Below is the transcript from my conversation with David Winston on Mental Maps. In this episode discussed all things herbal medicine and mental health. To listen to the episodes check out the episode at https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-7w38j-190749bor on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mChQJhDchAo
Josh Waddell (00:34)
Welcome back to Mental Maps. As always, I this finds you well no matter what season of life you’re in. Today I’m honored to have an herbal specialist that’s just, his work is second to none. A leader in the field, David Winston, welcome so much.
David Winston (00:49)
Thank you, Josh. It’s an absolute pleasure to be here. you know, we’re taught you’re talking about a topic, mental health, that thankfully has come out of the shadows a bit over the last 10, 15 years. But so many people, certainly going through COVID, so many people are just still struggling with anxiety, depression, and they just don’t know that there are potential options for them beyond.
pharmaceuticals, which are fine if they work for somebody and that’s their preference, but there are other things that can be done.
Josh Waddell (01:23)
Yeah. And I thought, you when I was reading some of your work and just kind of going through it, I was like, this would be so helpful to a lot of the stuff that we talk about on this show. You know, I think one thing that we forget is that mental health, how we view mental health is very new, right? Maybe 150 years old altogether, right? But there, have literature way back talking about some of this symptomology. And so there have been these tools that have been around for a really long time that have an effect for people and are very helpful for people. And even some of the medicines we use inside
psychiatry kind of leverage what some of those other like herbs and stuff will do and so I guess that’s my first question is how does mental health and herbs intertwine like what does that look like?
David Winston (02:06)
Well, as an herbalist, I don’t treat diseases. I treat people. And so therefore, when I am treating a person, let’s say I’m treating somebody who’s depressed, they’re not depression. And from an herbal perspective, we are always looking at what is the root cause of the depression. Now, there are some things that herbs aren’t going to touch. If you are living an unsustainable life, you’re in a bad relationship, ⁓ you don’t know how to manage stress,
⁓ money is a constant worry, then there’s a certain level of depression or anxiety that comes with that, that herbs aren’t going to help unless you can find ways to get more support and help in your life. But there are many other causes of both depression and anxiety. So for instance, as an herbalist, I recognize more than 14 subtypes of depression.
and this is all based on science, although some of it also has its history in traditional Chinese medicine. So, orthodox medicine treats depression for the most part, whether it is hormonal depression, whether it is ⁓ dysthymia, just general sort of depression, whether it is ⁓ seasonal affective disorder, they tend to treat them similarly except
for something like bipolar disorder, which is its own thing. As an herbalist, I don’t do that. What I am looking for is what’s going on underneath here. And there is a lot of research over the last 10 years showing that neuroinflammation ⁓ can be a major cause of depression. We also understand that gut inflammation, which is really common, can increase neuroinflammation. There is a real link between the gut and the brain.
So we have inflammation-induced depression. We have cardiac-induced depression. If somebody has had a major cardiac event, whether it be a myocardial infarction, a heart attack, whether it be congestive heart failure, AFib, depression is a common sequelae of that. Now, is that because the person got freaked out because they maybe think they almost died, or in some cases they may have almost died? That’s possible.
But we also learned in the last 30 years that the heart is also has endocrine function and has receptors for neuro, for hormones and neuropeptides that are produced in the brain. So there is this link between the heart and the brain. There is.
old age induced depression, could be because you’re older and you’re losing friends and family and you’re feeling isolated or you’re afraid, you know, as you get older, you know, you’re going to die. Obviously we all will. But with old age, there is the secondary phenomenon of reduced cerebral circulation. And so we see with people, both people who are experiencing some level of
cognitive dysfunction, especially with dementia, increasing levels of both anxiety and depression. There is blood sugar induced depression where people who have either metabolic syndrome, what some people call pre-diabetes, or type 2 diabetes increases the risk of depression. There is GI based depression. And so this list just keeps going on. The thing is, the herbs that we use to treat one
are generally speaking not the herbs we use to treat another. So we have specific herbs that we use to deal with the specific underlying pathology that is causing the depression that this person has.
Josh Waddell (05:57)
That is so radical. Because like, when you think of depression, especially like Western healthcare, right? Like here we sat with people who are feeling really unwell. We have the symptomology, the symptomology kind of goes across domains, right? We talked a little bit on here about hyper excitability and hypo excitability. But at end of the day, you know, have the symptomology that we have and then all of our medicines, theoretically, you’re supposed to do the same thing, right? It’s all driven on serotonin and norepinephrine. Do you find that, let’s say your depression’s due to, well,
circulation would be different. Maybe like your depression is due to gut inflammation or it’s due something else. Is it still creating like maybe serotonin or epinephrine issues or is it a completely different domain that’s kind of pushing these issues? I know that kind of goes outside of verbal stuff a little bit but what’s your thoughts on that? Okay.
David Winston (06:44)
not, not really. So
the gut produces more serotonin and norepinephrine than the brain does. Now granted, the gut produce serotonin cannot cross the brain blood barrier, but the compounds that are created, the precursor compounds can and do cross the blood brain barrier. And so number one, that is true, but we also know the research over the last 10 years, actually more like 20 years,
shows us this whole idea of depression being primarily a lack of serotonin or norepinephrine or dopamine is really flawed, which is one of the reasons that things like SSRIs, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and SNRIs only work when you look at the clinical trials, human clinical trials. They work about 40 % of the time. Well, that’s better than not at all. It’s better than placebo.
which is about 33 % of the time, but it’s not that impressive. I would also point out if you use herbs as just a simple replacement for an SSRI. So if you’re going to take St. John’s wort instead of, you know, wellbutrin, it works about 40 % of the time. It works as well as those things do if you’re using it as, you know, to treat this entity called depression. When you start treating the person who is depressed,
And again, remember, there are all sorts of social determinants of health that herbs can’t fix. You know, if you are living a really terrible life, you know, a really problematic life, if you’re being abused, you know, all sorts of things like that, depression is actually a fairly normal response to really challenging circumstances. In fact, they did it. I came across this study. It was it was actually rather
funny. This study is about 10 years old. And in the study, what they determined was that depression actually is a normal response to when bad things happen in one’s life. And that the authors of the study at the end of the study say we may be actually over medicating people for normal life experiences. It’s like, really? That was brilliant. mean, it’s one of those things that anybody who’s spent any time in the field, it becomes rather obvious that,
just because we are guaranteed in the Constitution to be able to pursue the right of happiness does not mean you’re going to be happy every moment. And so it is not abnormal to have ⁓ situational depression when situations call for it. The problem is, is that we have many people ⁓ who are depressed not because of social circumstances, but because of biochemical and ⁓ functional
things happening within their system and those things can be addressed and they can be addressed very specifically.
Josh Waddell (10:15)
where a lot of the experiences that we feel uncomfortable with is kind of a result of what is going on in our world. is it? ⁓ Mark Manson says that most of the pain that we experience in our life is just discomfort.
But yet there is the group of people who really struggle with their mental health. And so you’re saying that in that world, there is a gamut of reasons why these biochemistry things are occurring. And so it can be, of course we know the gut, it can be inflammation. It could be hormonal. could be lifestyle. you talked to it. And one of the things that I noticed and kind of hit on this a little bit that even in the circumstantial stuff, it does seem like herbs kind of cater to sometimes personality traits. Can you kind of talk about that a little bit where like,
David Winston (10:34)
Mm-hmm.
Josh Waddell (10:59)
Like some herbs are better for maybe the person that’s working hard and you know, staying up all night. And the other, this herb is better for someone who’s caregiving and giving all of their energy to other people. What’s your thoughts on that?
David Winston (11:13)
Well, there are some of those, you know, when we think about herbs, know, herbs have been used by humans, they were probably the oldest medicine on the planet and they’ve been used in various traditional systems of medicine like Chinese medicine for over 3000 years, Ayurveda even longer, traditional Tibetan medicine, Yunani tib medicine, Campo medicine. So and then here in the United States, we had medical doctors who
basically were herbalists from the 1830s through the 1940s. And the largest group of these were called the eclectic physicians. And the eclectics looked at herbs and their materia medica, their materials of medicine, which were primarily herbs, and they created what they called specific indications, meaning they tried to study the herbs to understand symptom pictures that said this herb’s appropriate in this situation. So for instance,
When we have, I’ll talk about a couple herbs, these are really more for anxiety, but they are a good illustration. We have one herb called skullcap, Scutilaria lateraliflora. And skullcap is most effective as either a tincture made out of the fresh herb, a glycerin extract made out of the fresh herb, or freeze-dried in capsules. When you dry skullcap, you lose a lot of its medicinal activity.
So skull cap is especially indicated for people who are stressed out, nervous and anxious, and they develop twitches, spasms, tremors, palsies, or fly off the handle anger. These people are like emotional volcanoes. And they’re fine one minute, and the next minute there’s veins bulging out of their head, their whole head’s red, and it’s like they explode.
On the other hand, there’s another herb called blue vervein, verbena hostata, and these are eclectic specific indications where again, it is also used for people when they get stressed out, they develop again spasms, tremors, and we’re using it for things like bruxism where you’re grinding your teeth at night, where people have stress headaches with tight, tense muscles. But these people, instead of becoming angry, they’re afraid. And so we’ll use it much more for people with things like, you know,
mild agoraphobia and things like that where the fear is a real component to what they’re experiencing. And so yes, we have different herbs that kind of affect some on an emotional level. also are trying to address and this is especially true in traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda, which are probably the two oldest traditional systems of medicine in the world, which are still practiced widely ⁓ actually throughout the world.
Well, there we’re also looking at what are called energetics. And so we’re looking at the person and we’re trying to figure out whether what they’re experiencing is their excess heat, is their excess cold, is their dryness, is their dampness, is their deficiency. And those patterns also help us to say these herbs are going to be the most appropriate for this given person. And so
What a lot of people do is because most Americans didn’t grow up using herbs, ⁓ herbs are new, even though they are not new, they’re quite ancient. But since most Americans didn’t grow up using herbs, they think of herbal medicine as a one-to-one replacement for orthodox medicine. And I would say two things about that. Number one, a lot of people think also there’s this sort of battle between the two. Nothing could be further than the truth. I’ve been…
in clinical practice for 49 years. And I’ve worked with physicians my entire career. I love working with physicians because what they do well is not what I do well. you know, the obverse is true. Where orthodox medicine is at its best is where herbal medicine is in many cases at its weakest. And the obverse is true. Where herbal medicine shines is exactly in many cases where orthodox medicine has little to offer. So
We are looking at this person. We’re trying to understand, number one, the underlying pathophysiology, the underlying causes of what they’re experiencing, what things are going to be appropriate to this specific person. So for instance, there is this category of herbs, are called adaptogens. And I happen to have written probably the first book in English on this topic. And adaptogens are herbs that help us to adapt to stress. And so
With adaptogens, a lot of people have this idea, it’s one size fits all. take an adaptogen. Well, first of all, I’d say not everybody needs an adaptogen, number one. And number two, some adaptogens are stimulating. So for that, would be more appropriate for somebody who is exhausted, fatigued, deficient. Some adaptogens are calming, which is going to be more appropriate to somebody who has sort of a type A personality, excess, insomnia. We have other adaptogens, again, that are heating or
cooling, drying or warming, some are deeply nourishing. And so it really comes down to getting to know your materials of medicine, getting to know what I would call the personality of the plant so that you understand, is this a good match for this specific person? I would also point out that in traditional systems of medicine, herbs are virtually never used as symbols, meaning people don’t just take St. John’s wort, they take a formula designed specifically for them.
And herbal medicine, when you do it that way, when you treat the person and you create patient-specific formulas, the benefits and the efficacy increase exponentially.
Not only just what your symptoms are, but your underlying conditions. So give an example about ashwagandha. Ashwagandha is an amazing herb. Don’t get me wrong. I love ashwagandha. I use it regularly, but it’s not appropriate for everybody. So for instance, ashwagandha, one of the things it does is it stimulates the thyroid. So if somebody has a hypothyroid condition like Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, which is an autoimmune disease of the thyroid, which causes hypothyroid functioning,
Ashwagandha can be really useful, assuming that they’re not already on Synthroid or Lavoxel or Cytomel or something like that. On the other hand, if somebody has a thyroid condition where the high thyroid is hyperactive, like in Graves’ disease, Ashwagandha is contraindicated. There are cases of it causing a thyroid storm. So it is getting to understand that herbs are remarkable. In general, they are safer.
than most over-the-counter medications, and they are far safer than pharmaceutical medications. But that doesn’t mean Americans, again, because they didn’t grow up with this, there’s a couple of false ideas a lot of people have. People think it’s natural, so therefore it’s safe. Belladonna is natural, datura is natural, jelcemium is natural, aconite is natural, most cases, you ingest them, you may wind up very dead, naturally dead, but still dead.
You have to use herbs intelligently. And my Aunt Edna used to say, herbs affect people in one of three ways. They’re a food, a medicine, or a poison. So your food herbs, which includes not only things we think of as food like garlic and ginger and cinnamon and blueberries, but also mild herbs like lemon balm and chamomile and ⁓ things like a hawthorn berry, those can generally be taken for a, you know, in reasonable amounts.
You know, ginger is safe, but don’t eat a whole bowlful of it. You know, a little bit will help nausea. You eat a whole bowlful, you’re to be nauseous as all get out. So these food herbs are unlikely to cause significant adverse reactions if taken in normal therapeutic doses. And they’re unlikely to, you know, pose any significant risk in most cases of herb drug interactions. There are a few exceptions.
Your medicines, on the other hand, should be used with greater knowledge. They’re generally used for a specific purpose for a specific period of time, and then you stop them. So we had a situation back in the 1980s and early 1990s where there were companies producing products containing mahuang, ephedra, and they were using it for one of two things, either to help people lose weight or as basically herbal amphetamines. And in Chinese medicine, where ephedra is used, it’s used very safely.
Nobody’s ever died of a phedra probably in TCM because they’re using it number one in very low doses with an herb that antidotes some of its toxicity ⁓ for asthma. And they’re using it for people who have fevers who aren’t sweating. They’re not using it on a daily basis for losing weight. It’s a very, very foolish thing to do and turned out to be foolish.
and they’re not using it as a herbal stimulant. And so eventually it was of course banned because people were abusing it. Ophedra is a medicine and if it’s used correctly, it can be effective and appropriate. Used incorrectly the way it was being used in the American marketplace, it was not a good thing. And then finally the poison, some of the herbs I just mentioned, things like ⁓ aconite or a gelcemium or a datura.
Belladonna, these are all quite toxic. And there are some people who are trained to use them. But unless you have been trained to use them and understand their toxicology, just leave them alone. Stay away from them. They’re not appropriate for self care or things of that nature. So once people understand that, you know, we need to use these things, it’s just like you wouldn’t go into a pharmacy and just start picking stuff off the shelf and just start popping pills. You need to understand what you’re taking. And then the other point I would just make mention is that
Americans have been sold through the miracle of advertising that more and bigger is always better. And with herbs, that does not necessarily apply. So the example I gave a moment ago with ginger, a little bit of ginger, not only is it good for as a carminative for gas and nausea, it is also an anti-emetic. It’s good for vomiting. But that’s a small amount of ginger. take, again, literally, if you ate a whole bowl of ginger, you would be vomiting. So
A little bit is good, more is not necessarily better. So sticking with the recommended dosage is important. And a lot of people just think, well, it’s helping a little bit, so I’ll just take more. Well, there are things that would not be a very wise choice.
Josh Waddell (22:47)
Yeah, and you’re kind of even highlighting how, I mean, there’s this interplay how they all work and how they’re managing the symptoms and the causes and what that looks like. You brought up a really interesting point. It made me think, I just had a friend who was doing some traveling over in Iceland and she had a cold when she went there and she went to the pharmacy and they didn’t have like any pharmaceuticals. She was a nurse and so she’s looking for pharmaceuticals. They’re like, no, here’s this herbal thing. Within a couple of days, she was better. And so you’re talking about like short-term and using them for a small amount of time. How does that work in the world of mental health?
because I think so many times in this world we find where all these medicines are used chronically. You’re never going to hear, I always tell my students, you’re never going to have a farm rep tell you how to stop a medicine. That’s just not what they’re going to do. Their job is to tell you how to start it how to keep it going. What does that look like in the world of mental health with these time-based uses of herbal medicine?
David Winston (23:41)
Well, I think first off, again, it depends on the person. So if you have somebody who has occasional anxiety, so for instance, I was good. This was something I did many years ago. I was teaching at the Atlantic Convention Center to like 10,000 people and they had giant stadium screens on either side of the stage with my head. You know, my head was like 20 feet high.
And I had never done anything quite on that level. mean, they teach all the time, but this was like, this is just a whole nother deal. And I was really anxious about this because it was just outside of my comfort zone in my experience level. And so taking something like an anxiolytic a day or before to help so that I could actually sleep and things like that, that makes sense. But once I did it, it was like, this isn’t really such a big deal. It’s not really much different. It’s just these weird stadium screens. And I don’t have to look at them.
So there are times when something like, certainly for anxiety, it may be situational and occasional, and then you only need to take things for a little while. On the other hand, if we have somebody who, you know, based on the Ham D scale or the Beck Depression scale, you know, they have, ⁓ you know, chronic, moderate depression, this isn’t going to be something a one and done deal. This means you are going to be
on continuing medication, whether it be herbal or pharmaceutical. The difference between the pharmaceutical is the pharmaceutical, number one, is really working through pretty much one mechanism, whereas the herbs may be working through multiple mechanisms and hopefully are actually addressing some of the underlying issues so that at some point you no longer need those herbs.
So if you have somebody like GI-based depression is a type of depression because GI issues tend to cause gut inflammation. Gut inflammation triggers not only systemic inflammation but neuro inflammation. And of course we know that in the gut you have the enteric brain which is produces again every neuropeptide in every hormone pretty much most hormones not everyone but most hormones produced in the body are produced in the gut. So if you have gut dysbiosis if you have what is
popularly called leaky gut syndrome, which is really a loss of intestinal epithelial barrier function. If you have IBS, if you have IBD, inflammatory bowel disease, either ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease, if you have chronic constipation, if you have a really long transit time, meaning from the time you eat to the time you defecate, should be 12 to 24 hours, but if it’s considerably longer, and for some people it can be
even though they have daily bowel movements, their transit time might actually be four or five days, ⁓ that can create issues and inflammation. And so if you’re addressing those things, and of course the loss of a normal intestinal, healthy ⁓ intestinal microbiome is also really important. There are plenty of studies. I probably could find 20 studies within less than 10 minutes.
showing that certain probiotics can reduce anxiety and depression. Why? Because they are helping to repopulate the gut with healthy gut flora, especially things like ⁓ bifidobacteria and lactobacillus, which for many people, you know, maybe they weren’t, you know, when they were born, they were born through C-section. And now today, babies are many places born through C-section,
They’ll do a vaginal swab and then swab the baby’s mouth to help get that bacteria into the baby, because that’s where your initially bacterial seeding comes from. Then if you weren’t breastfed, they used to think breast milk was a prebiotic. Now they know it’s both prebiotic and probiotic. And then maybe you eat a Western diet and there’s like no fermented foods in your diet.
or you grow up in a household where your parents are afraid for you to be outside. Kids, for instance, who grow up on farms have less allergies and healthier gut microbiomes. Why? Because they’re around animals and they’re picking up dirt and putting it in their mouth. Today, parents are like going to call poison control. You know, we need that normal natural exposure to
these microbes in the environment to help trigger normal immune response ⁓ and immune growth and what’s called immunotolerance. And so all of that plays a really significant role. And so if we can, you know, treat that underlying issue, you can heal the intestinal epithelial barrier, you can get a, you know, help to enhance normal, healthy gut flora.
Sometimes the depression will disappear. Not always. It’s not always that simple. But in many cases, if you can again address those underlying causes that are leading to depression, it could be nutrient deficiencies. are plenty, again, human clinical trials showing various B vitamin deficiencies can increase risk of depression. Folate deficiencies can increase the risk of depression.
magnesium deficiencies, and by the way studies have shown 60 percent of Americans have you know low levels of magnesium. So there are so many things that have to do with diet and have to do with the environment you’re in and your overall health that play a significant role in depression. Depression is not something that comes from out well it can. It can be because of your you know your lifestyle. It can be because of
family issues, but it can also be, and I think a significant number of cases, has to do with your overall health. So mental health is not separate from physical health.
Josh Waddell (29:53)
And you know, think too, like when you say that, I think I see a lot of people who like, there’s like these compounding problems, right? So you have like this issue with gut health that also is leading to nutrition deficiencies. It’s also leading because they’re eating a really poor diet, which also means they’re not getting good sleep. And so just kind of compounds on itself within that. One of the things that, you know, I’ve read some and I’ve heard you kind of speak about in some of the videos is this whole concept about cortisol driven depression and anxiety and these experiences with
Can you speak about that because I think that’s something that in a world where we’re in this kind of high stress, we’re in a many of us are in environments where kind of caters to that, caters to how hard you’re working, caters to that world. What does that look like from a depression and anxiety perspective and how do you help that?
David Winston (30:43)
Yeah. So human studies again have shown us that elevated cortisol levels and we have, can get elevated cortisol levels. mean, yeah, there are some rare causes, tumors and things like that. But for most people elevated cortisol, which is one of our stress hormones is going to come from either stress, obesity or sleep issues. All three of those increase cortisol and
Chronically elevated cortisol levels are number one pro-inflammatory, so they increase neuroinflammation, gut inflammation, systemic inflammation. Increased cortisol levels also inhibit sleep, and sleep is foundational. You know, it’s funny, anybody, if you ever go to an herbalist, and they’re just using herbs, and they’re not looking at diet and lifestyle and nutrition and all these other things, they’re missing the boat.
because nobody ever got sick from a St. John’s wort deficiency. But sleep is foundational. And to quote the immortal Warren Zivon when he said he’d sleep when he’s dead, well, between probably excessive alcohol and drug use and not enough sleep, he certainly achieved that much earlier than he should have. So I think it is important to understand that actually there was a study where they took a young, healthy man.
and they simply interrupted his sleep like 30 or 40 times a night for two weeks. And in two weeks he had full-blown metabolic syndrome. So increased cortisol also interferes with blood sugar regulation. It creates insulin resistance. And so it brings into this whole pattern, this whole metabolic syndrome. mean, what, 30, 40 % of Americans have metabolic syndrome? And this is a whole pattern.
where you have elevated cortisol levels, decreased sleep, increased blood pressure, increased inflammation, which leads to what is known as inflammation aging, where especially as we age, we start to develop more more inflammatory-driven diseases. And if any people aren’t aware of this, inflammatory-driven diseases, what’s that? ⁓ just a couple things like most heart disease, ⁓ arthritis, autoimmune diseases.
Alzheimer’s, cancer, I mean the list just goes on. These are generally all driven by inflammation. And so when we have somebody who has elevated cortisol levels, that’s an area where we go back to what we were talking about before, the adaptogens, they are especially useful for this scenario where somebody again is really stressed out, elevated cortisol levels. But again, we just don’t take anyone, we look at the person, what
makes sense for them. And again, as a clinical herbalist, I’m going to put together a unique protocol for each patient that is designed specifically for them. All right. And it doesn’t mean I’ve never used a product that was already pre-made if it fits the person. The problem is, any two people are way too comfortable trying to fit the person to the medicine. I want to fit the medicine to the person that I am actually working with.
And the results that you see, and this is not just me saying this, but I train, ⁓ I’ve trained thousands of clinical herbalists. Half of my students are already medical doctors, naturopathic physicians, osteopathic physicians, veterinarians, nurse practitioners, nutritionists, dentists, chiropractors. The list just goes on. And
I hear the same things back from them once they start understanding this and how to do it. Their ability to make a difference in their patients lives increases exponentially. Again, does it help everybody? No, nothing works for everybody. But I’ll take, you know, if I go based on their results, I would say most of them are saying they’re seeing, you know, 65, 70 percent.
Efficacy? I’ll take that over 40 any day of the week.
Josh Waddell (35:08)
Yeah, and I think, you know, when you take about like chipping away at it and just finding those root causes and what’s kind of driving it in the first place that, you know, it’s so important to kind of figure out, you know, it’s interesting you kind of talk about cortisol because cortisol is so interesting, like in the pop-culture world, it gets a bad rap, but then you get in other places, it’s like, it’s needed and it’s important. But we do see like where that chronic impact of that cortisol leads to that inflammation and what that looks like and all those problems. And so it’s interesting how you kind of highlight the differences of like…
here’s this herb and this could be helpful because these symptoms, like I was reading some of your work and you was talking about how like this herb is good for the person that like works hard, plays hard and doesn’t sleep a lot. And this work is good for the person that’s in like chronic stress and you know, their stress is never ending. How does that kind of go? What is different between those kinds of stressors and what does that look like from a pathology perspective?
David Winston (36:03)
I don’t know if it’s so much a difference. It’s again I think of it more on a personal level. So again so for instance there are going back to adaptogens. Let me let me give you my sort of rundown of the of the ginsengs for instance and ginsengs are probably the best known adaptogens although there are certainly others. So
There is one plant which when it was originally introduced into the United States from Russia, it was known as Siberian ginseng. Generally speaking, it’s not sold under that name anymore. It’s sold under the name of Eleuthero. The Latin name is Eleutherococcus centicosus. And yes, it is in the Aureliaeaceae family, which is the quote unquote ginseng family, but it’s a distant relative. And I think, and it’s a very mild adaptogen. Well researched, but very mild.
And so where do I use it? I use it for people who are 15 to 35 years old. They have all their vital energy. They’re just going through a really stressful time. They are in college and they’re pulling all-nighters. They just passed the bar exam. They got hired by a law firm that’s expecting them to work 70 hours a week. And you’re to be taking this basically just, you have all your vital energy. You’re not older. You’re not depleted.
You just need something to help you deal with the acute stress that you are dealing with, usually in a short-term way. Then we would go to American ginseng, which is native, of course, to North America. And by the way, anybody who’s going to buy American ginseng, I highly recommend buying what is called organically woods-grown American ginseng. I it’s grown in its natural environment, but it is not wild because it’s an endangered species. And that’s my preferred form.
usually in a form of a tincture, which is an alcohol and water extract, although it’s available in other forms as well. And I use American ginseng for people who are 40 to 60, usually. And these are rough outlines, meaning there are exceptions to these without a doubt. And so I’m using this for the person. I had a friend, I haven’t seen him in long time, and he used to have this saying, and where he came up with it, I don’t know, but he said, when you’re a teenager, you’re immortal.
In your 20s, you’re a superhero. In your 30s, you become mortal. And at 40, the warranty wears off. And the first thing that goes is the eyes. Well, he was pretty right about all of that. So I don’t know if he made it up. It was just, you know, a savant or whether somebody told him and he was just telling me. Anyway, this is for those people who are now 40 to 60 years old. And I remember, you know, I remember in my 40s, all of a sudden I started feeling like
I didn’t quite have the same level of resilience I had. And of course, actually one of the first things that was the eyes, you know, in the old days, we used to have these things called maps and we used to have to read maps. You had a car, your glove box in your car was full of maps. And I started noticing that the type was getting harder and harder to read. And then I started noticing when I’d fly, you know, like to Europe to teach or something like that, it took me longer to sort of.
cover from jet lag and I just started noticing that maybe you know my by my late 40s early 50s I was noticing I was a little more sensitive to extreme heat or cold and so you’re just you’re starting to lose some of that vital energy and you’re starting to notice wow I’m actually aging and I no longer feel immortal I’m not even sure I feel like a superhero now not everybody’s 4060 feels that some people you know for whatever reason that’s not their issue but that’s where I’ll use American ginseng and then
Asian ginseng comes in two forms, white and red, and they’re the same plant, but they’re processed differently. The white Asian ginseng is more heating, more warming than the American ginseng, and it’s more stimulating and more deeply nourishing. So I use that mostly for people who I’d say are 55 to 70. And they’re really starting to feel a difference. In the wintertime, they’re much colder.
They’re maybe starting to have some cardiovascular issues. They’re tired. And so I’d use that. And then finally, the red ginseng, I primarily use for people who are 70 and older. And these are people who, you know, you visit your, well, once upon a time when my grandparents were alive, you’d visit them in Florida. And here it is, it’s summer in Florida. It’s like 96 degrees.
and you go into their apartment, instead of having the air conditioning on, they’ve got the heat on, they’re wearing three sweaters, and they’re still cold. And it’s like you’ve just walked into a sauna. They’ve lost that vital energy, that heat, they’re having things like maybe a little bit of congestive heart failure, impaired circulation, cold hands, cold feet, they’re wearing gloves in the middle of the summer. And that’s where I would use something like the RegenSync.
And so you’re looking at the person and you’re sort of, know, the herbs, each one, as I said earlier, kind of has what I would call personality. And it’s not just that it’s an adaptogen or that it’s a nootropic enhancing cerebral circulation or it’s anti-inflammatory. You’re actually looking at how the herb works, how it affects people, how it affects various tissues in the body. And does it make sense for this person?
Josh Waddell (41:40)
I mean, your one, thank you so much for that, because that’s really helpful because ginseng is in so many things. It’s in so many pre workouts and supplements and different things. And so you definitely check it out. And now you kind of know what that looks like. But one of the things that I just thought of as you were saying that is that, you know, in the past, maybe, I don’t know, 15, 20 years, you’ve seen this emerge in the verbs and like pop culture things, energy drinks and that kind of stuff. But it makes me think that there’s this huge discussion right now of as the world has evolved and it’s gotten faster.
and louder and all these things that our human brains don’t really have the ability to kind of manage this stuff that we’ve kind of created. Yet what I’m hearing is that there are these ancient herbs that exist that even today are very, very helpful, almost as if like no matter what we create as humans and no matter what we have going on around us, if used properly, there’s something there that can help you navigate this world that we’re creating. And I think that’s so interesting.
David Winston (42:39)
Well, I think that’s true. There’s an ancient story that my uncle told me about how medicine came into the world. And I can’t tell the story here. I don’t have time to tell the story. But basically, the plants agreed to help us. They made a deal with us that if we respected them, that they would have the cure for every disease that existed. Now, we certainly haven’t discovered the cure to every disease.
and maybe that’s not true, but I tend to think of it as less of a story than a history. And I think that the answer to many of our ills, probably not all of them, but to many of our ills, I think plants offer a unique avenue to help dealing with them. And again, if we are dealing, especially with the mild herbs, the potential for adverse effects is very low.
Yes, there are always idiosyncratic effects. Anybody can have a unusual, unique effect to anything, any herb, any supplement, any pharmaceutical medication, any cosmetic, any food. And yes, somebody can be allergic to something. So if we take out the idiosyncratic effects, which are not, this is not something you typically expect. It’s kind of like a one-off weird phenomenon. And we get rid of allergies. Again, most herbs are relatively most.
are relatively ⁓ safe, but again, food, medicine, poison. So, you know, if you’re dealing with a stronger herb that has some potential for toxicity or greater adverse effects, you need to know that. And once we start to use them with some level of expertise, you know, I think that they can be a major
aspect to helping us to both maintain our health and regain our health. And in fact, I would put it to you this way, you know, we live in here in the United States, we live in a country that spends more per capita than any other country in the world on health care. Despite that, when it comes to looking at health statistics, we lag behind every other developed country.
We are far behind when it comes to life expectancy. We are far behind when it comes to infant mortality, maternal mortality. The only areas where we are near the top is things like obesity and cancer rates, which are nothing to be proud of. So it is my belief, and some people might say I am naive. I don’t really think that I am. ⁓ I believe that really well done herbal medicine.
could be one piece and only a piece of helping to actually create a sustainable practice of medicine here in the United States. But it’s not the kind of herbal medicine that many people are seeing where it’s, again, St. John’s warts the depression herb. No, it isn’t. ⁓ Black cohosh is the menopause herb. No, it isn’t. Saw Palmetto is the prostate herb. No, it isn’t. All those little sound bites of information do a disservice, meaning there’s some truth to those things, but
that’s not where herbal medicine shines, using them as a replacement for a pharmaceutical. And so if we can help people to educate people how to use herbs appropriately, I mean, I have a dream, I really do. And this dream, something I’ve been thinking about, because when I started studying herbal medicine in 1969, all my friends were interested in one herb, and I was interested in all the other ones.
And people would say to me, what are you doing? I’d say, I’m an herbalist. And they’d look at me like I just told them I was an alien from another planet, you know, coming to abduct them. It was like, what? Isn’t that something people did like 100 years ago? You know, nobody does it anymore. It’s like I was telling them I was learning to deliver ice for their icebox or how to light the gas lamps at night. But the reality is, as I said, I have again been in, you know, I’ve studying herbal medicine for 56 years. I’ve been in clinical practice for 49 years and
Do herbs work every time? No, absolutely not. Do they have the answer for every problem? No. But as I said earlier, where herbal medicine is strong is exactly where orthodox medicine tends to be weak and vice versa. And so I think adding really well done herbal medicine to overall medical care, meaning I’d like to see a time where almost every mom, dad, grandmother, and grandfather knows some basic kitchen herbal medicine for their family.
I’d like to see a time where there are community herbalists in every community. I’d like to see a time where there are clinical herbalists available in any clinical setting because the two together, orthodox medicine and herbal, well done herbal medicine together is a true win-win for the patient. It’s cost effective. It’s better for the environment on every level that you can imagine.
you’re going to see better outcomes. And that’s been my experience over an extended period of time. And so I think one of the things that we really need to do is educate people is and herbs are not magic bullets. And so, yes, all that near homeopathic amount of ginseng in your energy drink is probably not doing a thing. There’s probably not enough in there to do anything. They just put it on there for marketing. That’s not how herbs work well.
And should everybody pre-workout take ashwagandha? Absolutely not. Should everybody take Asian ginseng? Hey, if you’re the kind of person that type A personality where like you have even a little bit of chocolate after lunch and you can’t sleep at night, well, red ginseng can make that a whole lot worse. And if you’re also a very tightly wound person, it may raise your blood pressure. So all of these things have places where they’re appropriate.
and they have situations where they’re not appropriate and it’s especially important that people understand that while clinically significant herb drug interactions are relatively rare, they are not non-existent. And there are times when you’re on a certain medication, mean, warfarin is sort of the poster child. And the good news is we don’t, here in the United States, we’re not seeing a lot of patients on warfarin anymore, but in England and Canada, it’s still very commonly used. And…
Warfarin interacts with food, interacts with other drugs, it interacts with herbs. mean, it’s, so there are times when people are on medications, then you better know what you’re adding to that because most cases it’s probably not an issue, but you don’t want to be the case where it is.
Josh Waddell (49:28)
I love your dream because I think that that is true integrative care, right? mean, there’s a huge push for personalized health care. We’re trying to do all these things to really make it that person centered and to a point that’s person centered, right? I think person centered is more than just person centered evaluations, but it’s person centered treatment, you know? And so what I’m hearing in that is, maybe you need a medicine or maybe you need this herb with this herb or maybe you need this food and this herb and having people who are trained in that is so imperative. You you talked about how there’s just so
much information out there like how does an average human navigate this world of understanding just some of the basic stuff right I mean it’s so loud you look up on tik-tok and I’m sure if you like hit herbal and Instagram or whatever maybe you’ve got every person like hanging out in their backyard with like some garden stuff going on and like what do you do
David Winston (50:19)
I wish I had an easy answer. I will say right off the bat, don’t think TikTok is your best source of ⁓ great information. I’ve never actually been on TikTok, but I’ve seen TikTok videos. You know, some person telling people they can drink bleach. It’s like, no, do not drink bleach. ⁓ You the problem is that I would say right off the bat, if it sounds miraculous and too good to be true, it most definitely probably is. ⁓
Josh Waddell (50:29)
Yeah.
David Winston (50:49)
Again, herbs are not panaceas. They’re not the answer to everything. If somebody tells you, you know, they’ve got some secret cure that’s going to cure your cancer. Yeah, not very likely. So I think I think it really comes down to, again, finding good sources. So give you a couple of examples. There is a journal called Herbalgram, which is published for the public. So you don’t have to be a clinician to read this publication.
But first of all, it’s beautiful publication and it is easily accessible. So that’s a great source of general information. There is an organization called the American Herbalist Guild. The American Herbalist Guild is the only organization in the United States that basically… ⁓
We don’t have licensure. not, herbalists aren’t interested in licensure. But basically what we do is anyone who wants to become a registered herbalist goes through a really extensive peer review process that we can be assured that these people know what they’re doing and they’re safe. They also know their limitations of practice and scope of practice and things like that. And so the American Herbalist Guild is a great website where number one, you can get some information, but you can also
⁓ find clinical herbalists. There are also ⁓ licensed naturopathic physicians throughout the United States. think something like 25 states licensed naturopathic physicians. They are doctors. ⁓ And many of them, not all of them, are trained in herbal medicine. ⁓ Most states in United States ⁓ license acupuncturists or ⁓ Chinese medical practitioners. And not all of them, but
Many of them are trained in Chinese medicine. There are medical doctors ⁓ who are part of, for instance, Institute of Functional Medicine, some of whom know herbal medicine, many of them who do what’s called functional medicine, which is we’ll call it a more holistic practice of medicine. So there are many sources out there. If readers want to find out, like, for instance, just a good introduction to herbal medicine that’s really well written,
and accessible. My dear friend Rosemary Gladstar has a book, it’s probably about 10 years old, it’s called The Family Herbal. And it is just a great primer on herbal medicine and the terminology and some of the basic herbs. And if you want to get to know herbs, start to grow them. Do you have a garden? Do you grow basil to make pesto? Well, basil is also medicinal.
And if you can grow basil, you can grow holy basil, which is a probable adaptogen. And if you can grow tomatoes, you can grow ashwagandha. And if you can grow pretty much anything, and even if you have a brown thumb, you can grow lemon balm. And you get to smell it, and you get to cut it and dry it and make tea out of it.
and you get to know the plant. Think of it as meeting new people, meeting new friends. Every time I find a plant that I’ve never seen before, it’s like meeting a new friend. To me, that’s incredibly exciting. It’s like, my God, I’ve seen pictures of this, but I’ve never seen it in person. That’s always so exciting. grow them, use them, and of course, the stuff you’re gonna buy in the store, you know, like your…
⁓ your tea blends that you can buy in any grocery store. These are all generally recognized as safe food herbs and you can try them. So you have a tummy ache. You can take some ginger or you can take some chamomile or you can take you have some ⁓ diarrhea. you say you’ve got somebody in your family got norovirus which is that horrible intestinal virus. Now everybody it’s like my God you can’t walk five feet from a bathroom.
Well, just taking some chamomile tea with cinnamon can reduce the symptoms dramatically in sometimes as little as a few hours. So you can start by learning some basic kitchen medicine. know, burns. Everybody knows this is one of the cool things. Everybody knows aloe is good for burns. My personal experience is the real aloe plant, not the bottled gel. The aloe plant is remarkable for burns.
And so in many grocery stores you can buy like aloe leaves and you can keep them in your fridge and they’ll last like a month or two or you just grow a plant. And what you do is you take some of that aloe gel for a know first degree burn and then you take maybe if you take have about let’s say a teaspoon of aloe gel you drop one or two drops of essential oil of lavender in there and mix it up and then apply it to the burn. It’s incredible.
It helps relieve pain. It speeds up healing. so learning just basic kitchen herbal medicine for your family can be remarkable. ⁓ And so those are just a few things that people can do that are easy and simple and good because it’s hard to know when you were looking on the Internet. Yeah. I mean, if you go to the American Botanical Council who publishes the
the journal Herbagram, they’ve got some great information, much of it for free. My website, I have tons of information for free. But you know, the reality is, that when you’re on the web, you don’t know who knows what they’re talking about or not. And I will also say that some of the sites you would think would be really good, like some major medical institutions that have stuff about herbs on them, are sometimes actually really poor.
simply because they are coming from a, let’s say, rather inordinately conservative viewpoint where, you know, I’ve seen sites where it’s like every herb either doesn’t work or is dangerous.
you will hear about herbal medicine. Well, the problem is this stuff’s not researched. ⁓ There are herbs that are not researched. That’s true. But there are hundreds of herbs that have many, many human clinical trials showing us that they are effective. And so whether we are talking about turmeric as an anti-inflammatory, both to the gut, systemically, neuroinflammation,
two human clinical trials on curcumin, which is an extract from turmeric, ⁓ being useful for ⁓ major depressive disorder? I mean, these are human clinical trials. ⁓ So there’s actually more information out there than people recognize. And again, you know, that is not to say that there is not people spouting information that is ridiculous and poor or
out and out fraudulent, but I’m afraid we kind of, you we live in a society where that’s true just about anything and everywhere.
Josh Waddell (58:15)
Yeah, and everybody’s trying to make some cash on and do those kinds of things. And so it kind of creates this dynamic for it. But I love that concept you were talking about of growing herbs. I just imagine someone who is really struggling with their mental health, not only knowing what they’re supposed to take because of an herbalist telling them what to do, but now they’re growing their own stuff. And just imagining someone who has been unwell, who’s felt so powerless and all those things. Because many times, a lot of the people that I work with, that’s kind of the world that they’re in.
To know that not only they’re taking something that’s helping them, but they’re also being the one that’s growing it and just man Like how radical that is to think about that. That is so cool
David Winston (58:58)
And the nice thing is something like Lemon Balm, which by the way is a mild mood elevator and acts as what’s called a Nerveen in the UK, Nerveine. Nerveens are sort of calming nerve tonics. They’re not sedating. Something like that not only tastes nice, but you could, know, somebody could easily make a tea blend and it may not be adequate to deal with your depression entirely. Maybe you’re still taking your medication, all right, whatever medication you are taking.
But you can take some things that actually enhance its efficacy. ⁓ Any of those mild tea herbs, none of them have any known significant, with the exception of St. John’s wort, have any potential real interactions with something like an SSRI or SNRI. ⁓ there’s not a lot of downside. Now, I mean, I would obviously suggest any time if you are on medication before you start taking anything new.
talk to your doctor, just sort of ⁓ a CYA policy. On the other hand, your doctor may not know anything about it and might say, ⁓ don’t take herbs. Well, maybe you need to find a new doctor who knows enough about herbs to say, okay, yeah, that’s fine, not a big deal. But the reality is, as I said earlier, I find that the use, judicious use of herbs and orthodox medicine together.
creates a situation that often surpasses either of these things by themselves.
Josh Waddell (1:00:31)
And I think too, you mentioned this, finding good herbs, right? We had Sean Wells on the show last year. He was talking about the importance of finding good supplements, that non-adulterated, the real thing. Is there anything specific when people are looking for an herb, or maybe they’ve been recommended an herb, to look for when they go to buy it? Is it like a third-party-tested thing like you see with other stuff? What does that look like?
David Winston (1:00:57)
Yeah, that again gets a bit complicated and John is correct that that’s an issue. So for instance, I would point out that, you know, a lot of people, the herb turmeric is wonderful. And about 20, 30 years ago, a company decided that these three constituents of turmeric called the curcuminoids were the active ingredient because that could be patented.
Well, it turns out since they identified the three curcuminoids as the active ingredients in turmeric, an additional 15 to 20 chemicals have been found in turmeric that are all active that have nothing to do with the curcumin. In fact, in one study, ⁓ they took a product where they took all the curcuminoids out and then tested it, and that product had just as much anti-inflammatory and anti-tumor activity as did curcumin, and there was zero curcumin in it.
So it’s important to understand that curcumin is not the same thing as turmeric, and curcumin is poorly absorbed and quickly excreted, so then you have to mix it with bioperin, which is a black pepper extract, or phosphatidylcholine, or micelles, something to get it in you and keep it in you longer. Clinically, I get better results using a tincture.
an alcohol water extract made from whole turmeric root than I’ve ever gotten from any curcumin product, which is not to say curcumin doesn’t work because there’s plenty of treatment trials showing that it does. I still get better results using turmeric as a tincture. But there’s been a number of, not a lot, but a few cases of curcumin-induced hepatotoxicity causing liver damage. And normally, turmeric is hepatoprotective. It protects the liver.
from damage, from viruses, from environmental toxins, et cetera. Well, what a lot of people don’t know, including the researchers, is there is a significant amount of synthetic curcumin in the marketplace. It’s not coming from a plant at all. It’s coming from petrochemicals. It’s a synthetic. So what do we say to our listeners? How do you tell whether you’re getting something good? Well, I would say, number one, if you’re buying things online,
and you find a product that’s cheaper than everybody else’s.
Yeah, there is a case that I know of, because I know the people who were examining this, where this company had requested the manufacturer who was in China, they wanted this product at a certain price point. And the only way the manufacturer could make the product at the price point that they wanted was to dilute the product so it was one part in 100, and 99 parts of everything.
were basically a carrier. And so when the product was tested, it didn’t test out as being the product at all because it was virtually none of the actual herb in there. So I would say stick with companies that have ⁓ been around a long time that have a really good reputation. I would also say look at the company. Do they have somebody who is a well-known clinical herbalist as part of the team?
somebody who’s involved in quality control and formulating, or is this something like one of my hobbies, I travel all the time and I teach all over, well.
fairly, fairly wide swath of the world. And when I go to someplace, often if I’m teaching in a conference, I don’t know about you, but if you ever been to conferences, sometimes the food is not exactly fantastic. So I’ll often go to a local natural food store, co-op, and I’ll pick up a few things just so I have some stuff just in case. And one of my little hobbies is I go into the supplement section and I just pick products off the shelf, herbal products mostly.
and I’m looking at them and I can tell in 30 seconds whether an herbalist designed this product or it was designed by going on PubMed and putting in a search term like migraines, herbs, and then pulling, know, you put down all these studies and then just throwing everything together in a one formula. Traditionally in herbal medicine, as I said much earlier, herbs are generally used in complex formulas.
And in all herbal traditions, there’s this recognition that if herbs are combined properly, it creates synergy. Where one plus one no longer equals one, but one plus, excuse me, one plus one no longer, my math’s little challenged, one plus one no longer equals two, but it equals three, four, or five. I know of one study where adding herb B to herb A increased bioavailability by 2000%. One plus one equals 2000.
But just throwing a bunch of stuff together is not a guarantee of synergy. There’s also anti-synergy or antagonism where one plus one equals one. And one of the beauties is when we go back to traditional herbal medicine, whether it’s TCM, specifically TCM, they have been doing this for 3000 years and they have actually figured out this whole process. And they have this process within TCM called ⁓ Dui Ao. And Dui Ao, it means two herbs, herb pairs.
And all Chinese formulas, all traditional formulas are based on these building blocks of herbs, where this pair and this pair, you know, these two herbs together work better than either one by themselves. And they’re sort of built to, you know, it’s almost like Legos. You know, you’re putting together these blocks of herbs. so, you know, and of course, there are modern synergy studies as well showing that. And now you would say anybody who’s been in clinical practice more than 10 or 15 years, if you’re paying attention, you’ll discover some of these things all by yourself. So for instance,
St. John’s Wort by itself is not very effective for seasonal affective disorder. Lemon balm by itself is not very effective for seasonal affective disorder. But for whatever reason, St. John’s Wort with lemon balm is way more effective for seasonal affective disorder than either one by itself. And that’s just something I’ve sort of stumbled into being in my clinical practice over, you know, decades and decades. And so, ⁓
this idea of using things intelligently. again, stick with companies that have been around a long time, have a good reputation. I’m not saying you have to buy the most expensive stuff because sometimes, you know, it’s just overpriced. But finding companies again that ⁓ are using organic herbs, consciously wild crafted herbs. ⁓
They’re, you know, they are testing all their herbs. Everything’s being tested for heavy metals, bacterial contamination, ⁓ pesticide and herbicide residues, because I prefer my herbs to be unleaded. Just, you know, the very nature of it. I want to take herbs for their health benefit, not for toxins.
Josh Waddell (1:07:50)
Yeah, I think they all do. Yeah.
Well, in will these like, you the herbal gran and some of these other resources, well, they have the ability for someone to like, because what I’m hearing in that is not only do you like pick that off the shelf, know what it is, the company, but then if you see these combinations together, doing some research on those combinations, it says it’s got black cohosh and chastainberry and whatever else in it, know if that’s good to put together or bad to put together. And so can you find that I guess on some of these resources so you can immediately
David Winston (1:08:32)
Well, first off, there’s no guarantee that anything is going to always work for you. But I will say, one thing that you just mentioned is really useful. I said earlier that black cohosh is not the menopause herb. It’s not. In fact, if I had to choose one herb for menopausal symptomology, would be chaste tree. But here’s the thing, chaste tree and black cohosh together work better than either one by itself. So that’s one of those duiao. That’s one of those synergies. And so…
Josh Waddell (1:08:34)
Yeah, correct. Yeah, absolutely.
David Winston (1:09:01)
Sometimes, I mean, there are resources out there. You know, if people are interested more in adaptogens, my book on adaptogens, which is called Adaptogens Earth for Strength, Stamina, and Stress Relief, I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I think it’s a well-researched, well-written book. There are many good books out there. The problem is there are even many, many more books out there that are just okay, mediocre, and sometimes downright bad.
So, again, looking for people, for instance, if the author is a registered herbalist in RH, a member of American Herbalist Guild, that means this person has a certain level of training and they hopefully, well, you know, knowing our review process to become a registered herbalist, they really have to know something to get that. It’s not easy. It takes a minimum. You have to have a minimum of four years training.
hundreds of hours of clinical practice, then you go through this peer review process. it is, and it is one of the reasons we as an organization decided not to go for licensure is that American herbal medicine at this moment is probably one of the most vibrant, creative herbal traditions anywhere in the world because it is a melange, a symphony, an orchestra of
different herbal traditions from around the world that have been sort of recombined and recreated into this amazing practice of medicine. So you have stuff from Chinese medicine and Ayurveda and Southern folk medicine and Native American traditions and British phytotherapy and science and it’s all kind of put together and it’s sometimes a little unwieldy and sometimes you certainly
have some people who veer off into a little more fantasy than I’d prefer, but it is also this amazing living tradition. And I’m just say, I could say I’m really proud that I’ve been a part of this, you know, since pretty much since its resurgence in the late 1960s. And so people today, when I started doing this, trying to find good information was almost impossible. There were no schools for herbal medicine when I started.
There were very few books and most of the books that were out then are actually terrible, although I had no way of knowing that at the time. There were no real journals. I mean, there is so much more information. so then the problem was not enough information. Now the problem is almost too much information and sort of separating the wheat from the chaff.
Josh Waddell (1:11:37)
Man, you know, I love that and I love that, you know, we’re in, you we live in this country that allows us to have all these other, you know, cultures and people here. And so bringing it together, it’s like that true integrative medicine kind of experience where we get to pull from all of it and learn so much. But what I do here in that is, you know, definitely, you know, if you’re listening to this, check out your places, know who you’re getting it from, know what that looks like, because there are a lot of bad characters out there knowing if that…
All the stuff together is gonna be helpful or hurtful. Doing that research, using some of these resources, I’ll make sure to put these in the show notes, that way people can use those. Man, David, thank you so much for this knowledge. I do have two quick questions for ya. I was asking some of the listeners what they wanted me to ask you, and so some is related to mental health and some isn’t. But one was, in the world, in some of the things that we see today, and I’m around the…
this and I’ve been in this place my life too where you know we have a lot of stress and then the stress leads to insomnia and we just can’t sleep very well and we’re really tired then you find that maybe you know from a male perspective like testosterone is getting low and like you’re in your like 30s 40s you know so that’s not supposed to be happening at this moment to this level. Are there things that are better for you what herbs could be very helpful in that way for the person that kind of finds themselves in that in that spot?
David Winston (1:12:53)
Well, the simple and highly ironic answer is ashwagandha in the sense that, and again, it’s not for everybody, but ashwagandha is a calming adaptogen. It has anxiolytic activity. It also boosts testosterone levels. It also helps reduce excessive cortisol levels. So ashwagandha might be appropriate there, but again, how would I use it? I wouldn’t just give somebody ashwagandha.
I would get to know the person and figure out what else is going on. So let’s say this is a person that when they tell you, you know, when I lay down for sleep at night, I just can’t shut my head off. All I’m doing is thinking. I’m thinking about everything I did today, what I could have, what I said, what I, what I could have done better, what I forgot to do. And then I start thinking about what I had, what do I have to do tomorrow? And what did I do last week? And what am I, what did I do in my previous lifetime? And these people, it’s like there’s a talk radio in their head. One of the herbs that is
really remarkable for that kind of pattern is passion flower. And so, and that can be done as a tea or a tincture, I’m supposed even capsules, capsulated herbs, it kind of depends on what you’re getting, whether it’s just the ground up herb or an extract in that.
Josh Waddell (1:14:03)
Yeah, I really
hear like what you’ve been saying. It’s almost like these tees and tinctures and stuff. It’s a little bit better overall, you know, if you can get access to that, it sounds like what you’re saying.
David Winston (1:14:13)
A lot of times they’re my preferred ways of taking things, but there are some things. So for instance, if you want to take ginkgo, for instance, and ginkgo has been shown in human clinical trials to help reduce anxiety associated with dementia, especially sundown syndrome. So if that was the case, you don’t want ginkgo tea. It doesn’t work. You don’t want really ginkgo tincture. You want a standardized extract of ginkgo in a capsule because that is the only product that’s actually been researched.
Ginkgo, you you always hear it’s a traditional Chinese remedy. Ginkgo nuts, after they’ve been detoxified, are traditionally used in Chinese medicine as a food and ⁓ in Chinese culture as a food and a medicine. But there is no historical use of ginkgo leaf in Chinese medicine. It was discovered doing random drug screenings in the 1970s by a French pharmaceutical company. And so there’s a case where
what we’re looking at is a really highly refined extract of an herb, which I would call phytopharmaceutical. In that case, that’s the best product to use. So sadly, I know it would be really nice if I had easy answers. This is the best herb. This is the best form. This is, you but really get to know them, you know, and start learning and start building on that information. I know people often find it daunting.
But it’s like anything else. Anybody here, if you ever drove a stick shift, first time you drove a stick shift, it was a nightmare. And you dreaded the time you were going to have to come to a stop sign or a stoplight on a hill. And it was like, my God, and hope and pray nobody drove up behind you because you hadn’t got. But eventually it becomes second nature. Eventually it becomes muscle memory. Well, this is more intellectual knowledge.
But again, the more you work with it, the more you read, the more you experiment with things, and again, sticking with those safe food herbs, you’re gonna start to develop a certain level of comfort. And wherever you live, I almost guarantee you there’s somebody who’s leading herb walks where you can go out and they’ll point out the edible, because all of wildcrafting or foraging is like the biggest thing ever. I’ve been foraging for 56 years.
But you know, on my morning walk today, I go for like a three mile walk every morning. ⁓ This morning there were wineberries. They’ve been out for about a week now. They’re delicious. And last week it was mulberries. These are all wild. ⁓ And they’re full of flavonoids and they’re really good for you. And they taste delicious. So get to know your local plants. Get to know which ones are poisonous. Get to know, you know, which ones are edible. Again, grow them. Read about them.
go to buy some traditional medicinals or, you know, celestial seasonings, tea blends, you know, if you have trouble sleeping, go get some sleepy time tea and try it. Maybe it’ll work for you, maybe it won’t, but I can guarantee you they’re all really safe and gentle herbs, and you start to get some experience. And I think that it’s not gonna be a quick process. And I would just say one last thing. Be discerning, meaning,
You know, again, when people make these wild exaggerated claims about something is a miracle cure, just, you know, I just don’t believe any of that. And for me, while I’m a huge fan of traditional knowledge and I incorporate it all the time, I’m a real big fan of science too. And so to me, the two together again, gives us more evidence of something’s level of efficacy and understanding how to use it most appropriately.
And if you have self-limiting conditions, you know, you’re a little constipated. Okay, eat two kiwis a day. Get some prune juice. Eat some stewed prunes. Start taking, you know, psyllium three times a day or other soluble fiber. ⁓ Lots of things that you can do on that level. But then understand that if you have something that’s serious,
not a self-limiting condition, not something minor, then you need some professional help. Whether it’s MD or an ND or a RH, somebody who has been trained who can help you through that process. And in that process, you’re going to learn a lot more about herbs too.
Josh Waddell (1:18:51)
Yeah, absolutely. love that. And I love the balance of that and kind of knowing when to make that shift and when to seek out that professional care, but also the freedom and the autonomy to go out and find your own stuff and kind of begin to learn and do that. And so what I hear in that is Ashwagandha can be helpful in the world of like the stressed out person or maybe even the testosterone stuff. also know that you passion flower is really good for like the sleep and kind of the racing thoughts and those kinds of things. The second question I have for you is,
I even see this a lot clinically now that I think about it, to where you see females who have really rough menses, really rough menstrual cycles, and then on top of that there’ll be like some kind of mood shifts, then they’ll be like migraines with it, and they’re all under 40 most of the time, know, 20 to 40. What do you think, what could be helpful in that world for that symptomology?
David Winston (1:19:50)
The first thing, again, I treat people so each person is probably going get something different, but in general, the first thing I’m going to look at is diet. What is their diet like? ⁓ I’m going to suggest they reduce simple carbohydrates. I’m going to increase their intake of whole grains and seeds and nuts which contain compounds like lignans and phytosterols which have
some benefit for helping to re-regulate hormonal cycles. So, number one, it’s going to be diet. Number two, menstrual cramps. Well, one of the first things I think about is low magnesium levels. And if you get your blood work, your serum magnesium level will almost always be normal. The problem is your blood magnesium does not reflect tissue magnesium levels. So,
Therefore, I will probably suggest somebody, unless they’re already taking it, maybe like a magnesium bisglycinate, which is the most bioavailable form of magnesium. And I probably have them take, start off with 100 milligrams twice a day and then eventually go up to 200 milligrams twice a day, something like that. So those probably would be two of the first things I do. Then, herbally, I might look at number one, chaste tree, which is really useful.
for things like PMS symptomology as well as menopausal symptomology, also menstrually induced headaches. But I wouldn’t be just using chaste tree. Maybe I would add in some motherwort, Leonoris, which is also for PMS anxiety and for menstrual cramps. And then an herb that most of our listeners have never heard of, because it’s a Chinese herb called xiangfu, which is cypress, not cypress.
Cyprus rotundifolia and it is phenomenal for pain from here to your groin. If the pain’s up here, it won’t do anything. But if it’s from here to here, it is remarkably useful. So, I mean, that would be like a really simplistic formula. But again, what I’m really looking at is who is this person? What is happening here?
What is their bowel function like? For instance, are they reabsorbing hormones because they have a really long transit time? ⁓ I’m looking at multiple facets to the person. And when I’m working with somebody, it’s a little bit like peeling an onion. You get one layer to the stuff that seems on the surface. And once that’s gone, you find out, whoa, there’s something there that I didn’t even see before.
And I think you probably noticed that when you’re dealing with people with their psychological issues. Again, it’s like, what’s on the surface is really the real issue. That’s just the obvious stuff. But below it, there’s more. And below that, there’s more. And so this is true physiologically as well. And so a formula like that, again, that’s ⁓ super simplistic. You might use an herb like black haul.
or its close relative, cramp bark. Actually, it’s funny, cramp bark’s called cramp bark, but black hole actually, in my opinion, works better, which is great for uterine spasm. And so there are many herbs, even something as simple as a tea of chamomile and ginger can help for some women with more mild menstrual cramps and things like that. But…
So again, and the beauty here is there’s not one answer. There’s not one right answer. ⁓ In most cases, there’s multiple things that could work. And of course, the more you know about the herbs, you figure out which ones are most likely to work for that person.
Josh Waddell (1:23:41)
love that. Thank you so much for sharing that and I think the thing that I get from all of this is that one these things are helpful, two you’ve got to know the person you know and so there’s numerous factors the way you’re feeling and so if you look at it solely as a pharmaceutical that alone is not going to be the fix of it but then at the end of the day to recognizing that if it’s not working for you there may be a reason why whether it’s not the root cause or it’s just not working I mean so being able to reach out and get knowledge and those kind of things. David how can people connect with you and kind of see the work you’re
David Winston (1:24:15)
Well, my school, the David Winston Center for Herbal Studies, which is a two year training program in clinical herbal medicine, as I said, half of my students are medical professionals. The other half are people who are made some have been self studying herbs, sometimes for a year or two, sometimes for decades and want to go to the next level. ⁓ That is at HerbStudies.net. ⁓ I would also point out I don’t you know, I have an herb company which makes
products. I usually sort of keep that separate, but that’s herbalist-alchemist.com. And what I can tell you about those products is they are exquisite quality. And I happen to know the herbalist who designed them. Again, my book, ⁓ well, I have actually multiple books, but the Adaptogens book is Adaptogens, Eraser, Stress, Stamina and Stress Relief. You can get that through Amazon or
Josh Waddell (1:25:00)
Right on.
David Winston (1:25:13)
you know, ⁓ online. ⁓ Those are some of the best places, I think, to look into my work. And I have on my website, I have articles, both the things that I’ve published and then things from my library. I have one of the largest private herbal research libraries in North America. ⁓ I’ve been gathering these books for 50 plus years. And ⁓ it’s quite wonderful to be surrounded by all that history.
So,
Josh Waddell (1:25:46)
Awesome. Well, I’ll connect all that in the show notes as well as in the podcast ads and that kind of stuff. So definitely guys check that out as well. But man, David, thank you so much for this knowledge. I think people are going to really take this. I know I took a lot away from this, not only as a provider, but personally. And man, there’s some good information out there.
David Winston (1:26:05)
Thank you, Josh. It’s been an absolute pleasure and I really appreciate you having me on today so I get chance to share some of this with your listeners.
Josh Waddell (1:26:13)
Thanks David.
David Winston (1:26:14)
Thank you.