Despite being athletic, Max Marchione suffered from a host of debilitating conditions.
A runner and soccer player his whole life, Marchione should have been the picture of health, but he could barely stay awake during the day and would toss and turn all night.
On top of that, he suffered from blinding migraines.
For a decade, the tech entrepreneur sought out hundreds of doctors, hoping to get answers, but they all told him to exercise and eat healthy – two things he was already doing in earnest.
After pushing for more testing, Marchione finally got answers three years ago.
He had prediabetes, a condition suffered by 100 million Americans, most of whom don’t know they have it. Left untreated, the condition can lead to diabetes, heart disease, nerve damage and kidney failure.
Marchione, now 25, told the Daily Mail: ‘It was really easy for doctors to overlook without more comprehensive testing. The healthcare system failed me.’
Determined to improve his health and frustrated by how long it had taken to get a diagnosis, Marchione co-founded Superpower in 2022, a healthcare startup that analyzes 100 blood biomarkers, including cholesterol, heavy metals, the stress hormone cortisol and sex hormones.
More testing done in 2024 using Superpower revealed even scarier health implications. Marchione had the toxins mercury and BPA in his body at levels higher than 99 percent of the US population. And doctors told him he had likely been unknowingly battling these toxins since he was 12.
Max Marchione (pictured here), 25, spent a decade searching for answers behind his insomnia and migraines. He told Daily Mail it took a year to reverse all of his conditions
Marchione, originally from Australia and now living in San Francisco, said: ‘I tried to take things into my own hands.
‘There’s a big gap between the best care and what most people have access to. How do you close that gap?
‘Everyone needs access to the best care.’
For Marchione, Superpower suggested he take 400 milligrams of thiamine pills, also known as vitamin B1, an essential vitamin that turns carbs into energy and promotes healthy nerve function.
The body can’t make vitamin B1 on its own, but it’s found in pork, nuts, eggs, trout, black beans, whole grains, kale and cauliflower.
Low levels of thiamine can lead to severe nervous and cardiovascular system dysfunction, including confusion, memory problems, heart failure, brain swelling, nerve damage and balance issues.
The average American needs just one to 1.5 milligrams per day, but research suggests supplementing between 100 and 300 milligrams could help improve prediabetes.
One study in the European Journal of Nutrition found patients with prediabetes who took 300 milligrams of thiamine daily for six weeks had 11 percent lower glucose levels than those who didn’t supplement.
Marchione claims taking 400 milligrams of thiamine every day reversed his prediabetes in three months. Dr Erika Schwartz, a preventative health expert and founder of Vault Science, told the Daily Mail: ‘Taking 400 mg of vitamin B1 daily is considered a high dose, but it’s generally safe since any excess is flushed out in urine.’
The supplements have now allowed Marchione to occasionally enjoy carb-heavy foods like pasta or pizza without suffering glucose spikes, fatigue or digestive symptoms, he added.
He told this website: ‘When I had carbs, they didn’t really affect me. But if I went off the vitamin B1, I’d have brain fog and bloating.’
Dr Schwartz said: ‘To truly move the needle, vitamin B1 needs to be paired with a healthy, whole-food diet, balanced hormones, and regular exercise. These lifestyle factors are the real drivers of insulin sensitivity.
‘Thiamine can support the process — think of it like giving your body better tools to do its job — but it can’t replace the job itself. If you’re eating poorly, staying sedentary, and stressed out, no vitamin will fix that alone.’
BPA is relatively common in food packaging, cans, and plastic containers despite the well-established deleterious effects that has on the human body, such as infertility certain cancers
Canned foods are responsible for 6.6 micrograms per person per day of BPA exposure. When when inside of the cans contain a BPA coating, the harmful chemical seeps into the food itself
Superpower also told him to cut out canned foods from his diet, like soup, fish and vegetable oil, as well as some cheeses and sauces, to lower his levels of toxins and heavy metals.
This meant cutting out canned sauces, soups and fish and trying to opt for more minimally processed, whole foods like fruits, vegetables and lean proteins.
BPA, Bisphenol A, is an industrial chemical used in hard plastics and resins to make them more durable. It typically lines plastic and metal food containers and leeches into food.
Research suggests BPA acts as an ‘endocrine disruptor,’ meaning it can imitate the body’s hormones and interfere with the production of and response to natural hormones like estrogen.
This leads to hormonal imbalances linked to early puberty, infertility and some reproductive cancers like ovarian cancer, as well as migraines like Marchione’s.
Mercury is a heavy metal that gets deposited in the water and accumulates in fish like swordfish, king mackerel and albacore tuna.
There is no ‘safe’ level of mercury.
Watchdog group Environmental Working Group estimates 16,000 foods in the US have BPA in their packaging, and nearly all fish and shellfish have traces of mercury.
Thiamine, also called vitamin B1, is thought to help lower blood glucose levels and stave off type 2 diabetes (stock image)
Marchione is pictured at left with the other co-founders of Superpower. The membership costs $499 and combines biomarker testing with AI-based solutions
Over time, high mercury can lead to headaches and insomnia, similar to what Marchione experienced, due to it attacking the central nervous system and damaging brain cells.
Marchione told the Daily Mail his lifestyle changes reversed all of his symptoms within a year and slashed his biological age from 35 to 20 – five years younger than his chronological age.
Marchione estimates it took six months to a year to bring his levels back down to a normal range. Once they returned, his debilitating symptoms disappeared and he no longer was prediabetic.
Since reversing prediabetes, insomnia, migraines and high toxin levels, Marchione ‘never gets sick.’ He’s now focusing on growing Superpower, which has 200,000 people on a waitlist, and making comprehensive biomarker testing more affordable.
He said: ‘Cancer at 50 starts when you’re 20. Heart disease at 70 starts when you’re 20. Dementia at 80 starts when you’re 20. It makes sense to start testing today.
‘Testing should be a right and be as low cost as possible’
