Your Get-Smart Guide to CBD & Chinese Herbs – Chloe Weber : 938

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. Formerly Bulletproof Radio. You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. Today is a fantastic episode because we're going to talk about OG Biohacking. And by OG I don't mean, oh, it's a new word in the English language. I mean, we've been working on this for at least 5,000 years. But we didn't have mass spectrometers and biosensors. We just had guys living in caves and taking notes and passing it down on these rolled up scrolls. Yes, Chinese medicine, that's what I'm talking about. Because surprisingly, a lot of biohacking is just proving out things that we already knew, but we knew them from decades and lifetimes of observation. If you look at either Ayurveda or tcm, it's pretty crazy. Some of the stuff they recommended, I still don't know. I have no evidence that chicken, that it actually has black skin is better for you than a chicken that has white skin, which is something that is there. So there's always some amount of stuff that we think today there is no evidence for and no mechanism of action, but we've never tested. So right now we're going through the process of testing all this stuff and going, oh, wow, we can achieve biohacking goals, which is to control your biology, to make your body do what you want, make your mind do what you want. And we can use this rich tool set. And today we're going to talk about how you might mix some newer stuff like CBD oil with Chinese herbs. And we're going to talk about thc. And when we talk about the THC side of it, no, THC is not traditional herbal Chinese. We're talking about the stuff that makes you high. But it does have some medical uses. It also has some downsides. So no hype, super grounded in real research because I know it's changed some people's lives for the better and I know it's changed some people's lives for the worst. In fact, they're probably eating pizza right now. So get ready to learn about the endocannabinoid system in your body, how important it is and how varying it is between each one of us. And then how you might mix Chinese herbs and, or CBD and or THC into, in order to make your body and your mind do what you want them to do. Our guest today has been on the show before. It's Dr. Chloe Weber, who's the owner and founder of Radical Roots Herbs, which is, as you might imagine, an herbal company that uses full spectrum hemp in combination with Chinese herbs so that it amplifies them. She's a dcm, a doctor of Chinese medicine, licensed acupuncturist and an herbalist. And it's been a couple years since she was on the show. Episode 737, like the airplane. And back then it was just about Chinese herbs. Now I've got thc, CBD and Chinese herbs, so see what's up. Chloe, welcome back.

Why, thank you. It's such an honor to be here. I'm really excited to talk about all of this.

Now. We covered on the last episode, but many people haven't heard it yet, how you studied ecology and evolutionary biology and ended up basically with Chinese herbs.

I was looking into public health. I had gotten a rare tropical disease when I was a teen. Evaporate.

You studied ecology and evolutionary biology and ended up basically with Chinese herbs.

I was looking into public health. I had gotten a rare tropical disease when I was a teen and it led me into looking into evolutionary biology and public health. And then down the line I was looking into going into medical school or going into nursing and really found that everything was sort of putting a band aid on the problems that were showing in patients. I had done acupuncture before for quitting smoking and for my allergies and started looking into the Chinese medical system and particularly Chinese herbs, and just absolutely fell in love with the idea of using Chinese herbal medicine for public health interventions. A couple years later or about five years later, after starting my first business, my son Remy was diagnosed with a super rare genetic disorder called STXBP1. This is one of those protein disorders, I'm sure, Dave, you've heard of some of these where it's basically he has this mutation in this one gene. It's a single nucleotide error, which kills me just a little bit, but. So not only does he not make enough of this one protein, but it misfolds and then aggregates in the brain. A lot of children have these very rare disorders and they all present very similarly with global delays, ataxia, apraxia. My son, like many of them, is non verbal and has intractable epilepsy. So then as an herbalist, I was looking at the seizure medication options for him for his epilepsy. And really, you know, for those of you who don't know much about seizures, especially for these intractable seizures for kids, I mean, it is so brutal and so poorly understand by the western medical system. That we still perform lobotomies and brain surgeries on some of these kids because it's so hard to treat. So one of the things that's been shown to be really effective is cannabis and CBD in particular. So I started studying that and really just fell in love with the herb and, you know, ultimately was playing with that for him, for his seizures, looking at it, using it for myself. And what I found out there on the market was kind of one size fits all. And as a Chinese herbalist, you know, what we really do is we put herbs together in conjunction to create formulas that dynamically support the body and the brain instead of just addressing the symptoms. So after stomping my feet for quite a while and offering to write free formulas for companies, I finally just decided to do it my damn self, which I suppose is a little bit of the Brooklyn coming out in me.

Got it. So you put together some formulas for Remy, but you've also done a bunch of other synergistic formulas that are pretty different than what I've seen. I mean, I've used Chinese herbs of various individual flavors for a while, and I've worked with a few, like, of the kind of acupuncturists who will send you to Chinatown here in Victoria, where actually our upgrade labs location is. So we're literally on the street where there's dragon parades, and also you go down a few doors and there's the little tiny office where, you know, they'll open an old wooden drawer and there's like a dried frog, and, like, there's all kinds of stuff like, where does that even come from? And why am I going to make tea out of it? So it's like, super personalized, but some of the things you're doing, I've definitely never played around with in the combinations, especially adding cbd. What evidence do you have that adding CBD oil with or without thc, that it actually helps Chinese herbs work better?

Well, CBD and hemp has actually been used traditionally in Chinese herbal medicine for thousands of years. So we can look at it as sort of a potentiator. So it's basically CBD works on the endocannabinoid system. So the endocannabinoid system is this master regulatory system within our bodies. It was discovered about 30, 40 years ago. And so what it does is it sort of keeps us in that goldilocks zone. Right. We want to keep it so things are firing enough, but not over firing. Right. So in Chinese medicine, we can look at that as kind of the Middle way, which I always like, tying it back to that, that's a concept that we've sort of lost in our society today, and hopefully we can bring that back. But we want things sort of well regulated, and that's what the cannabinoid system does. So by calming the nervous system, supporting our endocannabinoid system, it seems like we're actually able to accept the herbs and process them better. You know, it's like if you're in fight or flight, nothing's really going to work the way that you want it to. Right. So by supplementing the endocannabinoid system, calming your nervous system, it really helps you accept and absorb the herbs in a. In a more dynamic way, is what I've found.

There are a couple endocannabinoid receptors in the nervous system. There's CB1 and CB2, but they're so highly varying. Some of the research that I've done looks at 1100 different variations on those two receptors. How would someone know whether CBD oil works for them or not?

Well, so let's see, how do we break this down? So the CB1 receptors are primarily found within the brain and the nervous system, whereas the CB2 receptors are primarily found throughout the. The immune system. Right. And so we all have different variations. And there's a lot of stuff that's being worked out in terms of how the endocannabinoid system works and how the many effects of these plants are working on the body. You know, and that's sort of one of the things that I love about Chinese herbal medicine is that a, we can look at the Western pharmacological actions of all of these herbs, but we can also look at the energetic actions of the herbs based on how they're presenting and working within the body. So I love the synergy of that Eastern and Western science and beauty and wisdom. But basically, we have endogenous cannabinoids that we make within our body. So those are anandamide and this other one named 2AG. Basically, when we're stressed or we're in pain, our body sends a signal to the endocannabinoid system to release these endocannabinoids. But unlike hormones and whatnot, these cannabinoids are broken down really rapidly after they're used. So then we can lead to a state of deficiency in endocannabinoids, especially if we're under prolonged stress or pain, which I think it's what, one out of four people in our society are in chronic pain.

And anyone subject to the Rule of the government is in chronic pain after these last two years. So there's that.

I was going to say. And 100% of people are under undue amounts of stress right now.

So. But don't worry, it was worth it. Just keep repeating that mantra. Maybe that'll help.

Yeah, no, just keep doing it because what's the definition of insanity again? I don't know.

I'm getting elected.

But. But, yeah, so it's. So basically, we often are at a state of deficiency in endocannabinoids. How CBD actually works is it works sort of as an ssri. So instead of acting directly on those receptors, so basically the endocannabinoids work directly on the CB1, CB2 receptors. Right. And we're making those in our body. So we know that those are working with the receptors within our body as well. What CBD does is it breaks down the FAA H enzyme, which breaks down anandamide after it's used, so that we have more anandamide available in our bodies. And anandamide is known commonly as the bliss molecule. So since basically what CBD is doing is making more of that endogenous cannabinoid available for our body to use.

All right, if I'm translating this in my weird brain properly, we have this idea of thyroid, where, okay, if your body isn't getting enough energy, say, because you went plant based, then your thyroid will upregulate. And if the thyroid asks for more thyroid hormone by secreting tsh, then the body will respond if it's working by giving you T4, which then it converts to T3, and. And then you get energy from T3. And so this is pretty well understood by listeners of the show. Like, this is how your body controls your body temperature, metabolism. And what you're saying here is that there's also something around pain and bliss, which may also be kind of related to love and oxytocin. We'll get into that where the body's in chronic pain. So it would say, hey, I'm going to make more. What does it make more of?

Anandabi and 2Ag.

Okay, so your body naturally makes anandamine and 2Ag, which are endocannabinoids. And if everything is working right, it makes enough of those, and then what happens?

And then it activates different parts of your body. So, you know, anandamide and 2Ag will work directly on the CB1 and CB2 receptors. So if it's in the brain, I mean, there's so many hosts of things that it's doing, but you know, for the brain, it works on the 5ht1a pathway and increases the neurogenesis in the hippocampus.

It either hits the brain or it hits the body, then.

Yeah. Or the immune system. Yeah.

But if you're not making enough of these things, because what, you just can't make an endomide and 2ag enough.

Well, if you're under chronic stress, you're just releasing those. You're releasing those sort of in hyperdrive, and then they're broken down rapidly after they're released, so you can sort of run out of those.

Okay. So too much stress over time equals depletion of these things. So then you feel less bliss and you feel more pain. All right. And then if you can take something externally, kind of like you would thyroid hormone, but you're taking CBD or possibly THC because they activate different receptors, you could make your brain better or you could make your body better. So you have less pain and more happiness.

Yes. And also there is a very strong immune component, too. So for a lot of people who are dealing with, well, cbd, actually, there are receptors for CBD or endocannabinoid receptors on all of the immune cells. So CBD helps regulate the immune system, like I was saying, sort of keeping it from that hyperdrive and also keeping it from underreacting. So even if you're talking about a recent cold or flu that may have been going around, there's research showing that it was helping regulate the cytokine storm. Helping keeping, you know, said cold or flu from getting into the cells and being active. There's a lot of research on how CBD can help regulate the GI in terms of inflammation and helping with IBS and Crohn's and different inflammatory gut disorders. So I think that as time comes out and more research comes out, we're going to see a ton of research on how CBD and all these different cannabinoids that are being researched are able to help support these autoimmune disorders and some of these really complicated immune disorders that are coming out or that are so common. Not coming out.

So the CB2 isn't just about pain. The CB2 receptor is for less autoimmunity.

Yes.

Okay, now I'm just going to say it straight up. I have tried all kinds of THC based products. I want to go to sleep and I get hungry, but I'm not feeling the anandamide. I'm not feeling the bliss thing. I don't want to party, I don't want to write Books. I just want to go to sleep. So I like cbd. Cbd. Sometimes it can be really effective, especially in some of the formulas you make. But the full spectrum stuff just knocks me on my ass. Is this because I'm a delicate flower? I go on Joe Rogan show. He's like, here, dude, take a hit. The camera's about to roll. I'm like, dude, do you want me to do an interview? Do you want me to fall asleep? I'm not smoking that. Right. Not that I, you know, wouldn't I think it should be legal, but, like, it. It me up. What's going on with that?

Well, so THC A, there's THC is an interesting thing.

Not that I, you know, wouldn't. I think it should be legal, but, like, it. It me up. What's going on with that?

Well, so THC A, there's THC is an interesting thing. So it can be really helpful for certain people. Certain people doesn't go so well. Another thing that's really important when you're looking at cannabis in terms of marijuana and getting the higher THC potency. A lot of cannabis today is grown to have, like, incredibly high THC potencies. And then also you want to look at the different strains. So if you're getting an indica, a lot of people like indica for stress. You can think of it as in the couch. That's the one that's going to give you couch lock, if you will.

Couch. I got it. That's a good name for some kind of a blend somebody out there into couch blend.

And then there's sativas, which are more of a head high. You know, there's one green crack that I used to get when I'd want to, like, cream clean my house. So there are certain, you know, you want to find the strain that's right for you. But also you don't want to be stoned all the time. But one of the things that's really fun about THC is and. And some of the products that are coming out and the research that's coming out is that since THC actually works directly on those CB1 receptors, it's really, really helpful for a lot of neurological conditions. So, like where my son's epilepsy or for people who have Ms. Or Parkinson's or, you know, really severe pain patterns, THC can be really, really helpful. But CBD helps compete for some of that. So what you can do is you can combine it in specific ratios so you're less stone. But getting a higher CB1 CB1 activation. So like you can do, there's a lot of like 2 to 1 THC to CBD or 2 to 1 CBD to THC. So you're getting more CBD than you are THC. See, you're still getting a higher pain reduction or a higher neurological calming regulation sensation, but you're not getting such significant psychotropic effects. You know, like, I'm not really looking to get stoned anymore, but every now and then if I take like a 2 to 1 CBD to THC Gummy to help me go to sleep, you know, that's pretty good.

All right, so then if someone's listening to the show and like, look, I haven't tried any of this stuff since the 70s warning, don't just go smoke a doobie. You will not like what happens because it's not the same stuff.

It's not the same. Nope.

How would you know though, unless you're just going to go out and for weeks experiment with different strains or the radical root stuff and you have all these different formulas. How do I know the one that's going to give me better sleep but not get me high? Especially because some of yours are full spectrum and some of them aren't.

Well, all of ours are full spectrum, but none of them are going to get you high. So all of ours are within the legal limits of THC. So basically you can have less than 0.3% THC in your cannabis product, in your hemp products. And that, that is such a minute amount. So what's important about full spectrum is like, so now, right now there's a lot of isolate products where they're just putting CBD isolate into products. That's what you're going to see in a lot of drinks. You're going to see that in a lot of really crappy products that are cheaper. If you're going to the bodega or the gas station and getting cbd, they're probably not high quality. But what you typically want to get is a full spectrum plant extract. And there was actually a meta analysis that was done about two years ago looking at there's a pharmaceutical drug Epidiolex for intractable epilepsy, and that's a CVD isolate. Right. And so they looked at the CBD isolate from the drug Epidiolex versus a complete spectrum hemp extract, like what we have at radical roots. And what they found was that in order to reach the same seizure threshold, the patients had to take four, four times the amount of the Pharmaceutical isolate versus the CBD extract. And they also had four times the amount of severe and mild side effects from that. So if you're getting a whole plant extract, you're not just getting the cbd, you're getting a tiny bit of thc, which really potentiates it, but you're also getting the terpenes and a bunch of other phytochemicals that are really activating the plant. So what they call that is the entourage effect. So the idea is that the whole of the plant is greater than the parts, which is something that's shown time and time again in herbal medicine versus these pharmaceutical isolates.

So if there's 113 cannabinoids in hemp, an isolate might just be one or two of those.

Yeah, the isolate is typically just going to be either CBD or thc. Now we're starting to do more research on CBG and cbn, so you're going to see more and more of those. I've been wanting to do a CBG product, but all I've been able to do is find isolates of those. And that's not really what I'm looking for. So hopefully I'll get it honed in before the next biohacking conference.

So what is cbg?

So CBG is actually the parent of THC and cbd. So it's a different cannabinoid, but it's. It actually activates the CB1 receptors, but it has no psychotropic effects. So it's really, really interesting.

It feels kind of like the Wild West. Like we have tens of billions of dollars that's gone into the pot industry, mostly because the people with all the money weren't allowed to smoke pot behind the school gym. And they're like, yes, I'm going to get even now. So there's been this massive hype, and this always happens when something new gets introduced. In fact, Gartner calls it the hype cycle. So things go up, things get crazy, and then they crash into what they call the trough of disillusionment. And then after that, they actually climb back up. Some sort of, like, angle of coolness. I don't remember what they call that, but they basically come up to normalcy, where this is actually the steady state. And then they kind of slowly grow over time. Assuming that there's real efficacy and most new technologies. And I'm going to say CBD is a new technology, they follow this very reliably. So I think we're kind of in the trough of disillusionment where there's probably going to be CBD Cheerios coming up here. Just wait. I have no idea if that's real, but there's something real that's in it. But we have CBN you just mentioned, which I haven't heard of, CBG I know about, and then we have CBD and we have THC. But people I know and trust, like Dr. Daniel Amen, whose book on brains really helped me see I had a hardware problem, not just an idiocy problem. He's like, look, THC lowers blood flow to the brain. I don't like the look of brains who are on thc. What do you say when we're looking at whole spectrum CBD versus THC versus delivery method, what's the story with good for the brain, bad for the brain?

Well, I think that I've looked at Dr. Amen's research also and I agree with him. I mean, it does seem to restrict blood flow to the brain and slow down the frontal cortex. I mean, it's pretty hard to argue that marijuana is not going to slow down cognitive functioning. But I've never seen any research that shows that full spectrum hemp with that very small amount of THC is doing anything to, to, to restrict any sort of action in the brain whatsoever. And hopefully there will be more research on it. One of the things that's been really disappointing to me is that a lot of the research that's been coming out more recently has been focused on these isolates as opposed to these full spectrum plants. Because now we have these pharmaceuticals that are based on the isolates. So that's the direction that a lot of the research is going.

But the idea that maybe it's five isolates, maybe it's seven in the right ratios, that's really going to work. But we just don't know yet, right?

Well, I don't think that we. I mean, I think to me the wisdom of Chinese herbal medicine is that we're using as much of the plant as we possibly can. And you know, we have to remember that the. This is a medical tradition that's 5,000 years old, it's evidence based. And we've had millions of doctors that have added to this body of knowledge. So it's really robust, it's really profound, it's really safe and effective. And herbal medicine is so incredibly versatile. Like, it just blows me away. I mean, I'm truly so incredibly honored to practice this medicine. And every day I'm more and more grateful for it. But we use all of these plants together to create These really safe and effective formulas. And even I was thinking about it earlier, like how you talk about certain plants that are trying to kill us, perhaps kale and whatnot. But like, even in Chinese medicine, we honor that wisdom and use different parts of the plants for different things. And sometimes we're actually utilizing those defensive mechanisms of the plants for therapeutic effects. Whether it's, you know, you know, purgation in some sort of way to get rid of a toxin or, you know, making you sweat more to get rid of, you know, a cold or flu or whatever it is. But it's, it's the wisdom that's in these plants that we evolved with that. I think that we really need to get back to, to respecting that ecology of the, the plant and respecting the ecology of the body through that.

Is it true that ancient Chinese practitioners would use kale to assassinate people they.

Didn'T like a hundred percent. That is a fact.

Just wanted to confirm you're, you're fun to, you're fun to ask questions of because you handle them like, like you've had some thc. So did you take some THC before interview?

I did not, but I'm drinking Cameron's.

Kava because you're on true cava all the time. That chills you out. All right, shout out to true cava.

I took my rest and relax also, but okay, I don't have a drink yet.

You're, you're on a stack to relax and focus, which is pretty cool. Talk to me about terpenes. And as a lead in for that, I wrote about a terpene from black spruce, actually black Japanese spruce, that was shown to increase lifespan by something like 15 or 20%. That was in my book Superhuman. Just smelling black spruce oil called hanoki. So that's an example of a terpene. But talk to me in general about terpenes and what we know about them and what we know about them in cannabis.

Cool. Yeah. No, terpenes are amazing. So that's part of that entourage effect. So if anybody has smelled marijuana, everybody knows that it has a pretty potent smell and that from one strain to another, it's going to smell differently, it's going to look differently. A lot of that is the terpene profile. So as you said, there's a lot of research coming out that's sort of the volatile oils, the essential oils of the plant. And so each of those have different, you know, pharmacological actions within our body also. So like limonene and pinene and myrcene. Those are all really commonly found ones in hemp and cannabis. So those all have all their own medicinal effects. So we're doing. There's a lot of different companies that are looking to potentiate the terpene profiles and doing terpene supplements that are just focused on that. That's not something I've really done too much of a deep dive on, but it is something that's really interesting again, when you're looking at, you know, the whole plant. Like, each of these one things can be isolated and used as a supplement, or we can use the wisdom of this plant that we've literally evolved with and grown with for thousands and thousands of years.

One thing that I'm really certain of is that our biology responds to the environment around us before we get to think about it or even notice it. There's about a third of a second gap between something happening, like, say, your body smelling something and your brain noticing that you smelled it. But in that time, your cells are changing something. And one of the really strong environmentally signaling molecules are terpenes. And if you guys are really wondering about these, Turpentine is a terpene that's extracted from pine trees. Right? You probably didn't know that. Turpentine has been given in sizable amounts to sheep and cows and horses in agriculture as a dewormer. So it's not as nasty as you might think. Literally, they'll put like a couple ounces in a funnel down the animal's throat, and then they don't have worms anymore. So our bodies can tolerate terpenes more than you might think. I don't recommend trying that yourself, but if you look around, there's probably a whole Reddit forum on turpentine fetishes for all I know, but people do weird stuff. I'm just saying that. That terpenes have a long history, even in the west, of being used medicinally in humans and animals at very, very high doses. So sniffing some CBD oil or even ingesting a little bit isn't exactly off the rails.

Yeah, well, actually, I've done all sorts of stuff with my son since he's got this rare, crazy genetic disorder. And so we've been all over the world. One of the things that one of the doctors has us do is they'll have us smell different essential oils and different smells multiple times a day in order to activate and regulate the limbic brain. So that's sort of an interesting tie in, in terms of the smells of the terpenes and cannabis, I'm sure That it's activating different parts of the brain as well.

It must be. So we think there's something going on. One of the biggest things for me as a biohacker is increasing bdnf and everyone thinks I'm talking about bdsm. They're entirely different. BDNF is brain derived nootropic factor, so nothing weird there. And there's also ngf, nerve growth factor. If you can do something like, I don't know, cold exposure, intermittent fasting, light therapy, lion's mane mushrooms, microdosing psilocybin, many other things. There's actually a formula I made with a coffee, fruit extract or a new synthetic bioflavinoid I'm playing with. Anything that increases those makes your brain younger. You can actually grow new neurons inside the hippocampus and maybe outside the hippocampus. Like this is cutting edge. How do you heal a brain like mine that had damage from toxic mold and traumatic brain injury that now works better than it ever has? You got to get those levels up. You've got some research here that talks about specifically neuroprotection and maybe even increasing bdnf. What do you know about CBD and BDNF and brain healing? Right now your body might be wasting energy on stress instead of healing. That's why your gut feels off, your brain feels dull, and your immune system keeps letting you down. What if you could switch your healing state back on without meds, stimulants or guesswork work? Vibrant Blue Oil's parasympathetic essential oil blend is a powerful, non invasive way to activate your nervous system and shift your body into healing mode just through scent. A drop behind your ears can help switch off your stress response, calm inflammation and support digestion, detox and immune function. And it can even help clear up your stubborn brain fog. It's natural, easy to use and thick. Thousands of happy customers already love it. And right now, the Human Upgrade podcast listeners can grab a full size Bottle for over 50% off at vibrantblue oils.com Dave that's vibrantblueoils.com Dave don't wait to start feeling like yourself again. You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. What do you know about CBD and BDNF and brain healing?

So CBD is neuroprotectant, and there is some research showing that if you've been in some sort of a traumatic brain injury or exposed to any sort of traumatic event, whether it's like a emotionally traumatic Event that CBD can help with reprocessing those memories. It also increases neurogenesis in the hippocampus. That's really well documented, which is another way in which SSRIs are actually really helpful as well. But that's really interesting because a lot of people use CBD to be helpful for PTSD and for special needs parents like myself, for ctsd, which is chronic traumatic stress disorder. But it's been really, really effective with that and with its neuroprotection. We have a formula called flow state, which has been traditionally used in Chinese medicine for regulating women's cycles and alleviating stress. But actually, research from your clinic, Zen, showed that it increased blood flow to the brain and increased BDNF and helped stimulate brain growth and development. So that was a formula that we really worked together with some neuroscientists in order to put that together and added the CBD to it to enhance.

What was the name of that formula?

That's our flow state.

Flow state. Got it. So that's right. We did test out flow state with the 40 years of Zen EEG equipment, and we did notice that's getting some blood into there. We didn't directly measure BDNF because that's a chemical measure. That's actually very hard to do.

Yeah, well, we added some herbs that have been shown to increase bdnf.

Yeah, got it. But whatever it was, people's brains seem to work better. So you can get a sense of blood flow or at least metabolic activity by looking at the height or amplitude of electrical signal generated by your brain. Because just because your brain's working doesn't mean it's working well. Just like if you have a car that runs on gas, like most of them still do, if you have really good gas and your engine's tuned, you make a lot of power and you put in crappy gas and it's barely running well. It's still running. It's good enough. That would be the big pharma view. But, like, it doesn't sound right. And it doesn't have enough power going up hills. Maybe I should fix it. So that was flow state cbd, which is. Which is kind of cool. I'd forgotten that we did that experiment a couple of years ago, which is really cool. Do you have any information specifically about neurogenesis? Is that all coming from the Chinese herbs or is that a CBD thing?

There's a lot of research on the CBD for the neurogenesis. All the Chinese herbs. We could go into an entire show on each herb like this as well, I'm sure. Not that I could do an entire show on each of our 400 herbs that we commonly. But. But, yeah, most of that research was coming out of. Of cbd, actually, so that's pretty cool. But, yeah, we have a bunch of Chinese herbs that also can do the same thing. So that's what we can do, is we can sort of look energy. You know, in Chinese herbs, we're looking at not only the presenting ailments, but sort of the underlying patterns of disharmony within the body so that we're able to, you know, not only deal with the symptoms that we're addressing, but really help harmonize the body and bring it back into balance overall.

Tell me more about CBD and sleep, specifically, because I have a ton of people who've done the sleep challenge. By the way, guys, sleepwithdave.com, best URL of my career. I'll teach you how to sleep for free. But some of them, like, oh, my God, I use CBD before I go to sleep, and I totally sleep through the night. But not everyone has that response. So tell me your thoughts about CBD and sleep, and maybe if you have something that ties it with Chinese herbs, how that works.

So CBD regulates the brain and likes to calm it down and then just sort of calms down brain and body overall. And also that we have CBD receptors along the vagus nerve, so it's doing all of that. It's. It's regulating the HPA axis. It's kind of amazing once you start diving into the research on, like, literally anything you want to look into CBD for. There is a decent amount of research on almost anything at this point, which is really fun, but most people find that their. That their REM goes really high when they're taking cbd. What we did is we added CBD to a formula called Swanza Renton, and then we modified that formula. So it's a really strong sleep formula, but we modified it so that it's also really helpful for anxiety. So in Chinese medicine, it's kind of calming the shen, calming the spirit. So instead of, like, knocking you out like you would with, like, a melatonin or with, like, thc, there are a lot of gummies out there with THC that people take that'll knock you out. If I'm super anxious and I know I'm not going to sleep, but I have to. I might take a, you know, some sort of a gummy, but normally I'LL just take our rest and relax, which. It's really, really calming. It helps so much when it comes to stress. And I've got a bio strap, and every time I take it, it just, like, blows me away. I was getting, like, 98 and 99s and I sleep with my child, who is now almost eight, and kicks me in the face all night long.

Wow, that's. That's cool. I really. I really like that idea. So you just take it and knocks you on your butt and tell me the name of it one more time.

Rest and relax.

Rest and relax. I have definitely tried rest and relax, and I think I'm just less of a responder. Maybe I have CB3 receptors that no one else has, or I'm some kind of an alien.

You probably would.

But I do notice rest and relax makes me feel relaxed. But I don't think it's the cbd. I think it's the Chinese herbs, because you've got some. Some really cool stuff in there. So I. I feel something, but I also already sleep super well. So it may just be like, you know, if you're a formula and race car and you make a small change, like, I can't feel it because it was already pretty good. And I honestly, the way I sleep these days, it's. It's over the top. So maybe if I cut everything else out and did it, I would notice it.

I feel like you may have some experience on optimizing your sleep. I feel like I might have heard something about that, but no, One of the things that I think is funny is a lot of people come up to, like. One of the things I hear all the time is people will be like, oh, I tried cbd, but nothing happened. You know, I didn't really notice anything. And there are a couple of things that I'd like to speak to to that, and one is that, like, cbd, and with Chinese herbs, a lot of the times, we're not looking to knock you on your ass. You know, like, if. If you're coming to me for a disorder, if you're seeing me as a practitioner, I might give you a formula that's really, really strong for a short amount of time. But basically, what we're trying to do is bring your body back into balance. And CBD really does that in such a beautiful way. So instead of it being this overwhelming, like, oh, now I'm magically happy and out of pain, and life is so much better. And like, this herb is this magical pill. Nothing's going to work like that you still have to do the work, you still have to take care of yourself. But what I find, at least personally and with most people who take our products, is it brings you back to sort of who you are. It brings you back to your center. So, like, if I get stressed or if I forget to take my CBD for a couple days or whatever, because, you know, I'm a person too, and I make foolish mistakes, you know, I'll start. I'll start getting more irritable, I'll start getting more stressed. I have a lot of on my plate. And then I'll start taking the CBD again and I'll just be able to sort of breathe again. It gives you sort of that same space to feel more like yourself and just function better. Everything seems to just flow much more easier. But there are a lot of really shitty products on the market because we did get flooded. I forget the term that you use, but we got flooded once CBD was legalized and once people learned about it, you know, I think a lot of people tried cbd. They got their endocannabinoid systems like pump in. Everybody got super excited. Everybody tried, threw a ton of money into the field. And then there's just all these crappy products out there. And there are. I mean, I have seen like, CBD pizza and CBD slushies. Oh, my God. CBD slushies.

Do you know how many people pitched me CBD coffee?

Oh, I'm sure.

And I'm like, guys, just because you can put it in coffee doesn't mean you should like mushrooms. I love my Chinese. Or not Chinese. I love my Australian sourced lion's mane. That stuff works really well, but it makes my coffee taste like crap. So we stopped putting Chinese herbs and putting all the other things like medicinal mushrooms in coffee at the Upgrade Cafe in Santa Monica, like eight years ago, because it just ruins the flavor. Like, take your CBD oil as a tincture, take it as a pill, but it doesn't need to be in your pizza. It's not going to be more effective if you mix it with something to make it taste weird. It's just marketing, right?

Oh, it's just nonsense. And it's just like, you know, we're trying to make all of these shitty things better by adding these, you know, these feel good chemicals and pretending like they're healthy. But yeah, you can. You can just take a capsule. Yeah, everybody. Everybody and their mother comes to me and they're like, you should do this with cbd. Make a bath bomb. Make this And I'm like, okay, I'm a small business. I already don't want to deal with more inventory. Like I make the products that I think are going to be the most effective and the safest for the widest variety of people based on, you know, what I'm seeing in my patient population and in our population at large, you know. But yeah, I don't, I don't think CBD belongs in slushies, nor do I think it belongs in pizza, although I do miss pizza one day.

Yeah, if it's gluten free pizza you can put CBD on it. It just won't taste as good as if you put garlic oil on there. So you. Anyway, I kind of get off that, like mixing it randomly of stuff doesn't make sense. I want to talk about hemp CBD versus cannabis cbd, what's the difference in which one are you using at Radical Roots?

So it's largely the same thing. So basically cannabis is. Cannabis is the umbrella term for the plant, for the family. So marijuana is cannabis that's bred to have high levels of thc, whereas hemp is bred to have high levels of CAPD and low levels of thc. And then within hemp and within cannabis there's whole different ways that you can look at it. There's industrial hemp which can actually, you know, we can make pretty much anything that we make plastic out of out of industrial hemp or we can make, you know, hemp products like what we have at Radical Roots. So all of ours are hempstead, but they are under the umbrella of cannabis. But one thing that's really cool about cannabis that I think is always fun to talk about is that cannabis is a hyper accumulator. So it pulls toxins from the earth, which is really, really exciting for a lot of reasons because we can potentiate topsoil that way when it's grown in a respectable way. You know, we use a farmer who uses largely no till farming techniques. So he's really restorative. He actually even goes up to like mythical healing Springs here in Colorado and gets probably structured spring water and brings it down to water our plants. But the other, the flip side of that is that hemp is a hyper accumulator. So if you're not getting a well sourced product, you are going to be pulling up all of the toxins, heavy metals and pesticides that are in that environment as well. So it is really tricky and it is really important to find a company that you trust.

Does that mean those are also grass fed Cows on his farm because they're eating the other kind of grass?

Yes, I wish.

Does CBD accumulate in cows fat if they eat a lot of hemp?

I would assume so. I don't see why not.

So you could have like the sativa blend grass fed cow that was finished on hemp.

Well, one of the things that I heard about that was pretty interesting. I didn't see any studies on it, but somebody claimed that chickens used to eat hemp for their feed back in the day. And that when you would eat an egg that was laid by a chicken that ate hemp as its diet, you cook it and then you would have it would decarboxylate it. So with hemp what you want to do is once you heat, you have to heat it to get it to the cannabinoids shift as you heat it. So that's called deep carboxylation. So once you cook an egg, you would have 500mg of CBD per egg. When chickens were eating hemp as their diet, I always thought that would be an entertaining business model, but not something I have jumped into yet.

So we're not going to see radical roots CBD/THC marshmallows anytime soon. I guess.

Probably not too bad.

All right, so sourcing matters, but so does the delivery system. And I've done a few shows recently where I talk about delivery system of different molecules into the body because it turns out you can take something great. Your stomach breaks it apart. Well, that wasn't very useful. And then. Or if your liver processes it before you get it. So there's all these different things you can do when you're taking stuff. And with CBD there's vaping, there's oils, there's capsules and there's topical. Walk me through which of those form factors I should take for what reason or when.

So vaping is probably going to be your fastest acting, that's going to get into your system right away.

This is for cbd, not for getting high from thc. Right. Just so everyone understands, this is vaping without flavorings, without the bad stuff, specifically for the benefits of cbd. Okay. So it's going to hit you fastest.

It's gonna hit you fastest. So like if you're having a panic attack and you're using CBD for anxiety or something like that is going on, smoking it's probably going to be the best way to go. I personally I'm not so sure how I feel about vapes versus just smoking the actual flower. If you're not smoking that much of it. I would probably personally smoke the flower.

But I'm from Boulder. Breathing burn stuff is generally bad for you. I, I would absolutely vape CBD before I would smoke a joint just because of the inflammation from all the burning stuff.

Oh, but it's so much more fun. It's so much fun.

Yeah, you just want to roll it up. It relaxes you just to roll your joint. I, I know, I know your type. I've got your number.

Fair enough. Fair enough. But so then the oils, those are great because especially if your gut is inflamed and you're having a lot of GI issues, you're not able to tolerate, tolerate capsules and break down products. That way, you know, you're going to be able to absorb a lot of the CBD into the capillaries underneath your tongue. That also happens pretty rapidly. So the oils can be really wonderful. You know, again, the extraction techniques do make a difference as well. But the oils are pretty consistent and really well tolerated by most people. It's also easy to sneak into foods if you're trying to. I guess most people aren't giving this to their children. I am. But if you're giving it to kids or, or to your pets, because your pets have endocannabinoid systems. Also I have a 13 year old dog who, who takes her CBD every day so she can continue fetching. But what I like is the capsules. Our capsules are really interesting because we use a unique extraction technique called Spagyrics. And my manufacturer is this brilliant super nerd up in the mountains here in Colorado. He like builds Tesla coils and ozone machines for fun. He is super badass. But he figured out a way to get the water solubles, the oil solubles and all of the terpenes and everything into these capsules. So that makes it just completely bioavailable. And then they're GI entera coated, so they're actually getting to the gut, which is really important because there are so many aspects of CBD that really help with gut function, which I think is super interesting and really important part of the plant that most people don't realize. Oh, and then topical is great. Just for pain relief. We have CBD receptors and endocannabinoid receptors in our skin all over the place.

Okay, you mentioned CBD in kids. How would you know about which CBD to use? Like say your kid has an autoimmune neurological disorder like you. You have this huge wealth of experience, but there's a bunch of parents or a bunch of parents who probably are dealing with something similar. Is it okay to just try one? Because it's unlikely to cause harm in a single dose. And if it really works for your kid, maybe it's worth it.

Yeah, it's. So CBD has been quite a challenge. I didn't realize how hard the fun censorship situation would be with cbd. I have gotten my credit card processor shut down, like, four times for making claims. The latest one was I talked about Flow state being based on a classical Chinese herbal formula that supports women's health. Like, literally, that was the claim and had nothing to do with cbd. But since we're a CBD company, we are, like, under a microscope all the time. So it's really challenging in terms of our products on our website to give any sort of detailed explanation. So we're always trying to figure out ways around that where we can educate our patients or customers, I guess. But. But, yes, I think for kids. You know, my son's formula, Remy's Revenge, that one was developed for him for his epilepsy. In Chinese medicine, epilepsy is a wind disorder. And so that formula, what it does is it sort of anchors the energy down from the head. So I've used that with a lot of my patients who have a variety of neurological conditions, conditions especially as children. But also I have adult patients with, you know, again, panic attacks. That works really well in terms of acutely bringing that energy down, or ocd, you know, that sort of hyper. Hyperactivity of the brain where you're trying to calm that pretty acutely is sort of how we look at it from the Chinese medicine lens. But, yeah, it would be very hard to injure a child with cbd. You know, I wish that there was more research on it, but I've used it with many, many patients, patients with no problems. And I try and be as available as possible for people to give me a call. I'm working on a way to scale and be able to see patients all over the country so that we can do custom herbal formulas for people to create more of a proactive healthcare model as opposed to the reactive model that we have right now. But I do my best to try and answer as many questions and help out as much as I can, especially for other families in situations similar to mine, because that's why I'm doing what I do.

Yeah, you're pretty accessible for customers, which is. Which is really cool. And that's not a patient relationship. That's a. Hey, what do you think you're an herbalist. That's an idea sharing forum. Just so people understand, if you engage with a practitioner, then you're a patient. If you buy stuff and ask about how it works, then you're a customer. And there's just a different level of licensing and liability associated with that. And that may not be apparent to you. Do you normally get more deep or more REM sleep? If you're using rest and relax.

So rest and relax. I find more rem, but the deep is supported by that also. But what's interesting is THC really pumps up your deep sleep, but doesn't do as well on the rem. But everybody's sort of individualized. It depends on how you're going to react to it and probably what other supplements and other sleep stacks you're doing, how well you're wearing your blue blockers and doing all the other biohacks, you know.

Okay, I'm going to test your biohacking knowledge right now in the morning. I'm thinking about like being really high performance. So I'm thinking about a blend of caffeine, which would be danger coffee of course, maybe methylene blue and some nicotine. So I'm getting all these molecules, even the caffeine molecule from my arm here where it's tattooed on using an all natural tattoo ink made from the blood of my enemies. And how would I add CBD to that? Do I take it at the same time? Do I take at the beginning? What form would I take? Give me the stack so I can be an ultimate biohack.

An ultimate biohack. I feel like you just are the ultimate biohack. So in terms of anti aging energy vitality, the two formulas that I created are. One is revive. So that one is in Chinese medicine. It's a kidney qi yin yang blood tonic. Right. So it's, it's helping your vital organs. Those are involved in like reproduction. It's involved with like keeping your hair strong and gray or not gray and black blackens the hair. And then it has full spectrum CBD in it also. We have that as an oil and we have it as capsules. I like the capsules better. I think that they're a lot stronger with the water solubles in there. But you know, it depends on everybody's take. A lot of people love the oils more. Or if you're not interested in CBD or if you're not interested in the Chinese herbs, we have complete spectrum which doesn't have Chinese herbs in it. So if you just wanted to try out the CBD with that stack, or if you're not really interested in CBD right now, there's a lot of people who are still somewhat hesitant. We have Immortal All Stars, which is our non cbd, sort of like super biohacker blend. And that one was in your biohack box a couple years ago. We may have something else coming in your biohack box in the summer, which will be a new product. But. But the Immortal All Stars is a fantastic formula also. And what's fun about those formulas is again, with Chinese herbs, we're using a whole group of herbs. So, you know, there's reishi and there's astragalus and there's a whole bunch of herbs that are superfoods and super herbs that a lot of people are using separately. But we're using them together in a really well formulated formula so that they're really potentiating the actions and working well together. So it's sort of like a stack in and of itself.

I like it. So you kind of have a stack there. But would it be okay to take it with say a milligram of nicotine or some methylene blue and certainly with caffeine it should be okay. Or is there going to be some contraindication? It's going to be fine just to take it all at once.

I take it all at once. I mean, I take a lot of those supplements with my cbd. I don't see why it would be a problem. CBD does act on the cytochrome P450 enzyme and a couple different pathways in the liver. So that's always important to mention. So if you are on a farm that acts, that has like a grapefruit warning or acts on that pathway, like a lot of antihistamines or SSRIs or antidepressants, beta blockers, opioids, those all act on that same pathway. So CBD can increase serum levels of some of those meds, which. So if you're on those meds, it's good to let your doctor know if you're going to try cbd. But one thing that I have found with some of my patients is if we work with their doctors, we can help use CBD as a bridge to wean them off of some of those medications, especially the opioids and the SSRIs. So many people are on those and then they get on them with very, you know, dangerous and, and challenging side effects and they want to get off. CBD can be really helpful with that. But, you know, you really do have to work with a practitioner on that and do that safely because going off of those meds cold turkey or without appropriate support can be very dangerous.

Got it. Just to reiterate that, don't go off drugs without talking to your doctor. And if your doctor says no, you have to stay on them, you can just be like, well, if you want me to stay your patient, you're going to help me get off of them. And usually then that'll happen and maybe you actually don't want to get off of them. A prime example being thyroid hormone. How many times have you said, I'm going to just stop taking it, like six months later? I wonder why. Hair is thin and your cardiovascular risk just tripled. Hmm. Maybe you should go back on that because it's an anti aging hormone and your body's not making enough of it. So there's times when you really don't want to get off. But be really cautious with any of the things you've been taking for a long time, other than maybe statins, where I don't know that there's a need to taper off of those, but I could be wrong. So talk to your doctor.

Right? Yeah, definitely. I mean, I really am very serious about that. The doctor thing with getting off of meds is absolutely essential. But. But CBD is, can be very helpful.

Or you could just go to Reddit and they'll tell you as much as your doctor would. Right.

Obviously.

I mean, I want to save some money and save some. Because everything on Reddit's true.

I mean, I got my degree. I just, like, I just printed it out off of there.

You got your degree in cnn, studies on Reddit. Good. Good for you.

I should make a little plaque.

All right, Chloe, I know that I always ask people who come on the show and talk about their stuff, if you make stuff, you got to give us a little bit of a discount here. Is there a code for us?

I believe the code is Dave. 15. All right, so we're giving you guys 15 off. I am an active member of your community, and I'm very grateful for all the work that you do and the weirdos that you've collected. So I'm really happy to be here.

The Upgrade Collective is in the house. This is my mentorship group. They get live access to the audience and podcasts, and they've been chatting with me here. So thanks for being a part of it, Chloe. And it's. It's cool also that you give a discount. So radicalroots, herbs.com, code Dave15. And you're listening to this and you're saying, look, I've not ever been much of a pothead. That's all right. I never had any cannabis. So I was 26 because I wanted to get the good stuff. I flew to Amsterdam to take it and I found out I probably didn't miss out that much because getting high that way isn't my thing. But I do think there's real efficacy for CBD oils and especially blended with Chinese herbs in the way that Chloe does. It's very conscious and you'll notice an effect from it that's different than just the herbs or different than just cbd. So I think her idea of potentiation is very legit. Chloe, see you on another episode, maybe in another couple years or something. Thanks for the education on our CB1 and see CB2 receptors. I feel smarter already just because I can say that.

Awesome. Thank you so much. It's been an honor to be here.

If you like today's episode, you know what to do. Well, try some cbd, try some radical roots herbs, and whatever you do, leave a review. Whether it's for the podcast. Thank you. If you review it, whether it's for any of the products that you try or book you read, just pay it back. Because if it's a small business like Chloe's or an author or some small local business you like Your tiny little 10 second I left a review. It matters way more than you'll ever know because the people are working hard to bring you new stuff. It motivates us and it tells us what we're doing right or wrong. So thanks for your time. Just leaving review anywhere you feel like it's a good idea. It's like leaving a tip. See you all soon. You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey.

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