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The U.S. Navy invited Venn-Watson, a veterinary epidemiologist and public health scientist, to help improve the health of their aging dolphins.

In her work, she discovered that dolphins age much like humans and are susceptible to the same age-related conditions—like high cholesterol, chronic inflammation, and arthritis. However, not all the Navy dolphins developed these conditions, and she and a team of scientists set out to discover why. Using metabolomics—the study of metabolites in an organism, tissue, or cell—they identified a specific nutrient present in humans and dolphins that emerged as a key predictor of healthy aging in dolphins called pentadecanoic acid, or C15:0.



“Back in 2020, we published evidence supporting that C15:0 is not only a beneficial and active saturated fat but that it met these rare criteria of being an essential fatty acid,” Venn-Watson told The Epoch Times. Venn-Watson says there are different types of saturated fats, and they’re not all created equal. “These odd chain saturated fats, and especially C15:0, is emerging as this Goldilocks saturated fat that’s good for us,” she said.

However, despite new research showing C15:0’s benefits, long-standing beliefs about saturated fats being bad for us endure, as evidenced in the United States Department of Agriculture guidelines going back to the 1970s, which have repeatedly labeled them unhealthy. Due to the perceived belief over the last several decades that saturated fats lead to an.

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