Transcript Below:
Rick: Welcome to the Tuesday webinar series, Chiropractic Economics webinar for doctors for chiropractic. I’m Rick Vach, Editor-In-Chief of Chiropractic Economics. Today’s webinar, “The Human Body is Designed for CBD,” is sponsored by TruGen3. And as always, our program is being recorded, will be archived at Chiropractic Economics website, www.chiroeco.com/webinar for one year. Our expert is on board here today to speak with you. And when his presentation is complete, we will follow with a Q&A period. You can submit questions throughout the presentation by clicking on the appropriate icon on the right side of your screen. Our presenter today is Dr. Chris Meletis. He is an independent clinical educator for TruGen3, an international author and lecturer. His personal mission is “Changing the world’s health one person at a time.” He believes that when people become educated about their bodies, is the moment when positive change begins. He is widely recognized as a world-renowned expert on the science of CBD and has authored 16 books and over 200 national scientific articles in such journals and magazines as Natural Health, alternative and Complementary Therapies, Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, Life Extension, and the Journal of Restorative Medicine. Dr. Meletis served as dean of naturopathic medicine and Chief Medical Officer for seven years at NUNM, the oldest naturopathic medical school in North America. He has received numerous awards including the Prestigious Position of the Year Award by the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians. Excellent awards for his work in treating and advocating for the medically underserved and most recently, the NUNM Hall of Fame Award. Dr. Meletis, thank you for taking the time to participate in our webinar and for sharing your expertise with CBD and helping our audience get a better understanding of as many are describing as a miracle drug. Before we get started, Dr. Meletis, can you please give us a brief background of yourself and your work with TruGen3?
Dr. Meletis: Well, certainly. Well, welcome, everyone. I’ve been very honored to work with TruGen3. Throughout my presentation today, you will see there’s gonna be numerous articles offered via the TruGen family, relative to articles I’ve written, including the peer-reviewed journal article that came out in June of 2019 about the endocannabinoidome. So, I’m an educator and I love educating and allowing all of us as clinicians, we all learn from one another. And so my goal today is to share what we can do about CBD in clinical practice in terms of implementation and what we need to know because not all CBD is created equal. And I think the most frustrating thing for us as clinicians and also for our patients is when intended protocol doesn’t work. So, today we’re going to talk about pain, inflammation, anxiety, fatigue, and adrenal support, interestingly enough. But you’re seeing, adrenal support CBD, well, we’re going to tease all of that out today relative to the peer-reviewed literature because it’s nice to know where the science is.
So, we all know that we probably weren’t taught this, that the human body has an endocannabinoid system. So, endo, of course, like endogenous, cannabinoid system. These are CB1 and CB2 receptors, and we’re going to tease out some other receptors today because there’s so much virgin information. And actually, the 17th book I’m working on right now as a CBD primer on the endocannabinoid system and what we need to know as clinicians. The activation of either CB1 or CB2 receptors within our body, which all of our bodies have it. If you have a cat or dog, they have these receptors too. All mammals do. But we didn’t know this until 1992. Like, we thought we knew everything. Wasn’t it the patent office back in the 1800s thought they were going to have to shut down because there’s nothing else to discover? Once again, we as clinicians know there’s so much more to the picture than what we currently know and we have to stay humble as we continue to learn. So, the CB2 receptors suppress pain response. And think about who comes to our practice. They’re sick and tired and they got pain. They’re tired, and they’re worn out. And we know like neuropathic pain, inflammation, these are all things which are true nemesis to the modern lifestyle. Whether you’ve been sitting in front of the computer mouse in too long or been working on subluxations all day long, even your body is getting worn out. But even the aspect of practice, even before you see a patient, the business side of practice is challenging. The hustle and bustle of family life and what I remember back in the ’90s is, “Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?” We now suffer from excess connectivity as well. So, all of this barrage is causing something called the endocannabinoid deficiency. So, just like you’d be deficient in vitamin D, hormone deficient, adrenal insufficient, well, our bodies actually need this endocannabinoid system to regulate many aspects of our health and not just our pain. In fact, there’s a circadian rhythm. We know about melatonin being higher at night. We know about cortisol being highest in the morning. Well, the endocannabinoid system actually plays a role in the brain regulation of many hormone pathways. But remember, we didn’t even know this existed in 1990. We were working around this totally ignoring this whole entire pathway. Well, if I succeed today in educating you on the simple aspects of how you can implement this in your clinical practice, I’ve succeeded.
So, we make two substances every day in our body, anandamide, and which, of course, is much easier to say than arachi-donylethanolamide, and the 2-arachidonylglycerol, known as 2-AG, but just remember anandamide and 2-AG. And these are naturally created substances. You just made some. I just made some. We all made some. You have a cat or a dog by your feet, they just made some. But we didn’t even know this existed. But this presence of this pathway is intriguing. But now we know cannabis sativa or cannabis Indica are able to also switch on these natural endogenous pathways. So, it’s intriguing to see that we have this system, but we’re going to get back to this endocannabinoid deficiency. Our patients coming in worn out and inable or unable to actually support their pathways optimally, much like adrenal fatigue. So, a glimpse at the innate power of that ECS, the endocannabinoid system is it actually works for the same receptors as opioids that control pain, but in an indirect fashion. So, there’s gonna be lots of articles that I’m going to reference, many of which I’ve written, and those will all be available for you at the end of this presentation. There’ll be an email address where you can ask for these. And I encourage you to read through these because we want to know the science and all these heavily referenced articles, but you’ll see in this title, endocannabinoid, phytocannabinoids, and the palmitoylethanolamide and their fascinating role in pain. And so once again, endocannabinoids, we make them, phytocannabinoids, once again, from hemp, CBD. Great example of that. And even other substances our body makes like palmitoylethanolamide, great for neuropathic pain, but we have to nurture this pathway because like we’re worn out and we often dread, “Oh, no, another Monday.” And we say, “TGIF, thank goodness it’s Friday.” But the reality is, why are you wishing away the whole week for Friday and the weekend, we need to be feeling great and thriving throughout the week, and not just surviving. So, us and our patients, we need to focus on that. I’m gonna say and the research is very clear. You see lots of references at the bottom of my slides that will tell you, it’s actually being studied and it’s been known now for a long time by the PhDs and the big researchers around the world, but we only as clinicians now are seeing this, but we’re faced with questions all day long from our patients. What about CBD? Well, once again, is it truly CBD not CBD? Just recently I came across this CBD product because I work in this industry a lot and it was acid. And it was acid, was believed to be 500 milligrams of CBD. The acid, the whole container, there’s only five milligrams. What do you mean five milligrams? I thought the bottle said 500 milligrams. That’s true, but it wasn’t, once again, what was represented. We have to ensure that we are calling through and ensuring label claims. And when it comes to an expensive practice working within our system, we have to make sure it’s the right one.
Once again, all of these articles that you’re gonna see me pop up on the screen will be available for you at the end of this presentation to request. So, sick and tired of being sick and tired. That’s why our patients come to us. Every day our patients arrive fatigue, anxious, they’re in pain, they’re inflamed, and lots of guys reach a point their adrenal burnout, their adrenal fatigue. Indeed, that is often the case because once again, access connectivity, but also, they are often suffering from an endocannabinoid deficiency. And it’s like, okay, well, that must be a fad thing, right? This must be a made-up term. But the answer is no, it’s not, and we’re gonna go through that as well today. So what happens if there’s more than adrenal fatigue? So, you got the low cortisol levels throughout the day. This person as we see have low adrenal function at noon in the evening, so they’re tired, they’re dragging through, they eat out lunch, they get a little spike, and then they start dropping again. And they’re flat-lining. And they’re wired for 7 in the morning, they’re go, go, go, and then they’re, like, just barely existing. Life is meant for more than that. So, we want to address, of course, adrenal function, but what about addressing the endocannabinoid system at the same time to address pain, to address inflammation? And that’s the nature of the beast.
So, the endocannabinoid system can also help mitigate anxiety. It was actually discovered about six years ago during the summer that people were more anxious and depressed in the middle of the summer. And usually we think the holiday season and Thanksgiving, the winter Solstice and holiday season, but now we’re seeing people are worn out and indeed, the endocannabinoid system plays a role here. Remember anandamide? That’s one of our endocannabinoids. When it becomes lower, you’re more anxious. You also have less healing of the brain, less neurogenesis, and you actually trigger the hypothalamic-pituitary axis, is causing a whole cascade of events to occur. And once again, we see increase 2-AG, the other endocannabinoid, and we see changes in brain function, neural plasticity. So, with the increased cortisol from stress, there’s an increase in 2-AG short term, but it’s like sprinting, you can only sprint for so long. Like chronic stress is associated and characterized with sustained reduction in the levels of anandamide. Ananda means bliss in Sanskrit. So, blissful. Once again, think of Winnie-the-Pooh with a pot of honey. Once again, this is where you want to be. You don’t want to be Eeyore and at the same time, if you’ve been running like Tigger, go, go, go, you can only do that for a period of time. So, chronic stress is associated with reduced level of CB1 and the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) in the brain. So, you’re saying, “Hmm. So, the CB1 receptor, once again, is designed for the endocannabinoid system that can also be regulated by CBD from hemp.” Actually, is altering that glucocorticoid receptors, but we were never taught that in school, but once again, now we know that when you’re treating the adrenals and you’re treating pain, you’re treating patients with insomnia imbalances in their overall hormonal well-being. We want to look at the endocannabinoid system.
So here, 2014, clinical endocannabinoid deficiency and neuro-endocrinology letters. Okay. So, this is actually out of PubMed, and they’re actually talking about an endocannabinoid deficiency. I told you I didn’t make it up. And once again, it makes sense clinically. We’ve been in the field a long time, I’ve been doing it for 27 years. And every once a while, I come across like, “Oh, if I had only known that five years ago for that patient, I could have done so much more.” What they found and they propose cannabis and endocannabinoid deficiency, migraines, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, and other treatment-resistant conditions. If the cup is empty, you can’t extinguish the fire, you can’t, once again, water the garden that truly is the cells in the body. And one of the articles which I’m going to reference as we go through is my 2019, a peer-reviewed journal article off PubMed, which speaks also about the endocannabinoidome. So, we know about microbiome. What we now know that endocannabinoid system naturally or the use of CBD alters our microbiome in our gut, and there’s a correlation there which we’ll chat about as well. So, if you look at where the endocannabinoid system is working or for many of your patients because they keep on coming back, and we’re trying to figure out and we’re going to our toolbox and trying to figure out, “Okay. What can we do next?” Have we addressed their endocannabinoid system, whether it be their brain, the nose, the oral cavity, gastrointestinal tract, the secretion of ghrelin, nutrient absorption, pancreatic function, liver, skeletal muscle? Anyone wonder why they’re not healing? Adipose tissue. Once again, we’re worn out and we always used to blame that on cortisol, merely cortisol, that midriff wait. Could there be an endocannabinoid relationship there where there’s a relative deficiency? I beg the question, the literature begs the question, and I think clinically, we know there’s been a missing piece of the puzzle as Paul Harvey would have said, “The rest of the story.”
So, when we look at the endocannabinoid deficiency symptoms, once again, migraines, we see that all the time. I thought that was just tyramine-rich foods, that cheese is a fermented foods, Salamis are foods that are known to trigger migraines. That’s part of it. It could be a cervical atlas access issue. It could be TMJ. It could be a vascular issue going on with the patient. But once again, it can also be an endocannabinoid insufficiency knowing that the endocannabinoid pathway is designed to control pain and designed to control inflammation and also regulate the immune system to a large degree. But also irritable bowel syndrome. We have so many receptors within our GI tract. We know we make about 70% of our serotonin or happy brain chemical in the GI tract. We know about 70% to 80% of our immune system is in our GI tract. Well, is it any surprise that we have inflammatory CB1, CB2 regulatory pathways via the endocannabinoids and CBD in our GI tract? No. But when we… And neither has ever had an upset tummy, we know our brain’s a mess. Stomach flu, you think the world’s going to end, because, once again, the gut-brain connection.
But remember, our kitty cats and our dogs make it too. The endocannabinoid system is seemingly ubiquitous. What other term do we hear of ubiquitous? Ubiquinone, ubiquinol. Well, that’s call CoQ10, right? Because they’re… It’s called Q10s all over the environment. Well, likewise, endocannabinoid systems, ubiquitous in animals and is modulated by diet, sleep, exercise, stress, and a multitude of other factors. So, we hear the term epigenetics and we say, “This might affect your genes.” Well, your genes actually control your endocannabinoid system too. So, if your diet, your sleep, your stress levels, your exercise also are helping regulate the endocannabinoid system, so the same advice we give our patients is sleep well, to exercise, to be mindful, attitude of gratitude, all these things, and nourish their body is also helping support the endocannabinoid system. But when the battery is run down and you can’t turn over your car, then you know you need some help and you need to have that jumpstart to support the body. And if you can’t get out of that chronic stress or pattern, this is where you have that constant nudge along the way, and modulates activity of the system through tremendous therapeutic promise. So, there’s a lot of conditions, mental health conditions. I actually have a Vietnam vet which were using CBD for his post-traumatic stress, lots of research on it. Neurological problems, movement disorders, pain, and one of my Parkinson’s patients is using CBD, autoimmune conditions, spinal cord injuries, and also very important, traumatic brain injuries. So, once again, we know that the body wants to heal, but the inflammatory process after traumatic brain injury is once again pervasive and we need to look at that.
Once again, as you can see here at 2019 a reference in the peer reviewed literature to exactly what we’re talking about, including cardiometabolic disease, heart disease. So, is all these connectivity and stress, in part, being driven by inflammation which is then driving heart disease and other what’s called inflame aging, inflammation-driven aging, inflame aging? The answer is yes. And here’s just merely a simple example. The pathways are simple, the receptors are simple. You don’t have to remember all of these. But if you want to go into the weeds, so to speak, you can know where AEA, which is, of course, anandamide, the abbreviation for a long biochemical word, and how it can affect CB1 receptors or 2-AG, CB2 receptors. So, there’s some crossover there. It’s not so limited, but also, there’s enzymes that break these down. There’s enzymes that break down your fats called lipase. There’s enzymes that break down your protein called protease. Well, of course, there’s enzymes that break down these natural substances your body makes, because once again, the body is designed with some innate intelligence at a phenomenal level. So, we’re in a world of pain. Chronic pain, of course, is so pervasive. It’s the bread and butter for almost all clinicians these days because people are sick and tired of being sick and tired and they hurt. And you think about a generation or two ago and the farmers were out there doing their thing and they were all working hard. They didn’t have quite as many problems. Either that or they didn’t complain. But I would argue that we have created an environment of being overfed, undernourished, not sleeping well enough, and being barraged.
We all remember the day when if you weren’t at home, the phone would ring, there was no such thing as the answer machine. Definitely no texts to get back to, no social media to get back to, no constant barrage. We were once again more connected with nature, and if you remember the Japanese term, forest bathing. This is where you go in nature and you just commune, but there’s no technology with you. You’re just literally there and you’re present. While we now know that with chronic pain, we see things IV and depression kicked up and they have poor quality of life. Even with pain control, they’re not doing so well. Population-based estimates of chronic pain amongst U.S. adults range from 11 to 40% with considerable population subgroup variation. But that’s a huge number. That’s millions of people that need our help, that need to be supported with good diet, lifestyle, and conceivably some endocannabinoid support.
So anandamide, remember, that is the Sanskrit word for bliss. All is good. It’s like Winnie-the-Pooh with a pot of honey. Things are great when you have sufficient anandamide and you’re supporting the body with good diet and lifestyle and sustainability, so we’re not just surviving but we’re thriving. So, it was a first endocannabinoid that was isolated from porcine brain and its structure was identified. And it actually affects not just a CB1, or CB2 receptor, it affects PPAR pathways. You might be using things like Oregon grape for PPAR pathways, you might be using another herb for PPAR pathway. Certain drugs use the PPAR pathway. Or maybe the TRPV1 pathway. So, one thing we know about CB1 and CB2, but these natural substances have so many other pathways that affect the COX and the locks and psychologically lipoxygenase pathways. And also are metabolized via the liver. Lots of people ask, “Well, how is CBD metabolized?” Well, it’s metabolized through the liver and as a result, it goes through the cytochrome 450 pathway or the CYP, 2A1 or other pathways like that to be metabolized because, once again, it was designed in our body and our body has a design to process it and excrete it through the body. And so, once again, looking at these pathways, but it is ultimately about homeostasis. We all know the term entropy. That is the tendency for the universe to move towards chaos. But our body has exerted phenomenal amount of energy to maintain wellness. We know that the human body makes nitric oxide. In fact, the half-life of nitric oxide which we get from citrulline, arginine or beets is three to five seconds, so that’s one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, it’s used up. ATP. A 30-year-old makes about 65 kilograms of ATP per day. That’s 143 pounds of ATP being made and recycled constantly within the body to get through a 24-hour cycle. Why and when did we start thinking, well, we’re having the same problem with our endocannabis? We can only make so much of it to deal with so much of the modern chaos. We are a guinea pig society never having lived such helter-skelter lives, never so much with 4G soon to be 5G, with a wireless connectivity, the GMOs and all these things were being barraged harder than ever before and we’re more disconnected from nature and the things that we need. So, we’re outside the Goldilocks zone. We’re having excess firing, we’re having more endocannabinoids being released. But you can only do that so long because you can only sprint for so long. We weren’t designed for these kinds of days, and it’s, once again, a human experiment.
But we all know our patients come in and they’ve got pain, unresolved pain. And remember, all of these slides will be available. Some of these slides will be great educational tools for your patients, validating them, “Hey, yeah, you are anxious. Yeah, you don’t feel like much is going to happen with your life. You can’t concentrate. You can’t work as much as you used to. And once again, you’re tired. Maybe you’re not driving, so you got in another accident. MVA on top of your initial pain.” And just becomes a vicious catch-22 where that proverbial Murphy’s Law and once again, it’s in the medical literature, the consequences of pain and why it’s so important for us to come up with new tools or in this case, an old tool that our body’s been making all the way along, but we’re so adrenal and endocannabinoid deficient, we need to give that heroic effort to say, “I’m going to help support that pathway to start yielding some dividends.” But once again, when you’re in pain, good luck trying to sleep. Sleep restoration. First four letters of restoration or healing is rest. But how can you sleep when you’re in pain? Left side, right side, back, neck is hurting, jaw is hurting. Whatever it may be. So, once again, the challenge is to break that cycle and allow our patients to really support themselves in a fundamental way.
This is actually a great little graphic from a 2019 neuropsychopharmacology review showing the endocannabinoids in our bloodstream as an analgesic. Once again, not making this stuff up. But once again, also how it affects all kinds of other pathways, nitric oxide signaling, the hypothalamic pituitary. So, you get the sense of things. And even the dopamine pathways. Dopamines are bliss in our contentment, so anandamide is bliss, or dopamine is too, but now we are helping the neuroendocrine pathway, just like the anandamide and 2-AG and endocannabinoid system. We have all these natural hormones and they all have this interplay. And when one becomes low, the other one gets to carry a heavier load or itself gets dragged down by insufficiency within the body. So, this is an article I wrote. It is my peer review article that came out in June of 2019. The important role of the endocannabinoid system and the endocannabinoidome. We all know as our gut goes, so do we. But I tie in the inflammatory side of things. And once again, these articles will be made available to you. But once again, the microbiome, we know, probiotics, probiotics, probiotics, kind of old school for us. Now, we also know about the mitochondria becoming useful for us, but we also know it’s critical. But the endocannabinoid system affects the microbiome, so how can you treat a microbiome if the endocannabinoid system may be deficient or insufficient? Good question.
So, we have these receptors throughout the body that we’re gonna spent a lot of time on this. There’s another webinar I gave that goes into this a little bit deeper that’s also on Chiropractic Economics and also available on the TruGen site that speaks about CB1 and CB2 receptors, but they’re throughout the body and they’re not limited. We used to think that CB1 or CB2 were only central nervous system or only peripheral tissues. Now we know they cross over into a multifunctional modulating pathways. And a simple picture of, once again, FAAH, Fatty Acid High Relays breaks down anandamide. That’s the enzyme. Likewise, 2-AG is broken down by MAGL to break it down. But once again, you’re breaking it down, you have to make more. Breaking it down, gotta make more. But if you’re saying, “Where’s the bucket of water, you got to put out the fire?” eventually this pathway starts getting strained. No different than if you were to take a pen and go click, click, click all day long. Short term you can click but eventually you’re gonna stop clicking because you can only sustain that function for X period of time without needing some support. So, CBD interacts with the endocannabinoid system. CBD is also interesting because it can affect overall levels of endocannabinoids in the brain referred to as the endocannabinoid tone. So, let’s ponder that for a moment. Endocannabinoid tone. So, we have deficiency or muscle tone. We look at, of course, tendon reflexes, we look at radiating from one to four. How good is that tone? We’re looking at all these different aspects of tone, but what about our endocannabinoid tone? CBD inhibits the FAAH. And what does FAAH do? Remember, it breaks down anandamide which is our bliss.
So, CBD can conserve anandamide. We’re in the Benjamin Franklin category, a penny saved is a penny earned. So, I’ll take anandamide all day long because that’s made by the body, so no question. It’s bio-identical. But if CBD can actually support anandamides conservation, isn’t that wonderful? But CBD does other things as well. You can increase anandamide levels by preventing FAAH from breaking down, but inhibiting the FAAH enzyme has been shown to be a useful strategy for treating anxiety, also post-traumatic stress, and it’s the ability to actually allow for that cambial feeling all as well in the world because, once again, this is part of CBD. Remember, CBD is not psychoactive. It’s not just making you think things are better, it’s actually trying to bring your body back into your homeostasis. So, once again, our whole goal as holistic functional medicine providers and as providers across the board is to empower the body to do what it already knows how to do, but somehow along the way got lost in the journey. So, once again, the breakdown of FAAH and MAG for the breakdown products, just a little review. And once again, they’re breaking down right now that are FAAH, are anandamide, and 2-AG are being broken down. How are we rebuilding them? Once again, diet, lifestyle, sleep. And we’ll see and CBD can come into play here to support modern dilemma of helter-skelter.
And when we treat the brain, we treat the pain because if we didn’t have a brain, we wouldn’t feel the pain from a perception perspective. And anxiety is a biochemical process. It’s real. A lot of people say, “It’s all in my head.” No, actually, it’s a physiological effect. There is biochemistry in anxiety. And with stress happening, which of course, we’re in a constant state of it, and even you stress which is good stress, like getting that mortgage is right neck and neck with actually foreclosure on your home. If you look at the homes rate stress chart, adding a new person to your family including a baby. This is actually a stressor, a good stressor, but it’s a stressor. And as you can see here, the CB1 receptors and CRHR1 receptors. And once again, the effect on stress. This is a journal in gastroenterology talking about that stress response. And many of us know irritable bowel syndrome is worse with stress. And the more your bowels are messed up, the more you’re stressed. Once again that vicious catch-22. And the endocannabinoid system and anxiety. The endocannabinoid system suppresses activity, a hypothalamic pituitary pathway via distinct actions within the prefrontal cortex. Remember that prefrontal cortex in our teen years where we couldn’t make very good decisions and that’s why we don’t drive until we’re 16 and you don’t get to do certain things until you’re 18 or 21, and nobody really wants to rent you a car until you’re 25 when that prefrontal cortex is developed. Well, the endocannabinoid system plays a role, and not only that, but amygdala, hypothalamus, and hippocampus and the GABAergic and other neuro-imbalances. GABA is calming.
So, once again, we want to support those pathways and bring peace and harmony into the brain world. There’s 100 billion neurons. And remember, neuro-plasticity is important. If you have brain inflammation, neuro-plasticity is not going to be as healthy or as robust. And the fact is, on a healthy day, we lose about 86,400 brain cells per day. So, we want to, once again, create an environment and a garden in our brain in our tissues which are robust and healthy that will germinate and actually yield a greater yield long-term of the garden of ourselves. PTSD likes symptoms include exaggerated reactivity to innocuous cues, avoidance behaviors. And once again, PTSD and the cortisol pathway comes into play, but so does the endocannabinoid system. And so we want to support that endocannabinoid system while we’re supporting the adrenal glands so that, once again, a penny saved is a penny earned. And so when we look at the CB1 receptors involved with both memory, consolidation and extinction, we, once again, see the CB1 receptors, CB lignans, and once again, even a tie into the mitochondria which is another article I’m writing right now of how the endocannabinoids and CBD can also help with the mitochondria which are, once again, were produced at the age of 30, 65 kilograms, 143 pounds per day. But for every decade past that, so now in your 40, you’re 10% lower on ATP yield, all things being equal, 50-year-old patient, 20%, and likewise. You see that accumulation. So, obviously, we see this ripple effect even energy production let alone when you’re in pain, you’re exerting energy just existing and trying to ignore the pain.
When it comes to migraines, they’ve actually looked at over excitation as one of the ways in which we get trigeminal vascular systems and glutamate release. Of course, remember Dorito chips and MSG Top Ramen noodles and all those things’ not good. They’re neuro-excitatory and that’s something you want to give to your migraine patients or honestly anybody in my opinion. But serotonins have also been shown to be depressed in patient with migraines. When they looked at the endocannabinoids and the CB1 and CB2 receptors and saying, “We can mitigate this.” And so, once again, that’s the nature of our conversation today, not the top conversation on marijuana price. That brings a whole another dilemma of that psychoactive and legality side of things. We’re talking about purely CBD with no measurable THC is my ideal. So my patients don’t have to worry about anything regarding the THC or the psychoactive effect unless they’re actually actively pursuing that for other reasons or other therapies. So, once again, the endocannabinoid system, the CB1 and CB2 receptors and migraines. Once again, who would know? Now, are you going to still want them to avoid their overripe cheeses, overripe fruits, and so forth? Yeah, of course. Avoid other substances that might trigger the migraine but we are looking to bring balance into the body. And so there’s actually quite a bit of research, and once again, this article will be available on pain inflammation and stress, and how the cannabinoid rich-hemp oils can actually support that. And you’ll see reference after reference after reference in this journal article as well.
So, then we get to helping control runaway inflammation. And they looked at the Vice President Research at the University of South Carolina and they’re talking about how tweaking the endocannabinoid system can help with treating inflammation, and I quote, “Most of our research demonstrates that endocannabinoids are produced upon activation of immune cells and may help regulate the immune response by activating anti-inflammatory agents, thus interventions that manipulate the metabolism of production of endocannabinoids may serve as a novel treatment modality against a wide range of inflammatory diseases, whether it be traumatic brain, musculoskeletal issues, even endometriosis as evidence on CBD having a place as a tool and the overall picture helping that patient on their journey. And on top of it, when we look at things like kynurenate, which is measurable through an organic acid test, kynurenate is neuro-inflammatory. I see with my Parkinson’s patients, my depressed and anxious patients. Everything on green here is measurable. And at the same time, also, alpha-ketoglutarate, if that’s elevated, not only are you not shutting down to make ATP because it’s, once again, a beaver dam, it’s being blockaded, but in addition, it can shuttle off to glutamate which is neuro-excited toxic. So, once again, think autism attention deficit, anxiety, depression, on these two measurable substances through a simple unary test. And so I borrowed this from US BioTek, a laboratory up in Seattle, so I have to give credit to them. So, on endocannabinoid, they help quench inflammation.
And once again, we want to quench that inflammation because we’re not inflamed-aging. And the signals include pro-inflammatory molecules, and as a result, we’re wanting to support breaking down that cytokines storm and that pro-inflammation because once you disrupt the cells with inflammation, there’s a whole another cascade and a ripple effect, much like seismic changes with an earthquake and then you have all the little tremors afterwards. It’s not so simple as a one-time event. It ripples throughout the chemistry of the body. And we really want to look at how the endocannabinoid system can help with pain. We all have times in which we have, “booboos” and we want to just support and intervene the pain side of things. And as you can see here from a 2006 article, FAAH, remember that breaks down anandamide. Once again, why don’t we regenerate that anandamide? You want to support that by either slowing down the FAAH from breaking it down or regenerating it to help with that calming effect within the body. I think all of us have been in that helter-skelter mode of run, run, run, go, go go, gotta do, gotta do. And obviously, if you’re seeing a lot of patients back to back, your body is also ultimately paying a price at the end of cannabinoid level two, and you can either wait until it crashes or you can support it with a nudge on a daily basis and keep that pathway going before you start manifesting over-symptomology. I do a lot of prevention in my practice and I use endocannabinoids on a daily basis, the form of CBD from TruGen.
Anandamide-whole body wellness factors. Anandamide acts in the form of pain control, depression, appetite, memory, fertility even. Due to its uterine synthesis, lo and behold, who would ever imagine? Another interesting tidbit is the endocannabinoids are passed through breast milk to baby that are breastfeeding. Look here. So it has a role there too. Indeed, it does, just like there’s a substance called PQQ, that also passes through at high concentrations through a breast milk. So, it’s not just immune conferred protection through breast milk, it’s these other substances which we were not smart enough to know at the time when we were making those arguments for why it’s so important. And once again, we see the arachidonic acid. We’ve all vilified arachidonic acid to a large degree, especially the conventional model because arachidonic acid is pro-inflammatory. It’s also building block and a substance I hope support anandamide. You need a little bit of everything. It’s all about balance and moderation. And so once again, is critical to look at supporting these pathways. And the CB2 stimulation and endorphins, CB2 receptors, when activated, stimulate release of endogenous opioid β-endorphins, which then act on the µ-opioid receptors on locally primary a for neurons to inhibit nociception. So, it’s like, wow. So, our pathways are there, but once again, we’re worn out, we’re fatigued and now we’re having breakthrough pain not only because we don’t have enough cortisol, cortisone from the adrenals, often to quench that itis, whether it be bursitis, tendinitis, you name the itis, or enough to control the perception of the pain because opioid receptors aren’t working adequately. And so when we’re looking at the CB2 cannabinoid receptors and we see CB2 receptor activation inhibits acute inflammation and neuropathic pain, but does not cause central nervous system effects consistent with the lack of CB2 receptors in a normal central nervous system. So, we need to move away from the opioid dependency. There’s a time and place for that, and we’ve, of course, learn now so far, that the way that some of our patients that aren’t opioids are being treated like illegal drug addicts, but we want to move towards something that supports the body without all the side effects of the opioids because 115 deaths every day in the U.S. attribute to opioid overdose. It shuts down so many aspects of the central nervous system, toxic to the body, so we want to go towards more natural substance. And in this case, just like you may have µ-opioid receptors, wouldn’t it be great to support our natural endorphins and at the same time control inflammation simultaneously, which the opioids aren’t doing? We’re looking for the broader holistic approach to addressing pain, which drives so many people into our practice.
And so what are the other benefits of CBD? Well, they’re clear. As you can see, CBD the benefits, well, helps with, of course, anxiety, which we have down here. It helps with vasorelaxation, antispasmodic, and once again, anti-ischemic and analgesic, bones-stimulant. So even you might have application for an osteoporosis patient, question mark. Once again, anti-inflammatory. And once again, on the immunosuppressive side, we’re talking about autoimmunity if we were to talk about it in that regard. So, once again, that chart and this whole presentation is available for your review. But the NSAIDs also, think of ibuprofen, think of naproxen. NSAIDs have the capacity to inhibit FAAH. So, as one of the mechanisms of NSAIDs that they’re actually doing the same thing as the endocannabinoids, they’re helping regulate FAAH that breaks down anandamide and conserving it. That’s not what we were taught. That’s one of the theories going on right now is they’re saying, that’s a mechanism, but we also know that NSAIDs, a single dose can cause a fatal cardiac event. So, clearly, NSAIDs are not the way to necessarily go. So, administration of NSAIDs increases the amount of anandamide by impeding the metabolism through inhibition of the effects of COX-2 and/or FAAH. So, they’re hypothesizing. How do NSAIDs really work? They’ve done the same thing with acetaminophen and wondering, “Well, how does acetaminophen,” which often we know as Tylenol, “How does it work?” And we’re now finding that the COX-2 pathway exerts negative influence on endocannabinoid because it catabolizes them and have been shown to alter the neuroprotective components.
So, like, okay, I’m intrigued. A patient comes in on an MVA, they’ve switched their head around and they’ve got a whiplash or they’ve actually hit their head, they potentially have a TBI but didn’t show up on a CT or MRI. Do we give them some CBD to actually confer that protection? A family member of mine actually had a skull fracture and brain bleed earlier in the year. I can tell you CBD, especially Cocamine, might have cured all part of my picture of what I did for my loved family member for their brain to protect it. And traumatic brain injuries, they found that once again, the 2-AG levels and anandamide levels were critical, and this also suggest that COX-2 inhibitors treatment may produce an indirect enhancement of the cannabinoid receptors actually by increasing endocannabinoids. Why am I mentioned COX-2 inhibitors when I am talking about endocannabinoids? Because ultimately what we’re saying is increasing the endocannabinoid. So, sure, they have lots of side effects, but if we can use something like CBD, diet and lifestyle to support it, wouldn’t that be getting potentially the same results, but in a more o’natural way and more cambial to the body? Unlike by CBD strength relative to aspirin, CBD lowers production of inflammatory cytokines, tumor necrosis factor alpha, reduces fatty acid amidohydrolase, that FAAH, and once again, it controls inflammation. So, CBD has been proposed to be stronger than aspirin in some animals. In fact, the study actually said, in animals, in cell culture studies, CBD has demonstrated an anti-inflammatory effect that’s several hundred times greater than aspirin.
So, once again, animal cell culture is not reproducing, humans were like, “Really? CBD?” This is why we’re talking about today because we don’t know these things, but it’s been reported in the literature, but you’re not going to see a big ad for CBD and the science of it. This is where we as clinicians have to dig a little deeper for our patients and ourselves. And once again, they’re looking at the same mechanism here of their production.
So, once again, intriguing to say the least. And from a neuropathic perspective, activation of cannabinoids receptors are actually very important. I’ve actually looked at it relative to cancer medications and so forth, and pain. And once again, I’m not suggesting this is a treatment for cancer, but there’s pain associated with cancers, no question about it. And they looked at ways to manage the neuropathic pain. And “From these studies looking at the role of the endocannabinoid pathway on that process.” Likewise, shingles anybody. Neuropathic pain. Well, we used to put capsaicin or cayenne, many people still do. And it used to be depleted substance P. And substance P was the sole mechanism of how it works. Now we also know that capsaicin also works at TRPV1 and so do the endocannabinoids as well. Go figure that. And so, once again, not to limit ourselves, but to continue to grow and say, “This is how it works or this is how we believe it works, but despite other mechanisms.” That’s usually the more accurate way to say things these days. And the insects, once again, have a multitude of effects. So we kind of want to keep an eye on that. But I have some other cool things coming up. So, I’m not going to spend a lot of time on these pathways because you can read about them in my articles.
So, then we have the stress response. The homeostatic role of the ECS also extends to the control of the intestinal inflammation. We review the mechanism by which ECS, the endocannabinoid system, links stress and visceral pain. Abdominal pain. “It hurts inside, Doc. What do you think it is?” Once again, it can be an endocannabinoid insufficiency. Sure we do our clinical workup. We wanted to make sure it’s not acute gallbladder, appendicitis or colitis or something else, but if it’s a visceral pain and they have other pains symptomology going on, maybe we might want to support them on the endocannabinoid pathway. And so once again, it has a notable effect on the prefrontal cortex, amygdala and hypothalamus, relative to adrenal function and the perception of stress. If any of us are in pain, we are stressed, bottom line, no matter how tough we are. We might suck it up, but we’re still in stress. Now, the microbiome, actually, the oral administration of probiotic strains like Lactobacillus that reduced visceral sensitivity were found to up-regulate CB2 (and mu opioid receptors) in the intestinal epithelium of rats. Read that again. Oral administration on probiotics that reduce visceral sensitivity were up-regulate CB2 receptor. So, the probiotic is actually affecting the endocannabinoid pathway. Go figure that. But we’re not surprised, are we? And likewise, we see a peripheral mechanism linking chronic stress to pain. Many patients with chronic visceral pain find that is exacerbated by stress. There’s increasing evidence that the endocannabinoid system modulates chronic stress associated with increased abdominal pain. So, musculoskeletal pain, other pain. The pathways are consistent in the peer reviewed literature. These are graphics borrowed from the peer reviewed literature, statements and summaries from the peer reviewed literature, compelling to say the least. And acetaminophen, we’re familiar with it known as Tylenol. And our results on this study of 2018 indicate that cannabinoid system contributes not only to acetaminophen analgesia against acute pain, but also against inflammatory pain and suggest that the relative CB1 receptors reside in the rostral ventromedial medulla. How’s that for teasing out the endocannabinoid system at work and CBD? Once again, lo and behold, that’s not what I learned in pharmacology, but this is what we now know. Once again, the fallacy of the system. And then we have NSAIDs. And once again, NSAIDs are known to block the COX-2 and can interact with the cannabinoid system. All NSAIDs that inhibit COX-2 can influence the cannabinoid system because of a possible important degradative pathway. Once again, the literature is very clear.
And then we see the bolstering of the endocannabinoid system. And we want to bolster that with the sleep and everything we do for our patients and this is where CBD comes into play. So, simple refresher, because I’ve talked a lot, I talk quickly by the nature of covering a lot of material, but the slides are available for you. The articles are available for you. And my intention is to tease you enough to go and dig a little deeper into clinical literature or read my articles and realize that I’ve been using them in my clinical practice for a good long while. I’m in Oregon, but CBD is something that doesn’t have those borders like THC does. It actually is a natural substance without that psychoactive effect. And so we want to look at supporting it in such a way that we’re actually supporting the innate capacity of the body because our body is exerting energy to make it just like if we go outside and we make vitamin D from sunlight when it hits our skin. Once again, we want to see that pathway work. So, the problem is normal CBD is very poorly absorbed, and so they say maybe 8% or thereabouts orally. So the question is, how do you get better delivery? This is where TruGen uses a technique and a technology called VESIsorb which actually creates a self-assembly colloid delivery system and it can actually, as a result, be absorbed much better across the cell membranes and through the GI tract because of this colloidal droplet delivery system. So, it allows for higher bio-availability. I think we’ll probably talk more about that in our Q&A as well. The reality is I’ve used lots of CBD products just like we’ve used lots of different supplements. We know some work and some don’t. But if a patient is going to spend their resources and they need CBD in their life for pain, anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, you want to ensure that it’s getting delivered in a methodical fashion, which has been tested. It has been researched. That’s undergone investigation. And what’s unique about TruEase from TruGen, it’s unique amongst the other hemp seed extracts because it’s fully traceable from seed to the consumer. And you want that for two reasons. Marijuana is illegal in the United States. State by state it may be illegal, but you never want to have a product with any risk of being above 0.3% THC. And we’ll go through a certificate of analysis in a moment so you can rest assured that with TruGen you don’t have that.
But also, a proprietary simulated moving bed liquid chromatography extraction of the hemp oil ensures purity and safety from unwanted solvents as the psychoactive components. So, a lot of energy goes into making a product that’s reproducible and traceable. And if you look at the certificate of analysis you should get for any CBD product from a legality perspective, you want to have a certificate of analysis. And so if you see here the results of the TruEase with the TruGen3 technology is looking for, does it have that quoted amount? And the answer is yes. Does it have CBD in the quoted amount? The answer is yes. Does it have other terrapins which we did not talk about? But the beta-caryophyllene important has the ability to bio-actively support the inflammatory pathways. It has what’s called the entourage or a hemptourage effect. So, the beta-caryophyllene is important. The linalool and the humulene, think of hops humulene also anti-inflammatory. So, you can see it has all of these, but look at no THC detectable because that’s what the threshold was set at and it passes. You don’t want to give a person THC unless you’re doing that with intention. You don’t want to even be potentially at that 0.31% because then all of a sudden, you actually got marijuana, you don’t actually have legally hemp, but now you know with confidence, you don’t have a THC issue going on here because none detected, and you want to have that confidence. And likewise, we see here’s the results, the methodology being used as high tech. And yes, it costs money to do these tests, but once again, you want to work with a company. I want to work with a company, but more importantly, I want to conserve my license. I want no THC. Very important. Likewise, you want to make sure there’s no pesticides, none detected. There is no heavy metals, there’s no molds, there’s no salmonella. Once again, you want to ask for a certificate of analysis. If a company can’t give it to you, not probably the company for me, and probably you either. We’ve worked too hard to gain our licenses and our patients count too much on us to that through and use our knowledge to ensure they have a high-quality product.
So, the goal is to start low on using CBD. Why? A little bit can go a long ways. More is not always better. Just like if you’re doing an adjustment. Just a little bit of a movement might get the job done. You don’t always have to tweak on things. We all know that. Work with and gentle modulation of the endocannabinoid system. We’re working within the innate ability of the body. We don’t want to go in with a bull and then try to shop. We want to work gently. Fifteen to 25 milligrams is what I start my patients on. If I need to move them up in a week or two to two to three times today, I will. Once again, if a little bit gets the job done, why more? Once again, respecting the body, working with the body. Some patients will need much higher doses because their endocannabinoid insufficiency or potential genetic polymorphisms because you’re going to have genetic polymorphisms, or what I termed mutations of the CBD receptors and the CBD pathway, just indulgence. Some people are more susceptible. They did a study with respiratory syncytial virus and if you had a certain genetic susceptibility and you got respiratory syncytial virus was a very common amongst children, pediatrics, they’re more likely to be hospitalized if they have that polymorphism. So, some of your patients are going to be much more prime for needing even a higher dose of CBD or responding much more quickly to CBD. And the scientific literature has shown that several hundred milligrams can be helpful and effective, but I never go to these high-milligram doses, especially on patients with pharmaceutical drugs onboard without working with their pharmacists because CBD can affect some of those biochemical pathways of how drugs are metabolized, because remember, CBD is also metabolized through the liver. Much like grapefruit juice can affect the same kind of medications. So, likewise, we want to support those pathways with diet and lifestyle. We supplement a good diet and lifestyle. We’re not substituted for it. So, we want to ensure that we’re doing things to support the body in a fundamental way, and always ensure the THC levels are less than 0.3% or no THC. We’ve worked too hard for our licenses. So, in a case of TruEase and the TruGen3 product, there’s no THC. It lets me sleep at night. And as I rattle my little bottle of TruGen3 here and the TruEase, it’s what I count on for myself as well.
So, there’s a lot of untapped potential here relative to the 65 potential molecular targets that we currently know for CBD. And this was actually in the medical literature 2015. But I really want to encourage you to reach out at support@trugen3.com. These are five of my critical articles. I have a couple more coming up. But they will all tease out with lots of references for medical literature. I’ve summarized it for us because I had to summarize it for myself. I love helping my patients. So, I’ve gone down the rabbit hole and deciphered, “What about the pain? What about the inflammation? What about the stress? How do you affect the gut brain axis? What about the endocannabinoid system and the microbiome?” So, teasing that it’s so fundamentally important. But I really have to applaud you all. CBD is a new area, it can be a scary area, but remember, our bodies’ been doing this for millennia. All we’re doing is supporting a natural pathway. And it makes sense that we suffer from excess connectivity. I showed you in the peer reviewed literature the endocannabinoid deficiency, the relationship between low cortisol and stress and adrenal fatigue and endocannabinoid. We all get broken in a similar pathway. We’re all getting older. Our mitochondria are wearing down. Our nitric oxide levels aren’t as robust as they used to be. And we need to support at a fundamental level. But if our bodies were designed and spends energy on a daily basis supporting and conferring the protection of endocannabinoid system, it makes sense that we as functional medicine providers pays attention and mirrors that same intention, just like going outside and making vitamin D. It’s kind of important that you go outside and get something for free. Well, likewise, we get endocannabinoids every day for free. Unfortunately, we’re just a really worn out and overwhelmed society. I’m going to open up for questions.
Rick: Thank you, Dr. Meletis. This has been extremely informative. We’ve been collecting some questions from our audience that we’re going to get to. But beforehand, we also have a special offer for our webinar participants. A free one-week sample of TruEase hemp oil. At $18.65 value you can sign up for the free sample on the registration page at the Chiropractic Economics website/tg3truease. That’s www.chiroeco.com/tg3truease. In addition to the free sample, you also receive an offer for 1 free when you purchase 12. On to our questions. A doctor asks, “When do you prescribe CBD for a patient?”
Dr. Meletis: Oh, boy. If they’re having pain, if they’re having insomnia, if they’re having anxiety. And we’ve addressed the low-line things, so sleep quality and screen time and we’ve worked out their biomechanics. Make sure they’re drinking enough water and their bowels are moving. We do all the simple stuff that we all do as clinicians on a daily basis. I actually will consider CBD for a lot of my patients that are just seeming to have gotten to where they’re at because of either stress that they’ve either pursued busy work, career, family life, or things that’s happened to them like a surgery or another injury or a life-altering event, having to take care of a loved one. I use CBD for a wide variety of those patients. But even now I’m using it for part of my endocannabinoid when I work on leaky gut syndrome and inflammation of the gut. I actually don’t really have a limit on CBD at this juncture relative who I may use it for amongst my population. Of course, we know that CBD is also used with appropriate supervision with children with epilepsy and so forth. So I think it has a wide variety of effects. And the whole goal is to start low and go slow. And if you have a patient that’s on a lot of pharmaceutical drugs, you just want to make sure that you’re monitoring that especially if you’re going through the higher doses to ensure that their blood levels don’t go up on those [inaudible 00:58:46]
Rick: Thank you. And another question we received. Why is bio-availability of CBD so important? And is a delivery aid really necessary?
Dr. Meletis: Oh, boy. I think we actually delivered that when… I think Michael is on the phone. He actually has some research occurring which I’m not able to share relative to the VESIsorb. So, Michael, are you there?
Michael: Yes, I am. Thank you, Dr. Meletis. And first off, thank you very much for such a fantastic informative presentation. So, absorption and bio-availability is extremely important specifically with hemp CBD products. So, since hemp and CBD is naturally a fatty oil-based ingredient, your body does not absorb oil very well. So, some sort of a delivery aid is necessary in order to absorb…in order to optimize, you know, how much of that specific ingredient your body is going to actually take in. So, what we did is we developed a patented delivery system that’s called VESIsorb technology. And what VESIsorb is, it’s a naturally self-assembling nano-colloidal droplet system. So, thank you very much. So, basically what happens is we’ve developed what we call our special sauce, which is the VESIsorb technology. And when that’s mixed with an aqueous solution, what happens is the VESIsorb forms an association colloidal around the hemp and CBD molecule. So, think of it as you have your hemp molecule, the VESIsorb forms a water bubble around that hemp molecule, and then when your body adjusts it, it gets all the way through the upper GI tract. And when you have your absorption pathway, you know, you have your pathway for fat-based liquid and water-based liquid, what the VESIsorb does is it tricks your body into thinking that an oil-based ingredient is a water-based ingredient, so then you would absorb it more similarly to water. So, what we did is we performed a clinical trial using CoQ10 a few years ago. We took 120 milligrams of CoQ10, gave it to our patients, and then we took that exact same material 122 milli…excuse me, 120 milligrams of the CoQ10 with the VESIsorb technology, we tested the peak plasma levels of the patient’s blood and with VESIsorb, they were 622% higher or 6 times better bio-availability. Since CoQ10 and hemp oil are both fatty acid-based ingredients, we can assume that we’re going to have similar results with the TruEase. We’ve taken that one step further. We actually just finished our clinical trial on the absorption and bio-availability of TruEase. It is a double-blind placebo cross-reference clinical trial. It will be the first clinical trial on any hemp CBD product to exist. And we’re hoping that this is going to be published at the end of October. So, one fact that I have picked up over the years is with your typical hemp CBD products, if they do not have a type of delivery agent, you’re actually going to absorb less than 20% of that actual ingredient with just, you know, oil alone.
Dr. Meletis: Great answer. And thank you, Michael. I knew that we have that study coming up and it’s a very compelling study. I know because of the rules on peer-reviewed literature because it’s being published, we can’t share the tidbits, but it’s very exciting news as to the percentage increase on the CBD delivery. So, thank you.
Michael: You’re welcome. But what I can say… Yes, I can’t give figures, but I can tell you that it is very, very close to the CoQ10 study.
Dr. Meletis: Awesome. Thank you.
Michael: You got it.
Rick: Thank you, gentlemen. And another interesting question. After taking CBD and the body processes it, what does it come out as?
Dr. Meletis: It comes out as a metabolite through the liver metabolism. So, it comes through a myriad of pathways. And actually, for the person that asked that question or others that want it, well, I’ll make sure that info@trugen3 provides you a nice peer-review article that comes out as several very fancy, long-worded endocannabinoid molecules. But it’s all through the phase two cytochrome pathways. So, alphabet soup. It comes out as alphabet soup, not literally, but it comes out as a whole lot of cannabinoid metabolites. I will send an article along with my articles for the person that asked that question.
Rick: Excellent. Thank you. And another question. Can you recap what an endocannabinoid deficiency is?
Dr. Meletis: Yes. So, an endocannabinoid deficiency. Someone said we have an endocannabinoid system. A deficiency is just like if we have a deficiency of testosterone or estrogen or vitamin D, it’s just that we have over the course of time, our body either genetically was unable to manifest enough to cope with life or we’ve worn down that pathway from depending on it too much, either chronic inflammation or illness, poor diet or lifestyle, and it leads us to be subpar. And as a result of being subpar or insufficient or deficient of endocannabinoids, we start manifesting symptoms of migraines, fatigue, irritable bowel, whatever it might be. So, the endocannabinoid deficiency is very simply that the body’s gotten worn down just much like hypothyroidism. And so we just need to support that pathway to bring it back on track like we would any other functional pathway which our body is designed to do. And since we’re designed to make endocannabinoids, we just need to bring that back up to par so we can be within our warranty again.
Rick: Thank you. We received a number of additional questions. We’ll make sure the ones we don’t get to we’ll get to in the transcription. And lastly, a question. You mentioned start low and go slow. Can you expand upon that philosophy? And is that just for CBD?
Dr. Meletis: No. Actually, that’s my philosophy across the board with all supplementations. You want to always nudge the body. Thinking the supersize nation that more is always better. We know that doesn’t work on the fast food restaurants, it doesn’t work on drinking too much of a given food or beverage. And so what we want to do is we want to start low and go slow. If you take too much magnesium, you know you’ll get diarrhea. If you take too much vitamin C, you could get diarrhea. If you work on a pathway like hormone like DHA natural pathway in your body, you can take too much of it. So, if a little bit gets you right in that sweet zone, and I give the example of a pitcher’s mound, if I go ahead and throw a softball or baseball, it should fit perfectly into that catcher’s mitt. I don’t need to be sitting in front of automatic pitcher pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch more than I can process because then it’s going to desensitize that pathway. And we never want to down-regulate a pathway. We want to just nudge and nurture it opposed to shove it around because the body doesn’t respond well and will just trigger its own natural protective mechanisms and start down-regulating the receptivity, which is a waste of time and money, effort. And in my opinion, this is not respectful to the body.
Rick: Thank you. That is great information. At this time, we’d like to thank our sponsor, TruGen3 and Dr. Chris Meletis for today’s webinar. And thank you all for attending. Remember, this webinar including our speaker’s PowerPoint presentation has been recorded. We will alert you when the webinar is available online. Thank you again for attending and we look forward to seeing you next time. Have a great day.