116 – RFK vs. Big Pharma, Elon’s Aid Freeze, and ChatGPT’s SoftBank

[00:00:00] Marcus: If you enjoy this content, please take a moment to rate and review it. Your feedback will greatly impact our ability to reach more people. Thank you. 

[00:00:07] Vic: Okay, welcome to Health Further. We have a guest host this week. Caroline, thanks for doing this. Marcus is out of town. He is in the Middle East solving Mideast peace and maybe raising some money over there.

[00:00:19] Vic: So thanks for jumping in and stepping into his shoes. I appreciate you hosting. 

[00:00:23] Caroline Carralero: Of course. Yeah. Thanks for being, uh, or thanks for having me and it's good to be with you again. It's been a few years since I've, uh, reported with you. So awesome stuff. And, and to everyone who I haven't met, it's nice to meet you.

[00:00:34] Caroline Carralero: My name is Caroline. 

[00:00:35] Vic: Yeah. And so, um, Caroline, maybe give a little bit of your, your biography, your background that brought you to be running Nori right now. So you started off in a different company. I think it was a juice. Talk about your interest in health and diet and how that's manifesting your, in your first company and then Nori.

[00:00:54] Caroline Carralero: Yep, absolutely. So I actually started my career unintentionally, actually, in, in, uh, the [00:01:00] food and beverage industry. I started as one of the earliest employees of a juice company called Suja, which was an organic juice company that started in 2011 2012 when we launched products, and that company grew, uh, incredibly fast.

[00:01:14] Caroline Carralero: One of the fastest growing beverage companies in history. And what was really unique about it was that we were really disruptive, in that we were delivering organic fruits and vegetables, organic, cold pressed, very high quality juice to the masses, really, is what it was. And so, um, we were working and, and sourcing up to 300, 400, 000 pounds of organic produce every single week.

[00:01:38] Caroline Carralero: I got a very awesome crash course on Not just product development and bringing a product to market and scaling it, but really most importantly, the food industry. And I love that aspect of my learning and, uh, food, health and wellness industry. Um, all of the nuances of working with different customers, all of the nuances of how do you produce a [00:02:00] product, produce it safely and high quality.

[00:02:02] Caroline Carralero: So that was very interesting. Um, and kind of got bit also in that, uh, time by the entrepreneurial bug, I would say. And, uh, for those of you that are listening that have gotten, uh, that same bite to, you know, that is really hard to, to kick. And so I've been involved in starting many different companies since, um, but I've really focused on health and wellness ever since then.

[00:02:24] Caroline Carralero: So spent a few years there that company did phenomenally well, we were able to pass it on to other leadership. And during my time there, we started to. Integrate different what are called spore former bacteria or probiotics, right? So good probiotics into the juices to try and make the beverages even more functional and helpful for Americans.

[00:02:44] Caroline Carralero: And so, um, through that process, I was really introduced to the science and, um, benefits and quality behind, uh, probiotics and also behind the entire gut microbiome category. So went through my own journey of how do you optimize your gut? [00:03:00] Optimize your health. Um, my kind of phrase that I live by is that good health actually starts with gut health.

[00:03:06] Caroline Carralero: It's foundational to human health. Um, for those of you that don't know, we have what's called a gut microbiome, which is a ecosystem of bacteria. It lives in and on our body. It's incredibly important. It controls, you know, for example, 70 percent of your immune cells are located in your gut, so it controls your immune system.

[00:03:24] Caroline Carralero: But also we're learning so much about how the gut microbiome impacts your brain impacts hormones, all of these different things. So, um, I've dedicated my career so far. To, you know, health and wellness and then specifically over the last couple of years, just specifically to the gut microbiome. So founded a company called daily nori.

[00:03:44] Caroline Carralero: Our goal is to create the highest quality clinically supported products and make sure that they're accessible. That's a really key part of our mission. So all of our different products are available. Nationwide, uh, Amazon, key retailers like Walmart and Albertsons and [00:04:00] HEP. So thousands of retailers across the country.

[00:04:02] Caroline Carralero: Um, and we're really in this sweet spot of between 20 and 40 a month, which allows a lot of accessibility to these high quality products. So that's what I've been up to. We're located in California, um, travel and are on the road a lot. And are very passionate about how we can help Americans live healthier lives.

[00:04:19] Caroline Carralero: So we've got a lot of key focuses, but really specifically what you see us work on right now, a lot is hormone health and women's health. That's a core issue that we're focused on tackling. And then also metabolic and weight health. That's another issue, um, that we're just really drawn to right now because of the demand and because of the need.

[00:04:36] Caroline Carralero: So that's what we do. Tell 

[00:04:37] Vic: me how the product, uh, details work. In the metabolic health, maybe because that covers everyone. So is it a daily, um, maybe supplement that you drink or is it a pill? Like, what is, what's the form factor of it? 

[00:04:52] Caroline Carralero: Yeah, that's exactly right. So we actually have two formats. One that's out right now and one that's launching in a couple of weeks.

[00:04:56] Caroline Carralero: We produced it today, which is. Oh, wow. So we [00:05:00] have a format that's called a capsule and capsule. So that's a probiotic capsule, um, that's surrounded by a plant based to make oil and that's available nationally at Walmart and it's a probiotic that's actually proven to help with metabolic health and also really key indicators of metabolic health, like BMI.

[00:05:17] Caroline Carralero: So reducing BMI, reducing, um, uh, hip circumference and waist circumference, which are two of the indicators that we look at within about 90 days. So that product's awesome. We've had that out for a couple of years. It's one of our top. And 

[00:05:28] Vic: I'm an, I'm an investor, so I'm cheating, but the capsule and capsule sort of allows the actual really healthy probiotic stuff to get to the intestines.

[00:05:41] Vic: Is that right? It gets through the stomach. Yeah. 

[00:05:43] Caroline Carralero: Yeah. So when I was starting the company, I read some really good research that was published back in 2013 that showed there was this unique relationship between omegas and probiotics. And what this research [00:06:00] showed that was that if you combined omegas and probiotics, the omega actually helps deliver the probiotic further into the body.

[00:06:06] Caroline Carralero: And I thought, you know, I'm a very practical person. I thought that just makes sense. They protect, you know, the fatty acids, protect the probiotic. So we use this capsule and capsule so that we can deliver the probiotics further into the body. And we decided to use an omega oil that's called ahi flower, which is a very efficient plant based and clean oil.

[00:06:28] Caroline Carralero: Um, and it's one of the highest sources of omega threes from plants that's ever been found. Um, and it's also allows us to not be reliant on. China for fish oil, right? So there's a lot of issues with the fish oil supplied. So I wanted to go with a plant based or an algae source. And so long story short, that symbiotic relationship is pretty amazing.

[00:06:47] Caroline Carralero: We published a study before we launched the products that showed that it actually delivers. Twice as many viable cells through complete digestion. So that capsule and capsule is incredibly unique to all of our [00:07:00] capsule formats. Um, and then we're launching this week. Uh, or I guess it will launch next week.

[00:07:05] Caroline Carralero: But for your viewers, they'll get a sneak peek here. Um, we produced it today. A weight and metabolic health in a lemonade format. So it's a stick pack that you mix into water. It's a few grams of material, and it works very similar to these GLP one drugs and that it delays gastric emptying and it increases viscosity in the stomach.

[00:07:24] Caroline Carralero: So it really helps curb appetite and fill up the stomach. But instead of the drugs, it's using natural fibers and prebiotics and minerals. So we're really looking at how can this product. Not only serve this immediate need of weight loss and filling up the stomach, but also the longterm need, which actually gets the root cause, which is changing the composition of the gut microbiome, which is what we're all about.

[00:07:49] Caroline Carralero: And so this product actually changes the gut microbiome within four weeks to favor what's called a lean microbiome. So those are the things that we're doing within metabolic health. So we're trying to serve the core demand state [00:08:00] of the user, which is weight loss and weight control, but we're really.

[00:08:04] Caroline Carralero: looking at it from a long term perspective, which is focusing on metabolic health. And obviously this is a crisis in our country right now. So that's a little bit of what we're up to. 

[00:08:13] Vic: If I were to, um, I'd like to get my BMI down. If I, if I took one of your capsules or this new lemonade, And I don't change the rest of my diet.

[00:08:23] Vic: Do you have studies with that it can make a difference? Or do I have to also eat, you know, only lettuce and, uh, be good as well? 

[00:08:31] Caroline Carralero: No, I mean, all the studies that we've run have. Not change diet or lifestyle at all. Um, so we have communication that we can say you don't have to change anything, you just take this.

[00:08:45] Caroline Carralero: Um, however, from a philosophical standpoint, our company wants Americans 

[00:08:50] Vic: should try to eat better. We're 

[00:08:51] Caroline Carralero: trying to encourage everyone. So, you know, I'll give you an example. I mean, we've run advertising that says don't change anything. Don't change your lifestyle. But the [00:09:00] reality is you, you do have, um, we're a supplement company.

[00:09:02] Caroline Carralero: We're not a drug company. So it's very clear for, you know, anyone who knows the difference between the two, you have expectation management within any of this. And so we want to be really clear. I mean, you, to be frank, all the studies are run and you do not have to change your diet. You do not have to change anything, but we really want people to change their diets if they're not eating healthy.

[00:09:22] Caroline Carralero: So to answer your question. No, you can take the, you can take 

[00:09:25] Vic: it. The reason I asked it that way is it. It's a lot easier for me to change my diet when I start seeing some success and okay, I've lost three pounds and now I'm getting a little more energy and I am excited about the progress and so maybe now I won't have that, you know, second bag of chips or whatever.

[00:09:43] Vic: I'll easily make small changes. So you sort of partner where they're help, help the customer succeed as opposed to That's right. 

[00:09:50] Caroline Carralero: That's right. And that's what we should be doing. By definition, we're a supplement company, right? So we're, we're trying to supplement into their lifestyle. So yeah, I mean, that, that's what we're up to.

[00:09:59] Caroline Carralero: There's no [00:10:00] shortage of work to do. I think you'll see us develop a lot more in that category. Um, one of our other top selling products is our hormone balance product. And just, you know, a quick minute, 30, 30 to 60 seconds on that. A lot of women don't know That they have actually a subset of bacteria in their body called the a strobe alone that is focused on and is dedicated to estrogen metabolism, insanely important during times like menopause when your estrogen levels drop, or if you're just working on having a, you know, healthy estrogen levels, which a lot of women that are.

[00:10:34] Caroline Carralero: Trying to conceive right now are realizing they have issues and they've got estrogen dominance or these other issues going on. So that's been another huge, um, area of, of success for us because young women right now, um, are, are unhealthy. And so we need to help them. And one of the areas that, that really they're focused on is hormone health and hormone balance.

[00:10:54] Caroline Carralero: So there's a lot that we're into everything from our company's perspective is. Core and [00:11:00] central to the gut microbiome. So we're going to launch a children's product and it will be gut microbiome central and focused. And what's cool about this area of human health is that there's no shortage of work to be done.

[00:11:10] Caroline Carralero: There's so much research that's coming out every day. It's kind of just getting better and better. And in our entire lifetimes, we're just going to be at the tip of the iceberg. So like, there's no, this is kind of what attracted me to it. I'm super curious. I never want to be bored. And this, this is an area where it's like, you could read.

[00:11:27] Caroline Carralero: Endlessly and, uh, and continue to learn. So, yeah, you have 

[00:11:31] Vic: an entire podcast focused on these issues. I think it's called Jack. Is that correct? 

[00:11:36] Caroline Carralero: Yeah, we just, we just started doing this. So, yeah, so we're, we're, we have launched our podcast called gut check on YouTube and then we have a video aspect of it, which is really fun.

[00:11:46] Caroline Carralero: We're, we're then, of course, uh, syndicating that into social media and everything else. And then we have it on Spotify. So yeah, it's a, it's a fun way we're, we're, we're doing with that is we're just really, uh, interviewing different people all throughout America that are focused [00:12:00] on health and wellness.

[00:12:00] Caroline Carralero: And so it's very fun lifestyle, uh, podcast and yeah, I just did a wonderful interview today with a gentleman who works on red light therapy, which has been awesome. And there's some terrific research around red light therapy. Um, so yeah, it's been, it's been a wonderful way. 

[00:12:17] Vic: We will put a link to the podcast in the show notes, so hopefully some people can check that out and really dive more into the gut microbiome because it's so impactful to all different aspects of health.

[00:12:29] Vic: It deserves its own podcast, but you agreed to help me sift through all the new innovations. So let's dig in there. 

[00:12:37] Caroline Carralero: Let's do it.

[00:12:48] Vic: Okay, so, um, it's been a busy week in the economy and politics. Trump has this habit of stating a really big, maybe shocking, [00:13:00] uh, kind of news item. He did it with tariffs over the weekend. We're recording this on Wednesday, so he came out over the weekend with huge tariffs on Mexico and Canada, and then a slightly smaller tariff on China.

[00:13:13] Vic: The stock market did not like that. It would be really difficult for the economy, but then, uh, after discussions with both Canada and Mexico, that got, uh, turned around. And so this story in the Wall Street Journal, inside the chaotic run up to tariffs U turn, sort of talks about that 48 hours of chaos around, there's this huge tariff.

[00:13:38] Vic: Oh, no, no, wait, no tariff. So, um, do you have a supply? I think you just mentioned one of your, your official, your oil. Omega oil is not from China. Do you have any suppliers outside the U. S. where you're concerned about this? 

[00:13:53] Caroline Carralero: Yeah, well first just to acknowledge our category as a whole the VMS the vitamin supplement category has a ton of supply coming to China, so [00:14:00] this definitely impacts China Um, we do actually Source one material which is actually our glass bottle for those of your listeners that are that are tuning into this.

[00:14:09] Caroline Carralero: I mean Glass, we don't really have a good supply of what's called disposable glass in the US. So things like olive oil bottles, beer bottles, and for us, a glass supplement bottle is considered disposable glass. So yes, we source that from China. We've worked really hard over the last couple of years. I think really COVID was the wake up call for our business.

[00:14:27] Caroline Carralero: Like, we cannot source this stuff overseas and, and just have a reliable, even just the imports and getting stuck at the, at it on the water, you know, whatever it might be. So. Long story short, I think with this, the, the, we, we don't have a huge impact, but our category does. So our business itself is great, but our category is impacted by these things.

[00:14:45] Caroline Carralero: Um, less so a little bit from, from Mexico and China. It's more so just a lot of companies that sell things in Mexico and China for our category. But I think just in general here, the way to look at this is, um, for, for, you know, love him or hate him, Donald Trump, you can, we we've [00:15:00] known him for a while as a culture, right?

[00:15:01] Caroline Carralero: And so you can kind of predict some of these things. So, I mean, he wrote that book, the art of the deal, and I think it was published in late 18 or 1987. I think it was, and it's really, I mean, fascinating again, if you hate him, whatever it is, it's 

[00:15:15] Vic: the playbook he's using today. 

[00:15:17] Caroline Carralero: Exactly. It's the, it's the playbook.

[00:15:18] Caroline Carralero: And so my point in that is like, it's not, this stuff's actually not complicated. You can tell what he's going to do. And if you haven't figured it out yet, I mean, you got to get used to this because I don't think this is going to go anywhere. He does this stuff all the time. And I guess where I don't lose sleep over things like this with the economy is that this guy is a capitalist at heart.

[00:15:39] Caroline Carralero: He's a builder, he's a developer. So when it comes to the economy, I don't think we have to be You know, too, uh, afraid of him not looking out for our best interest. So that's where, that's where, you know, I, I look at this, it's like, we've seen this before. It's not the first time he's been the president. We know how he's going to handle these things.

[00:15:57] Caroline Carralero: Um, and lo and [00:16:00] behold, you can tell, I mean, just again, taking a big step back, you can tell. The heavier 25 percent tariffs were on Canada and Mexico. The less 10 percent tariff was on China. Why? Because China hit right back with another tariff because there's a deeper, massive, uh, supply chain at play with China.

[00:16:21] Caroline Carralero: Whereas he knows he can play a little bit more with Mexico and Canada. So we put the 25 percent tariff. Does that make sense? So, I mean, 

[00:16:29] Vic: but leaving it aside that, that example. Yeah. I think of, uh, his style, maybe, and it's in The Art of the Deal. Yep. It comes out with, like, a huge, uh, shocking thing, uh, that is, you know, maybe not all that possible, but he states it.

[00:16:48] Vic: And really what I think he's doing is trying to open the Overton window broader so that more things, more, more negotiating deal points are now on the table. And then he comes [00:17:00] back and tries to get a deal for himself or in this case for our country. Um, I think that's the sort of, uh, pattern that he's Yep.

[00:17:08] Caroline Carralero: It's a pattern, and I mean, you can talk about it all day, but like, Americans that aren't used to this yet, like, get used to it. I don't think it's going to go anywhere. I'm just, just to be plain, whether you love him or hate him, it is what it is, and it's totally to be expected. 

[00:17:22] Vic: This is a story from the Wall Street Journal.

[00:17:24] Vic: The terrorists caused a, almost a 3 percent drawdown in stocks on Monday. Uh, but then they came back, as you're saying, like when he's ended up negotiating with China, I mean, uh, not China, Canada and Mexico, the summary came back. 

[00:17:40] Caroline Carralero: And he's doing this over the weekend. I mean, this is what's crazy too. Again, get used to this.

[00:17:44] Caroline Carralero: This guy's going to work seven days a week. His team's going to work seven days a week. You're going to do this over the weekend. It's just, you, you can't freak out when you see these changes because very little of them, you know, you, the news cycle is going to change to this. hour by hour cycle that we've seen the [00:18:00] last couple of weeks.

[00:18:00] Caroline Carralero: I actually don't think that's going to go anywhere. I think that's going to continue throughout this whole term, potentially. 

[00:18:05] Vic: Yeah, right. Okay. Then China, as you mentioned, China retaliated yesterday. And again, this is going to be a multi month negotiating process with, with China, I think over time. So, um, Trump started it and now China's retaliating.

[00:18:21] Vic: I think there's going to be lots of back and forth. Uh, through this process. 

[00:18:25] Caroline Carralero: Yep. I think this one, there's, there's just so much more power and nuance to it. That's, that's, I mean, multi month if we're lucky, this will probably go on for a long time. Yep. So, I, I think what this is going to do, if anything, is, you know, uh, a lot of the business owners that I've talked to over the last couple of weeks take it with a grain of salt.

[00:18:42] Caroline Carralero: It's not like thousands of business owners, but it's, it's a lot. They're considering what they're sourcing from China to see if they can get it from other places. Like, one I talked to today said, We're trying to move as much supply as we can to Vietnam, right? So, like, I think there's going to be little pivots like that.

[00:18:56] Caroline Carralero: Um, because again, if you know Trump, you know this one isn't going [00:19:00] to go anywhere. He's talked about this for a long time. 

[00:19:02] Vic: Okay, moving into the venture market. So, SafetyU, which is a senior living heir, raised 43 million. To continue to sort of build their business. I think in senior care we need a lot more care.

[00:19:16] Vic: We need a lot of support and a lot of technology. So they're using AI and remote clinicians to take, take care of seniors more, which is great. This 

[00:19:25] Caroline Carralero: this one Vic I love, I mean, so I mean a lot of people don't realize, I mean this is a huge issue. I think safe safely you is using AI camera technology to look at.

[00:19:35] Caroline Carralero: fall prevention. 1 in 5 Americans over 85 have Alzheimer's. 1 in 10 over 65 Alzheimer's and dementia are growing. That's what they're focused on. Safely you. Um, so then there's really not a lot of resource out there for Alzheimer's and dementia, especially for these care homes. Um, so this one's really cool and I think this will be well spent.

[00:19:56] Caroline Carralero: And it's just another great example of how these Companies are going to use [00:20:00] AI. I don't know exactly how they're using it, but I think it's within their camera technology. They're trying to predict falls. Um, and it's, it's, it's really terrific. So this is going to be a huge and growing need. Unfortunately, Alzheimer's and dementia are just on the rise.

[00:20:13] Vic: Yeah, and if it is, um, well designed, which we don't know the technology, but let's assume it's well designed, it could be much safer and actually more private than having a human there living with the senior all the time and following them at 2 in the morning when they go to the restroom. Yeah, I mean, it's false happen.

[00:20:33] Vic: So 

[00:20:33] Caroline Carralero: it's it's it's incredibly expensive. Um, the generations that are coming up the boomers that are taking care of their parents and the millennials now that are going to take care of their parents. The cost is insane. And I do not think the data shows that. Children have prepared to take care of their parents and how much it cost and so the cost efficiency is going to be a big one here to look at.

[00:20:57] Caroline Carralero: And then also the generation that's taking [00:21:00] care of their parents is used to so much technology. So this one, this one's great. I mean, I was just thinking about our own family in this dynamic and. You, you, yeah, you, you want to, you want to, uh, allow your grandparents, your parents to have as much liberty, of course, as they can.

[00:21:16] Caroline Carralero: And this is the classic story, but then you're their primary caretaker. And so what do you do? So I think, you know, this is one of many companies, um, that we're going to see continue to attract a lot of capital. Because it hits home for a lot of the people that are investing, which is always the best kind of deal.

[00:21:32] Caroline Carralero: And, um, and they're doing great work. So yeah, this is a growing problem. We'll see a ton more hopefully in AI creating solutions for Alzheimer's and dementia, but, um, this is a great one. 

[00:21:43] Vic: Okay. And then the Wall Street Journal was covering, uh, KKR. KKR is, uh, I'm following it. It's not really a venture deal.

[00:21:51] Vic: They made three investments. But KKR is really evolving into, I mean, they're publicly traded and they have [00:22:00] various funds, but they also now are making direct investments into companies out of their holding company. And so we've been covering this for a while. There's VCs now that are evolving their business to, to be different.

[00:22:15] Vic: And the three things they invested in, 1 800 CONTACTS. Um, and then two others, more biotech, uh, so there are a lot of health related things in this. And KKR is, of course, huge, hundreds of billions of dollars. Um, it's interesting to see them evolve like this. 

[00:22:32] Caroline Carralero: Yeah, I mean, my note here, I don't know this one as well, to speak specifically to it, my note here is this is the theme, right?

[00:22:39] Caroline Carralero: The theme in healthcare, the theme in food, the theme in beverage is this diversification of investment. I think that Depending on where leadership goes and what's going to attract funding and attention over the next couple of years, or even the next year, we're going to see a lot more diversification.

[00:22:54] Caroline Carralero: That's going to be my theory is that we're going to see a ton more diversification of what's gets investment dollars, [00:23:00] but they're wise to do so. There's gonna be, you know, I think each of these funds is also taking a part of what they're doing and investing in what we were just talking about, which is technology and ai and how that's gonna be a part of the business.

[00:23:13] Caroline Carralero: Um, but then just also it's you, you have generations that are dying. So the, those that were, you know, purchasing on 1-800-CONTRACTS, for example, what's the next iteration of that? And so I think it's just, it's a natural cycle. Um, and I think we are going to see a lot of these companies get strategic in health care, because again, as, as your listeners well know, I mean, health care is the largest and fastest growing industry, right?

[00:23:36] Caroline Carralero: So, 

[00:23:37] Vic: and there's a lot of things that can be made better in health care. Tons. 

[00:23:41] Caroline Carralero: Uh, yeah, just about everything. So, yeah. 

[00:23:45] Vic: Okay. So let's get into policy now. Um, Robert Kennedy Jr. He made it through the committee yesterday. I think it's pretty clear that he's going to get confirmed this week ish. I don't know when they actually would go to a vote, uh, but I [00:24:00] think the full Senate's very likely to confirm him.

[00:24:02] Vic: I know you're in the supplement space. It's so very close to where Robert Kennedy is focused on food and supplements and vitamins and taking some things out of the food. What are your thoughts about, um, Kennedy? 

[00:24:17] Caroline Carralero: Yeah. I mean, my thoughts are pretty simple. Um, he's, I said this on Fox yesterday. I mean, he's not, 

[00:24:24] Vic: you're actually, yeah, you're on Fox here.

[00:24:26] Vic: Yeah. You're on Fox news and we'll have this link in the show notes so people can listen. You did a great job sort of talking on Fox about the talk, but the different issues. So, 

[00:24:36] Caroline Carralero: yeah, look, I don't think he's perfect. No one is. I mean, it's politics, so it gets really blurry really quick, but the reality is, and you know, again, whether this works in your favor or not, I think that there is just the factual reality that parents and younger parents.

[00:24:52] Caroline Carralero: Particularly in this millennial millennial now Gen Z, these demographics are wondering what's going on. I guess that's [00:25:00] the, that's the easiest way to say it is to just kind of wondering what's going on. They're so conditioned to have transparency into everything, the way that technology and media and independent media has played out over the last few years.

[00:25:13] Caroline Carralero: And this has been something, healthcare, drugs, and pharma, and food has been something that has been this kind of big mystery box. Well, it's produced, again, uh, some of the worst results. We have, and you can just look at it at face value, it's not hard to see, this country spends more than other countries that are developed, and, you know, way, a lot more, actually, when you look at the, the Yeah, we probably 

[00:25:38] Vic: spend twice as much as other countries.

[00:25:40] Caroline Carralero: And, and we have really bad And 

[00:25:41] Vic: we have worse results. 

[00:25:43] Caroline Carralero: Okay, there you go. So I mean, it's very clear that something is not right. Everyone's looking at us and on a global stage, I'll say the word, it's quite embarrassing because we have so many great people, so many wonderful physicians, so [00:26:00] many wonderful companies that are working on innovation.

[00:26:03] Caroline Carralero: And so what the heck is going on? I think that's what everyone's wondering. And so the, the, my position of this is that like, I was not a huge RFK fan before. I don't like all his policies. That's not what it's about. It's about, and this is what I think people don't realize with politics, it's about you, you utilize certain figures for certain times in history to do certain things, right?

[00:26:23] Caroline Carralero: And, and, and it's sometimes it's very short lived. Sometimes it's long lived, but he's the right person in my mind right now to just. Ask hard questions that are going to reveal some things that are uncomfortable for a lot of people in a lot of companies. That's just the reality. And if you don't understand that, then that's, that's just because you don't understand reality of, of how big this industry is.

[00:26:46] Caroline Carralero: So there are going to be some things that are uncovered that might be fraudulent, that may be criminal. There's just some of that that's going to happen. However, We have to get to the bottom of this. We have to provide better solutions because it's the demand of the people and I think that a lot of the [00:27:00] leaders in place are kind of angsty and you can feel that angst because they have not been transparent.

[00:27:06] Caroline Carralero: So 

[00:27:06] Vic: here we are, we spend on this podcast. And in general, I think we spend so much time thinking about, um, the continuum of care, right? So your primary care doc specialist. Health system insurance, um, you know, ancillary diagnostic and treatment centers and of course, that is important, but agent just covers our food supply and discovery drugs or 

[00:27:30] Caroline Carralero: food supply the the N.

[00:27:32] Caroline Carralero: I. H. So part of this is like. There's no question that this isn't an anti vaccination or an anti drug administration. No, there's times and places where drugs and vaccinations are absolutely the solution and warranted. However, this also is a question of, we have an obesity and a metabolic health issue we have to get to the bottom of.

[00:27:54] Caroline Carralero: We'll probably talk about that in a minute, Vic, but, but how do we get to the bottom of that sustainably? And it's [00:28:00] not just slapping a band aid on top of a band aid. You have to look at the whole body and the root cause of these issues. And you have to treat the body as a whole. So that's what really a lot of this is, is it's kind of, to speak simply, it's getting way back to how humans, um, were created, how we were, how we evolved and how we were created to be, to be, um, healthy.

[00:28:19] Caroline Carralero: And and what we need. So I think he's the right person. It's very nuanced. Of course, these Senate hearings are kind of just funny and kind of show 

[00:28:29] Vic: everyone is using their five minutes to get soundbites. Yeah, 

[00:28:33] Caroline Carralero: you can't. They're using their five minutes to reflect what a lobbyist or someone has paid them to use the minutes for.

[00:28:41] Caroline Carralero: You have to be really careful about how every single one of these people are incentivized and you cannot. And anyone listening to this would understand this. You cannot get to the root cause and really solve these problems in some two minute pitch. That's silly. That's absolute, like, horse crap. And you have to [00:29:00] really talk through these things and they're very, very, very, very nuanced.

[00:29:03] Caroline Carralero: However, what isn't nuanced and what everyone should be able to agree on is that we have failed results. So there has to be another way. The FDA and the food supply is a big deal getting red dye, like just taking this for one small example, and there's, 

[00:29:19] Vic: well, you're really the expert on that, you know, Americans diet and food and digestion and gut microbe.

[00:29:28] Vic: What is red dye and what's the effect of it? What, what, what do you 

[00:29:31] Caroline Carralero: know? Red dye is a chemical. It's a food dye that's been used in, well, it was used in cosmetics, which I'll get to in just a minute, like things like red lipstick and different cosmetics. But it's been used in the food system in things like children's Tylenol to make it look like a berry flavor and therefore look more appealing to a child.

[00:29:52] Caroline Carralero: And then it's used in a ton of candy and other products. Red dye now has just a lot of research behind it that you [00:30:00] can't dispute that it's very harmful for the body. It may cause cancer. It's a chemical. And the, the, the way, the way that I look at it, it's like absolutely unnecessary to put in. It's for marketing purposes, right?

[00:30:11] Caroline Carralero: So they're putting it in cereals and these different things so that they can market it so that it's brighter and more vibrant and more appealing to specifically to a child, which is really the challenge here. And, and it's just. Again, it's not necessary. And this is where the U. S. has just gone wrong with our kind of laissez faire approach.

[00:30:29] Caroline Carralero: There's some of it that's good, but with regulation, you look at the dyes in the U. S. versus the dyes in European, the EU or the European Union. And, and we have 30, 30 to a hundred times more chemicals allowed in our food system. So I, I say that all to say. These things aren't necessary in the food. They provide absolutely no nutritional value.

[00:30:53] Caroline Carralero: They're used purely for marketing. And there's adverse events that we've seen from these things. So [00:31:00] that, and like the, the silly thing, when you look at the facts is that we removed these dyes, this red dye particularly. And don't, I mean, don't forget there's yellow dye, there's green dye. I mean, there's a bunch more that need to come.

[00:31:13] Caroline Carralero: We removed it from cosmetics 35 years ago, cosmetics that women put on their face. And then we left it in, if you go to CVS or Walgreens right now, it's in the children's Tylenol sitting on the shelf. So, I mean, it, this kind of, And there's 

[00:31:27] Vic: some things like that that just are crazy. 

[00:31:29] Caroline Carralero: This doesn't make, it just doesn't make sense.

[00:31:31] Caroline Carralero: And like, You don't need red dye in children's Tylenol to knock down a fever. I mean, look at companies like Genexa. They built a wonderful company that still, it's the same exact formula, frankly, as children's Tylenol, but they remove the artificial ingredients in the dyes. 

[00:31:47] Vic: Yeah, so it's not as bright red or whatever, but I'm not sure that my son wanted to take the medicine, whether it was red or, or some other color.

[00:31:57] Vic: That's 

[00:31:58] Caroline Carralero: exactly right. And like, as a [00:32:00] parent, I buy Genexa. My baby has a fever. I'm totally fine giving him the medicine. That's totally normal. But is there a need for the red dye? No. So this is stuff that's just kind of like, it seems like it's incredibly lazy. You don't want to get so far as to say like, oh, it's intentional.

[00:32:15] Caroline Carralero: They're trying to poison you. They're trying to, I don't think that's it. It's just lazy and it's wrong, right? When you have a corporation that's that large, have Large R and D teams, large capabilities and budgets to make things better. It's just parents are just saying now, no, we don't want that. And that's wrong.

[00:32:35] Caroline Carralero: And so I 

[00:32:35] Vic: think what FDA is saying is the Food and Drug Administration should stand in the way and say, like, these things should not be in our food system. And these things can be. And then you go into the store, you don't have to know which brand. 

[00:32:51] Caroline Carralero: Well, it's not, it's not where the rubber meets the road here.

[00:32:55] Caroline Carralero: It's like, I think about this all the time. I'm someone who's really well educated in all [00:33:00] this stuff. I've spent 10 plus years working all this stuff. I just had a baby 10 months ago. She's just eating. I'm just really like trying to, you know, feed her these things. If you take a parent who, maybe even a single parent, but any parent who has multiple children, is working maybe multiple jobs, but even just one job, You do not, and I'm just speaking plainly, you do not have the time it takes to go throughout the grocery store and read everything.

[00:33:24] Caroline Carralero: It's impossible. It's not fair. It shouldn't be that way. We should be able to trust our food system so that you can just go and pick things up and you're not concerned about them. Period. It's like, you should be able to shop like you shop in Europe, where you're just throwing cereal into your cart and not worried about this nasty ingredient in it.

[00:33:42] Caroline Carralero: And it's just not, it's not practical to tell parents that they need to read every label in the grocery store. They can't, they don't have enough time. It's not. That's, that's not a fair model. So yeah, the FDA does need to step in and they need to clean it up. And I think RFK will help with that. It's very clear.

[00:33:56] Caroline Carralero: Like if you, if anyone has seen or, or, you know, [00:34:00] follow Donald Trump, the guy eats McDonald's and Diet Coke. So this whole notion of, oh, they're going to take what we eat and they're going to change the options on the shelf. No, I think all the options will still be there. I think it's just. There's a little bit of cleaning up that we need to do around the ingredients that are in the foods and if something is very harmful, we should be putting a warning on it that just tells the consumers that, hey, this is proven to be harmful.

[00:34:26] Caroline Carralero: So, I think it's just, it's not as dramatic as everyone seems to think. I think it's just we have to take some really, really constructive steps forward. 

[00:34:35] Vic: Well, I'm hopeful that that's where Robert Kennedy will go. 

[00:34:39] Caroline Carralero: Yeah, I am too, but we'll see. 

[00:34:42] Vic: The CDC this week, I don't know, um, why, but, but they removed a bunch of data, uh, and Fierce Healthcare is reporting that a physician group sued to get it put back up there.

[00:34:56] Vic: And so the CDC, um, removed [00:35:00] several data sets. Um, that were tied to maybe slightly more controversial, uh, research things, but I think it is not how I want my government to be to sort of be removing data. More data is good, I think. In general, I 

[00:35:17] Caroline Carralero: agree with you on that. I would say more data is good. I didn't see this one.

[00:35:20] Caroline Carralero: I didn't look into this, uh, too deeply. I think that the, um, there's a, there's a lot going on right now, obviously, with the transition of who's in charge and who's a 

[00:35:30] Vic: lot of back and forth. And I think it's good that physician groups are. Um, being heard and hopefully the term administration will put put data access back.

[00:35:40] Vic: I think yeah, data so that researchers can do research seems like a net positive. We definitely should have the data out there. 

[00:35:49] Caroline Carralero: Yeah. My my take on this is that just pretty plainly the. Data is, um, and transparency and truth is what, uh, they've [00:36:00] claimed to, you know, what they're promising us. And so I think that they would, uh, deliver that.

[00:36:04] Caroline Carralero: I think that's been RFK's whole thing has been, you know, just look at the data, um, and, and I, I think that part of this and part of science, there was a mention in the Senate hearing that, Science is settled, which is just total, totally false. Science is never settled, right? I mean, that's, that's the idea of science.

[00:36:20] Caroline Carralero: So, uh, yeah, more is better here. And, uh, you have to just continue to wrestle through the learnings. And, and, again, try and deliver the best results and, um, solutions to the people. So, 

[00:36:31] Vic: yeah. So I'm hopeful that this, uh, data blackout, as, as FearSelf here is calling it. Was, uh, sort of a in the transition from one administration another something got changed, but I think it should be put back and we'll see.

[00:36:44] Vic: They did sue to try to get it back. Elon Musk has, you know, the doge, uh, initiative and he is, uh, pushing. On all on a lot of different fronts. This is a story in the Wall Street Journal about over the weekend. [00:37:00] He was stopping a whole bunch of aid from USAID going out. And I think again, he is similar to Trump and Robert Kennedy, where they're going to move very quickly and try to change things.

[00:37:13] Vic: I think, um, when aid is needed in a developing country, we should be, I mean, America is the richest country in the world. We should be helping people, uh, but we also don't want to be wasting it. And so there's a, there's a pendulum or a middle ground there. I'm not sure Elon is all that subtle of a person, uh, but hopefully we'll get to an answer that is good.

[00:37:34] Vic: He, he's trying to save a trillion dollars a year, um, and so there's going to be lots of. Yeah, 

[00:37:45] Caroline Carralero: I mean, I think that the reality here is they're trying to get their hands on what has been going on. It's a transition period. You can't forget that. I mean, the first 100 days, particularly, um, and the, the headliner and the [00:38:00] story here is that there was a mandate.

[00:38:02] Caroline Carralero: I mean, Donald Trump got elected, right? There was a vote. He got elected and the mandate was to provide transparency on how the government spending money and what's going on. And so, you know, um, whether, yeah, we should we should help other countries and we will and we are, um, but how that money is being spent, I think, is the question.

[00:38:21] Caroline Carralero: Right? And so. There's been a lot there that, um, they're, they're, they're working on, and I think there's a lot that's being just uncovered. Um, and to your point, um, Elon Musk is not a subtle person, and, uh, we, you know, love it or hate it. I think the reality is that. You know what to expect from these types of leaders at this point.

[00:38:42] Caroline Carralero: And so I think we're just going to continue to see more and more of it of it. I think the interesting thing, um, that that's, you know, very fascinating is how young the leadership is all of a sudden. So, I mean, Donald Trump isn't a young president by any means, you know, Elon Musk isn't necessarily young, but the [00:39:00] leadership and a lot of the, um, you know, the, the, the.

[00:39:05] Caroline Carralero: Staff is very young, which is interesting. So, uh, that's obviously been in the headlines over the last 24 hours or so with must 

[00:39:12] Vic: when the press secretary, I can't think of her name right now. 

[00:39:14] Caroline Carralero: Caroline. Love it. Yeah, 

[00:39:16] Vic: she, I saw her one day. She, she was really, uh, very impressive and fielded questions with, I don't know, one page of notes or no notes, but she didn't have a lot of notes.

[00:39:27] Vic: And she was, Very responsive and answered things. 

[00:39:31] Caroline Carralero: Yeah, these are, these are, these are people that are on mission, you know, uh, have the kind of transparency momentum, you know, and tailwind such that you can, it's like talking to someone when you know the truth and you're just going up there that you're confident in something you can go up there and you don't have to stumble, you just go.

[00:39:50] Caroline Carralero: And I think that's what you're seeing. So. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, uh, 

[00:39:53] Vic: the reason I thought of her, I don't know how old she is, but she didn't look very old. 

[00:39:57] Caroline Carralero: No, she's the youngest press secretary in history. She's [00:40:00] 26. So I think 26 or 27, but she's the youngest press secretary in history. And that, I mean, talk about a stressful job.

[00:40:06] Caroline Carralero: That's a stressful job. I mean, that's, that's really tough. So yeah, it's an interesting group, but yeah, I mean, the, the, the lightning speed here, the reason I bring that up is because there's a lot of young people behind this that are moving really fast that no one will see, but they're all behind the scenes.

[00:40:19] Caroline Carralero: Yeah. 

[00:40:20] Vic: Okay. And then Trump signed an order, uh, for, um, the, the U. S. government to create a sovereign wealth fund, which is pretty interesting. There, you know, there's a lot of sovereign wealth funds in the world. They mostly are at countries, um, that have a surplus. Maybe they export a lot of oil and so they have extra, uh, cash in the year.

[00:40:44] Vic: Then they invest that money. We, of course, have a deficit here. Um, but Trump is a business deal guy, and this, he's, you know, so he said it could be useful in the TikTok negotiations. Um, of course, as a venture [00:41:00] capitalist, I think it's interesting that maybe they could make investments in innovations in, in the country, but it's a little bit nuanced because we have a deficit and, and where are they going to find the money from?

[00:41:11] Vic: And so, um. I don't know. I think positive, but we'll see how it plays out. 

[00:41:16] Caroline Carralero: Yeah, I mean, the TikTok thing, obviously, that's the youth, uh, saying that they want TikTok and the youth standing up. And there was a lot of Trump benefited big time from TikTok. I mean, you can't deny that. The numbers are what they are.

[00:41:31] Caroline Carralero: TikTok was used to, um, share information during, during, uh, the campaign. And, uh, so that will be interesting. We deal with the nuances of TikTok and health information all the time, and it's not an easy platform to deal with. But, uh, yeah, I, I'm hopeful for what you said, Vic. I think that ideally the administration Should be making really good investments into good American companies that are helping whether it's a I healthcare, [00:42:00] whatever.

[00:42:00] Caroline Carralero: So something like this ideally would be used for good. 

[00:42:03] Vic: Yeah. Well, I mean, maybe something like, uh, I mean, I don't have any knowledge of this, but we need more antibiotics produced in this country. And that's an example where. The U. S. government could assist with that with regulations and then would get some long term benefit from that.

[00:42:23] Caroline Carralero: Yeah, I mean, just drug production in this company in general, like manufacturing facilities, that's a great use of capital. So, yeah, hopefully it would be for stuff like that. Yeah. 

[00:42:34] Vic: Okay, so moving into the payers. Centene had a good quarter. Um, I've been worried about Centene because they have so much, um, Medicaid exposure, but they performed very well.

[00:42:45] Vic: So, good to see that. Um, they're obviously, they take care of a lot of Medicaid people, um, so that they, they continue to, to push along at 280 million in profit. And then Teladoc [00:43:00] acquired Catapult Health. Catapult Health is sort of a preventative care, a lot of virtual care for chronic disease, and preventing chronic disease or helping people reverse it.

[00:43:11] Vic: What do you think of Teladoc buying Catapult? I think there's 

[00:43:14] Caroline Carralero: just going to be more and more of this happening. These, these kind of just mergers and acquisition within tech and, and health tech. We've seen this a bunch. Um, so I think it's interesting. I, my, my only take here, this isn't my expertise or area of expertise at all.

[00:43:30] Caroline Carralero: My take here is something like Teladoc. I think it's just going to be interesting to see how all of these companies begin to use AI. They, you should, you should see them, you know, talking a lot about that and all of these press releases and in the future of All of these types of services, um, just because this is where when we talk about and healthcare, I think where the rubber can meet the road a lot and help physicians.

[00:43:51] Caroline Carralero: So 

[00:43:52] Vic: yeah, of course was really the first big, strong telehealth provider, [00:44:00] but that is kind of very common now. And so I, I see them acquiring catapult. They, they did another acquisition earlier. To try to add their capabilities and sort of grow into sort of a more holistic set of things. 

[00:44:14] Caroline Carralero: Yep. Yep. And I mean, when you're the first mover like that, you should be diversifying.

[00:44:20] Caroline Carralero: So, yeah, I mean, as a shareholder, that's what you want to see. You want to see diversification and just building a really strong base, which it looks like they're doing here. So, yeah. 

[00:44:31] Vic: Yeah. I think maybe they were a little slower than, I'm not a shareholder, but a little slower than They should have been, but now they've woken up and try to, 

[00:44:39] Caroline Carralero: that's how it goes, most, most are, and then they wake up.

[00:44:43] Caroline Carralero: But yeah, that's, that's a, it's a good to see that they're moving. 

[00:44:46] Vic: Okay. So this story and the research paper that we're going to cover next. You suggested, which I think was great research about G. L. P. ones and that people, even if they're, they have diabetes or [00:45:00] they have chronic disease, they stopped taking the G.

[00:45:03] Vic: L. 1 within a year. 

[00:45:04] Caroline Carralero: Yeah, 

[00:45:05] Vic: it was published in the USA today. I'm going to share that. But also we have this more scientific. paper, which I think has more actual detail in it, sort of tracking the study. What, what was your takeaway or what, what do you think is interesting from this? 

[00:45:19] Caroline Carralero: Well, I thought a couple of things were interesting.

[00:45:21] Caroline Carralero: The reason why I suggested we talk about this for a minute is obviously these drugs are top of mind for most healthcare companies, healthcare providers, consumers, everyone. A couple of things just to point out kind of as we dive into this. One thing that's interesting is that there were over 125, 000 patients.

[00:45:37] Caroline Carralero: I thought that was awesome to see. And this was from what 2018 to 2023 I think if I don't if I have that right so it was a few years so this has got to be one of the best studies on glp1 drugs that we have I mean that that's definitely one of the best ones that's come across my desk so I think that was really good to see not surprising I mean we're As a company, so just to [00:46:00] explain my bias here so that everyone can understand it and understand at the beginning, we're really focused on how do we solve this problem holistically and long term.

[00:46:07] Caroline Carralero: So we've been really looking at this category specifically to pinpoint and kind of kick the tires on what's not working with these drugs. Okay. So just to understand so that everyone under, you know, can see it, um, from my, from my perspective. The 

[00:46:20] Vic: if you could, if you could deliver the same results, the holistic, natural, uh, non pharmaceutical solution, that would clearly be better.

[00:46:31] Vic: So, yeah, 

[00:46:32] Caroline Carralero: exactly. So, so, I mean, people are shopping these drugs for the fine things for that one. They lost weight, so they got off of them. But I think the bigger things here to really look at is that obviously there's people with with type 2 diabetes that are taking them. Um, and, and then there's a lot of other use cases.

[00:46:48] Caroline Carralero: Um, my concern, just to state it plainly, is that outside of the diabetes, there's a lot of just abuse of these drugs that's going on, right? There's just a lot of that, and these drugs have [00:47:00] significant side effects. And so, yeah, it's sort of a gold rush for the drug companies, but there are some pretty significant side effects that have to be considered.

[00:47:07] Caroline Carralero: So, um, is there a time and a place for these drugs? I think yes. My perspective is, yes, there is a time and a place for these drugs. And so I'm not against these drugs at all. However, it's like, again, one of these situations where it seems like the pendulum has just swung kind of way outside of control. So the discontinuation rates are interesting because, um, there was two things to take into, uh, you know, account here.

[00:47:29] Caroline Carralero: One was the cost. And then the other is, of course, the side effects. So. Um, you know, there's people who are losing weight, they're getting off of them. We are seeing though that a significant portion of users of the drugs regain the weight, right? That 

[00:47:42] Vic: was what I was going to ask is like, if it is the case that You have a BMI of 35 and you lose a hundred pounds and then you don't need the drug anymore That's a win like that.

[00:47:54] Vic: That's that's the exact purpose Yeah, but if you gain the weight [00:48:00] back within six months that might even be more stressful on the body and harder on health 

[00:48:05] Caroline Carralero: Well, that's exactly right. And that's what we're seeing in a lot of instances because the, the drugs in this, this is, this is the point here. They're not getting at the lifestyle intervention that you have to face at one point or another.

[00:48:17] Caroline Carralero: There's no way around the way that the body was created, right? And so you can put these different things into your body and they do impact the body. They do help to a certain degree, but you will come off of them. And so our perspective of this and, and two other points here to mention. The drugs are incredibly expensive.

[00:48:36] Caroline Carralero: You know, an average American, I mean, you look at the studies, J. P. Morgan's done some really good research on this. A lot of other people have published research on this, but it ends up being somewhere north of a thousand bucks a month, somewhere, you know, without insurance, thirteen, fourteen hundred dollars a month is kind of the ballpark that you'll see on a lot of these reports.

[00:48:52] Caroline Carralero: Um, of course, give or take a little bit. That's not affordable for an average American, period. It's just not. That's not affordable. Um, [00:49:00] there's a lot of pressure for insurance providers to pick that up. If insurance providers, if the taxpayers start paying Medicaid, Medicare for these drugs, right now, 74 percent of the American population is either overweight or obese, that will 3 trillion.

[00:49:18] Caroline Carralero: That's a lot of money, right? That's a lot for the taxpayers to take on. So you have to look at that, right? With a grain of salt or a big grain of salt. And then the side effects as well are pretty significant. And they're not, you know, overwhelming half of obviously the users. It's little case studies here and there.

[00:49:36] Caroline Carralero: So you do have to take them again with a grain of salt on a whole basis. But the side effects are overwhelming and they are pretty dramatic when you see these cases coming back. So you look at the pancreatitis, you look at our category, particularly the GI symptoms. We've seen an uptick in sales and probiotics and these other digestive aids because there's huge digestive issues that these drugs cause when you [00:50:00] begin to take them and you don't change the way that you're eating.

[00:50:03] Caroline Carralero: You don't change anything about your lifestyle. So I think that what we're going to see is we're going to see. Obviously more growth, obviously more weight loss. We'll see all of that, but we're also going to see this big question mark of what's the off ramp plan? What's the plan to get people off of these drugs?

[00:50:21] Caroline Carralero: How do we, how do we move forward sustainably? So, The idea for us, the products that we're working on are effective, have to be effective or else no one's going to buy them. So effective products first, but also two other things that are really important, holistic products and affordable products. So that's kind of, those are the three words that we're really focused on with product development.

[00:50:41] Caroline Carralero: I just thought 

[00:50:42] Vic: daily Nuri, I think that makes sense for a GLP one pharmaceutical product. I think there could be a use case that could be really valuable as a component of chronic care management where like, okay, your BMI is over X. Let's put you on six months and then [00:51:00] titrate it down over another six months while we're also getting you probiotics and teaching you lifestyle and getting you walking.

[00:51:08] Vic: And then you get this like momentum thing because you do lose weight, but then we need to have that support structure to help people titrate off this so that they're not on as you if we wanted to hold life. 

[00:51:22] Caroline Carralero: Maybe that's the happy medium, and maybe back to the point, I mean, kind of pie in the sky optimism here, maybe that's the happy medium of what the government can really do to fund a program like that.

[00:51:32] Caroline Carralero: Like, hey, we're going to pay for this. Here's the plan. We can pay for this. But there's also, um, uh, you know, expectations of this as well. So we'll see. I think that, you know, it gets really tricky when you start talking about youth, but Children on these drugs, et cetera, et cetera, because we don't know what happens with development, bone development.

[00:51:51] Caroline Carralero: There's so many other things that are going on here. Um, so that's where I get really queasy when we talk about this. It's like, Hey, we just, that's really scary. [00:52:00] Um, while the body is still developing, we know the body's still developing again. This is, this is a big problem. I just thought this study was a great one to bring up.

[00:52:07] Caroline Carralero: I think people should read through it and look at it because. Yeah. 125, 000 patients for a few years on a GLP 1 drug is 

[00:52:13] Vic: pretty 

[00:52:13] Caroline Carralero: good. Yeah, where we're at right now, I mean, that's a really good study, so. 

[00:52:17] Vic: Excellent. Okay, then Novartis came out. They are looking at M& A activity, and they, in the Wall Street Journal, they have a high bar for obesity deals.

[00:52:28] Vic: Um, kind of what you're saying. They don't have a GLP 1 right now, and they're not just sort of buying a Me Too, another product. Uh, they're being very careful about trying to find, you know, a differentiated obesity treatment. I like Novartis. I think they do a good job. So I was paying attention to this.

[00:52:48] Vic: What are your thoughts about Novartis? Have you seen them at all? 

[00:52:51] Caroline Carralero: Um, I have a little bit. Um, yeah, I mean, the only comment I'll have here is I did actually go to the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference a couple of weeks ago, a few weeks [00:53:00] ago in San Francisco. Uh, listened to a lot of the keynotes of a bunch of the different CEOs.

[00:53:04] Caroline Carralero: Um, there's. The only thing that I'll say that's kind of worthwhile or even incremental to what you said is just there's a lot of innovation and companies trying to figure out how to innovate or to acquire in this space so that we're going to see, I think, a lot of activity, um, you know, I mean, there's, you know, instead of, you know, Taking a shot every week.

[00:53:27] Caroline Carralero: How can we take a shot once a month? There's a lot of conversations around the longevity of, of the drug and how it can be more user friendly. How can you take it orally, right? So I think they'll, they'll find their way into this market. Um, and I think we're just going to see, uh, you know, a bunch more innovation, but then a lot of M and a activity.

[00:53:46] Caroline Carralero: So that's all I'll say, Vic, not, not too much else to add. 

[00:53:48] Vic: Okay. And then there was a story yesterday and then once you hear it again, Merck had to reduce their forward guidance for revenue because their vaccine against the HPV, [00:54:00] Gardasil, I think is how you say it, is not getting the sales in China that they expected.

[00:54:05] Vic: So the way they talked about it is they, they send the drug to a distributor in China, kind of like their supply chain, and it's not getting the pull through. And so they're having to stop sending for next year anymore until they start seeing more sales. So that's going to be a huge challenge for Merck.

[00:54:26] Vic: I don't know how much you know about HPV. I know very little about it other than I gave my boys it, but that was it. But I think in China, it's a whole different culture. And when you're talking about sexually transmitted diseases, I don't know how Chinese Process that, but obviously they're not uptaking the Gardasil vaccine.

[00:54:45] Vic: Yep, 

[00:54:46] Caroline Carralero: I think it's, I mean, Vic, my only note here is, because I also am not an expert on this by any means, I think it's probably a cultural thing it could be. The other thing to realize is like, it's also, you know, there's also sales teams that are [00:55:00] going to do this in different countries, right? So there could be just nuances of how it's being communicated, how it's being positioned.

[00:55:05] Caroline Carralero: There's a lot that goes on with this. So. I don't know the details of it, um, but definitely if they, I mean, if they've got this in their projections, and obviously China's strategic to every drug company, that's an interesting point. 

[00:55:18] Vic: The stock was down 11 percent yesterday. 

[00:55:20] Caroline Carralero: Yeah, it's clearly taken a hit.

[00:55:24] Vic: When you use forward guidance, you know, it affects everything worse, so. 

[00:55:27] Caroline Carralero: Absolutely, yep. 

[00:55:29] Vic: Okay, and then Preskani is partnered with Microsoft, so we're moving into the AI section. Of course, Preskani has One of the biggest data databases, data sources in the industry, they've been, they've been collecting data on healthcare leadership for gosh, by 30 years.

[00:55:48] Vic: They partnered with Microsoft to sort of leverage. Microsoft's AI and all of their data. So this is kind of similar to what you were saying about AI coming to everywhere. 

[00:55:59] Caroline Carralero: Yep. [00:56:00] 

[00:56:00] Vic: Have you seen Press Ganey at all, or what are your thoughts about this? 

[00:56:03] Caroline Carralero: I haven't seen Press Ganey, but I think that we're going to see Microsoft particularly, Meta particularly, a couple of these other ones get super involved in partnerships and acquisitions, um, with AI, so.

[00:56:18] Caroline Carralero: I haven't actually seen press Ganey specifically, but, um, yeah, I mean, this is just a particularly when it comes to healthcare, uh, every physician on, you know, listening to this and healthcare provider knows there's a lot of, um, efficiencies to be had. So, yeah, I mean, this is the way of the future. I think the interesting thing, just going back to kind of what's going on politically was the AI deal that Trump did.

[00:56:42] Caroline Carralero: I mean, that's a pretty significant. Deal and investment into American AI, which is good. I mean, the big competitive for the 

[00:56:49] Vic: Stargate thing. 

[00:56:51] Caroline Carralero: Yeah. I mean, so the big confederate competitive forces are, you know, China and the U S and AI development. And so I think it was 500 [00:57:00] billion that they committed to AI infrastructure.

[00:57:02] Caroline Carralero: So, yeah, I would just say like headlines like this without knowing too much about press Ganey, my macro comment on this is we should just see a ton more like this. This is just kind of the way of the future. 

[00:57:12] Vic: Yeah, Prescani is really probably the best source for, uh, patient experience. What are the doctors experiencing?

[00:57:18] Vic: They've run surveys for years, and that massive amount of data is, is going to be really impactful in AI, uh, because no one else, no one else has it. So I think it could be really good. 

[00:57:30] Caroline Carralero: Yep, absolutely. 

[00:57:32] Vic: Okay. And then open AI launched deep research. Um, maybe over the weekend. I think it was Sunday. Uh, so deep research is a tool you can't use it unless you pay 200 a month to open AI, which I don't.

[00:57:47] Vic: Um, but I've seen lots of reviews on it. It basically, um, it kind of takes the entire process of maybe a competitive landscape analysis or, Yeah. A project rollout plan that might have [00:58:00] multiple sections and it, you tell it what to do, and it goes off and searches hundreds of websites, collects data kind of like a team would do at McKinsey or somewhere, and then comes back with a full report.

[00:58:14] Vic: And so it's, um, it's their next product. I haven't tried it, but a lot of people are saying it's game changing as far as, like, the quality and depth and. The hallucinations disappear because it checks the facts over, you know, many times before it gives you the result. 

[00:58:31] Caroline Carralero: Well, yeah, my, my just gut instinct on this is I'm excited to use it.

[00:58:35] Caroline Carralero: I haven't, I haven't dug into it yet. I'm planning to kind of play around with it actually over the next few days and this weekend. Um, but yeah. Are you a 

[00:58:41] Vic: pro, uh, 200 a month user? 

[00:58:44] Caroline Carralero: No, I'm not, but I got, I'm happy to subscribe to it to use it. I think that the, um, someone in like my seat, particularly even this gentleman who I interviewed today, who's another business owner working on novel therapies for, for light technology, human health [00:59:00] therapies, um, there's not enough time in the day to read through all these research studies.

[00:59:04] Caroline Carralero: And so he was even saying today on interview, I mean, you know, utilizing things like AI to really analyze it. and have good analysis continually on studies. There's no reason why we shouldn't be able to use that technology, um, this technology accordingly. And, and, um, yeah, I mean, the, back to the consulting thing, I mean, AI is going to really challenge consultants.

[00:59:29] Caroline Carralero: It's also going to challenge kind of this creative class in certain ways. We're already seeing that happen. So, um, yeah, I'm all for this. 

[00:59:36] Vic: I take a positive, like a optimistic view that. Consultants will be using AI to level up and deliver much more insightful reports and advice, but that sort of, um, I don't know, standard, uh, give me the competitive landscape and a few ideas.

[00:59:56] Vic: That's easy. Now that's done automatically. So the consultants have to then [01:00:00] step up and do more. 

[01:00:01] Caroline Carralero: No, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. I mean, the demand on critical thought from humans is gonna have to be leveled up just to be very, yeah, to speak plainly. So cool, cool resource here. My biggest perspective with AI is just competitive landscape, right?

[01:00:20] Caroline Carralero: You cannot have one AI source, because remember, These AI sources are being trained. We have to train them. So you have to have freedom of thought, freedom of expression. Um, that is really important with all of this AI coming up. So I'm a big fan personally of having a ton of competitors in this space so that you can have a good free market.

[01:00:41] Caroline Carralero: I think that. Um, the access to this is going to be incredibly important and it's going to feel like, uh, the internet did early days where those that have access to AI and that start to integrate it and use it have kind of this superpower like those that were early on the internet had, right? And so It's it there's, there's very [01:01:00] different, but there is a little bit of a parallel to draw there.

[01:01:02] Caroline Carralero: So my big, my big, um, kind of challenge to this community and the way that I really hope that it evolves is just a lot of good competitors. Um, I 

[01:01:11] Vic: don't have the 200 a month, but I do have Gemini 20 bucks a month. And they came out with a deep research competitor on, you know, the day after, which was just included in my package.

[01:01:24] Vic: And it's great. I mean, it is, uh, Is very involved. I don't even know exactly what I what deep research. I want Gemini to do right now. But, uh, as soon as I can think of anything, it goes off and does it get probiotic, uh, competitors. 

[01:01:39] Caroline Carralero: I've got a few projects for you, Vic. 

[01:01:43] Vic: Okay, so you mentioned, uh, softback and opening.

[01:01:46] Vic: I in the White House announced this Stargate infrastructure, 500 billion or whatever it was big infrastructure thing as a partnership. And then the Wall Street Journal's, uh, saying on Monday [01:02:00] that SoftBank is now going to be selling OpenAI, ChatGPT, in Japan. And they're, they're sort of assigning a thousand employees to sort of work on bringing it to the Japanese market, which is pretty interesting.

[01:02:14] Caroline Carralero: Yeah, I think cool. We should see this all across the globe. Not a ton more to offer on that. Um, just, I mean, this is what we want to see. You want to see this across the globe, not just in developed nations, but hopefully developing nations as well. That's really important. 

[01:02:28] Vic: Yeah. And SoftBank is really kind of, um, another investment platform.

[01:02:33] Vic: We talked about KKR earlier. There are, they're a different animal, but they have so much reach across all different technology companies. Uh, they're really now a effective player in AI, even though it didn't actually write a line of code. Okay, and then Google came out with their earnings yesterday, and like Microsoft last week, they missed earnings, their revenue is slowing, they're not able, they don't have enough [01:03:00] supply of their cloud services.

[01:03:02] Vic: And so they are not able to provision for enough for all the demand that's out there. They are, their CapEx is 75 billion in 2025, so they're definitely building more. But it's interesting, I think Amazon will come out in a couple days. Uh, so we haven't heard from them yet, but, but Microsoft missed, Google missed, and we'll see what Amazon does, but there's just a lot of pressure on these cloud providers.

[01:03:27] Caroline Carralero: Yeah, I mean, AWS, and I mean, all of them, they're gonna, they'll, they'll bounce back, right? I mean, it's just a matter of, um, I think there are more competitive. Uh, forces coming in here. Um, but yeah, it's interesting, you know, one side thought here, again, this, I don't have a ton to add here, but the one side thought here is just the data centers and the, um, impact that AI is going to have too, which is really interesting.

[01:03:54] Caroline Carralero: So, yeah. That's why they can't 

[01:03:56] Vic: keep up with the demand. 

[01:03:58] Caroline Carralero: All of these guys are going to have to [01:04:00] just adjust. And so just expect it to go up and down and be a little bit of a roller coaster. I think that's just inevitable when you have new technology come out and you have all these companies you saw like, um, Zuckerberg, uh, you know, with Meta's team, particularly did a ton of layoffs and is doing a ton of restructuring right now so that they could focus on AI.

[01:04:18] Caroline Carralero: Right. So like it is the priority. Uh, for 2025 and he's pushing other things aside. So, like, that's just gonna happen at Meta, at Google, at Amazon, all of them. So, I, I, this doesn't shock me. I think it's just gonna be a little bit of an adjustment for everyone. 

[01:04:33] Vic: Yeah, and then, um, Wall Street Journal had a comparison, which I thought was good, sort of.

[01:04:38] Vic: A reporter looked at ChatGPT, CLAWD, and DeepSeq and sort of talked about the pros and cons. She actually uses all three for different purposes, um, and we don't need to go through the whole thing, but the, um, the compare and contrasting I felt were really helpful. So, like, if you, if you're listening and you want to, like, let me dip my toe in [01:05:00] and try one of these, it might be useful to read this article just to see where you should spend your time.

[01:05:05] Vic: So, For instance, Claude, and I didn't realize this until this article, it has a feature called Projects where you can put like a bunch of files about maybe probiotics and products and press releases, and then it'll just search within that set of documents and it becomes almost like a thought partner with you around that.

[01:05:29] Vic: And I, I have a Claude account, I just hadn't tested that, so I went and tested it. It's pretty good. It's, it's not really like deep research. But it allows you to almost, like, tell the AI what to look at. Like, these are the things I'm interested in. Um, and then it uses, of course, it's, it's AI algorithms to, to understand at some level, all those documents.

[01:05:53] Caroline Carralero: Yeah, I mean, my perspective of this, I've used only a couple of these platforms, um, probably start using more and more as, [01:06:00] as they continue to evolve and go. But I think this is how they're going to be used, right? I think there's going to be certain platforms that are good for certain things, um, because there's going to be specialties that are developed in each of them.

[01:06:11] Caroline Carralero: So. This is a cool analysis and comparison and I think there's just going to be kind of a lot more of these because again, as, as people get used to using the tools they've never used before, they're going to have to also be taught how to use them and, you know, for their, each of their specialties, whether you're a healthcare provider, whether you're a practitioner, you know, you're a doctor that has 3000, 4000 patients, right?

[01:06:34] Caroline Carralero: How do you use these tools? Well, so I think that's just going to be kind of. Yeah. The next phase of this from a marketing perspective is just even how do we use them. 

[01:06:43] Vic: And I don't know, maybe this analogy works, maybe it doesn't, but as social media evolved, right, at first there was just social media. Yeah.

[01:06:52] Vic: But now there, there definitely are differences, right? Like Instagram is really good for some things, TikTok is for other things, X, [01:07:00] Twitter is good for other things. And they have like different purposes and so people might prefer one or the other you might and I think AI is going to be the same where they're sort of tuned to particular use cases.

[01:07:13] Vic: And then if you do that a lot, then you start to use that more. It's not that you can't look on Twitter for something that would be best on Instagram, but it's not that same kind of like visual medium. 

[01:07:24] Caroline Carralero: I agree with that. We'll see, right? We don't know. I don't know, but I think that's a good way to look at it, and I think that's a healthy way to look at it.

[01:07:31] Caroline Carralero: It goes back to the point that I made. It's like My perspective is always more better when it comes to competitive forces so that there can be the best product possible, right? That's that's what we need particularly with this industry. That's pretty could be pretty scary depending on how you look at it So we just want as much as much competition and the best product on the market 

[01:07:51] Vic: Well, Caroline, thanks for doing this.

[01:07:52] Vic: Uh, when can I try the lemonade? When's it going to be in Walmart or Amazon? 

[01:07:57] Caroline Carralero: We produced it [01:08:00] today, so I will have some to you next week, but consumers can probably, they should be able to buy it, uh, February 17th on Amazon. So we're launching ASAP, uh, clearly provided everything we talked about today.

[01:08:14] Caroline Carralero: There's no shortage of demand for metabolic health in our Beautiful country of America. And so we're trying to get this product to market as soon as we can. Uh, but yeah, it'll be available over the next couple of weeks. Yeah. 

[01:08:25] Vic: Excellent. Well, we will have in the show notes a link to your website and the podcast.

[01:08:30] Caroline Carralero: Thank you. Thank you. 

[01:08:31] Vic: And from there they can find you on Amazon and everywhere. 

[01:08:34] Caroline Carralero: Thank you Vic. I appreciate It's great to see you. Thanks for having me. 

[01:08:37] Vic: Thanks for making time. This was great. I really appreciate it. Of course. 

[01:08:39] Caroline Carralero: Talk to you soon. Bye.