Dominic D'Agostino

Yeah, yeah.

Paul's amazing.

He's a mentor to me and as you are through the health and Paul's like an amazing entrepreneurial mentor and a life mentor in many different ways.

So great to see you both.

You guys are such uber high achievers in different domains.

And I think it's great to see you in person for one thing, but it's great to see both of you thrive in doing what you do.

Yeah, nutrition.

And then at the time, studying nutrition and biology, I started doing a undergraduate thesis project in neuroscience and the neural control of autonomic regulation.

So specifically the brain network, the rostral ventral lateral medulla.

So they are the brainstem network that controls respiration.

So inspiratory neurons, expiratory neurons, and how they respond to oxygen and CO2.

And that led me down the path of oxygen hypoxia, hyperoxia, hypercapnia, extreme environments.

What happens to the brain under oxygen deprivation and nutrient deprivation?

At the time, I was interested in alpha-L polylactate because it was in Cytomax, which was something I used because I raced mountain bikes.

I was testing some things, lactate, and then I got steered onto the ketogenic diet after getting a fellowship, a postdoctoral fellowship by the Office of Navy Research, which is part of the Department of Defense.

to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms of central nervous system oxygen toxicity, which manifests as seizures.

So I was mostly interested in drugs, but then I pivoted and went back to the ketogenic diet because the ketogenic diet works for many different seizure disorders when drugs fail.

So I was like, oh, I can get nutrition back, although...

I was gravitating towards a tenure track position and everybody told me this is like the dumbest thing to do.

You can't get NIH funding with ketogenic.