On your first day of an introduction to Nutrition Sciences class you will learn that all foods are all made up of a different ratio of macronutrients: protein, carbohydrates, and fats. At various moments in our history, at least one of those macros has been the “bad guy” of the moment.

As a child of the ‘80s, no memory is more salient than that of the low-fat diet craze. Low-fat Cool Whip was a staple in our freezer (and after the containers were empty, in our lunchboxes), low-fat Snackwells cookies were among my favorite sweet (fat-free) treats, and we even ate lab-created pretend fat: olestra. It did not go well. 

Everyone’s doctors and everyone’s friends were talking about low-fat everything. Until they weren’t. If you were awake in the early aughts, you also lived through the Atkins and South Beach diet crazes, so you’ve also seen carbohydrates replace fat as public enemy number one. 

So while we vacillated from fearing fat to fearing carbs, we forgot a few things about fat and food.

“Scientists wonder whether our obsession with cutting out fat — an ideology that took off in the 1980s and 1990s and was promoted by physicians, the government and the food industry — set off a chain reaction that led to the current precarious state of American health.” A Washington Post article covering the recent surge of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in children stated.

I talked with Stephanie Venn-Watson, the veterinary epidemiologist and researcher who made the discovery that C15:0 is an essential fatty acid, and Eric Venn-Watson, an MD/MBA. Together, they co-founded Fatty15. Fatty15 is a supplement I take and pay for with my own money.

We spent our time talking about fats and some misconceptions around this sweet, misunderstood macro. 

Some fats are essential

There are three essential fatty acids, which means you need to get them from your diet: They’re Omega-3, Omega-6, and then C15:0 is the third. It was the first fatty acid to be discovered in more than 90 years.

When I tell you that this discovery of C15:0 as essential involves dolphins, it’s as delightful as it sounds.

In that same Washington Post article, Venn-Watson’s discovery of the dietary impact of C15:0 is detailed in a strange finding in a pod of dolphins, “The sickest dolphins had lower levels of a fatty acid known as C15:0, or pentadecanoic acid.” And that discovery sent Venn-Watson down a path to take C15:0 from the oceans back into your life. The dolphins were lacking access to marine fish and plants that contain C15:0. On land, we can find it in milk and butter.

By the way, today at Fatty15, the rallying cry is “save the dolphins, save the world.” She also echoed that sentiment in her TED talk. 

Saturated fats aren’t all bad for us

You may have zeroed in on the “butter and milk” as a source of C15:0 and thought to yourself, “oh no! We don’t do dairy anymore.”

Fatty15 is actually vegan and free of everything, however, let’s give Stephanie a moment to talk about dairy, shall we?

In dairy milk, she shared, there are more than 400 fatty acids, “and we’re finding, we’re able to parse out which of these fatty acids are beneficial for our long-term health and which are actually competing with it.”

And it has to do with the number of the carbon molecules in the fatty acid chain – whether that carbon chain has an odd or an even number. Doesn’t this feel like a fun trip back to AP Chem?

“As an example, odd chain saturated fats like C15:0, repeatedly and consistently shown as beneficial for our long-term health, lower risk of having diabetes, lower risk of heart disease,” but, just one molecule longer is a different story Venn-Watson shared. “Saturated fats like C16:0, which are present at much higher levels in dairy fat, are continuously associated with a higher risk of Type 2 Diabetes.”

Fatty acids are a super important part of the day-to-day operation of our bodies

I don’t take many supplements, unless they can help me live longer or sleep better – and there’s science to back it up. And until this conversation, fatty acids were shoved into the “should” pile – I should take these things, but I’m not quite sure why. 

Here’s our why: “fatty acids make up our cell membranes … Every cell in our body is protected by the cell membrane. The makeup of that cell membrane, how resilient or how fragile our cells are, are completely dependent upon the fatty acids in them,” Venn-Watson shared.

Our bodies are basically a series of signals, making sure everything works properly and together. Fatty acids play a role in cellular signaling, or cells talking to one another for functions like metabolism and immunity. 

And then the last thing they do is help feed mitochondria. If you remember anything from middle school biology it’s that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. 

“They’re powerhouses because the mitochondria are able to use fatty acids really as fuel to make that energy,” Venn-Watson shared.

What about C15:0 specifically? What’s it good for?

Keeping us from aging prematurely, for starters.

“And if we don’t maintain healthy levels of [C15:0] at any age, then we suffer consequences,” Venn-Watson shared. “At any age, whether we’re four years old or 30 years old, the mounting science is supporting that C15:0 is critical to making sure our cells keep working so that the simplest way to put it, without C15:0, our aging is accelerated.”

Researchers are finding that C15:0 is essential to maintaining our health and even reversing and slowing the rate at which we age. Here’s one study Venn-Watson co-authored and a review of studies that evaluated C15:0 and C17:0. 

With the discovery behind her, Venn-Watson is hopeful: “The leading hypothesis now with all of this is that we have caused nutritional C15:0 deficiencies, which are actually then feeding into these global problems that we’re seeing,” she said. “The upside is this is something that’s fixable. So we’re excited to be able to bring C15:0 to the world.”

Learn more about the science behind Fatty15 and the company’s mission.

And enter for a chance to be one of 10 lucky winners to receive three months of Fatty15.