The Holy Grail of Whole Body & Mind Health

Healthy Aging

A Groundbreaking Discovery for Healthy Aging: PDC

The endocannabinoid system (aka, the ECS) may very well be the most important system in your body for establishing and maintaining your health. This series of Science Says covers the ECS and all the great things it does. Healthy brain, good mood, less pain, and better sleep? Yes, please. This week, let’s talk about our groundbreaking discovery of pentadecanoylcarnitine (PDC), and how C15:0 is smack-dab at the center of how the endocannabinoid system supports our whole body and mind health – especially as we age.

What is the endocannabinoid system (ECS)?

Think about the ECS as your body’s Ommmm. Its entire job is to keep your body and mind balanced. If your immune system is too reactive, your ECS calms it down. If your metabolism is too slow, your ECS turns it up. You get the point.

So, how does this ultimate body and mind balancer work? There are two primary receptors throughout your body that help to keep you even-steven:

• CB1 receptors are most concentrated in the brain and help to manage pain, lower stress and anxiety, and protect brain health.
• CB2 receptors are most concentrated in the body and help to manage inflammatory conditions, arthritis, and pain.

Until recently (foreshadowing our discovery), there was only one known molecule in our body known to fully activate both CB1 and CB2 receptors. This molecule is called 2-arachidonoylglycerol, or 2-AG. Our bodies make it by using the omega-6 fatty acid, arachidonic acid. Alas, arachidonic acid is also a pro-inflammatory fatty acid. Further, 2-AG doesn’t last long in our bodies because it is quickly inactivated by enzymes.

What big discovery did y’all make, and what does it have to do with C15:0?

Glad you asked! Remember how we initially discovered C15:0 as the first essential fatty acid to be found since the omegas? And how this discovery was thanks to helping dolphins live healthier, longer lives? Well, we went back to the dolphin data and found a key C15:0 metabolite (which means a second molecule that our body makes using C15:0) that stood out as pretty darn important. This metabolite is called pentadecanoylcarnitine, what we are referring to as PDC.

So, how does our body use C15:0 to make PDC, and what does PDC do?

Simply put, our bodies, whether we are dolphins or humans, can readily combine C15:0 (aka pentadecanoic acid) with carnitine to make – you guessed it – PDC.

When we ran PDC through a slew of tests, we found a bunch of exciting things that were recently published in the peer-reviewed journal, Nature’s Scientific Reports:

• Increasing C15:0 intake increases PDC levels. Our studies support that we can effectively increase our PDC levels by increasing our C15:0 intake. Conversely, if we have low C15:0 levels, our PDC levels will be low, too.
• PDC fully activates both CB1 and CB2 receptors. This makes PDC the second-ever discovered full-acting endocannabinoid, which means that PDC can be a full-service body and mind balancer. Better yet, it appears that PDC likely lasts longer than 2-AG, and it is readily made using C15:0 – which is also a good-for-you fatty acid.
• PDC activates serotonin receptors. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter responsible for calming mood and lowering anxiety. In our latest study, PDC mimicked serotonin’s activation of two key receptors, called 5-HT1A and 5-HT1B.
• PDC inhibits histamine receptors (H1 and H2). Histamine is responsible for itchy eyes, runny noses, and red skin that come with pesky allergies. PDC effectively blocked histamine in cell systems, demonstrating its role as an antihistamine compound.
• PDC has broad immune-calming benefits. When PDC was tested against 12 human cell systems mimicking various disease states, it had dose-response immune-calming effects. This included reduced pro-inflammatory cytokines, like IL-1alpha, ITAC, MCP-1 and IP-10, across 5 cell systems, making PDC relevant to supporting heart, immune, lung, and skin health.

So, yeah. We’re feeling pretty darn good about this PDC discovery and how restoring C15:0 body levels can further help improve both our physical and mental health. Not a bad start to 2023, right?