Welcome to the Wellness Transcription Podcast. I'm your host, doctor Patrick Gurley.
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Now let's get into today's episode. For the first episode of the Wellness
Transcription Podcasts, I've got our first real guests on, and he's near and
dear in my heart because I'm biased, he's my dad. But I'm gonna
give you a brief background on doctor Bill Gurley real quick. We're gonna be
talking about dietary supplements today. It's a hot topic that not a lot of
people have expertise on, but he's one of the leading experts in the country
when it comes to this stuff. So doctor Gurley's a professor and principal scientists
at the National Center for Natural Products for SEARTY at the University of Mississippi.
He's also the chair of the University of Mississippi Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.
Prior to joining nc NPR in twenty nineteen, doctor Gurley was a professor
of pharmaceutical Sciences at UAMS, the University of Arkansas for Medical Science and a
Little Rock, Arkansas, where he taught me in Pharmacy School. He was
the vice chair of the UMS Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences the chair of the UMS
Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. Doctor girl has been conducting basic and clinical
research on various aspects of dietary supplements, supplement efficacy, and safety for almost
thirty years. His research on a federc containing dietary supplements was used by the
FDA to remove those products from the US market back in two thousand and four.
He was the first investigator to systematically evaluate herb drug interaction potential for popular
dietary supplements and then assess the clinical relevance of those interactions. Accordingly, his
research team was the first to document serious clinical repercussions of herb drug interactions involving
Saint John's warp Doctor Gurley's research interests include pharmacokinetics, mechanisms of herb drug interactions,
toxicity of multiple component herbal dietary supplements, phytochemical modulation of human drug metabolizing
enzymes and transport proteins, and human phytochemical disposition, all of which have been
subject of more than two hundred peer reviewed scientific publications. He's also a member
of the United States Pharmacopeia's Expert Panel and Dietary Supplements and as an advisor to
the American Botanical Council and a co editor of the American Herbal Products Association's Botanical
Safety Handbook. He sits on the editorial boards for the journals of Clinical Pharmacology
and Therapeutics, Fido Medicine, Herbal Graham, and Clinical Therapeutics. Doctor Gurley
received his Bachelors of Science and chemistry from Tennessee Tech University, and a bachelor's
and Metchelors of Science and Pharmacy and a PhD and Pharmaceutics from the University of
Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, Tennessee. So, without further ado,
we're gonna get into it. Dad, Thank you for being here. I
appreciate it. This is the first real special guest interview, and I couldn't
think of a better person to have on So I appreciate you being here.
Well, it's absolutely on Or Patrick. I'm very proud of you. You've
done. You've done. You've done Yeoman's work with regards to getting out the
word to the public about the real the real science and interpreting both good science
and the bad science. It's associated with dietary somethinge. So my hat's off
to you. Not a lot of people are doing this, and I think
it's I think it's a great service to the public to allow them to make
sense out of all the craziness it's out there regarding dietary supplements. So you
taught us in school. I mean, they don't really do a great job
as far as curriculum goes for prepping you on dietary supplements. And we get
asked that all the time. So it's definitely an area I think as pharmacist.
For pharmacists, it's kind of daunting because we're like, I don't know
this part. So it's cool to have someone to grow up my whole life
with someone who's who's used to these kinds of things and does this research has
made it easier for me. Yes, it's a great point, and that
is it's difficult enough for healthcare professionals, whether you're a pharmacist or a nerse
or a physician, to keep up with all the conventional medications and the potential
interactions with those you know, and so now you throw in tens of thousands
of dietary supplements, and you know, it's just an overwhelming task to kind
of get your head around. And so a lot of healthcare professionals either ignore
them all together or just say no, they're all horrible and don't take them
at all. They're one, they don't have any they don't have any efficacy
or there or there, or they're unsafe, which is just the farthest thing
from the truth. The vast majority of dietary soltments are very safe. Sometimes
their efficacy can be questionable, and that's when we can get into that a
little bit later as we go forward. But it behoves pharmacists to understand what
it is that you're carrying on the front end of your store, because a
lot of a lot of pharmacists carried dietary soltments and it always as surprised,
Yes, they carry these products in their in their stores, but oftentimes they
know very little about them, and so it's up to people like yourself and
myself to try to edge account only the healthcare professionals, but also the public
with regards to some of the good things and some of the not so good
things about dietary soltoments. Yeah, I again, we get I'd say a
vast majority of our business where I work here in Austin is supplement consold,
so we do them on a daily basis and occasionally since we've been since I've
started working there, there's been more collaboration between the wellness department in US in
terms of drug interactions, and having those conversations is crucial piece that I think
is missed a lot of time. But again, I there's this kind of
natural conception of Okay, supplements aren't that bad because they're natural, right,
they can't really hurt me now. Well, Whereas whereas drugs, people are
kind of skeptical still you know, what side effects am I going to have?
Are they going to work? You know, especially now with how you
know different drugs and vaccines and stuff have gone recently, that skepticism is just
getting higher. Whereas supplements people are more comfortable maybe not being familiar with them.
Yeah. Well, so what I want to as you well know,
and what a lot of pharmacists understand, is that the vast majority of medications
up until about No. Ten or time about fifteen or twenty years ago have
their origin and natural products. So I mean half the medications that are on
the market now are either natural product, are either isolated from as as natural
products, or derivatives of natural products. And so so if you have that
concept that conventional medications are are bad and sultments are good, you have to
realize that they all pretty much come from the same source. So they're all
have the same origins in many regards. So now with that in mind,
um, you know, just because something is so quote unquote natural, h
does that make it? Does that make it more so more? Um more
even affications for that matter. Really, Um, you know, something that
always always throw out there is that, well, you know, help poison,
poison, mushrooms and rattlesnakes are natural, but you know you've got to
be able to treat them properly and in order to in order to you know.
So, but again, the vast majority doctor assultments that are on the
market are quite safe. Again, their efficacy sometimes can be question depends upon
the source of the dietary Suttman and I hope we can get into that.
We can talk about, you know, what to look for and what not
to look for. But but you know, I have heard this many times
from from most of the times consumers that oh, they're natural and they're safe,
and they're not you know, and they're much more safe than conventional medications,
which in some regards is true because when you talk about convensional medica talking
usually about one. But they're active pharmaceutical ingredient and it's fairly concentrated, and
you know, and so we understood. But what we did. The interesting
thing about, for the the most valuable thing about convenial medications is that they're
going through the ringer for the most part with regards to to the research understand
behind their safety and efficacy. You know, so before a convisional medication comes
on the market, it's supposed to have gone through rigorous um preclinical studies.
Now I'm gonna I will say this much like the conventional vaccines that are on
the market. Now that's a whole different animal. That's that kind of kind
of dad an end run around the whole, the whole approach to drug regulations
that we can get it. I'm not going to get into that right now.
Yeah, I share your sentiment there too, but yeah, fast track
cracking drugs definitely occurs. I don't think people really realize just how common that
can be. However, it seems to be more accepted now now that some
things that normally would take years to get on the market now are now here
under emergency you thought use authorizations, so right, and sometimes that's a good
thing, and sometimes it's an absolute Pandora's box, you know, um,
and so it might look good on on the front end, and but then
you never you never, ever, ever really know the safety profile of conventional
medication until it gets out into the consuming public for a couple of right,
That's that's an important distinction for sure. That's when you're really fat, whether
or not your drug is either efficacious or to say, yeah so anyway.
But but that aside, Unlike conventional medications, which apart from the vaccines,
do have to undergo rigorous safety and safety and efficacy tests part of the market,
dietary sophtomos don't have to do that, and so um and so consumers
have a tendency to think that, oh, well they're they're they're they're on
the shelves right next to my eyeberprofen in my time at all, then they
must have gone through the same type of safety and efficacy studies and that's not
necessarily the case. Um and so we can we can talk about hyas,
but it's just a nature of the beast. Um. But but so point
consumers that assume that they're regulated just like conventional medications. In many respects they
are. In some respects they're not. And you also have a lot of
healthcare professionals that just go, oh, they're not regulating all they're you know,
they're they're so no, so what's the truth. Well, the truth
is they are regulated. They're regulated by the Food and Drug Administration just like
conventional medications. It's just that the regulations are not as rigorous as they are
for conventional medications. And the reason for that is because of a legislative act
that allowed these types of products to be on the market, and that's the
Dietary Suptment, Health and Education Act that was enacted by Congress in nineteen ninety
four, and basically what what and it's often the Dietary Suptment Health and Education
Act. The acronym is ad Shay or de Shay, depending on what part
of the country you're from. And what that did is it defined dietary suptoments
as being distinct from conventional medications. And so basically what a dietary suptment is.
It's a it's a basically, it's a litany of things. It's a
um an herb, betanal ab alte um, and there's a some servers basically
intended to that. It's not intended to treat, cure, mitigate, or
prevent a disease. All right, So you can have a there's it's a
very broad and encompassing definition, and a lot of things can fall out of
the definition of a dietary supple. You cannot unless you have gone through all
the rigorous studies to make a claim. You know, really, if you
look at any dietary supplement label, you know, at the very body it'll
say this, this statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Adminstration,
and it's not intended to diagnose, treat, pure, prevent, or
mitigate any disease. And so the vast majority of dietary submings that are on
the market, that are supplied by scrupulous facturers will adhere to that. But
you get a lot as a lot of junk out there too. Um,
and that's where and those those it's those problematic products that have put a stigma
on the whole industry. Yeah. I that's one thing that I try to
tell people is not just like not all drugs are created equally, not all
supplements are created equally either, And it really and with if you don't know
or seek out people who do know these things, it's very hard to determine
what you should spend your money on because, let's be honest, dietary suppments
aren't covered under insurance. So it's a it's oftentimes, I mean, for
a ninety day supply of the dietary suppment, it's vastly more expensive than say
a ninety day supplavage generic medication to to to say target some sort of disease
state that one patient may have or not. Yeah, that's a good point.
Yeah, I mean, it's it's one of those things. It's like,
okay, but again, you know, there's you don't really see.
You do see quite a few patients get really worked up when insurance doesn't cover
a medication, or they're deductible isn't met or a cope is higher than they
expect. But that forty five dollars supplements sitting on the shelf, they don't
think twice about it. So, yeah, it's kind of a weird phenomenon
that you have two of these things playing on and on, and but you've
answered like four or five of the questions I had. I was going to
ask you about the Dietary Suppment, Health and Education Act. What all that
meant? Yeah, next year it is going to be the thirtieth anniversary of
the of the enactment of the Dictory something Health and Education Act. So um
uh. And there, you know, there's some movement of food that you
know, there may be some some amendments to that. You know, I'm
not sure how, I'm not sure if that's going to come to fruition or
not. But um, you know, it allowed dietary something to come on
the market. And the most of your scrupulous manufacturer, you know, they
put out good products, but there's a lot of junk out there too,
and you just it's up to pharmacists and people like your of course you're a
pharmacist as well, but you're also you know, you bring a lot more
to the table because you also understand nutrition very well. Not a lot of
pharmacists understand that. And um, so being able to wade through the mine
field that's that is a mine field of dietary and so it's it's um not
a lot of you know. I I'm actually glad that you're that your customers
you have access because you you kind of get it, you know, But
a vast majority of pharmacists out there, I have no idea when it comes
to dietary suftments and whether or not they're safe, efficacious, how they interacts
on and so forth, which brands to buy, which brands to stock on
your shelves, that kind of stuff. Yeah, So we'll get into that
because at kind of the end, I don't want to I like to have,
you know, real life applications for people. So I don't want to
just say things and then go, well, they didn't tell me what brands
were good or what to look for. So we'll get into we'll get into
that and kind of that towards the end of the episode, But I really
want so before we get into we could mean you could talk all night long.
I mean that we do that quite frequently about these topics because you're the
we're we get it. But I want to know kind of what got you
interested, not only in pharmacy in general, but in your PhD path?
But like how why supplements? Why not? You know, why not get
a PhD? And you know, cell biology or something more obscure, like
what what what got you down this path? I never really actually asked you
this question before. I'm kind of interested to hear the story behind that.
Yeah, So as far as going to the getting interested in pharmacy a major
at Tennessee Technological University, and then as part of our organic chemistry, of
course we had to write a term paper and they would assign us a class
of compounds that they wanted to write a term paper on. The term paper
was as zoladeine dions and that made a damn thing to anybody listening to this
podcast. But what we do know is that they were designed. They were
they were molecules to design. They have a variety of applications, but one
of them was was anti seizure medications and so it just struck me as a
as a CHEMMI major taking organic chemistry, that you could design a molecule to
elicit a specific pharmacological action. And so to me, that just fascinated the
heck out of me, And so I dropped my CHEMMI major and switched to
pharmacy pre pharmacy. And so then when I got to pharmacy school, I
um I really started working in the lab of who would are ultimately or be
my mentor versus And that's doctor Bias and Dice was too, and that he
had been trained by some of the world's experts in pharma coconetics, and so
I kind of got interested in pharma coconetics. Well, was pharma coconetis basically
a layman's is what the It's what the body does to the drug and not
what the drug does to the body. And basically we're talking about how drugs
are absorbed, how they're distributed in the body, and how they're metabolized and
how they're excreted. And so it's the farmer coconetics is behind you know,
why you take a certain amount of a drug ever so often? You know,
so why do you Underfitteen middle grams twice a day or once a day.
All that's depending come on the pharma coconetics on the drug. So anyway,
so um, so I was a farma coconeticist, but well I was
a pharmaceutical scientist by training. So I was also trained in formulations, and
uh, you know, I did a lot of physical pharmacy, physical chemistry
and how that comes into play. But you know, all so drug metabolism
and pharmacokinetics and so i I is a nice thing about one being a pharmacist
into having a PhD in pharmaceutical sciences instead. It gives you a very broad
area of expertise and a whole host of things that will come into play down
the road. And so you know, theetary supplements weren't even on the radar
when I was in graduate school, but not only after I graduated and it
started working in the College of Pharmacy for and of course the reason I got
into went into academia instead of industry as a different story, but we don't
have time for that. But nevertheless, I ended up deciding to go take
an academic position in the College of Pharmacy into University of arkanass and then about
oh goodness about four years into that. So my area of X back so
and liver transplantation and not only the immunology associated with it, but also how
liver transplants and how preserving organs would affect the pharma co medications and someone who
just got a new or new liver or a new kidney, you know.
And so there's a there's a field called reperfusion injury that has a has a
tremendous impact on how your liver functions initially going forward. So anyway, so
I was a transplantation immunologist slash U reperfusion injury, pharma coconut. Yeah,
it's it's very it's kind of a very narrow niche. But anyway, but
to be a pharma coconetics is one of the things you have to understand is
you have to be able to analyze concentrations of drugs in biological fluids, primarily
in blood or plasma, in urine. So you also have to be an
analytical chemist. So I was very well versed in that. Any but long
story short, UM I was running a lab at the University of Arkansas Pho
Medical Sciences and one of them, one of the UM one of the other
departments, a department of Pharmacis of pharmacy had been a doctor Stephanie Gardiner.
H, this is about nineteen six. So you had me as a two
year old at home while you were starting were too. Yeah, that's crazy,
and it's nineteen ninety six, ninety seven. I think it's closer to
ninety six. A couple of years after the Dietary Summing, Health and Education
Active Minute it had been UM been passed by Congress. There was a product
that was getting a lot of um. It was getting a lot of people
both good and bad. Uh in the media. And as a product called
herbal ecstasy. What a name that would have gotten me. Yeah, you
don't need anything named herbal ecstasy. I'm like, nah, man, I'm
not I'm not having anything. So you know what ecstasy is. Extasy is
basically methylene die amphetamine, methylene dogs meth amphetamine. Know, this is a
this is a play on that, you know. So this is a herbal
version of m DMA, so to speak. Anyway, Um, so you
know, there was some there was some safety concerns associated with it, and
so she brought some props. She brought some a little a little foil of
ecstasy, and she said, can you analyze, uh and tell me how
much your federan alkaloids are. So let me back up just a second.
If herbal ecstasy was one of the federc containing dietary softiments back in the day,
and so people might don't know what is Yeah, so ef it's a
it's a plant that's indigenous primarily to Middle Eastern countries, China, that part
of the world, and it's a source of ephedrin alkaloids. And so well
what does that mean. Well, you may have heard of the drug pseudo
fed orphed you know, and so they they're they're indirect their indirect actings and
path on my medica means, well what does that mean? Well, they
do a lot of things, but cedo fed is typically you was available,
I'm still available as a as a nasal decongested, but it also has some
cardiovasca stimulatory effects and a whole host of other things. But um, so
when the shake came out in ninety four, there was a whole host of
product marketed um and they were called hephedra containing dietary of sophomas. And again
he Federa is a natural as a plant source handing alkaloids, but they also
at the time they also contain almost all of them also contain the sources of
caffeine, and then as a lot of them would contain synthetic sources of caffeine
and caffeine sources like green tea, Urba mate and goodness, grocious, um,
there's a handfully um Yo pain Holly. A few owners these part of
the market, and they were being marketed as aids or exercise performedancers or energy
boosters, those kinds of things, and so you had not a lot of
you had some, you know, just regular folks, moms taking them to
lose weight or athletes taking them to you know, booster exercise performance, those
kinds of things. Unfortunately, he started getting people that are having heart attacks,
strokes, seizures, and psychotic of them. It's like, oh my
god, what's going on here? So that's kind of so in in the
early nineteen well in the mid nineteen nineties, uh if fedra supple months were
kind of the you know what kind of the problem child? Uh, you
know what's going on? What do we know? Those things? Why are
you know these should be this shouldn't be causing all these issues? And so
um She brought this herbal ecstasy to my lab and says, can you tell
me how much you federan alkaloids is in there? I said, well,
you know, we can certainly develop an essay and find out. So developed
in we developed an assay and sort of too, you have to validate your
ass to to make sure it works properly. And so in the process of
validating the assay for a federan alkaloids, um, we ran out of the
herbal ecstasy, you know, And so when you we were rapp analyzing it
using performance liquid chromatography. And so when you do, when you analyze a
natural product with hyperform chromatography, you get a bunch of different peaks. Yeah,
yeah, peaks. Oftentimes these these peak and I say peaks peaks is
a good term. I mean that's what in organic chemistry. But yeah,
but you know, each each individual formulation will give you kind of like a
signature of material that's in there. So we were analyzing herbal ecstasy, we
ran out of it. We had a we had a signature. We knew
how much of federn was in this one particular lot. We knew how much
pseudo if federan metholi federan nor suo if fed is a bunch of different Federan
alkaloids in there, and and that will give you a signature. So this
because it's the best best way to describe it. And so we ran out
of this one particular lot. So she brings me another one, another,
another little package. But it's a different lot, and so we're analyzing in
you know, and it's completely unlike the the initial lot. Unlike. So
as a pharmacy, what happened at numbers of your drugs are they should actually
the exact same thing every time, you know, every lot, numbers should
be the same. I should should look the same, should have the same
quantity of the ingredient. It's completely unlike the first And oh my god,
yeah, I'd have thought so if were if I were you, I'd have
been sitting there going, okay, maybe this isn't herbal ecstasy. It looks
completely different, Like what the hell is this? Because even you would think
it would be somewhat similar. But yeah, well, I mean it.
It had E Federan alkaloids, no doubt. But they were the quantities of
E federan and the quantities of PSEUDOI federal. They were all different. It's
just completely unlike the first lot. And so I was just stunned, you
know, because as a pharmacist, you know, you're not supposed to have
a lot to lot variations. I mean, yeah, you can may have
a little bit maybe at one percent, but not one hundred percent. No,
No, you're you're a well passed recall territory at that point. Yeah,
So we got some more herbal ecstasy and we're analyzing and how every lot
was different. Well, so then we started so then we started looking at
not only herbal ecstasy, but just a whole host of the federal containing supplements
that were on the market, and they were all over the map too.
So we published this paper in the American journal Health Systems Pharmacy, UM and
I'm trying to remember what the uh. Yeah, the title was content Versus
Label Claims and then it had a little subtitle about it cider containing alkaloids supple
months and stuff. And so we found that the vast majority I fed on
products that, regardless of what their label may have claimed, oftentimes it was
in the product was much unlike what was on the label claim. And so
this was for some pretty some pretty um very popular supple months and uh sweet
published this paper and you talk about stirring up the ankle. Oh my god,
I remember, I remember getting had did we get did we get a
line? Did we get I hate to interrupt, did we get voicemails and
threats at home? Oh yeah. So once we published this paper, you
know, and then um, you know, basically we just we just we
basically poked a big sharp stick in the poke. You poked the bear for
sure, yeah, oh yeah, and they're like, oh my god,
you know, the cats out of the bag, so to speak. And
so I remember one afternoon. Of course, this started a lot of rumors
from the from the well, there was a very well put this way,
there was Aggie, a lobbying group for a federal suppingment companies called the Ethedera
Education Council. They had a bunch of high prized lawyers that started making all
these claims about me, you know, just yeah, making up, just
baking up stuff about me. Well, as the later on, uh I
always referred to the Federal Education Council as the Etheder Indoctrin Nations, which is
basically what you know, they were just trying to blow smoke about you and
so um. Anyway, so we post that paper, it gets you know
it, it made quite a bit of We got a lot of media hits
on it. In fact, we had um Dayline NBC came to the lab,
remember, oh, I mean we had I can't tell you he uh
how many camera crews into my lab nineteen ninety six until about two thousand.
It was just crazy. I mean we were on ESPN, we were on
Dateline, NBC, Nightline, Good Morning America. I mean it was just
crazy there for a while. And so the reason for that, once word
got out that these products weren't didn't always match up to what their label,
car had a lot. Now they're looking for people to basically provide expert testimony
for some of these wrongful death cases that were going to litigation. And so
one of the very first, the very first case to go to trial was
for a young lady I think she was in her late mint to late twenties
in Alaska who had taken a product and then went to play you know,
sad volleyball and she had a stroke. Well that's not coming in twenty Yeah,
she was one of a whole host of people that were having these heart
attack strokes seizures and psychonic events, and so she just happened to be the
very first one to go to they went to trial. So they reached out
to me and so would you be an expert witness? And so I ain't.
I didn't know anybody. Yeah, I'll do that. Sure who it
was? It was me? Uh, and the you know, the I
was for the I was on the plaintiff side, and the defense was for
later some of the companies. And so they had a ton of money that
should why you know, basically higher some of the the biggest names in either
cardiovascular pharmacology or neurology or whatever. And so you know, the very this
first case that went to trial in Alaska. Um, it was me,
this young kid from Arkansas versus some of the highly cited cardiovascular pharmacologist and urologists
in the world. But what was really funny, I give my I give
the plaintiffs attorney all the credit for this is that at one point during the
um examination of expert witnesses on the on the stand, uh, this this
lady that was from Stanford University, a cardio of asked her pharmacologist she had
her virtues about you know what old house she started talking over the head of
the of the jurors. You know, she's talking molecular pharmacology and this and
that and these are just you know, people off the streets and they're looking
at it. People got pulled into jury. Yeah, you know, and
so anyway I could my the plaintiffs attorney realized that, you know, the
juror has no idea what she's saying. Granted she knew her, she knew
her pharmacology. One of the first questions he asked her when he owned cross
examination was doctor, so and so, have you ever done any research or
published anything on efederan alkaloids? Have you ever published anything on efederan alkaloids safety?
And just holding your questions. She finally got down to where have you
ever done any research or published anything on e federc containing done terry supplements?
No? And he goes down to home and every answer to her question,
every answer to this question was no, no, no, no, no,
to the point of where she got so angry at him. She started
yelling at him on this and dad, well, judge, the judge asked
her, doctor so and so, you know you need to come and then
she started yelling at the judge, that's hilarious, that's so crazy. Oh
man, So then how do you seriously, how do you go to trial
for that and not expect those questions to come? And I'm not, you
know, I get on the stand and so, okay, you know you
asked me the same questions he asked her. Yeah, yeah, yes,
yes, yes, yes, yes, yes yes. And so at the
end he said, so, doctor Gurley, would it be correct to say
that you're probably one of the world's foremost experts on only feder containing dietary sophomonths.
And I said, well, you know, I've never thought about it
like that, but I guess you'd have to say yet. And then he
asked me some questions about, you know, what's going And so instead of
talking pharmacology over the juror's heads, I just started giving them every day analogies
as to why this individual's stroke may have been related to her taking this particular
dietary, that feder containing dietary sophomon and and I could just tell right away
that the jurors got it. Yeah, you know, they were looking like,
oh, ok and he's going to see this, Oh oh that's what
he Yeah. And so long story short, we went the case. Uh,
and the case was for the plaintiffs for like eight million bucks, which
at the time, Yeah, in nineteen ninety, this is in this,
this is a ninet This in two thousand. At the first case I only
go to trial was in two thousand. Uh. And then after that,
man, the floodgates opened up, you know. And so I was an
expert witness for a lot of cases that not all of them went to trial.
A lot of them got settled out like them got settled. But the
ones that did go to trial, I mean we won everyone, you know.
So knock on wood, I never lost a case with regards to those
products. I mean we were we were up against some pretty heavy hitters.
I mean some of the top selling and fetter containing celtma was in the companies
in the in the nation, you know, the metabolized yeah rip puel,
I remember the Stacker one of them. Yeah, all we did, yeah
yeah, Stacker hydroxy cut them, you know. And so but what was
really interesting to me, and I had not I knew this from experience in
pharmacy school. So this was and when I was in pharmacy school, there
was a group of products that were marketed um and they were based, for
lack of a better term, colloquially they were termed and fetamine lookal and so
they were so and fetamine at the time was in a black capsule. Uh.
And so these these if these amphetamine lookalots were also in a black capsule,
but they didn't contain I mean, they contain ephedrian phenol propanolamine, which
is basically a which is an analog of efeder um and um a caffeine.
And so they were marketed and the other So what did you want greeny by
itself, it's pretty ncuous. Yeah, but when you when you throw them
all together, yeah, oh it can get ugly fast. Yeah. So
from a cardiovascular and uh and a cerebro vascular contact. So um. So
I remember pharmacy school when you know, these things are popular, and I
took one, you know, I had a study for some exams, you
know, so well, I'll pop one of these we called them black Molly's.
I'll pop one of these things and I'll uh you know, and my
god, oh my, you are lord, you could I was awake for
all night. You know, you're just so buzzed, you know, you're
you're you couldn't sleep you, you know, you kind of I kind of
got what I was I maybe remember I don't know anyway I could study,
not a problem. I was taking all this in. I didn't you remember
anything, you know, I would just buzzed, yeah, big time,
you know. And not only were you hyped up studying, but you know
afterwards you wanted to you know, wash the car and paint the house and
you know, mold the neighbor's yard. No, I mean, you're just
so wired up with this stuff. Like my god, So after I took
my sand the following day, I can't recall how it did on it,
but I can't remember a damn thing I studied after that, you know,
so you just, yeah, I want to you couldn't retain anything. Yeah,
you could, you could focus on it at the time, but then
afterwards you kind of had this memory dump, you know. That's so I
had it. That's it. I had personal experience with these products that were
that were common synthetic combinations of euphederan, pheno propenolamine, and caffeine, which
is the same thing that was in these ephederic containing diets. Of must accept
that the sort of all natural and not synthetic. Well, I mean from
a pharmacological perspective, the drug molecule doesn't know you're the way your receptors in
your body a molecule, they don't know whether it's synthetic or whether it's natural.
I mean the molecules molecule, you know, so anyway, so that
you know. So I brought all that out, uh, not only in
various depositions, but also in trial that you know. And so what happened
to the amphetamine looks well because of the heart extrokes, seizures, and psychotic
events that had occurred during the during the mid eighties to the early nineties,
the FDA pulled that stuff off the market. He said, no, you
cannot market these things unless you can prove to the FDA that they're safe and
effective, and that can never be done. And so they went away.
But then when the doctor is someone health an Education Act came, they came
right back. They came right back natural. Basically they were just natural,
same thing, look alive. Yeah, that's them. That's what It's an
important point you make because you know I I you know, ADHD attention deficit
or are something that's very familiar with pharmacists right now, there's plenty of medications
out there. We pretty much the dosages haven't really changed. They're pretty easy
to manage if you do it correctly. But cardiovascular side effects of appetite suppression.
You know, you were one of the first people, you know,
when I was prescribed these things. We're like, look, we really need
to be tracking your growth because it could stunt your growth a little bit.
That's starting to come out pretty heavily. Now we know these things have side
effects, just like every drug does. But again, it's very scary to
think that just right down the street, anybody could technically make something natural version
of it that could and that might be cheaper or easier to get because there's
a very big shortage of those um amphetamine type medications right now, and you
know people are those aren't easy meads you want to be off of for a
long periods of time if you've been on them for a while, and you
know, people might reach for those uh natural products thinking, oh, you
know what, this will hold me over till the drug supply thing comes back.
Um their natural set, it won't hurt me, and then you never
know, Like like you said, the loviation can be all over the place.
Yeah, so yeah, that's a sore so with that. So once
that, so, once that first case was found for the plaintiffs, and
then, like I said, the bar you know, the floodgates opened up.
So um, there were a whole host of cases that went to a
long story short, the FDA uh finally took the FEDERC containing products off the
market. Okay, So Metabolife hydro hydroxycut r FA was the one that was
on the market at the time. All that stuff went away, and so
then you came up with easy FEDERC free supplements, you know. So I
mean, for example, a classic example was during the day when when Metabolife
was at its heyday in like two thousand and two thousand and one, it
had an over a billion dollars in sales that year get out sold prozac that
you and then and then you know a lot of bad publicity started coming out
and their sales just started to plumb it. So what are they Well,
Okay, we'll take the ephedra out and then we'll add a whole bunch of
other non efedera still s path of my medica means and throw some more caffeine
in there. And so now they're a FEDERA free So okay, we're good.
We're all good. Ye. Well, so me, I just said,
well, you know, if feder you know, okay, So here
you know, I'm a curious guy. I'm interested in these things. I
know a lot about the pharmacology of all the ingredients that are in a lot
of these ethedera free soultments that are on the market now. Um, and
so we didn't want, if my understanding, the only clinical pharmacology studying the
Federal free containing dietary supplements. And hell, they were just as problematic as
you federic containing stuff, you know, because if you throw enough, if
you're throwing stroll symnpathemometic amine compounds with a bunch of caffeine in it, whether
or not, whether or not there's any of feder in it or not,
I mean, it's still going to act the same. And so we saw
the same thing, a lot of alterations, significant alterations and electrocardio and electrocardiograms,
uh, significant increases in blood pressure, heart rates, on and so
forth. So even though they're EFEDRA free, that doesn't necessarily mean they're trouble
free. And so and that's what you still have on the market now,
but now they're in the form of pre workout powders. Oh yeah, man,
yea exactly. Yeah. So it's you know, you know, just
doing a heavy workout with weights alone. Well, we'll crank your blood pressure
up, especially the pressure in your cerebral vasculature. And then you throw in
some some compounds like a whole lot of caffeine and a whole lot of other
sympathemmetic amines. Man, it'll make your blood You wonder why people have have
had strokes with those types of products. You know what's really interesting Back in
the day, effederan and caffeine and one of the few drug combinations that markedly
uh increase um the uh not only markedly uh cause based in the market the
pressure and braslature. So it's one of the few drug combinations that do that.
So and you wonder why it's not once you understand that it's not,
it's not beyond the realm apossitory where you would see some into it. And
of course everybody has their own different dissensitivities in the whole genetic aspect of things.
Some people are going to be much more sensitive to these things than others,
and so that oftentimes that was the case. So you can have some
genetic polymorphisms and either metabolizing enzymes or receptors or so on and so forth,
some individuals just gonna be much more susceptible to these things than others. So
um so again, although the effederal supplements we were taken off the market in
two thousand and four, the effederal free products that most of which are pre
workout supplements. I mean, there's some absolutely crazy formulations that are on the
marketing now. I'm just not getting a lot of publicity because there's bigger there's
bigger things for the media to jomb Sure, sure, yeah, there's still
a these are kind of these are under the radar screen, so to speak.
But I mean, if you get hurt by one, you're still hurt
by sure. Yeah. I Doctor Dunne in pharmacy school always said this,
and this has always stayed in the back of my mind, is it's not
rare if it happens to you. So and that not only you know he
was using it in the context of prescripture medication side effects, but I mean
stop them into the same way. And it's funny you mentioned pre workout because
they're still a and I've you know, if you tweak your social media well
enough, you can find these posts about pre workouts and they're all hilarious because
they all, every single one of them is the same. They all miss
Jack three D, the original one. There's this form of guys out there
that think that that was the best thing is since sliced bread, and like
they're so mad that it's not available anymore. But none of them know why
that was pulled. You know, we're one of the few groups. I've
actually done some some animal studies with not only Jack three D, but also
one of the them analogs of Jack there the same made by the same company,
oxy Elite Prom and that's rot your liver out, but it'll recavoc on
your blood pressure and stuff. So and you know, so yeah, I
mean in Jack three D. I mean, if you just look at all
of the adverse event reports that were submitted to the FDA and to post control
centers across the country for our our for all of our active service people that
were taking Jack three D and oxy Elite Pro as you know, as to
help them on their to help them pass their UM fitness screening yeah, yeah,
exactly. And you know, and a lot of these guys are having
strokes and heart attacks and this and that. But when you actually look at
what's in the products, it certainly it makes perfect sense. And so it
was fine. One of the oxy eleate pro cases went to trial, well
it didn't go to trial, but it went to the the Apartment adjustice it
up. They asked us to do some of the some of the some of
the research on it. Uh. And yeah, it's very problematic because the
problem of oxy league pro when it came out was there a lot of a
lot of serious literatories associated with it, and we could we could pretty much
emulate that in some animals. Uh. And so come to find out that
very very in fact, hardly any of the components in oxypro were of natural
origin. Almost all of them were synthetic, and that synthetic combination of ingredients
and never been in minister to humans before. Nevertheless an animal, you know,
so basically the the consuming public where there were their guinea pigs for these
problems. So that's a that's a problem, and that's still still a case
for a lot of these pre workouts. Now, the vast majority of dietary
submas that don't contain a lot of these crazy statements. Are you know,
are are very safe, you know, and they have a very very and
having excellent safety profiles, and so so it gets depends upon, you know,
if you mix and match all kinds of interesting ingredients that have never been
mixing match before. Yeah, you're just opening You're just opening the door for
a bad exactly, and you get some odd pharmacological response. Hell, what
do you expect? Yeah, right now, let's just what I would always
call it form I kind of locking them in many instances, not all,
but in many instances, a lot of these crazy comment a lot of these
clarsy formulations as a pharmacological Pandora's bought. Yes, yeah, you open it
and you can't close it, and it's too late. If it does,
it's ugly. And then, you know, just like with any any time
lawyers are involved, it's like once one case gets attention, it's just like
others eighty eighty other ones. Way, oh yeah, And it's just it
was wild there for a while, you know, so I was getting I
would, I would get death threats. I remember, I remember, you
know, this is this is back in the this is back when you still
had phones in the house that you have cell phones, you know, and
you and I'm you know and not on. It was pissed me off,
you know. So we we had to do another study, and we poked
another stick in their eye, you know, And and the more they would
threaten me, the more the more research we would do, and it just
got ugly. At the end of the day. You know, we ended
up winning out. Yeah, because um, because you know, at that
point, the media was on our side, because you know, I have
anyway and I could go and tell and that and that's not after that.
Yeah, So I'm sorry, No, you're good. I was just gonna
say, like, yeah, I mean I don't want to, Um,
yeah, I mean there's tons of horror stories out there, and I think
people aren't aware of it. So I'm glad that there's people out there actually
doing the research that proves that because you know, then again, you know,
something obscure like that. Now I want to I'm gonna go off on
a slight tangent now that we brought research into it that I don't think a
lot of people understand. So as a lot of people are familiar with human
clinical trial research for drugs or for nutrition okay, because it's kind of easy
to do, and it's there's really not a lot of downside, so to
speak, with nutrition protocols in particular, because it's fairly easy to do um
now. But everyone seems too there's this there is, unfortunately in my opinion,
taking over a little too much. And it's just I see people,
especially on social media, and I've alluded to it an older in one of
the first episodes of the show is there's a lot of appeals to conspiracy.
There's it's it's real easy for people to gravitate towards Oh there these there's these
unknown individuals behind this curtain, pulling the strings and they're wanting us to they
want to make us sick and stuff. And in reality, their biggest claims
when you try to cite a paper like hey, where's this for that claim,
it's oh, well you know who funded it? Who funded the study?
Yeah, um, so in relation to dietary supplements had over two hundred
publications, So you know exactly what it takes to get a study published and
accepted. So can you kind of for the bear for bare bones, just
so people kind of understand the whole process. What does it take for doctor
Gurley to do research on a supplement, funding for it, and then get
it published. Can you kind of walk us through a timeline of that just
so people are aware. Yeah, I can, but before we do that,
I need to take a little I need to take a little quick break,
so I have a few based off the funding question and how a study
like this gets conducted. What's the funding process, like, how is the
approval thing? Just kind of walk us through what all it takes. Because
I know when it's time for you to get to do a grant or try
to get that published, it is not a fun time for you. So
I know there's a lot to it that I just don't think people are aware
of it because there's a lot of misconceptions that there's these big industries out there
funding all these studies and they're manipulating the studies, and it kind of gives
people an out to just kind of dismiss the evidence without having actually read it
or interpret it. Yes, yes and no um because the if you look
at the Education Act, a lot of these companies they're not obligated sure to
didical research studies. They're just not I mean, it's your you know,
that's to me, that's always been kind of one of the shortcomings of this
ship is that it's not up to the dietary SULTMA companies to prove that their
product is safe or efficacious. They don't have to do the clinical human clinical
trials that conventional medications have to go through. So that approval process is much
different than UM than the preval process for conventional medications. And the reasons for
that is because most of these dietary supplements have a very long track record of
safety. You know, stuff like um, I don't know, let's say,
um wheat germ yeah, okay, or or vitamin yeah, or echinacia.
I mean, you know that stuff is I mean, people have been
consuming many of these plants for millennia and you know they're just not they're not
recognized as being problematic U and so you know, but when you start putter
that have that the human populations have never consumed before. Yeah, it's one
thing that consumer could one particular plan. You know, it's a diet.
You know, when we eat, we might we might eat some green beans
and some corn and some russell sprouts, okay, but anything you kind of
get used to you you're we know, though, those are harmless. When
you start throwing the other interesting botanicals that have some interesting pharmacology, it's one
thing to consume them by themselves, when all together hard to say what the
pharmacology is going to be like. And what I can't emphasize enough is that
with dietary supplements, it's not just a plant that's ground up in a powder
and put into a castle. It's that the powders the plant has dried,
ground up, and then it's extracted. It's extracted with either hot aquiest solutions
or ethanolic solutions or sometimes or other organic solvents to concentrate all these unique phytochemicals
or plant de rive chemicals. And and so you're being exposed to much higher
concentrations of these ingredients than if you just consume the plant in this natural state.
And so, now, granted a lot of these phytochemical combinations are even
if you concentrate them to you know, orders of magnitude more than it would
be in a plant. They're not they're not they're not harmful, but that's
not always the case, you know. And so when you start mixing and
matching different botanical extracts, especially in these multi ingredient uh pre workout supplements.
UM, you oftentimes get some just absolutely crazy stuff that's going to and you
don't they don't they don't do any research on it. Well, you don't
know, you don't know what. So then you have people out in myself
that come along and go o, okay, let's just see what this stuff
actually does. And it's you know, sometimes it's not a big deal,
yeah, and sometimes it's just crazy. I meant a classic example, I
kind of go back to the ephedrac thing when you know, when we first
started getting death threats and stuff, and I said, all right, well
we know, by God bringing on here we go. And so we did.
We did a mouse study, okay, and said a little toxicology study,
and we took several of the top selling ephederic containing supplements, all of
which and then and then we took one just ephedra suf bias and had nothing
else in it, just ephedra, just an ephedrac extract with just efederan alkaloids.
And so we took one capsule of each product, extracted it um and
water and then administered a very small like one hundred micro leaders I forget the
exact block, but it's very small volume to a mouse. And so it
just so happened that the largest dose per milligram per kilogram in the mice of
the efederan alkaloids came from just a plaine ephedra product, nothing else. They
had the highest concentrations of milligram federan alkaloids. All those animals survived the study
no no problems whatsoever. All the other products, all the other mice that
got the individual products like tablife or uh oh, there was one, a
couple of others. Um they all, I mean most of them died within
most two hours on product. One product culled all of them in twenty four
hours. Could So they all had and they're aren't their Their effeder and alkaloid
doses were you know, much much less than just the effect. But they
all had caffeine, they all had other you know, stimulants in there.
And so it just goes to show you that if pedra by itself is not
problematic, but when you throw it in the mix with other ingredients, it
can become very problematic. So you have a lot of additive, sometimes even
centered gistic effects from from all these things together. So it just goes to
show you that one product by itself using not a problem. You start mixing
and matching things and you've never ever in it, and human beings have never
consumed this combination before. It. Don't be surprised if some people don't react
very well. Yeah, so that's just common sense. You know that that
you don't take it doesn't take a PhD and pharmaceutical So I figure that out.
No, So anyway that that goes back to that. So the more
so in my regard, the more complex a formulation is, especially if you
if it has a lot of sympathemimetica means in it, the more problematic it's
going to be. And so you have a lot of those products in the
pre workshop today. Yeah. I always always tell people to if if you
take, if you look at a supplement and if you just the best way
to distinguish one product from the other as far as safety goes, it is
just if you just see a lot of ingredients hidden under a proprietary blend on
a label and probably best just avoid that one if you don't know what it
is. But it's because you have no idea. The individual concentrations is in
that proprietor terry blend and you can kind of get away with adding stuff and
not listing it too. So that's I think the easiest thing, um that
the proprietary blends are. Yeah, they're proprietary, you know, but they've
not done any research for most of these proprietary blands. They just it's just
just happens to be a combination that nobody else is as combined. Yea,
So they call it proprietary. UM. Now every now you know, again
not all of them it that way, but you know, if you if
you you know, we can do a whole we can do a whole pod
just on um extracise performance enhancement supplements. Yeah, we'll probably get into that
at some point for sure. UM Yeah, but you know, to kind
of to kind of shift gears, you know, ethic um at the same
time, simultaneous with with all of our federal research. You know, as
someone who's um fairly well versed in drug drug interactions, you know, the
first thing you think about is, well, I wonder what kind of how
what kind of interactions can these dietary supplements have with conventional medications. So we
were one of the very first groups to actually systematically evaluate some of the very
popular supplements and their ability to modulate human drug metabolism. And just so happens
that one of the very first products we looked at was Saint John's ward.
And Saint John's work by itself is actually it's very innocuous, not a problem.
It actually it's actually from a lot of people take Saint John's work for
its antidepressive effects, you know. And so if you look at some of
the well designed clint that he's done in Europe, a well a high quality
Saint John's WARP product is as good as than most tricyclic anidepressants and most if
not all of the selective serotonin reuptaken him yeah, you know, and the
safety profile is as much as much less h you know, So don't get
a lot of crazy side effectures like you would tricyclic antidepressants, tricycles and nothing
that's a side effect in a BOB results pretty they're not very I mean,
they're not commonly prescribed much anymore. I mean, even from the time I
started, they've kind of gone the way of the dinosaurs. And then you
know, then the whole SSR thing has kind of been blown up recently,
you know, so they may have some is question. Sure, that's that's
something for a whole nother story. But Saint John's ward, the problem with
a lot of SSR eyes is that you have it basically diminishes a lot of
people's libido. YEA, yeah, that's a common counseling point that we that
I talked to Patience about there after most tricycle excuse me, with most SSR
eyes, not the case with Saint John's ward, and but the mechanic.
But what we found is that we were doing one of the very first studies
and we're looking at the data. Um, we found that when you gave
Saint John's ward. For the first study we did, we did it for
thirty days. We had individuals on Saint John's ward for thirty days, and
we looked at their drug metabolizing enzyme activity before and after the thirty day,
of course, and some of the very important drug metabolizing enzymes. At the
end of that thirty days, we saw the activity increased by over WHOA,
that's just that was just crazy? Why what I almost almost liking, like,
man, something's wrong here, Yeah, something must be off. Yeah,
there must be something. This can't be right. Well, and so
about two weeks after I crushed the numbers on that very first clinically that involved
Saint John's work, I got a call from and in fact the study physician
who was part of our He was one of He was my study physician and
all of our clinical studies with herbal Southmones. He was also a transplant He
was also a transplant surgeon. He calls me up one afternoon and he says,
hey, Gurley, he worked with a herbal crap. I've got a
question for you. And he actually used a harsher explicit than craft, but
it had this for letters in it, so you know what that means.
And he said, hey, you think Saint John's working interfere with cyclosporn And
so for people on the podcast, I don't know what cyclosphy is. Cyclo
Sporn is up as an eveno suppressive drug. Their revolutionize solid organ transplantation.
That drug allowed heart, allowed heart, liver kidney transplants to be done on
a regular basis and will to survive for you know, years, decades.
But the problem is with the cyclosporn has a narrow of what we call a
narrow therapeutic window. If the concentrations in your blood are too low, your
body may reject your organ. But if the concentrations are too high, you
can cause some kidney damage, you know. So you're walking a fine line
for sure. Anyway. Yeah, So so my physician buddy calls me up
and I said, so, you've got transplant recipients on cyclosporn and Saint John
spart And he goes out and I said, I said, I'll bet to
psychlist. I said, a bet to psycho sporing levels are really low,
aren't they. There was a long cough own, and he goes, how
the hell did you know that? Of course, psycho sporn is metabolized by
the same enzymes that we saw that were just markedly increased in their activity.
So you would think that, okay, if Saint John's ward is making the
drug, metabolizing enzymes are responsible for the metabolism of psycho sporn. If these
guys are off, if these guys are much ye cranked up induced, as
we say, then you're going to metabolize the psycho sporn much much more efficiently.
And so you're going to have to give and so the regular doses of
psycho sporn are not going to be effective, and so what they were having,
they were having there was four individuals that were in the clinic at the
time that we're having acute rejection. Well uh, and the only reason they
could figure it out was because they were also taking Saint John's ward and out
and that there's an interest stories of how why that came about. But nevertheless,
um that paper. You know, we were the first ones to publish
the clinical relevance of the Saint John's work in right, and we now's work
is one of the most potent inducers of human drug metabolizing enzymes ever discovered.
Yeah, there's a unique camp. There's a unique phytochemical and Saint John's work
called hyperforin um and it's one of the most potent actors of human drug metabolizing
it. Everyone discovered it. It makes rife vamping look sad. I'm not
if you're pretty with rife a drug in treat tuberculosis, and it's it's notorious
for inducing these same drug metabolizing enzymes. Well, the amount of rife vamp
and necessary to induce these enzymes is order of magnitude greater than the amount of
Saint John's Ward so or hyperfery. So, yeah, that got us off
on all that, and so we started looking into all kinds of herb drug
interactions. And that's kind of where I where I kind of got back into
good favor with the dietary suffment endtry so because a lot of them know,
there was this concern that everything's gonna act like Saint John's Wark. Well,
no, right, Saint John's Ward is probably one of maybe a handful of
botanicals that really cause significant What are some of the are some of the other
ones that you can be able to look out because honestly, like, there's
really when I'm when people ask me all the time, hey, you know,
granted I used to not get this question. I get this question quite
often. Now, hey does this interact with other medications that I'm on?
And that's a ninety nine percent of the time. You look at him like,
no, nothing to worry about. But there's a handful that I'm looking
for. Um, Yeah, so you're you're always looking for. Of course
Saint John's of course, now there aren't there are saints you know, now
that we know what's the problematic issue with Saint John's Ward, there are Saint
John's work products that have very low high perfering contour, and they don't and
they don't have to issue, you know, but but you've got to You've
really got to do your homework and know which products to take and which products
not. There's Saint John's Ward. Um, they're not. I will say
this, the vast mentions in dietary sophomones on the market at the moment,
and we've just literally literally just scratched the surface of their interaction potential. But
we didn't know that Saint John's work is a problem. Um. Golden seal,
Yeah, that's another one. I'm familiar with some unique compounds and Golden
seal that work just the opposite of Saints Ward. Instead of inducing metabolized zimes
and making drugs less effective, they inhibit the enzyme activity and make a lot
of other medications toxic. Yeah, so Golden seal. Um, Let's see
what are some of the black pepper extract especially the kirkumen products, and and
the reason it's that is because kirkumen is extensively metabolized in the in the not
only in the gut, but also in the liver, so very little of
the parent Kirkuman gets to the systemic circulation um and the reason for that it's
because it's metabolized as it goes to the gut and the liver. It's called
a first pass effect. So what opponents in black pepper called pippering or pipperamides,
and the pepperamids are oping inhibitors of a lot of these very important rutabolizing
enzymes. And so you throw black pepper extract into a formulation with something like
kirkuman, more kirkumans absorbed systemically. Yeah. Yeah, and that's that's that's
not a problem. Kirkhuman by itself is innocuous, not a problem. But
if you're taking it with some other medication that has an aerotherapeutic window, and
you're taking you're not only you're taking a drug with an aera therapeutic glendow,
but you're also taking it with a pippering containing extract supplement, then it might
make some medications more more time. Yeah. I mean my initial thought would
be like, if you have someone on a medication, let's say, I
mean I don't see phenotoin very much for seizures or anything anymore, not anymore.
Um. Now, granted you can have some people on that, but
there are a few drugs out there, Didge, like certain to jocks and
certain ones that are for with the drug concentrations, and no one would think
twice about taking Kirkuman or tumeric because it's you know, it gets advertised on
TV all the time if your joints hurt and you feel like you know,
blah blah blah. So I always try to recommend to PhD asomble preparation of
that just to kind of avoid that, because I also see not a lot
not only is there the drug interaction potential there, which isn't I'm not super
concerned really, but a lot of people complain about it that they taste of
that stuff. Like they're like I when I take those submits and like I
have you know, if I get a little indigestion later, like I taste
it, I hate it. And like they'll they'll bring sometimes even bring products
back and go, I don't want anything that has that peppery crap in it.
And it's like, okay, yeah, I mean I get why,
but yeah, there's a there's a there's a there's a reason why the Golden
seal and the pepperine of the Black pepper because they're they're sources of phytochemicals that
have a particular organic molecule molecular structure that we recognize now as a problem.
And there are a lot of plants, and plants make all kinds of these
phytochemicals that have this particular structure. The reason for that is because they're good.
They're good insecticide. So plants make these compounds to keep to keep the
bugs away, to keep the bugs from chewing on them eating them up.
But when we as humans ingest these compounds, you know, they have some
other pharmacological aspects and they inhibit these drug metabolizing enzymes. And so there's stuff
like chis drum and um let's see Chisandra, golden seal, black pepper.
Those are there's a handful of others. If there's um, but the vast
while the while there isn't, there's always a risk for an herb drug interaction
potential. It looks like the vast majority are don't really pose a risk.
There's a reason for that. It's because a lot of phytochemicals don't get more
very well. Yeah, so if they don't get absored, they're not gonna
be a problem. Yeah. A common example that I've I've talked to our
wellness department about a couple of times is a lot of people, you know
now that the ever since of the low fat diet craze kind of went out
the window in the nineties and it kind of shifted, you know, it
was fats the enemy. Now, then it was carbs, and then now
it's seed oils, which I'm gonna debunk here in a minute because there's just
no claims. It's so ridiculous. But anyway, the low carb community an
insulin resistance, and all these buzzwords around blood shirt control popular. So people
come in and go, hey, what can I take to help with blood
shugar control? They're like, I've heard about acromancia, which is just a
probiotic that helps you know, you can control blood shugar responses. And they
got to an extent, I just buying harmony. But the most common thing
that people talk about is like brain. They're like, I don't want to
be on that, foreman, but my doctor said burberin would probably be something
pretty similar because it behaves pretty similarly. And I have no problem telling people
you're just gonna waste your money because the way chemically that burbering is structured.
It isn't going to get absorbed to any to any extent. And even that
dihydra is it dihydro burbering. The other preparation, it's different. There's another
one that I think is like a little bit more soluble. Um where yeah,
you know, I mean is is what we call a quatamarama, which
has apartment of charge on it, which that alone makes it difficult to be
absorbed UM with and so it's not going to be Now it might have me
on the gut Michael flora, Um, but exactly what that is yet?
Um, some a very a very very small amount of burbering will I'm not
sure that that's enough to have It might be enough to have some significant impact
on blood sugar that kind of stuff. The jury still out that we really
don't know, um and what what I'm matting. Are absorbed do get metabolized
pretty extensively, They get glucuroni dated and so now it's possible that some of
those glucuronides are active the dogma is aren't active. Yeah, but that's not
we know that's not the case. Classic example is with the morphine morphine six
glucuronide is extremely potent stuff and it actually crosses a blood brain barrier. So
there's an example of a natural product, morphine from opium, whose glucuronide is
active. You know, so it's possible that verberate and glucuronides might be active.
I No, one's really no, one's really tease that out. Sure,
um, but if you just you know, now, so does it
have Some ethicas out there suggest that it does, you know, and there
isn't There is an interaction potential there because it does have it's one of the
it falls into that category of phytochemicals that have this it's called a methylane dioxy
fennel functional groups. I know what it is because I've listened to you talking
about it before. But yeah, but unless you're an organic chemist, you
know, you're not gonna make you know. But nevertheless, like I said,
plants make a lot of these molecules and have that methylane dots and fenyl
functional group, and they're good, you know, they're they're good insecticides as
far as plants concerned. But when we ingest those that can inhibit a lot
of drug and catalyzing enzymes, not all of them do because it depends upon
their physical chemistry. And yeah, that's a whole other, a whole another
topic to getting into at some point. But the vast majority is there potential
for HERB drug interactions? Yes? How problematic? Is it a handful right
now? Not really? Probably not that big of a deal as as you
might like. Um And if you look at UM, there a lot of
there are a lot of good resources for information of guards, but a lot
of that is based on in vitro day. Yeah, and so if you're
given enough just to kind of pause for a second, like, could you
I haven't really gotten a chance to do a deep dive on study design,
which I plan on doing even though that podcast is going to be super borous.
We're going to trudge through it. But can you explain to people the
difference? But like what that means because you'll hear mouse studies, animal studies,
human clinical trials, and you'll hold this other study or cell culture studies
or in vitro, can you explain like kind of why that assigns like yourself
may pick that study design over say trying to do like a mouse study like
you've done as well before. Yeah, so you basically can throw all studies
into two basic categories, in vitro or in vivo. In vivo means in
a live body, whether that body is a mouse or a rat or a
human, right, and of course rats metabolize things differently than humans, do
you know, So an animal study may show something, does that mean that's
going to doesn't mean that that's going to be the same effect in a human
Usually not. Sometimes it is, but not always, And so a lot
of times what people will do they look at what's called it in vitro study.
In vitro studies basically, for lack of a better term, end glass
in a tube so to speak, a test tube or n a ditch.
So what does that mean? Well, that means typically you either have some
cells some individuals, like, for example, liver cells apatocytes, and you
may expose that the apatocytes two different phytochemical concentrations and see whether or not the
activity of those enzymes in those apatocytes are effective. Sometimes you can just have
their hide enzyme in in vitro study too, but invariably, if you add
enough of anything, you'll affect whether it'll be induciens or inhibit the enzyme or
whatever. Okay, and a lot of times these concentrations that are necessary to
elicit a response in an in vitro study or oftentimes orders of magnitude high you
would ever see in a human view that product, uh, in a human
being, because as human beings, our guts, our livers, they they're
they're protective mechanisms, you know, so they see all foreign compounds we call
xenobiotics. You know, look, I'm kind of this is not I'm not
familiar with this. I'm going to do something to it so I can get
rid of it. And so, your your gut has a lot of these
drug metabolizing enzymes. Your liver has these drug metabolizing enzymes. And so when
you ingest a foreign compound, you know, a xenobiotic, whether it's a
phytochemical or a drug. Uh, your body reacts to it as I don't
recognize it's not going to I'm going to change it to make it we can
get it out of here. I don't want to see it yet, Yeah
and so and so um From an in vitro's perspective, you know, a
lot of the time as you can enlisten response in vitro, but that may
not have any bearing whatsoever on and in vivo a clinical study. Sure,
the same that you always were always with the translational just the data results from
an in vitro study translate to the clinical correct. Yeah, And unfortunately,
unfortunately, especially now and this is common in nutrition research too, is that
you know they'll people will say, oh, well, you know they'll if
they cite a study at all, which is the first big problem. Most
of them just put stuff out there and don't you know, do any due
diligence to cite sources. But if they do, they may go find or
they may google it real quick and go find a cell study and so,
oh see, look at all these negative things in this cell study. It's
bad, it causes cancer or it does whatever, when in reality or sitting
there going it's it's a cell culture study. Like the reason you do is
cell culture studies to see what might be going on, and then you conduct
the animal study to see if that actually translates like you've like you've talked about
so just because now again cell culture studies are super important and sometimes that's all
you can do. It might not be it might not be ethical to do
that study in humans or or mice for that example, Um, because what
people don't realize and you're the head of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee,
is people still have this kind of stigma that like animal research is cruel
and all this evil stuff and oh no, it's I mean, they don't
realize what all it goes into it. So, so can you put people's
minds at these real quick and kind of keep it brief on like what that
institution's there to do and why like why why do we care about mice?
You know my kind of you know, you can they're useful, they're you
know, they're easy, too easy to use in a study, But like,
why do we care so much about you know, if it's ethical to
do something for like mice or something. I'm just well, it's ethical.
It's ethical if you if you're if you treat the animals humanely, right and
so, and they're you know, we can do a whole podcast on this.
But the purpose for you know, if you're for all drugs to all
drug companies, before they put a molecule of some suspective drug into a human
being, you have to see whether it's going to be safe. And so
oftentimes what will happen is you'll use an animal model, a mouse or a
rat. And mice and rats, you know, they're they're pretty hardy into
they're pretty hardy beings. You know, it's hard. It's pretty hard to
mouse or a rat because they're used to eating you know, nasty stuff and
they have really really good, uh, metabolic systems to metabolize a lot of
this stuff. So if something you're giving to or a rat, if it
causes them some toxicity, yeah, probably not going to be very good for
the human beings. So we we we we really use animals. It's kind
of a you know, the canary in a coal mine, so to speak.
You know, we expose animals to these compounds just to see, you
know, and we don't we don't try to kill them. Yeah, you
just try to see where you start, just where you start to see some
some wart effects, and then once you get so far, you go,
okay, we're good. You know, we don't want to just purposely kill
them. Though. You never do a study. You know, a study
would never get good. Uh, it would never get approved by the Institutional
Animal Care and Use Committee if death was an endpoint, right, that's not
no, we we we you will you will you will do a study to
see what type of untoward effects if they're if there are any, and you
can kind of you know, you don't, you know, as scientists know
what what you're looking. Sure, when you start to see certain certain hallmarks
of a study that now this is start, this is going in a bad
direction, you'll stop it. Sure. And I don't think people realize either
that when you do these studies, because I've done I've done rat pup studies
myself, um when I before pharmacy school, but when I got my feet
wet and research labs. These animals are fed three times a day. They're
kept comfortable like there's there's if you're gonna do some type of surgical procedure like
we had to do when we were doing the sequal ligation and puncture to study
sepsis, they were under anesthesia, they never felt any pain. They were
given medications if necessary. And these things these little rat pups, man,
I mean, you would purposefully induce a in a state where they're not gonna
make it if you just if you keep it going, just to see how
they responded. And a lot of these a rat pups, you is,
as soon as you saw the markers you were looking for, you stopped,
you stopped, you reverse the procedure, and then they lived. They lived
just like normal, and they responded pretty quickly. But there's a lot of
steps in there to keep it humane and keep it ethicals that people don't realize
are part of the game. People aren't out there purposely torturing a Yeah,
that's just not No, that does not happen. And if you think that's
the case, so you're just stupid, you don't know, you don't understand.
Yeah, you know, we go to great lengths to make sure that
the animals are taking care, are are humanly treated. You've got vets on
staff that that yeah, oh yeah better. Yeah, it's just I mean,
the animals get oftentimes get better care that most. You guarantee that the
case. Um, so yeah, but you have to have you have to
have animal research. Without it, we wouldn't have on the market, right,
you wouldn't have any surgical procedure on the mark you know. So animals
have saved Animal research has saved millions of people's lives simply because of of what
we learned about whether a drug or a procedure or a disease for that matter,
So it's it's essential. Yeah. Without without animal research, you would
not have a current state of medicine. Just yeah, yeah, for sure.
I mean it's super important in like I think it's important too. And
again it's to the audience listening. When you're trying to interpret research and when
you're googling it and trying to figure out, you know, if this paper
is going to translate, if it's something you should pay attention to, you
have to look at what study design it was, was it in animals?
And then then after you see the negative effects and animals, okay, is
there any human clinical trial data that backs that up? So you have to
do a little bit. You have to do your homework, so to speak,
and it's not the easiest thing to do. But all the time you
see people going, oh, well, this mouse study confirmed that this uh,
you know, food additive or whatever causes cancer. It's like that that
doesn't occur. And then you've alluded to earlier with supplements that you know a
lot of these drugs have potent insecticides in there just as a defense mechanism.
Well that's that whole defense mechanism concept has just taken the nutrition world by storm.
And there's these uh I hate. I don't want to name drop him,
but like I don't know if you know who, just I'll tell you
about it off the office supporting. Yeah he's not. He's in that case
anyway. His whole spield is plants are toxic and trying to kill you because
the plant defense chemical. He put out a video recently just dogging on oatmeal
saying there's facet in here and it's going to absorb all these minerals and keelate
them. So you're not gonna You're gonna cause nutritional deficiencies and blab bluey bla,
and people eat that up like, oh yeah, you hate vegetables.
They taste bad and exactly, I'm definitely not eating them now because this guy
in the grocery store is telling me that kale is bullshit, and I just
it's got all these defense chemicals, so like it's just crazy. Yeah,
we're talked about talking about phytic acid, you know. So yeah, phytic
acid can complex a lot of it can complex a lot of metal, a
lot of metals like iron and stuff, you know, and but phytic acid
does not get absorbed bove alum. Phytic acid is virtually zero. Yeah,
all right, So now what's really interesting is that your body makes phytic acid.
Okay, so there's a reason it's doing it, but you know,
so you get it's it all boils down to the fact that a lot of
these guys that like you say that start writing I start start oh waving the
bloody rag, you know, and oftentimes they just don't back of everything.
They well they can be um, they're they're just putting on they're putting out
some very you know, some bad information. Yeah. So yeah, it's
it's all you cook. When you cook things that are high and phytic acid,
a lot of that fidic acid's destroyed through the cooking process. So and
then you're talking about even less fight acid you're being exposed to and it's bioavailability
zero. So it make complex some stuff to a degree, but if you're
eating enough of a well balanced diet, you're out do any effects that that
fight of gas and maybe having So I mean, that's like saying, you
know, we've got a whole fighting It's like saying apples are deadly. You
know, apples are a great source of phytic acid. But oh, there's
there's there's people some social media that will argue that fruits are toxic and killing
us. I mean, it's it's a U see it all the time,
uh, commonly referred to, Well they're they're coated with pesticides. Um yeah,
I guess herbicide and things like that, like the process that are they're
causing all these issues in reality? Um well, my first retort to that
is, okay, well you won't always wash your vegetables in your fruit,
you know, baking soda or vinegar or whatever you want. You can wash
them that'll get rid of the pesticides, very little leeches into the actual fruit
itself or whatever exactly. Or you could go, well, if we just
just not use any herbicides or pesticides, so we won't have any crops because
they'll all get destroyed and eaten by the bugs and the animals that are going
to feed on them. So it's a it's a it's a fine balance,
Joe. As as you know, one of my favorite, one of my
favorite mottos is everything in moderation. You know, so if you go off
on a tangent one way or the other, you know, invariably good things
usually don't have or no, but everything in moderation, you know, but
you have to and that's you also have to uh your information that gets you
off. I have to moderate too because a lot here's a lot of junk
science out there too, a lot of people that are putting out at our
you know, they'll take one thing and run with it, like you said,
go off on some crazy tangent and like it has no relevance whatsoever.
So um, you just have to you know it. Consumers they need to
educate themselves, and they're you know, and they're they're they're looking at podcasts
and they're listening to podcasts and and and they're trying to educate themselves. But
even even then, you can get miseducated by sure people that don't really know
what's going on for sure, Um, and I certainly don't claim to know
everything. There is nobody neither do. I mean that would be we'd both
be pretty ignorant to claim. Otherwise that would be the you know that the
apotheosis of Hubrist. And that's not me, you know, right, I
uh we both are. You taught me growing out, stay in your lane.
And if you if you don't know, it's fine to admit that you
don't know, then the network and find someone who does know. I mean,
you have tons of right to say I don't know. Yeah, I
don't know. It depends well, it depends on X factor or in this
context maybe like they're scientists who use that phraseology is it sounds like we're trying
to not answer your question, but in reality, we're trying to get you
to think more as to there's more nuanced to it exactly. And and if
if I don't know something, you know, I'll freely admit it I don't
know it, but I will certainly figure it out the research and try to
find out and answer for you if that's possible based on the based on the
evidence it's out there, um And So that's another nice thing is that pharmacists
are well trained to make sense out of all the all the literature that's out
there, um and and can extract, you know, what's useful and what's
not useful, and what's applicable and what's not applicable. And so that's why
I think pharmacists are you know, are some of one of the probably one
of the probably not the only, but they're they're trained in medicine, they're
trained in pharmacology they're training. You know, they have such a broad experience
with regards to chemistry and pharmacology and Madison and enthusiology and dot a dot that
physicians aren't. But when it comes to medications and dietary soft months, I'm
going to put much more my faith in a well edged uh pharmacists that I
am going to any other type of healthcare professional. And that's just because I
underfron right, and you know, I think it's kind of cool to see
how um, you're starting to see that diology is like because you know,
if you you watch a TV commercial, we're one of the few nations I
think us in New Zealand are the only people that do direct to consumer advertising
for drugs, which I don't really think is useful because you can't ask your
Doctor's so stupid you can't you can't ask your Hey doc. I saw a
commercial on TV last night for sky Rizzie. Can I have a prescription for
that? It's like, that's a fifteen thousand dollars drug for an autoimmune condition
you do not have. UM, don't get me started. Oh yeah,
we won't. We won't go down that rabbit hole. You're starting to see
on these supplement commercials or these even drug commercials to ask your doctor or pharmacist,
which is good because he used to say ask your doctor if you have
any questions. Yeah, when in reality, if it's a herbal dietary supplement,
I would I there's a lot of there. I'm sure there are docs
out there. I know a handful of them that are pretty well versed in
it. One of my buddies that is pretty good in dietary something also happens
to be a pharmacist. But so he's but even patience record, you're going
to know more in the supplement than my doctor will. Yeah, and you
know there's a lot of natural paths out there that a lot of natural paths
are good too. A lot of convensional physicians will put a natural pass,
but you know, when it comes to dietary suppments, you'd be hard probably
knows more about than than a naturopath. The only problem I have with with
I won't even say have with natural paths. It's that I feel like and
this is just my opinion, so this isn't I'm not speaking for anyone else
here. I think there's a middle ground anywhere. I don't want to be
all in on the pharmacy camp. I don't want to be all in on
the supplement camp. Like we can work together just like we're supposed to as
healthcare professionals anyway. You know, natural solutions are freaking fantastic if you can
do it in a safe way and work with your natural path who also collaborates
with your pharmacists, who's also all in the loops, so we're all on
the same page. That's where it's gonna be most beneficial. I think we
do a really poor job of, even as healthcare professionals, of putting other
professions in boxes and just not touching it, like, oh, natural paths,
you know, and they're not credible. He's just a pharmacist. They
just know about medications, or they're just an MD blah blah blah. So
it's there's unfortunately still a lot of that. There always will be. But
but yeah, natural paths, we work with a lot of them, and
they're very well versed on supplements, but they still ask us pharmacists a lot
of questions because they do not know the herb drug interaction stuff. No,
they don't know that, you know. And another thing that's kind of it's
just now, you know, we're doing a lot of research in this area
now, embarking about it for years, just because I'm a pharmacist, you
know, and just because you've got, you know, one thing to have
an advantage over other healthcare professionals, and that is dosage forms, dosage form
performance. And just because you've got a product that's in a capsule or a
soft jail capsule or a tablet, um you know, you may know all
there is to know about the botanical and the extract and this, and that
once you put it in a capsule or a soft jail capsule or a tablet
or some other dosage form, it may or may not work. Right.
I'm we're doing some research now. I'm just looking. I was going to
ask you what you guys over there at NCMPR doing kind of you know,
this is and this is not rocket science either, and companies are supposed to
do this before these products going to market, but we're finding out now it's
not the case. But a lot of it is never disintegrate. So they
never disintegrate. Uh, you know, those might as well just take your
bottle as of somethings and just go up into commode because that's where it's going
to go. Yeah, you know, so shock, I mean, I
mean some of these are pretty good companies too. So I'm not going to
name any names at the moment, but there's a dosage form performance is a
big issue in the dietary soft in the industry. And just because you know
now I was leaving it that so if your product won't if your product won't
disintegrate, yeah, morphsintegrate, and your and your and your your compounds of
interest can't go into solution, can't get dissolved in some shape form or fashion
to be absorbed, they're not going to have any effect either. Yeah,
And the only other way to get around that would be to figure out if
it's a substrate for some sort of transporter. And even if that's the case,
then you have to do the study to see if it is even effective.
And said transporters, So there's there's way more. It's way exactly and
again then a lot of them. The only thing that's really hurting you,
I think, not even from a you know, we've definitely touched on the
potential for HERB drug interactions and adverse effects and whatnot. At the end of
the day, that's going to hurt your pocketbook more than anything else. And
I mean, I don't drugs and life is expensive with all the way the
economy is now, I don't. I really don't want to go to bat
press a product or a supplement brand if I know that it's probably not going
to get absorbed. I will actively tell patients, look, like this product,
you know, I could sell it to you, but I don't think
it's going to do what you want it to do. And here's why.
But I'll leave that decision up to you. And then when you explain it
to patients, they're like, oh, well, yeah, I guess I
don't need that. Then what else would you recommend or is there anything any
other approach I need to take? But those interactions are crucial, and it
takes more than five minutes to kind of in that to people sometimes. Yeah,
And another thing that consumers have a tendency to either don't appreciate is the
fact that a lot of a lot of the lesser a lot of the what
I'm looking for, lesser known companies or less scrupulous companies. Well adult right,
yeah, yeah, you know, so you'll have you know, let's
get into a little bit because I was gonna my last few questions before we
kind of wrap up the show here. I want to kind of two hours
is kind of the max. I don't want to keep it at but yeah,
UM, I really wanted to get into not like duration a little bit
because it definitely happens more so than not. UM. Then we'll kind of
piggyback off that on what product companies do you look for that? Doctor Gurley
would be like, I can get behind that, and then are there any
supplements that you think the average every day consumer, if they're not taking anything,
would benefit from picking up in a pharmacy like mine, And then I
think we can we can end after we touch on those things. Let's let's
get into adults. Okay, so you've mentioned adults products. Um, I
would I guess I could speak for most people when my adulteration flag doesn't really
go, doesn't really kind of peak, I guess is a weird way to
say it. Until I'm dealing. It's mainly in the fitness industry side of
things where I see these products like weight loss meds can be adulterated with other
medications that know those exist, some of these you know, testosterone boosting products
are by now, so you never know what those could be adulterated with two,
but I'd be interested to see what you what other ones you've come across.
Yes, yes, so there are three major categories that are notorious for
having adulterated products. Okay. The first major category are all of your body
building, your pre workout supplements. Its classic. Oftentimes they're adulterated with either
hannibot if you're looking at either anabolic steroids, or they're adulterated with certain sympathema
metica means that are oftentimes prescription medications. The offline was in a pre Wimber
show in you one time too, oh yeah, or there or their analog
of drugs that are out there that are you know. So it's so your
bodybuilding supplements. I'm not saying all bodyblon supplements are adulterated, but a lot
of them are. Yeah, if it's claiming that you're gonna if it's you
know, if you're taking it to you know to help you, you know,
massively increase your muscle mass um, then that nine times out of ten
those are going to be adulterated with some type of antibolic steroid. The major
category of adulterated products are your sexual performance enhancing supplement. Nine times out of
ten those are going to be adulterated with your with your phosphlog diasterase inhibitors like
my aggressilis, those types of things, the Barnefield to Dalla Fields, dnafil's
or their analogs of those, and just shocking how many of those are are
are the reason they work, Yes, because they've got prescription medications or analog
prescription medications in them. So that's a big problem. In the other major
category, so the body building, the sexual performance enhancement, and the other
one are weight loss. A lot of weight loss something months will be adulterated
with prescription medications too, subutramineum things. Um. So that's those are the
three generategories. So anytime you're delving into those, there's always um likelihood that
there could be some adulteration and even some contamination for that matter. Yeah,
so what about what about CBD products? And you guys know, I want
to bring up I didn't want to bring up CBD, but I was like,
screw it because I know, I know that there's some adulteration issues and
a lot of people take CBD. Now, it's very popular, it's becoming
very mainstream, but not all sources of CBD are the same. And honestly,
you get what you pay for when it comes to CBD. So I
know you guys do a lot of research down there, but I know you've
dealt with some adulteration of that. So just kind of briefly for a couple
of minutes, touch of that, I guess. So stile background. So
where I'm at the National Center for Natural Products Research, and since nineteen sixty
eight, the University of Mississippi has been supplying research grade, research grade cannabis
just on institutes of health, you know, for over fifty years now.
So we have some of the we have the best marijuana researchers in the world
here, you know, so we can grow it, we can characterize it
everything. I mean, it's just christ So the whole CBD in the hemp,
you know, that's just that's in our wheelhouse. And so we did
a study a couple of years ago just looking at a wide variety of CBD
containing products in the state of Mississippi, and only one product out of the
fifty that we studied, we had what was on the label. Most of
them either had nothing in it at all, some had more than what was
on the label. Some these are supposedly not have any THC or touch of
how to connappen to all the active ingredient in cannabistic's just the you know,
it has the psychotropic effects. Some products had one product at almost a few
percent TAC in it, you know, so you know, yeah, yeah,
that's probably probably a very popular product at the time. Yeah, and
then and what was really concerning to us was a lot of them had with
synthetic connects. And synthetic cannabinoids are extremely problematic. They can cause a whole
litany of adverse health effects. So you really have to do your homework.
I want to get a CBD product, um and if you get them out
of gas station, and the Lord knows what yet, if nothing else,
if nothing else, learns anything from this podcast, never buy dietary supplements from
a gas all right, just you would You would think that that would be
common knowledge, but it's not. Yeah, well that that that's right there.
It will save thousands of lives. Yeah, it's funny because what people
don't realize too as pharmacies like CBD is almost expected to be in pharmacies now
as an option you could purchase and it's it per law, and most states
are like this. I haven't come across the state that in order that I
think it's actually maybe federal. I'm I'm not entirely sure, but it has
to have less than point three percent THHC legally for a pharmacy to sell it.
And if you can't, if it's if one out of fifty in Mississippi
that you may want to buy has what the label says, then yeah,
that makes them. The hair on the back of my neck stand up when
I'm gonna decide which product I want to carry, because at the end of
the day, if I don't do my homework and something bad my patients,
I am in trouble. So exactly. And so now, um, that
was two years ago. Now things have things. You can change a lot
in two years. And are there still crappy products out there? And absolutely
are there some good? Absolutely? Um and the ft we're still up in
the air as terms of is CBD going to be a supplement or you know,
so you were talking about HIMP versus you know, so so cannabis us
two general categories. You've got hemp versus non hemp. Hemp by the is
cannabis that contains less than point three percent THC by dryway. Anything that's above
point three percent TAC by dryway is not hemp, all right, that's non
marijuana. Yeah, And so it's you know, I mean you can't sell
that as a as you know, that's not legally. You can't say you
can sell illegally all about you want to, but legally you can't sell.
I think you can get Delta nine Texas. And I'm not entirely positive if
that's true or not. I think you can. Well, you know you
got there. There's medical marijuana. You know, some states have recreational and
that's all well and good, you know, nothing wrong with that. Each
state whatever, um. But each state has their own rules and regulations when
it comes to marijuana and hemp and so on and so forth. But if
you're into buying, you just want something that only has CBD in in it.
Um. There are some very reputable companies out there that put out good,
high quey products, but you're going to have to pay for it,
you know. So one of my rules of thumb is if you're not paying
one hundred bucks a bottle for or you know, for us for CBD product,
you probably not have any in it, or there's probably some other things
or you know, so good CBD is going to cost you. Yeah,
just the beast at my pharmacy, the we carry one brand out and if
you know who one farm CBD is. But they they're pretty reputable and they
go through a lot of They've spend a lot of money to make sure that
their product is what it is. Yeah, and because of that, I
would say on average, I mean I would say most I think the cheapest
bottle we sell is in the like eighty dollars range, and it just goes
up from there. And I can be pretty confident as I know the reps
and I've seen what all extra funding they have to do to get through the
hurdles. Um and you get what you pay for with CBD. I don't
like to say that up saving people money and trying to find the best deals
and stuff. But but CBD is not one of those things that I want
to play around with and if I want it, I'm gonna seek out them
more expensive. Yeah, yeah, you know, and it's it's got some
great it's got some great some some excellent effects. You know. So,
um, you know the you know, you can put a stigma on anything,
but everything's you know, you know, marijuana, medical grade marijuana has
its benefits. CBD has its benefits if you're getting CBD. Yeah, you
know, Sam Murray, if you're going to spend money on something, at
least want to know, you know, what's what's on the label is actually
in the product. And you'll be shocking how oftentimes that's not to carry.
Yeah. So so who in general? So okay, So now that we've
kind of touched on that in the importance of it, Um, obviously I
know who to look out for in which brands I think are Obviously you guys
do studies for these drug for these supplement companies as well to get your stamp
of approval. So who are some of the ones that let's say I was
not just shopping at my pharmacy where we carry kind of hiring pharmaceutical great stuff.
Um that not. Let's be honest, not everyone can afford. And
I'm not going to push those on a body. Um. But like let's
say you're going into um, I'm not going to recommend see I don't like
going to GNC, even though it's because when you know all the dietaries something
so we can mess with them a little bit. But um like, let's
say you're going into Costco or an HB or and you're wanting to find something,
are there any type of label markings you look for brands that you guys
know that are ready. Sure, so there are certification programs out there,
and not all certification programs are are equal either, So, um, the
in my opinion, and I'm not paid by anybody, I don't have any
right. We have no financial interest here at the Wellness Transcription Progress either.
About to mention you know my disclaimer. I don't have any any any financial
dealings with any of these companies I'm about to name. But in my opinion,
if I'm going to recommend somebody just get a general dietary softoment, whether
it be MUTI or whether it be Atkin a Show or you know, Saint
John whatever, in my opinion, the company that has the highest quality on
the market right now is Nature's hource YEA and Nature's Resource has they they follow
the USP Standard for Dietary supplement UH monographs for for the average listener, USP
stands for United States Pharma Compia, So the US is it's an acronym for
the United States Pharma Compia. The United States Pharma Compia is an organization or
is a UM an organization has been around since eighteen twenty and they pretty much
set standards for occasions prescription medications as well as a lot of dietary supplements.
I'm not not all dietary supplements, but they're in the process constantly doing new
supplements. But UM, if you have a product has the USP and it
will say USP UH, and there's you can go to the United States pharmac
United States pharmacappe or the USP website and you'll see what the sertation looks like
on the product. But Nature's Resource is one of the few companies there's there's
a few others that follow the rigorous standards set set forth by the UST.
So any product it has the USP certification UH, you can guarantee that what's
on the labels actually in the product and that product is actually product. You'll
be shocking. And we're talking about adulteration earlier, and I want to I
want to backtrack this accession. You can have adulteration with UM with with prescription
medications or those kinds of things. But you can economic audulation, which is
plants that look kind of similar, so you're a plant that but it's they're
a lot cheaper and they're really not the same thing. So you can have
economic adulteration. So you might be looking for CBD oil and in reality it's
just got olive oil in it at all. So that's kind of an example
of maybe an economic adulter and so it's not a it's not a harmful product,
but it's just not the product that you that has claimed on the label.
Yeah. So is nature's resource? Is that? This? Is that
nature made? Are those the same guys? Is that what I'm I'm thinking?
Yeah, he said nature's resource and nature man know the bottle at Kroger
that's yellow and green? Um, yeah, yeah, those guys nature's resource
and and then I know Nature's out there. Yeah, there's their Nature's bounty
natures. Yeah, there's a ton of them and they're bounty nature made.
Yeah, it may be nature it is nature made. I'm pretty I'm like
pretty positive nature made. Man Costco if you go to if you're a Costco
member, Kirkland secures line of stuff is a lot of those are uspature.
They're all usp absolutely so Kirkland signature, nature made. Um, those are
the ones that follow usp UH guidelines for sulkoma. Quote. Yeah that's about
as good as said. Yeah, we carry a lot of the big ones
that weary um at the store. And again we carry kind of more tailored
stuff. So capsulations is a big one. Um, They're a good one
there, did they especially because in my neck of the woods down here in
Austin you have a lot of people allergies and things that people that are gluten
free for whatever reason, they want to seek out those without our gens and
stuff, which is totally fine. Um on Ortho molecular is another one that
we carry. They're pretty good. Zimogen is another, and then I mean
really as far as higher end ones, those are the ones that we carry
because that's just what our clientele base likes and demands. So but if you're
going to try to save the best bank for your buck and kind of cover
yourself on a budget, I mean, nature's made is what I recommend to
to my as. Yeah, you can't beat nature's made. I mean nature's
made, nature's resource, nature's baluing a lot of the ones that have nature.
There's a couple of nature one that's not good, but but those three
are pretty good. A nature made. They're they're the you know, they're
one of the USPA. They follow USP guidelines and they have the certification with
regards to UM. That's just something's enjoy And I don't want people to think
that all that supple months are one not good and an auto becomes vast majority
votolepments out there are safe. The vast majority of soult months out there have
some efficacy UM and so and they serve and and they're uh, they have
a lot of benefit, um medical benefit whatever. But UM with a gostia
other certifications with regards to UM. Yeah, any sports something with that has
an NSF, and NSF today just stands for NSF. Yeah, way back
in the day it stood for National Sanitary Foundation, which sounds a little yeah,
yeah, just n S But NSF they they go through and and if
you pass their certification criteria, your product has what's uh, you know,
it's one it's not adulterated with anything that's gonna get you h on a it's
not a well get you deemed on a banned substance list and so occasions those
products are you can you can go to the bank with those. Yeah,
I think they're great. When I was when I was doing my MA,
my non my master's thesis, when I was doing stuff with the baseball team
that I played on, because a lot of them were I mean, you
have to be really careful with the NCAA of what supplements you're taking it because
a lot of these kids are in the gym, they're on pre workout stuff
like that, and you never know what you have and granted as soon as
you may not. You may be able to get away with your run of
the mill drug tests, but some of these big D one institutions you can.
I mean, I can wreck your career or ruin your eligibility if you're
not careful supplements you're taking. So that's a good point for sure, because
absolutely not a lot of people think about that either. Or even if your
work, if your work um drug screens you as a part of the hawking
a supplement you don't know much about it, you could get dinged for end
adulteration thing you may have no idea. Yeah, you'd be shocked at how
many Yet, how many college athletes or professional athletes you know, have failed
a drug screen and it was a dietary soltment and as supplement would have been
adulterated, you know. And that's why you why I didn't pass. So
and you've got to do your homework. Um, and it's not hard to
do, right, Um, you just got to make an effort. So
yeah, I really like consumer ever sent you on a consumer labs website is
a great little website to go and get good information about products in general dietary
Solfing, the founder of consumer lab dot com good friend of mine. I
got no financial times with them whatsoever. But if you're if you're if you're
a consumer and there's a particular and this is something you've heard about or on
myself a month that you're thinking about getting into, go to consumer lab dot
com. Um, some of the information is readily available. Sometimes you may
have you may have to buy. Yeah, we'll pay twenty bucks a year.
I mean it's nothing. Okay, if you're a suffing my user,
you probably would be the best thirty bucks you ever spanned. Its Because what
consumer lab does is they analyze products too that only analyze them for content.
But they also analyze them for adulteration and contamination, and they and they list
the names of the products that pass and fail. So yeah, it's a
great place to go. There's a bunch of you know, we should we
could have a podcast just on information sources. Sure, yeah, it's there's
a lot there that people may not think about. For sure, I do.
I look stuff up all the time, especially why at work when I
don't know a more obscure product. If if someone's coming to me, But
this is the last thing I'll wrap up with because I want to kind of
get your opinion and I'll kind of tell mine. So if some friend of
yours or someone you're work closely with, or a friend family member, if
they come up to you and go, hey, I want to you know,
all the wellness transtation probas My whole thing is giving you the information that
you can use light to improve your lifestyle and wellness long term. So that's
going to be different for everyone. But every time someone's going to ask you
what supplements would you recommend? So from a general perspective, if you had
to pick a few, which ones would you? You know, that's based
off of your expertise in the clinical literature and what you've seen in here.
What are the supplements that you would recommend just about everybody take, regardless of
how their diet is. You mean specific guess brands or specific not brands,
but less like supplements in general. And I can kind of go into my
stack and what I like to because I try to take a less is more
approach with supplements. Um, because you can get into the weeds and just
start stacking stuff on, but it gets really expensive. Yeah. Um,
well, you know I can tell you what I take. I mean,
you don't have I mean, I mean, I'm not going to mention brands.
I just mention what I as with anything. You can cover a lot
of stuff with a good well balanced I just that's just from a nutrition perspective,
is hard to beat that sure. And then from a supplement perspective,
A good multi vitamin, you know, like you mentioned pure encapsulations are they're
one day I think it's called one day multi or yeah, one multi.
Yeah that's an excellent that's an excellent multi vitamin. I take that. Um,
I take some. I take phi a somal kirkumen Okay, A reason
that I you know, as a guy my age you know. That's a
good thing. Um. There's another soppoment that's about to come on the market
that has of some really interesting combination that can I have some financials, I
have some really positive benefits on your lipid biochemistry. And when it fish,
I'm one of the tactics, so to speak. Once it does come on
the market, we can talk about that in more detail. I know exactly
what you're talking about and who but what I'm talking about. So Um,
I take that. I can tell that it has some benefits. At least
I think that's the case. Um. Um. What else I'll tidman e
on occasion. Um. Again, Nature's made. Um. There's not a
lot of supplements I take. Sometimes I'll take it from for a while then
I'll stop, you know, in the same way. But I don't you
know, if someone is into a particular supplement, and I'm cool with that.
Again, supplements have a lot of a lot of benefits. Are they
Are they a good balanced diet? No? Right, I mean they supplement
exactly. That's why they're called supplements. That's why they're called supplements. Yes,
exactly, Yeah, I am essentials, right, they're called supple Yeah.
I take personally, Like I take a good multi vitamin um and to
be complex based off some prescription medications I take that can deplete certain things,
a magnesium supplement. That's a whole other topic for a podcast. I think
no one talks about our drug induced nutrient depletion is huge. Yeah. Um,
And you're one of the and you're one of the leading experts on all
that, So I would defer. I would defer to your expertise on that,
because yeah, it does. Can drugs deplete your nutrient? Can drugs
deplete nutrients? Oh? Absolutely, they yep. And and that's something just
I mean, it just flies right over their head. You ask, you
ask most healthcare professionals about drug nutrient depletion. I'm gonna look at you with
this, you know during the Headlight's gonna look what are you talking about?
Yeah, so, yeah, it's a very important aspect. And it's oh
if nothing else, if you're taking any prescription medication, you should at least
take a multi vitamin uh from from a good source. Yeah. I do
multi vitamin occasionally, I'll do vitamin D. I mean that's big now.
But like I said, I'm in the pharmacy all day. I don't get
outside as much as I like too, So I'm in with that. Um,
what else do I do? Creatine is a good too. I do
take creatine a good bitch. And when I'm exercising, um, caffeine I
can't tolerate too. Else to be really careful you discussed. And then the
last thing that I take on a routine basis, Um, I do do,
believe it or not, I take a fiber supplement. So I really
like Yeah, I like a metamuesel like that tastes good, but like it's
a good way to hit that you know goal of fiber that not a lot
of people hit. And we'll go into that another podcast. But um,
you can never get enough fiber. That is true. You make the gup
microbit with especially if you're taking vitam now, especially for taking vitamin D.
Vitamin D can lock you up pretty quick, you know, So always if
you're taking a vitamin D supplement, you need to be taking you know,
you need to eat some brand on a regular basis, just a good old
oatmeal. Vitamin D just constant place the hell out of me. Yeah,
you know it's um, it's important you mentioned that it's a counseling point that
I have for patients too, especially with COVID. You know, when COVID
was a big thing, Vitamin D shot up um, which is fine.
Uh, and it's again very rarely do you ever see by any type of
city is us with vitamins, even though the fat soluble ones are the ones
that you have to kind of be a little wary of, especially if you're
going fifty thousand units on all the time. Yeah, but you know,
vitamin D deficiencies super comics, so suppmenting it a bad idea. But yes,
being making sure you're getting that fiber is prop Apart from exercising and trying
to you know, watch your caloric intake. Fiber intake is a huge lever
to pull, and I think that's a one that not a lot of people
think about. But we've covered a ton of stuff. We've we're running.
We're running on two hours now, I think of and we could. I
could sit down and talk with you all day long. I'm by I've never
really got a chance to tell you in pharmacy school that like it. It
was really cool, even though we have the same mannerisms and that was kind
of weird. I really appreciate the expertise that you bring to the table,
because I couldn't tell you if I wanted to find another dietary suffman expert,
I'd be looking for a long time. And my expertise comes from the fact
that down here from almost day one, you know, I was a veteran
of the federal wars. A lot of the people that a lot of the
people that I was a pariah in the industry for a long time. And
then they realized that after the whole dietary art, drug interaction stuff, and
the fact that you know, I've not everything, I've actually a lot of
guys that wanted to crucify me, you know, twenty years ago are my
best friends now. Because I don't have an agenda, right, I think
that's important. I'm just a science guy, you know, and we find
stuff and we publish it. If it's good, we'll publish it. If
it's bad, we'll publish it. I don't I'm not I don't have an
agenda, right, and so it is what it is, and so um,
you know, I'm I'm one of the biggest advocates for day supplements,
and I can also be one of its biggest critics. It just depends on
depends on what we're talking about. For sure. I think that's super important
because there's so many people out there that just assume there's bias rampant everything.
And that's another topic with research too, as people say, well who funded
the study, dude, the supplement industry funding. Yeah, you know,
and it's like you have to report any any potential bias just to get a
paper approved or a study approved to do it. Yea, So those sources
are readily available if you look for him, and there's nothing wrong with um,
Coca Cola or let's I guess, let's say like a corn lobbying industry
to fund to study on core because they want to see if there's benefits and
stuff. So it's not all malicious like people think, even though there are.
Don't get me wrong, there's definitely some people that do that and it
needs to be called out when it occurs. But again, just saying oh,
well that was funded by the dairy industry, so we can just completely
dismiss it, it's like, no, we can't. Like again, it's
very hard. It's not many institutions funding these types of studies, so it's
fun. It is it's very hard to come by. I mean there and
we can get into funding sources a little bit later. I mean there are
um, you can get the national institutes. How has a National Center for
Complementary Integrative Health. They they they have dietary research. The industry funds a
lot of our research, and you know, some of it's quite good.
Um. And it's I got you. I always had some source. Um.
And then you know a lot of times or a company will will fond
to study. Times it may seem over the top, and sometimes it may
actually be to their detriment. A lot of times they may not get published
because the company's like, we don't want to get out there. Yeah.
Yeah, that's part of it science though. Yeah. I have published stuff
with with companies that were not too well and we publish it anyway. You
know, it's like, hey, this is you know here it is.
Um. Well, what that does is it tells the company something they need
to know, correct correct? Yeah, I mean you don't know what you
don't know, right, so right, you know it's it's important. Um.
But yeah, I think it's what I said. Well, I'll have
you on many times because we can cover in different things and I've enjoyed it.
We can week other friends on and stuff too that our colleagues ers.
Because I'd love to UM, I don't want to name drop him. I
guess I can UM. I'd love to have doctor as El Sholey. Is
he still there to have him? Mister marijuana. Absolutely. Yeah. You
know, there's a big push for marijuana nowadays, and you know, in
certain individuals, at certain ages like we there's definitely concerns that we need to
be aware of. UM, but there's also benefits too, and you know
it takes people like us just kind of well there are I mean, I
know most of the movers and shakers and the dietary softman industry world, and
if there's a particular topic, I mean I could name off probably twenty people
now that would just love to be on your podcast and would give out some
phenomenal information on just about anything. I mean from Yeah. So anytime this
topic that's you're interested in, let me know. I'll find you somebody that'll
be happy to talk to you. Yeah. I'm excited to see where this
goes. Like I said, I wanted an outlet for the education that we
have because if you don't use it, you lose it. So I I'm
excited to see where this goes. I just got to figure out all the
editing and sound and stuff that comes with the territory. But Dad, I
appreciate you. I appreciate you being on. Don't want to take up too
much more of your time because we you know, like I said, I've
enjoyed it. It's been fun. If if people had this last thing,
I'll say, if people wanted to find out more about, um, what
the nc NPR does, is there a website they can go and and yeah,
I go to the University of Mississippi's just their University Missisippi website. Uh,
and then home to search if you'll just search NPR National Center for Natural
Products, which we got a whole you know, web page there. Well,
but that's the easiest way. It's just to go through the University of
Mississippi webs web page and then just I think it's under research. Yep.
Um, they've got a research thing. But if you just either n c
ER or National Center Patrol Products research, all the cool things that's going on
here, I mean it's problem. I mean, yeah, it's a it's
a cool place to work. I mean, like I said, I had
the reason. I had been doing clinical research with with them or for them.
I was doing most of their clinical studies for many years when I was
at uamss UH and then but now that I'm here, you know, I
instead of having to you know, I can just walk down the halt to
the you know, one of the leading experts on whatever a certain certain aspect
of either analys and these guys can do. It's amazing what they can do.
It's amazing the resources they have here. It's one of the best kept
secrets, not only in the nation, but certainly in the state of Mississippi.
Then the nc NPR is no more outside of the university that is on
the university campus. So um, that's that's just a that's a public relations
issue that they need to get fixed. But but yeah, I mean,
yeah, you can get doctor Hill solely. I mean, it's just I
could get your access to for this podcast. Nobody else would would podcast would
be able to get in regards these types of topics. So yeah, let
me know, I will, We'll make it happen. Well, I appreciate
We'll have you back on multiple times that I really appreciate it. And guys,
this is this kind of wraps it up for us at the at the
Wellness Transcription Podcast. We hope you learned something. Um, you know,
there's if you look for him, there's people amounts of knowledge that are more
than happy to provide that for you. So we're going to keep these episodes
rolling and hopefully we'll we'll have more cool to guests on and doctor Gurly,
I'll have you back on. I hate saying that, Doctor Gurly, call
me Dad, call me Dad, I'll have you. I'll have you back
on soon. Um. Like I said, I'm biased, so I appreciate
it. And we'll end episode here, guys, I enjoyed. Thanks.
Thank you guys for listening to today's episode of The Wellness Transcription Podcast. If
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