Addressing Concerns about Supplements with Evan DeMarco

Trevor:             Hi there I’m Dr. Trevor Cates. Welcome to the Spa Dr. Podcast. On today’s podcast we’re talking about supplements. The supplement industry is rapidly growing today and while it’s great to see the growth and recognition of the natural products industry with this growth has come some concerns around safety, quality and purity of supplements. So, I ask today’s guest to come on to discuss what to look for in supplements. My guest is Even DeMarco. Evan is a published author, public speaker and frequent guest on various international TV platforms. He also works directly with many of the top published doctors in the US on building functional medicine platforms that combine the use of high quality supplements with strategic and holistic approaches to treating disease.

Trevor:             As an innovator, his greatest joy is developing products and platforms that have a true and lasting impact on people’s lives. Evan has a history of developing sports and lifestyle nutrition products as well as creating the alpha and omega ingredient technology that’s now used in over 25% of the global prenatal vitamins. In today’s interview, we discuss what to look for in supplements to ensure quality and efficacy. We discussed two of the most popular supplements trending right now fish oil and CBD. So, please enjoy this interview with Evan DeMarco.

Trevor:             Evan, it’s great to have you on my podcast.

Evan:                Thanks for having me.

Trevor:             So, we’re talking about supplements today. There’s so many different options out there. You can find them at the grocery store, at the health food store, online, at your neighbor’s house, all over the place. So, people have a lot to choose from. So, I want to talk about, how people choose the right ones. Where do we start with all of this?

Evan:                Well, do you choose supplements at your neighbor’s house? Is that where you usually go?

Trevor:             Well, with all the multilevel marketing companies, neighbors are oftentimes saying, “Hey, I’ve got this great new business. You want to hear about it?” So, how do we know what are the right supplements?

Evan:                That is a great question and actually it’s probably the question that I get asked the most. The more that I’ve answered this, the more I think it really brings up a very interesting conversation about what is the nature of supplements. As we look back at history, I mean supplements are really designed to fill these gaps in what were considered to be a healthy wholefood diet. There are so many people out there especially kind of in our community that still think that the wholefood diet is all you need. The problem is that our food and our environment are really not what they used to be in whether it’s the pesticides or the environmental toxins or the chemicals, all of these have really changed the nature of how our bodies can coexist in a natural environment.

Evan:                Because of these with pesticides and chemicals and environmental toxins, supplements are now not just things to fill gaps like these healthy wholefood diets, but I think really essential to a healthy lifestyle. In fact, maybe we just call them essentials instead of supplements.

Evan:                So, then the real question is, how do you choose the right one? Because of the complex nature of what we’re dealing with now with our environment, with the food sources, with everything that’s going on, and now the complex nature of the way that supplements are made, it’s not just, “Well, here’s yours your vitamin D or here’s your vitamin C.” You have these supplements that have 25 ingredients in them. It really becomes almost essential to work with a physician, a doctor, a naturopathic doctor, someone who really has embraced the understanding of supplements and what they can do for you and how they interact holistically with everything else that’s going on in your life maybe the medications you’re taking, the diet that you’re on.

Evan:                So, as much as it’s great to get advice from that person who just signed up for their new business as a multilevel marketer with their supplements, oftentimes these are people who don’t have even close to the understanding of what those supplements can do or should do and really how they need to interact with each individual person. I think that’s … there’s eight billion people on the planet and we all have unique microbiomes and bodies and environments that are as unique as our fingerprints. So, what is going to work for one person is not necessarily going to work for the next person. So, it really becomes this approach to looking at lab work, looking at really an entire patient history and saying, “This is what you need today to embrace a healthy active lifestyle and then we’re going to reevaluate that every six months or a year.” Again, what works for you today in a supplement might not work six months from now.

Trevor:             Interesting. I’m glad you mentioned that, because I just went in to automatically saying, “What are we looking for in a supplement or how do we find the right ones?” Rather than saying … So, thank you for saying, “Why do we even need them in the first place and do we need them?” So, I think that with our lifestyle … like you said, with our lifestyle today, for the most part we can’t get everything we need from the foods we eat with the depleted soils and the toxins like you mentioned. It’s depleting our bodies in a way that we live in a different world than we used to. We can’t just get everything from our foods.

Trevor:             So, yeah, supplements can provide a lot of benefits to that. People generally know that now. Multivitamin and mineral supplements are so popular right now for a reason and doctors are recommending them for a reason. My concern is like we’re talking about is that there are so many companies making these now that it’s hard to find the ones that are really going to make a difference and how to do it safely. Then I also notice that I have patients that come in to see me and they have bags or boxes or baskets of supplements and they’re taking all of these. I think it’s important for us to figure out what does the body really need and let’s just take those.

Trevor:             Eat a really healthy diet, live a healthy lifestyle and just supplement for what exactly you need. So, I love that you talk about the lab testing and figuring out what it is that we’re deficient in, what our body is going to particularly need, the clinical nutrition that’s going to support disease processes rather than just trying to take everything because you heard an ad or a friend mentioned that or you read an article and you think, “Oh it’s going to cure everything.” So, yeah, I appreciate some of the things you bring up because there’s just a lot to think about.

Evan:                There is. I’m originally from Colorado and this is at the time when the John Elway and the Terrell Davis Super Bowl took place. I remember there was a defensive player Bill Romanowski who had some issues later on legally with some banned substances, but he was famous for carrying around this suitcase full of supplements. I think he said at one point that he’s taking 400 or 500 supplements a day. I remember thinking about that and as I went through my education and understanding of that, all I can think about was that guy had really expensive pee, because eventually what’s just going to happen is your body is going to excrete this. Then as we come to understand the nature of supplements more, what happens is that you get advice whether that’s online or from a neighbor or from the friend who just started his multilevel marketing business.

Evan:                A couple of different things is going to happen. Best case scenario is you take something and hey it helps you. Worst case scenario is you take something without understanding why you’re taking it or if it’s something you really need and it could inevitably do some damage. Most likely what happens in the middle is you’re just spending a lot of money to buy things that you don’t need. So, part of it again is really what are you taking, why are you taking it and how does that really impact holistically your entire health and wellness.

Evan:                So, that’s not going to happen by going to a vitamin shop and standing in front of that whole bit well of supplements and saying, “I need these type of things.” or listening to the clerk at the vitamin shop saying, “Well, I take this so you should take this.” Really it becomes a true scientific and collaborative effort with your doctor to say, “Here’s what your labs look like and here’s why we’re going to take this. This is why you should be taking it.” Then we’re going to retest in six months and say things got better or they didn’t and then you form a game plan then.

Trevor:             Yeah, absolutely. I think that there are some basics that people can take on their own pretty safely. Then once you start adding though a lot of individual supplements with individual nutrient that’s when it starts to … that’s when I think it’s necessary to work with someone naturopathic doctor, functional medicine doctor so you’re making sure that you’re not getting too much of anything because it is possible to get too much of certain vitamins and minerals.

Trevor:             So, you make sure that you’re not getting too much or that you’re not creating imbalances because of taking one nutrient. Like if you’re taking zinc without copper or if you’re just taking calcium and you’re not getting the other minerals for your bones and vitamins that I think it’s important to talk to someone about how to balance that. I think a multivitamin mineral supplement are really high quality one is a safe thing for people to take. Things like probiotics and fish oil and there are certain things I think that the basics that people can take safely without necessarily having to go see their doctor about that, I still think it’s the best way to go but I think some of it is safe, wouldn’t you say?

Evan:                Yeah, absolutely. I don’t think we’re not trying to scare people because you’re right. A good multivitamin, probiotic, vitamin D … everyone says we’re all deficient in vitamin D. Vitamin C, I mean not that scurvy runs rampant anymore but take a vitamin C if you want. It’s water soluble. It’s not going to hurt you. So, there’s some basics that really are not going to have anything but a potential positive impact when you take them. Again, as you look at some of these more complex formulas, things can start to get a little out of whack. I think back to high school chemistry, if you just start throwing everything into the mix eventually you’re just going to have this explosion. I might’ve done that once or twice in a chemistry lab. So, our bodies are unique in that respect.

Evan:                We can’t just start dumping a bunch of stuff in there and hope that it’s going to figure it all out. Even though our bodies are amazing machines, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and work with them from a full scientific understanding to put only the best stuff in. You don’t go out and buy a Ferrari and put the worst gas in it. If we treat our bodies much as the same way, if we view it as this high-performance machine and we put only the best fuel in it, we’re going to get the best out of it.

Trevor:             Right. So, let’s talk about quality because I think that’s so important. You worked with a lot of different supplement companies. You’ve probably seen a variety of quality control measures. So, what are some things that people can be looking for, asking for to make sure that they’re getting high quality supplements?

Evan:                Great question and that’s probably one of the second most popular questions I get. There’s the old adage that you get what you pay for. So, oftentimes as much as it’s not fun to say is cost usually equals quality. There’s a reason for that. The cost to source quality raw materials, the cost to manufacture in facilities that have all the necessary licensing from whether that’s the FDA or GMP or NSF or TGA, all of these governing bodies that audit these facilities to say, “Yes you’re capable of producing something that will sign off on.” So, as you incrementally add some of these costs to the whole base of manufacturing, what you come up with is a product that’s going to cost a little bit more than something that’s just thrown together by three guys in a garage.

Evan:                What we really should be focusing on is first of all understanding the cost-benefit of something that’s high quality versus low quality. Then the second is really understanding the sourcing of some of that stuff and what that means. We spoke of fish oil earlier and I do a lot with fish oil. So, we can have a real quick conversation about what that really means looking at low quality versus high quality.

Evan:                Most fish oil is sourced from anchovies and sardines from South America. That those fish are caught and then they’re sent to a factory and they’re pressed into this oil. That oil is called 1812 or crude oil. That 1812 is indicative of the EPA and DHA concentrations. So, about 30% omegas. Now the rest of that 70% is things like omega 6 which is very pro-inflammatory in today’s Western diet. Cholesterol, saturated fat, all the bad fats that we don’t necessarily like. Now there are certain companies that will take that entire oil, that 30% good stuff, that 70% bad stuff, put it in a pill and put it on the shelf. That’s the stuff that you’re going to go to Costco and find where you see like a three-year supply of fish oil for like $4.

Evan:                So, that’s not necessarily a good thing to take because you’ve got all of that pro-inflammatory omega 6 which is not good in today’s Western diet. You’ve got all those bad fats. So, you’re not really getting the full benefit of that supplement. Well, there are companies out there that will take all of that bad fat out but there’s a cost associated with that. So, the higher concentration that you get, the more pure something becomes, the more it’s going to cost. So, you can really look at a bunch of different supplements and understand how they’re manufactured or try to understand, but really the best thing to do again is work with your doctor or your naturopathic doctor because most of the time they’re going to be selling the very best supplements.

Evan:                They’re going to be the ones doing the homework on what’s high quality, where is it sourced, what’s it made from, is it covered by all of the national governing bodies that are going to ensure that it’s manufactured properly. So, again, you can go to the store and you can do all of this yourself and there’s nothing wrong with that, but understand that when you work with someone who’s done all of that work and who’s committed to delivering the very best products to you, you’re going to get better results.

Trevor:             Yeah, absolutely. I think that you made a really good point about it. It does cost money to make these high-quality supplements at the same time I know that there are supplements that are very expensive that are still not high quality. So, that’s not the only thing, right?

Evan:                No.

Trevor:             So, what are some of the governmental regulations and organizations that will help … that help regulate this industry in the United States?

Evan:                Well, there’s a ton. So, it really depends on where you’re looking. So, you’ve got FDA license facilities that manufacture. You’ve got certain TGA which means you can sell it in Australia and that’s one of those interesting ones because their import regulations on supplements are so strict. So, if you see something that’s got TGA on it, chances are it’s going to be a high-quality supplement. NSF, USP, these are all things that you can see on the back of a label that are going to be indications that a manufacturing facility has done the due diligence to outline protocols that make sure that they’re compliant with good manufacturing practices. That’s another one, GMP cGMP. So, all of these logos that you’ll see on the back of things are really just small indications that the company has taken the time to do the work.

Evan:                Fish oil was a perfect example. Friend of the Sea is one. These are organizations that ensure sustainability and that’s a big one. You want to make sure if you’re going to take a fish oil that it’s going to be around in a year or two years or 10 years. So, sustainability is a big one. Marine Stewardship Council, I mean literally we could talk for hours about all the governing bodies. I think typically though when you turn a bottle over and you see just any number of those, whether it’s one or two or three, those are just those small indications that the company is doing everything that they can to ensure a high-quality supplement. There are stuff that you can as you said you can buy that’s really expensive and that’s just all marketing and it’s not good for you. There are stuff that might be a little bit more middle of the road cost. That’s still going to be a fantastic product.

Evan:                One thing that you can always do too is if there’s a product you like, go on with their company’s website. See what protocols they have in place. If it’s just like, “Hey, here’s our product and here’s the cost.” If they’re not talking about the quality in the website, if they’re not talking about their manufacturing process, it’s a safe bet that that’s not something that they’re not proud of and I would always move on to a place that you can track that sustainability, that accountability, that manufacturing process.

Trevor:             Yeah, good point certainly. There are certain things with supplements that you can look at on the labels. Also, I put on if on the website they’re not transparent about what’s in their products, I would say that’s a warning sign, right? You want them to have transparency about their ingredients and how much of things are in there rather than just a blend that they’re not willing to disclose how much of all the different ingredients are in there, right? That would be-

Evan:                Absolutely, absolutely. That transparency is a key to … We want transparency as consumers. We want to know what we’re putting in our body. Now interestingly enough, the way that dietary supplements work is that there’s some provisions that allows companies to protect things. Typically what you’ll find those are proprietary blends. So, you’ll see this is more typical in like bodybuilding supplements, but you’ll see it as a proprietary blend that’s got 5 g of something and then it list all of the ingredients, but you don’t know exactly how much of each one you’re getting. Although those can be necessary to protect a company’s intellectual property, oftentimes you might not know exactly what you’re getting.

Evan:                So, you might just get a whole bunch of fillers and then like three really important ingredients in small quantities or you could be getting something that there’s way too much of and especially in bodybuilding supplements those can be things like 1, 3-dimethylene which is not good for you or caffeine or some of those stimulants. So, you take them, you go to the gym and you’re not feeling great as a result of it. I think even there was a product a couple of years ago that was pulled off the shelf and it was the number one selling pre-workout that actually went out of business simply because a couple of military guys were taking it and 25-year-old soldiers have heart attacks and died.

Evan:                So, when I look at supplements, I want to know exactly what’s in it. I want to know the dosing. I want to know everything. While I understand the need to protect intellectual property, personally, I also understand that I want to know exactly what’s going in my body.

Trevor:             Yeah. It drives me crazy as a doctor trying to figure out if somebody brings in a supplement and they say they love it and it just says proprietary blend. It drives me crazy because then I can’t figure out how much of those things they’re taking. So, I try not to use a lot of those. Again, like you said though, I understand that sometimes they were trying to protect their intellectual property. What about other things with supplement and manufacturing? You mentioned binders and fillers. How much of the other is really necessary? Can we avoid those? What are the things that we want to avoid in those?

Evan:                That’s a great question. A lot of the times when we manufacture things like soft gels, fillers are important. They’re important that your soft gel doesn’t leak. They’re important so that you get adequate suspension of specific materials. You’re going to see things like beeswax or MCT or things that most of the time are fairly benign, but you see those because of a specific manufacturing process. When it comes to powder, you’re going to see things that anti-caking agents that make sure that as a powdered supplement it doesn’t solidify and become hard as a rock. Most of those are fairly benign. When it comes to tablets, again each manufacturing process has its own kind of unique attributes that are essential for high quality manufacturing.

Evan:                I think the general rule of thumb is if you turn the package over and you look at the back and you can’t pronounce something, stay away from it. That usually is the rule of thumb. There are plenty of things that are like 12 syllable words and you’re like, “I don’t know what that is.” If it’s a mineral or if it’s part of the supplement, find out what it is and find out if there’s any issues you might have with it. If it’s just in the other ingredients portion and that’s how you can tell the difference is you got everything in your supplements fact panel and then the other ingredients are the things that are going to be your fillers and your binders. If it’s something you can’t pronounce and it just looks funky, stay away from it.

Trevor:             Okay. Good point. I know that like you said to make these products available to us in a bottle that will sit on the shelf for a certain period of time and is easy to take and that sort of thing, there is a certain amount of that, that needs to be a process or binders, filler, those sorts of things, but we want make sure that we’re using the ones that our body can handle not that are just going to create more harm than good. So, thanks for covering that. So, I want to spend some time talking about CBD. CBD is something that is getting a lot of attention right now in the supplement industry. Even you hear about it at different conferences and things. So, let’s talk about first of all, what is it and then the question I get asked is, does it make you high?

Evan:                That’s a question I get asked a lot. It’s funny because I’m working a lot with CBD right now. This has become … one of the key ingredients that I’m seeing a lot of and I’ve been working along with and so trying to understand it. Coming from a high school sports background, there was this you don’t touch this stuff. CBD, marijuana, all the names that go along with it, it was like, “You touch that stuff, you’re not going to play sports. You’re going to end up in jail.” We had a really good fear-based campaign around drugs especially in the sports community.

Evan:                So, then all of a sudden CBD starts to get this little bit of traction in the functional medicine community, in the supplement community. I’m like, “Wow that’s just medical marijuana or what not.” Then, I started to study it. I’m like, “Okay, there’s something here.” What I really wanted to understand was the history behind it, why was it so taboo. Why is it at the place that it’s at now and why are we having all of these regulatory conversations about it?

Evan:                Interestingly enough, you look back and it’s like even as far as 5,000 years ago in China and India, cannabis was one of the major medicinal products of the time for anxiety, for pain. So, it’s got this long history of really being a profound medical component. It was kind of an excuse to search and detain and deport Mexican immigrants. There was this hearing I believe in the early ’30s and it was claimed that marijuana could cause men of color to act violently and solicit sex from white women. So, it was this really, really interesting history about why this stuff was outlawed. It was really more of a way to control an immigrant population in Texas. So, at that point the marijuana tax act of 1937 was passed. It was basically made it … it made it illegal to sell or to use it.

Evan:                Now that tax act was eventually found unconstitutional, but it was later replaced by the controlled substances act in the 1970s. At that point, cannabis was given a schedule one designation, the most dangerous drug out there. So, it was put in the same level as like cocaine and opium and in some of these major, major drugs. So, prior to that, prior to the 1930s and then subsequently the ’70s, we have this 5,000-year history of cannabis being this really important medical product and most Americans actually have teenagers that had CBD in it. There’s actually a point in American history where it was illegal not to grow hemp because of all of the benefits that it had. That was making road for all of these … the list of things that hemp can do goes on and on. So, it’s only recently that science has discovered what we’ve taken a step back and looked at the legal component and then started to evaluate what CBD is and what benefit it can have.

Evan:                So, that kind of segues into something called the endocannabinoid system. The ECS as I like to call it because endocannabinoid is just a really long word and most of the time I fumble it. It’s just a biological system that we’re really starting to just understand what it does, but it has some really far-reaching implications in human health and wellness. So, CBD is cannabidiol. In the United States as we’re starting to develop some of these dietary supplements, CBD is one of the 108 phytocannabinoids that is sourced from hemp. CBD and THC are the two most prevalent. THC is the psychoactive thing that gets you high, gives you the munchies, has all of the stigma that goes along with marijuana. CBD does not have that. So, there’s a lot of medicinal components to CBD. Once you remove that THC, we’re really starting to see some of the inherent benefits of that.

Evan:                Now the problem is that CBD has become this catchall for every ailment [inaudible 00:26:24]. It’s cancer, glaucoma, pain, anxiety, PTSD. There are a number of reasons for this that has become this catchall. That’s really because of the ECS and its impact on the body and all of the systems that the ECS actually deals with.

Evan:                The other reason for that is because of the lack of consistency with CBD or medical marijuana if you want to lump them together. If you go into a medical marijuana dispensary, you’re going to see all of these different strains and all of these different [inaudible 00:27:01] systems. There’s some many different ways to take it. So, there’s no real consistency from a scientific perspective for us to say, “This is what it does. We have a patient population. We have these clinical studies.” So, we’re now just really starting to standardize CBD and understand it can do. So, it’s very exciting from all of the different potential that we’re seeing. It’s a fun product. So, we’ve gone from me being completely scared to death of it in high school to now I’m incredibly excited to see what we can do. There’s a lot of potential especially for stress and anxiety. Opioid addiction is a fantastic one that we’re seeing some positive impacts with.

Trevor:             Right. Certainly. So, to clarify, to answer my question, you said it but to reiterate. No, you shouldn’t be getting high from CBD, because the idea is that the THC is not a part of the CBD as long as it is properly made. Correct?

Evan:                Correct.

Trevor:             Yeah.

Evan:                Right now as of February 8, 2018, there is one way to get legal CBD if you were to purchase that online and it were to cross state lines. Now if you’re living in a state where medical marijuana is legal, you can go into any shop and purchase it, no issues. There’s a Department of Agriculture act that allows for the legal import of cannabidiol oil with THC below 0.03%. So, almost negligible. The only way to do that is through CO2 extraction to remove the THC. Now one of the other things too to stay legally compliant and ensure that companies are compliant with this legal safe harbor is that oftentimes you won’t see CBD on a label. You’ll see phytocannabinoids. So, that’s something that I always recommend is if you’re interested in the CBD, look at the label. It might not say CBD on it but if it says phytocannabinoids you know that it’s going to have it in there.

Trevor:             People are seeing a lot of benefits from taking CBD supplements. The nice thing is you’re not going to get the downside of the effects of medical marijuana. Maybe some people think of it as an upside, but I mean you can still function throughout the day with taking CBD, but it … Let’s talk about more about some of the things that it is good for, how it works in the body and what specifically the research and people’s experiences are showing that … shows the best benefit for.

Evan:                So, the best benefit right now is really you’re looking at the CB1 and the CB2 receptors which are predominantly neurological. So, this endocannabinoid system really seems to have its greatest impact in brain health. With that is systemic of all things like anxiety, depression, sleep. One of the real big ones is actually opioid addiction. So, what we’re finding is that supplementing CBD with things like Vicodin or Percocet or tramadol allows a patient to slowly wean themselves off of some of those really nasty opioids which has really become an epidemic.

Evan:                There’s some pharmaceutical products that use really high dosages of CBD to treat childhood epilepsy. Interestingly enough, there was a study, a really decent clinical study that came out recently that talked about CBD attacking breast cancer cells which was fantastic. Obviously that research really needs to be extrapolated and continued, but as we see it, the endocannabinoid system seems to have a real impact on cancer cells throughout the body.

Evan:                This particular breast cancer study was one where they show that the CBD at concentrations I believe of 20 mg a day really attacked breast cancer cells and left healthy cells along. So, again, it’s one of those things where there’s so much that goes on, but what we ultimately know is the endocannabinoid system has an impact predominantly in the brain, in the neck and move into total body inflammation. So, we’re working at controlling inflammation and really dealing with a lot of stuff upstairs.

Trevor:             So, it shows a lot of potential benefit for decreasing inflammation and anything related to the central nervous system, the brain. So, now does that include sleep? Does it help us sleep?

Evan:                It does. As a self-diagnosed insomniac I’ve used some CBD recently as I’ve started to … One of the things I feel confident or I feel strongly about is I won’t recommend a supplement or I won’t really get into manufacturing and marketing supplement unless I’ve tried it myself. So, of course, I’m like, “All right, let’s try this.” Again, as someone who sleeps four hours a night, I think I was like seven hours later I woke up and “Whoa, okay.” Didn’t feel groggy, wasn’t fuzzy so it’s one of those things that it’s … I’ve had a lot of people say it really helps dial down the white noise especially in your brain. That’s the anxiety component of it and really helps people sleep. That’s a huge one.

Evan:                I think it was a study that said 40% of Americans roughly that have problems with sleep so when we look at that and we look at all of the anxiety that people have in this really fast pace of life and everything that’s going on, to be able to take a product that’s natural and healthy and really help address some of those issues, that could be one of its greatest attributes.

Trevor:             Thank you for pointing out that it didn’t make you feel groggy or still too sleepy, because of course that would be something that people might think as “Does it just make you feel drugged? Does it make you feel so tired that you can’t function the next day?” So, thank you for clarifying that. That’s good to know. Then, what about combining with omega-3. There seems like there’s some good information on to that too. That seems to be a good combination.

Evan:                It is. Yeah, that’s actually one of the project that I’ve been working on. There’s a branded ingredient that I’ve created Phyto-3 which is a combination of omegas and CBD. Interestingly enough, what we’re finding there’s been some clinical studies come out in the last couple of years that focus on the fact that omega has also impact the endocannabinoid system. So, you have this really holistic approach to inflammation resolution.

Evan:                For years, I remember my grandmother when I was like five years old coming at me with the spoonful of cod liver oil. I remember the traumatic experiences that that was and running to the bathroom to vomit everywhere, because it just the rancid … it’s just that horrible fish. I don’t think at the time my grandmother knew what an omega-3 was, but she knew that this cod liver oil was great for. Coming over from Italy and then spending all of that time and kind of that old country like fish and omegas had always been a healthy part of everyone’s existence. So, now we fast forward 80 years and we recognize, “Oh wow, they didn’t know why they were taking it but they knew that it worked.”

Evan:                Subsequently it was impacting the endocannabinoid system. It was dealing with total body inflammation, inflammation resolution. So, now when we combine these two products, we really have this synergistic idea of what we can do in tackling multiple systems. It’s inflammation resolution. It’s brain health. It’s eye health. It’s a lot of the things that we start to worry about as we get a little bit older. So, I’m really excited to see what the response has been to this product and how patients and how people have just been like … the response has been absolutely incredible.

Trevor:             Oh that’s great.

Evan:                So, we can go with that.

Trevor:             I’m excited to hear if there’s any research that comes out about skin and how CBDs and omega-3. So, we certainly know omega-3s are great for the skin but that combination I’m curious to see if that would be particularly helpful for inflammatory skin conditions like eczema or acne, a number of inflammatory skin conditions.

Evan:                It would seem that that’s the case. As we look at inflammations kind of the root causes of some of those, if we’re attacking inflammation from multiple pathways through the CBD, through the phytocannabinoids and the endocannabinoid system and then through omegas, we can just simply do the math and granted we always want to look at clinicals and we always want to do the research especially a scientist to make sure that we’re providing the best data available, but we can also sometimes take a step back and say logically, “This makes a lot of sense.” I think that when we look at the skin and we look at especially some of the environmental toxins that we’re dealing with, phytoaging is a big one. This is where environmental toxicity mold, chemicals are all really giving us this horrible look to our skin. That’s really an inflammatory response. So, products like this have the potential to really reduce the visible signs of aging.

Trevor:             Yeah, absolutely. Well Evan, I want to thank you for all the work that you’re doing. I know that we’ve come a long way. Things like having CBD that has THC and up to some of the work that you’re doing to help with getting rid of the THC so it’s not only legally compliant but it’s still going to have that therapeutic benefit, so I appreciated the work you’re doing on that. Also, things like making fish oil taste better so it doesn’t taste like the cod liver oil that your grandmother used to give you. So, people like you are helping make a difference in the supplement industry to make it safer, more palatable and actually easier for us practitioners to find supplements that are going to help our patients. So, thank you for the work that you do.

Evan:                My pleasure. I’ll leave with a quick story as I think we all have a passion. Unfortunately, my grandfather during the depression started a couple of businesses, was a painter and had a gas station. Constantly surrounded by lead. So, as he got older, he started to suffer the effects of lead poisoning which led to cognitive decline, which led to Alzheimer’s and dementia and then compounded that with Parkinson’s disease. So, as I grew up with my grandfather who was really my hero, I got to see not only what happened to him as these diseases kind of [inaudible 00:37:39] but then the negative impacts of all of the pharmaceutical products that he was given. He’d take one prescription and then he’d have to take another prescription to deal with the side effects of that first one. It was almost like Bill Romanowski with his suitcase full of pills.

Evan:                In the winter of his life, it got to the point where he just wasn’t there mentally and physically. So, I always really had this passion to look at things in a different way. I think that supplements or if we’re going to call them essentials now because I like that, have the real potential if used properly and made properly to really take an alternative and very proactive look at treating disease and treating some of the things that I watch my grandfather go through. So, I’m excited in my role as someone who manufactures this stuff and creates this stuff to really hopefully help you guys the doctors look at very functional alternative ways to treat things so that people won’t have to go through what my grandfather went through.

Trevor:             Yeah. Absolutely. Well, thank you for sharing that story and certainly supplements help, but addressing the root cause. While pharmaceutical drugs have their place, they certainly seem to be overused and they need to come with at a cost. So, it’s good to have things that alternatives that will help support the body. So, thanks again Evan for coming on and sharing information today. Appreciate the interview.

Evan:                Thanks for having me. It was a great time.

Trevor:             I hope you enjoyed this interview today with Evan DeMarco. To learn more about Evan, you can go to the spadr.com. Go to the podcast page with his interview and you’ll find the information there. While you’re there, I invite you to join the Spa Dr. community. You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. You don’t miss any of our upcoming shows. If you haven’t done so already, I highly recommend you get your customized skin report at theskinquiz.com. It’s free, takes just a few moments and you’ll find out what information your skin might be trying to tell you about your health and what you can do about it. Just go to theskinquiz.com. Also, I invite you to join me on social media, on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and join the conversation. I’ll see you next time on The Spa Dr. Podcast.