#105 – Physicians, PhD Chemists, and Farmers Creating Great CBD Products

Introduction

Vadim  00:10

All right. And we are back in class. This is Vadim, the CBD professor from cbdschool.com: Your school to learn all about cannabidiol. This episode of the CBD School Podcast is brought to you by Wild Health CBD. To grab 10% of any Wild Health CBD products, make sure to use the coupon code cbdschool10 and that’s just for CBD School listeners of the podcast. So visit wildhealthcbd.com. That’s WILDHEALTHCBD.com. And use the coupon code cbdschool10 for 10% of your whole order. If you’d like to also consult with our guest, Matt, about anything health related or specifically if you have questions about CBD, you can also visit the website for his health and human optimization practice and that is wildhealthmd.com. So it’s just like the other website, but it’s MD instead of CBD. So it’s WILDHEALTHMD.com and you can consult with Matt by visiting that website.

 

I’m delighted because my guest today is Matt from Wild Health CBD. A brand that’s based in Kentucky with a rich, rich history of growing hemp. So Matt, welcome to the show.

 

Matt  01:46

Thanks so much for having me.

 

Vadim  01:47

We were bantering a bit back and forth. You guys have quite an interesting background, not typical of some of the other CBD companies that I’ve encountered. So we’d love to just go right into it and learn more. Tell us more about Wild Health. 

 

Matt  02:01

Sure. So we’re based in Kentucky, like you mentioned, which is a great state for growing hemp. And we’re a group of physicians and PhD chemists and farmers who care deeply about both the soil and the land and farming and also just health in general. So we created this product seed to shelf in order to — honestly, I wanted to have something that I felt good about giving my patients and taking myself.

 

Vadim  02:25

So, the CBD, it’s all made in Kentucky?

 

Matt  02:28

Correct. It’s all made in Kentucky, the entire process. We’re based in Lexington, Kentucky. A beautiful horse country there but also just perfect for hemp. One of the best places in the world for growing it. So we control the whole process ourselves and we know what’s in it. So this all started several years ago when my patients just continued to ask me more and more about CBD. And I got interested in it years before and read all the research and the literature. And I knew the incredible potential of the molecule. I just had a hard time recommending a completely unregulated supplement when I didn’t know where it was coming from. You see horror stories about the third-party testing. 

 

And so I started really digging in and first met these couple PhD chemists who had a biotech company, CLIA-certified lab. Dr. Bright has a degree in molecular biology from Princeton and a PhD in genomics from UC San Diego, Dr. Chase Kempinski has a PhD in plant physiology. And these guys were processing and they were doing it right. And they were doing all the third-party testing as well just for people around the state and other companies. And they had an amazing product that I thought nobody else had this kind of quality, just with their background and their quality assurance. And then I met some farmers as well. I’m a physician. I know a few other physicians who are just passionate about farming in the land. And we decided we should grow it as well. One of our farmers has a PhD in pharmacology and he’s an MD so he’s a pretty qualified hemp farmer for growing and really talking about the science of the different strains and percentages. So that’s our company. We’re a very science based company. We’re trying to do things the right way and create the purest product we can for the most efficacy for our patients.

 

Vadim  04:04

Interesting. Okay. So how long have you been doing the growing in Lexington and researching this?

 

Matt  04:09

I work with a few different farmers. Some of them have experienced up to five years and others are just starting in other areas so that we want to be in kind of different places and running experiments and trying to optimize.

 

Kentucky Hemp Industry

 

Vadim  04:19

Yeah. I’ve been to Lexington one time. There was a hemp show there. I forget which one. I think it was the National Hemp Association. And yeah, definitely a lot of experienced people were there. I’ve never been to the fields in Kentucky. What’s the scene? Can you tell us more about the scene? Because I know there’s some very large producers there like Atalo, and what was the name of the other one? GenCanna. I’m assuming they have large acreage. Does Kentucky have caps on acreage?

 

Matt  04:45

No right now. I did meet with the State Agricultural Commissioner recently. He came and visited. Right now, there’s no caps. They may put caps because there’s so many license requests right now that are going on. And yeah, those big companies you mentioned, they’re within 30-mile radius of where we are, and they definitely are producing a lot of products. I don’t know them personally. Our process is quite a bit different from the big players. Really, it’s more of a small batch process. We’re really focusing not really on volume. I don’t think we ever will focus on volume. We’re just trying to make a really pure product and doing a lot of testing along the way just to make sure it’s exactly what we want.

 

Vadim  05:21

Yeah, that’s great. What kinds of strains have you been growing or any research into particular varieties? Right now what we’re doing here in PA is actually the farmers are trying to make a PA strain that is totally adapted and optimized for Pennsylvania basically. Because this kind of hemp hasn’t been really grown. I don’t think this is the kind of hemp that was grown by Pennsylvanians before. I don’t think — I mean, not as much for CBD. They were growing like the field hemp, right?

 

Matt  05:49

Right. We’re just very fortunate in Kentucky. We just have a perfect climate environment.Just about anything does well here, right? 

 

Vadim  05:58

Okay. How much rain do you get? Do you get a lot of rain?

 

Matt  06:00

We get enough. We get a really good amount. I lived out west for a while. And part of my impetus for moving back is just the lushness of the state and how great it was to grow things from your own food in your backyard to hemp. And so our PhD plant physiologist and our other chemists, they are working with some of the farmers on some specific, optimized strains and doing some really cool stuff to try to improve the plan. And I shouldn’t say improve the plant. To optimize for our purposes. I don’t think we can really improve the plant by definition. We can optimize for what we wanted. But they would be a better person to ask. We may have some of our chemists come on at some point and talk to you more about that if you’re interested. 

 

Vadim  06:39

Sure, sure. Absolutely. I love getting into the details on that. And I think you made some good points about, you know, the state of the industry. But do you think it’s getting better in terms of the quality control in the products?

 

Matt  06:53

I think the consumers are demanding, and people are starting to understand you really should look at the third-party testing. And I’m very hopeful of the space. I think everyone sees also that regulation is coming in. People are trying to do it the right way and be ready for that. We are really hoping that someone makes some sort of rules just because we do worry about the quality and the safety of what’s in the market right now. So as much as I’m not really a person that enjoys regulation in general, this is an area where I do get worried when I see some of the people that do the stuff they’re doing in their basement to get products and then just putting it in a bottle on a brand and selling it. So yeah, I kind of honestly — I’m probably in the minority, but I kind of hope for regulation in this space soon.

 

Vadim  07:33

Oh, no, I agree with you. People who are following the rules, playing by the rules and have a free, you know, free but with some rules, basically. I mean, that’s how they regulate alcohol, tobacco. I always think it’s funny that people don’t know that tobacco like cigarettes are FDA approved, but CBD is not. Just so you know. It’s kind of funny, but it just shows that it’s an example of you can have a regulated product that not everybody agrees with or even everybody — a huge majority of people aren’t even against, but it’s still regulated in terms of its quality for the people that do use it. In Kentucky, is it true that a lot of the tobacco farmers are converting to hemp?

 

Matt  08:10

It is true. We do have a lot of acreage and we’re doing less and less tobacco farming. And I think our representatives and others see this is a great transition for Kentucky, a great way to help farmers. I’m a big supporter of farmers in general. And that’s why I had the meeting, I mentioned with the Ag Commissioner, just talking about farming in general. And this is a way that we can get our farmers producing something actually healthy instead of the opposite. I was very conflicted growing up with my keen interest in health and going to medical school and becoming a physician but I grew up working on tobacco farms. I’ve been involved in every part of the process. And it just always really bothered me even though I had relatives who it’s their livelihood. It was kind of frustrating that we were producing something that we knew wasn’t good for people. So this is a really incredible win-win for our state in particular to help both farmers make a good living and also to be able to produce something that’s hopefully improving the world instead of the opposite. 

 

Vadim  09:06

Yeah, exactly. And I think we actually in Pennsylvania have places where they’re growing tobacco right next to the hemp, the Amish, you know, because they grow a lot of tobacco too here. I think it’s more for cigars, whereas in Kentucky was cigarette tobacco probably. Why is that dying down? Is there  less demand for that. 

 

Matt  09:22

You know, I’m not 100% sure. I assumed it was a demand issue. The fact that people just understand how bad cigarettes are for them now. I may be wrong. I’m not really in that world. I know nothing about tobacco except how sick it made me when I was a 10-year old working in it.

 

Vadim  09:37

Working in a factory? 

 

Matt  09:38

No, just working in the fields.

 

Vadim  09:40

Oh, I see, I see.

 

Matt  09:41

You get tobacco poisoning and things like that. So yeah, it’s not a pleasant plant to work with that in the fields.

 

Vadim  09:48

In your skin? 

 

Matt  09:48

Exactly. You know, you absorb it. I remember topping tobacco when I was younger working in the fields, and then by lunchtime, you go and eat a sandwich and you ingest some of it on your fingers and that’s going to be a bad rest of your day.

 

Vadim  09:59

So how would you — you just wash it off? You have to wash it?

 

Matt  10:02

Exactly. Yeah, you need to wash it off better. You can have a little bit to your skin, but the main reason was you get to eat it. You get some sandwich or something like that and you get it from the fingers and you ingest it. 

 

Vadim  10:13

Okay, okay. And it actually feels like the nicotine goes in that way?

 

Matt  10:18

Oh, it does. Yeah, it does. You’ve absorbed it. But I mean, just like chewing tobacco, you’ve absorbed it orally, so you don’t have to smoke the tobacco. So you get that nicotine and all the other chemicals on the tobacco plant. And now that I’m mentioning this, I’m thinking, where were my parents as a 10-year old doing this? I’ve really been out in the fields, working it, but that’s just what we did. And I grew up in a small town, a rural farming town.

 

Vadim  10:39

In Kentucky?

 

Matt  10:39

Exactly. Yeah. 

 

Getting into the CBD Business

 

Vadim  10:40

So we were talking before you and your partner have an alternative health practice, I guess you could call it.

 

Matt  10:46

Sure. 

 

Vadim  10:47

Or not typical. What made you want to get into CBD? What was the… I mean, you must have been — partially because you’re all around it there in Kentucky. It’s probably very popular in the state.

 

Matt  10:56

Yeah, well, our practice, you’re right. It’s a little bit of a different practice. It’s a genomics-based personalized medicine company where we take people and our goal is simply to optimize them. We sequence their DNA, look at all the different advantages, disadvantages they may have, look at what’s called single nucleotide polymorphisms. And we look at their lab testing, their hormones, vitamins, mineral levels, and even do microbiome testing. And then we put all of that data together with a long conversation with them about their lifestyle and social history, family history. And we try to optimize people. 

 

And we’ve had great success with that, with treating people like people, like individuals, and not just stats and epidemiology like medicine normally does. But we started having a lot of patients asking about CBD. And this is something that I’d already researched. Actually, the first person that ever gave me CBD was a Harvard professor who is a hero of mine and had published tons of research in this field of medicine I’m interested in. And he and I had started a nonprofit. We were at a strategic offsite meeting and handed me CBD. And I didn’t know what to do. 

 

Vadim  11:56

What’s his name?

 

Matt  11:57

Dr. Mike Stone. He’s on our advisory board as well. He’s in Portland, Oregon. And I thought this Harvard professor was giving me drugs. Because I knew nothing about it at the time. But it got me interested to get me started reading and actually wanted to experiment myself after I read about it, and realized, okay, this was something legal he gave me. We were in Oregon. And the research is pretty incredible. It’s a safe and efficacious compound. So that’s what really got me researching it. And then when our patients —

 

Vadim  12:25

When you dive in, you kind of dive into it, you realize there’s a lot of research in it. I mean, as much as it’s lacking in clinical stuff, there’s many, many years of research into cannabinoids on animals.

 

Matt  12:34

Right. And completely different in the next few years. Because we are really lacking human studies. 

 

Vadim  12:40

People, people, yeah, I mean, you need those gold standard clinical trials. I mean, you don’t need that. Because if you use it, you pretty much your own evidence is stronger than anything, but you know.

 

Matt  12:51

Yeah. I think, I mean, unfortunately, we’re not just big mice. So as much as I like the mouse studies, you’re right. I agree with you. We need human studies. The reason I’m okay with not having massive human studies right now — well,  I’m not okay, I think we need to have those. But the reason I’m okay with my patients taking it is just because any decision that we make, it’s a risk benefit. And when you look at the safety profile of this medicine, it’s worth a try for a lot of the indications that our patients want to try it for. And we just monitor them closely and make sure we don’t have any problems with it or interactions with other medications because it can. There are some downsides. Compared to other medications and drugs, it’s extremely safe. But there are definitely things to watch out for.

 

Vadim  13:33

Like what for instance?

 

Matt  13:34

Well, other interactions with other medications. 

 

Vadim  13:38

Have you had any — I mean, actually, I know it’s a thing. And it’s possible. But have you ever met anyone that ever had the problem with that?

 

Matt  13:45

So I have had a couple patients who — especially if you’re taking any kind of psychoactive medications, I have heard a couple stories, and these are very small and minor things. And just to be honest, there was a big deal made recently about the UKAD Epidiolex and the FDA warning about liver toxicity and elevated LFTs. And it’s very, very overblown. It’s at dosages that people wouldn’t be taking. But I do know a lot of researchers in the field and some of them have — I mean, I was talking to one last week, one of the leading researchers and he’s very positive, his studies are going really well. But he has noticed some bump in LFTs  or liver function tests at doses that we may take for sleep or some other indications. 

 

So it’s something to think about. And I’m obviously very positive on this molecule. I’m a big fan. But as a physician, I care about my patients, and we want to do it safely. So I feel a responsibility to talk about those things. And we have a podcast actually called the Wild Health Podcast, where we’ve done several episodes and we talk some about the safety and how to take it and just some of the mechanisms. And I really appreciate what you’re doing with all the education because we need more of it. And we’re trying to do the same thing. So the Wild Health Podcast, we’ve recorded 10 more episodes where we start to release because we get so many questions from patients. Does it work for anxiety? Does it work for depression? Does it work for this? And so we’re trying to answer those going through all the literature and evidence and we’re going to be putting those out now one at a time over the next few weeks. 

 

Vadim  15:13

Oh, yeah. It’s great to have on, like we were saying before, someone else who also does podcasts regularly, and I’ll definitely link to your podcast so people can check it out. And is it the Wild Health Podcast?

 

Matt  15:24

Correct. Yes, it’s just the Wild Health Podcast. And really, it’s genomics based personalized medicine if someone’s interested in that, but also, we’ve done quite a few about CBD. Because to be honest, that’s what I get the most questions about from patients or other listeners to the podcast. So it’s important to get that information out. If we don’t, people are just going to be taking it anyway, which on the one hand, is a good thing, we just want them to be a little bit educated about the chemistry of it and how it works and when to take it and what for.

 

Vadim  15:55

This episode of the CBD School Podcast is brought to you by Wild Health CBD. To grab 10% of any Wild Health CBD products, make sure to use the coupon code cbdschool10 and that’s just for CBD School listeners of the podcast. So visit wildhealthcbd.com. That’s WILDHEALTHCBD.com. And use the coupon code cbdschool10 for 10% of your whole order. If you’d like to also consult with our guest, Matt, about anything health related or specifically if you have questions about CBD, you can also visit the website for his health and human optimization practice and that is wildhealthmd.com. So it’s just like the other website, but it’s MD instead of CBD. So it’s WILDHEALTHMD.com and you can consult with Matt by visiting that website.

 

What do you recommend people do if they’re concerned about drug interactions? Because we get quite a bit of questions about that actually. Probably some of the most questions are about that.

 

Matt  17:08

Unfortunately, just pretty much anything that you ask me, the answer is always going to be it depends because I know that everyone is so different. So it’s going to be an issue where they’re probably gonna need to talk to their doctor. The CBD works on so many different pathways and enzymes and so it can have an effect. So the best thing would be to talk to your physician about the medications you’re on. Find an open minded physician. I mean, a lot of them obviously are not going to know it. 

 

Vadim  17:30

Right, right. 

 

Matt  17:31

Somebody who knows — it may be before you even ask about interactions, ask them about the molecule and see if they know anything about it before you even ask. And then once you do start trying it, it just needs to be monitored. You need to be cautious and start slow. Like anything else. Even if you’re starting an exercise program, it’s going to be great for you but start slow, and do it appropriately, and you probably have great results, at least most of our patients do.

 

Vadim  17:52

Yeah, exactly. It’s the same thing I say is to go over with your doctor. The only way to know for sure is to check, right? To check in the blood. 

 

Matt  18:01

Exactly. So if you’re worried about the liver function test, for example, yeah, I mean, that’s a blood test that your doctor orders. It’s pretty cheap and pretty quick and easy to get. And honestly, it’s not a huge concern, but especially if anyone that I would feel remiss if I didn’t mention it for anyone who has liver disease or is taking medications or something that’s going to affect and tax their liver, this would be something else for it to do.

 

CBD AND LIVER ISSUES

 

Vadim  18:21

Is it true that CBD — there’s been a lot of talk in the headlines lately that CBD can hurt the liver. But it’s not worded properly because what’s missing is it can hurt the liver from a drug interaction or just on its own?

 

Matt  18:32

Great question. So the headlines drive me insane because there’s always so much more nuance. 

 

Vadim  18:36

You’ve seen them?

 

Matt  18:38

I have.

 

Vadim  18:39

Well, that’s how headlines — that’s how they work. They’re roping you in. I mean, I’m not against that.

 

Matt  18:43

So I’ve read the studies that they’re talking about and referencing. And so just to be clear, those study doses are — so it’s in mouse models is what they’re talking about, not human data, really. In the mouse models, you’re talking about elevated equivalent doses that are like 20 mgs per kg, or more, which is basically like you’re drinking a whole bottle of 1500-milligram bottle. So taking that chronically  is what those studies are about. Now, the Epidiolex warning from the FDA, that is based a little bit on human studies, just some elevations of liver function tests. But again, that’s with really high doses when you’re treating Dravet syndrome and kids with epilepsy that are resistant to other treatment. So they’re doing, again, same thing. 20 milligrams per kilogram. So for you or I,1500 milligrams, a bottle which is usually high in strength.

 

Vadim  19:27

A day?

 

Matt  19:28

A day and chronically. However, I kind of threw those studies away and so that’s useless. That doesn’t make sense. Anything you take in high enough doses, it’s gonna cause problems. So those studies, I kind of threw away. I will just say that, like I said, I’ve talked to some researchers and there is some bump in liver function tests at smaller doses. But whether those are significant or not, whether they matter clinically, nobody knows. I mean, you can get a little bump with alcohol as well with Tylenol. There’s so many things that anything you do that your liver metabolizes if you tax it enough, you’ll get a little bump. So I am totally comfortable with patients in the dosages that we normally see them taking 15 to 25 milligrams. If they’re doing the study doses for sleep, which is 100 to 150, then we start talking about those things. And we start talking about how to optimize the liver with maybe some other supplements or what things to avoid while they’re taking it because of the liver. And then we test, we follow them up, we want to do this really safely. So it’s a long winded answer. But it’s complicated. Does it affect the liver or not? It does affect it. How important that is is what we don’t know yet.

 

Vadim  20:34

Okay. So it does. But just to confirm, it does affect it on its own aside from drug interactions.

 

Matt  20:39

That’s correct. Number one, at really high doses. That’s been published. And number two, just anecdotally from me talking to other researchers, I think it’s an area to watch in the field. That is part of the reason that the brand you get is so important. You and everyone else, we’ve seen these reports of having dosages multiple times than what’s on the bottle just because someone doesn’t have the lab experience and have the quality control.

 

Vadim  21:02

Well, I’ve never seen one. I’ve never seen a product that had more CBD in it than advertised. It’s always less. So I’d say that’s on the safe side there.

 

Matt  21:11

Yeah, you’re right. It’s usually less. It saves them money; they make more profit. But I actually have seen a few and we’ve tested some ourselves.

 

Vadim  21:19

What, high?

 

Matt  21:11

Yeah, they’re kind of all over the place sometimes. But you’re totally right. It’s usually low. 

 

Vadim  21:25

That’s interesting. I see what you’re saying. I see what you’re saying. I mean, I think this will be a very groundbreaking podcast for people to listen to because I don’t think a lot of people know about the liver aspects. It’s pretty new. Like I said, I’ve only been seeing it in the headlines recently. And I didn’t see it much before with other research I was doing. You know, CBD is always regarded as being very, very safe. But you were talking about doses. And you were saying what are some typical dosages that you’re seeing?

 

Matt  21:51

Right. So that’s the very important thing. The dose makes the poison and the dose is what makes it work as well. You got to take the right dose for the right indication.So I don’t want to be an alarmist. No, I’m not. We talked about the liver things. Because again, those dosages, just to put this in perspective, were 20 milligrams per kilogram and more. So 1500 milligrams for a normal size at all, like you and I. And again, most people are  buying the 500-milligram bottles. That’s like choking three of those every day. Now the dosages that people are using clinically that we’re seeing good results with is for anxiety and chronic pain and like 15-to-25-milligram range. So this one 100 of the toxic range and toxic dose. 

 

Vadim  22:32

How many times a day would they do that? Just whenever they need it?