How To Conquer Seasonal Allergies Naturally

Brian Strickland 0:00
Today’s episode is brought to you by hybrid remedies makers of hybrid AR, hybrid AR rapid nasal and sinus support is a pharmacist formulated natural remedy for seasonal allergies. With just two capsules you can find relief in as fast as 20 minutes. That’s right, just 20 minutes and then continue with the single capsule for all day benefit during allergy season. It’s effective for the most common allergies, including pet dander, tree pollen, grass, dust mites and mold. If you’re looking for some seasonal allergy relief, pharmacists formulated hybrid AR is a go to, to purchase and learn more visit nutrition w.com/shop.

Dr. Jason DuBois 0:38
You know, if you and I had met back when I was a clinical pharmacist working in the field of organ transplant, and you asked me about natural remedies, you wouldn’t have gotten a very pleasant response. Sure I was. I often describe myself as like the Darth Vader of natural please back then. Yes. didn’t believe in it didn’t recommend it didn’t certainly didn’t use natural remedies. But it wasn’t really until I challenged myself challenged my own bias about natural remedies and started researching it. And it was like really one thing led to another. And the more I researched it, the more passionate I became and and ultimately left that career and started the company I own now. So

Brian Strickland 1:21
you’re listening to the nutrition world podcast, a show about navigating the intricacies of holistic wellness, where a natural health food store located in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and we believe that optimal health and peak performance should be accessible to everyone. Hey guys, welcome back to the show. My name is Brian Strickland. I’m the producer. And on today’s episode, we have the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Jason DuBois. Jason is a clinical pharmacist by trade and owner of hybrid remedies. He formulated some of their flagship products like hybrid AR, and hybrid CR which you might have heard about. And they’re really focused on allergy and immune support. We actually have Adam Chauncey, who is a staff member here at nutritional gold and clinical nutritionist sitting down with him today. And they’re gonna discuss how Jason kind of made that switch from the clinical realm into the natural, which is a really interesting story and something that doesn’t really happen that often. And then they’re going to run the gamut of natural allergy relief, individual ingredients that Jason uses in his formulations, and a ton of questions in between. So thank you so much for tuning in today. We really hope that you enjoy this episode. And let’s go ahead and hop into this conversation between Adam Chauncey and Dr. Jason DuBois.

Adam Chauncey 2:39
Dr. Dubois, thank you for flying in. knows that the easiest flat to get in of course, they would jinxed ourselves talking yesterday, but it’s fine. I’m glad you made it. I’m excited to have you here. Obviously, you’re a pharmacist. And I’ll let you unpack that here in just a minute about what got you into all this. But I’m always excited to have someone kind of outside of the scope of the nutraceuticals that we do, who has the standard medical training and everything else, but then also has a extremely high proficiency in the nutraceutical natural world approach. So why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself and kind of let us know a bit of a background?

Dr. Jason DuBois 3:18
Yeah, thanks for having me on today. Excited to be here. My name is Dr. Jason DuBois. I am the Founder and formulator of hybrid remedies, a company I started a little over 10 years ago, the company is based in Jacksonville, Florida. And before I started that company, I was a Clinical Pharmacist at a world renowned Health Care Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. And my expertise is actually in immunology and solid organ transplant. Oh, wow. So you know, I come from a little bit different angle than probably some of the other guests here. And a lot of people often ask me, they say, you know, like, gosh, you you were in this field, like the the big pharma world, so to speak, and now you’re over and in our world here, you know, you went from like, the darkness to the light, so to speak. And the irony of the of where I am today is like, you know, if you and I had met back when I was a clinical pharmacist working in the field of organ transplant, and you asked me about natural remedies, you wouldn’t have gotten a very pleasant response here I was I often describe myself as like the Darth Vader of natural please back then. Yes. didn’t believe in it didn’t recommend it didn’t certainly didn’t use natural remedies. But it wasn’t really until I challenged myself challenged my own bias about natural remedies or and started researching it. And it was like really, one thing led to another and the more I researched it, the more passionate I became and and ultimately left that career and started the company I own now so that’s pretty that’s a little brief. snippet of my journey.

Adam Chauncey 4:56
Darkness can only stay hidden from the light for so long, right? Are you gonna even dark or even dark? Vader had a coming out party, getting a little bit of goodness in him. So that’s awesome. Yeah, it is super exciting to have a pharmacist coming in and talking about all this stuff. Obviously, in my opinion, being a clinical nutritionist and talking with so many customers on a daily basis, and patients have other practitioners that we partner with. Most of the time when I’m talking to them about nutraceutical approaches to different issues they’re having and what they can add to their regimen, things of that nature. I am always that person that says, talk to your pharmacist or find a pharmacist, which I always and my practitioner, friends and doctors that we partner with. Don’t mind that too, because they’ll tell you up front, even if some doctors out there may not that they’re not necessarily trained as well, and all that but a pharmacist is going to know the ins and outs of every interaction everything else. Yeah, I think one of the main, one of the easiest ones to kind of tease out is like blood pressure medication and how genetics can play such a role and how that affects certain people, instead of being on four different ones, you might only need one, but you wouldn’t know that unless you’re usually your pharmacist is gonna say, Well, have you talked to your doctor about this? So maybe you could just kind of get into it. Talk to us a little bit about that, and why it might be better to talk to a pharmacist over a doctor or with alongside your practitioner, just to tease it out.

Dr. Jason DuBois 6:29
Yeah, I mean, to stay healthy. And to do it well, you have to have a good team. And one of the great things about a pharmacist is they are uniquely trained in the pharmaceuticals, and some of them are also trained in natural medicine. And that’s more recent, I mean, I may be a little bit ahead of the curve on that, because I was researching natural remedies back in early 2000. Some of my colleagues are now kind of starting to get into that. But a good pharmacist, what I like about a good pharmacist is they are well versed in the body, the well versed in new pharmaceuticals, and in some degree natural products. And they’re easily accessible. So it’s one of the last healthcare professionals that you can, you know, walk into a store pharmacy, you know, if you wait long enough, you can actually have a one on one conversation and get some really solid professional advice. Just like in any profession, there’s some good pharmacists or some not so good pharmacist as far as their their ability to talk to you but find a good one often recommend that’s a great resource to have on your team, as well as a doctor, of course. And I’m also been adding things like find a great health food store. Alright, find one that carries unique remedies, the best remedies and then find a nutritionist because all that works together to create optimal health and wellness.

Adam Chauncey 7:57
Sure. Well, that actually, obviously great advice. I would like to use that as a bridge into, you know, the usefulness and utility I guess of pharmacokinetics for pharmaceutical usage and nutraceuticals. So I know a lot of people this time of year especially in this area for those not listening in our area. We’re in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which there are two things that happen to us every year is one we never get snow. And then two we always get pollen. So we have the highest incidence of pollen, I think probably in the US it has to be close. So speaking on that, obviously tons of people are under us know sprays, things like flown A’s and nasal gore and stuff like that a lot of people use allergy medications. A lot of customers use Benadryl, not only for, for the the anti histamine effect, but also for sleep. And obviously, I’ve not a fan of that. I’ve had to have many conversations with clients about that. But coming from a professional, I would like to hear it, your opinion on that and where we can start to kind of bridge that gap from things that might be a little more effective, even but at least as effective or a great. A great that would have good compatibility with the pharmaceutical approach.

Dr. Jason DuBois 9:14
Yeah, and seasonal allergies are can be a tremendous burden on people in their lives and their livelihood. And I’ve spent a great deal of time kind of researching natural remedies when it comes to people giving them the benefit or relief if you will from seasonal allergies. And I ended up formulating a product for that. But it can really impact people’s quality of life. And a lot of people their initial turn is to go toward the drugs and I get these questions very often they say what is your thoughts on Claritin? Allegra Flo nice, as you mentioned, Benadryl and you know those drugs? I can’t say they don’t work in a sense but they do and they don’t. Right, right. So the newer antihistamines, the ones that we see on the TV like Claritin, Zeis owl, Allegra. They’re very specific and how they work, they block a very specific histamine receptor. And they do that really, really well. And so you will get transient benefit, this temporary relief from the classic allergens of seasonal allergies. But that’s all you’re getting, you’re really not addressing the heart of the issue, and I often preach about this is that the heart of the issue is your immune system. And your immune system that is really taking something that is not harmful pet dander, or tree pollen, or grass pollen, and it treats it as foreign. And the reaction is significant. So what I like to do is when I’m helping a client, a patient customers, I really try to address the immune component of seasonality and not so much focus on histamine. And that’s what a lot of these drugs actually end up doing.

Adam Chauncey 11:00
Gotcha. So we might not want to exactly block histamines, totally. Because obviously, they do have a role to play, but we want to modulate or kind of help the immune system work better facilitate a better outcome for the immune response. So would that look something like a nutraceutical approach? Something like the product you’ve crafted? I know, you started a company, what was it? 2004?

Dr. Jason DuBois 11:25
reasonably well, 2004. I started research researching it. Okay. 2012, we actually started making Okay, yeah, gotcha, gotcha. And the hybrid AR is when you’re referring to in the yellow box. That’s our flagship product for seasonal allergies. And it really comes down to helping the immune system working away. Right? That it’s kind of you’re balancing out the immune response, because ultimately, that’s what’s going to help your allergies long term. Sure, the drugs, they’re very good at blocking histamine. And when you get hyper focused on blocking histamine, you’ll get the benefits from that. But you also get some of the detractors of doing that. And so some of the things that the drugs can create or side effects is, you know, they can be overly drying. And so if you’re a contact where, for example, which I am, you would be, you know, you’re going to have some additional irritation, if you use some of the anti histamine drugs long term. Some of the first generation antihistamines, like diaper and hydrazine, otherwise known as Benadryl, they’re starting to have reports come out that link it back to memory problems, and in some cases, Alzheimer’s. Well, now we’re gathering data on that. And they’re starting to build cases for that. But, you know, drugs are not without their side effects. And so yes, in some cases, they work great. But they also have side effects, the natural remedies that we use in our products, again, help give you the benefit without some of the harmful side effects,

Adam Chauncey 12:59
right, which that’s actually somewhat terrifying. The amount of people that come in, they use Benadryl on a daily basis, you know, for either seasonal allergies, or just sleep right. Just kind of harkens back to sometimes the route that we have used to develop a lot of these things which most pharmaceuticals are rooted in a natural naturopathic approach. Sometimes running all the red lights to get through town is not quite as effective as stopping at each one and letting the systems do its job a little more effectively. So I definitely agree there. I wonder what are some of the nutrients that you typically recommend? I mean, obviously, there’s a bunch of your products of which I’ve used and had great success with, but also use all kinds of other stuff. What are some individual nutrients that you really like to either pair with the standard pharmaceutical approach, or that you might even like better?

Dr. Jason DuBois 13:56
So there are some really great ingredients that I’ve come across in my research that we do use in our formulas, but I would love to just kind of break these down. Sure, kind of get your thoughts on them as well. But I’ll just tell you, like, for example, like herbs that I love is going to be things like Andrew graphis, which we use quercetin, which you and I only talked about butterbur is kind of like not well known. And I kind of love that that you know, when I talk to people about hey, what do you recommend for allergies? And I say butterbur. They just kind of give me a look like I’ve never heard of that one.

Adam Chauncey 14:32
No, that’s an interesting one. If you want to unpack it real quick, because I’ve recommended it for years. Even back when I worked in the mall and a little supplement shop, we had it. It was one of the util one of the things we used as a migraine kind of helper. Yeah. I like to know a little bit more of that because I wasn’t not aware until I was doing a little bit of research here a while back for a couple of products including yours that butterbur was so potent for allergy

Dr. Jason DuBois 14:57
help. Yeah, and I was the same in the same boat, you know, I only thought of it as like a migraine benefit type remedy, because that’s kind of how it historically came out first. But when I started doing some research, there’s a unique company out of Germany, that creates an a unique extract version of butterbur that we use in our remedy. And the way they extracted they extract it into a ratio of Pettersen and ISO Pettersen. But what I love about that ingredient is they actually went ahead and did some head to head clinical trials, testing it against some of the most powerful drugs in the marketplace today. So they did a head to head clinical trial against Zyrtec and another one against Allegra and and these are well done clinical trials. Sure, you know, just to kind of back up like as a pharmacist, my standards don’t change, like when I’m evaluating literature, whether it be for a new drug, or a natural remedy or natural ingredient. Sure. I keep it to the same litmus, the same standards. And what I loved about these clinical trials, and what really convinced me to use butterbur was that they were well done like randomized, double blind, placebo controlled trials. But in both instances of those trials, they found that the butterbur was as effective as the as the drugs that they were testing against. Were seasonal allergies. Wow. And so that’s, that’s one are about I love and I stand by 100%.

Adam Chauncey 16:24
It’s very impressive. So it’s, I’ve gotten some funny looks before I’ve recommended butterbur. So now it’s even I’ll probably get more because I want to be recommending that a lot more just by hearing that because I was not aware of all the clinical trials on it. That’s fantastic news, both for allergy sufferers and, and migraine sufferers, too. It’s really cool. I want to know, so on that topic, when you’re talking about the drastic amount of research done on things like butter bar, some of these, excuse me, some of these other nutraceuticals, do a lot of them have a lot more of these clinical trials is head to head comparisons or that you can speak on.

Dr. Jason DuBois 17:01
So this is where the natural industry is it, you have to be kind of a scientist, a researcher like you have to kind of put your investigative cap on sometimes because the literature isn’t as clear cut as you might find in the pharmaceutical world, it doesn’t mean that the information isn’t there, you just have to really kind of dig deeper than you normally would. Right. In the example of the butterbur the clinical trials were very good well published, you can Google it right now. And you could research and read the very same trials that I’ve read. Other instances, you kind of have to assimilate the information, it’s there, you have to look at different types of information to kind of have to understand how the herb is actually working in the body. So but we’re seeing it build, like I’m seeing better data come out on natural remedies. You and I were talking about some other natural remedies that the data is coming out with more and more. Since the advent of COVID. We’re actually seeing data come out with certain herbs that have been beneficial in that vein. So we are seeing better published clinical data. The other area that I’m seeing herb is being accepted. And again, I’ve been a practicing pharmacist for over 20 years, is I’ve seen natural remedies being used in hospitalized patients. And 10 years ago, I would never see that now we’re seeing like intravenous vitamin C, we’re seeing NAC being utilized high doses of zinc, for obvious reasons. So is it where we want it to be? No, not quite yet? Sure. But while we’ve come a long way, in a short period of time, it kind

Adam Chauncey 18:41
of seems like not that history repeats itself not to not to quote the old saying that’s used quite a bit. But you know, you look back when homeopathy and all these other things were becoming more popular in the 1800s. And then it kind of got shunned away the advent of the pharmaceutical industry in the 1930s and 40s. We’re kind of starting to get back to that, which is pretty cool for me to see, because a lot of these have been used in many of the countries like the I believe referring to the Myers cocktail with the vitamin C, the steroids in the vitamin B’s. And you know, it’s it, you would hope it would be kind of second nature to think well, let’s search for a natural approach first. And unfortunately, she’s not the case, but it’s great to notice that it’s garnering such attention, especially with COVID coming out a lot of remedies that a lot of naturopathic doctors and things have used and unfortunately were were attacked for but are now kind of getting a little bit of their do justice, with new studies and things coming out. And speaking on things like that, that are being researched more and more heavily things that you mentioned earlier. I know you mentioned quesiton which is extremely popular right now is and it’s something that I’ve used for years I actually had RSV when I was a baby I was told that I would have asthma forever. And obviously was on like the breathing treatments and stuff like that up until I was a young man and also had a very hard time playing sports and stuff like that. As I got older, got more active got more into the natural products industry and healthy living in general, I discovered things like question, just a natural Allergy Relief stuff, because that was always what hit me hardest every year I would have on allergy onset asthma or however you describe it. And question was one of the first things I found. And I noticed that if I stayed on quesiton, almost a year round number one didn’t really have any side effects that I can ever tell. But number two, it seemed to help drastically increase my exercise capacity, my breathing seemed to be better, and things of that nature, I could pet animals without breaking out. So why don’t you speak on that for a minute, because I know most of the folks listening probably are either taking it or want to take it.

Dr. Jason DuBois 20:55
Yeah, we use quercetin. The data is very strong in a lot of areas. And it’s been used for a long time for seasonal allergies. And it also has some other benefits as it relates to we talked about this in Guyana for activity properties to it. But I like quercetin for me. You know, in my research, I found that quercetin comes in a variety of different salts that have different absorption capacities. So you have quercetin anhydrous, which is the most basic version, you have the dihydrate. You also have ISO quercetin. And then I think one of the other ones, was the enzyme modified Yes. Like

Adam Chauncey 21:40
the liposomal episome worms. Yeah.

Dr. Jason DuBois 21:43
And we I, you know, we use the dihydrate. So it’s like, much better bioavailability than just anhydrous. Ice, of course, the tin is very close, it’s actually a little bit better. Okay, it’s a lot more expensive. And then liposomal. I think I don’t know how well, but I know it’s well up there

Adam Chauncey 22:03
way up there, right and even knew that you’re speaking on this encounter for just for folks that don’t know, is a way to help forces ink into the sales. Right. Yeah. So and I think we were talking about this earlier, it’s so hard to even take with the liposomal form, you do have to take a fairly good amount, I think it is around 1000 2000 milligrams, you have two to four pills, which plenty people don’t mind doing. But I think it’s the consistency is much more the benefit with with question whether it be the hydrate or the more expensive forms, just being consistent with it and taking it which is where I always noticed the difference no matter what form I was taking. Yeah. Would you agree?

Dr. Jason DuBois 22:38
Yeah, no, totally. Okay. Yeah. And, you know, with course, it didn’t for me, like when I developed remedies, it’s not that course it didn’t doesn’t work or, or if you use enough of it, you you’ll get the benefit. But I like to develop remedies that are more compliance driven. So like, I try to create remedies that are high potency, where we can get the maximum amount of active ingredient in one or two capsules. So my formulation standards a little bit different than maybe some other practitioners where we’re using high high potency, Andrew graphis, higher, higher standardization ratios of like rosemary, Nick acid, quercetin, things of that nature, so that I can minimize the number of capsules that a patient or customer has to take. And always like it’s always resonated with me as a pharmacist that if anytime we ask anyone to take something more than once a day, the compliance goes down. Like it just drops like a rock. And if you ask someone to take something like three times a day, well, forget it. Yeah, forget, it’s not gonna happen. So sure. This is why, you know, we find in the pharmaceutical world that antibiotics, a lot of people fail the antibiotic regimen, because you’re asking them to take it for seven to 14 days. That’s a long time. I mean, I don’t know if I could take anything, even if I loved it. I don’t think I could take it 14 days consecutively. And some of the antibiotic regimens you know, they’re asking you to take up to three, four times a day, right? And you know, like, that’s just really difficult.

Adam Chauncey 24:15
Yeah, you forget or something happens. Yeah, you lose. Yeah.

Dr. Jason DuBois 24:19
So I like combining ingredients. So in our formulas, like whether it be hybrid car hybrid AR or new version, Eb, I like to use ingredients that kind of touch on different parts of our immune system. Sure. In high potency formulations. Gotcha.

Adam Chauncey 24:34
So maybe you touched on it. You’ve mentioned infographics now a couple of times, it’s one that I wasn’t super familiar with, until here recently. And I like a little bit more about that the rosemary, Nick acid, which is something I think is really cool to talk on, maybe unpack some of those other ingredients that you find not just in your products, but we see them everywhere that people aren’t going to be as familiar with as say zinc or quesiton. Right. Things like that. Right.

Dr. Jason DuBois 24:57
Well, you know, we started talking about About rubber, which has some great clinicals on Corsten, as well known, the one I am most passionate about. And it’s really the ingredient that convinced me convicted me to go into this industry is Andrew graphis. And again, I was studying undergraduates back in early 2000. And the data around Intergraph is just absolutely outstanding. Some of the best clinical trials ever published when it comes to cold and flu is with the use of this herb. And there’s actually another study, much larger study done with under graphics, and it’s anti inflammatory benefits, as it relates to GI issues like Crohn’s and things of that nature. But I love infographics because it has great inflammatory properties to it. It just works really fast. And it’s it’s an herb that has been highly standardized. So from the clinical trials, we know that there’s a key component called andrographolide, which is what we use on our remedy that is responsible for the therapeutic benefits of that herb. So I tried to look for herbs that where we can isolate specific properties, because you get maximal benefit, and minimal side effects. And we use it in all of our remedies. Well, we use it in hybrid car and hybrid. Gotcha. It’s come on strong. Yeah, in the last

Adam Chauncey 26:27
year or two? Well, you kind of define it there. But you might mention to, I think it’s really cool to delineate the difference in the standardized herbs and just concentrate which the both have their utility, of course. But when it comes to typically effecting change faster and sooner. Am I correct in saying that you would most often want more of a standardized extract for the particular nutrients. Would you agree? I’m

Dr. Jason DuBois 26:52
a huge proponent of standardization when when the date is there. Sure. So great example, this is an herb called Panax. Ginseng, well known herb, it’s been around for like 5000 years, right? So that herb, especially in the root, if you if you really were to dissect it down, there’s about 30 Plus known properties. So there’s 30 ways you can isolate the properties out of that plant. What I like to tell people is like not all those properties are helpful, right? And we know like if we use high doses of Panax ginseng and use the whole route, a lot of times you’ll get some of the unwanted benefits, right. So people that use Panax ginseng and the whole root form tend to get sometimes they get anxious or jitteriness, or they get maybe some heart pop like heart palpitations. Yeah, the benefits of standardization is you’re really honing in on the key components of the ERP. So you’re getting the benefits. And sterilisation usually is expressed as a percent, or should be expressed as a percent. So for example, going back to Andrew graphics, there are nine properties in the leaf. Andrew graphics andrographolide is one of those nine, we standardize our range our product to 50%. And to graph a line, so for every milligram of Andrographis not to get too technical here. Sure, but for every milligram of Andrographis, the plant we 50% of that is dedicated to Intergraph live, and the reason is because that’s where the benefit is.

Adam Chauncey 28:21
Gotcha. Okay, yeah. So that makes a lot of sense. It’s good information to have. So speaking on the standardization, you mentioned rosemary, attic acid is that is from rosemary, correct rule,

Dr. Jason DuBois 28:32
you can get that from rosemary, plant rosmarinic acid, great for creating healthy histamine levels. Quercetin has some benefits in that as to Sure. The other one that I get asked about a lot and it’s not used often is apigenin. Yeah. I came across a Serb probably five six years ago. There’s a lot of great data on on its uses. But the information I came across with apigenin was it it helps bounce out T helper cells okay? Or create a balance a healthy balance between th one and th two and

Adam Chauncey 29:08
you might find that real quick the T helper cells and the difference is that like the US sales and things of that nature, so T

Dr. Jason DuBois 29:15
T cells or T helper cells are part of your immune response. They’re part of the adaptive part of our immune immunity and they have a lot of different beneficial effects. So th one T helper cells can delineate into th one and th two and each one of them has very specific roles th one will increase if you are fighting an infection or you have high inflammation, whereas th two has tends to increase when you have issues with asthma as well as allergies. In those scenarios, people who have asthma and allergies tend to have a higher predisposition to more th two bodies making more th two to combat whatever you’re fighting on an allergy person Active, okay, what apigenin does really well is it balances it out and kind of creates it brings it back modulates it brings it back into a more of a healthy balance. So I always like to recommend apigenin for people that are struggling with seasonal allergies. Using the alone, it’s not going to be enough. Sure, again, all these ingredients kind of help each other out, right? To create the effect that you want an agenda and a lot of people say, Well, what’s it from? Where does it come from? Is like moon dust. What is this? It’s an extract from the celery plant or the celery leaf or the parsley leaf.

Adam Chauncey 30:37
It’s like a flavonoid.

Dr. Jason DuBois 30:38
Right believe it Yeah, exactly. Okay,

Adam Chauncey 30:40
that’s actually a good thing to mention right now is we were talking about we were having a training a couple of days ago with one of our companies. And I always love it when trainers bring this up, because I love for the staff to hear it. That the fact that the nutrition of the food nowadays is just nothing compared to what it was even 30 or 40 years ago, because the soil is so depleted where we did a podcast here a while back with Jordan Rubin from Ancient Nutrition, the man who started Garden of Life back in the 90s. And he’s big in regenerative farming and agriculture and everything now, and a little bit of a little bit of a rabbit trail, but it’s prudent because you go from six feet of topsoil to six inches and under 100 years, it’s pretty, it’s pretty drastic, the amount of new nutrients that are just depleted out of the soil and thus, the plant, right, so it’s, you know, celery juice, and all that kind of stuff is fantastic. I think a lot of people can utilize that quite well. But it’s expensive. And it’s it’s very low in the concentrations, like you were saying the standardization of things like this, it’s very difficult to just eat tons of celery or juice tons of it or eat tons of rosemary and things of this or with courses and eat tons and tons of apples. You know, it’s just not quite applicable, especially in an acute situation when you’re having a flare up. Like, you know, if I get too close to a cat, for instance, you know, I’m going to need something quick that’s going to affect change, and in a few hours, and would you say speaking on that. It’s a good segue to you know, a lot of people are gonna say listen to this, well, I want to do the natural approach but doesn’t really work that fast because my Allegra will kick in and 12 hours or things of that nature, or misery kicks in within 24 hours. Or of course, Benadryl was fairly rapid onset, of course, your you might pass out driving. So is it useful to go ahead and maybe say, okay, you can do those but the nutraceutical approach might work quite as fast especially in combination with with these, when you use these nutrients and combinations that something you would feel comfortable saying, you know,

Dr. Jason DuBois 32:48
that’s the goal. Whenever I tried to develop remedies, I tried to develop remedies that would replace a drug alternative. And so we have like a hybrid car is one of those remedies. Hybrid AR for allergies is is another remedy that works really fast. Again, I’m layering different ingredients to get a faster effect. Andrew Gravis certainly helps with that fast acting effect. butterbur is another ingredient we use that promotes the long acting benefit. So one of the things that’s unique to our formula is you get benefit within 20 minutes. But you can get relief or benefit all day with just a capsule. Not all remedies can really offer that they some remedies just kind of focus on one ingredient. Right and like not to pick on quercetin. But of course the 10 is good, but it’s just one ingredient that works on one pathway, right? I like to create remedies that work on multiple pathways. Going back to the drugs, drugs do work. But again, the trade off is going to be the side effects. Yeah, long term adverse effects can sometimes outweigh the short term benefit. Sure.

Adam Chauncey 34:05
Sure. So that actually leads me to another nutrient that I really wanted to speak on. I didn’t mention earlier, and I think it’s one that ever I would say 95% of everybody listening is taken in at one time or another and that’s elderberry, which I know you’re using one of your formulations. And I’ve used on and off for years. I’ve actually used it over Tamiflu many times, and I’ve gotten the flu and quite frankly, I think it works better. Not just because the research actually kind of shows that in the head to head battles they’ve done over the past few years. I think the first one was in 2002. The research study they did on that with sambucus I believe it was but it’s been a fantastic modality for so many people. We have tons of local people that make it themselves is even better. They add stuff like honey to local honey and stuff like that, which is obviously great. But what are your thoughts on elderberry and is it something that you would recommend for everybody? had to take or maybe, you know, I don’t necessarily like to recommend a year round for use, because I think it is so potent that it will work acutely, but you might not want to use it because it’s one of these stronger nutrients. So maybe instead of using it year round, you switch back and forth to some of these other options.

Dr. Jason DuBois 35:17
You know, elderberry has been around for a long, long time. And for the longest time, we would often associate elderberry with using it when you have the flu. If you look at the data, the data is pretty darn good. There’s actually some very good published clinical trial showing elderberry when it comes to helping with the influenza virus or seasonal flu. So very beneficial herbs can be used in a lot of different formulations. Very pleasant tasting. All that being said, I would agree with you. It’s something that you can use short term. You can also use it through the winter season. Sure to bridge that gap. And we saw it play a pivotal role in you know, this last two years when we came the question I got asked most often when it comes to like elderberry is if it caused or created cytokine storm it right. And man, I had to dig pretty deep on this one. Sure. And, and so I’ll just speak from my opinion as a clinical pharmacist and as a as a formulator of natural products. When I researched elderberry, I did not find a strong correlation, or very, very weak correlation of elderberry causing cytokine storm. Gotcha. Would I recommend it and people that are hospitalized? No, you know, if you have COVID And you’re hospitalized, elderberry is not going to be appropriate for you at that point. And when asked directly, like can it create cytokine storm, I do not believe it can.

Adam Chauncey 36:51
Cool. And that’s speaking from a not doctor of pharmaceuticals, I would say I didn’t see it either. And I’m a huge nerd. I definitely nerd out on this stuff on a daily basis. And I dug as well for quite a few months trying to find it because we got pressed with that a lot. And you know, it concerned us because we sell a lot of elderberry, right. And I also could not find it, I still had practitioners, even in the midst of that, like full gray medical doctors local that were both partner with us and not partner with us still recommending it. So it’s great to hear that, you know, from the from the clinical side that really is just really hard to find that correlational data and and

Dr. Jason DuBois 37:33
yeah, just to add to that, you know, it does create cytokine release, right? So if you want that, like that’s not a bad thing, a lot of people think, Oh, we don’t want any cytokines. And those cytokines are important in the immune response in getting over an illness. But cytokine storm is something totally different. It’s 100x, magnified release of cytokines, that results in lung inflammation. And that’s kind of what a lot of people struggled with when they had COVID The early forms of COVID. So just just to kind of echo off of what you were saying is elderberry does great cytokines but not cytokine. Storm,

Adam Chauncey 38:12
right. It’s still a definitely useful definitely use Yeah, yeah. Excellent.

Dr. Jason DuBois 38:16
Good to have in your in your, in your in your home and your medicines. Yeah, for sure. Figure out a different word for medicines, just because a medicine cabinet or natural cabinet natural cabinet,

Adam Chauncey 38:29
or is my wife likes to call it my drug pantry because it takes up an entire like half of our half of our area above our sink. You know, we talked a couple of times about the research side and you know, the pharmaceutical side versus initiative side. I wonder just your personal feelings just coming from your professional standpoint. On the pharmaceutical industry. Right now it’s a little off topic, but it is still fairly relevant, I believe, because you’re like you’re saying more and more pharmacists are getting to where they’re recommending this more more doctors are getting to where they’re recommending this stuff more. And, you know, I believe that I’ve seen a number one where I think one of two countries, I think it’s US and Canada, the only two countries that allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise direct to consumer. Right. And that’s only come about in the last I think 40 years or so. So what are your opinions just overall on the pharmaceutical industry? And do you think we’re moving in the right direction now that we’re offering more natural options?

Dr. Jason DuBois 39:27
I do think the natural remedies have gotten better over the last decade. I think the stuff that if we wind back the clock 20 years, I don’t. The things I see today that are in your store today weren’t even a blip on the radar 20 years ago. So I see that and that is come about because we have companies that are producing higher quality raw materials and they’re actually do doing research on those raw materials and publishing it. So data that is available to me, you and I now, to make decisions on whether or not to revenue works was not available 20 years ago, right. So I see that happening. And then the other thing I’ll just kind of say is like, anytime you see the FDA getting involved, anytime you see the FDA commenting on a natural remedy,

Adam Chauncey 40:26
like an acetylcysteine,

Dr. Jason DuBois 40:27
like cysteine, or CBD, or just anything, just know that there’s two sides to every story. And one of the thing is, for the FDA to be concerned about something that means that it could be legitimately because there is a concern, like in the sense of like, it could cause harm, but also be thinking that there’s something to it, there’s something therapeutic, right involved in this, right. And so if you’re being ignored, it just means like, if your ingredient is being ignored, it means that like, you’re not ruffling any feathers. Sure, yeah. So to speak, you know, but when you have like big government agencies getting involved and saying, Hey, we need to take a closer look at this. Sure, then that means something that, that something, something good is happening here,

Adam Chauncey 41:16
kind of like what happened with reddish rice in the 90s. Right. When that was really a lot of our listeners might be old enough to remember that. Yeah, Reggie strides. Right. But that almost I know at that time, add our own or normally does the podcast here. It he was afraid was gonna push the natural products industry out. It was so drastically Yeah, like almost like drug bust level type of stuff. And now we start seeing we’re seeing a lot more of that not quite as high level but with like NAC being investigated and, and over the counter question being questioned and things of that nature, especially with the recent influx of interest in that it’s good to see, in my opinion, that a lot more pharmacists, and doctors are coming to the aid of the natural products industry and saying, Well, we we need them to use these modalities, you know, it’s not always prudent to just put somebody on a prescription, a lot of times we want to try this or the patient wants to try this first, you know, rather than just have another pharmaceutical thrown at them.

Dr. Jason DuBois 42:16
Right? Right. And it shouldn’t be it should be that way. Not all health conditions can be mitigated with that taking care of with with a natural remedy. But a lot of times, including natural remedies, can go a long way, right to getting to that point where you need a pharmaceutical. So I’m a big proponent of healthy living, nutrition church, we don’t do enough of here in the US for natural products.

Adam Chauncey 42:44
Nice. Well, you know, we’ve covered a lot of ground here. I really like was conversations gone. Just you know, in a few closing topics here, what is a couple things? I guess I’ll present you number one. What is your opinion? Well, not your opinion, what do you use, like yourself? Or what do you put your family on? I know, obviously, you have your own company and but what are some things maybe even that y’all don’t produce as far as you know, modulating the immune system, natural products in general, that you like for you and your family. How did you keep in your medicine drawer? You know?

Dr. Jason DuBois 43:20
Yeah, what do you like, if you came to my house? There’s quite a few in addition to what I have, but I like some of the core minerals and vitamins, you know, and these are things that are our hip now, you know, and everyone’s using you know, so I use vitamin D, I use zinc. I use NAC I use some of the mushrooms the and then a good multivitamin. You know,

Adam Chauncey 43:49
I mean, multivitamins work. They they do so don’t worry don’t hear too much from the other side of the aisle. You know, you won’t get too many bites you gotta pee it out. Yeah.

Dr. Jason DuBois 44:00
But you know, so that’s what’s in my my medicine cabinet. In addition to my own remedies, recently added I think, I don’t know if I said NAC but I’ve got some NAC now to so and then every now and then I’ll you know we’ve got some CBD formulations as well. So that’s that’s what what I carry what do you what do you carry over there and your your house that’s

Adam Chauncey 44:25
actually so all of the above, I actually I take huge amounts of magnesium and electrolytes. That’s actually what I’m sipping on here and there throughout this conversation, to keep me hydrated to keep all these questions flowing. But things of that nature. I’m obviously big into athleticism and increasing endurance and stuff like that. So I love creating actually, it’s probably my favorite supplement is creatine just not only for the beneficial effects of you know, just muscle building, right, but it’s actually been studied right now for neurological function. And like as an antidepressant and different things like that. It’s like it’s really cool. It also is immune modulating, you know, speaking on that topic I’m creating is huge. So I absolutely love that and then all the other stuff the CBD, we always keep some of that in our drawer actually keep oregano, no spray there because knock on wood ever since I’ve been using a no spray form of oregano that isn’t too much to kill the microbiome in your nose. But it’s enough to deter sinus infections. In my opinion. I haven’t had one since I’ve been using it three years. And I used to be one of these people that had a sinus infection every year. Yeah, I think it was talking to you. And we started I actually take my mouth every night. That’s one thing that I always keep a $5 roll of tape to keep me from mouth breathing. Because I believe Edie is the one who actually coined this phrase, but you should eat through your you should breathe through your mouth as often as you eat through your nose. So I always try to nose breathe and breathe better than I ever have. So it doesn’t. For me, it doesn’t even have to be like the strongest, most expensive nutraceutical right, like CBD is one of those is pretty expensive for a lot of folks, but especially when you’re using it for sleep and stuff like that. I use MathType. And it works too. But I still use CBD from time to time, of course, you know. So all that same stuff you use in a few other modalities. It just goes to show the broad spectrum of utility we have with the natural products industry and how how great they work both in concert with the pharmaceuticals. And on their own, you know, things pretty cool. This is a great conversation. Did you have anything else you wanted to add finishing up here? Because I think I’ve my brain is rattling right now with this information because I was prepared for a lot of this. But a lot of this you kind of spurred on me this information I wasn’t I wasn’t aware of.

Dr. Jason DuBois 46:41
We had a good dialogue that kind of took us all over the place. But just to echo the way we started the conversation all ended the same way as I would say the best thing that you can do for your health is to find a good health food store. Try to find a great nutritionist and get a pharmacist on your team. That’s a very powerful combination to add. And I can underestimate any any of those. So all those can help you they’re all available. You just got to go out there and find them. They’re there.

Adam Chauncey 47:16
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. We hope to have you back soon.

Dr. Jason DuBois 47:20
Yeah, thank you, Adam. It’s been great.