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www.discoverc15.com
Stephanie Venn-Watson, DVM, MPH, is a veterinary epidemiologist, author of The Longevity Nutrient, and the world’s leading expert on C15:0—the first essential fatty acid discovered in more than 90 years. Formerly with the WHO (World Health Organization) and U.S. Navy, she holds 70-plus patents, has 80-plus peer-reviewed publications, and is co-founder/CEO of Seraphina Therapeutics. Dr. Venn-Watson’s work has been featured on NPR, CBS, BBC and National Geographic. A 2025 CNBC Changemaker, she has received the HHS Secretary’s Award for Innovations in Disease Prevention and Boehringer Ingelheim’s Innovation Award, advancing groundbreaking science to help people age healthier.
Q: What natural health products can help patients maintain health in old age and increase their longevity?
A: Pentadecanoic acid (C15:0), the first new essential fatty acid to emerge in over 90 years, targets multiple hallmarks of aging. These hallmarks drive how we age at the cellular level. Specifically, C15:0 strengthens cell membranes against lipid peroxidation, restores mitochondrial function, improves nutrient sensing and cellular signaling, and lowers inflammaging. C15:0 also modulates the key longevity pathways, including activating AMPK and inhibiting mTOR. Peer-reviewed research shows that C15:0 outranks well-known longevity compounds including rapamycin and metformin in clinically relevant geroprotective activities. Unlike drugs, C15:0 is a nutrient that works with the body’s own systems rather than overriding them.
Q: What dietary steps should patients take to stay healthy in old age?
A: The discovery of C15:0 challenges long-standing dietary advice. Full-fat dairy, the primary dietary source of C15:0, was broadly avoided for decades, inadvertently driving a population-wide deficiency. Most people are now below the optimal circulating level of C15:0. Beyond addressing C15:0 through modest amounts of full-fat dairy or targeted supplementation, studies strongly support that the Mediterranean diet is good for our long-term health: oily fish, colorful vegetables, quality fats like olive oil and avocado, dairy fat and minimizing ultra-processed foods.
Q: What sort of lifestyle interventions can promote longevity and healthy aging?
A: Evidence strongly supports prioritizing sleep quality, managing chronic stress through practices that restore vagal tone, and incorporating Zone 2 aerobic exercise for mitochondrial efficiency. C15:0 supplementation works synergistically with all of these, addressing the structural cellular fragility that even the most health-conscious patients can experience, filling the gap that lifestyle interventions alone cannot fully close.
Q: How can practitioners help their patients prevent age-related disease?
A: Indeed, we advocate increasingly moving from a disease-intervention model to a health-promotion cellular health model. This is because, by the time most age-related disease is clinically apparent, significant cellular damage has already accumulated over years. Practically, this means screening earlier for metabolic and cellular health markers, having honest and frequent conversations with patients about cellular aging as something addressable rather than inevitable, and watching for the cluster of insulin resistance, increasing ferritin and red blood cell distribution width, elevated liver enzymes, unexplained anemia, and chronic fatigue that may signal cellular fragility syndrome, ferroptosis and metabolic hyperferritinemia—three recently discovered conditions associated with accelerated aging and C15:0 deficiency.
Q: What is Fatty15?
A: Fatty15 is the world’s first and only patented supplement containing pure C15:0—100 mg of pure pentadecanoic acid per capsule, in a stable powder form rather than an oil, ensuring precision dosing and protecting against oxidation. The science behind it spans over 150 peer-reviewed studies and 36-plus validated cellular benefits that support long-term metabolic, cognitive, liver, immune and red blood cell health. Fatty15 is TESTED by SuppCo Certified and has an EXCELLENT SuppCo TrustScore of 9.88, which is among the top 1 percent of all 160,000 supplements tested. Patients typically report improvements in energy and sleep quality within four to eight weeks, with broader metabolic benefits building at the three-to-six month mark. Practitioners can access a practitioner-exclusive product through Fullscript, or through a wholesale or affiliate partnership directly from Fatty15.
Q: What’s next in the healthy aging and longevity space?
A: The field is at a genuine inflection point. The biggest shift underway is nutrient-based geroprotection—serious scientific recognition that specific nutrients, at the right levels, can accomplish what pharmaceutical interventions have been trying to do, without the side effects. Biological age testing tools like AgeAccelPheno and AgeAccelGrims are also moving into accessible clinical use, giving practitioners objective feedback on whether interventions are actually working at the cellular level. Fatty15’s research team expects metabolic hyperferritinemia, ferroptosis and cellular fragility syndrome—the conditions associated with C15:0 deficiency—to become well-recognized clinical conditions, much as metabolic syndrome was codified in the early 2000s, with clear diagnostic criteria and evidence-based intervention protocols.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?
A: The story of C15:0 began while helping older dolphins. While leading a health program for the U.S. Navy’s aging marine mammals, I used metabolomics to analyze thousands of molecules in archived blood samples to identify which small molecules predicted the healthiest aging dolphins. C15:0 emerged as the top predictor of the healthiest, longest-lived animals. That discovery drove over a decade of research, 150-plus peer-reviewed papers, and ultimately the founding of Fatty15. My Simon & Schuster book, The Longevity Nutrient, tells the full story and offers practical guidance for patients, and the peer-reviewed evidence is available at discoverc15.com.
