Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Dr. Gundry Podcast. The weekly podcast where Dr. G gives you the tools you need to boost your health and live your healthiest life.
Dr. Steven Gundry (00:16):
Welcome to the Dr. Gundry Podcast. On this program, we never shy away from controversial topics. And today is no exception. My guest Jenny Sansouci and I will be discussing the healing properties of cannabis, CBD and medicinal mushrooms. Jenny is a health coach, wellness blogger and the author of the new book, The Rebels Apothecary, a practical guide to the healing magic of cannabis, CBD and mushrooms.
Now, she became an expert on these ancient remedies after her father was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. As it turns out, something that was once considered taboo was key in helping her dad. So she’s here today to tell you how you can use these plants and fungi safely. Jenny, welcome to the program.
Jenny Sansouci (01:16):
Thanks so much for having me.
Dr. Steven Gundry (01:17):
Well, this is going to be fun. So can you start by telling our listeners about why and how you got interested in mushrooms and cannabis?
Jenny Sansouci (01:28):
Sure, yeah. Well, in Thanksgiving 2017, my dad was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer as you said and that moment was a real before-and-after moment in my life. If anyone has been diagnosed with cancer and knows someone diagnosed with cancer, you know that hearing that information just completely changes your life in one instant.
So as soon as he got diagnosed, I know that I wanted to help in whatever way I could, whether that was with nutrition or supplements or cooking for him or finding remedies that could work for him, plant based remedies, anything that I could get my hands on, I wanted to try to find for him. And I had been working in the wellness world for many years and I had some connections with functional medicine doctors and people in the wellness arena.
And so I had this arsenal of people to reach out to and ask what are the things that I should look into when it comes to helping someone with not only treating the cancer but really helping with the chemotherapy side-effects in the immune system. I didn’t know much about chemo or cancer at the time but I did know that chemo can really affect the immune system and people cannot tolerate it sometimes because their immune system is so weakened.
So I just thought, “What can I do to help my dad?” And I just went full force into the research, and cannabis and medicinal mushrooms were the two things I kept hearing about over and over again. Once I started to dive into the research there, it was really, really promising. So that’s the route we decided to go on.
Dr. Steven Gundry (03:01):
So just so that everybody understands, your dad was getting chemotherapy?
Jenny Sansouci (03:01):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Steven Gundry (03:08):
And so you’re not going to come on and say, “My dad never got chemotherapy. All he did was have a joint and chew on a mushroom. And then he’s cured.”
Jenny Sansouci (03:21):
No. In fact, my dad was definitely sure that he wanted to go the traditional chemotherapy route for treating his cancer and I was not about to try to get him to do otherwise. I’m not a doctor, so I wasn’t going to go there but I knew that I could support him with some home remedies. We talked to his oncologist and we got his oncologist on board with all the different things we were trying. And he said, “I don’t know if this is going to help but it probably won’t hurt, so go ahead and we’ll just keep monitoring his progress.” He has the chemotherapy regimen at the hospital and then we’ve had our home regimen that we’ve been doing on the side.
Dr. Steven Gundry (03:59):
That’s actually great to hear because I work with a lot of cancer patients as well. So many of their oncologists tell them, “No, you may not do alternative therapies during this chemotherapy. How dare you? Don’t even come near this stuff. It will hurt your chances.” Actually, tell us about that process. How’d you find an oncologist that lets you do this, number one?
Jenny Sansouci (04:29):
Yeah, that’s a really good point because I hear that from so many people that their oncologist said, “No, absolutely not. Don’t try cannabis, medicinal marijuana, CBD, mushrooms.” They say, “Maybe it will hurt.” Or they just don’t have enough information about it to be able to say it’s okay. And luckily for us, we were paired with an oncologist who was open minded to it. He definitely did not recommend that we do it. And he said, “This may not do anything but I’m not going to tell you no.” So he didn’t.
We were really lucky in that sense because a lot of oncologist don’t do that. So what I always tell people to do is when they speak to their oncologist about potentially using home remedies and their oncologist says no, maybe you’ll agree with this, I always say, “What’s the exact reason why they’re saying no? Is there something specific to your condition?” Maybe there is, maybe there is a drug interaction, maybe there is something very specific to you and you shouldn’t use these home remedies. Or if not, like maybe the oncologist if you could try it for one cycle until your next scan and see if everything is still okay. If there’s not a specific reason to you, maybe they’d be willing to just let you see how it goes for one cycle.
Dr. Steven Gundry (05:43):
Tell us about the your research that said we need to look into cannabis and CBD and medicinal mushrooms. What brought that to the forefront?
Jenny Sansouci (05:57):
Well, one of the things that happened really early on when my dad first got diagnosed is he watched a documentary about medical marijuana. And he had just recorded it because he thought it looked interesting. He wasn’t even interested in it for himself. He just wanted to watch it. And it was all about cancer patients that were using medical cannabis and having really good results, not only with their cancer but with their side effects of their chemo.
And so his ears perked up at that immediately. At the same time, CBD was just starting to emerge. And one of my friends said, “Hey, just look into CBD and cancer and see what you find.” And I started researching that and I found so many stories of people who were using medical cannabis and CBD who have cancer and were experiencing relief. And then I started to look into studies. I went to a medical cannabis conference. I started to get in touch with medical cannabis doctors and asked them what their experience had been.
And I just went straight down the rabbit hole. I was really impressed by what I found in medical cannabis. And then with the mushrooms, I had already known that medicinal mushrooms could be helpful for the immune system. That was something that was already in my consciousness but I didn’t know a lot about them. And when I started to go down the route of researching mushrooms, I found so much information there is about medicinal mushrooms being used in cancer hospitals and other parts of the world. And people using it to help their immune systems. It was really, really interesting.
Dr. Steven Gundry (07:24):
Okay. So explain to people as if they don’t know the difference. Hopefully, most people know. So what’s the difference between cannabis, CBD and medicinal mushrooms? And are medicinal mushrooms different than magic mushrooms?
Jenny Sansouci (07:43):
Yeah. So cannabis, CBD is part of the cannabis plant. It’s a compound within the cannabis plant and it’s a compound that doesn’t get you high. So THC is the compound that most people are familiar with inside the cannabis plant that does get you high. So they’re two different molecules that are both within the same plant.
The medicinal mushrooms all the ones that my dad is taking and most of the ones that I write about in the book are completely non-psychedelic. When people think about mushrooms, they usually think of grocery-store mushrooms like button mushrooms, portobellos, creminis or magic mushrooms that are going to take you on a trip. There’s another class of mushrooms that’s considered medicinal mushrooms, which is they’re edible and you can consume them and they have medicinal properties but they’re not psychedelic.
Dr. Steven Gundry (08:30):
Got you. And for the listeners, you want to name some of those medicinal mushrooms for us.
Jenny Sansouci (08:38):
Yeah, some of the ones that I cover in the book and that my dad has been taking every day, chaga mushroom, reishi, turkey tail is a big one. That’s one of the first ones that we got him started on. Shitake is actually a really great one for right now too because shitake has been shown to be antiviral. So that’s a really interesting one to look at. Lion’s mane and cordyceps and maitake. I believe those are all the ones and then I do cover magic mushrooms a little bit in the book too because there’s some really interesting things going on in the research with psilocybin, which is a compound inside of magic mushrooms. But that’s not the main thing that we’ve been focusing on but it’s definitely an interesting one to pay attention to.
Dr. Steven Gundry (09:21):
All right. So you keep bringing up the immune system with mushrooms. In terms of medical marijuana and CBD, where’s the benefit with this in cancer patients?
Jenny Sansouci (09:37):
Sure. Yeah, with the immune system with the cannabis, what we had found with our research into cannabis is that THC and CBD both have properties that have been shown to kill tumors and slow tumor growth. And they can help with the immune system. There’s not enough research there yet because they can’t do clinical trials on cannabis because of the legality. So this is a lot of preliminary research and anecdotal stories. So that’s with cannabis.
With the mushrooms, all of the mushrooms that I just mentioned aside from magic mushrooms, with all of the medicinal mushrooms that I mentioned have been shown to have immune system modulating properties. So they don’t necessarily stimulate the immune system or dampen the immune system. They balance the immune system. So they’re considered adaptogens. So they can just help keep your immune system in balance and all of them are really powerful for keeping that immune system strong.
Dr. Steven Gundry (10:35):
Yeah, I have a patient who, oh I think he’s now 10 years out from stage 4 pancreatic cancer. And we treated him basically with a raw food diet and a lot of mushroom extracts, particularly coleus, turkey tail and like I say knock on wood, he’s cancer-free now for 10 years.
Jenny Sansouci (11:08):
Oh that’s amazing.
Dr. Steven Gundry (11:09):
Yeah. I’m a huge supporter of using plant-based therapy in cancer. And again, I’ve seen it with my own eyes and written about it in my books. I know that when you have chemotherapy, it’s not exactly the most wonderful trip. And a lot of patients complain of pain, of GI upset, of sleep, of energy loss, anxiety. What’s the deal with these compounds with that?
Jenny Sansouci (11:52):
Yeah. Well, the cannabis that my dad has been taking in a lot of other cancer patients also take this. It’s a very highly concentrated cannabis oil that comes in a little plastic syringe. And you eat these small droplets of this cannabis oil, tiny, tiny droplets the size of a grain of rice. And that can give you around 50 milligrams of THC and 50 milligrams of CBD. If you have a one-to-one ratio product, one drop. So that’s a very high dose.
For people that don’t know, about 10 milligrams of THC is considered a recreational dose that someone may use to get high. So 50 milligrams is a really, really high amount. So you have to really start slowly with that kind of medical cannabis product, but what my dad has found with that it has really, really taken away his nausea completely. He’s barely ever had nausea and it’s two and a half years and now he’s hardly had any nausea. His appetite came back as soon as he started taking this cannabis oil, which a lot of cancer patients I’m sure you know, they completely lose their appetite. They lose so much weight and that really contributes to them feeling sicker and sicker as time goes on because they’re not able to nourish themselves.
So that was amazing. Right off the bat he started to be able to eat full meals again and feel really well. And then he sleeps great because he takes a higher dose at night. He doesn’t like to take a higher dose during the day because he still wants to get things done and not feel too impaired by the THC, but at night he’s okay taking a little bit more and he has slept well the entire time.
So I think that has been the main thing that’s helped ease his side effects from chemotherapy. And then I believe that the mushrooms are what’s keeping his immune system strong, so he hasn’t been weakened by the chemo.
Dr. Steven Gundry (13:35):
Got you. So your book is trying to remove the drug stigma of cannabis and mushrooms. Why is that important to you?
Jenny Sansouci (13:47):
Well, yeah. I quit drinking and quit using all drugs back in 2007. So for me I swore off cannabis and mushrooms back then and alcohol. And I used cannabis and mushrooms in college recreationally and I never thought of them as medicine. I never would have even had a reason to think of it as medicine. And so for me, that part is really important because my perception of all of this has completely changed throughout my research. And I’ve done so much research now into the prohibition of cannabis and the legalization of psychedelic mushrooms.
And it has always been focused around patients and I mean of course, there’s people that want to use it recreationally. But there has been so much focus throughout the years on getting these plants to patients who really need to find relief. And I didn’t realize that before. So it’s really important to me to try to help to shift that perception, to see how these can be medicinal for people. And that it’s not just about getting high or going on a mushroom trip. It’s so much more than that.
Dr. Steven Gundry (14:58):
So you mentioned that the dose is enough to get you high. What if you don’t want this effect, how do you avoid it?
Jenny Sansouci (15:11):
Yeah. So in the book, I do talk about a lot of different wellness topics and not just cancer. So for cancer patients specifically, if you do want to take the THC and use that medicinally and not feel the high, you’re just going to want to work up really, really slowly, tiny, tiny, tiny amounts of THC. For most people, two milligrams grams of THC is the threshold. If you go above two milligrams, you can kind of start to feel those intoxicating effects. If you start a little bit lower and move up every few days, a couple more milligrams and just monitor how you’re feeling, that can be a really helpful way. If you don’t want to feel it at all, I would take a high CBD product with little to no THC in it. And that will give you the medicinal effects of the CBD without having the THC. But they do work better together.
So if you have a little bit of each in there, they boost each other up. So if you can tolerate a little bit of THC for the medicinal effects, that’s great but you don’t have to. And if you’re not using it for your cancer journey and you’re using it more for wellness, then you can absolutely just take a high CBD product with very small trace amounts of THC.
Dr. Steven Gundry (16:26):
Okay. So let’s get away from cancer for a minute and let’s talk about wellness. So give us your take. Give us the thoughts or the book on why these may promote wellness. How do they promote wellness? And let’s go from there.
Jenny Sansouci (16:47):
Sure. Well, one of the things that I found right off the bat through my research for my dad was all these different ways that it might be able to help me too, which is a totally different realm of why I use them versus why my dad’s using them. But for CBD in particular, some of the main things people use it for are pain, sleep and anxiety. Those are probably the top three. And I personally found help with sleep right away.
And the interesting thing with sleep, anxiety and pain is that a lot of times when people can’t sleep, it’s because of anxiety or pain. Either they have some painful part of their body and they can’t sleep because of that or racing thoughts, having those anxious feelings during the night and not being able to sleep.
So using the CBD can take away the thing that is keeping you from sleeping and help you sleep deeper, which is what I experienced because I can have anxiety when I’m trying to fall asleep. And before I started on CBD, I would frequently take a long time to fall asleep and then wake up a lot during the night with racing thoughts. And when I started the CBD, I was really able to just sleep better. So that was awesome.
And as far as the pain goes, there was another kind of before-and-after moment that my dad experienced with CBD, which was before he got on the medical marijuana train, he was just taking CBD because that’s all we had access to at the time. And what he noticed right off the bat was that his joint pain went away, just from taking the CBD. He was taking CBD capsules and he said, “I don’t even need to take Advil anymore.”
He used to have all this joint pain walking up and down the stairs. He’s been an athlete his whole life, so he says all these aches and pains. And he was like, “I’m impressed by that.” And he’s not one of those people that just gets on the bandwagon quickly. So that was really impressive. So the pain, sleep and anxiety are three things that CBD can be amazing for.
Dr. Steven Gundry (18:40):
I have a lot of patients who have tried CBD primarily for sleep and for pain. And I would say that just as a general rule, 50% of them seem to respond and 50% of them don’t. And of the people who respond, what’s been fascinating to me is half the people particularly with pain, respond to the topical CBD but don’t to the oral. And the other half, they respond to the oral but not to the topical. So help me understand this. What’s going on?
Jenny Sansouci (19:22):
Sure. Well, yeah, from a base level of why people respond to it differently is because we all have an endocannabinoid system as I’m sure you know and our body that responds and reacts with the cannabis directly. And everyone has their own … Dr. Ethan Russo who is a cannabis researcher, he calls it the endocannabinoid tone, that we all have this baseline tone. Kind of like everybody has a different digestive system. Your gut flora is going to be different than mine. You have a different endocannabinoid system than me, so you may have different levels of natural cannabinoids, which we make in our body in your system than I do. So the cannabis and CBD in particular will kind of raise the levels of the natural cannabinoids that we have in our system.
So if someone has a lower amount versus a higher amount, they’re going to respond differently, which is why dosing can be really tricky and is really, really personal with CBD. Dosing and method of delivery, like you said, some people will respond to a topical, some to a tincture. It’s all going to really be based on the person’s individual endocannabinoid system.
Dr. Steven Gundry (20:32):
So let’s talk about dosing. How do you know what you’re getting? Obviously, marijuana and CBD are legal here in California. And we’ve got these shops almost on every street corner now. How do you figure out, okay, is this stuff legit? This stuff came from hemp. This actually came from the marijuana plant. Some people argue, “No, no, no. You got to have marijuana-based CBDs, hemp CBDs then all good.” Come on, help us sort this out.
Jenny Sansouci (21:11):
Yeah. Well, you’re lucky to be in California because I really think California, especially at the licensed dispensaries, have it figured out in a really wonderful way. I wish that all dispensaries could be like the ones that I visited in California. And that’s because they have a very wide array usually of product ratios out in California with different levels of CBD to THC, that you can pick from and choose your ratio because like I said, the more THC in a product, the more you’re going to feel those intoxicating effects. And so you can have a ratio of eight to one CBD to THC or 20 to one and you can try all these different ratios to see what works for you.
So I think that’s wonderful. But to answer your question, the most important thing right now when you’re looking for a product, especially a CBD product that’s not from a dispensary because those are unregulated, you want to make sure you find they have a third-party lab test. So that’s to show that the amount of CBD that they say is in the product is actually on lab tests.
So if it says 25 milligrams per serving, you want to see that on the lab test as well. And you want to make sure that it’s negative for heavy metals, pesticides, residual solvents that could have come through the processing because CBD, like I said, is totally unregulated right now. It’s really important to get those lab tests. If you do get it from a licensed dispensary, they have stricter regulations with the kind of products they’re able to sell. So you’re probably better off that way but even if you’re getting it from a dispenser, you may want to ask and see the lab tests to make sure what you’re getting is really what it says on the label.
Dr. Steven Gundry (22:50):
So if I’m on my road trip and I stop at the gas station and they’ve got CBD oil at the checkout counter, which I’ve seen. That’s probably not the one I want to buy?
Jenny Sansouci (23:03):
Probably not. No, I would not recommend CBD from a gas station for sure. Yeah, you really want to do your research and make sure the company is doing, like I said, those third party lab tests meaning someone else is doing the lab tests that’s not affiliated with the company, so they can’t make it up. And you want to make sure that they’re using safe practices. And then just to answer your question about the hemp versus marijuana, right now it’s all legal terms.
So hemp-based CBD versus marijuana-based CBD is basically just about the amount of THC and other cannabinoids, which are other compounds within the cannabis plant that are in the product. So if it’s hemp-based CBD, it’s basically just very, very minimal THC. It was going to be in that plant that was grown for that CBD and if it’s marijuana-based CBD, it basically just means that in that plant, there was a higher level of THC. And these numbers are just kind of the numbers that they’re using to differentiate these plants but it’s all the same. It comes from the same plant at the end of the day.
Dr. Steven Gundry (24:10):
Now bring us up to date, the DEA once classified this substance as really nasty stuff. Where do we stand with the DEA? And where do we stand with the FDA with these substances?
Jenny Sansouci (24:33):
Well, right now, cannabis is still a schedule 1 drug federally. So I hope that that will change, I don’t know for sure when it will. I mean people predict that that will change within the next couple of years. CBD, as of 2018, became legal federally, which is why you see the CBD boom everywhere. So CBD from hemp, which just means 0.3% THC or less is federally illegal. Anything more, you have to get from a licensed dispensary, which will be different in every state. Some states have medical dispensaries only, which you’re going to need a medical card in order to access those products. And so you have to go to a doctor, get approved for a medical marijuana card and then you can go to a dispensary.
Some states have recreational or adult use dispensaries, which is usually 21 plus and right now, it just varies from state to state. So things are changing everyday. My hope is that it will become federally legal soon.
Dr. Steven Gundry (25:30):
All right, I’m going to throw you something out of left field. What do you know about black urine disease?
Jenny Sansouci (25:39):
I’ve never heard of that before.
Dr. Steven Gundry (25:41):
Oh good, okay. So I have a very good friend and I won’t mention his name who ran a company that was really big into CBD, and kind of put their whole careers into that and was working very hard with the FDA to get FDA approval for CBD. And you probably know that the FDA does not approve CBD.
Jenny Sansouci (26:10):
Yeah.
Dr. Steven Gundry (26:12):
And interestingly enough and I did not know this because he said, “I’m sure you’ve heard a black urine disease.” And I said, “No, I haven’t.” He said, “Well, it turns out that too much CBD can actually affect the same receptors in the liver that Tylenol hits acetaminophen and can actually poison the liver. And it was discovered because some very heavy CBD users notice their urine was turning dark, like they had hepatitis. And it got the name black urine disease.”
And he tells me and I haven’t talked to the FDA about this, that the FDA is worried that big time CBD use and I don’t know the dose. May potentially damage the liver and that’s why they put the brakes on this. But look it up, it’s fascinating.
Jenny Sansouci (27:12):
Yeah, I have seen some things talking about CBD damaging the liver because of studies that they did in mice or rats. And from what I could gather from these studies, the amount of CBD they had to give these rats was huge, like thousands and thousands and thousands of milligrams of CBD. Like what it would equal with a human, it seemed very, very, like a huge stretch to me but I will look that up and see what they’re saying about black urine disease because that sounds pretty scary.
Dr. Steven Gundry (27:46):
And you probably couldn’t afford to take that much.
Jenny Sansouci (27:49):
Right, exactly.
Dr. Steven Gundry (27:51):
So let’s get back to that. Is there evidence? Is there at least anecdotal reports about the amount of CBD that you have to use to be effective? You mentioned that everybody’s endocannabinoid system is different. So what should people look for? Why do they try? What do you recommend?
Jenny Sansouci (28:14):
Yeah, as far as dosing, I mean I’ve heard from doctors that practice with cannabis medicine that some patients do well on five milligrams of CBD, and some people do well on 500 milligrams of CBD depending on their condition. So it’s really, really different but what I can say is a starting point for CBD, you want to start really low and take it by itself and monitor how you feel every 15 minutes. Like do you feel anything different? Do you feel you’re more relaxed? Do you feel any relief of pain? Do you feel any relief of anxiety or whatever it is that you’re trying to find relief from?
And pay really close attention and only take more if you feel no nothing. If you feel nothing, take a little bit more but you could start with five milligrams, even something really small and see if you feel anything. If not, around 15 to 25 milligrams is a standard dose for many people, a standard kind of wellness dose. And then if you’re having a high amount of pain or anxiety, you may need to take a little bit more and just kind of move up until you find the relief that you’re looking for or switch products if it’s not working for you.
Or methods of delivery, like you said before topicals work really well for people for pain. For anxiety, a lot of people like to take the tincture under the tongue because that works usually within 15 minutes or so. And you can really measure your dose drop by drop. So I would suggest starting with a sublingual tincture because that that’s how you can really, really get a measured dose. And say, “Okay, I took this exact amount where some of the other methods, you can’t always know exactly how much you’re taking.”
Dr. Steven Gundry (29:57):
Okay. So we talked about anxiety, pain, sleep and you use the buzzword, the wellness dose of CBD. So again, help me experimentally, anecdotally, where does CBD fit in a wellness regimen?
Jenny Sansouci (30:18):
Sure. Well, like I said before, we all have this endocannabinoids system in our body that CBD works directly with. And we have our own molecules inside our body that work with this same system that CBD can help to regulate those molecules. And they affect things like pain, sleep, the immune system, anxiety, depression, mood. They have so many things that this endocannabinoid system affects. It really keeps you in homeostasis or keeps you in balance.
So taking CBD as a daily tonic kind of tonifies your endocannabinoids system and can keep things in balance. Many people just find that taking it as a daily thing, whether it’s at night or depending how you respond can just make you overall feel more balanced.
Dr. Steven Gundry (31:12):
Got you. Okay, interesting. Dr. McCullen and I have talked about CBD for sleep when we’ve been on each other’s podcast in way back years ago now. Did 20 milligrams of CBD sublingual before bed and tracked our sleep with an Oura Ring, which I’m holding up to the camera and quite frankly, neither of us found any effect on our sleep. And as I recall, and I won’t put words in his mouth, he even tried it with THC and also found no effect for him or me. So we both kind of stopped doing it.
But you’re right, maybe our endocannabinoid system is so phenomenally balanced and I hope it is, that maybe we would not see that effect.
Jenny Sansouci (32:06):
Yeah, or the other part is that sometimes taking certain amounts of CBD or THC can be more wake promoting for some people. And especially taking a little bit too much THC can kind of make you have those racing thoughts or can cause anxiety for some people. So that again, it is so, so personal and some people will say, “I take CBD. It makes me more focused and awake.” And some people say, they take it and it makes them fall asleep. It’s an experimental journey.
Dr. Steven Gundry (32:37):
All right. So I’m sure everybody wants to know because you’re a rebel apothecary, and should we be regulating these substances? What’s the best approach to regulating them if they should be regulated?
Jenny Sansouci (32:55):
Yeah, like I said, I really think that some of the licensed dispensaries in California are doing a really good job with the way that they are providing their products. I think that cannabis products with THC should be most likely just allowed in licensed dispensaries, but I do think it should be federally legal. I do think that people anyone wants access to cannabis medicine should be able to have access to it. I don’t think it should just be sold at gas stations and have these low quality products on the market.
I think that there should be testing third party lab testing for all cannabis products and all CBD products. I do think that they should be regulated in a way where they have to contain exactly what they say on the label. So yeah, I do think it should be legal federally and just as long as the regulations are in place to keep people safe.
Dr. Steven Gundry (33:46):
So we’re not going to pull up to the gas station and get a six-pack of beer and a brownie to go?
Jenny Sansouci (33:54):
I always say make your own brownies at home, which are there are some recipes in my book.
Dr. Steven Gundry (33:58):
Ah-hah! I knew I could get a plug in for you there.
Jenny Sansouci (34:04):
But as far as I will say also with the magic mushrooms and legality and regulation there, the predictions that are happening for those are that they’ll be legal within therapeutic settings because they are researching them for depression, and even comparing them to SSRI depression drugs and seeing how they affect people. So I think that those mushrooms, which are currently illegal as well will be available for use in therapy. And I don’t think those should just be available at gas station either. Those should be closely monitored.
Dr. Steven Gundry (34:38):
Yeah. Michael Pollan has made, I think, a very strong point that there is good increasing evidence that there is some bonafide medical use for these. I think particularly in depression. And yeah, we need and you argue for this that we need to look at this as another federally regulated license use of these products for specific reasons.
Jenny Sansouci (35:11):
Right, yeah absolutely.
Dr. Steven Gundry (35:13):
And I think you’re right and maybe why don’t you talk about that? The use of these products kind of in your own home is probably, at least in our state of understanding, not a great idea. This should be taken with a practiced professional in a controlled setting. What say you?
Jenny Sansouci (35:36):
I say if we’re talking about psychedelic mushrooms, yes. I would definitely recommend that people don’t just try it alone, whether it’s with a trained therapist or someone who has a lot of experience guiding people through these types of sessions. I definitely think that having guidance is the way to go.
Dr. Steven Gundry (35:58):
Yeah, I had a personal experience in college where one of my members in my singing group dropped acid. We were on the third floor of our dorm and he threw up open the windows and decided he was going to fly. And luckily, I grabbed him by his belt and pulled him back in. This is a true story. So I firmly believe from personal experience that this should be done in a guided setting.
Jenny Sansouci (36:34):
Yes. I agree. If you take a little bit too much of a psychedelic compound and I mean, it can take you to places that you aren’t ready to go by yourself, so definitely.
Dr. Steven Gundry (36:45):
Right. Including the ground from a third-story window.
Jenny Sansouci (36:49):
Yeah.
Dr. Steven Gundry (36:50):
All right. Well Jenny, this has been great. Thanks so much for joining me. Where do they find out about you, your book, your work?
Jenny Sansouci (36:58):
First of all, thank you so much for having me. This has been just such a great conversation. And I’m glad you have so much personal experience with the topic too, that makes it really enjoyable to talk about. So thank you.
My book is called The Rebels Apothecary. So you can buy that anywhere where books are sold, except right now we can’t go into bookstores. So online, you can find that. My blog is healthycrush.com and you can find me also on Instagram Jenny Sansouci.
Dr. Steven Gundry (37:26):
Healthycrush.com. I’m sure there’s a story. What’s the crush well?
Jenny Sansouci (37:33):
I’ve actually been writing there since 2008. So I’ve been blogging about wellness and personal development topics for quite a long time and the Healthy Crush just popped into my mind. The tagline is a love affair with living well. So it’s kind of-
Dr. Steven Gundry (37:46):
Oh okay.
Jenny Sansouci (37:47):
The way I’ve always felt about finding out about new wellness topics and getting excited about them and sharing.
Dr. Steven Gundry (37:55):
Very good, very good. Okay, it’s time for our audience question. Sandra Liliana on Facebook asks, “Is keto diet safe for people with heart conditions?” Believe it or not, I do use my version of the ketogenic diet for my patients with heart disease who have also for instance, diabetes as a co-founding factor and as a cause of their heart disease. The key in my ketogenic diet is you got to eat about 80% of your calories from fat but that fat shouldn’t be rib eye steaks. It should be fats from avocados and for you people who are watching, I have avocado socks on today. And they should be from olive oil. And the more olive oil, macadamia nuts you eat, macadamia nut oil, sesame oil, the better.
And the key of a ketogenic diet is to really severely limit your carbohydrates to really leaves and vegetables that are going to carry olive oil and avocados into your mouth. That’s totally different than a paleo or carnivore keto diet where the vast majority of the food you’re going to eat are heavy cheeses, heavy meats, heavy fats, three bottles of cream every day. That’s not what I use for my heart disease patients. So you got to be careful in the term keto diet. There’s a good way to do keto and there’s a bad way to do keto, particularly for heart disease. So that’s a great question, Sandra and thank you very much.
All right Jenny, thank you again and good luck with the book and best wishes to your father. How’s he doing by the way?
Jenny Sansouci (39:53):
He’s doing fantastic. I’ve actually been quarantined up here with him for the last six weeks and he has felt so good the whole time. We keep saying we forget that he has cancer. He’s been off of chemo now for the past three months just because he’s been doing so well that his oncologist said, “Why don’t we give you a break?” And his blood markers are in the normal range. His tumors have all been stable, so we’re happy.
Dr. Steven Gundry (40:17):
Hey, very good, very good. All right, keep up the good work. Great.
Jenny Sansouci (40:21):
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
Dr. Steven Gundry (40:22):
Take care. And now it’s time for the review of the week, following my most recent episode on Covid-19. [Wedo 00:40:30] Brunelli Jr. on YouTube wrote, “Thank you Dr. Gundry. Clear info without fear and hype.” Well, thank you. That was concise and we’re trying to give you the up-to-date information without the hype, without the fear because as you know, I’m Dr. Gundry and I’m always looking out for you. So we’ll see you next week. Thanks for the review.
Thanks for joining me on this episode of the Dr. Gundry Podcast. Before you go, I just wanted to remind you that you can find the show on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you want to watch each episode of the Dr. Gundry Podcast, you can always find me on YouTube at youtube.com/drgundry because I’m doctor Gundry and I’m always looking out for you.
