By Lola Ohonba
This show is for educational purposes and should not be taken as medical advice, Dr. O is a clinical pharmacist certified in medical cannabis. In this podcast, you will learn about alternative ways
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The podcast currently has 61 episodes available.
"Dr. Worcester On The Role Of Big Pharma In Cannabis Research & Education For Cancer Pain Management"
Summary/Abstract
Dr. Brooke Worster is the Chief Medical Advisor at Ethios and a cancer pain specialist. She is also a cannabis researcher at Thomas Jefferson University in Pennsylvania. On the show, she discussed her background in pain management and how she got interested in cannabis research. She explained how cannabis is often recommended to her patients, either by their family members, caregivers, or friends. However, the medical community doesn't pay much attention to the positive side of cannabis. She is working to change that and to provide more resources to people interested in cannabis.
Dr. Jeffrey Gendelman discussed his experience with medical cannabis, which began when he felt like he had to respond to patients' questions with I don't know as he had not done much research on the subject. However, when the Pennsylvania legislature passed legislation allowing academic medical centers to partner with vertically integrated growth, production, and dispensing companies, he decided to take the initiative and learn more.
Dr. Gendelman noted the disconnect between patients and providers when it comes to cannabis; patients often feel uncomfortable bringing it up and providers rarely initiate the dialogue due to a lack of knowledge. He believes it's important for doctors, particularly oncologists, to learn how to talk to their patients about cannabis in order to bridge this gap.
The conversation is about how healthcare professionals are not engaging with cannabis as a treatment option. The speaker notes that only a quarter of 10,000 cancer patients feel comfortable talking to their physicians about cannabis. The stigma and hysteria surrounding cannabis have made some patient groups reluctant to even bring up the topic with their physician. The speaker wonders why the medical community has not embraced the potential of cannabis as a therapy, given its long history of use in medicine. He argues that access to and use of cannabis is increasing, and medical professionals must pay attention to it. He also notes that research into the potential of cannabis as a therapy has been limited due to restrictions on its use. The speaker suggests healthcare professionals must become more educated about cannabis and its potential therapeutic uses.
There is not enough education and training available for healthcare professionals to bridge the gap in knowledge around cannabis. This lack of accessible education means that professionals have to do their own research and digging to gain knowledge. It is important to talk to patients and hear their experiences, although it is not the same as a randomized clinical trial. To gain more knowledge and bridge the gap, healthcare professionals should make some noise about the educational gap and try to get more educational outreach and efforts happening.
Timestamps
0:00:06
Conversation with Dr. Brooke Worster, Chief Medical Advisor at Ethios and Cancer Pain Specialist
0:03:01
Exploring the Disconnect between Patients and Providers on Cannabis Use
0:05:30
Exploring the Disconnect Between Clinicians and Cannabis Use in Cancer Patients
0:10:48
Discussion on Accessible Education for Healthcare Professionals on Cannabis Use
0:13:10
Heading: Dr. Worcesters Discusses the Legalization of Medical Cannabis and Dispels the Myth of Losing Licenses
0:16:02
Heading: Discussion on the Role of Big Pharma in Cancer Pain Management with Dr. Worcester
0:20:23
Heading: The Power of Plant-Based Medicines in Treating Cancer Pain and Nausea
0:22:35
Discussion on the Need for Standardized Cannabis Labeling Systems
0:26:13
Conversation on Standardizing Cannabis Information for Patients
0:28:15
Heading: Exploring Cannabis Use in Healthcare: A Conversation with Dr. Worcester
0:30:17
Interview with Dr. Lola Wasa: Exploring the Benefits of Cannabis Medicine
Highlights
Finally, Dr. Worcester, I have another of your quote. You said, the patient knows this stuff. They are reading it online and hearing from friends, but they are also getting a lot of disinformation and bad advice from this. We as a medical community need to step up, embrace these resources that patients are using, whether they are in a legal state, use or not, and provide some guidance. What else can we do in the community, especially in the healthcare space, to make sure patients are getting evidence-based data?
I think it would go a long way if we even kind of got our act together enough to have a standardized labeling system for cannabis for products. Right. Because the way that they're labeled is all different from state to state and how it's kind of shown concentration versus percentage of various cannabinoids versus ratios. That's confusing to patients. So I think one thing that I would say could be changed that would kind of a little bit come from the dispensary and the legislative side that wouldn't require a ton of work, but would just be to say kind of like we do for other nutraceuticals or over the counter products is like you have to have certain labeling standards. The way that you say what's in it is the same.
We can make you make sense of what doesn't make sense folks. Dr. Worcester, Dr. O can help you make sense, of what doesn't make sense. Now let's go back to our patient. Dr. Worcester, in one of your call recently, you said many patients are simply guessing and doing their best at both adult use and even for medical purposes. They go to the Dispensaries or go online and just try to figure it out. He said the evidence is strong that cannabis is effective for cancer pain. It's also very likely effective for nausea, cancer-related nausea, and vomiting, which is what we are part of what we are using dronabinol for.
And I totally agree with you that what is there to lose? They have more to gain because even right now when we talk about chronic conditions like cancer, it's like all hands on deck. Back in the day we never used to use lidocaine patches to manage cancer pain. Now we are able to dispense the patches for neuropathic pain, and cancer-related neuropathic pain for our patients. So it's all hands on deck. Pain is pain. Pain is not going to be okay. It's just narcissistic pain.
And I do tell people, you are the expert when it comes to cancer pain management. During my rotation, I did do some cancer rotation. I do tell patients, cancer patients in particular, when you see them going through pain, some of them, you don't even know the level of pain they're going through. Somebody can be looking at you off-screen, and their pain is ten because they've developed a system to cope with pain management in such a way that acute pain might not be the same. I might just cut my finger and start screaming the whole place down whereby somebody sitting by me is going through a critical condition like cancer. What is the part of the big farmer? I know that Big Pharma probably just doesn't even want anything to be approved, considering the level of money that is being generated from that space.
Lumenate is a pioneering app that uses sound and light to change brain rhythms in ways similar to psychedelics and highly experienced meditators, and brain imaging researchers at Imperial College London and as well as researchers in Berlin.
Our guests have talked about what psychedelic experiences and Lumenate appear to have in common. They talked about Increased brain signal complexity, reduced activity in the default mode network, increased functional connectivity between different brain regions, and reductions in peak alpha brainwaves.
They have ongoing trials underway in London which "aims to uncover neural mechanisms of visual imagery induced by Lumenate, using high-density EEG. The research also aims at comparing psychedelic experiences induced by DMT and Lumenate, by exploring the psychological and biological mechanisms of both altered states of consciousness”.
Dr. Cornblatt is a Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Graduate with a Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences and a postdoctoral fellowship from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Environmental Health Sciences Division of Toxicology.
Dr. Cornblatt has served as Director of Consumer Clinical Research and Science and as Medical Director at Nutramax Laboratories Consumer Care, Inc. In this role, Dr. Cornblatt developed novel nutraceutical formulations, designed both in vitro and clinical studies in support of products, and summarized both supporting laboratory and clinical research for healthcare workers and consumers.
His most recent development has been a novel line of products (and 18 related clinical trials) that deliver the essential ingredients needed to support the production of sulforaphane, a phytochemical with many emerging indications. Dr. Cornblatt is also the inventor of three issued patents and four pending provisional patents focused on plant-based bioactive compounds and health promotion.
Silo Pharma merges traditional therapeutics with psychedelic research to develop innovative solutions that address a variety of underserved conditions including Alzheimer’s, Fibromyalgia, Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), as well as stress-induced psychiatric disorders (i.e. PTSD) and other debilitating chronic conditions. We talk about the research and the conditions you choose to study in conjunction with psychedelic treatment.
Silo has partnered with several leading academic institutions (the University of California, San Francisco, Columbia University, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore) to facilitate a streamlined regulatory pathway for drug approval. The company has developed a pipeline of proprietary licensed therapeutics that show promise for a range of illnesses and diseases.
Silo Pharma Inc. has begun dosing in its IND-enabling study of a proprietary time-released, topical formulation of ketamine SP-26 designed to treat fibromyalgia. The safety evaluation trial will be conducted by Experimur, a Frontage Company, and intends to evaluate the tolerability of SP-26 to establish a maximum dose in the treatment of this chronic medical condition causing widespread musculoskeletal pain as well as memory issues, sleep difficulties, and fatigue.
Steven Twohig has been studying an abundance of practices extensively, including mindfulness, business optimization, shadow work and facilitation, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), hypnotherapy, and leadership dynamics. He recently has been researching psychedelic integration, which is defined as a process in which the patient integrates the insights of their experience into their life, and PHRI is a method of supporting that in the clinical consultation room.
On Steven's website for Mastering Change, he wrote: “miscoding deep in the human mind. This coding is the root cause of all suffering in the world. By doing your shadow work, you are doing the work necessary to change the world. Everything in this reality is a reflection of everything else. If above, so below. So within, so without. You are a reflection of your outside world, just like this world is a reflection of you.” Steven expands on this and much more in today's episode.
Blake Pearson has been internationally recognized for his work in cannabis medicine and efforts to legitimize cannabinoid therapy as a safer alternative to opioids and anti-psychotic drugs. He has helped improve your patients’ symptoms with cannabinoid medicine and has been able to reduce the anti-psychotics.
Dr. Blake recently announced the start of a new research study into the impact of cannabinoid therapy on local residents with dementia. He has partnered with Lambton College and Steeves & Rozema Nursing Homes for a three-year, $360,000 research grant from the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).
We discuss how Dr. Blake feels that this new study is not about healing or halting dementia. It’s about managing the behaviors associated with the disease — such as mood, calling out, agitation, and trouble sleeping.
Blake wrote on his blog about a new placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial out of Israel published to evaluate the safety and efficacy of broad-spectrum CBD-dominant medical cannabis oil for the reduction of behavioral disturbances amongst patients with dementia. They found a statistically significant reduction in agitation over placebo with non-serious side effects.
The Stanley brothers celebrate the ten-year anniversary of providing their high-CBD and low-THC full-spectrum hemp formula to Charlotte Figi after her pediatrician supplied written permission. We talk about how Joel reflects on the help you were able to give Charlotte and how the industry as a whole has grown in the last decade. On April 7th 2020, after the unfortunate passing of Charlotte Figi, the Governor of California officially declared April 7th to be 'Charlotte Figi Day' in Colorado. Joel honors that day with the Charlotte Figi Family Grant Program to help health-seeking families with qualified needs.
We dive into how Charlotte’s memory continues to motivate his work. He has been working on combining nature and technology or in other words ancestral health for tomorrow. Joel expands on what he has been working on these days. Joel and his company are now working on Stanley Brothers USA, a cannabis wellness incubator currently operating in three states (Colorado, California, and Florida) with expansion plans underway in eight additional states.
Joseph and his brother Chris are experts on both functional and psychedelic mushrooms and their health benefits, as well as biohacking and cognitive wellness. They've witnessed first-hand the effects that mushrooms had while they used them to treat their father, and using mushrooms yourselves. With that, we talk about Joseph and Chris's grandfather who had succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease and their father suffered from the same fate. Then they discovered they were next after genetic tests showed they had the strongest risk factor gene for Alzheimer's (ApoE4). So we talk about some of the work they have done to avoid this potential genetic outcome.
Joseph and Chris discovered the potential of mushrooms to improve brain function and structure against aging. They created First Person to introduce more people to the power of functional mushrooms. Their products have been formulated to avoid serotonin receptors, so they may work both independently and as a highly effective complement to existing psychedelic micro-dosing protocols.
Dr. Salzman is a physician, scientist, inventor, and biomedical entrepreneur with more than 30 years of experience in biomedical drug discovery and development. He has authored 175 peer-reviewed scientific publications and holds 60 patents in the fields of medicine, pharmacology, organic chemistry, and medical devices. Dr. Salzman has received continuous National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding since 1993, authoring 75 federal grants and receiving $160 million in federal grant and contract funding.
He earned his Doctor of Medicine degree from Harvard Medical School after completing undergraduate training at Yale College. Dr. Salzman completed his pediatric internship and residency at Columbia University, and post-doctoral fellowships in pediatric critical care, neonatal critical care, immunology, mucosal physiology, and pediatric infectious disease at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Boston Children’s Hospital Medical Center, the Massachusetts General Hospital, and Beth Israel Hospital Medical Center.
Innovation1 Biotech Inc. is a small molecule drug discovery company focused on the clinical development of modified Schedule 1 molecules of botanical origin, where there is the opportunity to create breakthrough advances in diseases of unmet medical need. The Company’s portfolio includes five proprietary, fully synthetic preclinical prodrugs addressing independent clinical indications: a mushroom-derived psychedelic molecule for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, a novel cannabinoid and tree bark-derived psychedelic for treatment of addiction, and three additional novel cannabinoid prodrugs addressing clinical indications of refractory pediatric epilepsy, hypertrophic scarring after burn wound injury, and ocular inflammation of the cornea and anterior uvea. Innovation1 also owns a currently approved nutraceutical complex specially designed and formulated to contribute to and help maintain normal energy metabolism, improve mood, and reduce fatigue for those suffering from fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.
Today on Let's Talk Plant Medicine With Dr. O we talk with the President of F.I.V.E., Victoria Wueschner. Victoria's team recently launched F.I.V.E. this summer as the first educational platform designed to help individuals make informed decisions when choosing to work with 5-MeO-DMT. Kaivalya Kollectiv, the parent company of F.I.V.E has been offering professionally guided experiences with synthetic 5-MeO-DMT. 5-MeO-DMT is called The God Molecule because it facilitates full-blown mystical experiences, including an alleged communion with some higher-order, divine consciousness. It is the most powerful psychedelic on the planet.
The F.I.V.E website states: “As the psychedelic renaissance continues to expand, 5-MeO-DMT is quickly growing in popularity. In the current 5-MeO-DMT landscape, it is becoming increasingly important for everyone, including first-time seekers of this compound, seasoned psychonauts, and even facilitators, to have access to the resources needed to cultivate safe and effective experiences.” Victoria's company also operates Tandava Retreats, a 5-MeO-DMT retreat center in Tepoztlan, Mexico, whose staff has served over 2,000 guests since 2016. Many of those seekers are seeking a healthier state of mind, personal growth, and improved relationships with themselves, including but not limited to entrepreneurs, artists, and everyday people seeking a deeper connection with themselves.
For more Let's Talk Plant Medicine With Dr. O go to CannabisRadio.com
The podcast currently has 61 episodes available.
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