Transcriber: Almudena Torrecilla Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
When I was 33 years old,
I was diagnosed with breast cancer.
And like so many who've gone before me,
that diagnosis changed my life.
It changed the way I look at the world.
And it led me to two very common questions
that one starts to ask when diagnosed with a life-threathening illness.
How did this happen?
And what do I do now?
Now this isn't a story about self blame.
These are just common and natural questions
that come from many in times like these.
I actually found the questions empowering.
This is actually a story about how those two questions led to a realization
that I think can help to change the conversation
around what means to be and stay healthy.
So back to my first question:
how did this happen?
See, (Sigh) I felt like I had done everything right.
What do I mean by that?
Well, if I ask you, what does it mean to be healthy,
to live a healthy lifestyle?
What kind of answers do you get?
Regular exercise? Balanced diet?
Taking your vitamins? Annual checkups?
Limiting toxic exposure to chemicals, personal care products?
Well, by all of these accounts, I was healthy.
I had done the work.
So I was angry, and I was frustrated
that I'd followed the rules and I still found myself sick.
Now, I had a friend who a few years earlier
had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
And when it came to being healthy,
she put everyone I know to shame.
So I knew she would understand how I was feeling.
When we got together, she told me something
that would eventually change the way I think about health.
She told me that her journey had taken her to a place
where she believed whole-heartedly
that she had not in fact been truly healthy.
Not at a whole person level because she'd overlooked taking care of herself
at the level of her thoughts and her emotions.
So what she was saying had some subjective merit to me
because I can relate to suppressing my own thoughts and emotions
maybe in order to please others,
or taking on the stress of trying to juggle a thousand things.
But then the pragmatist in me
just wanted to brush that off as a little too woo-woo.
Then again I had, you know,
tackled all of these.
And here she was standing right in front of me,
the picture of health and vitality.
So what could it hurt to look into this a little further?
So down I went through rabbit hole number one:
mind-body medicine.
And for those who of you don't know,
mind-body medicine studies how our mind, mood,
thoughts and emotion affect our body.
So that would be things like stress management, stress reduction,
like going for a walk in nature, unplugging from technology,
getting a massage,
meditation,
(Sigh)
mindful breath-work,
and thought and belief awareness.
So this would be something as simple as being more mindful of our thoughts,
or something more concrete like cognitive behavioral therapy,
where you become actively aware of your thoughts and behaviors
and then replace them with more positive alternatives
that in turn elicit more positive emotions.
I also started delving into stories
that highlight the mind's ability to affect the body.
Like the peer-reviewed account documented by Dr. Klockner in 1959
about a man who he called Mr. Wright.
Mr. Wright was diagnosed with terminal cancer
and given only days to live.
With tumors the size of oranges he had heard or a horse serum
that was said to be effective against cancer
and he begged to receive it.
His physician, Dr. Philip West, reluctantly agreed
but was astonished to find less than a week later
his patient was out of his death bed and joking with his nurses.
Now, this went on for months
until Mr. Wright read a newspaper article
stating that the serum was a quack remedy
and he suffered an immediate relapse.
Now, Dr. West, testing out a hypothesis,
said: "Well, don't believe everything you read in the papers,"
and then he proceeded to inject him with what he said
was a super-refined, double-strength version of the drug.
Really it was water. But again, the tumors melted away.
Mr. Wright was the picture of health and vitality for another two months
until he read what he felt was a definitive report
stating that the serum was worthless, and he died days later.
Now, this is just one of thousands and thousands of examples
that highlight how the mind can affect the body.
And, so I had my anecdotal evidence, which included the example of my own friend,
and I'd like to say that I took what I learned and put it into practice
and lived happily ever after.
Of course, that's not what happened.
And I don't think I'm alone in that,
because many of us hear about how stress and emotions can affect our health
and how mindfulness meditation can make a difference in our lives
and all of that,
but many of us also don't do anything about it.
I had the stories and the theories,
but what I really needed was hard evidence,
science to prove that it was true.
I mean, we've all grown up in a world of, you know,
Newtonian, science-based thinking,
meaning if we can't see it or measure it, then it's not real.
So I, like maybe, maybe many of you,
didn't start to put these ideas into practice just yet.
What I did, and this is now getting into the second of the two questions
that I alluded to earlier, the "What do I do now?".
What I did is I started using medical cannabis
at the recommendation of my nurse and other patients.
And it helped immensely with pain and nausea and anxiety
and all of the really fun staff that come along with cancer treatment.
I also started joining online medical cannabis user communities.
And I was in awe at the spectrum of issues that cannabis was helping with.
Intractable illnesses that weren't responding to other forms of treatment,
like MS, fibromyalgia, PTSD, Tourette syndrome, IBS,
epilepsy, chronic pain, autoimmune diseases ... I could keep going.
The list goes on.
But I started to wonder, how was it that cannabis was helping
with all of these unrelated conditions,
because I can't think of another medication out there
that would be able to help with so many illnesses.
So how did it work?
Well, down I went through rabbit hole number two,
and this was a deep hole.
In a nutshell, I learned
that the reason that cannabis was working for so many different conditions
is because it interacts directly with our body's own endocannabinoid system.
The endocannabinoid system is a little known but massive bodily system
responsible for maintaining homeostasis, that's balance, in the body.
It consists of a network of neurotransmitters called endocannabinoids
as well as receptor sites,
the most well-known being the CB1 and CB2 receptors, and enzymes.
Think of it kind of like the traffic lights of a city,
keeping the streets moving smoothly.
But if a light goes out anywhere, it will cause problems.
Congestion, confusion.
Cars and people will keep moving, but without the guidance and the rules,
the flow just won't be as efficient and far more susceptible to accidents.
It's actually been called the most prolific and integrative system
in human health and homeostasis,
and even dubbed our body's own master system
because of its role in maintaining balance among all the other systems of the body.
Now, this is important because all illness can in fact essentially be boiled down
to some sort of imbalance in the body,
whether genetically induced or otherwise.
Now, if you haven't heard of this system before, you're not alone.
And if you are hearing about it for the first time,
you may be wondering why on earth
you haven't heard of this epically important system until now.
And it's partly because it's newly discovered in around the 1980s,
but also partly because of the stigma around cannabis,
for which the system is named.
Because scientists discovered the system
when they were trying to answer that same question:
"how does cannabis work?"
So they learned that compounds in the cannabis plant called phytocannabinoids
actually fit near perfectly with the receptor sites
of the endocannabinoid system.
So used properly, this plant can help to activate,
tone and support the endocannabinoid system when it's out of balance.
So it's a pretty amazing plant.
To say I became obsessed with cannabis and the endocannabinoid system
is an understatement.
I buried myself in research papers, lectures, courses, certifications,
learning everything I could about cannabis
as well as ways to keep the endocananbinoid system itself
healthy and balanced.
Because while it's easy to say,
"wow, look at this amazing plant that we have;
it's able to help with all these chronic conditions
and balance the body,"
and obviously I believe that;
I've dedicated part of my life to spreading the message
that cannabis is medicine.
But it's equally important to look beyond cannabis as a single cure.
Because when you look closer, you'll see that cannabis is an important ally,
but it's only part of the puzzle.
So, let's use that example again as the endocannabinoid system
and the traffic lights.
Except for in this scenario, cannabis is like the friendly police officer
that comes in to direct traffic when the lights are out.
So the officer's doing their best,
and certainly it's helping to keep traffic moving in a more organized manner,
but we still have to figure out or at least try to figure out
how to fix the lights.
So how do we go about fixing the lights?
How do we support and heal the endocannabinoid system
when it's out of balance?
Well, it just so happens that one review study in particular
looked at 325 other studies
that all focused on what helped and hindered the endocannabinoid system
by focusing on key endocannabinoid health factors,
and here's what they learned directly affect the system.
Exercise, and notice I wrote "Pleasurable Exercise" there -
it has to be something that you enjoy doing. Okay?
Diet and supplements. So a couple examples that I'll give you.
Herbs and spices contain small amounts of phytocannabinoids,
the same compound that cannabis contains.
And certain healthy fats can actually help your body to synthesize
its own endocannabinoids.
Environmental exposures.
So some pesticides will actually downregulate the endocannabinoid system,
have a direct effect with it.
There are a few others I'm going to share with you.
But before I do, I just want to bring your attention to a sentence
that really jumped out at me when I was reading this study.
It said that the endocannabinoid system
represents a microcosm of psychoneuroimmunology.
And I had to look that last word up.
In case some of you don't know, I'm going to break it down.
Psychoneuroimmunology
is the study of the interaction between the psychological processes,
"the mind," and the systems of the body, "the body."
So really it's just a fancy way of saying that metaphorically speaking,
the endocannabinoid system represents a microcosm of mind-body medicine.
So now hopefully you can see where this is all coming full circle
and coming together, I hope.
Because here's what else was shown to affect the endocannabinoid system:
Chronic stress.
So they looked at stress from pain
as well as stress from thoughts and emotions,
so repeated feelings like anger, guilt, depression -
something that is chronic means more long-term.
That was shown to significantly impact the endocannabinoid system.
And activities that elicit the relaxation response.
So that would be, again, kind of that walk in nature
or doing some yoga, getting a massage.
They consider osteopathic manipulation in that study.
So why does this matter?
Well, I said before that we live in a physical world,
so for many of us if we can't see it and measure it, then it's not real.
I told about how I had heard stories about how the mind can affect the body,
but I still didn't give it the same weight that I would give to nutrition
and movement and medicine.
But when I understood that my own endocannabinoid system,
my master system for maintaining health and homeostasis,
required me to start taking care of my thoughts, my emotions, my stress,
my beliefs, it finally clicked for me.
So I want to leave you with a scenario to imagine,
an idea of how this information can help to change the conversation around health,
like I said in the beginning.
Imagine if the message that we heard from our physicians and public health officials
sounded like this:
"Listen, what if I told you that there's this really important bodily system,
call it a master system,
and if you can keep it functioning well,
it can do wonders in allowing your body to innately keep itself healthy,
heal itself
and improve the quality of life for those with biological and genetic illnesses."
If I told you there was a system like that,
would you want to know how to keep it strong and healthy?
And I think most would answer yes to that.
And then they would go on to say, "Great, so think of this system like a stool.
Each of the legs represents all that's required
to keep the system functioning well.
And here's why we compare it to a stool.
Each of those legs is an integral part of keeping that stool stable and balanced.
If we remove a leg, or even shorten a leg, the whole stool starts to wobble
and becomes less efficient, less stable, less balanced.
So let's design a plan for you that incorporates all of these concepts
as part of a healthy lifestyle."
Imagine. Not only is that proactive, but it's empowering.
And I invite all of you to consider where your stool is wobbling.
It's been said that mindfulness could be the next great public health revolution.
I believe it's only a matter of time before mindfulness, stress reduction,
thought-belief awareness is every bit as important as seeing your doctor,
taking your vitamins, eating a balanced diet and getting regular exercise.
And maybe the endocannabinoid system can help to catalyze that.
It's my hope that the more we understand the ramifications of this master system,
the more we'd be willing to develop a truly integrated approach
to whole personal health.
Who would have thought that cannabis, the gateway drug,
could actually form part of the gateway to the next great public health revolution?
Thank you.
(Applause)