It's just my career on the line so. So yeah, we're really, really pumped. But we're going, right? Yeah dude. Oh hell yeah. Great. Okay good. I was like. I said all that stuff. I was like I hope you're recording. Yeah, no, I'm recording. I'm better than that. Yeah, I know but, but yeah, I'm super excited to talk about the creatine peptide especially with you and you because I know when and we've been working together for years when we started working together with any performance now I was like, hey bro, the creatine is great, but there's a novelty ingredient in there that I think we need to really pound the payment with and really tell the world what it is. And that's Pepti Strong from Neurotas. And the benefits behind it being at AI discovered is when I first heard that I was like when AI first started being a thing a few like almost years ago now. And it's wild how it's like incorporated into our everyday lives now we're kind of like, oh, okay. Like no, it's just AI did that. No. So that's at least a really cool part to me. But just the benefits alone. I take this every day, but I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty science. I'm going to let them do that. But. So for those that know this beautiful face to my left, this is Nick. He's been on quite a few times. It's the homie official title with an IS Marketing director. Director. Just want to make sure I had it right. And sitting across from me is the very handsome as well. Neil Foster from Neurotas. Right? Yep. And you're joining us all the way from. Well, Neurotas is from Dublin, Ireland, but I'm from the uk. I'm from just to the west of London. That's awesome. And how'd you get your start with Neurotas? And I kind of want to dive into like obviously what they do, who you are and then I want to hear about this awesome I discovered ingredient. Yeah. I'll give you the, the 32nd hopefully backstory with me. So at a much younger age I played rugby. That was my kind of sport. Love. It's not very big over here but. But a big, big thing where I was getting ready to go to university. Just wanted to play rugby and I like food, mainly eating it, but also for cooking it and everything. So. So I went to university, studied nutrition. Wasn't a thing at the time. You didn't have all the influences. Not everyone had an opinion on nutrition, but kind of went straight onto that. Loved it. Wasn't interested in dietetics and working in a hospital. Not really a good enough person perhaps for that, but wanted to work in performance so went straight into sports nutrition company. So age of kind of 19 and have moved out and grown up and moved away from sports nutrition for a little while. But it's great with Neurotask to come back into that now as well. So Neurotas, I've been there for nine years, so a Lot of those early years, probably for, for the first seven of those, we're building up the technology, we're actually doing all the research, discovery of the peptides that are now hitting the market. And it's got really exciting the last couple of years because we've actually, it's cool to say you use AI to discover something, but it doesn't actually matter. And it doesn't matter if you're the guy going to the gym using the product, you just care, does it work? Yeah. So what we've got to the stage now is, yeah, we found it with AI. Yes, we use loads of really groundbreaking technology, got lots of publications, recognition, VC funding to do all of that. But now it's actually being used when people are, you know, I won't say writing letters, that doesn't happen anymore, but kind of say, but this stuff's great, it really works. And that's, that's the cool stuff. So when you say you're doing the research, what I find interesting is like thinking of peptides, how more commonplace they are nowadays versus where they were 10 years ago. I don't think you heard a lot of people talking about peptides to that extent. So you're with them for nine years, they're obviously building up credibility, getting all the technology ready to do the research. Was this like a foresight type of thing where they knew it was coming down the line? Yeah, it's easy in hindsight to say, yeah, it was all, it was all brilliant planning. But there's, there's a, there's a number of things that are happening and I'm not the brains behind the business, that's our founder, Dr. Nora Kaldi. But talk about AI. AI is not a new thing like the computational models and the algorithm 60 years old, but the computing power is suddenly over the last decade getting to the point where you can actually use AI in an efficient and fast enough manner. Peptides not new. We've known about peptides when we got peptides in supplements for quite a long while and we've had peptides and drugs for quite a long while, but things like insulin, it's a hormone, it's quite a large peptide bordering on a protein, but it is, it's effectively a peptide. So we've had these things for ages, but there's been all these challenges which are all data related challenges. Too much information, not enough computing power. So just human intuition trying to find these things and all these kind of trends supported by the technology have been moving alongside at the same speed. So that Suddenly you've got this moment where you've got things like GLP1 drugs, so semi glutide, etc. Stands for peptide. Right. You know, so suddenly everyone is aware of peptides. We've got the computational power to start finding them in our food products and finding specific activities. And then the clinical research that needs to tick along in the background is just being completed and coming through. So it's, it's, you know, it would be easy to say yeah, we knew all this would happen 10 years ago or Nora knew all this would happen 10 years ago. But there's a lot of kind of things all moving in the right direction and all kind of coming to the fore now. So I think the big thing for me as someone who used to love sport, you know, still trains, was that this is great. Hypothetically, it sounds really cool. Does it work? And that's what's really nice to see. And ultimately our mission as a company is we want to improve the lives of billions of people. You can't do that with theoretical discoveries. They've got to actually make a difference. So Pepsi Strong is the first. There'll be other ingredients coming through as well. So we need to keep, keep them coming, the research going. So now when you guys started obviously doing all the research, I was incorporated the entire way through. Or did that kind of start churning as the popularity AI the last four to five years became. Now we're digitally built. So AI from the very beginning and like in a nutshell, what the technology does is we start with everything that's known out there in the world. So we say when we started Peptiztrong we wanted to increase muscle protein synthesis, we wanted to reduce muscle protein breakdown and we also wanted to address the kind of chronic inflammation that comes through overtraining, comes from aging, just comes from poorer lifestyles that we all lead now compared to when we didn't sit in front of a desk all day long. These three very specific molecular targets. So people have heard of things like mtor people are aware of Foxo is these the genes that control muscle atrophy. And then we're targeting the NF Kappa beta inflammation pathway as well and we build predictors for each of those. And we're learning from all the good science that's happened before, but then starting to test food derived peptides that can be discovered in various different plant sources and seeing which ones of those are building on that knowledge, improving and training our predictors so they get better and better and better so that finally we can come up with the finished product, which is peptiztrong. So peptide strong is from fava bean. They call broad beans. Got different names in different parts of the world, grown all over the world, eaten all over the world. But when you just eat the straight food material, you don't release those peptides to have that effect. And that's why we don't have, you know, broad beans very eaten wide in the Middle East. It's not that we've got a bunch of really jacked populations all living in the Middle east because they eat loads of fava beans every day. This doesn't happen just Rami. If you don't know what you're doing and haven't got the technology and use the right enzymes to cut out those peptides, you don't get the benefits. So that's kind of where you're saying. Isolating specific areas of it. Yeah, literally cutting these small peptides out from these larger proteins. So when we absorb the proteins, we just break them down as per our digestion. But if you selectively break down those proteins so you have specific peptides available and those peptides can survive gastrointestinal digestion, so we can eat them and they still work. That's where the magic happens. So that's what all the technology is around is like learning what a peptide has to look like to do a certain job, making sure that that peptide is going to be nutritionally is available through processing, through enzymes to hydrolyze the larger protein to get them out and then that they'll survive digestion as well. So they'll work in the body. And ultimately you do all that on a, on a computer and in the lab to start with. But the bit where you kind of hold your breath across your fingers and toes is when you go into a clinical. Because it's great to say, yeah, we know that in a petri dish, put it on muscle cells, it has this effect. And we can run it through an indigestion model. We can show that it doesn't, it doesn't break down. But when people gym users eat the product, do we see outcomes? You know, do we see more muscle mass? Do we see better strength? Do we see better recovery? And that's where we got through three clinical trials now, where we've seen those outputs. So that's like, you know what, this really makes a difference in the real world. So now when you say the clinical trials you had, obviously the regular and then a placebo to kind of offset each other, and you did three trials, I assume because one, two and then the outlier. Yeah. So three trials. Yeah, all randomized, double blinded, clinical trial. So, you know, gold standard in terms of trials. The three trials are really building on each other. So we can refer back to kind of creatine plus peptide. There are a few ingredients that have really stood the test of time in sports nutrition. So we know proteins are food. It doesn't matter if it's in the supplement form or if it's on your plate as a steak or a chicken breast. Protein is a macronutrient. We need it. It's not going anywhere. Then you have really creatine, caffeine, beta alanine, like those are the ingredients that have been around for decades now. They have hundreds of clinical research on them. They work. There's no disagreement, there's no challenge question. The science is clear. They work consistently. The problem when you discover something completely new is you don't have 20, 30 years of other people doing the work and really proving it out. So you've got to do a lot of the heavy lifting yourself and you've got to prove everything. And you've also got to learn how your product's working and really prove that it's working the way that you think it would work. So our first study, which is done at Maastricht University, so it's in the Netherlands, it's Professor Luke Van Loon, he is like the go to person in terms of protein and muscle health and protein protein metabolism and digestion. So in that study we paired peptizrong up against milk protein concentrate because we use milk protein concentrate rather than whey, because in most of the products, specifically when you look at kind of adult aging nutrition, they effectively get skim milk powder in a little shot just to up protein and calorie intake. So it's the, it's the right control to use in that situation. We put those subjects in a full leg cast, so we're immobilizing their leg, so we're forcing them to lose muscle and then we take the cast off and we see how they're regaining muscle. And this is a study to look at muscle protein synthesis because what happens when you immobilize a muscle is muscle protein synthesis switches straight off and then when you remobilize it switches straight back on. You're always going to lose muscle because it's evolution. Muscle's expensive, energy wise to have. So there's nothing that's going to really prevent muscle loss. But what we want to know is how quickly does it come back in that first study, yeah, both groups losing muscle, we take off the cast, we remobilize them, they're back walking, not doing anything intensive, kind of a recovery or physiotherapy type session, but just back moving. And what we saw, which was the key finding from the paper, is that the muscle protein synthesis rates, which is called myofibrillar synthesis rate, to give it its full name, they take it using muscle biopsies. So they stick a little tube in your leg and pull out a chunk. Yeah, not very, not very nice. It's not fun. People don't generally come back for a second trial when you. But we saw four times the increase in muscle protein synthesis in that recovering leg in that group. So and that was receiving a standard dosage. So actually that was a slightly higher dose because we balanced it against the muscle, the milk protein concentrate that was being used. But the purpose of that study, and it's going back to that thing, if you have to prove everything out and kind of demonstrating it from, from square one, from having zero evidence to building that evidence set. What we wanted to show there is that the protein that has been broken down, it's not working as a protein. It's, it's, you know, milk proteins, that's a solid, high quality dairy protein. It's got the branch chain amino acids, it's got the leucine content. So if we're seeing anything different from Peptiztron, that can only be a peptide mediated effect. So the reason peptides are so cool is because they're signaling molecules. They don't get broken down and used as proteins. They're actually telling the muscle in this case to do something. You're telling the cell to do something. And what we see, there's a very clear and pronounced upregulation of muscle protein synthesis. So 4X. It's not like it's not 5% more or 2% more. It's a massive 400% increase there. And that's what we saw. So this was like for us in that first study, first thing we're doing is like, we did all this clever stuff in the lab. Does it really work? And you're like, you see something which is so kind of undeniable, but it's like, yeah, we've got something here, then what's going to come next? And that wasn't the only finding in the study. We also found, and this again really interesting because when you immobilize a muscle, if you get injured, if you're a sports player, it's kind of probably the more usual kind of circumstance we see this, you lose muscle quite rapidly if a muscle's immobilized, if anyone. Yeah, exactly. They break a leg, break an arm, go into a cast that comes out, they got one arm that's still muscular and then skinny up. That muscle comes back relatively quickly. Depends on the population. You've got a young male who's training with weights, high protein diet, testosterone field, they're going to get that muscle back much quicker than you know, 70 year old woman who's fallen and injured a hip or something like that. They're going to have a very tough time. So we know that muscle comes back, but actually muscle function comes back much slower, which is like really obvious. Anyone who's follows sports or played sports is you get back in the gym, your strength is back, but you don't make it back onto the field of play for a little while longer because there's other things in the muscle, it's not strong, the balance isn't quite there. All these other kind of factors that, that are associated with actually getting back on the field of play. So as part of that study, the other part we did after this really short two week recovery period is we looked at leg press strength. So tested them before they went in the cast to get their baseline strength and then tested them both groups two weeks afterwards. And the Peptizron group was able to fully regain all their strength. So full regain of muscle function even though neither group had regained all their muscle at this stage, they just function is recovering quicker. Whereas the milk protein concentrate group they were still quite a bit under their baseline performance. So this is ideal for us because it's great to say we got four times more muscle protein synthesis going on in the muscle. But the question is yeah, what does that mean? Is that a benefit? Is that a functional output and what that muscle strength output was just told us that. Yeah, clearly something's happening and we can see that effect. We can measure that effect in this case on a leg press. So what I'm curious about is why go you analyzed all these different nutrients and proteins and all these different things, why land on plant based versus maybe like an animal based. Is there like a lack lacking there? Is the peptide not available in animal based type peptides? I don't know that's. I'm new to this stuff so I. Know that's a good question and the answer is actually like the answer is based on maths which is normally isn't an interesting one. So first of all maybe Talk about proteins and other proteins that are out there and other peptides that are out there. So in nutrition and protein supplements, protein hydrolysates are not new. So a lot of people, when they think of peptides, they might think of collagen peptides. Yeah. Or they might think of whey protein hydrolysate. I think of like BPC157. Well, okay, well, that's different. But that's what I started thinking when I start hearing peptides. And that's the interesting thing. So, like at one stage you've got food protein supplements and collagen peptides, whey protein hydrolysis peptides, they are cut up really, really small. So they get them down to dye. Try peptides. And it's all around absorption. They're good, they're good products, they serve a purpose. So if you've got an infant, someone immediately after exercise, elderly, they need things that get amino acids into the blood quicker. So they're going to make amino acids available and they're going to be easier if you have impaired digestion, which particularly when we age, always happens. So good products. But those peptides are incredibly small. So effectively seems that small di and tripeptides potentially get across the gut a little bit quicker. So they get into the blood a little bit quicker. That's not a bad thing. But those aren't signaling molecules. Those aren't what we call bioactive peptides. Now, the other end of the spectrum, you said there is like the BPCs, the semi glutides. So those are long, complex proteins, almost proteins. And there's. It's difficult. You get different definitions of when does a peptide become a protein? And that gets very high science. But, but they're large and they're very precise and they're so structurally sensitive to do their job. Often they're not nutritionally available because they will get broken down in the gastrointestinal system. So BPC is maybe one exception where some people will use it orally to heal the gut. That or you spot inject. But if you want it for a joint, you better put it somewhere close to the joint. And I really don't want to cut you off because I know you're on a roll and you're spewing out awesome, awesomeness. So one of the things that I read recently that came up is a lot of cold medicines were recalled off the shelves because they were found ineffective because they don't make it past the stomach acid. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, it's there to protect us. Right. So you can't just eat stuff and it will basically cause havoc in the body. Yeah, get right. So, so it's a challenge and you know, from an evolutionary point of view it's bloody good job that that happens. But, but yeah, from, in terms of active and making nutritional supplements, it's a barrier to a lot of literal barrier to entry. Get in. Yeah, exactly. So, so you've got those kind of complex hormonal stuff and there's a, there's a whole series of those and there's been a lot of kind of changes in legislation around are those drugs, are they being provided off license and other things at the moment? They work. They work because peptides are these really cool signaling molecules that they will instruct the body to do things and the body is the language of the body. That's why peptides are so cool. It's because every living creature speaks the same language. So you can take this, this peptide, you put it in, it's like, I know what it's telling me. As opposed to small molecule drugs that tend to just stick in a spot and they do a job but there's often consequences of the job they do. So what we have done at Neurotas is we found that middle spot where we've got longer than these kind of collagen products. We've got things that are very specific still but are able to withstand digestion. Food derived, created in plants in this case so that we can have them nutritionally, but they have that bioactive properties and effect. So trying to harness the best of, of both worlds in this middle ground. The reason it's plants and not dairy or human tissue based or animal based is because this is where I said it's a mass answer. If you take a milk whey protein, like whey protein is one set of proteins within the mixture that is milk and milk is one, I don't want to call it, but you know, product that comes from a cow. So if you think about the diversity of structures and amino acids and things that are in there, it's actually really, really limited. There's still a lot of data and there's quite a few interesting peptides that have been discovered from milk and have good effects, but it's very small. Collagen is even smaller. Like it's like it's a lot of glycine and collagen but there's not much diversity and interesting things you're going to find in there because it just doesn't have that, that things. There are some pretty cool peptides in like organ meats and testicles and placenta and stuff like that. And there's been a lot of science from there. We can learn from that science. But the plant universe of peptides is almost limitless, like trillions of peptides. So potentially like 60 billion peptides per plant source. So it just gives us this huge library to look within. So is it because of their resilience to like survive in the, in the. Wild or is it diversity? But all the systems are the same, we're all coded by DNA. So again because it's that universal language. So actually we just by looking in plants we're just looking in a much larger universe than looking within dairy or looking within pigs or whatever the thing might be. So yeah, it's a mass answer. I try to make it a bit more interesting. That's crazy. So you guys get pepta strong, you got, you know, you, you, you have this peptide that you want to incorporate. So how do you land on. It's going to be included with creatine. Does it need to be or could it be a standalone on its own or there just more benefits when you combine the two into one product. So obviously that's kudos to, to applied for, for spotting the opportunity with creatine. I probably step back and go to our second trial. So we did that first trial like this stuff works. So then we want to move into our dose level trials at the 2.4 grams which is what's the full dose that's being used in each serving of the an product. The next study we wanted to do, we did a muscle loss. We looked and we saw we have increased muscle protein synthesis. That's great. We now wanted to look at recovery and adaption from exercise. Second trial we did, we are looking at a recovery event. So we basically bring group of. We call them weekend warriors. So like not, not elite professional athletes. We know em. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, exactly, exactly. Because if you bring in elite athletes they are not human, they don't recover like normal humans. They just, they can recover from anything. So to see any differences in that recovery is impossible. And if you do it with non exercises they'd never recover. So again you can't see differences. So you need the kind of people who yeah, they train. You need that hybrid. Yeah, exactly. The kind of three times per week gym goer mix mixture of exercises. So we, we get them in, we give them 14 days of peptide supplementation or placebo in this case and we subject them to, they call it an exercise challenge or an exercise insult. It's an isa kinetic leg extension machine. It's horrible. So effectively you're fixed in. It's just doing like a, a quad extension. But because of the nature of the machine, you're kind of strapped in. There is no technique or, or getting the use of it. And the design of the protocol is just to cause as much muscle damage and therefore as much pain as possible. This is absolutely horrific. Who signed up for this trial? Normally it's students, so, so make up what you will of that. So it really, really just beasts that leg so that when they come out, they kind of hobble off the machine and then they are hobbling for days off. How long, how long are they on the machine for? I don't, I don't know. Long enough. Long enough. I mean, it's, it is horrendous. Sure, I should, I should know the answer. No, it's okay. I'm just curious because I don't know, is it just one continuous horrible set? Well, the funny thing is, if you're talking to Dorian set, the real sports nutrition, you know, especially like the bodybuilding community, like no one trains this hard. This is an extreme event. And they're like, I train that hard. Always the way strap them in. I train that hard. No, no, you don't. Like these guys can't walk. I can't walk down the stairs. Feels good to me. So we beast them on this machine and then we get them back in two days later and then the third day as well. So what we're looking and we're testing their strength each time because we want to see are they recovering. And that's not. You get some kind of feedback from them, but that's not always the most reliable. But you're looking at, are they getting their strength back. So this is how that conversation always comes up with kind of particularly the bodybuilders is I'm saying, but you know, you don't train like this regularly. You go to the gym, you do a session, you might work to failure, but the aim is not to put yourself out for a week. You want to be back in the gym in two days or training your. Sport, whatever it is, past the delayed onset. Exactly. So the quicker you recover, the more you do add that up over weeks and weeks and weeks. Great. You're getting stronger. No question of it. So anyway, so we got them back in, in the two days. Again, really clear kind of differences. So some of that we're seeing like 144% increase in strength over the, over the period of time there, they're recovering better at the 48 hours, they're fully recovered and then some. They actually got stronger at the third day, which is like a really interesting finding because it shouldn't really be happening. They shouldn't be getting stronger. And compared to placebo, say about that 144% above that. What was really cool in this study is that we're able to take a bunch of blood plasma from, from these people as well. So see what's happening in the muscle after they're doing the, the exercise insult and then through their recovery days as well. And we see that there's a bunch of different markers. So we call these myokines. So they're kind of cytokines are inflammatory molecules that get released due to certain kind of immune reasons. And myokines are muscle released cytokines. And they're specific to exercise. So what we see there is on all the things that are involved with recovery, we see a big a peak come back to baseline, which is exactly what you want. So you kind of big reaction to the exercise, a big amplified response, but then return to baseline and go there. And we also see that response kicking in quicker as well. So we looked at their blood prior to the exercise challenge, immediately after the exercise challenge, and then I think it's a 2 hours or 4 hours and the 48 and the 72. So. So we just see these graphs that have all got an amplified response compared to the placebo and in a lot of cases, that little bit sooner as well. And then a really interesting one there as well, which is something, because it just always has kind of been in the scene and around the background of sports nutrition is we also looked at the negative myokines that are happening. And one of the big ones that we always hear about is myostatin. So myostatin is something that inhibits muscle growth, and typically it increases as we age. We know exercise as a whole is good for it, but overtraining over exercising actually produces and increases myostatin. I guess that's some kind of evolutionary thing to say that if you do too much exercise, you don't suddenly blow up, that you can't do anything. I'm a habitual overtrainer. Yeah. Eight days straight, no rest day. And then I'm like, okay, okay, all right, I'm back. So what we saw is we effect for that specific overtraining event, that, that leg extension, we pretty much knocked out that overtraining effect effect from the myostatin. So we just saw a tiny little speed Bump. But compared with the placebo group which just had this big peak of myostatin that came on. So we just turned that big peak into a, into a speed bump and then got it down to baseline as well. So as a nutritional ingredient, like honestly the pharma companies, everyone there was this big, you know, it's about 10 years ago now, probably this big furor about, you know, myostatin doping is going to be the, you know, the next frontier in sports performance and pet mitigated. Yeah, exactly. You're going to have these super athletes and there was these pictures of these Swiss cows that don't have any myostatin. And they're just the Belgian Blue Bulls. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just to hang out. Call me that. In college, these guys and they did knocked out the gene in mice and these mutant like mice who are ripped. So it's just been this kind of holy grail and we didn't see that in our. Damn, damn. How's I have to grab that whole bag. But, but, but like to see a nutritional ingredient which is able to do that, which like pharma have been looking for solutions in that area for, you know, for decades now. So really, really nice piece from that. How are you administering the actual pep peptides strong. How are you administering it during the trials? Just by itself, is it? Yeah, no. So in all our studies we're as again back to that first point of, you know, we have to prove we work first and foremost and we don't have 20, 30 years of other people doing studies here to boost it. So we've been really simple on our studies. We've just put Pepsi strong in on its own, not with additional protein supplementation. In fact, most of the time we're telling our subjects not to use other supplements because we want to get a really clean, clear result that it's Peptiztron delivered and she's powdered. And first we put it in as powder so it just as a drink and a bit of flavoring in there just to make it palatable and drunk. So going through the gastrointestinal system just as any other product would be just as a. And creatine plus peptide is second study because we wanted to use a placebo we encapsulated so it's 2.4 gram dose. Just put a. Popped it in capsules. The capsules weren't special. They weren't, you know, helping with digestion or protecting the ingredient. It just means that the subject person in the study can't tell if they're taking Pepsi strong or they're taking something different. Yeah, so. So it's just, it's just to camouflage everything cool. Now, is there a difference in rate of absorption and bioavailability versus powder and capsule or is it equally the same? No, no, no, no difference. Because the capsules we use are just HPMC capsules. These are the standard kind of veggie caps that most people get stuff in. They dissolve straight away in the same. They offer no protection whatsoever. That's a question that I, that I get frequently when I talk about the product as well. Oh, well, we see it pepystrong alone with whatever other product in a capsule and that absorbs better and that is completely, utterly false. So, yeah, yeah, it makes no difference. That's the cool bit of what the science we've done before to ensure that we're creating ingredients where we know that they don't have to. You know, in the future we might find something that's really cool and works in another area. Maybe that's going to be in, you know, liver health or it could be in anything. And it's actually, this is a really cool peptide, but it doesn't withstand digestion and then we're going to need to get smart about how we deliver that. But the case with peptidestrong, we don't have that issue. Yeah. And then that's why, I mean, that's why when we were making this, and kudos to Ben, Gareth and Darren when they were creating creatine peptide, it's like, all right, so everyone has, as a creatine, it's the most trusted ingredient, quite literally of all time, the most tested ingredient of all time. How do we take this? How do we make it unique and how do we really increase output performance? How do we give people the most bang for their buck and how do we, again, just make it different? Everyone's making the same thing. How do we market this the correct way? So let's throw a full dose of creatine, 5 grams straight monohydrate, not HCl, not all these other versions, and pair it with Peptrong, but not like a gram or two, the full 2.4 gram dose. So all these great benefits that, that he's talking about, and then pairing it with 5 grams of creatine monohydrate, whether it be added muscle size, endurance, strength, speed, performance and then all these other added benefits from Pepti Strong. Darren calls it that. He's like, oh, it's your daily anabolic drink. And. But the, the cool thing about it though is it's it's so convenient. It's a scoop. Whether it's with your protein. I drink it intra workout. I like it with our hydration powder. It makes everything taste great. Just one scoop a day and super cost effective too. It's like less than a dollar a serving. You did ask the question and so we gave Pepsi strong straight as is. In the second trial it was just in the mornings. Just with breakfast or basically it doesn't matter. You put it early, first thing in the morning because you want adherence and if you tell people to take it in a funky way, they forget basically. And then you can affect your results. And that's what I love because the same with, with creatine is they don't need to have specific use times. So I typically, personally I take pepstrong after exercise but it's not for any reason, it just fits in with, with my side. It's the same with creatine though. Creatine we know builds up in the system so it doesn't matter which what time you use creatine you're going to get the benefits. Once you've, once you've kind of allowed the build up there, you ask the question like why the combination and why it's so good. Creatine tried tested, we know what it does, we know it works and I love the way it works. I always picture this in my mind. I'm not sure it's going to come across to the listener but I think of like a figure of eight with, with, with me or the, the trainer in the middle of that figure of eight and the creatine is the top loop of that. So we know what creatine does. You put phosphate donor, that helps reconvert or convert ADP into ATP energy and that ATP energy is what we're going to use for sprinting, punching, jumping, lifting weights or whatever the kind of sport we're doing. So you've got that top loop being fulfilled by creatine. Creatine helps you train harder. It does have some impact in terms of muscle growth but mainly it's just by causing a bigger stimulus. So what peptides strong does is the bottom circle of that figure of eight. So you've got a kind of a virtuous loop going on at the top with train more, train harder. Yeah, you've got the extra benefit, the extra water into the muscle and the extra workload and lean mass that that brings as well. And then we talked about the first two studies on peptidron. What we've got is increased Muscle protein synthesis. Post that training event. So you've trained harder but you want your body to be able to respond to that. You've got improved recovery so you can get back into the gym and train again or have as good or a better training session than you would have done otherwise. Post that training event. And then the third advantage that we see with Peptischen from our third study, which is a longer study which was looking at strength and we did in men and women. So it's really important again not enough science is done with female subjects, it's just going to stick to men is that we see this big increase in strength endurance. So over an eight week period we saw that the Pepti Strong group as opposed to placebo group was able to do double the amount of additional repetitions. So they got stronger over the study. But the Pepti Strong users were able to do double the number of reps plus they actually got stronger as well versus placebo. So an extra 17% strength increase across the course of that study. So now you've got this again virtuous kind of figure of eight loop going on. You're training harder, you've got more energy to train, you're pushing more weight, you've got increased muscle protein synthesis happening from that. You're recovering better from that exercise and you're able to have more muscular endurance and more stamina to do more coming back in. And it's just self fulfilling. So I just think it's a really nice simple combination but the simplicity of it isn't a bad thing. It's just like, it's just obvious. And before, you know, I use creative actually I didn't put them together which kind of more for me but the different stages of my training. I'm going to use creatine and I use Peptizron continually throughout the year as you would expect someone from Neurotask to do anyhow. But you know they just, they're just going to work really well together and just put it in a single scoop and making it accessible and affordable is, is then just the, the extra part that needs to happen. The icing on the cake. Yep. Is there a reason that we did monohydrate instead of the other creatines? Just because it's monohydrate, it's purposeful, it's the one that's tried and true. The most studies, most white paper, most proven results ever in supplements period history. So that was really the goal there and it's just really old school meets new school. Right. Everyone's used creatine. Everyone uses creatine, whether it be for in the gym. There's even cognitive benefits. Now people saying push to 10, 10 a day. Yeah, I saw that study 10 grams. A day instead of the five. And then it's just again pairing those two ingredients. It was really a no brainer. Like he said, it's only two ingredients. It's pretty simple. You wouldn't think it but the simplicity is really the just greatness within the product. That's probably something that you guys could both comment on in the supplement industry as well. It's just like over complex things that don't need to be just making it like a laundry list of ingredients. When how many of those ingredients on our supplement label are actually going to help you out versus you have a product right here that's going to be tried and true proven, not only have the double blind placebo and gold standard testing in the back end, but actually have the data to prove it versus just like, well I see what I'm buying. Has all of this, does any of that actually make a difference? Yeah, in our space sometimes keep it simple stupid. Yeah, in our space it gets really crowded. Not even like with bad apples, but sometimes. Oh yeah, I don't think it's maliciously done. I just think they, I just think sometimes companies may think that somebody will look at that and think wow, I'm getting so much for the dollar. More. More is not always necessarily better. And there was a few years ago you saw like this like new age of just people doing these fully loaded pre workouts of just like kitchen sink approach which isn't necessarily a bad thing but after a while it gets redundant and like what really makes you different and what ingredients are you using? Why are you using it? Again, more isn't always better. So like you said, sometimes keep it simple, stupid. Sometimes it's a two ingredient product that's like holy shit, I didn't think of that. But again it's what works. What do we know works and is it validated? Is there studies behind it? Can we prove it? Is it cost effective and is it innovative? And that's really why when we were bringing creatine and Pepistron together it's like it's the agreed approach of keeping innovation at the head of our thought process when creating these things. But also what's really going to create as much output and increased performance as possible. And that's what aim performance is just as a brand that's just really who we are and for that forever Athlete. Right. Just creating more output and increasing performance at every single level, whether it's me like the weekend warrior, you jiu jitsu, or this behemoth of men sitting right in front of us cranking weights. So it's, it's bad day to be. Away with my man. I know, I know. Bad day, bad day to be a weight. But, but that's, that's really the approach and, and that's why I think the marriage of these two and all the amazing science that he was talking about and it's, it just makes too much sense. But yeah, you know, so now where do you see. Obviously you, you said there's, there's so much more that you guys can do with all the synthesizing other types of peptides. You have this laundry list, Rolodex of different types of elements and ways that you could do different things. So where do you see, do you see this as the jumping off point to now start to really hammer into the fitness world? Yeah. So it's interesting with Peptron actually. I mean I love being back in the, in the sports nutrition space, but actually we talked about our vision or I talked about our vision right at the start is to impact billions of lives. So I actually see one of the biggest opportunities for Pepti Strong and the biggest area of need is actually in frailty and the healthy aging market. So you have the kind of, the healthy aging which is probably people my age who just want to age better, but then you have the medical nutrition kind of end use where you people are losing a ton of muscle, they can't get up, they lose all their independence and everything else. So we've got to keep building on the science. So we haven't, we're not kind of three studies and done with Peptiztrong. It's just the start and we got to keep on progressing that of course we've got some other ingredients coming through. But I just want to kind of answer your earlier question around overcomplicating and things like that, please. I think I'm not going to say anything bad about anyone who is bringing ingredients or finished products to market, who's studying them and bringing science to support what they say. Because I think, I think that's great and there's a lot of good companies doing those things. But a lot of those studies as we have done, they're all in isolation. So what I think gets, starts to get really interesting here. We're taking two very well studied now clever ingredients that I can talk through that story of why they work together rather than. So it's a very easy mechanistic approach to why they are natural bedfellows. Whereas sometimes some products are a little bit of we'll throw this and we'll throw in that. We'll throw this in. Because they kind of all got stuff that consumers want, but they haven't thought of the system, which is the human or the biology that they're going in the big picture. So I think there we can start to look into how things interact and that's where things get really, really cool. Ultimately you deliver better to the customer and then the customer gets results and that's all they care about and want. So you need to see results. Other areas for us, you know, I think adjacent to kind of classic sports or active nutrition. So we're really interested in sleep and we got some products underway in that area. So big, big opportunity there and very interested in kind of glucose management and that GLP weight management area as well. So, you know, the fact that we're seeing it was just a huge shift really in, in a hot. I think it's. Saw some data the other day which is. It's the first time in history that the obesity figures in the US have actually taken a downward turn because it has just been a constant increase. And I'm not picking on the U.S. that's pretty. No pick on us. We need it. It's all around the world. But it's the first time that that's actually taken a diplomatic. And there's less obese people as opposed to more year on year. So I think that's a really seismic change. But it's interesting because you've got now a lot of people using. Yes. You know, all those different things and using them effect potentially could be for life. So what's going to happen, which I. Find interesting on the terms of like you're using that to lose the weight, but then you're also diminishing muscle. Yeah. Oh, well, where does it, where does it come into, into like picture for you to use something like PepsiStron. And I think that, I mean, I think that the, the industry is acknowledging that. Exactly. So actually I wasn't even thinking about that. I was just kind of thinking more about we need solutions that aren't just Ozempic and WeGovy. Oh, I agree too. I'm firm believer that you need to have like actual, you know, rigid diet, practicing what you put in your mouth and obviously the output in the gym and physical activity, taking walks. It's, it's, it's a gradual step for somebody that, that thinks they need nozempic. You have to gradually get them into a lifestyle like that. It's not just like well go to jiu jitsu and roll around and you know, eat chicken and rice for the rest of you, you know, for the rest of the week and the salads and this, you have to kind of just baby step them in. The unfortunate truth, you know, I had this conversation with some family members recently is that a lot of doctors will just push this drug because and once again it's like no offense to them, they're told that it's gonna help this person lose weight. It's kind of just like I don't have to deal with it anymore, like it will have effect. But now what are the back end effects of this? Because there's always a yin and yang. So what are the back end effects of this drug where you're going to lose muscle mass or bone density issues? When you have old people, a lot of people that are in their not later stages but you know, 40s, 50s and now they're going to have bone density issues starting to occur naturally. But now you're taking something that's going to rapid fire. I think one of the Really, I mean 100% on all of that. One of the really and this way for me peptides strong is that opportunity. In the older frailer population we know that the best thing you can do to live longer so years to your life is exercise. Having more muscle is pretty closely linked and we see a good increase in your, in your lifespan, rip strength, all those things effectively at measuring. Yeah, but yeah muscle function alone. So even if you don't have muscle, just strength, I think it's 17%. You get a 17% increase in, in life expectancy associated with being stronger. So the question is what you were talking about here is the drugs, the Ozempics, they can help you because it's got to be incredibly intimidating or even impossible task to get into exercise when you're at that stage. But it's like what's going to happen and how do you get this is a helping hand to make lifestyle improvements. But the way you see a lot of use at the moment with Wegovia's epic etc. Is that people go from a overeating, poor nutritional density environment, they take the drugs, they eat the same food, but they eat considerably less of it. And now you actually in a western world that didn't have this, you now got malnutrition going on and the muscle loss and everything else is malnutrition related because not hungry, consuming far less calories, but they're still crappy calories. So I think it's a huge opportunity. It's not easy because drugs are expensive. They work in terms of scale weight. So there's a massive education piece. But yeah, I mean for sure having anything that can get you in the gym can help you recover. Better supports and protects your muscle mass is going to be absolutely key. And I'm sure there's a lot of people using the drugs and making some other positive changes, but there's definitely a lot of people who, yep, take the drugs, losing the weight and then we're already seeing that once you stop use that weight comes back on and then it just gets into that typical kind of yo yo diet of a lower muscle mass, lower resting metabolic rate and the weight comes back and it comes on more so. But now instead of being like an up and down over like I'm going on a six week diet for a bikini or something, it's now happening over years and we're just going to see this potentially much more dangerous kind of yo yo diet effect over a much. Longer periods of scale. Yeah, yeah. I like how you said just general scale weight though, because it's everything, not just fat. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Everything starts to come down on that. But. All right, so we have Peptrong in creatine with an performance. I want to let you do the spiel about like it's available vitamin shop in the States, overseas. I assume it's available overseas as well. You got to give me an idea. I don't know. Yeah, no. So creatine and peptide available on ansupps.com under our performance tab with all the new AMP performance products. If you want to walk into your local vitamin shop nationwide here in the States it's available fully in stock and then within, I want to say in January this month it'll be available in the UK as well. Cool. Yeah. I don't want to overspeak. No, yeah, I know. Yeah. Let's face it, look at me like this, I'm like, I don't know when it releases. Yeah, this is so also too, from a branding standpoint, this is a really big moment for us because this is one of the first products I think, I don't, I don't, don't quote me. And hopefully I'm not wrong but that the UK team is bringing from the US so this is one of the first products really ever that they're Taking that, that we did over here and they're like, oh that's sick, let's bring it over here. And again, I think it's just a testament to the science validity and, and what the product itself stands for. So this is truly a global effort and it's really just fueling moments worldwide. So that's really our goal and sick. Yeah, that's what we're all about. Anything else, Neil, that we didn't cover? No, I think I talked a lot. No, you did, you fog it. You hit it out right out of the park. Crushed it. Dude, you're awesome. Because. Yeah, no, no, you crush exactly what I was envisioning, you know, the sit down to like look like with the actual science backing the base of what you guys got into and stuff like that. It's awesome. The stuff is super interesting though to like what it's just like so early on. Even though like you said the technology is over 50 years old now. It's so interesting to see where it's going to go in terms of that field of being able to like find and discover things versus me just like typing into Chappie Jap. How should I respond to my girl? That's what I do every day. I do now, every day. I won't name the investor. We've had some really cool investors in your test and continue to have so. But in the very early days there was one who's very, very big in the kind of social media and tech space and their sound bite as to why they're so interested in Neurotas. It's using AI for good because previously. Okay, now it's got a bit more interesting with ChatGPT but AI used to tell you what to watch on Netflix and help you buy a pizza. Whereas actually it can do a lot of good and hopefully we're one of the forces for good. That's awesome. Well Neil, I really appreciate your time coming down chopping it up with us. Neurotas. You said it's Irish? Irish. Irish company. You're located in the UK though. Yep. How's the UK been? How's the weather out there? Not quite as cold as Long Island. Okay. But close. Not rainy though for once because it's too cold. Small Grace. Yeah. That's awesome. Listen Neil, I appreciate you Nick, I appreciate you for everybody that's interested in the AN line. Nick told you where to get it. Vitamin shop around the States and coming soon overseas back in the UK and wherever else AN is available. But I appreciate everybody for hanging out with us. But for now, peace. Thanks. What's going on, guys? I hope you enjoyed the last episode of Rizzology with Neil from Neuritas and the most handsome Nick Karolakis with an performance. This episode is sponsored by an performance. If you liked any of the stuff that we were talking about, the creatine plus peptide formula that we went super in depth about and you want to give it a try, it's available nationwide in the United States at Vitamin Shop or you can get it on ansupps.com, code rizzles for 20% off. Check it out and see those gains.