Dustin Sulak, DO is a world renown cannabis expert, legitimizing this plant through his thoughtful approach to its use, while educating patients and doctors. Dr. Sulak, practices what he preaches. His professional presence, calm demeanor and undeniably expert knowledge make him a “go to” cannabis practitioner. Dustin was one of the first physicians to openly discuss the benefits of this super plant and has changed the lives of countless patients who have come to him for consultation and treatment.
Dustin holds fast to the notion that prevention is the first and most important step toward lifetime wellness. As such, he promotes a mind, body, and spiritual awareness which he describes on his website “The Healer”. During this interview with John Malanca, he discusses the importance of weight maintenance, a balanced diet, an appreciation for and attention to mealtime, various actions of cannabinoids on body function and the importance of a body in balance. He also discusses reactionary healthcare (or treatment after development) of many life-style associated illnesses. John and Dustin discuss why Americans, who seemingly spend the most on sophisticated healthcare services, remain among the sickest individuals on the planet. Tune in!
Transcript
Dr. Dustin Sulak – “The Healer” talks Cannabis for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention.
John Malanca 0:05
Hi everybody John Malanca here with United patients group be informed and be well I have a special guest old friend dear friend Dustin Sulak and say hey Dustin, how are you doing? Good Good to see you as always. I’ll read his bio in here but I just wanted to before we start he’s a humble guy. I’m gonna I’m gonna shine the light on him a little bit because I know he won’t say that there’s some great doctors in this industry and especially when the doctor throw a doctor you know, leave with him but Dustin is game is going to go down in the history books is one of the top minds in the cannabis industry as well as health and wellness cannabis industry and so you’re gonna learn a lot today and again dust and I thank you for for being part of this Industry raising the bar for for professionalism in this industry as well. So thank you for being with us. And let me go into this impressive bio. So, Dustin Sulak do he’s an osteopathic physician licensed in Maine as a general practitioner. He’s an expert in integrative medicine, intelligent combination of conventional and alternative approaches to healthcare. He has long been fascinated by Mind Body medicine spiritually in healthcare and natural approaches to promoting health as well as healing. He’s an expert in cranial and biodynamic osteo excuse me, osteopathy and tongue twist. I thought that your title of quite a few times, I clinical hypnotherapist, Reiki Sensi, practitioner of Qigong as well as yoga, and you study with numerous conventional and alternative healers as well as physicians. Dr. Su lacks clinical practice focused on treating refractory refractory conditions. And adults as well as children. He received an undergraduate degree in nutritional science and biology from Indiana University, a Doctorate of osteopathy from the Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine, medicine and completed an osteopathic internship at Maine Dartmouth family medicine residency. Dr. souillac is the founder of integrate health as well as healer.com, a medical cannabis educational resource. He is passionate teacher of clinicians. He’s to me he is a passionate teacher of clinicians, patients and industry professionals and sits on the board of directors of two nonprofits focused on cannabis education, the Society of cannabis clinicians, as well as patients at a time and I’m an ad. He’s an advisory board member of United patients group as well. So Dustin, good to have you on the show here. How are you doing?
Unknown Speaker 2:48
Thank you, john. I’m doing great. It’s a beautiful day and wonderful to have another opportunity to work with you to help reach people and educate thank you for the opportunity to do what is Most important to me,
John Malanca 3:01
I appreciate that we we’ve done a lot together. And I always talked about the ripple effect of education, you know, throwing the pebble in the pond, and he goes out and out now and I think that’s one thing that makes you very special is that you’re a great educator and very knowledgeable with health in general, but but also cannabis. And I wanted to make this just an open conversation. You know, cannabis is not a one size fits all, but you’ve spoken about it as a daily something for prevention, as well as daily wellness. And so he talked about this because there’s, they’re still there were 2020. Now, when Chris and I entered this industry in 2011, the walls of the stigma were, you know, high, and they’re starting to come down, but they’re still up here and it hasn’t been accepted by a lot of doctors, a lot of medical institution, a lot of governments as well, a lot of patients and so I think actually I know The information that we share really trickles out. You know, you’ve been in our conferences and I’ve had patients or they’ve come in there with their arms crossing No way. What am I gonna learn from this guy and they go out of there going, how do I get some cannabis now you know and he talked about the benefits. I don’t say you’re the pusher on there like here try this but now you’ll see what when I when I’m when I’m talking about everyone to keep talking about one the cannabis plant, why human bodies, what what it what the endocannabinoid system is and then how it brings the body back to balance. And one of your great descriptions that I use all the time and I’ve used it on the show quite a few times. And I’ve given you credit, of course, is the breathing to see where you are in in balance as well as in pain, and then incorporating medical cannabis into that. So welcome, Dustin.
Unknown Speaker 4:51
Thank you, john. Well, I think in some ways, it makes a lot of sense to think about prevention. You and I and lots of the viewers are interested In staying healthy and feeling our best every day, but if you look at our medical system right now, that is absolutely not the priority. And I know in all fairness, public health and preventative medicine isn’t just based on the health care system. It requires cooperation from agriculture and the food industry and many other facets of society. But in general, here in the US, we spend more per capita and healthcare than any other country in the world, and consistently ranked the worst out of our pure countries in terms of our health outcomes. And the main reason for that is because we’re spending all our money waiting until after people are already very sick and then aggressively treating them with expensive treatments that don’t produce a cure, but they just manage the disease. And then we also spend an immense amount of money at the end of life keeping people alive in the ICU for days or weeks and so forth. So, you know, while it’s obvious to some of us, that Prevention is a very important topic. It’s overlooked drastically in our current system. Now, in my practice, I’m mostly seeing patients that have been through various other specialty fields of medicine. They’ve seen the pain doctor, they’ve seen the rheumatologist, maybe they’ve seen the oncologist, the neurologist, whatever it is, they don’t get results. They’re they come to me. And with cannabis and a combination of usually some other integrative treatments, we see incredible results like still 10 years later, you know, I’m, like, kind of pinching myself, like at lunchtime. Wow. You know, for patients this morning are just like life changing miraculous results, and the rest of them are interval improvement. So, you know, I have to think if cannabis can do so well for treating these highly complex refractory conditions that don’t respond to the rest of conventional medicine, then what could I do to help prevent these conditions in the first place? Right, it seems like a very logical question. And then it becomes even more logical, because we know that one of the main ways cannabis is affecting us is by interacting with the endocannabinoid system, which is an integral part of our capacity to stay healthy. So the endocannabinoid system for people that are new to this is a signaling system in the body that’s present everywhere. So all the organs, tissues, glands, what you know, wherever you look, you can find the endocannabinoid system and its main function is homeostasis, which is the ability for a cell or an organ or tissue to have a stable and healthy internal environment, despite fluctuations in the external environment. So it’s a method for adapting to life for adapting to stressors from our environment for adapting to injuries and healing from injuries. So So now we’ve got this incredible medicine for treating really severe conditions. We got this physiologic system that’s designed to keep us healthy. And when I say design I mean, evolved over millions of years. You know the endocannabinoid system is present in really simple coordinate animals. So like if you look at a sea squirt, okay, the sea squirt has a CB one receptor cannabinoid receptor that’s almost identical to the human can have an oId receptor. This means that a long time ago, Endocannabinoid physiology became an important part of animal life. And it’s been that way ever since about 600 million years, according to the scientists that do that comparative research. So so this is nothing new. This has been keeping us healthy for our entire license before we were born till our very last breath. Endocannabinoid systems important. And then, you know, I think the third thing that brought me to this is that I’m treating people with cannabis and I was curious to know, what are the effects of long term cannabis use and I really dug into literature to find out are like in the general human population are cannabis users more sick than Users. If we look at Roden toxicology studies of the rodents, they get the highest doses of cannabinoids for the longest period of time. Are they sick? Or are they? Well, you know, what I found was amazing, like so. So if you look at those toxicology studies, these are mice and rats that got incredible doses of THC every day for two years, they have less of every type of tumor, their weight is more near normal, you know, their metabolic function like they’re
John Malanca 9:27
healthy,
Unknown Speaker 9:28
you know. And so, and so I think that, that that’s how I get started on this idea and just dug into the research and, you know, a pause for a moment here, but I’ll share some of what I found,
John Malanca 9:39
I think is great. So first thing everyone should just blast himself as much as many canavalia as possible to stay healthy and this might be a better, calmer world. You know?
Unknown Speaker 9:53
That that’s an oversimplification and thankfully not everything that is present in rodents. likes to people. But I, you know, I think, you know, it was Carl Sagan, the astronomer, right, the famous astronomer. He says, The illegality of cannabis is outrageous. I get this quote here and impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world. And that was, I think, late 60s, early 70s. I you know, it’s never been more true. And so I think the social and spiritual aspects that cannabis can bring to one’s life are pronounced in my opinion in terms of cannabis use for prevention. We know even before COVID we know that social isolation is associated with much higher rates of heart disease and stroke in depression and other mental health illnesses obesity, overweight, like sleep disturbance, all that stuff. We are designed to be connected to each other and to be connected to somebody greater than ourselves, whether you call that nature or God or whatever. And it cannabis really can facilitate that. But beyond that, there are some very specific associations between cannabis use and better health outcomes. And I think the most obvious is if you look at diabetes and obesity, yeah. So this is, you know, unusual because in the big population, you know, this is statistics here. This doesn’t mean it’s for sure this way for any individual. But if you look at the big population, cannabis users consume more calories, but they’re much less likely to be overweight, to be obese and to have type two diabetes much less like yeah, I’ve heard that study
John Malanca 11:45
for years now and how is that possible? Because you mean the picture is us cannabis, the couch lock, and you’re sitting there eating, eating, eating I mean, I I think cred tried cannabis once in her life before she became ill. You She goes, Oh, I won’t do it because I ate the whole house. You know and so so how do you explain that and you you brought up diabetes and the very first you and I met at Merrill Lynch madry patients at a time in in Oregon. The very first one that I attended the criminai attended was down in Arizona, I think back in 2011. And it just was mind blowing to us to meet all these medical experts positions that were talking about cannabis and different ailments. And this has been their their life study. And one doctor, I believe from Middle East came into spoken by diabetes and my father had diabetes he and he was a healthy diabetic if you can be a healthy diabetic, but it affects everything and he and he had passed with a heart attack but I remember sitting there with kirrin sitting back and listen to this doctor and hearing him talk about the benefits of cannabis and what it does for diabetics. Remember, just tear it down. Got it? What could I have done done for my father, you know, with this would have this helped my dad and went back and shared with my mom as well. But cannabis didn’t mean take you away from the obesity. None of this is
Unknown Speaker 13:14
extremely important. I mean, so many people are dealing with this right now it’s about 40% of adults in this country have obesity. And in addition to that 32% are overweight. So almost three quarters of the people have some metabolic disturbance in almost 11% have diabetes. It’s, you know, it’s it. These numbers are really impressive. And previously, the data about cannabis and obesity and diabetes was cross sectional, which means we can just take a snapshot of the population, look at cannabis users versus non users and the rates of diabetes and obesity. And yeah, we see lower rates in cannabis users but we don’t know that cannabis is causing it. Maybe people that choose to have cannabis in their lives are more likely to be vegetarian. are vegan, maybe they’re more likely to go out dancing or who knows,
John Malanca 14:03
right? Go Go do something like that. I mean, I think it’s just the way the way we eat, you know, living overseas coming back over here to the States. I mean, over eat, you know, family of four would eat this family, you know, person here in the States a family. Sure, sure. And
Unknown Speaker 14:17
you know, and I think it’s part of our culture where people are essentially living to eat and that eating to live, you know, it becomes this big important thing in life and and that you know, I’m I’m all for thoroughly enjoying food. I think it’s a wonder source, wonderful source of natural pleasure. But But getting back to the data later, now we have longitudinal data. So so if you look at you like we have cohorts of people that we followed from age seven, all the way to their, to their middle age, and we can see that as they start using cannabis, their likelihood of having diabetes or obesity is going down. So there is, again, that doesn’t prove that it’s causal. There might be some intermediate factor that that’s kind of mediating that relationship. But it it seems causal. And it it seems that even more so that cannabis is responsible for this preventative effect on obesity and diabetes, because you can give it to rodents, while you give them an obesity inducing diet and they do not become obese. Not only do they fail to become obese, the bacteria in their gut doesn’t change to that of an obese mouse. So this is, you know, a very big new field in medicine. Everybody’s looking at the biome, the microbiome, right? And you can I mean, this sounds disgusting, but you can do fecal transplant from a skinny person to an obese person, meaning you take the bacteria from the skinny person’s gut and put it in an obese person’s gut. If that sets up shop in their intestine, it actually changes their metabolism and it makes them lose weight or less. Just in research, not not, not clinically, not therapeutically. No. I mean, there are some scenarios where they are doing fecal transplant for gi, other gi infections. And they make
John Malanca 16:07
sense. So it really makes sense. I mean, everything stem, there’s a great documentary called the second brain, the brain brain, of course, and they’ve got the second brain. Some people would say, that would be the first brain, you know, and but everything’s temporary, how many times have we done something, you know, eating too much sugar, eat too much, you know, butter, whatever, and you’re off, you’re like, you know, and you’re offered a especially if you have a clean a clean system, and but everything stems from the gut. Well, let’s talk about wellness. And, and, and well, let’s see, can you go back on the study of the diabetes, you know, Can Can you talk about cannabinoids, I would say, you know, you always hear 120 to 160. Where are you in that cannabinoid number? Oh, man, I think it’s, uh, you know, I I think lumir has a new set of Israel’s I kind of trust where he’s at, and I think it’s 160 according to that But I’m not I’m not an expert. I know these tiny little variants of the molecular structures and what words really mean each and every day. And so for our listeners that are new to this yet, cannabis has hundred 60 different cannabinoids, one cannabinoid that you’re very probably familiar with this THC is the cannabinoid, what we’re seeing everywhere now is CBD is another cannabinoid CBN and off each one of these 160 different cannabinoids have their own purpose in the body of what they do when helps with sleep and helps with inflammation was a cancer fighter. And so can you talk about that Dustin, what were you seeing in the in these diabetic studies of what type of cannabinoids I always hear THC v as in Victor is is does help with diabetes. But a lot of these cannabinoids aren’t really that easily accessible, are they?
Unknown Speaker 17:49
Sure? Well, you know, I think the majority of the evidence for cannabis having a preventative effect on diabetes and obesity has directly to do with THC. As THC and same with the Rhoden studies THC. No THC is the best painkiller in cannabis. It’s the one that causes kind of the spiritual and psychoactive effects and has many other benefits. It’s a powerful part of cannabis. But many of the other components of cannabis could or are useful in the prevention of these metabolic illnesses and CBD is one CBD seems to improve metabolism and it can curb appetite thcv which you mentioned is probably the best candidate just based on its effects. So you know, this is interesting as a small tangent, but in medical school I heard about the endocannabinoids system twice both in pharmacology class once was talking about the drug Marinol which was a you know, synthetic version of THC and the only mention was that it targets the CB one receptor. You know, every every drug we need to know its mechanism of action and memorize it and spit it out on a multiple choice exam. The other the other mentioned was something called rimonabant which is the anti munchie drug rimonabant is a CB one blocking drug. So it essentially does the opposite of THC. It totally blocks that receptor but it also blocks the receptor from our endocannabinoids. It’s basically a way to shut down the endocannabinoid system. And they were saying, well, this is a CB one blocker, and this is going to be the best solution for diabetes and obesity, because it’s the anti munchie drug. And, and it looks really good in rodent studies, except they approved it in Europe. Unfortunately, before they did in the US, I say unfortunately, that it just got approved at all, because people that were taking it, develop severe mental health issues including a high rate of suicide, because you cannot block the CB one receptor and expect things in the body to function normally. what’s beautiful about thcv is that a very gently blocks that receptor only if it’s over active, so it doesn’t like take its activity and reduce it down to normal. But if it’s if that receptor is getting excessive activity excuse me it doesn’t reduce it down to zero it reduces it to kind of a normal state. And and that’s one of the benefits of THC V and I think breeders are really working to create more varieties of cannabis that have THC V and you’re starting to see some of that on the market
John Malanca 20:18
are you seeing it out there because you know here in the in the San Francisco Bay Area, I patient watched one of our videos and it was discussed and I only found one company that was selling a tablet with it in it you can’t keep it on currently, it’s not easily accessible to find you know a tincture
Unknown Speaker 20:39
now it’s still pretty rare we see varieties from time to time that have one or 2% THC v not not a strong you know amount of it, but I don’t know that you need a lot of it. But what’s beautiful is the THC can do something very similar and this is why it’s working when we use so our bodies make Endocannabinoid Noise these are compounds that act so much like THC. It’s incredible like they’re, they’re physiologic activities very similar. The main difference is when we take THC into the body, it kind of has this global effect everywhere versus in our own physiology and no cannabinoids are very precise. So make a little in the brain and then it gets broken down, make a little in the heart, wherever you know it’s very specific, but people that are obese, those fat cells are producing excessive amounts of endocannabinoids to the extent that it can down regulate one’s endocannabinoid system, meaning build tolerance to endocannabinoids. So be like someone who’s smoking joints all day and never gets high because they have so much THC in their system and they just don’t feel it anymore. They’ve downregulated the function of that system. Same thing happens in obesity. And so if that’s occurring, when THC comes in there, it can disrupt that and actually restore the receptor activity to its normal level. So So In some ways THC can work a lot like I was just describing THC v. And I think there’s a lot of other benefits with it as well people tend to sleep better and of course disturbed sleep Not only is a risk factor for obesity and diabetes but as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease for stroke for mental health, for arthritis for pretty much asthma you know everything right and I think we should just start there our society is terrible, it’s sleeping. You know, we now everybody’s up on their screen all night and it’s it’s crazy.
John Malanca 22:31
My eyesight being in good COVID I mean, I went to the eye doctor like Is something wrong my eyes and he said, you know what it is? your left eye is dry. There’s nothing because I’m thinking Dr. Coleman and muscular macular degeneration. I mean, it was tweeted all these screenshots he goes, No, your eyeball is like skin. You know, if it’s dry and you put lotion on your skin, he goes it’s also like a sponge when it dries out. He said just start just using these droppers. Do not be shy and you know, brought it back. So talking about You know, staring at screens, lack of sleep, everything stems You know, a lot of times you know, I’m certain you see these in your in your clinic is I have anxiety, stress, lack of sleep, etc etc etc and sometimes if you just treat the sleep it’s a domino effect like boy doctor I feel great again you know so
Unknown Speaker 23:20
often john so you know I’m seeing people I’m giving him this this like multi step plan right like and always if they’re not sleeping well, achieving restorative sleep is step one, but then there’s you know, so we’re going to start usually with THC, you know, at night and I say that when I say THC, I mean a THC dominant preparation. Some people do really well with CBD for sleep, but other people It keeps them up. And I’m not sure how to predict that right now. So I you know, I start with what’s worked for four years, and is pretty, pretty dependable. And and then there’ll be like step two on the plan. You know, once we ever sort of sleep here’s what I want you to do during the day to control whether Your pain or your anxiety, whatever. And you know, at least half the time they come back and say like I just did step one, you know, I’m just taking it at night, but my mood is so much better than next day. My pain is so much better. My anxiety is gone. It’s like No wonder you weren’t sleeping. How does your body supposed to heal? So so for health prevention, excuse me for Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, if somebody is not sleeping, that’s probably the most powerful thing they can do. And cannabis is an incredibly useful tool for achieving good sleep.
John Malanca 24:29
You know, you must get this all the time. I want the medical part of the plan. I don’t want the recreational part of the plan. And I don’t want to be high and I always talk about it and I’d love to hear your your side but I always say like, we’re out here in California, my brother has been the wine business for 27 years, but I say it’s like going and doing wine taking like a sip of wine, and you’re perfectly fine. You drink three bottles of wine and you’re going to be totally intoxicating. The same thing with cannabis with THC. You have my new amount and I’d like to For you to share your why a lot of times less than more for the body but also for the pocketbook. But you can do my minute amounts and have incredible benefits. So can you talk about that?
Unknown Speaker 25:12
Absolutely with so people are scared of THC right? And I think in their mind they build it up as having this kind of like really strong psychedelic type of a mind altering effect. And or maybe it was because when they were in college, they sat down and smoked a whole joint and they got really stoned and paranoid. I hear that story all the time. But you’re right that that’s like drinking two bottles smoking a whole joint when they just maybe needed a sip. But in general with cannabis and with specifically with THC. There’s almost always this therapeutic window, which means here’s the dose that’s going to give you an adverse effect, whether it’s getting high or getting tired or confused or whatever it is. And then here’s a dose that’s going to give you a therapeutic effect, and people can get inside that window. It’s almost always possible for someone to have a therapy effect without any adverse effect at all. Sometimes we, you know, we got to get creative about how to achieve that. But for most people that just comes naturally. And so with my patients, you know, especially with THC, we actually start below the therapeutic dose because I don’t know what what that’s going to be, they might be a two milligram person or a 20 milligram person, everybody responds differently, but we creep up very slowly. Then we’re in the therapeutic window, sometimes we go up and go over the line, and they start getting a side effect. And then we back off a little bit, and they’re in their sweet spot. So the thing about going over the line is that not only does someone get side effects, they also slowly build tolerance, and it works less and less over time. So they lose those benefits. And to compensate for losing those benefits. They tend to increase the dose, and that works very briefly and then they lose those benefits again in the dose escalates, right? And so it gets more expensive, they get less benefits, they get less side effects, but if they turn that around Round go actually decrease the dose. So so a lot of people it’s just so counterintuitive like wow, I’m using cannabis it used to work so well it’s not working as well anymore. I’m going to reduce my dose people don’t think like, you know, why would they reduce the dose to get stronger benefits but it absolutely works if you go down get inside that therapeutic window in there there’s no tolerance building, the same dose can work for years or decades with any without any loss of efficacy and no side effects. So less very often is more and that and this is similar to what I was describing before with obesity where we don’t want to over stimulate our endocannabinoid system we want to nudge it in the right amount. But if we get too strong on it, it kind of revolts and shuts down
John Malanca 27:46
Yeah, I like your lesson more approach because that is how we can I found you actually you know, we always came had that approach with with her father of less is more and and people doubted us all the time. Have no you need to blast it, you need to really just go at it and that’s not our mindset. And so we were at the patient at a time conference. We were exhibiting, running in listened to speakers exhibiting back and forth when we finally had a break, and there’s new speaker called Dustin Dr. Dustin sulak speak in the places pack. He said, okay, no arrows in there. So we went downstairs you know, because there’s no seats in there the first time we went downstairs just to get a you know, a snack and a cup of water or whatever. And um, they had a screen that was not showing the video, just the audio. And we hear this voice speaking about lessons more microdose a Korean I looked at and said, finally someone who is this guy, so we ran upstairs and opened the door saw you there. And that’s after we, you know, we let you because everyone’s bombarding you but, you know, I think a few days later, we contacted you and say Hey, would you take some time with us tonight? Thank you we’re in the same room actually, when you Skyped with kurenai we’re at home at that time and that’s no but I do love that that less is more approach. And it’s unfortunate back let’s go back to disease is a lot of patients come to cannabis as a last resort. You know, let me try this conventional there’s nothing wrong with the convention I’m alive because the convention I think a lot of us are lying because the convention, but can you talk about the benefits even? Well, first off, I don’t want to let everyone to think that cannabis is the golden pill, the golden ticket, take this and you’re healed. You know, it doesn’t work for everybody doesn’t work the way you want it to work. I’ve seen it work as fighting cancer. They didn’t work to kill cancer with my wife kirrin you know, and she was someone who, you know, didn’t drink didn’t smoke stayed healthy, you know, love it. So that’s the part that that you know, people ask, how do you continue on and I said you know, I said this, this is our, our journey. We we’ve seen this plant work and so but can you Talk about the conventional portion of you can combine and try not to be this last resort.
Unknown Speaker 30:07
Absolutely. Well, you know, I think, to begin with, a lot of people have this black and white perspective of health. And they think that health only includes wellness, they don’t see that there’s this cycle of wellness and illness and that participating in that cycle actually allows us to get healthier, that’s part of how we grow and adapt to our environment. Now, our conventional medical system, as I mentioned before, is really just focused on the illness component of that and trying either to suppress the illness and kind of prevent that cycle from going around and around, or, or change it in a way that might, you know, cause side effects and create another illness. So, you know, there’s a lot of downsides to it, relying on an exclusively conventional approach. But as you mentioned, conventional medicine has so much to offer us, especially when there’s an acute problem or a trauma, you know, life threatening disease. You know, there’s, there’s, there’s a lot of benefit from that. So I see conventional medicine as a necessary but just one aspect of what is good medicine. Right. And I and I think and hopefully our terms will have to change in the future. Because what I’m really talking about when I say conventional medicine has another name. It’s called allopathic medicine. And it got that name in the 19, early 1900s, from the US ups in the homeopaths, especially who saw it as Wow, this group of doctors, all they’re focused on is disease, and they’re really not. They’re not seeing the whole picture here. So so that allopathic approach is essential, but it’s really just one component. The broader picture of integrative medicine is, how do we not see it so black and white, how do we not attach ourselves to this is good and this is bad, but actually integrate it together and recognize that conventional medicine alternative, you know, complimentary, all of that’s a part of integrative medicine, and that we don’t need to overly rely on these gold standard randomized controlled trials that are suitable for FDA approval of therapies. But at the same time, we don’t it’s not all like woowoo we’re just going to do this because someone thought it was a good idea. Like there’s there’s a lot of good science out there that supports and informs our strategies and integrative medicine. So whether it’s cannabis or other herbs or lifestyle approaches, I think it’s very obvious that for someone who wants to feel great everyday, live their life to the fullest, enjoying good health, they’re gonna need a lot more than what they’re getting out of allopathic or so called conventional medicine. And there’s no country indications. I mean, there’s very few drug interactions between cannabis and conventional medications. You know, conventional treatments that that people are doing are great. pair with cannabis This is almost exactly you know, almost everybody I see in my practice is coming in on all these different conventional medications and treatments. And cannabis often can substitute or help them decrease their dose of many of them. And we see that all the time. And then people are able to have less side effects and in better quality of life, but they are not mutually exclusive by any means.
John Malanca 33:24
I share I hear that topic that you’ve have shared numerous times about how you can lower your your pharmaceutical drug with cannabis but still get the same event, same same effects, as if you were taking, you know, 2550 milligrams wherever your, your your pharmacy pharmaceutical is, how can you talk about how that works and why networks do?
Unknown Speaker 33:47
Yes, absolutely. So think of what’s going on inside your body is this incredibly complex web of interactions. You’ve got all these proteins and enzymes, receptor targets and then all these different pathways. It’s it’s super complex. The problem with conventional medicine and the economics of it is that it’s really emphasized what we call mono molecular therapies. These are medications that are made from a single compound, single molecule. And if you imagine that complex web, that single molecule is usually just pushing one node of that web, so imagine a big spiderweb, right, you push one spot, and the rest of its going to distort a little bit. But as soon as you let that off, it’s going to snap back to how it was, it really doesn’t make sense to try to interact with a complex network by pushing on a single node. In order to affect the whole network, you got to push really hard. Typically, you got to push so hard that you’re gonna start breaking strands and causing problems elsewhere in the node right elsewhere in the system. That that’s conventional medicine. cannabis is like the opposite. Each compound in cannabis has nothing Numerous targets. And not to mention there’s hundreds of compounds all working together. So now we’re talking about thousands of little nudges on the system, all in the right direction, but in different areas. That’s how we can affect physiology in a way that’s sustainable without so many side effects. And it improves the kind of coherence of the whole system when we address it that way. And so often when I start using cannabis with people, I mean, that’s a lot of the things we talked about their sleep is improving their metabolism improving their flexibility and their thoughts, the flexibility in their behaviors, not to mention their physiologic flexibility is improving. And that allows them to respond better to these mono molecular therapies that are just driving one node, it literally improves the flexibility and the resilience in the entire physiologic system. And so yeah, we see we see doses of medications going down and sometimes people get off them and sometimes they don’t, but If it’s at a lower dose, they’re less likely to get side effects and they’re still getting the same benefit.
John Malanca 36:04
I love all your description I always saw you talking, I’m thinking, where did he get all of his information? Because you only, like you said you’ve only heard talked about cannabis. I think twice you said in medical school, I mean, a wealth of information. So I love listening to you speak not only here, of course on on our podcast here, but all the conventions and so I appreciate what you what you do. Can you talk about it? The one thing I always loved, it’s a great description. Another great description is the pain threshold. You know, again, less is more taking in, you know, that body kind of seeing where you are you always talk he talks about the breathing.
Unknown Speaker 36:47
Sure. So, you know, I think this comes from my patients, right? So, so much of what I’ve learned is just taught to me by my patients, and one thing that I observed a lot is people coming back and people with Chronic pain, they come back and they say, you know, the pain is a little bit less intense. But there’s something else going on here. It’s less bothersome. It’s like, instead of right in front of my face, it’s in the back burner, and it’s not getting in the way of my life, and I’m not anxious about it. And I’m not moaning and groaning about it according to my wife, or she’ll be sitting right there and say, like, yeah, and he’s so much more pleasant to be around. He’s not moaning and groaning all day, you know, yet the pain is still there. There’s also a qualitative research study that came out of Israel that I think was really beautiful just confirmed a lot of what I saw in my practice. I you know, I think I thought someone must be like, sitting in my waiting room planting this phrase in my patients minds and mouths because everybody one after another comes in and says, This gave me my life back. I mean, you’ve heard that I’m sure so many times, right? That like the key phrase for cannabis, it gave me my life back. The Israeli researchers called it restored self. What they found was when they interviewed people People tend to feel like after they start cannabis, they feel more like themselves. It gives them a deeper connection with self, even in the absence of changing their other symptoms. So their pain may not have changed, their anxiety may not have changed, but just the fact that they feel more like themselves improves their quality of life. So what I learned from my patients is something that has a name in the pain literature is called unbundling. So think about it like this. You got pain, say in your in your leg or somewhere like that. That’s sending a signal up to the brain. We call that signal nociception. It’s not pain yet. It’s not pain until it reaches the brain and gets interpreted as pain. Then there’s a variety of things that happen. One is attentional fixation to the pain. So people start paying a lot of attention to their pain and less attention to the other things in life that bring them joy and gratitude and happiness. Then there’s anxiety right about staying in pain. There’s this judgment that that’s a bad thing. You know, so So there’s this ball of suffering, you know, it’s all wrapped together. And cannabis helps them tease that apart layer by layer and recognize, like, wow, there’s a sensation. Maybe it’s a neutral sensation. Maybe it’s good. Maybe it’s bad, but we don’t have to judge it. And because I’m not judging, it doesn’t have to be bothersome. And then it doesn’t have to cause anxiety about staying in it. You know, there’s so much we can do. And my training and hypnotherapy that’s exactly the hypnotherapy approach to dealing with chronic pain is to transform it into a less bothersome, more neutral sensation. So a lot of this has to do with being connected to ourself self awareness, right and that not being a passive, not not passively being influenced by the factors in our life, but actually like having the centeredness in this connection. So one of the things that I work with, that I recommend to all my cannabis using patients is something called the inner inventory, which is just a way to connect with yourself. You could do it any time but you It makes especially good sense to do it before and after using cannabis because it’s a way of understanding has the small dose of cannabis affected me or not? Some people don’t even realize that they’re feeling better until they check in. So. So what I have people do is rate on a scale from one to 10. Just take a deep breath and how smooth and easy is that breath? I mean, what an easy thing to do, you know? Wow, you got me going, john. I’m like, I’m at like an eight right now. And then the next thing I recommend is body. So hold still for a moment and just check in and see how easy it is for you to be comfortable in this position, wherever you are right now. And you can write that to them, like eight or nine. And then the last one is mood. And so you could ask like on a scale from one to 10 how authentically content or grateful Can I feel right now what’s my sense of appreciation or if you don’t know how to do that, just put a fake smile on your face. Give it a few seconds. And wait and see like how real does that fake smile become? And that you could write that one to 10. So just by doing that we’re connecting with ourselves. We’re getting a sense of where we’re at. And then you could use cannabis in a certain timeframe later, check it again. Now, if those numbers have improved, then that cannabis is likely having an effect on you and you’re at a dose, it’s beginning to be therapeutic. So then, you know, wow, I’m like getting into that therapeutic window right there.
John Malanca 41:26
Let’s start low.
Unknown Speaker 41:28
Start below the therapy, I’m going to start with the dose that does nothing, there’s no harm in that
John Malanca 41:33
and just see where you are. I feel good. I use I use that all the time. You know, just my own personal, you know, take your breath and anything like that, put that you know, smile on the face out. It will change that smile. I mean, it’ll change how you feel. But breathing if you if you and I share with a lot of people as well as just breathe, stop. taking a breath. You know, that’s one second of taking that breath. You’re forgetting about all your other noise in your head and just have one second can help. It works for me. It definitely works for me. You know, pain is pain is a big thing like diabetes and obesity. Pain is a big topic. Here in the US, I was talking to a pharmacist yesterday out of out of Connecticut. You know, pain was just added to the qualification you can call a qualified condition to that list is amazing. Yeah, it is great, but it’s kind of disappointing because there are states that have cancer and less, but not pain, or happiness.
Unknown Speaker 42:42
Yeah, the Connecticut program has taken a while to come around
John Malanca 42:48
11 different conditions, you know, where California started with 111 different conditions, you know, and, you know, so, but with that a lot of people are turning to other farms. Masuda calls to treat their pain.
Unknown Speaker 43:03
You know? That’s awful. that’s it that’s created that the highest death rate in people under 50 in our country right now. I mean, I won’t say that doctors have exclusively caused this opioid crisis. But that pretty close to it. I mean, you know, if somewhere around 80% of people using heroin started on pills that were prescribed by doctors dispensed by a pharmacist, you know, our country consumes about 85% of the world’s opioid supply, even though we have only 5% of the world’s population. So there’s a major problem here we got hoodwinked, you know, my profession was told that these drugs are safe and if you’re treating chronic pain, they don’t build tolerance and they, you know, and they, they’re not addictive and so forth. And now we recognize are falling are backpedaling aggressively, but in the meantime, we’ve created a terrible epidemic. In paint, we need good tools to treat pain. I think that’s part of it is they just didn’t have cannabis in their toolbox. Like if they had something that was safer and effective, you know, throughout the 1990s in the 2000s, we would not have been prescribing so many opioids, but there was an absence of cannabis, which should have been there because it was there in the late 1800s. It was there up until the 1940s it’s it’s an incredible treatment for pain. Because of all the things we’ve talked about. Thankfully, it’s coming back into the toolbox now.
John Malanca 44:32
You know, a lot of these doctors are getting, you know, the spotlight put on but they’re hand slapped and so they’re pulling back saying you know, I cannot give you your medication anymore and a lot of them are turning to the street to get to find their their pain relief. You know, like you said with cannabis and it’s unfortunate that cannabis is it was around it’s been around banned here in this in the end, I guess decriminalized in 1937, I believe about 8083 years ago. Now it’s starting to come back. We’re right now we’re 33 States District of Columbia. You know, clearly this number is gonna be going up. Do you see? What are your thoughts with the pharmaceutical companies getting involved? You know, GW pharmaceutical epidiolex you know, I’d love to hear your thoughts on that because I have been kind of anti that having the pharmaceutical companies come in. But, dear friend, she’s 19 she has autism. She has tried cannabis but because of the dosing she couldn’t find it was kind of like a roller coaster. Yes for her urologist out here in California said they said okay, if you don’t want it if you really don’t approve cannabis, and there’s a GW Pharmaceuticals, putting out a product that Please write us your prescription. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 46:02
I mean, I think there’s a place for it I
John Malanca 46:06
actually working. You know, I really? Yeah. My whole opinion on.
Unknown Speaker 46:10
Well, good. I’m glad. I’m glad you had that shift. You know, the the I don’t have a great perspective on how the pharmaceutical industry getting involved with this changes, regulations that like is that going to make it harder for states to allow someone to grow the plant in their backyard? If that’s the case that that’s a terrible thing, in my opinion, I think it’s a, you know, a human tragedy that there’s still so many people in the world that aren’t allowed to put a cannabis seed in their backyard and watch the beautiful thing grow that so so I don’t know about those broader implications. But strictly from a medical perspective, I absolutely do think that there’s a place for prescription and pharmaceutically produced cannabis treatments. I don’t want allopathic medicine to have to be excluded from this evolution. I don’t want want that to be left behind? Now I have patients that are in nursing homes that are in group homes. They can’t have herbal cannabis. There is too much red tape and regulations. I can prescribe them THC in a pill. Every pharmacy has THC behind the counter in a pill like I’m so thankful for that.
John Malanca 47:17
You use us. I know Dr. Behrman has talked about that on the show and so do you also do that with your talking marinara?
Unknown Speaker 47:25
Yeah, yeah, absolutely Marinol or that
John Malanca 47:28
the generic name Mr. Knapp. Amazing. Oh, isn’t that amazing? That Nope, you can’t use this but I can write you.
Unknown Speaker 47:33
Right. Well, that does a lot of hypocrisy. But But yeah, so right now there’s three agents in in the US pharmacies that affect the cannabinoid system directly. One is THC in a pill. One is called NAB alone, which it’s not used that much, but it’s it’s like a it’s very similar to THC. It’s just absorbed better so we can use less of it. And then the third is this newest one which is epidiolex or it’s just a CBD solution. The main difference from that is that it’s derived from the plant. And it actually does have trace quantities of some of the other compounds in there. It’s not purified CBD, I mean, it’s purified a lot, but there are some some trace phytoconstituents in there. So I think that these are useful, I think if people have access to them because their insurance pays for it, or because they’re in a facility that requires it, or simply because it’s the same every time they get it. You like this, this variability in the world of cannabis is really good for some people. But it also is very hard for some people, you know, they go get the same product with the same label and it’s totally different. And then that throws off their treatment. That’s a big issue for a lot of people
John Malanca 48:44
in that. So cost one insurance, very helpful for a lot of people because it because higher doses of cannabis can be expensive. But the one thing is knowing that you’re getting consistent and so that’s the one one thing I like and then also So I have to, you know if it’s available if it’s because it’s scheduled five and in just in pharmacies now it isn’t available in all of our states, legal or not.
Unknown Speaker 49:14
Yeah, I would Ilex. Yeah.
John Malanca 49:15
That’s why very, but it has been beneficial. But I contacted him to see if they’d be on the show to talk about this. I have not heard back but I would like to get, you know, show but show both sides of the pros and cons as well. And so, with your practice, what do you see? Do you see a lot of Pediatrics to geriatrics to Well, what’s your sweet spot?
Unknown Speaker 49:39
Oh, man, it’s such a big mix right now. I feel like it’s kind of come full circle. And now I’m seeing everything. You know, first few years of my practice, it was mostly adults with chronic pain and PTSD. Then Sanjay Gupta got on board and suddenly my practice shifted like way towards pediatric neurology. And I’ve been seeing more and more cancer. I think I might have beautiful Thanks for that, john. You know, and, and it’s just it just keeps changing. But right now it’s a beautiful blend every patient is like from a different walk of life with different specialty field in medicine. It’s so exciting for me to have these challenges. You know, I’m learning about rare conditions all the time that I’ve never even heard of before. Because cannabis is like a magnet for for all of this stuff that just doesn’t respond to conventional therapy. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s amazing. I do want to go back to the health prevention thing, because there’s there’s a few other things that I think are important to cover. Yes.
John Malanca 50:34
And then I’d also like to go back to he talked about the, the, the entourage effect and why combining and you mentioned in epidiolex, they have some other constituents in there too. And so, so, back to both those of you.
Unknown Speaker 50:49
Yes, sure. Well, let’s start with the entourage effect. So kind of similar to what I was describing before about hitting the system on multiple nodes with gentle nudges. Instead of just you poking one thing, that the term the entourage effect originally described the endocannabinoids because we have these two major endo cannabinoids, and then researchers identified all these other ones and it looks like well, they’re not really hitting the target, but in the presence of the major Endocannabinoid, they’re modulating how it works. So it’s almost like on its own, it does one thing but when it’s got this entourage behind it, it does something slightly different. And then that term was taken and applied to the cannabis plant as well because same thing is going on there. You know, you’ve got THC doing something, but THC in the presence of two dozen other things that are very similar to THC, it does something a little bit different and it tends to be more therapeutic. If you look at you know, I think one of the best examples of this is a review study that looked at treating seizures, which is what we’re talking about with CBD, versus so purified CBD versus CBD in the context of a whole plant compound. You know, something that’s still mostly just CBD, but it’s got all these, you know, hundreds of other little things in it. The average dose is about a third to be effective if you’re using the whole plant versus the purified, the adverse effects are way less obviously the cost to what is what is purified definition for you, like single molecule
John Malanca 52:19
like I can isolate.
Unknown Speaker 52:21
Yeah. And isolated CBD Exactly. So like a pharmaceutical grade pure CBD versus something that’s mostly CBD in the context of these other companies. So that’s, you know, whether we want to call it the entourage effect, or maybe a more accurate term is phytoconstituents synergy there, there’s a synergistic effect, right, we could remove the CBD, and give that that kind of background of all those other compounds, it’s not going to do anything. You need the main actor to be part of the picture. But when the main actor is there with the entourage, the effects are stronger, so you need less of it. There’s less side effects. And again, think about that bro. network that is our body, we’re nudging it in all these different ways instead of, you know, focusing on one thing. But so so, you know, we talked about sleep, we talked about obesity and type two diabetes. And you know, I think those are probably the areas where cannabis has the best to offer us in terms of promoting health and preventing disease. But there’s some other things coming out of literature, which are quite exciting. And heart attack cardiovascular disease is one example. So now we have some data that shows that people who come into the hospital having had a heart attack, if they’ve got a little cannabis in their system, then they’re less likely to die. They’re, they’re less likely to need an aggressive intervention. And so again, you know, we could say, well, is this is this just an association or is there a causal relationship is the cannabis actually protecting their heart and well, so then we turn to the animal studies, you need to find out about that. Then you can inject a mouse with the tiniest little dose of THC I mean, I I’ll have to use the word tiny 10 times in a row to actually describe how low this doses that they’ve used in the study. If you inject a tiny amount of THC, two hours before giving the mouse a heart attack, you limit the damage about cut that cut the damaged area of the heart in half, you mean half as much damage, faster recovery, less inflammation. There’s absolutely a cardioprotective effect from low doses of THC and likely these other contaminants So just think about it. As people stop using opioids and start sleeping better and becoming less diabetic and all of that stuff more people are walking around with a little THC and CBD in their system. What does that do to our rates of death related to one of our biggest killers, heart disease, you can look at the same thing with stroke and traumatic brain injury, say they’re so so people that come into the hospital after having a traumatic brain injury are less likely to by a lot based on the data that we have, if they either have cannabis in their system or admit to being regular cannabis users, is that a causal Association? Well, we’ve got over 20 animal studies in which we’ve injured the rodents brain. And before the injury given either cannabis or given a, you know, we don’t call it a placebo. It’s a vehicle of control. And clearly the cannabis prevents a large amount of the brain injury in rodents. And it seems to be doing that in humans as well. So some of
John Malanca 55:33
our biggest, dear friend of mine had had a fall off of the railing was not there and they’re running and it was nighttime and he went off. And he was in Montana. And the doctor said to him, Are you a cannabis user, us, Emily? He goes, I’m telling you the same save you and he’s back to normal.
Unknown Speaker 55:55
Right now. Do my cannabis using patients still have heart attacks and strokes? Yes, and do Does that sometimes kill them? Yes, this isn’t 100% like miraculous protective effect. But just think about it from a public health standpoint, because these are some of our biggest killers, right? We’re talking we’re talking about heart attacks, stroke, traumatic brain injury, and then we can talk about cancer. I mean, I already touched on this, because you know, that I mentioned the rodents who got all this THC every day for two years had less of every type of tumor in in that group than the untreated rodents. There’s, there’s not a lot of evidence that people who use cannabis get less cancers but there is a little bit and I think the strongest signals with bladder cancer, which is a fairly common type of cancer. People that smoke tobacco are about twice as likely to get bladder cancer. People that smoke cannabis are about half as likely to get bladder cancer. So that’s that’s a great comparison.
John Malanca 56:49
Let’s, before we go and I you know, I want to talk about your book, what you’re doing, but also Can you talk about just health and wellness? What would you recommend? For your patients, yeah, what great.
Unknown Speaker 57:06
So, um, besides sleep, which is just so important, you know, what are some of the main domains of health and wellness and I think pretty much anyone would next start talking about activity, some type of exercise or more of an inner activity activity, whether it’s like a yoga Chico, or just a meditation, I can put all that in the in kind of the realm of activity, and then diet, right, what are we putting into our bodies? And, and maybe it’s more than diet, it’s, well, what are we putting on our skin and what medications and things are we taking and so forth. So, you know, from an activity level, I am absolutely convinced that what people are doing to stay healthy has to be enjoyable and inspiring. It’s not going to work if you hate running, and you get yourself out of bed and force yourself to go for a run every day. That’s true. That you don’t need, and it’s not going to work. So have fun, it has to be something that that you’re inspired by and that you love. And so a lot of people, they just don’t know what they love. They don’t know what their highest values are, you know, like, if you could make a list of everything in your life from most important to least important, what does that list look like people don’t even know where to start. And when they finally do start there, they tend to be looking at a list from someone else. It’s basically like the people they’ve admired that have, you know, they’ve, they’ve assimilated their lists, or the people they despise, and they’ve taken things you know, off their list because of that, or what their parents valued or whatever, whatever it is, you know, like, clear that crap away, get to know who you are, and, and fill your days with things that are congruent with those highest priorities and highest values. And, and it’s, it’s pretty easy because when you do that you’re in the flow. So as I was talking before we started the interview like, what were the new things for me is inline skating. They did I live out in the country, they just paved all the roads, so they’re perfectly smooth. I used to love inline skating when I was in my teens, I haven’t done it since then I bought myself a pair of skates and I’m just like, fly it out there. I love it. So when at when I’m working hard when my legs feel like they’re about to give out, my heart is pumping, and I’m breathing heavy. I’m into it, you know, this is not torture. This is pure, pure enjoyment for me. So I, you know, I would encourage everyone to keep looking and find what is the activity that really nurtures their soul, you’ll know it when you get there, and you got to fill your days with that. And it’s especially useful to have an anchor where every single day you’re doing something, it’s it’s like a it’s like a fulcrum and the rest of your life can kind of organize around that. So if you have a health promoting activity that you’re committed to every day, that consistency can make a huge difference.
John Malanca 59:58
That has been my therapy that has been my therapy getting on my bike. And I just forget everything and, you know, reading articles about cycling. I can’t tell you how many cyclists say the same thing I get on my bike. I just forget, you know, I drive around like I always tell people how to drive around with, like Pee Wee Herman with the biggest smile.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:18
Totally.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:21
Think of Pee Wee Herman. Right. He was just doing it for the joy of it.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:25
But when it comes to consumption, you know, I think that there’s a lot of diets out there. There’s, there’s a lot of different things and some of them work for some people and some work for others, right? There’s no one size fits all solution. I think, in my practice, what I use way more than telling people what to eat, is telling people how to eat because when we change how we eat, then we end up we start will making different choices about what we’re putting in our body. So this is really simple. Anyone can do this, you know Three or four basic rules. One is when you sit down with your food, take a deep inhalation, like smell your food, let it get into you. And then do that three times. Okay, three breaths before your first bite of food will feel like an eternity. You know, it’s amazing how people, you know, actually struggle to just sit there and smell their food and take three breaths. But what’s happening is you’re shifting out of fight or flight, nervous system into the rest and digest nervous system, you’re allowing your gut to turn on and get ready to receive the food. And you’re allowing your mind to get into a state where it can really appreciate that food. Okay, the more we appreciate the food, the less we’re going to eat. Because I know that sounds totally paradoxical. But But step number two is to chew your food thoroughly, and focus on the savoring focus on the appreciation of it. So this is a mindfulness practice while eating Don’t get distracted and watch TV, little conversations, okay, but let the conversation you know kind of happen when you’re waiting for the food to be ready. And while you’re finishing those last bites and sitting around afterwards, the the main part of the meal should be devoted to chewing thoroughly so you can get all the nutrients out of your food, you don’t need to eat more, and to savoring that experience. And basically you’re using the circuitry in your brain of appreciation, then two or three times a day, and and you’re just going to get better and better at appreciating other things in your life. And you’re going to stop when you’re full, because you’re going slowly and and you’re savoring and appreciating the food. So I mean, those those couple things are just so paramount to healthy eating. It’s what what I’m basically talking about is the conscious reception of food and then you’re going to start figuring out, well, that food doesn’t make me feel good. This food does make me feel good, and so forth. I think that, you know, there’s a big trend now in fasting. I think that, you know, I feel fast. I’m a big supporter of this. I’ve been doing it for years. And I think that it’s helpful for a lot of people. So one of the biggest challenges to our health is that we’re living in an environment that’s just so different from the one we evolved in. Okay. And and it’s very unusual, he was very recent for humans to have access to calories and carbohydrates year round in abundance. Okay, there would almost always be times when we had less than times when we had more in times when maybe we had to skip a few meals so that the, you know, the pregnant women and the children could eat and not us. You know, I mean, that’s, that’s just that’s nature, right? We’re set we’re removed from nature. And so I encourage people to see what it’s like to be without food a little bit. It’s wonderful to have this liberation and this freedom from food, it actually will increase the enjoyment of food and prove your ability to savor it. And it’ll it’ll just Stuff that old metabolic equipment. So inside of ourselves, we have the ability to burn fat as a fuel source, we, you know, we have the ability to survive without food for long periods of time, but most of us just haven’t used that equipment. And I think it’s so useful. So now
John Malanca 1:04:15
people are getting over that hump of the first day where you’re thinking I’m starving, starving, you’d be surprised on how clear everything is your energy level goes up,
Unknown Speaker 1:04:25
the benefits are
John Malanca 1:04:26
starting to is inflammation when you don’t have inflammation in the gut. You know, and I’ve shared the beginning beginning of our show here, you know, I went vegan, I was never really big meat eater, but in January, for me, I don’t miss it at all. My sweet query cravings aren’t there, but I have zero inflammation on the inside. And it’s it’s a good feeling. I mean, it’s a good feeling. So I didn’t mean to cut you off there and your your third step.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:52
I don’t know what that is. So it’s just it’s um, you know, very practical people think about fasting like it’s millions of years away, but guess what, you do it every Night, right. And so this whole idea of time restricted eating, or intermittent fasting is growing, if you are comfortable with going eight hours without a meal, then it’s not going to be a big deal for you to go nine. And it’s not going to be a big deal after that for you to go 10. And I think if once a week, even as little as just once a week, stretch that out and see if maybe it can be 12 hours without a meal, maybe it can be 14 or 18. And you know, you can just keep nudging it along and you’ll be amazed your body gets used to all sorts of things right. And I think that’s really nice. So metabolic flexibility, it’s not that you always want to be fed or you always want to be faceter you always want to be vegan, or you always want to be one thing or another. what’s what’s really important, I think, is to be flexible and to cultivate that flexibility. So those are my basics on activity. What do you
John Malanca 1:05:51
do you max out at 24 hours? Are you being an expert this Have you have you have you gone days?
Unknown Speaker 1:05:58
Yeah. So, so everyone week I do about 36 hours of fasting and at this point it’s like no big deal you know I have dinner Sunday night. I enjoy it. I go to work on Monday I work all day you know I’m having liquids I’m just not having any calories also I I don’t have any caffeine on my fasting days and I don’t have any cannabis on my fasting days. And so I you know, every week I’ll go Monday morning tonight, just living on my own energy which is beautiful. And a
John Malanca 1:06:27
headache. A lot of people when they cut out caffeine as well a cannabis headaches, headaches arise.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:35
Sure, well, it’s something that I’ve gotten used to right now my body’s adjusted like none of this is easy at first and I don’t encourage any of the viewers to try this tomorrow. Like you got to work up to it, but your body will get used to it. So then I wake up Tuesday morning, I do an incredibly vigorous workout after having no calories for the previous 36 hours. And it’s amazing. I’m wondering where where’s this energy coming from, but I’ve just gotten really good And anyone can and then I break the fast and I am savoring every bite every week. You know, it’s it’s so I have feasting, I have fasting, you know, I have it all and in anybody can enjoy good health.
John Malanca 1:07:15
Good. And then I know our listeners are like on the edge of their seats like come on Dustin, what what cannabis ratios are for or milligrams Should I take as a daily? You know, as you mentioned earlier, you know people have have had success with one milligram, two milligrams, you know more is not better. And again, it’s not a one size fits all what works for me might be completely opposite for you as well as our listeners. You know, so yeah, I truly believe that medical experts should be involved. Either if you’re able to contact Dustin, can you share? Do you have anything else to add? I want to be increasing your time as well. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 1:07:56
I can. Absolutely. So I’m just talking about like, what is it like to use cannabis for health promotion. What does that look like for most people? And so just review a couple of points that we already talked about number one sleep. Okay, so if you’re not sleeping, use THC for sleep, that’s usually in an oral form because that’s better for helping stay asleep. But if you have trouble falling asleep inhaled can work rapidly and help you fall asleep and sometimes people need a combination of that. The next one would be connection right to self connection to self connection to nature, connection to God, make it part of your prayer, make it part of your spiritual practice because in my opinion, cannabis and in my experience, cannabis can really enhance those experiences. And you know, I just just circle back real quick like we just found out. Researchers just discovered that 2800 years ago in a shrine in Israel and in the inner part of the temple where they keep the Torah there were there were two pillars. One had cannabis burning on it the other head Frankincense burns. They’ll get 2800 years 800 before Christ I mean like using cannabis to enhance a spiritual experience is nothing new. It’s it’s absolutely normal, you can you can go ahead and do it, you probably gonna feel more connected to God or nature when you do. So those are the starting, you know those, those are kind of the pillars sleep and connection. The other part of connection I didn’t mention is social connection, right? So sharing cannabis socially, can really help people open up emotionally and talk about the things that are important instead of all the crap that other people tend to talk about when they get together. You know, I think that it kind of helps people get to the heart of it and all of that is either THC dominant cannabis or some combination of THC and CBD. And then we look at resilience to stress, okay, because we are in a stressful environment and I think one of the best ways for people to notch up their resilience to stress is to take some CBD with breakfast, you know, or in the morning and it doesn’t agree with Everyone but a lot of people, even a low dose buy low CBD is kind of weaker than THC. So by low dose I’m thinking like 510 milligrams. For some people, it might be more like 20 or 25 milligrams and some people need even more than that. But a dose of CBD in the morning tends to help people feel sharp and focused, mentally clear and more resilient to stress and it’s not just resilient to stress it changes what might be distress into something that might be that helpful type of stress that’s just enough to make us grow and make us you know, get stronger and more clever. But but the part the delivery method of cannabis that I think is the most underrated and untalked about is probably the very best way to use cannabis as a tonic tonic, meaning stay healthy is cannabis tea. And it’s so simple and barely anyone is doing this so so when I talk about cannabis tea, what I’m really talking about are the raw cannabinoids The raw form they’re very different than after they’ve been exposed to heat above you know, a certain temperature in the boiling water from the tea really just isn’t hot enough to do this. So THC is not made in the plant THC a is made in the plant right CBD a is made in the plant and then those get converted to CBD and THC with time and heat. But the cannabinoid acids, the tea that’s just what the A stands for the THC acid and the CBD acid. These are extremely absorbable into the body much more than their neutral counterparts. So you don’t need much of them. They have great anti inflammatory effects. And and they’re non psychoactive, they’re non impairing. They have pro metabolic effects, they have anti cancer effects. You know, we’re just starting to learn more and more about them but they are a potent way to use cannabis to promote health. So what does this look like? Take a little bit of cannabis flour. It doesn’t have to be much I’m talking about like the size of a pea Throw it in the cup. You could throw another tea bag in there, you could pour your coffee on top of it or just pour hot water on top of it. It doesn’t matter. This stuff is water soluble, it’s going to get in there. And you’re going to be able to drink enough of it where it has a physiologic effect. It’s not immediate, so unlike THC and CBD, where if you take a single dose you might notice like, wow, I’m getting pain relief, or I’m getting some anxiety relief. It’s with the tea. It tends to be cumulative over time. So it’s people that are doing it every day, after a week or so they’re like Wow, my joints are feeling better. Oh, my moods better. I’ve been like, my energy’s been better. And it’s just so easy. So So throw a little bud if you have the opportunity to get something that’s got both CBD and THC in it. So it’s one of these varieties of cannabis that kind of has it all or you can put a little pinch of THC dominant flower and a little pinch of CBD dominant flower but I encourage the listeners to try this if they have the opportunity to drink cannabis tea once or twice a day. For a couple weeks and see how they feel it’s incredible.
John Malanca 1:13:03
I’m going to try that too because there are there are if you if you don’t have a plant a lot of people don’t have plants in their backyard or flower. You know they do make tinctures or you can have the tinctures, the tcaa tinctures and CBD tinctures.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:20
Yeah, they’re hard to make honestly like that. That’s one of one of the things that I’ve been working on with healer, which is a company that I wanted to test. Yes. Okay, so yeah, so I talked about healer, real quick, but but that was one of the main so healers, a company that I helped found and that I’m a major part of, and we’ve just been tackling challenges in cannabis. You know, one one big challenge is patient education like you, john, we still a challenge but we made great strides in that area to help empower people whose doctors aren’t telling them how to use cannabis to figure it out on their own and get great results. And then healers also tackled the problem of bud tender dispensary agent into Street professional education because that’s another thing like people walking into dispensary their doctors told them nothing about how to use cannabis. And now suddenly someone at the counter who has no clinical training is responsible for managing this complex disease. That’s not fair. And you know, I really wanted I felt for those people and they’re, they’re people that need help and, and so I’ve developed a training program for for bud tenders, caregivers, dispensary agents and industry professionals that’s, that’s paid that’s unhealed comes modest price and as a ton of great content with updates every month, the patient education materials free. And then the third thing that healer has been focusing on for the last several years is how to extract the compounds from cannabis in a very efficient way and put get get all of that into a product, whether it’s a tincture bottle, or whatever, in a way that does not necessarily require the use of heat or high pressure, because these cannabinoid acids are so valuable to me I want to I want to maintain them, I basically want to take everything that’s in the flour and get it into a bottle in a way where it’s unscathed and in its natural form. And so we’ve been able to do that using a very efficient and low cost system, where ethanol is the solvent we’re using for extraction, but we’ve discovered how to use some equipment from other industries like nano filters from the water industry and a few other things to basically clean up the cannabis remove proteins and allergens and contaminants and to but to maintain that picture of of that range of compounds of cannabinoids terpenoids flavonoids and so forth and get that into the bottle. So I know that like th making a THC a tincture or oil is very challenging. I think we have a great way of doing it. And and I think some other people are probably getting close but probably a lot of them. It’s not quite what what they think it is,
John Malanca 1:15:56
you know, to you know, we did this With Corona we’ve done this over the years as well for listeners to it’s very similar like wheatgrass juicing you know you can pull the plants in the ACE for acid not like psychedelic LSD acid but but that the raw form and you’re able to juice it just like you would wheatgrass non psychoactive as Dustin was sharing great for inflammation great as a cancer fighter. And I truly feel that this is the next you know THC was there everyone’s heard about CBD right oh yeah that’s the price THC has not because for the last four or five plus years six years you know people have been talking about it I’m surprised it’s not his his prominence as CBD and the others and and I really know Yeah, I know you have another No no,
Unknown Speaker 1:16:43
that’s our I’m enjoying this so much. Look, you know, I’m going to skip a meal. So if I have to get to my next co without lunch, it’s fine. But you know, just just for the listeners that are interested in these cannabinoid acids I just want to make one thing clear. THC and THC a are drastically difference and how they work in the body. thca does not hit the CBD the cannabinoid receptors it really doesn’t seem like it does any of the same things the THC does or maybe a few but not but not that many. CBD a on the other hand is very similar to CBD except that it’s absorbed much better and it’s a lot more potent in many ways and the one major difference that we know about is that right now so a lot of people use CBD for the purpose of turning down the intensity of THC right if they want to use THC therapeutically. But it’s too strong psychoactive Li You can add some CBD to the THC and it’s going to be less psychoactive less than pairing but but maintain that kind of therapeutic level typically. So some people want to use CBD to turn down the volume of the THC. CBD a does not seem to do that. It doesn’t affect the CBD, the CB one receptor. So so it shows up To me is a great substitute for CBD in many ways because you can probably use less of it have a stronger effect have better absorption and not mitigate the power of THC because some people don’t want to mitigate the power of THC they want that power to be fully pronounced. So I think yeah like you were saying, you know, CBD is the big thing now I think pretty soon we’re gonna see CBD a being the big thing and and for listeners that are interested healer is about to launch a product line that has that has hemp derived CBD and hemp derived CBD a so we are taking organically grown beautiful hemp flowers and essentially getting everything that’s in there without any exposure to heat or pressure and getting that in the bottle of CBD and I’d be very interested to see how how much people like that and how they think it compares to regular CBD.
John Malanca 1:18:52
If we had more time I was hoping to get into that too but what we can take that when you launch and we can talk about the because a lot of this stuff It comes up. CBD is CBD, CBD is CBD because a lot of people think, okay, I want cannabis CBD not hemp CBD. And I’ve been educated over the last few years of the benefits of this hemp plant as well. And so next next conversation, but let’s talk about your book and then I’ll let you go.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:17
Okay, so the third thing that I’m not working on directly with healer but obviously like one of the major bottlenecks in cannabis, being able to fully embody its health effects onto our planet and onto our population is the lack of knowledge of clinicians in the healthcare world. And it’s, it’s just a tragedy that they have not been taught about this incredibly versatile tool. It’s so safe and so effective. And so this has been a major passion of mine to educate healthcare providers. And for the last year and a half, I have been writing a manuscript. For a book that’s dedicated to clinicians. It’s going to be an extremely accessible, useful reference. Guide for anyone whether their entire practices devoted to cannabis or whether they’re in some other field and they just want to know a little bit about how one of their patients might be able to better use cannabis. So that’s, that’s coming out in October, it’s available for pre order now if you Google my name or search it on Amazon or somewhere like that, you’d be able to find the book and a great gift for your primary care provider or one of your other health care providers. Please help them out. And it’s a moderate modest price on it as well.
John Malanca 1:20:30
A great gift, you know, for going back to work, you know, here, welcome back. Dr. And I’ll show you, you do have doctors that come out to Maine and mirror you in your practice, which I think is very beneficial for doctors and that and physicians that want to learn hands on training about cannabis, how to you know, each patient is different and so can you talk about that and how, how can they get ahold of you? How about that’s probably the best way
Unknown Speaker 1:20:54
Yeah, absolutely. So that that go through healer calm. So so basically inside this program. So I developed a program for dispensary agents in bud tenders. Right That’s who it was really intended for. And I thought well, some industry professionals and some really dedicated patients and probably some caregivers of patients are going to join and check it out. And then, you know, I didn’t plan it this way, but we have over 100 clinicians in that program as well. So So then I felt the need to offer them more and so there’s there’s some clinical training, that’s a part of that broader curriculum that just those clinicians get and the people that go through that are then invited to come out to Maine and hang out with me in the office and see some patients together. So if you’re interested, go through the the healer training program, go through the clinical aspect and then you’re totally welcome to come see patients with me and we have a lot of fun.
John Malanca 1:21:45
Awesome testing. Well Dustin, I appreciate your time. You want them to go to your website you want to go to your phone number what would you like to do?
Unknown Speaker 1:21:53
Yeah, healer calm is the best way to find me and if you send a message to info at healer calm or the Contact Us thing that Then you can get me. And
John Malanca 1:22:01
thank you so much, john, you’re doing amazing work. You got me going really well today. And I appreciate that. You’re ready for your next next call as well. Dustin, thanks so much for being on as always in and you’re always supportive for what I’m doing here in all the ventures and journey that we’re on together. So, Dustin, Sue, like everybody, and you can find him@healer.com there’s a John Malanca with United patients group being formed and be well, we’ll see you soon. Bye. Cool. That’s it. Thank you so much, man.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:31
Turn. I love you, man. Let’s see