CBD Realities – Harvard Physician Provides the Evidence and Opportunities

Dr. Cooper

Welcome to the latest episode of the catalyst, health, wellness, and performance coaching podcast. I’m your host, dr. Bradford Cooper of the catalyst coaching Institute. And today we’re going to address a subject that we’ve been consistently asked about here at catalyst CBD. You’re seeing CBD practically everywhere as it is the focus of a new area of cannabis research, but you’re also likely coming across an extensive list of unsubstantiated and highly questionable claims. So as always, we decided to dig in and we were incredibly fortunate to have Harvard physician, dr . Peter Grinspoon join us today. He has not only been a cannabis specialist for 25 years and a medical doctor. He is also a certified health and wellness coach. Talk about a perfect fit for our show. A quick favor to ask our listeners, if you enjoy video tools and resources, we have now produced over 75 videos over at youtube.com/coaching channel on topics, covering everything from nutrition and exercise to positive behavior, change mental toughness and the business of coaching. We would love it. If you’ve got a few minutes to pop over there and check it out and maybe even subscribe you find it helpful as always feel free to reach out to us anytime with questions about your career or coaching aspects or anything else results@catalystcoachinginstitute.com. Now let’s kick back and tune in to the latest evidence insights about CBD with Harvard physician and wellness coach Peter Grinspoon on the latest episode of the catalyst, health, wellness, and performance coaching podcast. Dr. Grinspoon thank you for joining us here on the podcast. Really appreciate it.

Dr. Grinspoon: 1:27

Thanks for having me.

Dr. Cooper: 1:30

Let’s set the stage a little bit here. There’s so much talk about CBD and we’ll get into some of the myths and where the evidence is, that kind of stuff. But if you could just set the stage and describe for us what exactly is CBD and how does it differ from marijuana itself?

Dr. Grinspoon: 1:47

Well, marijuana is a complicated plant with about 600 different chemicals in it about 140 of which are called cannabinoids because they work on the body’s natural endocannabinoid system, which is how we get high and how cannabis works. All of its medical properties and of the 140 cannabinoid molecules. Again, of the 600 molecules that are in cannabis. The most widely known is THC , which is the one that gets people high, right ? And is the one that’s most widely sought out. But the second most well known is CBD CBD when in the middle of the CBD craze. So I think most people have heard of CBD right now . CBD does not get you high. It’s not addictive. It doesn’t have any abuse liability, but people do use it for a variety of medical indications, such as chronic pain, anxiety, insomnia, and a bunch of other stuff like childhood epilepsy. So CBD while it’s not as strong as tsetse in terms of like pain control and some other indications, it does have the advantage of like not being at all addictive. Some people get very dependent on cannabis itself, but that one of 600 molecules, the CBD doesn’t have very many side effects and does help people. So it is very exciting that you can take one part of the marijuana plant and use it without having very many of the side effects at all.

Dr. Cooper: 3:34

So you started down this path. We it’s basically been touted for. I mean, we see headlines about everything from headaches, arthritis, to sleep, to weight loss, to et cetera, et cetera. I’d like to go through some of those, but before we do that, what would be some ways listeners can cut through the false claim ? So they listen to your interview. They think this is really interesting. I want to look into this more. Are there, are there websites they can go to, to, to filter out the bologna and get down to where the research is really providing accurate guidance?

Dr. Grinspoon: 4:05

Well, yeah, for CBD, the problem is like, there is a lot of potential, but the claims have vastly outpaced, actual science and the science has been slowed down a lot because of the government’s kind of war on cannabis and CBD has been kind of caught in the crossfire because even though nobody’s against CBD, you couldn’t have fun with CBD. If you tried one reason for the government to be against it or to control it. But because it can come from cannabis or from him now, hemp is legal. It’s been schedule one under the controlled substance act, which is no medical utility and high abuse liability, neither, which is remotely true for CBD. Right . But it’s still very difficult to research it. So a lot of the studies have been done on animals. Now, animal studies give us a good indication, but they don’t by any means, always turn out to be true for humans. I mean , look at all summer’s disease, all these animal models get rid of plaques, but then you try them in humans and they don’t do anything. So you can’t necessarily extrapolate from animal studies. So people have been making these claims for CBD and that’s where we’re getting like the CBD hamburger or the CBD ice cream, the CBD bra , the CBD pillowcase, all these ridiculous things. There are two problems. One is, are the claims true? Or are they science-based? And two is because CBD is a supplement. You know, the quality of the CBD can be very dubious and you don’t even know if you’re getting actual CBD when you buy CBD. So those are two different problems for the second problem. You have to make sure that where you’re buying CBD, there’s a certificate of analysis and that people send the CBD to an outside lab until they randomly test it, to make sure that it actually has the 50 milligrams of CBD that it says it does for the first problem. I think people just need to stick to the main claims of CBD, that it helps with sleep anxiety and chronic pain, and that it also can help with , um , well obviously childhood epilepsy, the government’s actually approved the drug appeal to decks for childhood epilepsy and not, you know , put too much credence in the more outlandish claims. Like obviously it doesn’t cure coronavirus. So you sort of stick to the, to the main claims and be a little bit skeptical of the claims that are sort of out of the mainstream.

Dr. Cooper: 6:39

And are there other ways besides going to Google scholar or something like that to track some of those things down, if the , if they’re wondering,

Dr. Grinspoon: 6:48

Well, the problem is what is a good source? I wrote a piece for Harvard health , uh , called CBD what we know and what we don’t know, which exactly that, Oh, thank you. And that tried to really specifically say, what is CBD good for and what isn’t CBD good for. So you try to find credible sources like that. Um, it does get pretty complicated when you, when you start going to the actual literature, because this was done in a mouse. So does it apply to humans? It gets to be very hard for like someone who’s a lay person. That’s like interpret the studies. It gets hard for a doctor to interpret the studies because some of them are really complicated and you don’t really know if they apply to humans or what the implications are. So I would say, try to find like good sources, for example, consumer reports, which I don’t mind mentioning because they’re a nonprofit, they had an article how to shop for CBD. Now that’s a very sensible article where they basically said is what I just said is if you’re going to shop online, find places that, you know, have outside of laboratory testing. So you know that they actually have what, the amount of CBD that you want them to have in it. And they don’t have anything else in it, you know, but they have a lot of other good, common sense tips. And then I’d find like Sanji goop does very credible. Um, you just have to find some very credible people and follow them and not just go for these inflated claims like these people at the , say it cures coronavirus, if it sounds too good to be true. Yeah . So that’s, that’s the general rule of thumb too . It doesn’t cure everything and it doesn’t fix all problems. It’s, it’s subtle. It can help with sleep . It can help with chronic pain, but it doesn’t make these things disappear. It’s just a subtle helper. Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Cooper: 8:39

You mentioned a certificate of analysis. Is there a governing body for that? Is it like the AMA certificate analysis? Is there something like that? Cause anybody, I mean, I could just say, Hey, we did our own certificate of analysis, but is there some organization that does that, or is that a growing area right now that we don’t really have one we can depend on

Dr. Grinspoon: 8:58

Yeah, that’s a growing area, but for a online site to sort of fake a lab, if that got exposed, they would lose all credibility. That would be like the end of the online site. So I think that would start to get a little bit farfetched, but you’re right. They fund online. Anybody can look credible. Right. But I think that there are a couple of labs that do it and they’re pretty credible. And if you really want to make sure, right, you can look up the certificate of analysis and then you can look up the labs . Yeah. That’s a good idea. I think you’re starting to get to the point where like, if people are making up the CBD and then they’re making up the lab, I think that that would get pretty pretty. Um, they get busted pretty pretty quickly. And then, you know, there are these stories, you know, Leafly , which is a good magazine in the cannabis world. They tested a bunch of different suppliers and you can look through them. Some of them had more CBD than they should have. A lot of them had the right amount. And some of them had like none, you know, so you can look at, there are a lot of articles like that recently where people go around and buy CBD and test them. And you can kind of get an idea from that kind of article about like, which are the good suppliers. One drink, the drinks were really bad, actually a lot of the drinks and one drink in particular boasted, a thousand milligrams and had six milligrams. Wow. That’s basically like almost pure water, probably cost like $5 for this product. A dollar, a milligram of CBD that’s astounding. You know, there were, I don’t want to mean any particular brands. There were a couple brands that were really credible and had the right amount and I would feel comfortable recommending them to patients , uh , as far as like online CDD sources. So it’s not that hard to find a good source,

Dr. Cooper: 10:48

Your homework folks. Don’t just jump at it because it’s got bright colors and cheap prices do definitely check that out

Dr. Grinspoon: 10:54

At the gas station, you know, and don’t buy it. Like, I hate to say this, but don’t buy it like mom and pops CBD store , who knows what you’re getting. Gotcha.

Dr. Cooper: 11:02

Gotcha. Okay. So you mentioned three and I’m gonna throw in one other, cause I’ve read a little bit about, I’m curious. So sleep anxiety, chronic pain, and then recovery in athletes. That seems to be getting some traction that it helps speed up the recovery process. Any, can you give us just a short version on each of those four sleep, anxiety, chronic pain. And if, if there’s some accuracy to this, the recovery in athletes.

Dr. Grinspoon: 11:29

Yeah. Well, let’s start with the recovery in athletes now. I don’t think that’s been like rigorously studied. Like they haven’t taken like a hundred athletes with injury, a without CBD and a hundred athletes of injury, a with CBD and like study the recovery time. So I don’t think they’ve done that kind of study , but anecdotally there’s a ton of , of evidence and a of stories. Now, a lot of these stories come from athletes that have their own CBD company . Um, so you have to factor that in the conflict of interest. If someone’s saying CBD saved my career CBD, right , let me go back to football CBD, let me play. And by the way, I’ve got this great CBD , here’s a link and here’s a link you just have to wonder. And again, CBD, isn’t that strong a painkiller. It helps for chronic pain, but it’s not nearly as strong as medical cannabis, which is tsetse plus CBD plus a bunch of other 500 other chemicals. So I just have to wonder if the CBD alone could have been that strong to help a professional football player. That’s that banged up, get back onto his or his game. So let’s take it

Dr. Cooper: 12:47

Slightly different. Look at recovery. I’m thinking more of the endurance athlete that goes out. They do a hard interval session. And is there any research showing that CBD will help them recover a little bit faster? So not from an injury, but from a high intensity workout that allows them to come back or somebody that’s in the gym and they’re doing their weight training or they’re , they’re out doing their , uh , their Hill workout. Is there any research showing yes. A specific dosage of CBD will allow you to recover a little bit faster and get back into that next session a little bit easier.

Dr. Grinspoon: 13:21

There’s no research that I’m aware of. There’s a hypothetical rationale, which is CBDs a very effective anti-inflammatory. And when you do a very intense workout, you know, your muscles get tissues and that could be a mechanism of injury, even is inflammation. Inflammation is a protective response, but it also could be very noxious and unhelpful when it , you overdo it or the body just kind of the body’s response over, does it okay .

Dr. Cooper: 13:54

It is, it has been shown to be an antiinflammatory, have an antiinflammatory effect,

Dr. Grinspoon: 13:59

A very , um, effective anti-inflammatory. So , um, it is , um, in that sense it’s theoretically it makes a lot of sense that CBD can be an effective , um, every covering from that kind of workout. Now I do want to save it just because it makes sense doesn’t mean that it’s true. You know, the history of medicine is Plains that make sense, but are not true. You know, we used to give hormone replacement therapy to women to help them with their bones and to help with their menopausal symptoms. But then of course, that caused more heart attacks and strokes. So we were actually killing them off when we thought we were helping them, right. We just aren’t going to know until it gets studied, but anecdotally athletes are saying that it does really help them. And there is this theoretical rationale for it. And I’m sure it’s being studied, but again, it’s hard to study CBD . Now it’s going to be easier. Now that hemp is legal, but still the legality of CBDs is very confusing. You know, it was sort of legal as a supplement until proven otherwise. And then once they made appeal index , which is the childhood epilepsy drug legal that made all the supplements technically illegal because CBD is legal as a drug. So now it’s in this gray zone. So no one really knows what the legality of it is. Gotcha . And it’s still technically schedule one of the controlled substance act, which is no medical utility and high abuse liability, which is ridiculous given that has no abuse liability. And the government’s holding that it has no medical utility when the government’s approved a CBD based drug for childhood epilepsy. It’s like the government is so confused on anything, marijuana, cannabis related. They’re just, they’re so caught up on the war on drugs that they can’t even think straight. So none of this makes any sense. So they keep promising to come up with a sensible regulatory framework for CBD that will allow the supplements to be sold that will allow the medicine development, and that will allow the research. They haven’t come out with it yet, but they keep promising this. But this is exactly what needs to be studied because if it helps people, people should be allowed to use it and people should be allowed to study it. And it’s a very nontoxic drug. There are a couple side effects and toxicities that we should at some point discuss that’s good . Oh yeah. Well, first of all, CBD can affect the blood level of other drugs. Exactly. In the same way the grapefruit juice can in that it can competitively inhibit the enzymes that break down the other medications. So if you’re on a blood thinner and you take CBD, CBD can use up those enzymes that would ordinarily break down the blood thinner. So it can cause higher levels of blood thinners in your blood or epileptic medications. Um, so I haven’t heard of anybody like bleeding to death from having too high level of blood thinner because they’re taking CBD, but you certainly want your doctor to be aware of the fact you’re taking CBD. If you’re on a blood thinner or on any other medication that has to be closely followed that the levels have to be carefully tracked . You know, if you’re taking, you know, Omeprazole or Prosek as an acid blocker, that level can go up to, but who really cares if you’re taking 20 or 21 milligrams of Omeprazole 20 sort of an educated guess anyways, as a primary care doctor, I’m like, who cares? Right ? But if you are taking something like an antiepileptic or an, or blood thinner that does have to be kept in a pretty narrow range, that’s when you really have to tell your doctor that you’re on CBD, just so he or she knows about it because it can hypothetically affect the level because it eats up the enzymes that otherwise would be degrading these other medications. So it can affect the blood level of these medications. And it can raise your liver levels, your liver enzyme levels. But the two circumstances in which that were the case was one, when they tested that drug appeal, the decks , the childhood epilepsy drugs, and those kids were all on other epilepsy drugs. So it’s hard to say if it was really the CBD that did it. And then there was another study with these sort of anti cannabis researchers gave these rats something like 70,000 times as much CBD as a human would take. And then they had a liver problems and they were like, ah, ha CBD affects your liver. But like I wanted to report these researchers to the society for the prevention of cruelty.

Dr. Cooper: 18:59

Right, right. Anything 70,000 times.

Dr. Grinspoon: 19:01

Yeah. Or something like that. They were like, poisoning is to make a point. So I’m not particularly concerned about the liver though. You know, someone’s on a good amount of CBD every day. You’d probably want to check their liver once a year, just like you would with any other medications. So , and the final point I want to make is so sure you do want to be careful blood levels. You do want to keep an eye possibly in the liver test and you know, it can cause stomach upset. It can cause diarrhea. You know, there are a few side effects. There’s no free lunch with any medication. And I always think it’s just causing more or fewer side effects than what you’d be using instead. And what would you be using instead for chronic pain, you’d be using opiates, which no one wants to be on. Cause you’re addictive and you overdose nonsteroidals which eat away at your kidney and cause ulcers and gastritis. If they don’t give you a heart attack first or Tylenol, which hurts your liver and doesn’t do anything anyways for insomnia, what are you going to use? Benadryl, which causes dementia or ambient , which can cause dementia or car crashes for anxiety, what are you going to be using? You know, the benzodiazepines are very addictive and impossible to get off. And you know, people have all kinds of problems with the antidepressants that we use for anxiety, to the extent that they work. People tend to stay on them. You know , I actually think they’re they work. Okay. But the point being that you have to say, what else would we use for chronic pain, anxiety or insomnia? And if you look at what else we tend to use, I think CBD has a very side effect profile.

Dr. Cooper: 20:49

So you’ve got a lot of people listening right now are saying, Oh, okay. I didn’t even know about sleep. I didn’t even think about that with anxiety or re what, what would be your starting point recommendation now, just reminder to the wellness, health and wellness coaches listening. We do not prescribe including supplements. This is a physician speaking to us. So listen to him, do not make recommendations to your clients. But for those listening, who would like to look into this a little bit more, can you give us a starting point to , they start with creams? Should we start with the oils? Should we use the oral, certain levels of dosage? What maybe let’s just take each one of these separately for sleep. What would be your recommendation? If somebody says, you know what? I’m waking up at 3:00 AM and I’m not falling back asleep. And I just can’t get it going. And I don’t want to take the Benadryl. I don’t want to take the , the over the counter sleep medications. The melatonin’s not doing it. What would be a starting point for that person?

Dr. Grinspoon: 21:45

Well, again, I’m not supposed to give medical advice either, but generally speaking, you know, you made sure that you have a good quality source of CBD. Um, by following the things that we discussed earlier, making sure that it comes from a source that has a certificate of analysis. And then, you know, I , I started a lowish dose, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50 milligrams. Just take it in a gummy or a pill or some oral. I take it orally. I think the smoking just irritates your lungs. I think for sleep, you know, obviously a topical wouldn’t do anything. So I just take it orally or in a tincture under your tongue and then just give it like half an hour and see if it makes you a little bit relaxed and sleepy.

Dr. Cooper: 22:28

And so the, the creams, not necessarily, if someone’s debate, let’s talk about the chronic pain. Now, if someone’s thinking, you know what, I’ve got, this hip thing has been bugging me for a long time. It’s postsurgical. It hasn’t healed. Like it should, you know , whatever their situation is in that case, when it’s point specific, would you direct them to a cream or would you still say no. No, no. The , the, the oral is your better option.

Dr. Grinspoon: 22:55

Yeah. Well you can certainly try cream. A cream is good for like a massage with no muscle pain. Like say your neck hurt sprained your neck .

Dr. Cooper: 23:03

Yeah. That’s my thought too is the massage piece is probably as valuable as the cream, but yeah .

Dr. Cooper: 23:07

And together they worked really well. Um, personally I think the creams with THC and CBD work better than just the CBD. And I think it’s great because you can’t get high from a cream. So why not throw this THC ? And if you’re in a medical marijuana, legal state, why on earth, marijuana cream, isn’t legal in all the States is beyond me because you can’t get high from it . It works really well. And you just absorb it through the skin. But again, it’s not obviously not psychoactive. You just absorb it. It’s just a massage, but I would use the CBD cream for like muscle aches. And then for that kind of chronic pain , chronic pain is tough because nothing treats it completely, even opiates. Don’t treat it completely. They’d just sort of take the edge off and make it not that unpleasant a sensation, but they don’t make it go away completely. And you know, it depends a little bit if you’re talking about nerve pain or musculoskeletal pain, nerve pain is really hard to treat, but I do CBD is sort of taking the edge off. I’d say the same, but again, medical marijuana and see the same about , um , opiates. But again, you start with a smallest dose orally and then you work your way up better to do this with a doctor then on your own. Certainly let your doctor know that you’re doing this so that he or she can be cognizant of any drug interactions that there are. And you know, most of the gummies come in like 30 milligram doses. That’s a perfectly reasonable starting dose. It should be mentioned that a lot of the animal studies did like 20 to 30 milligrams per kilogram, which would come out to like 1500 milligrams in a human. So the doses we’re using are really small. And the who said that up to 1500 milligrams a day in humans is safe. So 30 milligrams is a very small dose, but certainly there’s nothing wrong with start low and go slow, start with a low dose. But I wouldn’t be surprised if people did have to go up to a couple of hundred milligrams a day just to get , um , an effect, especially with chronic pain, which is , um, you know, pretty difficult to treat with any medication.

Dr. Cooper: 25:17

And just to clarify, because we talked about both orally and the creams, your recommendation be the oral will be more effective longterm consistently the cream combined with the massage may add to that. Am I hearing you correctly? Or did I miss a piece of that?

Dr. Grinspoon: 25:34

It’s only gonna work if it’s something near the surface, like a sore muscle. Yeah .

Dr. Cooper: 25:39

The absorption is minimal.

Dr. Grinspoon: 25:40

Yeah. If you have like a deep joint ache , like your shoulder hurts like inside or your knee joint hurts, like the cream doesn’t really penetrate in joints.

Dr. Cooper: 25:50

Exactly. Exactly. Okay, good. Just want to clarify that. All right . Let’s go through all the different options. Cause we’re hearing about CBD cream, CBD, flu fluid, CBD oil, hemp CBD versus cannabis CBD, THC free versions, versus those with under the allowable amount of THC. Can you walk us through this maze of descriptions and titles and names and labels and that kind of stuff?

Dr. Grinspoon: 26:13

Yeah, absolutely. Well, the only difference between cannabis and hemp, the same plant is that hemp has by definition, less than 0.3% THC. That’s the only difference. Okay. Hemp is legal cannabis. Isn’t federally cannabis is legal in 11 States recreationally. And in like 34 States, medically you can get CBD. You can isolate it in the lab. You can get it from cannabis just by kicking out the other cannabinoids. Or you could just get it from him. Cause have, is basically CBD with just a teeny bit of THC in it. You know, there is the advantage of CBD without any Pizzey is that you won’t fuck a drug test for marijuana. Because if you use CBD with even a little bit of PHC , you are unlikely to, but you could flunk a drug test for marijuana. Why they do drug test for marijuana in this day and age again is beyond me because it should be legal. It’s pretty nontoxic substances, great medical utilities. And if you have marijuana in your drug test , that just means you’ve used it sometime in the last three weeks. It has no bearing on whether you used it in the last few hours. Like if you’re drunk on a breathalyzer, that means you’re drunk, but having marijuana on your drug test just means you’ve used it in the last three weeks. It’s fat soluble. It lasts forever in your urine . So it’s so silly to test for it. But anyway , so people sometimes want THC free CBD, just so they don’t flunk drug tests say you work for the federal government and you get drug tested and they’re super uptight about this. You can’t funk a drug test for THC. Even if your boss is pro marijuana and understands that you’re on CBQ , you just can’t, let’s just the regulation. Now there’s like full spectrum and full spectrum. And those are just talking about all the other chemicals. Remember I talked about how there are 140 cannabinoids, but like 600 molecules in marijuana. Now the other molecules are like terpene , which give it its smell. Pinene smells like pine laminins smells like lemon and different strains of marijuana and of hemp have different smells. And it’s because of these different turpines. And these turpines are felt some to be calming some to be anti-inflammatory some to be anti-anxiety and the whole spectrum, the full spectrum hemp just talks about having different turpines in them, which are thought to work additively with the CBD to have medical effect . So that’s what they’re talking about. So you can just get the molecule CBD, you can get full spectrum, which has CBD plus all the other molecules, which would be in marijuana, but it’s in hemp because it doesn’t have a lot of THC in it without any cutesy or you can get CBD, plus all those molecules, plus a little bit of THC in it, which is still CBD consider CBD. Cause it’s less than 3% THC, so it’s not considered marijuana.

Dr. Cooper: 29:48

Okay. Okay, good. No, no, no, no. I think, I mean, it is complicated. It’s it’s out there, but I think you broke down the key aspects of it in any difference between like the fluid and the oil are those different names for the same thing.

Dr. Grinspoon: 30:03

I think they’re just different vehicles. Like, you know how you can take a pill. Like sometimes you get penicillin and it’s in a liquid and sometimes you get penicillin and it’s in a capsule and sometimes you get penicillin and this in a tablet. I mean, basically they’re different like vehicles for drug delivery. It’s a whole culture, the whole cannabis culture. So people will make great claims. But I think what it comes down to is basically just drug delivery.

Dr. Cooper: 30:30

Before I forget your Twitter accounts, fun to follow. And I think we were talking about credible sources. I usually ask this at the end, but throughout your Twitter account, just so folks can keep track of you. And if they want to tap into some of this, cause I’m going to reference a joke that you told the other day.

Dr. Grinspoon: 30:44

Okay. At Peter underscore. Grinspoon

Dr. Cooper: 30:48

Perfect. Perfect. So folks, that’s a great way to start in terms of finding credible resources for this. So with that, I’m following you on Twitter. That’s how we connected originally. And you , you had a humorous one about , uh , marijuana and getting hungry. Does CBD increase appetite as marijuana is jokingly reported to do?

Dr. Grinspoon: 31:09

It does not. It’s funny though. Marijuana increases appetite, but people who chronically use marijuana have lower rates of diabetes and lower waist circumference. So it’s just real paradox, marijuana smokers. I think they don’t know. Right ? We’re still trying to figure it out. There’s some metabolic effect. It makes people exercise more. The whole myth of the couch potato was sort of like a government created myth and has nothing to do with marijuana. So I think it might be that they exercise more, but I’m not sure, but people do get the munchies. It does increase food. Does taste better.

Dr. Cooper: 31:50

The CBD itself, there was just recently an article in a national magazine about CBD, maybe helping with weight loss. Have you seen anything along those lines? Is it maybe associated with this quicker recovery? Anti-inflammatory those types of things? Any thoughts on the weight loss piece or do you think that’s to be determined?

Dr. Grinspoon: 32:08

Well, I actually give a talk about CBD and addiction. Now a lot of the studies still are in animals, but CBD does seem like it’s going to be really effective for addiction to like tobacco cannabis, addiction, amphetamines, and the opiates. In fact, there were some human studies for opiates people ahead of us cue driven cravings for opiates and people took a single large dose of CBD, smoked fewer cigarettes. So I think it’s has a big role on cravings and addictive behavior and cue induced cravings like that. A lot of people stress eat. I could tell you that as a primary care doctor and a lot of people eat addictively and that’s a big reason instead of Americans are overweight. So I think that a very big addictive component to eating and as someone who’s in recovery from addiction, I can tell you that a lot of the same principles in like getting off opiates can be applied to getting off overeating. And I think CBD works against the cravings and the compulsivity of some of this addictive behavior. I think we’re still elusive in the exact mechanisms. And I think in the same way, it is going to help people not crave that compulsive anxious overeating at night. And I think it is going to have a big role in that.

Dr. Cooper: 33:33

Very good. All right. Slightly different topic here. We’re going to step off the CBD for a second, but when you and I were chatting offline about the fact that you’re not only a physician, but you also are a certified health and wellness coach, we have a lot of healthcare professionals listening to this. So docs, nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, you name it. You were a big fan of this idea of healthcare providers pursuing that our son’s going to medical school. He’s a certified wellness coach. You mentioned, Hey, that’s going to really help him. Can you just chat for a minute about or share for a minute about what value that adds for that healthcare professional?

Dr. Grinspoon: 34:08

Absolutely. It just adds a whole different way of interacting with patients. You interact with them with a lot more humility and with a lot more of the sense of how you can put them in charge of their own behavior change. You don’t want to just keep clubbing them over the head, lose weight, lose weight, lose weight. You start to be like, so how would it impact your life if you were to lose some weight and try to get them more in charge of the process. And it’s very liberating for the doctor too, because you realize that these things you’ve been doing on autopilot for decades and getting nowhere, you start to get some insight about why you’re getting, if you’re not actually engaging the patient in the solution. So it’s very, very , um, this training has been very exciting and I think it’s really helped me. Um , becoming a coach has been really fun. So I’m helping people as a coach, but it also, I feel like it’s helped me a lot as a primary care doctor because it’s just forced me to kind of reassess how, I mean, honestly, a lot of being a primary care doctor is trying to get people to change their behavior for the better. And this has gotten me to really reassess a lot of my, you know , going into about 25 years as a doctor. And now it’s a really good time to kind of reassess my techniques. And I can’t think of a better way to like reassess my then to become certified as a health and wellness coach. And to have that whole rubric of like patients are in the driver’s seat. And this is a teamwork, a team effort, not it’s the exact opposite of like the paternalistic doctor telling the patient what to do. So it’s so refreshing and exciting.

Dr. Cooper: 35:56

Well, I appreciate that. And everybody listening, this was not a preplanned. I had no idea. He was a certified wellness coach and stuff we took until we started trading emails. So thanks. Just throwing that in last question. Just any final words of wisdom for folks that are either looking to help their coaching clients, family, friend , themselves, whoever might be in making the right decisions, trying some things out around the CBD,

Dr. Grinspoon: 36:18

The most important thing is to educate yourself about it. Do you see government’s been against it for like the last 80 years and because of that, the medical schools have been against it and the nursing schools, the research has been retarded and the education we’ve all been given this just nonsense. So you have to make a little bit more of an extra effort to educate yourself about medical marijuana and about CBD, but more and more alternative voices are becoming more mainstream and people it’s getting a little easier to find better sources. So I guess say, start from scratch, just throw it everything you knew about marijuana and about CBD and it start relearning it. Um , I think they both have a lot of very profound , uh , medical benefit and it’s just a really, really exciting new time we’re in we’re we’re these things will become illegal and there are these tools that we could use. And this whole neurotransmitter system, this just recently discovered the endocannabinoid system is going to be huge in terms of drug development and in terms of treating diseases. So I just say embrace it, learn about it and just enjoy the fact that we’re going to be making all these discoveries and that we’re going to be moving the goalposts forward in terms of treating diseases

Dr. Cooper: 37:34

Well said, well said, dr . Grinspoon. I really appreciate it. We’ve been looking for a guest for this topic for a long time. You’re a perfect, thanks for spending your time with us today. Pleasure talking to you. What do you need opportunity to dig into CBD with someone who is both a Harvard physician and the health and wellness coach. Thanks again to dr . Peter Grinspoon and thank you to you for tuning into the number one podcast for health and wellness coaching. Next week’s guest is Kathy Robinson. She spent decades as a high end corporate executive and then completely shifted gears and she started her own health and one’s coaching business, regardless of your current career setting origin situation, you are going to absolutely love this conversation. It’s her journey has been fascinating and it provides lessons for all of us, regardless of what we’re doing right now. For those of you looking to pursue certification as a health and wellness coach, our very last certification, fast track weekend. That’s part of the larger process is November 14th and 15th. Our last five fast tracks have filled early. So please don’t wait too long. If this is priority for you, all the details are available. Catalyst coaching institute.com, and we’re always happy to discuss details. Anytime , email his results@catalystcoachinginstitute.com. Now it’s our chance to move toward better than yesterday. This dr . Bradford Cooper of the catalyst coaching Institute. I’ll speak with you soon on the next episode of the catalyst health, wellness, and performance coaching podcast, or maybe over on the YouTube coaching channel.