Ashley On - Cannabis for Immunity & Inflammation with Dr. Lindsey Elmor

Today's episode features. Dr. Lindsay Elmore and we'll be talking about immunity and how cannabis and CBD can impact immunity. Dr. L Moore has explored her own challenges and through that. She's found Chinese medicine as well as yoga and meditation and obviously cannabis and CBD and we'll talk about that. Dr. Moore is also a pharmacist. So it'll be very interesting to talk to her in terms of how CBD cannabis might compare or To be used in conjunction with where as alternatives to traditional drugs. So I hope you enjoy the show. Thank you.

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Hi, good morning. Dr. Umar. Thank you for joining us.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

Well, it's great to talk to you. I've been excited about this conversation talking to an actual pharmacist here today and that expertise is something that I'm very intrigued by as you may or may not know I've been in the CBD game for about five years and had a lot of good times with Charlotte's Web in the early days and talk to a lot of patients and there was always questions about this right like what are drug interactions what are alternatives what what's the safety protocol all of And the stuff so I know that you've there's a lot about you in general that's more than just a pharmacist. So I you know before we kind of dive into that because I think that's part of what makes you really unique and helpful to folks tell us a little bit about your background and all the other things that you’re working on and then we can kind of get into some more of the details around cannabis and CBD 

absolutely. So I am a chemist and a pharmacist. I have a bachelor's in chemistry from the University of Alabama Birmingham and then a doctor and Pharmacy from University of California San Francisco. I did two years of postdoctoral residency where I specialized in Primary Care the disease, you know chronic disease diabetes pain inflammation. It all kinds of disorders that a lot of people have then. I became very frustrated with the practice of Pharmacy because I got to this point where I recognize patients are just coming. In and getting meds and getting more meds and getting more meds and not getting any better. And so I really wanted to craft a practice that empowered patients to become their own doctor in a way and so I discovered essential oils fell in love with them became a yoga instructor started doing plant-based cleanses. And so now I have evolved. Evolved into a total of five brand. So I have my personal Pharmacy practice. I have my podcast the Lindsey Elmore show that I work on. My vegan gluten-free foods to Graham and food blog is called Clean Slate cleanse. I also hope other health and wellness entrepreneurs to understand their brand through through something called brand strategies lab, and then I also have an essential oil education. Platform based around one specific company's products called while and Club so work on a lot and do a lot and have recently started really teaching a lot more about CBD since it’s been so in demand since all of the legal and Regulatory changes happened back in 2019. So that's a little bit about me crash course.

So what I'm intrigued like what why are you so open to these? 

He's like most folks you think you can go through traditional Pharmacy schools and things like that. They're they're taught a certain protocol and an approach and they kind of stick to that.

It seems like you're much more open-minded and and holistic and what you're thinking about and what you're practicing. So how did that happen? Is it just something that's always been with you or there's was there a catalyst event in your life or my or I'm totally off base when

I was in pharmacy school. I tore my ACL and when you tear your ACL you get locked out in a leg brace for six weeks 12 weeks. And so when you're in the leg brace your knee cap can't your knee joint can’t bend like it's used to bending and so I ended up walking in a way where I would hike my hip every single day and I ended up one day realizing that I couldn't sit on both of my sitting bones that I was like all wonky and off to the side that landed me in the Cairo. Tractors office I mentioned to the chiropractor. Hey Doc, I haven't slept in a month and I feel like I may die and she said well you should go to the acupuncturist and the acupuncturist really introduced me to the concepts that Western medicine doesn't do. Well, you know Western medicine is amazing at critical care. If you are really really sick you want to be in an Arkin Healthcare institution, but if you are pre-diabetic the Western institutions do relatively little to help you to prevent the progression to outright diabetes.

So when I started learning a little bit more about Chinese medicine Chinese herbs that opened my eyes to understanding more about meditative practices my grandmother all the way Back in like the 60s was taking meditation classes and taught me how to meditate as a child and I just became more lucky you yes, I know she taught me how to meditate and how to type 

two things that still to this day serve me very well and then I became that wacky pharmacist who really knew more about herbs and supplements and interactions with medications pharmacist. You that they could come to me and say my patient just brought in this random bottle. Like what do I tell them about it? Then it sounds crazy. But my life changed in an instant when I discovered essential oils. I sat in my living room floor and was like pouring them on my head and diffusing them and was just I knew right then and there that my life would change and so I left the practice of Pharmacy went to work for an essential oil company for a while and then transitioning to becoming an entrepreneur.

I am now currently in training to become a certified practitioner with the Institute of functional medicine. So furthering my education. I've been certified in trauma release techniques as I mentioned. I'm a yoga instructor and so it has just grown and grown and it's it's like the more you learn about holistic medicine the more you understand that there is only one cause Of disease and all we have to do as humans is just address that one thing now it's hard and its multiplicative what you have to do to get down to curing the root cause but if you're not dealing with inflammation and oxidative stress in your body, you can have any number of diseases. And so that's what I want to help people to do is change their diet so that they calm down the inflammation learn to meditate. Tate so that they calm down the inflammation advocate for environmental policies that reduce our toxic burden in our environment to reduce our inflammation. So you really get down to the basics and that's where I live and practice is just with the basics stop doing the toxic stuff. You know, you shouldn't be doing eliminate as many toxins that you can't avoid Eat Right Live a stress-free. Life drink clean water move your body and get out of toxic relationships. It really is that simple. It's just hard to put it into practice.

Yeah, and I think you know, I don't know but I have this perspective that it’s also it's so hard to put it into practice a lot because of the programming that we're that were given as we are raised right? I mean, it's there's a mentality to just take a pill, you know, I just And I just want the the solution or I don't really want to pay that extra dollar for that organic produce. Right? 

I just want to save the money because I want to go do something else with it. But it's those choices is it not that that really where all this whole thing starts. So, you know, if you've read The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy, Darren Hardy is he's writing towards entrepreneurs and so he says, you know people think that It's just manifests over night. And that somebody is just like poof an instant success.

That's not true. What makes businesses successful is the willingness to show up and do the mundane crap day in and day out over and over again that it takes to run a company the same is true for your body sit back and ask yourself right now. How long did it take you to get into this physical condition that you are currently? Only sitting in right now. What makes you think that going to the gym one time or eating even let's say you do it for a month. You're still going to be in your same physical body. And so I think that we need to understand that health is not something that you can just flip a switch and make it work. It’s you know, I work with patients a lot of Time in they're coming to me and they're like I'm in pain. I'm you know, I've got this autoimmune disorder, but what they then start telling me is that their marriage is falling apart that their husband cheated on them that they hate being in their home until that gets fixed until the toxic burden stops inflammatory process. You're never going to break down the cycles of disease. And so I think we have to understand That help is a series of choices that play out every single day. It's not something where you can just it's not name it blame it and tame it as we say in functional medicine Western medicine is all about we name something.

We call it diabetes, you know, we blame it for the fact that your foot is numb because you don't have circulation and then Tame it with metformin and insulin and medications when we don't ever take the step back and go. Wow, why don't we turn off the faucet of sugar and fat and cholesterol and stress that's leading to the diabetes in the first place. We need to look way further upstream and get the mentality of when I My you know, it's garbage in garbage out if we put garbage in we're going to get garbage out and then we're going to say well the garbage collector will come and just move it. Well, that only can take place for so long and I understand that there are people who say, you know, I really just can’t afford to eat right but if you don't afford to eat, right? 

Eventually, you're going to afford having a heart attack or can't afford not to exactly and so, you know, I really think and I wish our food policy was different in this country because there’s should be no reason that organic food is Out Of Reach for average people there should not be the problem of food deserts in this the richest country in the world. I truly believe that everyone deserves access to healthy food and that the premium price tags should really be put on the standard American diet foods that are making us sick and keeping us sick. 

Well, I think it's a yeah, I agree and I think it's a chicken or the egg kind of thing too. Because you know, I live in Boulder Colorado and I have no problems having access to the most wonderful Foods around right? It's just it's but that's the That is because there's more people here who are interested in that and who have taken accountability for their choices. And there's a demand then for that food my family and I'm spent most of my life in Indiana, you know, when we go there it's difficult to find the right Foods. I mean we can find them but it's challenging you have to go to multiple places and they don't always have everything in stock and it's simply because there's not a demand I am I believe if there was more people that had the awareness if there were more people who had the awareness. That you're talking about and that I'm referring to that the demand would be higher and therefore their prices would go down because there would be more people producing it and we also need to stop subsidizing the corn maze.

We need to stop subsidizing agriculture because you know, you think about corn and soybeans and most of the Corn and soybeans that are being grown are not even edible at our field. So like the irony of an Iowa One farmer who can't feed his family at the end of the day is not lost on me. And there's no reason for us to subsidize corn and soy other than the insatiable desire for meat because most of the Corn and the soy in the wheat that is grown is actually not fed to humans. It's fed to livestock, which is a crying shame because in my understanding of food consumption of a plant-based diet is a better way at least for the vast majority of human beings. Not a heavy meat-based diet.

So everybody who's eaten keto out there. Don't don't you know, you know, I still love you but it is just going to say I agree with about everything you're saying but a man I'm a carnivore right? So we again it's programming we're programmed to think that we need meat. Program to think these things but it is undeniably delicious.

No doubt. It's just the protein for me. I find that it's hard when I eat because I don't know my daughter is actually a vegetarian and we eat very very helpfully because because my wife is just a wonderful cook and very aware around nutrition, but the the meat dimension of protein and how I feel like it's just that’s more I'm open to getting out of the programming, you know what I mean? But yeah my physical feelings personally when I eat and lay off the meat and try to get protein other ways. It just doesn't I don't feel it's good. Then that is an intuitive eating which is valuable. It's a mindfulness around what you are eating.

However, we do know very clearly that people who are eating a plant-based diet are not at risk for being protein underfed and so it It's not that you're saying I'm actually lacking protein what you're saying is my mind loves the experience of eating food, which is part of the experience of eating food. And so we can't deny that it that is an important piece of the equation. So listen it it’s just like meditation eating should be a To of a meditation and mindfulness practice. And so if you're able to sit down with your grass fed steak and your you know, green beans and all of the good things and feel amazing about what you have just given your body as nutrition and fuel great really great. I love the writing of Janine Roth who says it's not what we eat that determines our health it. It's how we eat it and we go through this a lot in the Clean Slate cleanse because I think a lot of times people go on cleanses and they're like, I'm hardcore. I'm only drinking smoothies juices for like full weeks, but if you don't actually change the way your mind is thinking about food and you immediately revert to your destructive standard American diet. You know, we didn't make the shift that we needed to make so if you're wanting to take a moment to be more mindful about what you're eating and if you're someone who is, you know, earthy crunchy and granola and eats hemp seeds and kale all day long and all of a sudden you're in a situation where you're getting a greasy slab of hamburger and you're like I am going to eat this or starve at least be mindful about it. Don't beat yourself up because you’re being a bad meal. There are no bad foods. There is only the intention and the soulfulness and the spirit that you can put into the food on your plate.

So I agree with you. So how do you one of the things I want to talk to you about was the immune system and Immunity support and you know in particular cannabis and CBD, but I'm assuming all this connects Enright. I mean nutrition CBD all that is powering that immune system. 

Absolutely. So if you think about the immune system and our endocannabinoids, so CBD THC and other cannabinoids that exist Within And hemp and marijuana, those are EXO cannabinoids, but we have our own endocannabinoids system that is within us all of the time. We have two primary what are called Li Gans. And so if you think about a lock and a key the way that the body kind of works is there's a lock that's a receptor and a key has to come in. So the key that kind of turns on the receptors called a ligand we have Two primary endocannabinoids. There is andamide, which is sanskrit for comes from the

Sanskrit Ananda which means internal Bliss and then there is to rakia Donnell glycerol, and those two endocannabinoids have very diverse actions throughout our immune systems. They're found in a wide variety of immune cells. Monocytes and basophils and lymphocytes and macrophages which macrophages are like the trash trucks of your body and they are also found in so throughout the body there are cannabinoid receptors where these ligand so remember the lock comes in. So there's these the the lock piece The receptors are widely distributed throughout the body. We have to cannabinoid receptors CB1. Is primarily in our central nervous system and is responsible for the euphoric effects. The Bliss the internal Bliss that comes from cannabinoids. We also have the CB2 receptor, which is much more widely distributed throughout our body. It is very widely distributed throughout the immune system including in your lymph nodes on. On T cells on B cells on all kinds of cells and so when you think about cannabinoids coming into the body we have tetrahydrocannabinol which hits are CB1 receptors that are in the central nervous system that caused us to have that euphoric experience, but also provides pain-killing and appetite stimulation. Lighting effects. There is also cannabidiol which cannabidiol is a phyto cannabinoid which primarily hits our CB2 receptors. It has been approved as an a medication throughout the world as a brand name the big symbols, which is helps to relieve spasticity in the body. So people who have multiple sclerosis they tend to get very specific.

A stick as well as very stiff and I have a dial can help with that cannabidiol is also used to relieve cancer pain and to reduce the amount of opioids that people need because opioids are extraordinarily addictive and cause a lot of morbidity terrible. And so cannabidiol is also brand name approved as an amp antiepileptic and it also helps. To alleviate marijuana withdrawal and So within the immune system we see that the actions of our cannabinoids both. I do cannabinoids and endocannabinoids go throughout the whole body helping to reduce inflammation to calm down the Twitchy effects of the immune system when the immune system is Named it becomes panicked and it's like Oh, no, I got to react to that over there and the endocannabinoid system with the Ananda my dear racket on a glycerol THC and CBD help to tone those systems down throughout the lymphatic system the gastrointestinal system on the skin in the eyes on the bones really throughout the entire body now, that's great. A nation. Thank you for the detail on that. That's it's really helpful to understand it. Just given your pharmacological background. How does that relate to let's say, you know an alternative painkiller like like you mentioned it referred to opioids, right? They come into the same receptors.

No, so opioids hit the opioid receptor. So you're taking me back to my pharmacology day. So there's Mew opioid receptors Delta opioid receptors and a couple of other opioid receptors. And we do have indiginous opioids in our body that can help us when we have experiences with chronic pain, but the way that cannabis. Works more is that when medical cannabis gets into the body it acts as a cannabinoid all a CBD receptor Agonist. It turns it on. So it's not engaging with your opioid receptors. It's engaging with your cannabinoid receptors and at these cannabinoid receptors. We have anti nociceptive effects So stopping the The perception of pain is what that means and then there's also hyper owl chick effects, which is that I mean, you know how it is. Once you're in pain and then you get into a little bit more pain. It becomes like this wind-up that's hard to deal with it also can modulate when the brain gets a signal of you're in pain. So it modulates those Dib thresholds and it also has analgesic effects directly as well as having broad effects on the immune system which helps to heal.

The underlying inflammation right pain doesn't have to exist makes sense like in my experience I had I had a really bad accident and to have a couple of plates in my head here and some screws holding it back together and lifetime of migraines and nerve pain and all kinds of stuff. But I used to use THC to kind of numb the pain, you know, when the pain would come on or the headache or whatever it was. You know, it was a user of THC to kind of numb it worked well for me, but they didn't, you know, the pain was was constantly present. It was there every day in some way came to Colorado discovered CBD started adding that into my routine all of a sudden pain starts to go away and my own non medical training I could tell that there's something healing happening because the frequency of these issues just started going, you know, where they'd always been there you th see for, you know, 15 years or more, you know, and the same way and then come here and add CBD and keep using THC the same way. I always have but all of a sudden the frequency of these things start to go away and and my I own you know, my layman's terms explanation is that it had to be healing that inflammation.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's there's a reason that humans have used marijuana for 5000 years. I remember two years ago when the CBD the farm bill passed and everybody's like CBD for everyone and I'm like y'all we've been using CBD for Millennia. And so the use of marijuana is an ancient. Practice. Well, the way that Evolution works is anything that's not giving us benefit. We get rid of it, you know, if marijuana did not have medicinal effects in humans. We would all be sitting around, you know, our ancestors would have been sitting around the campfire going like remember John when he smokes that plant and died. Let's not do that. You know, we would have this perception like we do with poisonous mushrooms where it's like, okay. Yeah that exist. But we got to stay away from that.

So nature gave us plenty of medicines that not only help to modulate inflammatory processes, but I’m willing to guess if you have screws in your head and plates and all the things you had some sort of traumatic experience that led to that happening and in general there is nine. 99.9% of the time some kind of emotional root cause yeah that if you're not dealing with the emotion of it all it's you're never going to get to the inflammation that is the resultant. And so, you know, I think an excellent point excellent point, thank you. Yeah. I mean, I think what's really important you cannot just show up and say I'm in pain, what do I do without taking that step back and asking one of the most quintessential questions of functional medicine, which is when is the last time you felt good because a lot of us have that in our heads that never felt good since this happened, you know, I'm I'm I've healed I've recovered but when I tore my ACL that was a trauma in my life, that will always be with me. It will always be in me and within me and that is one of those critical moments where it was like, okay? Well, it has the ability to never feel. Well again, you know that could have sent me into a downward spiral into opioid misuse into chronically seeking being within the healthcare system or you can use it as a catalyst to say, how do I come out better? Err on the other side. How do I fall forward? You know, we all get setbacks. But how do we say? Well, I'm going to let this setback make me better on the on the in the future in the now I'm going to accept this now and become better with it. Yeah, totally that's that's a mindset and attitude that you're right. It starts with the individual and in my example.

I have to say that you're right. I mean it changed my life. You know, I kind of look back on it and it occurred at a time of my life where you know, I could have really gone down a couple of different paths. And you know, I think in a lot of ways my accident was a blessing because it got my attention and it it it allowed me to then focus on the path that I that I really needed to be on you know, and so that's a hard thing to say because you know bad things happen and you know, you don't want to just say that they're always blessings. But you know, in this case I really do I've it changed my life and you know Very good way and I think that's why you know as I moved on over the years and then when I was introduced to CBD, and I was also at a more point where I was even more open to getting better, right? And so I started looking at meditation. I started getting into other things and really working on some of the emotional things that you refer to right and so all of it at the end of the day. Yes, CBD played a major role but it was it was a lot of things happening in my experience that kind of led to this overall outcome.

Well, and I I think you know if we if we think of the advice of Eckhart Tolle who is just a brilliant thinker. He says look you can look at situations in your life and label them as good or bad. But that's just your mind talking it. It's not good or bad. It just is it just is and so I may look at that skiing accident. Aunt and go. Well, that was a really bad thing that happened to me. It's not bad. That's just the perception of it and I can allow that to stress me out. Like why me? Why did this happen to me? But as Eckhart Tolle says stress is nothing more than wanting the present moment to be something that it is not and if you're constantly just wanting the present moment to be something that it is not you are going to live an absolutely miserable life. And I think that 2020 has been a banner year for wanting the present moment to be something that it is not so we all experience stress we all do but it's what your it's do. You let your mind just live in that stress dwell on that stress or do you just go hmm stress there. It was there it went. Oh it's gone. You know, it's one thing to be dress because you need to be you know, if your kid is about to run into oncoming traffic. It's probably a good time to have some mild panic but if waking up in the morning stresses you out and if your drive to work stresses you out and if what you eat stresses you out and if you're sitting on social media all day bickering with people who you will never change their minds and it's stressing you out. What are you doing? Why are you living in this state? Eight of Perpetual stress which leads to Perpetual inflammation which leads to every disease on the planet.

So if using CBD is a way that you can calm and soothe yourself and it becomes a part of a self care practice amazing. If you live in a state where marijuana is legal and it helps to soothe and Kant and calm you down amazing. However, if You're at the opposite end of the spectrum and you smoke a joint and all of a sudden you're blood pressures off the off the charts. You're dizzy. You're queasy. It's not for you, you know, just give it up. So do it with mindfulness and if it's not treating you well, why are you mistreating yourself? Yeah.

No, I love it. That's a great and I think that's a great place to kind of begin wrapping things up. I wanted to ask you one thing. I love the Quote on your wall. I think I'm reading it as good things come to those who hustle. Yeah, you know the rest of that where that came from?

Well, this is a program that I run for entrepreneurs. And so we actually change our posters out. So we have a few of them we have love you mean it because I say that a lot and we also have show up add value no drama, which is the poster that hangs over me and this is a it's a 90-day business hustle and it's like, okay we're going to Show up more in a do this for 90 days. We're see where your business ends up on the opposite side of that. So that is a program that I run.

I love that quote because it's the comes from President Abraham Lincoln. Yeah. He said good things come to those who wait, but only those things left by those who hustle. 

Oh, I love that great.  See you. Tell me the history of my own poster.

Great. That's a good that's a wonderful quote. So it was great meeting you Lindsay and I really appreciate your time and Hope to get to know you more as this industry continues to evolve and good luck and everything you're doing.

I really appreciate you taking the time to join us today. Thank you so much for having me today and congratulations on your podcast. Thank you so much.

Have a great afternoon and take care. Bye bye.

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