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EV1 - Mitochondria Health with Expert Panel

This is our first full length Video episode. Kirk and Trevor talk with the research team from BioSource Botanicals, an international collaboration of independent researchers and experts who are uniting medicine with the wisdom of nature and modern science. Learn how cannabis is essential to mitochondria health and how raw cannabis creates an Ensemble, rather than an Entourage, Affect. In this episode passionate people go deep into the science of their one-of-a-kind therapeutics. https://biosourcebotanicals.com

 

Sunday, 26 January 2025 15:07

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Desiree Dorion

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Episode Transcript

 

Trevor: We're back. It's Trevor from Reefer Medness. We have a bunch of people on the line today. We will get them all to introduce themselves shortly. But the real quick version is here we have Kirk, as always. We have Daniel Gana, we have Dr. Abe, and we have Brent. Everyone is from BioSource Botanicals and we've got lots to talk about today. So I am going to, Kirk is going to be kind of our master of ceremonies. I'm going to let him start being the ringleader and start everyone with some introductions.

Kirk: Hey, Trevor, we're going to try something new today. This is we're going to try to attempt to make this a YouTube episode as well as an audio episode. Today, we're going to dig down a little deeper into mitochondrial health. If you've listened to Episode 123 with Bob Hill and the Electric High. I described Bob as a naturopathic lawyer selling health supplements to boost immune systems bio acidity using raw cannabinoids. Well, today we actually talked to his team from BioSource Botanicals. They're an international collaboration of independent researchers and experts who are uniting medicine with the wisdom of nature and modern science. Their goal is to create a better future through a global renaissance of healing knowledge. So we're about to explore the science behind the one of a kind therapeutics that they offer and discover what is possible from the product. Now, as you said, we have we have the team here. Can we ask can we ask the team to question Brent? You want to introduce yourself and how you fit into this team of researchers?

Brent Ristow: Yeah. My name's Brent Bristow. I'm a lawyer with a PhD in organic chemistry. I have for many years in education, found myself in the pharmaceutical industry, testing, developing, validating, and testing for release, pharmaceuticals and testing medical devices Class one, two, three, four.  Potential extractable that might be present. And in that process, you see a lot of, how the pharmaceutical industry generally works. It's not that there are no impurities in these products. It's not that there are no compounds that will leach out of the device into your system. It's just that there are acceptable levels of impurities within these compounds that are then distributed throughout the pharmaceutical industry. And that level was determined by, you know, a very complex mathematical formula and some scientific standards after leaving that wanting to take away from that type of environment in industry. I ended up running into Bob. Bob reached out to me on LinkedIn and we had a number of conversations about the type of work that it was doing, how he got into it, what his philosophy was in the space and his experiences in the hemp space. And it was really just kind of an inflection point for me on my perception of overall health. And I've been working with Bob very closely since to try to help develop the robust science around these types of products and the space within the market.

Kirk: And where are you today, Brent?

Brent Ristow: I'm currently in West Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Kirk: Right on. And Daniel.

Daniel Gana Yeah, I did. My name is Daniel Gana. Now I am a pharmaceutical microbiologist. I do most of my research on plant medicine, trying to test out antimicrobial activities against several diseases such as tubercularly, I happen to come across the BioSource Botanicals and Bob  in 2020 when he was talking about the benefits of CBD. And at that particular time the industry was quite new to CBG. We had a lot of people talking about CBD, talking about THC. Then I met this wonderful person who was trying to talk about CBG, and it was a coincidence because I was trying to educate people about the benefits of all the cannabinoids, which was called nano-cannabinoids at that time. I discovered the industry was turning into something that was CBD and THC centric  where you have people slapping a lot of numbers depending on trying to  describes the THC percentage. While we have other cannabinoids like CBG, CBGA, THCV, THCA and others relegated to the background. So I met Bob on LinkedIn and then we got talking and then I told him about my work and he keeps impressing me and since then we've been together all this very long time. I work mostly as a cannabis researcher now. I tend to do more of education content.  I teach people about the hemp plant, its benefits on how best to activate our cells with the endocannabinoid system. Thank you.

Kirk: Fantastic. And Daniel, where are you this afternoon?

Daniel Gana Well, I'm in Nigeria.

Kirk: Okay. Good. Good evening. And Dr. Abe, you are where and how do you fit into this team?

Dr. Abe Benavides: Yeah, I'm great. I have a very long story, but I'll keep it very brief. So my story actually starts here long ago in this sleepy, dusty town called Hart, I've been rural Guanacaste, Costa Rica. So my great grandmother was actually a tropical remedy healer in this town and one of the original dozen settlers. She her memory is what inspired me to start studying medical cannabis in the first place. When I got to medical school, so I actually was born and raised in the States. GW made me an offer I couldn't refuse, so I went to medical school there in DC. When I was there, I realized we weren't learning anything about medical cannabis in medical school. All I was hearing were negative things and nothing positive, so I figured we weren't learning the whole story. I figured we weren't getting a full picture. So that's when I in 2016, I became the first medical student at a medical school to stand up and say, Wait a minute, there's something to this cannabis plant. Our patients are using it. There's a lot of research coming out on it. And I don't think it's all just bad things and we should be learning about it. And so I banded together with other medical students. I led the charge on the cannabis as a medicine interest group, the first of its kind in the United States. And then with them, I also did some research that also a survey study that showed that most medical students are encountering patients who have questions about medical cannabis, but the same proportion are equally feel totally unprepared to counsel patients about medical cannabis. So that showed a big problem. And then so that study has been cited at least 20 something plus times since then, since I was one of the first ones that got into this in medical school. So then since then, I got into the industry in terms of like medical writing, editing and doing literature review. And so when I first got, I actually went to residency, my first residency program, I became a disproportionate racial victim of the war on drugs. I was not allowed to start my program over an initial positive UTSA pre-employment, even though they I went and got another retest that was negative. They refused me to start working there, even though other residents told me that other residents test positive for this stuff all the time. And it's no problem because it was in Colorado. And so the Colorado board thought that this was clearly racism. They saw my attorney, but I had to choose whether I had to pursue justice, which I couldn't afford or move on with my life. So I eventually moved on to a different a better residency program in Seattle, Washington. So we did family medicine. And then so but unfortunately, this was at the start of the pandemic. So I moved into Seattle in mid 2020, and then six months later in December, I caught a severe Covid from an ICU patient that I was caring for. And so you see me a little bit short of breath today is because I am actually still recovering. It's been about four years now or three and a half years of Long Covid, Sorry, it was 2020. So yeah, over four years with long Covid and I was still having some vocal cord dysfunction. But as long as I'm seated, I'm fine, no problem. But this did forced me out of my residency program, which was very unfortunate because it's everything I've fought for my entire life. But since then, I continued my work in the medical cannabis industry with my disability. It enabled me to find work that is meaningful to me and also something that was already in my repertoire. And, you know, since then, since I moved on from residency, I went on to educate millions of people around the world. I have over one and half million reads on Veriheal alone, where I had our medical review and our medical education based like everything on our blog. I've written e-books for them, courses for them that train the Veriheal doctors, too. And I'm also CannaKeys, number one, physician focus cannabis decision making tool in the world. I am the medical editor there. I help update and review Uwe Blesching work. I'm also at CBD Oracle and about a dozen other websites. So I've been reading cannabis literature for eight years, reviewing it for the last five years and writing, educating millions of people. And then I joined LinkedIn about a year ago at the request of a client, and then that's where Bob found me. And he reached out and he liked the work I was doing because he noticed that I was working with whole plant extracts in my clinical practice. So I did actually join the GW Center for Integrative Medicine, where I'm still doing cannabis health coaching remotely. Been there almost three years now. I work with medical director who's also my friend and colleague, Dr. Michael Kogan. He is the author of that book you see sitting on the shelf right there. And so he, you know, he inspired me to start was sorry. He gave me the materials to start learning about cannabis in medical school. And now it's great to be his right hand cannabis guy. So I do split my time between research, writing, and clinical work. I do. I see patients at the Center for Integrative medicine on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then I do medical writing and research the other three days of the week. It's really good because I find that in cannabis, not everything is well written down. There are certain practical things that people need to learn and need someone to help guide them with. And so I'd say about, you know, I have like hour long consults. It can be a short half hour, but really, like at least half of it is just solid patient education, getting them up to speed on what hemp and cannabis are, what are each of the components that we're trying to use. And then I'll come up with a plan for them. And so I only take on our most severe or complex cases. So I've helped patients with everything from Alzheimer's to advanced metastatic cancer to chronic intractable pain. I helped heal someone's 40 years of insomnia using medical cannabis when nothing else had worked. So I know this is something that, you know, the medical industry is behind on. But I have been on the vanguard of this, you know, pioneering this since medical school. And it's something I've always been asked about. And I'm excited to be part of BioSource Botanicals.

Kirk: Fantastic. I just want to explore a couple of things with you, Dr. Abe. You were on the Vanguard as a medical student, so without giving your age away, when was that? When were you in medical school?

Dr. Abe Benavides: When I was in 2016, when I started the club. I started medical school 2015, so it was my first year of medical school that I started sticking my neck out for patients.

Kirk: Well, I see you're in pretty much a brand new M.D., I guess. And are you are you practicing down south now? Is that your practice in Costa Rica?

Dr. Abe Benavides: No, I do not. And I don't have patients here. All my client consults are through the GW Center for Integrative Medicine. So that's at the George Washington University in Washington, DC. So we a small clinic and I also do cannabis coaching at Veriheal, which is the largest prescriber of medical cannabis cards in the US. And I head up their medical review. So I do both things there.

Kirk: Okay. Thank you. That's wonderful. That gives us the background that we obviously have had group of experts and such a wide variety of knowledge. We can dig really deep. The focus of this episode was going to be mitochondrial health. Before we get into the mitochondrial health, Is there is there anything else you want to add to that comment? Because the understanding was we're going to take Bob's episode and stretch it and get down to the science of it. Is that sort of where you guys are at, too? We're going to go into mitochondrial health. Got consensus. Okay. So who would like to start about the mitochondria? I've done a lot of reading and I got to compliment Bob. And we also had another episode from Hunter Land in Episode 128. He also got into mitochondria. So all three of these episodes are going to blend together. So who wants to talk about the mitochondria and tell us how cannabis is related to that?

Daniel Gana I think I'll go first. Okay. Questions. So from basic knowledge of biology to understand the mitochondria is the powerhouse of cell. It goes with a lot of activities such as providing energy to the cell and then making sure to cell up to par with these activities. Now, we recently discovered from our research that this mitochondria has its own membrane, which houses a CB1 receptor. And this CB1 receptor is responsible for, as we all know, modulating a lot of activities and then sending signals and other activities, one of which is talking about the vacuum of free radicals and then also talking about oxidation, trying to keep the cells free from oxidation and helping them metabolize and then produce the energy needed by the step. Now, we discovered that if we can have products that can target this CB1 receptor or target this unique endocannabinoid system, and the softest of the mitochondria cell. We can get the cells to do what we want them to do. It's more or less like introducing the program into the cell and then instructing it on just what we want. This is what you are meant to do and we want you to do that. So we discovered that the best way to do this is to actually have our own plant compounds. When we talk about plant compounds, we're not talking about just a product with a few cannabinoids, maybe like CBD, THC, and then if you are talking about preserving the plants in its entirety. That's what BioSource is all about. We're talking about the active spectrum extract. Where we try to preserve the plants in its entirety. Why you need to know about this and why its activates the mitochondria. It's because we discovered that having the plant in its entirety, having them their unique and natural ratio. The way nature intended them to be, we can have them delivered to them. The endocannabinoid system at the mitochondrial level. Now by having the cannabinoids, terpenes, and then the flavonoids forming a symphony coming together to form a synergy, we can guide the right substances to go to the mitochondria and then activating it. And by activating it, instructing it to carry out its design. By so doing, we tend to have cells, yes, we would tend to have cells that are free from free radicals and then cells that are open green and then making sure that we are doing what they ought to do. So that's basically a summary of the work on mitochondria. But I'm sure Brent has a unique story about the mitochondria. So we would like to hear this.

Trevor: We've heard a lot about the Entourage effect. Different cannabinoids and terpenoids working together. But, you know, since we're talking about a whole plant extract, you also talk about an Ensemble Effect, about things happening in the right order and how that's important in a whole plant. Extract Do you want to touch on what the Ensemble Effect is a little bit before we go to Brent and more about mitochondrial stuff?

Daniel Gana Okay. Thank you very much for that question. And just as I said, I'm about to Entourage effect into some work that somebody is bringing together the different activities of these compounds and coming together to form a whole and then giving us definitely activity. So that's what most people are very familiar with, the Entourage effect and the attempt to limit it to just CBD acting on THC, to reduce these psycho-activities. So they are some who most times is confused with the Entourage effect, but in most cases they do tend to work hand-in-hand because you find those two things coming and modulating the cannabinoids and the more the mixing, the flavonoids and all the more they tend to find a meeting place like a meeting point. When you go to our website, we have this unique triangle we created that stand for the Entourage effect and ensemble effect where you have the cannabinoids having the meeting points with them with the flavonoids, and then they come together and become what we call the therapeutic potential of the cannabis plant. So as somebody describes the combined effect of this plant, when the compounds when the raw and the same plants, I think that's what you asked me about.

Trevor: Yes. Thank you, Daniel. Sorry, Brent. I'll. I'll stop jumping in. Brent, please keep, continue about mitochondria.

Brent Ristow: Yeah, no worries. Please feel free to interrupt at any time. Great questions. So just kind of the paradigm shifts that occurred when I started working with Bio Source was the oxidative stress theory of aging. And it really kind of struck me. And when you talked about the mitochondria and mitochondria health, you really have to just first establish two kind, of and why the work at BioSource Botanicals is important. Not only, as Daniel said, are we working to maintain the entire chemical profile of the hemp plant so you get those native cannabinoids, flavonoids, Terpenes from the native plant itself. Unlike what's happening in the marketplace now, where isolates are being added together in some Frankenstein concoction. You get the native profile of the plant. So just establishing two facts. Fact one would be that, you know, you ingest the CBD, the CBG, it becomes ubiquitous in the system, right? It permeates the system. It's lipid soluble. You look at flavonoids, flavonoids are less so they are like, I calculated when they enter the pass the liver into the system. But terpenes are ubiquitous in the system as well. They're lipid soluble. So you ingest this stuff over regular periods of time. You eventually get permeation through the system. Flavonoids get broad exposure in the formulation. But again, they're not as ubiquitous in the system because they're not as easily soluble. So that's fact one. Second fact that the current research is everywhere. It's out there that these cannabidiols have very strong antioxidant characteristics on par and exceeding vitamin E in some studies. So we know that they are ubiquitous in the system. They permeate the system broadly and they have strong antioxidant properties. So why is that important when you're talking about mitochondrial health, as was mentioned in Daniel, the mitochondria, the theory Endocytosis, where our cells see this bacterium out there and it absorbs it because that bacterium is really good at producing energy and that is now our what we refer to as our mitochondria. You have to take the perspective that we're still in the process of evolving. We're not fully evolved. Humans a million years ago look different than we look today, and humans a million years from now will look different than we look today as well. So these processes, once our cells absorb the by the bacterium that becomes mitochondria. Over the millennium, our cells have adapted processes to maintain the balance of the chemical reactions taking place inside the mitochondria. And because we are still evolving, those chemical reactions are complex. They are not 100% perfectly efficient. The mitochondria itself, as it is the powerhouse of the solid, generates a lot of ATP. That's where all of your energy comes from. If you think about metabolism, in my mind at least, that is your metabolism, that efficiency at generating that ATP. A consequence of that ATP generation is the electron transport chain in the mitochondria. And again, these chemical reactions can get out of balance when you're under stress and these chemical reactions generate things called reactive oxygen species, primarily superoxide. And when these chemical reactions get out of balance and the mechanisms that are inherent in the cell are unable to maintain their balance, you get excess of superoxide present in the cell. What happens at that point? You get signaling proteins get damaged. Cellular DNA, RNA damage. Hopefully eventually it leads to cell death. But you know, nothing is 100% efficient in any system like this. So you will get damage. And that is the oxidative stress theory of aging, that that damage happens incrementally over time. Like a good analogy is here in Minnesota, you get into a car accident, you notice. It immediately. But your car rusts gradually over time. You don't see it in an instant. So that's an apt analogy for people that live in areas where cars rust. That oxidative damage can build up when there is excess superoxide in the cellular system causing that damage, causing arthritis, causing heart disease, causing a lot of cognitive decline. So imagine if you were able to introduce broadly into the system compounds that had that had demonstrated high antioxidant effectiveness in the presence of that superoxide. Our working theory is that the ubiquitousness of the compounds, their antioxidant nature and the effects on superoxide and oxidative stress will help the cells maintain the balance of those reactive oxygen species, reducing cellular stress and damage. And in the long term, you know, helping prevent a lot of these cognitive declines, these oxidative stress related aging issues that people are experiencing. In the short term, that the evidence is very broad for its analgesic effects, etc., but that that is the working idea around maintaining mitochondrial health is helping the mitochondria when it comes out of balance, providing it a system where it can help maintain that superoxide concentration within the cell and maintain a healthy homeostasis.

Kirk: Am I correct? Am I correct in saying that the mitochondria is unique in the human body, in that it is from the mother's DNA. And not the father's DNA. Is that a correct statement? So mitochondrial health is based on the mother's DNA.

Brent Ristow: Yeah. If you're doing genetic. Yeah. The mitochondria contains a full set of the mother's DNA.

Kirk: Okay. Yeah, that's. That's. So now what We also learned from Hunter Lamb and Bob is that it has something to do with the calcium channels. Correct. And in the mitochondria and how the endocannabinoid system works with that. Can you explain a little bit about how the endocannabinoid system cannabinoids and the and the calcium channels all work within the mitochondria?

Daniel Gana Well, I think by calcium channels, he was referring to TRP channels, which is the movement of compounds in a lot of cells. So I think Bob was trying to talk about how this endocannabinoids or cannabinoids or endocannabinoid system tends to form gated ions where it allows the passage of selective compounds by way the passengers certain compounds into the mitochondria and in order to stop them from passing into that. So I think we're talking TRP channel. Dr. Abe go on now.

Dr. Abe Benavides: Yeah, I think Daniel was really great at explaining it and Brent too by explaining like the micro level of detail. I think my expertise is more on like the macro level and what this means for practicality for a patient. So the evidence for this stuff is still in preclinical stages, of course, but I would expect that these kinds of things would mean I mean, we're already showing hope our extracts are better for things like pain relief, controlling seizures, neurogenic symptoms. And so I just think that by introducing the flavonoids, which we're doing is basically introducing a whole new therapeutic class or substance to the oil that we will get. I would expect that we'd probably see things like lower dosing being needed. This means less oil in a vehicle by the mouth. Less bitter taste would probably also mean better control of the symptoms. Better cost effectiveness. Better shelf life. I see a lot of patients have increased energy and mobility, better sleep, less inflammation and pain. So these are the things that I would expect to see being improved by it. And as soon as they're out, I'm excited to switch my patients to them.

Brent Ristow: Just a comment about the calcium channels. There is evidence that suggests that the TRPV1 channel is activated or interacts with components of cannabis. That's a lot like my understanding of it is it's a lot like how capsaicin interacts with the same channel. It essentially opens the channel, creates an imbalance and then prevents the firing of the nerve. And that is really the result of the analgesic. That's what results in the analgesic effect of the CBD. So it opens ion channels and allows an imbalance there for them not to fire.  The work that we're currently doing in studies Kirk and Trevor, we have chemical studies currently taking place that are looking at the free radical scavenging capabilities of BioSource Botanicals Extracts. They are raw extracts in their finished products. We also have some cellular studies that are progressing. They're a little bit more complicated because we are taking kind of a new approach to how we're examining and testing these types of cells. So that is ongoing. But that is that work is progressing. One of the things that Trevor, you asked Daniel about this and I'm just kind of elaborate on it a little bit, is that the entourage effect is typically referred to as a CBD, THC, where they can in fact affect the experience of the THC experience. So there's no THC in any of the products at BioSource Botanicals. So we're trying to move away from that kind of vernacular and we're trying to make sure that we're treating the industry with the respect that the medicine that it provides really deserves. So with the components, what you see typically in the industry are people formulating compounds out of isolates, and you can get massive doses, you can get some toxicity. There's absolutely no real regulation in the industry when you're putting these products on the market in regards to their quality. So you see people trying to do research with a lot of these products and they are so inconsistent that it makes the research a lot more difficult. At BioSource Botanicals I didn't even start the research until we got the CofA on all of the products that we're going to test. And the CofA show just really an incredible composition based up Peter Vermeul's decades in the industry developing these plant varieties, this proprietary extraction process that really allows instead of taking individual isolates, taking them all out of the one plant product and having that kind of holistic medicine present there. So it maintains that chemical profile of the native plant itself, it does provide CBG, CBGA in just really incredible amounts. The CofA are on the website BioSourcebotanicals.com. You can check those out and flavonoids and terpenes all in the same tincture from the same source. So that's kind of when we talk about the entourage effect these chemicals, this plant has been outside since the dawn of time. Way before us and it develops over the millennia these chemical processes to help defend itself and make sure that its processes are stable. They all work synergistically together. It only makes sense if you're being serious about botanicals to try to maintain the chemical profile of the plant itself instead of bastardize it and stripping away and taking out a component. And then you have to go through all the industrial process of that component. That industrial processing is just like what's happening in the pharmaceutical industry. There are residual solvents. There are impurities that will be present. It's moving away from really the maintaining the native health of the plant and allowing those cannabinoids, those terpenes flavonoids to work synergistically together. It's just bastardized and it's creating a worse product than what I believe is BioSource Botanicals.

Kirk: This is a great segway because what I've been wrestling with and I've tried to do the research, I just can't find it to satisfy my brain. But yeah, that's the critical component of, of BioSource Botanical. Is that your products are raw cannabis so heavily CBGA THCA, a CBDA is a so you've got these acid form molecules. Once they enter the body, do they convert within the body into and drop the acid? And like how does a acid form THC molecule lodge into a CB1 receptor? Like that's what I'm really wrestling with. Can you explain the science behind that?

Daniel Gana Yes, I would do that. Well, that's quite an interesting questions. You see most people are confuse when it comes to the acid form of the plants. Because most of them are stable. Talk about like CBDA, which is very unstable, that can easily convert to CBD even at room temperature or just exposing it to air. But that's not the case in biology you'll find out that's in metabolism the potential for a different a completely different result. They don't get converted to, or drop the acid when they're in the body. They actually act like a completely different compound in the body. Now, what we've discovered with CBGA to be precise because it's one of the most researched acid from some of the plants for now. Then the second should be CBGA, followed by THCA which is quite not really used that much. Now what I discovered is that CBGA, once it gets into the body has an advantage over CBG because it carries an extra carboxyl group COOH group, which assists it in interacting differently with receptors. One thing we come to understand is that this acidic form of the compound interact or binds to the receptors differently. And that's they adhere or reach the receptor as a completely different compound. That is why they tend to have different effects entirely. You'll find CBDA having one time, 1000 times more effective, binding to the receptors and then reducing nausea and vomiting compared to CBD. So if they don't really convert to the natural form or drop the acid. For this acid plays a critical role in how they interact with the binding pocket, because at the receptor level we have the binding site and then we have the binding pocket. Now the binding pocket is what the examine the effects that we produce. That's why you have CB1, you have that Delta8 and Delta9. Delta8 and Delta9 binding to CB1 will produce a different difference because they are interacting differently by different pockets. That's why you have CBG and CBD products for different use. So no, they don't combust to the natural form. or drop the acidic form. That acidic group gives them an edge over the neutral counterparts.

Brent Ristow: Yeah, I just wanted to get a parlay of that. I mean, if you look at how the cell itself functions, it might make sense that the acidic version might be more functional within the cell. When you know, you see drugs, think of multidrug resistance. You see drugs enter the body. Enter the cell and they get oxidized. They get oxidized by cellular enzymes to have hydroxyl in carboxyl groups, acid groups on them so they can be more water soluble. That's that is the state that the cell wants these things in because then it is more easily manipulated for the cell. So it's just easier for the cells to deal with. That's what the cell wants to Daniel's point and that's. Thank you for the excellent summary, Daniel.

Trevor: Well, jump in real quick. And because I'm going to have to leave probably before this excellent. Put it on the spot a little bit. How clinically have you noticed differences when you treat patients with what I assume, right now, you have been doing a lot of, you know, using extracts, THC extracts, CBD extracts. Have you noticed any differences between that form and whole plant extracts or extracts with the with the acid form? Like clinically, have you noticed any of that yet or is that still sort of to come?

Dr. Abe Benavides: Yeah, absolutely. And thanks for asking that. So whenever I'm working with a patient, I'm always recommending the acidic versions. I never recommend CBD oil by itself anymore. I always recommend CBDA or at least an equal portion with the CBD if it's possible to find. But I've definitely you know, I have patients. When patients come to me, they generally are grasping at straws. They're very desperate because usually, I mean, people have been to all kinds of specialist pain specialists, neurologists, all kinds of things before they are like, okay, well, maybe I'll try this cannabis thing. And they come to me and sometimes they've been on, you know, 25, 50, 100 milligrams of CBD isolate that somebody else suggested and they had no idea. So they just chose the cheapest product, which is a CBD isolate. And it had maybe had some effect for them but not ideal or maybe it had no effect. And then when I switch them to whole plant extracts, I do always choose try to choose the raw, acidic cannabinoids first and then we they are surprised that I want to start them on. I always use self-titrated approach. Week by week. I have them increase the dose because I want to find the smallest possible dose that's going to help them in the long term without causing side effects. And so they're always surprised that they're like, well, I was on 100mg of CBD isolate, it wasn't doing anything. And then my protocol will bring them through ten, 20, 30, 40mg week by week. And then by week four, we meet up again. And then I have, you know, I see the benefits already within the first month. So I usually follow up with patients one month after because I try to set expectations appropriately where, you know, I tell them that THC is really good at working right away and that's because of the receptors working on CB1 CB2 right away. So people notice that difference. With CBD, it's CBG. You're working on 65 other molecular targets in the background. And these are things like serotonin receptors, dopamine receptors, GR55, TNLalpha, tons of other receptors that I tell them are mostly important for involving mood and pain processing. And those receptors are generally slow to change. And so in the same vein that you would, you know, tell a patient to expect 4 to 6 weeks of trying an antidepressant before they judge whether or not it's working for them, I tell them it's kind of pretty much the same with CBD. You got to give it at least a good trial, at least 4 to 6 weeks. I expect you see some benefit within the first few weeks or the first month and then you will once we find your what I call your therapeutic dose, that's when you'll see maximal benefits 1 to 3 months out. Using that dose. And that's what I see in my job, is to to heal people, make them healthy. It's not to keep them coming back. I have to put myself out of business because I have to teach patients how to drive the cannabis boat for themselves, like how to actually listen to your body, what you want to be dosing when, how much and how often. And then once I see that they're comfortable with this plan, I'll see them, you know, maybe once a month and then depending on if it's a really bad chronic issue, I might see them in three months or six months, but at least see them in a year when it's time for their cannabis card renewal. Or I'll just read in their notes that they're just doing better from their other providers. And, you know, like yesterday I helped somebody get 90, 95% better on their cervical alga, bilateral nerve pain burning down both arms. And it was a combination of CBD, CBV, CBG, and they were already seeing tons of pain specialists out of West Virginia University Medical Center. They tried all kind.  They were at a pain clinic. They had tried everything else before they come to me and this is usually what I see. People are usually pretty desperate and they're pretty surprised that the results that they get. And so, yeah, with, with whole plant products, I see much less need for dosing than with isolates where I would see hundreds of milligrams. I get people down to reasonably, you know, less than 50mg. I'd say people usually do better on less than 50mg twice daily rather. I mean, and then so I just expect that when we introduce a whole new class of therapeutic substances like flavonoids to it, I would only expect that the ethically would improve. And so hopefully we could even get that dosing down. It also means better taste for the patients, better cost effectiveness. These are things that matter to people. Cannabis is expensive and so people want their medicine to go far. So I think with whole like whole plant products, that's going to go farther than you do with the isolates, even though they're kind of cheaper and more available. But it's just going to be better for for their health. And that's in the end, the bottom line, that's what people really want.

Kirk: I was just going to say, Dr. Abe, what is your typical patient? What is the what type of how do you help them to wellness?

Dr. Abe Benavides: Great point. My typical patient is pretty desperate. They are pretty like they have seen other specialists like I mentioned they have tried lots of other medications. My best example is an 80, 82 year old patient with 40 years of insomnia, nothing else had worked for them. They've tried everything under the sun. And when people come to me, oftentimes they're understandably skeptical because they've tried everything. So of course they're probably like, Well, this is probably isn't going to work. And then I educate them on why it's going to work and that I have helped lots of people in their position. And then and then they're surprised when we do. And I really enjoy it. But my approach is generally always to say half my visit is just solid patient education. Most of my patients know absolutely nothing about it. I would also say most of my patients are middle aged or older, and they preferably don't want to get high. Not necessarily for like religious reason or political reason, like some people might think. Really for practical reasons, they want to be present with their family. They want to be able to take care of their dogs or their children or their parents in case of an emergency. They need to work. They need to drive. They need to go grocery shopping. They can't be high all the time. And so what's really good is that with whole plant hemp extracts, you don't have to be, but you can still get the relief that you need to be able to function, clean your house, move across the country, do things that you previously weren't able to do. And I help people do those things. And it's part of the beauty of my work in a way. I really enjoy it. And then it also informed my research writing and my research writing informs my clinical work. So it's a really great blend because when you're in a new field like this and you're on the forefront, you kind of need both to make progress with people and really understand what you're doing and what people actually want and what's important to them.

Kirk: So. So you said you said pain, insomnia. Are there any other types? Is it primarily people with long term pain and insomnia, or do you have people who are nauseated? I mean, we know that cannabis, the Western world, does recognize cannabis for its insomnia, helping with insomnia. It helps people with nausea from cancer treatments. And some clinicians are looking at it to help with pain. So your classic patient is insomnia. Pain.

Dr. Abe Benavides: Insomnia, pain, and metastatic cancer. So the pain can be from several things, I see a lot of metastatic cancer patients or patients with metastatic breast cancer or prostate cancer, lung cancer, things like that. And so they do often need help with their pain, but also their nausea, also their appetite, also their sleep, also their energy levels mood, their anxiety, their depression. And so the patients will ask me if this is going to help with those things as well. And so I reassure them that, yes, and that's because of the, you know, the 65 molecular targets that I've talked about using the other parts of the hemp plant rather than just THC, which activates CB1 and CB2. And they really should probably just be called THC receptors because nothing else was really working well on them. And so and I also do a lot of work with Terpenes as well, so I make sure that they have the right Terpene blend and profile. I go, I explained through what Terpenes are, what each of them are doing and then which ones I think they should be looking for in their products.

Kirk: This is great. This, this just again naturally turns me to My next question is, in our research with cannabinoids and mitochondria, there is some talk about cannabis actually killing cells and shrinking cells and helping people who have cancer. So is that and is that again, to mitochondrial health, is that can you explain that?

Daniel Gana Talking about cannabis and mitochondrial health and stuff, you see the major thing is what message does this particular cannabinoid sending to the CB1 receptor on the surface of the mitochondrial. Now, if this mitochondria is found within the cancer cells, which we've be able to write something about in Bloom magazine, should be coming out soon enough by February we should have that out in print and we can give that a read. We discovered that cancer cells tend to hijack the endocannabinoid system and then they use the CB1 receptor to their advantage in the sense that they use it to grow bigger and then they tend to spread all over the place. Now when we introduce cannabinoids medicine, what it does, is it regulate this activity and then bring it back to normal. Now it recognizes that this CB1 receptor, is sending their own signals to these cells, causing them to grow and then a lot and spread all over the place. And then what it does is it begins to work with ion channels we about in another question and then the ion channels begins to shrink down these cells. Now when it finds the mitochondria not working or that is working outside the normalcy of what is supposed to do. It begins to shrink down the cells. But when he find the mitochondria are not working the way you ought to do, it's best to give it a particular boost. So I usually describe this as a endocannabinoid attack. Think of an agent comes to crime scene and then is strictly able to identify the criminals and then lock them up and then to find the good guys. So that's basically what happened. So, yes, when it shrinks the cancer cells it is part of mitochondria activation. And when test these mitochondria to reduce the production of these cells making the cells free from free agents is part of mitochondria. So it depends on what the cell bring before the cannabinoids introduced. So I hope I answer your question.

Kirk: Gentlemen, I'm very quickly looking at your web page. So right now, BioSource Botanicals has three products Active Spectrum Cold Sore Rescue, Active spectrum rest and relax tincture and Active Spectrum Relief Balm. So that's is that topical. Two products that are topical and one product is sublingual. So I guess I. How does cannabis absorbs through the skin? Like, does it absorb differently than if you put it under the tongue?

Daniel Gana Thinking about absorption, they tend to have different rates of absorption. I'm yet to do the research or read the research about that but, the most important thing, these receptors of this particular place. So it depends on the end product. What are you trying to treat? For example, we looking our product. We discovered that full spectrum, full plant botanicals tend to have better effects. So we're trying to formulate a compound or a product which can be applied skin to help get rid of blisters cold sores. Talking about systemic therapy. We are still waiting on more research to find the possible application for that and then explain what really happens when you take our products on its own and how it acts on these particular cells, but we are very short.  The absorption on the skin tends to be different. And then I can't really tell you the numbers of them by different form.

Dr. Abe Benavides: I can fill in some. I can chime in. So when I when I work on my patients and I told them about topicals, I told them they're really good at being locally absorbed, but pretty much very superficial local absorption. So what you're trying to target, there are more superficial type nerves, pains, wounds, blisters, infections kind of thing that you can apply to, but not really the. And if you put THC on, it's not going to get you high because it's not going to get absorbed well enough through into the bloodstream to make it and then be, you know, have cause psychoactive effects. And so and the thing I tell people about tinctures and tinctures are definitely the number one form of of cannabis product I recommend for bioavailability and also avoiding airway effect. So because when we when we and I do so I'll just give you the spiel I give my patients when we eat cannabis or cannabis products, we really only getting 6 to 19% at best of the cannabinoids absorbed through the gut because we are subjecting it to a very harsh digestive process. The stomach acid start breaking up all of this nice delicate acids, terpenes, things like that. And so you're left with very little to be absorbed through the rest of the body. So I never really use. I never recommend edibles are basically edibles are candy. I don't recommended candy either. And so with tinctures you're also avoiding the airway effect. So the absorption on inhaled products is like 30 to 40% bioavailability. With tincture, you're getting somewhere between the edible form and the inhaled form. So tinctures are the second fastest absorbed and second best absorbed as well. You'll get somewhere between 20 and 30 or 40% of the cannabinoids. And the way that you apply it also makes a difference. So I tell patients you're not just supposed to like put it in your drink or just swallow it right away. It's sublingual. So the idea is that you're going to shake the bottle, you're going to measure the amount. I'm going to tell you week by week, and then you're going to drop it under your tongue and you're going to hold it there for at least 1 or 2 minutes. It doesn't have to be longer, but the idea is that you're giving some time for the cannabinoids to be absorbed through those very thin membranes in the mouth. And then I'm struck the patient to when that's when after like two minutes, you're going to want to swish and swallow because the more contact you make with the inside of the mouth, the more that's also going to stay there, be absorbed, etc. And then so very little you're going to end up swallowing and getting that tiny bit left. But most of it we want to get absorbed through the mouth. You will have, you know, you'll have 30, you'll have 20 to 30% of the cannabinoids absorbed and distributing with within the first 15 minutes versus if you were to eat the cannabis edible, you will have to wait, you know, at least 60 to 90 minutes at best 30 if you had a nanoparticle formulation. But the tincture is going to be the best absorb. I also tell people to take it with food. It's easiest to take with breakfast, like right after breakfast and right after dinner is what I tell patients, because we want the your body's already being primed for absorption, including absorption of fats. And so essentially what we want is we want the cannabinoids to hitch a ride on the fat and then into the body. And so the studies, the pharmacokinetic studies show that when you eat or when you in just cannabis on a full stomach versus an empty stomach, you get 3 to 5 times the bioavailability out of it. And so what I so this is part of the education process where I tell people about why bioavailability is important and then why we are choosing these certain routes and why that edible what that dose is not going to work for you and why we need to switch to to tincture.

Kirk: Brent, you had something to add.

Brent Ristow: Yeah. Sorry. I just. Just commenting on the products. Yeah. The Active Spectrum Cold Sore Rescue. That's the herpes rescue. It works on contact. It neutralizes the virus.  Accelerates healing. The other Active Spectrum Relief Balm that is more for pain relief for pain relief. But these products just coming on the market we do have obviously anecdotal evidence with people using them with great success. Abe's had some experience using them with some patients with great success. We're just trying to also, you know, go through the rigorous process of providing some scientific evidence to back up everything that we're saying and hopefully kind of provide some direction for the industry in really maintaining quality of the products. Because right now it is so unregulated. Here in Minnesota, it's just absolute chaos currently. And hopefully they'll get that straightened out. But we're going through the rigorous scientific process of demonstrating the quality and effectiveness of these products, and hopefully the industry will see that and follow suit. That's hopefully the direction that it's going to move. I mean people, not to talk about an industry that might not be totally relevant, but cigarettes are tested to match. Right? Pharmaceuticals, medical devices obviously are. Even cigarettes are tested before they go out into the marketplace. Just having some kind of availability for the cannabis industry to be able to test the quality of these on a regular basis would be, I think, an ideal direction for the industry to move in regards to self-regulation.  And that's one thing I really like about working with BioSource Botanicals is that that is their entire mindset. They want to deliver the highest quality, highest effectiveness products into the market.

Kirk: Wonderful. I've sort of ticked off my boxes of questions. Sort of moving to the end here. Is there any questions we did not ask you that you expected from us? Is there any knowledge you want to share that we didn't touch on?

Dr. Abe Benavides: I guess one of the thing is that we're talking about the mitochondrial thing. And this is kind of this is a new idea of mitochondrial dysfunction. And how that is essential to, well, it is a forming theory about how that's essential to chronic and neurodegenerative diseases. So the I guess our idea is that by having as many natural cannabinoids and terpenoids and flavonoid components as possible, along with the other good stuff that's in there, we can target mitochondria better and hopefully take on more of a preventative role than treat, just treat the sick people role. So hopefully it can be part of people's overall wellness and you know, with projections of like dementia being like a risk of like two and five now after age 55, the demand and need for addressing that concern is going to be is already quite strong. It's going to only get stronger. And so I'm really excited to see how the science goes with these.

Brent Ristow: I'll just that I guess the one thing that I was curious about was your guy's perception or perspective on market regulation, self regulation, government regulation, anything like that. Just to ensure quality and consistent. I want the consumer to be able to purchase whatever the consumer wants to purchase, whether it's scientific or recreational. It doesn't really matter to me. But just having some thought about quality in the marketplace, I was curious about your guy’s perception on that.

Kirk: Well, I mean, we're health care professionals. I mean, we're exploring a medicine that is so foreign to our own intuition of knowledge. I mean, we were Trevor and I were taught that medicines, you know, he often says one substance, one element, and cannabis is this huge thing. So quality, of course, I mean, I as a nurse, I look at the social science, so I'm really curious and how people use cannabis medicinally recreationally and also the stigma of it. So yeah, to answer your question in a roundabout way, of course we're interested in quality. It's good that we have a legal marketplace in Canada so people can buy legal weed knowing what's in it as opposed to the silver gray market that's been around forever. People buying weed from people that, you know, you've known forever and you know that they're doing a good product. But from a consumer's basis, we don't know what's in that product. So I guess as a nurse, I'm about the quality and I'm interested in BioSource Botanicals because you guys are you guys are taking a little different than you're really focusing on the acid form and mitochondrial health, that that's what sparked my interest. But of course, you know, understanding weed deep enough to know that your consumption isn't going to harm you, so enjoy your consumption, but try to do it respectfully and try to do it responsibly. I don't know if I answered your question Brent, but that's sort of our premise is that we're looking at cannabis as health professionals. We do have masters as, as Dr. Abe has discovered. Sometimes the masters come up, go, what are you doing? So, so we have to be able to demonstrate that I'm applying nursing practice to my research of cannabis. So I hope I answered your question.

Brent Ristow: Yeah, yeah, you did. And that's kind of what I was thinking. Like, there's kind of two perceptions of the cannabis industry. One is of treating it just like the pharmaceutical industry where you're chopping up the plant and these individual chemicals and then going on to synthesize them and industrial scale or farming and isolating at an industrial scale, but then isolate, processing them, isolating them and then mixing them up individually, that that's the classic pharmaceutical model of drug development and discovery. And in that sense, then you have labs doing quality, you know, residual solvents and purities degradation, and you're doing long term storage studies to determine degradation of that kind of to determine quality of that. That's the classic pharmaceutical model of it. And eventually, in my mind, the United States is going to move towards kind of like in Minnesota, you might have a lab that does testing. You send your product there, it's tested, you get some certification and you're allowed to then continue into the market. But I would prefer like the other idea of it instead of the old pharmaceutical model is the botanical model. The natural model where you extract from the plants, you formulate your products, you're doing it in a controlled environment. You're you're meeting certain quality standards in that sense. So you're mirroring the pharmaceutical industry in that sense. But then you send your products for testing and then you release. I mean, these are food products, these are natural compounds. That's what I would like to see. But myself, I wouldn't buy anything from a marketer of a CBD or cannabis product that didn't have a CofA, or wasn't just openly disclosing their processes and methodologies. And that's why I really like what Bob has set up at BioSource Botanicals is just fully open, disclosing all of that and really trying to be rigorous with the quality and research. But that's what I would like to see people do in the industry. But, you know, the market will drive itself there eventually, I think.

Kirk: No, I agree with that. And we have interviewed Big Pharma and it is fascinating to get deep down in how big pharma views cannabis, because think about it. I mean, think about the poor doctor sitting there. And if you know a little bit about cannabis or you know a lot about. You got a medicine, a raw form of a flower, depending on where you pick the flower on the plant, depending on the soil the plant was built in, depending on the, you know, the cultivar of the plant, you'll get these cannabinoids. Now, depending on when you harvest the plant, did you harvest the plant young? Did you harvest the plant old? So I can see how Western medicine goes what are we doing with this plant medicine. Right.

Brent Ristow: Because yeah, it's. But it makes sense. Anybody who's ever drink a glass of wine knows that wine cultivated in different elevations and areas and soils have different things that taste different. You know, that's just what is expected.

Kirk: Just think about water tasting water in Victoria versus tasting water in Dauphin. The water we drink taste differently. And I can remember being a young man growing up on the west coast of British Columbia with some of the best water in the world, apparently. Right. And drinking it and learning that water tastes differently. Going well, how does water taste differently? And of course, you just have to travel the world to figure out the water tastes differently. So, no, it's a fascinating plant. And I, too, like the fact that you go onto the BioSource Botanical web page and all your research is there. You're transparent in what you're providing. And, you know, that's why we're going to move people that way, are our listeners, you know. So, yeah, I appreciate your question about our view of it, but also we're also asking recreational cannabis users, what do they get from cannabis? So it's a fascinating plant. It truly is.

Brent Ristow: Yes, absolutely. And they're working with BioSource Botanicals is honestly, like I said, I spent some time about a decade in the pharmaceutical industry and I was a graduate professor, a graduate researcher at UW Stout, just a graduate faculty member. And that was always my mentality that you can take these small molecules and, you know, chop up the plant and isolate a molecule, deliver it into the system and get an effect. But when you the pharmaceutical industry, you watch TV at night, you see all the disclaimers. You stick a small molecules into a complex. The human body has trillions and trillions and trillions of chemical reactions taking place right now. That's an incredibly complex system. And you dump one single molecule into that system that is not native to it and you will imbalance that system. And bad things happen. And they're just they just want you to just be right above the threshold of acceptance of the bad stuff. And that's what they think of you out there in the pharmaceutical world, its tragic.

Kirk: I always say doctors practice medicine, and if I have a slightly elevated blood pressure, I'll be put on to a pharmaceutical to control the blood pressure. But then clients don't realize that that pill comes with its own side effects. So you may be controlling blood pressure, but you might be affecting your ability to climb a mountain, you know? So, yeah, so it's the pharmaceutical industry. I mean, it saved my life with antibiotics. Thank you very much. But there are there are medicines out there, medicines out there that. I don't know. I mean, I think I've come to understand that cannabis. I think cannabis should be moved into a class 1 or 2 when it comes to pain management. I've seen and felt cannabis helping with pain. So but the pharmaceutical company is not going to move forward until companies like yourselves come out with the research and evidence that it's working.

Brent Ristow: Yeah, that's what's so difficult is, you know, getting the funding for the research and getting the research done. It's incredibly difficult because it's almost like the snake oil salesman in the Old West movies and the back of the wagon, that's kind of the industry right now. People are just chopping stuff up. Not that there's not good operators out there I don't want to disparage an entire industry. There's obviously good operators, but you see a lot of the madness out there where people are just cobbling stuff together in the back of their wagon and trying to get you to ingest it. And it's that's dangerous. So that's what I like about BioSource is exactly what you said there. That's not their mentality. They're spending a lot of time and effort to build a high quality team to get this research done and, you know, help drive these health products forward.

Dr. Abe Benavides: I've been on board the whole plant extracts well before I met Bob and the rest of the team. As I was doing all of my research, writing and my medical reviewing. The chemicals and Oracle, I had found that the whole plant extract is the way to go. Isolates have such a little activity and so I started using that with my patients and just got much better results than when they try that horrible gas station CBD or this isolate or this other stuff. And sometimes people just, it's lack of education people take it once, think it's supposed to give them immediate effects. And I tell them no, really got to do twice daily for a couple reasons. Got to keep up with it. Support your endocannabinoid system, change these receptors that are really resistant, really stubborn to change.  Just have the CBD and the other cannabinoids build up in your system so that over time you'll just feel better. And so it's a long term thing. Some people ask me if I'm going to be on this forever, you know, and that I'm like, Well, it depends on the condition you have. If you have a chronic condition, then it's probably going to be maintenance. If it was that you broke your arm and you just need a little more THC for a while, that's a totally different story. But, you know, it depends. You really got to understand where people are coming from and their preferences. And that's that's part of the beauty of my work.

Kirk:  Daniel

Daniel Gana Yeah, well, I don't have any questions for you. I just want the people to know that we are producing more and more information on educational content every week. We want them to go to our website and see what we are on to every week.  See what's new information have for them. One good thing about whole plant botanicals is the fact that we we believe the hemp plant has an energy. The hemp plant is coming with an energy. We don't really want to break off that energy. We want to transfer that energy to the receptors and then just get those energies to our cells and then make sure everything works appropriately in our bodies. That's where we are promoting the acidic cannabinoids. They are faster. They are more natural. And then it's almost impossible to have these manufactured in the laboratory. It is almost impossible to have the entirety, the unique combination of this plant to have them manufactured. Obviously, we don't want to play God with this plant. We want to use it the way nature intended. We want to make sure we have every molecule that it exists in the plant and then transport it to our bottles and from our bottles down to your mouth or to the skin and then from there to the receptors so we can have the maximum benefits of these plants. I look forward to see more people asking us questions about our work. Ask questions about what we do and then within our website to see what we're on to. And we are very transparent and we will love to see people interested in trying out our products in terms of clinical trials. In terms of lot of things we are open to seeing people trying it out. To see these claims that we have. Not just coming in because we want to sell a product, because we want to see people, because we tell them. We want to see people who have got mitochondria activated. We want to see people have their health back on us. Thank you.

Kirk: Thank you very much, gentlemen.  I appreciate meeting you all and I hope to meet you in the future.

Brent Ristow: Thank you, guys.

Thank you, Kirk and Trevor