[00:00:00] Kelsey: Welcome to Planet spoonie, the podcast for lymies and spoonies healing themselves and the world. In this compassionate and collective space, we explore traditional nutrition, herbal medicine, and nature connection as tools for empowerment when living with chronic Lyme and chronic illness. These are the same tools that helped me rediscover the magic, wisdom, and innate healing capacity of my own body and the body of the Earth.

[00:00:26] Kelsey: Even while living with chronic illness in the time of the climate crisis. I'm your host Kelsey the herbalist. Let's dig in Hey everyone. I am super happy to be sharing today's interview with you. I had the absolute privilege of interviewing Jennifer cann. She is a veterinary pathologist with a PhD in molecular and cellular pathobiology.

[00:00:50] Kelsey: She has over 18 years of experience as an anatomic veterinary pathologist, and she is also a clinical herbalist. We actually met in graduate school getting our degrees in clinical herbal medicine. So she brings a very unique science based perspective to the table today. And she, we talk a lot about the role of herbal medicine and modern medicine and how it Can fit in with pharmaceutical treatment different aspects of environmental medicine and how that impacts both people and animals We get a little bit into infectious diseases and Lyme and I kind of hear some of her thoughts and perspectives on that So overall, it's a really fun episode for you today.

[00:01:34] Kelsey: So Let's go ahead and dig in. Hi, Jennifer. Welcome to the show. I'm so excited to finally be having this conversation. 

[00:01:44] Jennifer: Thank you for having me, Kelsey. I too have been looking forward to this for so long. I think we've been talking about it for maybe close to a year now. So, um, honestly, yes, it's, yeah, it's, it's good to finally be here.

[00:01:57] Jennifer: Thank you for having me. 

[00:01:59] Kelsey: Yeah. Thank you for coming on. Tell, so tell our listeners a little bit about yourself. Who are you and what 

[00:02:06] Jennifer: do you do? Yeah, that's a pretty big question. So I am blessed to have kind of a duplex career. So I'm no spring chicken. My primary career, I am a board certified veterinary pathologist and I have a PhD in molecular and cellular pathobiology as well.

[00:02:26] Jennifer: And I use all of that and have been using all that for about 20 plus years now. To do biomedical research, translational pathology research and support of pharmaceutical drug development. Then on the other side of things, I, cause that's not enough. I'd like to keep busy and, um, how we know each other. I am also very active clinical herbalist and I own and operate my own herbal medicine consultancy and apothecary.

[00:02:57] Kelsey: Amazing. That is seriously so cool. You have the most incredible background. How, how did you go from, you know, graduating vet school to becoming a pathologist to, uh, becoming a clinical herbalist? How did this trajectory 

[00:03:14] Jennifer: happen? Yeah, it's been such a fun trajectory. It's rather circular. I have to say so very early on, you know, in my youth in those nebulous years between high school and you're supposed to be going to college, you know, figuring out what you want to be when you grow up and doing all that.

[00:03:32] Jennifer: I didn't really have a clear idea of what I wanted to be. And in fact, I became a high college dropout initially. And, um, you You know, I grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of southwest Virginia, and I was always drawn to use of plants as medicine, and I knew it just from my upbringing with my parents and my grandparents and folks in the community.

[00:03:59] Jennifer: And. At that young age, you know, 18, 19, 20, that was what I wanted to do. You know, I just wanted to grow plants and have herbs and be an herbalist, but I didn't know the word herbalist, you know, and I didn't know anyone that was doing that for a living. I couldn't figure out, you know, I didn't have two dimes to run, rub together, you know, so I couldn't figure out how to make a living doing that.

[00:04:21] Jennifer: And so I, um, did some soul searching and, you know, Cooked around and, and, and decided that, you know, what I really wanted to do was to learn about the diseases. So if I couldn't use plants to treat the diseases, maybe I could learn about the diseases and then figure out ways to treat them from there. And I was really drawn to, uh, how diseases work.

[00:04:46] Jennifer: So not diseases in any one species. So I wasn't. drawn to go to medical school. I was just drawn to study diseases broadly. And for that, veterinary medicine offers the most broad study of diseases across all species. And, uh, I was also in an area where there was a veterinary school. And so I went back to college and I get so excited thinking about it even now, because at the time, you know, it was It was like, Oh, finally I found what I can do and you know, a realistic path and it ended up being a great path.

[00:05:23] Jennifer: So I went back to school. I did well. So the first time I went to school, I did not do well at all. So I had a lot to make up for and I worked really hard and I did well and I got into that school and I graduated and I thought, well, what's next? You know, I never saw myself being a. Practitioner. I never saw myself vaccinating cats and dogs as fun as that may sound.

[00:05:48] Jennifer: Um, I also still had that issue of needing to make a living, you know, so I did in fact practice small animal medicine for less than one year. I didn't even make it a whole year. Um, it was a very tough job. I have a lot of respect for veterinarians. I take my own animals to veterinarians. It's really an incredible profession.

[00:06:07] Jennifer: Um, but it wasn't right for me. And so I was always drawn to the, uh, One health concept and the one health initiative that the World Health Organization puts out there and just the idea of of one medicine across all species. And so with that in mind, you know, I knew to study diseases. Pathology was where you go to study diseases.

[00:06:31] Jennifer: And so I started searching out a place to do a residency where I could study diseases in veterinary species as well as human species. So I really wanted to do comparative pathology. And so I found a fantastic residency at a human medical school, Wake Forest University in North Carolina. And it wasn't too far, two hours to the south.

[00:06:53] Jennifer: And so I relocated, I took a position there as a resident, also as a PhD student. So I kind of dove right in, did all these things. I did a fellowship and comparative. pathology as well, and just learned a tremendous amount. And, um, you know, I really was, I was just intent on being a traditional researcher in a university, having a lab, getting funds from the NIH, that kind of thing.

[00:07:20] Jennifer: And, uh, my finishing up all of my training and becoming an independent faculty member happened to coincide with the 2008 2009 2010 economy collapse. That we experienced and it was really hard for young investigators to get funding and, and get footing. And so I transitioned out of academia into the NIHI moved up to Maryland and started working at the NIH and I I worked there for about three years and um, it was very eye-opening for me.

[00:07:55] Jennifer: I learned a lot. But I was doing high risk pathogen work. So I was working in a biosafety level four facility with big bubble suits and Ebola, smallpox, that kind of stuff. And, uh, it was, it was tremendously interesting. Um, very rewarding, you know, I mean, you have a very clear purpose. Um, but then I, one day found out that.

[00:08:23] Jennifer: Not in my plan that I was suddenly going to have a baby, you know? So, you know, how life will tell you for loops, right? And so then I said, well, I can't do this high risk work anymore. What am I going to do? And in Maryland where I am, yeah, I'm surrounded by all these pharmaceutical companies and biotech companies, a lot of biotech startups.

[00:08:42] Jennifer: And I'd always been really resistant to joining that industry because I had a very negative view of it. As I said, I grew up with plant medicine. I viewed this as being kind of the other side. that is strongly biased against plant medicine. Um, but I, I had, you know, I had friends that worked there and they said, no, it's really not like that.

[00:09:03] Jennifer: So these, you know, we didn't really talk about plant medicine specifically, but they said, give it a try. You can always quit, you know? And so I started and I found it was perfect for me. It was, it was really a delight. Um, the, the R and D environments are not the same as the corporate environments is all that I can say.

[00:09:21] Jennifer: So they're filled with a lot of really great scientists. doing wonderful things. And, um, it ended up being a really fantastic place for me to be and to build my career. And so I've stayed in industry ever since. However, and this is where the circular part finally comes back around. Um, you know, I never lost my passion for plant medicine.

[00:09:42] Jennifer: And what I came to realize through all of these years of working with teams on clinical trials. So a lot of what I do is look at biopsy specimens from patients who are enrolled on clinical trials. So we need to either look at their tumor to see what the inflammation is doing, or perhaps it's an autoimmune disease.

[00:10:02] Jennifer: We're looking at skin or, you know, a multitude of things. What I came to realize is that Clinical trials are expensive, you know, I mean, to get a drug to market cost over a billion dollars and most drugs fail. And at that really critical clinical trial phase when you're in the phase two and the phase three, so you know that the drug is safe, it's tolerable, you're trying to figure out does it really work.

[00:10:29] Jennifer: Most drugs fail, but they don't fail across the board. They don't. Work really, really, really well in some people and not so well in other people. And I have often thought, well, you say, you bring it up in the meeting. You say, well, why did these people do okay? And these people not do okay. Let's figure that out.

[00:10:49] Jennifer: Right. And usually the response you get is that it is due to diet and lifestyle factors. Well, you and I know diet and lifestyle factors includes a whole lot of medicinal plants that we know are effective. So in my view, I feel like we're missing out. on an opportunity in drug development to use plants synergistically.

[00:11:13] Jennifer: And starting to think about those things, as well as having some personal health challenges myself, I started then going back to the plants and saying, okay, well, let's look into it. Let's figure out how to use them. Well, here I was saying back to when I was 18 or 19 years old again, where do you start only now we have the internet and I was able to find MUI age and a master's program and real information and, you know, a real, real wealth of reliable knowledge that.

[00:11:44] Jennifer: Now I've been through the program and, you know, assimilated. So now I'm working to bring all of those things together. So really my career is kind of a big circle. And, um, I'm, I'm hoping now that I'm able to pick up speed as I keep going around, you know, to bring these things together and, um, just, I don't know, I think improve overall on both sides.

[00:12:06] Jennifer: I think there's a lot of room for all of us to come together and put our biases aside and, um, yeah, just use, use them for benefits. 

[00:12:15] Kelsey: Wow, that's such an incredible journey and I love that, um, your description of like the circle or the spiral because it totally, it, it really does seem that way and it's amazing how deep and far you went before coming all the way back around to plants.

[00:12:31] Kelsey: And there's so many things you said that I, I kind of want to tease out, I'm not even sure where to start, but What you were just saying made me think about, um, kind of that concept of like the effectiveness gap in, in medicine and, and how herbalism can, can really help to serve. And this is really something that's hugely missing in most, most of our lives.

[00:12:54] Kelsey: Uh, and, and like you also mentioned, you know, unfortunately there's still so much controversy and fear around this because You know, so we had the Fletchner report modern physicians are not trained in herbal medicine Um, so there's often like a lot of fear fear around it or fear mongering around drug interactions so What are some of the things that you kind of wish?

[00:13:17] Kelsey: everyone knew about herbal medicine and how how it actually can play a role in and Maybe less so in pathology because that's a bit more obvious but in pharmaceutical development and just in modern medical practice 

[00:13:34] Jennifer: Yeah, that's a great question. I know that I can say without a doubt when I when this topic comes up when I'm sitting with an R and D team, you know, on the pharma side, the first response I always get from someone sitting at the table is It's not safe.

[00:13:55] Jennifer: So there's a really huge bias. I mean, I can't tell you how many times people say, what about the PAs? So the pyrolizidine alkaloids, right? Everybody's got this perception that every plant is filled with PAs. And that every plant is toxic, and every part of every plant is toxic, and it's a wonder we all made it to the pharmaceutical age because, you know, we really should have all, you know, killed ourselves using all of these plants.

[00:14:21] Jennifer: And so I think convincing people, one, that there are a lot of well known, characterized, safe plants. That you could use any part of, or at least plants that we know don't use the root, don't use the leaf, what have you, use the safe part. So I think that is one thing I would like people to understand is that, um, you know, plants are, plants are food, you know, they're not, most plants are, are not toxic.

[00:14:52] Jennifer: Um, it, it, it's funny to me how, um, The same person will, you know, say those things at the same down there. They're chugging down a Coca Cola or, uh, you know, a bourbon and Coke or whatever, you know, the things you're drinking here are more toxic than the plants that you're, you're, you're saying you won't even consider because they must be toxic.

[00:15:15] Jennifer: And then the other thing we 

[00:15:16] Kelsey: didn't, we didn't evolve. With, you know, to, uh, we didn't evolve alongside those things, whereas plants, we evolved alongside them and we have specific reactions, you know, to let our body know this, don't eat this, or only so much of this. We did not evolve with Coca Cola. We definitely evolved with plants though.

[00:15:40] Jennifer: Right. Right. Like we evolved with apples, not granulated sugar in a bag. You know, they're not the same thing. So, you know, it drives me crazy to hear people say, oh, I don't eat fruit because it has too much sugar. I say, well, maybe just stop with the processed sugar and keep with this. Um, but the other big thing I wish that, that people knew when it comes to medicinal plants.

[00:16:04] Jennifer: That they work right so they're safe and they are effective. I think that a lot of people mistake. That in our inability to understand how to safely and effectively use a plant. From the plants and ability to do anything right just because the plants not working. It doesn't mean the plan itself inherently doesn't work it just means that the person trying to use it doesn't necessarily know how to use it.

[00:16:34] Jennifer: So, um, I think there's. You know, we're not, we're not standardized, we're not regulated, um, there's a lot of questions about how do you get safe and effective results consistently. And you and I know that that can be done, but the general public, I think, doesn't, you know, do a Google search, you end up afraid that it's toxic and very confused about how much to take for it to be effective and how long and what to expect, that sort of thing.

[00:17:06] Kelsey: Oh, absolutely. I actually just had a client message me last week asking about, um, a turmeric supplement. They had like a friend had recommended it. And so they texted me a picture and they're like, I had, you know, blah, blah, these adverse reactions to this. Like, can you tell me why that might've happened?

[00:17:27] Kelsey: And this is just a perfect segue. Cause I know you'll explain this so well. Um, And, and even before I get to his experience with the supplement, I often liken it, especially with the more food herbs to like eating blueberries, you know, you don't necessarily feel the antioxidants, like, you know, decreasing inflammation in your body, but that doesn't mean you just like, stop eating blueberries.

[00:17:52] Kelsey: Cause you don't feel the effects, you know, you know, That's what blueberries do like there's no question and it's the same with medicinal herbs, you know, of course the load Uh, like the food herbs, there's some that you can't take in food doses like that But so the supplement he's taking it some, you know off brand i've never heard of which you and I know It's regulated, but the fda can't check every single thing on the market And, but it wasn't actually turmeric.

[00:18:18] Kelsey: It was just a Q, Q Kerman supplement and final questionable brand. I haven't heard of, it was like a really high, you know, standardized amount of Q Kerman. And so I'm wondering, can you talk a little bit about that? So listeners understand, like what's the difference between whole turmeric. And then a supplement that is either standardized with cucurmin or is, um, you know, just pure cucurmin or also has like black pepper added to it.

[00:18:48] Kelsey: What's the difference between like a traditional golden turmeric, you know, ghee, Black pepper milk and Ayurveda and then one of these like super strong supplements. And why does that matter? 

[00:19:00] Jennifer: That's such a great question. In fact, I think this was recently in the news as well with some curcumin supplements that were really potent and causing some Adverse effects and people that took them.

[00:19:13] Jennifer: And the reason that this occurs is that, you know, you think about the plant. So herbalists tend to practice whole plant medicine, right? So we are using a non reductionist approach. We're using either the entire plant or an entire part of a plant, whether that be the flowers, the leaves, the stems or the roots and preparing it in such a way that as many constituents contained within that plan or that part of that plant can be extracted and consumed.

[00:19:48] Jennifer: So, um, you know, a simple, a simple example would be to take a root. Like ashwagandha, for instance, dry it, powder it, and put it in your food and eat it. So in that case, just like food, you're consuming everything that is in that plant and not just one component, even if that component may be medicinal.

[00:20:09] Jennifer: You're getting that component plus the 500 other components that, you know, 10 percent may or may not be described, right? Um, compare that to a highly processed product like the curcumin supplement. That is a situation which is more reckoning back to the early days of pharmaceutical drug development, where you took a whole plant and you isolate a specific compound And deliver that compound in a very high concentration Higher concentration than you could get in the whole plant itself Now both approaches in some cases work fine But in some cases you can have especially the concentrated product produce effects that the whole plant product does not produce because some of those other constituents that we don't have defined have effects that counter these other effects.

[00:21:07] Jennifer: So there's balance with evolved balance really in the whole plant product in the, uh, in the, the concentrated product. And in the case of curcumin, specifically, recently, it was reported a couple cases of acute liver toxicity. And, um, the culprit was the curcumin, but not the curcumin alone. So, they had added the black pepper, which you just asked about, which increases the bioavailability of the curcumin.

[00:21:39] Jennifer: So here you have a really high concentration product. You're adding in a supporter, the black pepper to increase the bioavailability. And now you've reached a point where you're overwhelming the liver's ability, ability to metabolize this and deliver any beneficial components anywhere. Um, with the alternative, right, which is taking the root, putting it in the milk, the Ayurvedic way, and adding a little twist or two of ground black pepper.

[00:22:09] Jennifer: That is going to provide, again, All of these components and more of a balance. So it would be much more difficult to reach a toxicity situation like you did with the curcumin itself. And that that approach applies to many, many, many other plants. Um, anything that gets standardized to a specific one specific component in that plant.

[00:22:34] Jennifer: Um, you have to question whether the product Contains all the rest of the components, or does it contain some? Um, there have been reports recently of, um, unscrupulous manufacturers using plant material to make an extract, right? So extracting all of the beneficial components and then using the mark that's left over.

[00:23:00] Jennifer: bagging it as powder and selling it as the original product without revealing that they've reviewed, you know, removed all these extracts from it. So it's, it's a buyer beware world, um, when it comes to extracts and, um, concentrated products in as much as you can work with a whole plant that you, you know, start with in its living form, the more confidence you're going to have in your end product, um, and, and, and the effects.

[00:23:28] Kelsey: Oh, I bet you explained that so beautifully. I really hope people under understood that because it's such an important area to understand. And, and it's not always negative because, you know, sometimes it can be really helpful. Like I think about, um, you know, aspirin salicylic acid, that's obviously a very useful over the counter medicine, but it is just so fascinating that you can take that too much and then end up with ulceration or internal bleeding in the GI tract.

[00:23:57] Kelsey: When The plant that was originally, you know, extracted from meadow sweet is used to help with ulceration and hemorrhoids. And it has salicylate groups instead of just the one compound. So it's really fascinating how. You can just take that one chemical and it can be so remarkably different in our bodies than it would be when it's in this kind of complex, um, whole plant form.

[00:24:23] Jennifer: Yeah, that's an excellent example. That is such a good example with the aspirin. And, you know, sometimes we do that on purpose, you know, that, um, Tamoxifen, the anti cancer drug from the yew plant, you know, it was recognized a long time ago that the yew tree has anti neoplastic effects, but it required concentrating the components in order to make them strong enough to make it clinically.

[00:24:50] Jennifer: Relevant. Um, so sometimes we use it for our benefits. Sometimes we, we don't. And I think it's just important to be aware. So, you know, when you're standing there and you're organic grocer and looking at this giant shelf of products, where do you start, right? How do you weed out the really questionable stuff?

[00:25:10] Jennifer: And, and then, yeah, 

[00:25:12] Kelsey: Yeah, and for safety, you know, and it's so funny just talking about the safety concerns because often, um, you know, people who don't know about herbalism think that it's like potentially really unsafe, but, you know, most of these plants that we're working with have at least thousands of years of use.

[00:25:33] Kelsey: Arguably, we don't know a time when we ever weren't consuming and working. With them, um, even as animals, like it's gone that far back. And so it's interesting that, that there's, yeah, this question around safety, because we, we really don't, you know, we, we know the effects of whole turmeric because it's been demonstrated for so long.

[00:25:57] Kelsey: Another one I think about is cannabis. We, we, we know what cannabis does. People have been working with cannabis again for like, I think the oldest Plants that we know of that were being used is like 12, 000 years dug up from a gravesite. But now, you know, as it's being relegalized and not only are our plants being bred genetically to have crazy high levels of THC, but then, you know, there's making pure extracts for people to smoke and inhale of just THC.

[00:26:28] Kelsey: We don't really know what that's going to do because we don't have you know, this long history of use, um, that is often dismissed, but it's, it's completely valid and significant, this long history of use that we have with all of these different herbal medicines. Uh, yeah, and I'm curious if you have any thoughts on, on that, just how, because I know we've talked about in some of our textbooks, like, They'll talk about kava, you know, kava was used by Pacific Islanders for, you know, all of this time.

[00:26:59] Kelsey: And then it was first discovered by this fella in, you know, 1851, you know, like how, how do we kind of reconcile this long history of use as, as, um, valid then when we go in to do research and in clinical practice. 

[00:27:16] Jennifer: Yeah, it's super important, isn't it? I mean, how do we, how do we re institute the same credibility that we now give to hard objective data, right?

[00:27:27] Jennifer: Scientific data. We need to give at least twice that credibility to all of this long ancient history and records of use. Uh, when I think about using plant medicine, medicinal plants, like in a clinical trial setting with a biologic for instance. All of the components of the drug development process that apply to modern drugs.

[00:27:54] Jennifer: Much of it leading up to it, and much of the cost. Is showing that it's safe. So it's not the effective side, it's the safe and tolerable side that the money gets poured into and that's where most projects fail. So they'll fail either as they're gonna before they get to phase one or right in phase one on this.

[00:28:15] Jennifer: That's the safe and intolerable side. And with plant medicine, we have this long history, right? Like you say, thousands of years. And so if we've wanted to pair these things up, we don't need to go back and repeat all that safety data, right? What we need to do is say, Hey, the record we have is good. Let's look at it and, and work with it and use that information.

[00:28:40] Jennifer: And I think the same applies in, um, you know, Consulting one on one practicing individuals, you know, um, working with plants themselves, look at that history you learn from your ancestors. And, um, you know, I mean, Socrates, right. The famous ancient philosopher used poison hemlock. To treat his depression, anxiety, and insomnia, right?

[00:29:10] Jennifer: Well, then he ends up dying from it. We don't need to do that. We have much safer options. We can be smarter than Socrates, right? So let's, let's learn from what they taught us and, and bring it in and to the modern day and respect it instead of poo pooing it. You know, it's amazing to me how many people just right off the bat will say, whatever, if it came before the internet, then.

[00:29:33] Jennifer: It's not even worth looking at, you know, and really the opposite is true. You know, it's the long standing stuff that's the tried true tested, like you say, with cannabis. And I agree with you, the extracts, I think, are scary. A lot of the genetics that we're working with now, or we're working into unventured territory, because we're getting away from The whole plant, the entourage effects that they'd like to talk about in cannabis medicine and, and that's just saying the same thing as a whole plant effect, but isolating those components and, you know, taking particularly THC and CBD and.

[00:30:12] Jennifer: Um, pulling them away from each other, you know, THC, you know, a lot of people think of it as being the euphoria inducing party drug, you know, the psychotropic, uh, but it has negative effects too, and, um, it induces anxiety, uh, it is a depressant, And used irresponsibly on its own. I think it would be unpleasant.

[00:30:36] Jennifer: I don't understand why someone would do that. Right. So it'll be interesting to see where the where the cannabis field goes. I'm I'm glad like you say we're finally getting past this prohibition nonsense. But we do. We do need some good science, I think, to help guide us. So a lot of a lot of good people are working on it.

[00:30:55] Jennifer: So 

[00:30:56] Kelsey: Yeah, gosh, I know. And that leads me, I have two different questions. Now I'm like, which one do I pick? Um, but why do you think we do this? Why do you think we have this tendency to fixate on like, You know, one particular compound within something as like, this is the thing, right? Like caffeine is what makes coffee give us energy.

[00:31:22] Kelsey: So let's put it in a pill or like, you know, THC is what makes weed great. So let's extract that and put it in a vape cartridge or, um, salicylic acid. That's a much less extreme example, right? Like, why do we have this? One, why do we have the, yeah, I'll start with that question. Why do we have this tendency, do you think, to do that?

[00:31:43] Jennifer: Oh, it's so crazy, isn't it? I mean, we need a psychologist on the call to help us with this because human beings have been doing this since the beginning of time, right? It's the curiosity that drives us. That says, I want to know what is it in this passion flower? That just makes me feel so lovely. And we want it to be one thing.

[00:32:03] Jennifer: I think we want to make it easy, right? We want to be able to just. put it eventually into a pill form and just have our pills and be done. You know, I don't think we appreciate the ritual enough. You know, we want to simplify things, I guess, maybe. Um, But it's certainly, you know, I mean, long before. I mean, it is what drove pharmaceutical science to become a thing.

[00:32:32] Jennifer: Somebody said, How do we get this aspirin effect out of this plant? You know, um, so it is it is the curiosity and I think just the urge to have a simple solution. You know, we always want that magic pill. Just get it done. You know, 

[00:32:50] Kelsey: yeah, that that actually segues perfectly into my other question. Um, because I, so with pharmaceutical research, can you, can you talk a little bit about what is it about the whole, you know, the complex chemistry, like the whole, uh, systems within plants that is kind of more difficult to research than just one singular compound?

[00:33:15] Kelsey: Um, and also, Just like as an addendum comment, it is like, it's true that pharmaceutical researchers actually will go and look to materia medicas and old, um, herbal medicine textbooks, like ancient, ancient writings when they're trying to find a novel pharmaceutical, right? 

[00:33:36] Jennifer: No, it is true. In fact, if I were in my other office, in fact, I could walk in there and get them and show you, I have about 10 big trays.

[00:33:46] Jennifer: Filled with little glass vials and they each have a little bit of a plant material in them and they're all labeled with different plants. And on the front cover of every single one of these, they're like leather bound. It says Merck and company. So that was their, you know, originally when Merck began, that was how they started.

[00:34:08] Jennifer: They did what you said. They went to the Materia said, Oh, and they went even further, you know, they'd go into Exploration trips to find whatever plants and try to just take them to the lab and see what's in them, not even have a history of use, you know, um, just to, you know, take a reductionist approach, you know, they just want to get what is that one thing.

[00:34:32] Jennifer: So I can make it and then People will be able to take it, they'll be happy, they'll have their easy pill, and I'll be able to make a profit, right, off of doing this. I think that was, that was the original drive. I think the issue, and to your first question, about what is it about the plant that makes it so difficult, To do that, because we don't do that anymore, right?

[00:34:55] Jennifer: So pharmaceutical science doesn't do that anymore. We don't go to plants. Okay, maybe some people do. There probably are, especially academic labs that will be looking at individual plants, especially mushrooms, mycelium, that kind of thing to do things. But the big pharma companies, They're not funding expeditions to the Amazon to look for plants anymore.

[00:35:17] Jennifer: They're making antibodies, they're making gene therapies, they're making cell therapies, they're making, um, they're making chemicals in either cell cultures or in the bench top, right on the lab. So it's not. Plant derived anymore in biologics and in pharma, even though it did start that way. And that's why I feel like there's, there's a lot of room to bring us all back together.

[00:35:42] Jennifer: Um, but back to your question about why is it? So why did they get away from the plants? It's because it is hard. So it's, it takes a lot of time, a lot of effort and you're looking for a needle in a haystack, it's trial and error. Right. You're saying, okay, well, I know this plant helps with pain, but which component is it?

[00:36:00] Jennifer: And so it's a lot of trial and error. And, um, the reason is that, you know, plants have evolved, as we said before. Many, many, many, many, many mechanisms for doing what they do, and one mechanism might counteract another mechanism. So it can be really hard to figure out what's all going on in just one plant, one part of one plant.

[00:36:28] Jennifer: Any group of researchers could spend their entire career. Just trying to figure that out. Um, and so it makes more sense to, okay, well, now we can grow antibodies. We can grow cells. We can grow organoids. You know, we can do all this other stuff. It makes sense that they have moved that direction. But what I think is most interesting is that now, instead of trying to hit one target, so a lot of times what happens is They'll devise an antibody, for instance, say we want an antibody that's going to find all of the T cells that are causing autoimmune disease XYZ, right?

[00:37:06] Jennifer: So they design an antibody that does that, it does it, it takes out all those T cells. We can show this in the patients, right? But the person's disease is still continuing and they're still having symptoms because the disease is not mediated by one pathway. Okay. Not even in one cell type. And so now they are saying, Okay, let's make antibodies that will be bispecific.

[00:37:34] Jennifer: So they'll hit two targets or they'll hit three targets. And they refer to this as systems pharmacology. So they're trying to hit multiple system pathways at one time. Which is exactly what plants have already evolved to do to the nth degree. I mean, when I see the scientists doing this, trying to hit three targets, I'm like, you know, that skullcap hits about a thousand.

[00:38:02] Jennifer: Yeah. Good 

[00:38:03] Kelsey: luck, buddy. Cause these plants took a million years to 

[00:38:06] Jennifer: figure that one 

[00:38:07] Kelsey: out. 

[00:38:08] Jennifer: Exactly. So, but it is, it is interesting that, you know, we're trying now we're realizing that. The reductionist approach doesn't work as well as we need it to, and it's not that it doesn't work at all, you know, it works some, but that's part of why I feel like getting them both back together would be synergistic, you know.

[00:38:28] Kelsey: Yeah, that's so, that's so brilliant and that's so interesting because it, it's kind of like the idea that, you know, each, Each perspective holds something of value, but it's not the whole picture. Like, we need the reductionist approach to understand as much as we can through that lens. And, you know, there's also other ways of viewing it.

[00:38:49] Kelsey: And we really need, like, the diversity of these viewpoints to I think be successful and doing whatever we're trying to do clinically, um, medically and, and to the point of plants being difficult to research. Yeah, that because we know as herbalists, they're living organisms, like drying it, freezing it, refrigerating it, extracting it in alcohol or water or glycerin or vinegar, or, you know, like there's a million ways what you do might change the chemistry and then.

[00:39:25] Kelsey: Putting it in a Petri dish or, you know, giving it to a dog or a cat or a person or a honey bee, like there's so many ways that it can play out that, um, Yeah, it is why there are herbalists who spend their whole life just studying like six different herbs and that's all they do because you could spend a lifetime studying one herb and never even understand all of it.

[00:39:47] Kelsey: It's, they're, they're, they're extraordinary and so, um, I don't know. Intelligent in a way just, um, in their complexity. 

[00:39:57] Jennifer: Uh, 

[00:39:57] Kelsey: I love 

[00:39:58] Jennifer: that word intelligent. It's so true that the plants have knowledge that we cannot even begin to understand. 

[00:40:06] Kelsey: And, and I think, and people often use the word design and I wish we use the word evolve more because I think design gives this false impression, like evolve makes you understand that.

[00:40:20] Kelsey: You know, we think, Oh, we actually evolved steroid pathways in the body because we ate steroid plants with steroid compounds some at some point. And somehow like that affected our evolution as animals and like evolution, it happens so slowly over such a long period of time. And this idea that. We've always been exposed to, um, xenohormesis might be like way too deep to get into in this, but you know, just this, this exposure that we've had over such a long time.

[00:40:53] Kelsey: It's, um, I think it's so, so underappreciated or not understood at, on a wide scale, how Not only do plants work, but like we we need we need to be consuming them to some extent because that's how our bodies of all. 

[00:41:12] Jennifer: Yeah, that's exactly right. And if we're replacing them with things like plastic. What is that?

[00:41:19] Jennifer: You know what? It's our body doesn't know what to do with that. There was a, there's a recent, I think it's in Science Magazine, an archaeology study. That was published that looked at, um, they had some samples, diet samples. It was like in the kitchen of a very ancient cave man sites. So going all the way back to the cave man days.

[00:41:46] Jennifer: What they found was that the diet was almost entirely plants, you know, and so we have in our society we have this, you know, projection in our minds of caveman paleo diet meat eaters, and that's not how we evolved at all even long before we became agricultural based and we began to grow things and cultivate things.

[00:42:09] Jennifer: We were still gathering more plants and eating plants than we ever ate wild animals. that you caught. And um, it'll be interesting to see. I'm very curious to hear the paleo diet people, how they respond to this paper. Because, um, you know, their whole premise is that We, we came from meat, you know, we're evolved to eat meat and that's, that's not what the science says.

[00:42:34] Jennifer: So 

[00:42:36] Kelsey: that's really interesting. I was, uh, there was a documentary I was watching and they were looking at residue in pots. And then looking at dental calculus, like dental plaque on, on the teeth of paleolithic people. And it is, it is, that is just, I digress, but it is such a. Fascinating area of research, especially to understand, especially what specific plants were people consuming and how much and, and how are they preserving them?

[00:43:07] Kelsey: Was it only seasonal? There's just so many. Yeah, there's so much to be discovered from, from our history that, um, is really fascinating, but I want to go back to, we were just talking about kind of the intelligence of plants, and this is, um, a bit of a segue, but I'm thinking about the intelligence of plants, and that makes me think about the intelligence of bacteria and microbes.

[00:43:34] Kelsey: And so I know you obviously have a background in pathology, so you have done lots of research into different pathological conditions. And you know, I specialize in Lyme and co infections. So I'm wondering if you could kind of talk a little bit about um, infectious diseases and and some of the things that we're coming to understand about infectious diseases.

[00:43:58] Kelsey: chronic infections that they do in fact exist, um, you know, that they're actually under, they might be what's underlying many autoimmune or other chronic and, and degenerative conditions. Um, can you just 

[00:44:11] Jennifer: talk a little bit, a little bit about that? Oh, yes, I'm happy to it's a fascinating subject because it involves an interplay of pathogens, right?

[00:44:23] Jennifer: So organisms that are going to cause harm if they somehow get inside us, and our immune system which is incredibly complex, and the evolution. Right. So we talk about our evolution of plants, but the evolution of our immune system is, uh, been largely based on its exposure to pathogens. And so, uh, even today at an individual level, the pathogens, whether it be bacteria, parasites, viruses, fungi, um, that we're exposed to from the moment.

[00:44:59] Jennifer: Before birth, even, and, and through the birth process and from that moment on, help to train our immune system and teach our immune system what is self, what is not self, when to react, when not to react, when to damp back down or turn back up. In any, it's such an exquisite system. What we know about it is just fascinating.

[00:45:23] Jennifer: And there's so much more that we don't know. We see it's so complex that. There are many opportunities for things to go haywire, and when that happens, you can have an aberrant immune response that's either, you know, a full on autoimmune disease, you know, your body is, your, your immune cells are attacking your own body, or a situation where, you know, The immune system is just not quite able to rid the body of the offensive pathogen that started things in the first place.

[00:45:58] Jennifer: And then you end up with chronic disease and co infections. Like you said, lines are great examples for that, because overall, when you end up with a chronic pathogen load, your body's perpetually trying to fight it, you eventually get worn down into an immunosuppressive state and you're, you're more susceptible to whatever else is circulating in our environment at the time, whether it's flu, COVID, strep.

[00:46:28] Jennifer: You know, any of the common communicable diseases that are out there. So it's, yeah, all of it, you know, from, you know, there's a concept, a hypothesis called the hygiene hypothesis, and the hygiene hypothesis states that an individual Needs to be exposed to a certain amount of antigens and, um, microbes and even pathogenic microbes.

[00:46:56] Jennifer: So not just the commensals in order to develop an immune response that will be healthy. In every way, so it will not become autoimmune. It won't become too lax to allow chronic disease to persist Um, it won't allow Neoplastic cells to grow for instance. We constantly have cancer cells in us. It's just our immune system that clears them um, so How much of our current?

[00:47:27] Jennifer: environment of increased incidence of autoimmunity and chronic illness, um, you know, long COVIDs, chronic fatigue syndromes, that sort of thing. How much of that is due to our modern day way of living? Which is very, very clean. And, um, that's where, you know, the hygiene hypothesis says we're doing ourselves harm by, by staying too clean.

[00:47:55] Jennifer: Um, I, I think there's a lot of mixed data out there, but from a hypothetical standpoint and a pathology standpoint, it does make sense because just like the plants are ever evolving. Our lymphocytes in all of our lymphoid organs are always evolving. Um, you know, even the thymus, which involutes at puberty.

[00:48:20] Jennifer: Some bits of it still do persist into adulthood. And, you know, that's not something that we have always appreciated. We just think up thymus, puberty comes, sex hormones come on. And those, all those lymphocytes get. Replaced with fat and that organ is completely gone. Well, now we know that's not true and there appears to be some correlation now between incidences of autoimmune diseases and remnant thymus or chronic fatigue syndromes and remnant thymus.

[00:48:54] Jennifer: So there's A lot of interplay there that is worthy of deep dives. Um, but for sure, we still have more, more questions than answers. Um, you know, we still are very focused on trying to find the one magic bullet pathway that's going to correct an autoimmune response or that's going to turn up an antibacterial response or an antiviral response.

[00:49:21] Jennifer: Um, We're not having good luck. So bacterial resistance in particular antibiotic resistance is something that keeps me awake at night. Um, I do worry that, you know, in not that long, you know, 10 years from now, um, if we don't get better. better antimicrobials in the pipeline, we're not going to have, um, we're going to have a lot of, uh, antibiotic resistant bacteria to deal with.

[00:49:47] Jennifer: So, 

[00:49:48] Kelsey: yeah. Well, and that's, that's especially relevant to talk about for, you know, multiple reasons, because of course we know, um, I think we were, we were talking about recently how, how just the body is so brilliant, but about how When mothers are breastfeeding their infants, or parents are breastfeeding or chest feeding their infants, that as baby is nursing, that the nipple will actually absorb some of baby's saliva, detect like what pathogens the baby's been exposed to, and then put antibodies into the milk.

[00:50:24] Kelsey: So that baby is like actively getting immune agents to fight off whatever pathogens they've been exposed to. Like that is just mind blowing to me in real time, like immune therapy. Um, but thinking too about we're exposed to so many layers of pathogens and microbes over the course of our life. And when I was really sick with Lyme and Bartonella and the infections that I had, That was something that was like such a mantra for me was, you know, we've always been exposed to this so reason, you know reason states that my body does know what to do.

[00:51:01] Kelsey: Right now the bacteria is just kind of outsmarted it so like what what can I do to get my body to be an unsuitable host for this for these microbes. But so thinking about like, not, you know, we have a microbiome that is so remarkably complex. We're still learning so much. Then we can have layers of, you know, beneficial bacteria, pathogenic bacteria, or microbes, I guess is a better, better term because it can include fungus, you know, viruses, whatever.

[00:51:29] Kelsey: Um, and also it's about like the location they're in, the amount they're in, you know, there's so many layers to this, but then thinking about how So with all of that in mind. Right. And, and, and then also, you know, the recent decision by, um, several food companies, Tyson, Burger King, I can't remember who else recently decided to reverse their pledges to remain antibiotic free, which is really concerning, not just for the animals welfare, but for human medicine.

[00:52:03] Kelsey: Um, especially the farmers who are working with those animals every day, but with all of that in mind, it's mouthful. Why? Why do antibiotics sometimes not work and why are plants especially suited to either be taken alongside antibiotics, meaning herbal antibiotics or herbal antimicrobials, um, either, you know, either on their own or alongside pharmaceuticals, like, can you kind of explain that a little bit?

[00:52:35] Jennifer: Yeah, yeah, that's a really good one. It's super important. Um, I think that the key to the answer is that. All antibiotics. So we have a lot of different classes of antibiotics, and each class is in a class of its own because it works by doing one specific thing to the bacteria. So some antibiotics, for instance, it's a little small chemical compound, it will go and intercalate itself in between the base pairs of the DNA.

[00:53:06] Jennifer: Alright. in the, in the bacteria. So the bacterium cannot divide, so it prevents it from dividing and can't reproduce and the body can then clean up everything that's left over. Other types of antibiotics work by doing things like preventing formation, of little microfilaments inside the bacteria that they need to be able to grow and move around.

[00:53:31] Jennifer: So that causes them to die. Some work by punching holes in the membrane of the bacteria, and all of its inside proteins come out and it dies. However, whatever it is, whatever their mechanism, it's only one Thing. And this is why you may sometimes get a prescription for three antibiotics combined into one pill, because they're combining these mechanisms to really hit these bacteria hard to try to kill them all off at the first few wax, because what happens is, over time, bacteria divides so fast.

[00:54:10] Jennifer: So E. coli, I think, doubles in, you know, 20 minutes or something like that. I mean, it's a really short period of time that it takes for a bacteria to divide and produce two and then to produce four and then four produce eight and so on. And what happens is if you go in there with that antibiotic or three antibiotics, even, and you kill off 99 percent of them, That 1 percent that's left still enough to, within a day, re institute the infection.

[00:54:40] Jennifer: And that 1 percent that's left, a certain number of them are going to be resistant to whatever, whatever antibiotic you just gave. It happens, resistance develops to every class of antibiotics. So they, you can't just keep hitting it with more because the stronger bacteria survive and they don't. respond to that anymore.

[00:55:03] Jennifer: And that's where the plants come in, right? And so plants, like we talked about before, have evolved this system's pharmacology. They have a lot of chemicals, and they hit many pathways. And so the, um, they provide a good support. So that one, that antibiotic that's hitting that one target is doing it super effectively.

[00:55:26] Jennifer: Plants can help hit it. less hard. So not quite as efficacious, but still an efficacious enough to be supportive to get that 1 percent down to, you know, 0. 1, at which point the immune system can, can do its job and get the rest, you know, cleaned up. So they're really poised to support that, you know, plants support us, um, but they can support the, the, the pharmaceutical drug, the antibiotic as well.

[00:55:57] Jennifer: So I really hope we, we start thinking about this because, um, like I said, the, the pharmaceutical pipeline for antimicrobials is grim. It's not, they're so difficult, so hard. Um, yeah. 

[00:56:11] Kelsey: Yeah, and I, and I know, and it, it's much easier in a way to work with plants with someone because I know for myself, if I'm working with a chronic Lyme patient who has all these co infections, we, we don't just pick one plant.

[00:56:27] Kelsey: Which that one plant has, you know, how many different chemicals in it and different antimicrobial properties. It might be anti protozoal and anti fungal, or it might be like antibacterial, antiviral, you know, it can have all these properties, but we'll work with several plants at once. And then we mix it up, you know, every, every so many six to eight weeks, we change the formula, we change the formula again, and you, and you do this repeatedly.

[00:56:51] Kelsey: And it's so, um, you know, and, and generally, of course, not every herb is. I can't say every herb is safe in every dose, but, you know, generally what we're working with is so much safer and okay to be taken long term, and it's just much harder for these microbes to adapt to, uh, such like a complex, uh, chemical bath of, of different plant constituents that's then changing all the time.

[00:57:19] Kelsey: Um, yeah. And the other thing Oh, go ahead. Oh yeah, sorry. 

[00:57:23] Jennifer: Oh, no, I was just going to say the other thing at the same time that the plants are doing is that they're providing support and You know, even prebiotic sources of beneficial microbiome to help combat. I mean, a lot of times when we have a bacterial infection, especially, it's the bacterial infection normally would not have taken hold because the normal microbiome keeps it in check.

[00:57:51] Jennifer: And so if you have, you know, like something throws you off and your gut's upset, you know, Then that can provide an opportunity for those pathogenic bacteria that then start to multiply. So I think the plants, you know, they do both things. They work directly against the pathogen, but then they also provide secondary support for your, your own cells and your own friendly bugs, you know, to support you.

[00:58:16] Jennifer: Yes. 

[00:58:17] Kelsey: That makes me think of marshmallow because like, we don't always think of marshmallow as an antimicrobial herb, but I remember reading one study that. Basically found that marshmallow was selectively inhibiting E. coli growth in the colon. While at the same time being a prebiotic that selectively promoted the growth of a bunch of beneficial bacteria.

[00:58:41] Kelsey: And then you and I also know it's rich in polysaccharides that help heal the epithelial lining, reduce inflammation. Of the gut. So it's like doing all of these amazing things at once. And marshmallow is about one of the most gentle, you know, low key, safe herbs that was made into candy. And is, right, like just something that you can almost universally take and not feel worried about it.

[00:59:07] Kelsey: Which you don't even need hot water, right? Just cold water. Yeah, it's so, it's so cool and it's so soft and fuzzy. I love marshmallow. So one of the other things that I know we've talked about before, but on this topic, also is parasites. Like, why this, you know, I have a background in farming, we would treat the horses every six months with a dewormer, you know, you do this for your dog, your cat, whatever.

[00:59:35] Kelsey: Why are we regularly treating animals for parasites, but then, at least in the U. S., why do we largely ignore this area in, in human medical practice? And are parasites more common than we think? 

[00:59:52] Jennifer: Oh, very good questions. Parasites are alive and well, even human parasites. Um, but we, you know, modern day first world countries.

[01:00:02] Jennifer: So why do we treat animals? Let's start there, right? So cats and dogs get treated. Puppies get treated when they're born. Cows are treated horses, and it's because there we know that for a lot of the common endo parasites. So typically intestinal parasites, especially sometimes also long worms, uh, vertical transmission occurs.

[01:00:26] Jennifer: So that means the mother passes the pathogen on to her And offspring in utero. So those animals are born parasitized. So they need to be treated in order to clear them. Now, if the mother does not have any parasites, then she's not going to pass any on, right? theoretically speaking you don't need to treat those offspring because if the mother didn't have any, then she would not have passed any on.

[01:00:54] Jennifer: However, in cats and dogs and definitely in farm animals, all farm animals, they're exposed to the outside, they're exposed to dirt, which is where a lot of the Ova, the eggs from parasites are found, uh, horses, uh, some horses, parasites are found in the water, the drinking water that they drink. Um, and so animals are getting exposed to sources of parasites all the time.

[01:01:18] Jennifer: Dead animals is another one, wildlife. So my dog loves to go kill things and then gnaw on it, you know, not really eat it, but definitely getting exposed. Rodents for cats. Is a big one. So tapeworms in rodents. Fleas can transmit tapeworms as well. So just having ectoparasites can give you endo parasites as well.

[01:01:39] Jennifer: So animals are typically on, you know, we're in areas where we say the parasites are endemic, so we treat them regularly because we assume they're getting. parasitized. You can check stool and other sputum, other samples, but what happens is in practice, they say, well, if it's negative, we just assume it's positive.

[01:02:02] Jennifer: Because it's just a false negative. If it's positive, then at least you can get some idea of what you're looking at. But, um, we, we have a pretty good idea of what's out there. So we know what to treat. Now, humans, right? So that brings us to humans. Humans are no different than animals. We have our own parasites.

[01:02:19] Jennifer: These also are in our environment. However, first world countries, especially our cleanliness is so good now that we just don't get exposed. We can wash our hands. Um, mothers are not passing them on to offspring. So we don't worry about this at birth. The same way in other countries, they do. So they deworm babies, you know, in Africa, India, Southeast Asia, you know.

[01:02:46] Jennifer: It's much more common in the Caribbean, for instance. I had a friend who, also a veterinary pathologist, Went to the Caribbean for vacation, came back, few weeks later, he and his whole family had intestinal worms. He had the worms in a jar. Right from his own stool sample in formalin, took him to his internal medicine doctor in Rockville, Maryland, and they said, we don't know what that is.

[01:03:11] Jennifer: We don't know what you're talking about. He had to go to a tropical medicine specialist to get treatment. For one shot in a third world country, you walk into the drugstore and buy clandendazole or ivermectin and take it, you know, over the counter. Um, so the short answer is we don't normally assume people have worms in this country or any kind of endoparasites protozoa as well, unless there are symptoms.

[01:03:41] Jennifer: So if there's symptoms, um, then you can get a workup, but I don't know. Parasites are low on a list, a rollout list for most MDs in this country because it's just been so long since we were really truly agricultural and rural enough to be picking it up from the cows and the horses and getting pinworms and all that kind of stuff.

[01:04:05] Jennifer: Um, if your kid has an itchy butt in the middle of the night, then yeah, they're going to treat you for pinworms, but otherwise you're not going to, you know, not going to, they're not even going to mention it. You know, you go to the pediatrician, they talk about vaccines and, um, growth charts and what to eat, but nobody talks about deworming any kids anymore.

[01:04:24] Jennifer: So. 

[01:04:25] Kelsey: Yeah, 

[01:04:26] Jennifer: but you know, it's interesting. So talking about the immune system and pathogens. So, um, you know, different species have their own parasites that they have evolved with. And that parasite in another species won't necessarily cause disease. So like if you get a disease A zoonotic disease, like a dog hookworm, you're going to get sick.

[01:04:51] Jennifer: But if you pick up something innocuous from, I don't know, a horse, you may not get sick. It just depends on what it is. And a few, I don't know, about 10 or 15 years ago, there was a really interesting line of work going in Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. where they showed that, and again, it went back to the hygiene hypothesis, and they showed that treating people with intractable Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, so multiple surgeries, steroids their whole life, they just can't get it under control.

[01:05:24] Jennifer: They gave them ascarid eggs from pigs, ascarisum eggs, and reset the immune system, the local immune system and the gut. So there's tons of lymphocytes in the gut. People don't think of the gut as the lymphoid organ, but it really is. And what they found was that it was, um, it ameliorated the disease. Um, they didn't establish Yeah, it was so cool, right?

[01:05:51] Jennifer: But they didn't, uh, they couldn't establish a continuous infection, right? Because that pig worm, Ascarid, just wouldn't establish in the people. But for the short time, you know, that it was in there passing through, it changed the inflammation. So, it's, yeah, it just, it's amazing. I don't know. It's fascinating.

[01:06:15] Kelsey: That is unbelievable. I'm so curious what gave those researchers the idea of trying that. But I'm also thinking in the context, um, of people who have chronic Lyme and chronic infections, parasites are very much a concern because, you know, they have These layers of infections going on. They have low immune resistance.

[01:06:37] Kelsey: They're kind of bogged down. They're like the perfect host for different pathogens to just like move in and and settle down, take up residence there. Um, so, you know, for people kind of living in modern life, right? We're maybe a little bit overly hygienic. We're eating a lot of processed foods, which, you know, definitely makes us more weak and susceptible.

[01:06:59] Kelsey: Um, Like, what is, what is the concern level? Are parasites something that are more widespread than we think? Um, is testing like that reliable for people, especially, you know, people who might be more likely to be exposed to parasites? Is, like, is this, do you think this is something that is of more concern here in the states than perhaps, uh, is kind of discussed mainstream?

[01:07:30] Jennifer: Yeah, you know, it's, I don't think so. And the reason is that most people that are infected With an active parasite will have symptoms and seek treatment. Um, there are a few, I think that can be difficult to diagnose and can create a chronic disease situation that's not diagnosed or treated. Um, I'm on 10 percent battery.

[01:07:59] Jennifer: Are you still with me? Yes, you are. I'm here. Okay, good. Um, I'm going to try to plug myself in so my battery doesn't die. Um, but, um, so like Giardia, for instance, Giardia is one that can be really difficult to diagnose. People can live with it for long periods of time and have symptoms and not get, you know, satisfactory answers or treatment.

[01:08:19] Jennifer: But for the most part, when people have, um, Especially intestinal parasites, they see them, you know, you know it, right? So you have GI symptoms, you feel painful, gassy, crampy, and you see the worms in your, in your stool. So people then, you know, get alarmed and say, Oh, I'm going to go to the doctor and get this checked out.

[01:08:41] Jennifer: treated, um, protozoal infections, which are the little single cell organisms, right? So things like amoeba or, um, trichinella, if you eat pork that's undercooked, that kind of thing, those, um, tapeworms. So if you eat, um, you know, like produce that hasn't been washed, for instance, can have, um, eggs on it for a tapeworm.

[01:09:06] Jennifer: Um, I'm sorry. Um, flukes. Those things can be chronic and persist for a long time. So they can persist in the brain. They can persist in the liver. And produce really nebulous system symptoms and take a long time to get diagnosed but I don't think I mean it occurs right so there's case reports that come out every now and then but I don't think it's super common I think Most people in first world countries probably are not carrying much of a parasite load.

[01:09:38] Jennifer: Immunosuppressed people, sure. Fungal infections in the lungs, I guess that's not a parasite. But yeah, immunosuppressed people I maybe would be concerned. But in this country, I don't know. Not, not going to be the first thing that's going to be up on the list, I guess. 

[01:09:58] Kelsey: Yeah. Hmm. 

[01:09:59] Jennifer: That's super interesting.

[01:10:01] Jennifer: Depends too. I mean, if you work on a farm, then yeah, you're going to be more exposed. You're going to be greater risk than if you're, you know, living in an apartment in New York City and you don't even own a cat, you know, that kind of thing. So it just depends, I guess. Yeah, for sure. I was just gonna say, sorry, go ahead.

[01:10:23] Jennifer: I was just gonna say, um, for sure it does not get discussed like between a patient and a doctor, right? The same way that they would talk about like, oh, getting your vaccines for HPV or whatever, you know? So, yeah. 

[01:10:40] Kelsey: Yeah, I'm, I'm really curious to see how it continues to evolve because it's definitely, uh, it feels like one of those areas that is kind of under researched and then in certain circles maybe a bit over hyped, let's say.

[01:10:58] Kelsey: Um, yeah, so it's, it's interesting. I'm curious to see how that evolves, but it's definitely of concern for the lion population, which is, which is why I wanted to ask about it because it very much, uh, can come up. So it's interesting how those infections tend to kind of interweave in, in the folks that end up being bogged down with chronic Lyme and infections.

[01:11:22] Jennifer: Oh yeah, it's hard too. It's really tough. You know, we're not, um, we're not, we're not going to just get one thing at a time. You know, we're not, we're not protected that way. So yeah, that's tough. Do you know, um, do you know which, are there any parasites that tend to turn up in the chronic Lyme cases? Yes. Oh gosh, 

[01:11:42] Kelsey: it's it's a spectrum.

[01:11:44] Kelsey: It's uh, every single one that you have mentioned I have heard of coming up from tapeworms to flukes to pinworms to Um little protozoa and amoebas. I mean it's all over the place and it and it's tricky because The testing is really, uh, seems to be very spotty in the same way that it is for Lyme, but it's so like, well, there was one client in particular who, uh, they came to me the first time I spoke to them.

[01:12:14] Kelsey: They had Tried making a bunch of black walnut whole tincture, right? You know, the green holes, which are very anti parasitic, particularly for worms. And they said they had started taking that them and their husband and they just felt amazing. They felt so good since they started that, but they did not test positive for any parasites.

[01:12:37] Kelsey: And. I was just, that was like a really fascinating case story because that was one of the first people I had that experience with. But I think it's also tricky because, um, you know, as you know, because of the Flexner Report, I know I say this all the time, because of the Flexner Report, we really have a lack of trained herbalists, um, and clinicians and kind of these traditional schools of medicine.

[01:13:08] Kelsey: And so I, I feel like we're just missing a lot of information around, uh, yeah, how to, how to kind of work with these conditions and, and the, the different ways that. These things can be approached and and it's unfortunate, but I think we're getting back to it. Thankfully. Hopefully. 

[01:13:29] Jennifer: Yes I hope so, too. I think we are I think people are I think people are starting to realize that I don't know There we have options.

[01:13:40] Jennifer: I guess there's a good way of putting it Yeah 

[01:13:42] Kelsey: yeah, and I think a huge part of it as we've talked about is the rise in chronic illnesses and chronic disease and Um, you know, including, including vector borne illness like Lyme and, and, and some of these other infections that, uh, you know, we're seeing a rise and a rise, a definite rise in interest in environmental medicine also because of the climate, uh, crisis.

[01:14:07] Kelsey: And so it's interesting. I think people are really, they're searching for something to serve that effectiveness gap full circle. Um, Thankfully, herbs are one area that's just extremely suited, um, to support people. And that is, it's not mutually exclusive with pharmaceuticals, but can be very complementary.

[01:14:27] Kelsey: Um, so that kind of leaves me, I think, I think we should end it there because we've been talking a while and you and I know that we can talk for like three straight hours about this stuff. So, so I'm curious, tell us about, you know, I, I know that this is an area of huge interest for you. So, Tell us kind of what's next for you.

[01:14:48] Kelsey: What are you really excited about working on project wise? Um, what's going on in your apothecary? Share with our listeners, what's, what's going on with you and what's coming up next? 

[01:14:59] Jennifer: Oh my goodness. There's so much going on. So I, um, so the apothecary, I'll start with. You'll be happy to hear I got my little copper still set up.

[01:15:09] Jennifer: So now I'm working to make essential oils and hydrosols, which is nice. Um, and of course I'm continuing to make double extracts. So I do double extracts with the percolator funnel method, uh, with apple cider vinegar. Followed by, um, Everclear 95 percent alcohol. Uh, so I, I like that process. It gives me good confidence, you know, that I'm, I'm extracting all of the beneficial components there.

[01:15:37] Jennifer: Uh, so I'll continue to do that. And, um, I, my clientele continues to build. So, um, they, they don't, I never get tired of getting those text messages that say, I only have one week left. Can you send me some more? You know, like, this is really good. So I'll keep working on that. And then, um, of course, like I started out saying, um, I'm really, really, really interested in bringing together Pharmaceutical drug development with, um, with herbal medicine support.

[01:16:10] Jennifer: So I've written now three grant applications. Uh, to support that specifically. Yeah, for small business owners and, um, I'm waiting to hear back. So I won't, I don't expect to hear back for until mid August and then September and then October for those. But if, if I'm successful, then I'll have the funds that I need to, uh, start attending scientific conferences.

[01:16:37] Jennifer: Where I can present my ideas and, uh, interact directly with the, um, you know, the key opinion leaders in the fields for, um, particularly neurodegenerative diseases. I think there's a lot of work, a lot of good work we could do with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Um, antibiotic resistance, of course, is a big one for me.

[01:16:58] Jennifer: And then like you, uh, were talking about the, the chronic. Um, chronic disease, whether it's, you know, chronic physique syndrome or chronic infectious diseases like Lyme, COVID, long COVID, that sort of thing. So I'm hoping that, uh, you know, within this next year, I'll be able to start getting out to scientific conferences, um, wearing not just my pathologist hat, but also my herbalist hat.

[01:17:24] Jennifer: So, um, and, uh, yeah, just seeing how the idea is. I guess we'll, um, determine where we go from there, but I, I, I have a feeling it's, um, I don't know. I think, I think there's some good open minds out there, particularly in gene and cell therapy. So, yeah, we'll see. 

[01:17:45] Kelsey: Oh, I can't wait to see where you go with it.

[01:17:47] Kelsey: And I'm. I'm very selfishly biased in that I would love you to continue researching chronic infections because they're so fascinating. Why do some people get sick? Why do some dogs, some horses get sick and others don't with with Lyme when they get bites? And, um, I also selfishly Hope you continue to make your amazing tinctures and extracts because I would just love to buy all my tinctures from you for myself and all my clients because you make such amazing, um, extracts.

[01:18:19] Kelsey: You're just like such, I don't know, an extract queen. I don't know what else, what else to call you, but I, I love your sciatica formula. I tell everyone about it. 

[01:18:29] Jennifer: I am on track to be CGMP compliant by the end of the year, I think. So I've been slowly chipping away at writing SOPs and getting the space, you know, set up correctly.

[01:18:42] Jennifer: I still need a tripartite sync and a few more SOPs, but I'm getting there. So, um, I'm hoping everything will kind of come together at the right time. So, but, but yes, I'll definitely send you more sciatica support. So I'm glad you like it. I was, I was 

[01:18:56] Kelsey: wondering, 

[01:18:57] Jennifer: that's 

[01:18:57] Kelsey: awesome. Oh, I love it. I know so many people with this problem and I, I think it's amazing.

[01:19:03] Kelsey: And it's a really, I mean, I digress, but sciatica is such an interesting area because I, you always wonder, is this structural again? Was this infectious, you know, was there a viral component that damaged the sciatic nerve? Like what's going on here? But. Either way, you know, regardless of what it is, these herbs help.

[01:19:22] Kelsey: And, um, yeah, I look, I just so look forward to having your tinctures available where I can send other herbalists your way and we can have an, uh, an account with you and, and yeah, we don't, we need more of these, um, really high quality. Uh herbal products available because there's really only a handful of businesses that are making these available to practitioners So i'm excited for you to do that.

[01:19:50] Jennifer: Well, thank you. I appreciate it. I feel the same way. It's um It's hard for me to send clients to buy an over the counter product that I know is more expensive and more dilute And you know, it's just tough you want it to work and yeah Not cost a fortune and um, I think we can I think we can get there so we'll keep doing that 

[01:20:09] Kelsey: Yeah.

[01:20:10] Kelsey: Hmm. I love that. Well, is there anything else? Um, where can, where can listeners find you? 

[01:20:17] Jennifer: My website before Virchow. com named after Rudolf Virchow, yeah, I'll let you put that link on there. So you'll have this going. Um, but yeah, you can go to my website and message me directly from there. It's easy to get in touch with me.

[01:20:32] Jennifer: And I'm also on LinkedIn. I am not big on social media. So I'm on LinkedIn, you know, as a professional endeavor, but, um, no Instagram or Facebook or anything like that. I'm a little old fashioned. So yeah, send me a message. Um, I'll, I'll get back in touch with you. 

[01:20:51] Kelsey: Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on, Jennifer.

[01:20:54] Kelsey: This has been so much fun. Thank you for 

[01:20:56] Jennifer: having me. This is fantastic. And, um, yeah, I look forward to catching up with you more offline. So, yeah, good to see you. 

[01:21:07] Kelsey: I hope that you all enjoyed this episode. As always, Jennifer is so much fun to chat with because she can go so deep. Trust me, this didn't even scratch the surface of all that she can talk about.

[01:21:21] Kelsey: Um, So, I just really enjoyed having her because she has such a unique perspective coming from both a veterinary and comparative pathology background, um, as well as pharmaceutical development and research and clinical herbal medicine. So, she is a super fun person to learn from and talk to. I really hope you guys loved it as much as I did and that you walk away with, uh, a deeper understanding of, uh, Some of the differences between herbal medicine and modern pharmaceutical medicine, why they are both important and play very different roles, especially in the context of chronic infectious disease, and that you overall at least walked away with one new bit of knowledge, but I bet that you've got more than that.

[01:22:06] Kelsey: At least I hope so. So until next time, thank you all so so much for joining me. Our bodies are a direct reflection of the world. of the ecosystems we inhabit. Just like this earth, our bodies know how to heal. This is what it means to be a Spoonie living on a Spoonie planet. The journey to healing is a mutualistic endeavor and I am so grateful that you're here walking the path with me.