Herbal Antibiotics Biofilms

Robby Besner PSc.D.

Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of “The Healthy Hotline”. And today I have a dear friend, someone I’ve known for many years. We met on had a mutual mentor, Dr. Bob Marshall at Premier Research Laboratories many years ago. And when I saw Matt Storey on the page and his command of information and his ability to communicate his experiences to people, he had me at hello, Matt Storey is an amazing guy who’s got an incredible background in nutrition and natural healing, and he’s here today to give you some of his helpful tips and hints, Matt, welcome to “The Healthy Hotline”.

Matt Storey

Thank you, Robby. Thank you so much for even thinking of me for this opportunity and the chance to speak with folks and, you know, share collectively our wisdom. And hopefully, you know, as we were talking about earlier, if you can impact just one life, I mean, in a year’s time, that’s fantastic, right. But you know, I think we’re both on that goal of impacting one life a day, at least, right. So you know, I came out of school and joined the US Army and kind of went on my own journey with that. Having a a lot of fun there, you know, doing foreign language and all the, all the fun stuff, jumping out of planes and helicopters and everything. 

And when I left the army, I kind of had one of those awakening moments, I guess, where I knew that I needed to live differently. I needed to feel differently than I did. And I kind of went on my own healing journey, started reading, you know, whatever books that I could. And all of the natural healing world was really foreign to me at that point. I don’t think I’d ever done anything kind of in that realm of natural healing up until that point in my life. 

But you know, I just dove in headfirst and, you know, did a seven day water fast and then, you know, started reading about herbal medicine, reading about, you know, fasting, cleansing, all of this kind of stuff. And it really was that initial spark to transform my own mindset and my own kind of healing journey and discovering that, you know, there was more to the world of health than, you know, pills or prescriptions or what have you. And that kind of pushed me in this direction of natural health. And so from the time of leaving the army, I, you know, joined on with a nutrition company and kind of worked my way through the ranks, so to speak. 

And then I found myself when I moved to Texas, I found myself at Dr. Bob Marshall’s doorstep and literally answered an ad in the paper that was, you know, Virginia, so you know, the listeners probably won’t get this one as much, but, you know, the advertisement caught my eye because it said, upscale nutrition companies seeking, blah, blah, blah. And it just, I was like, so weird upscale, like, what does that even mean with nutrition? But then Virginia answered the phone who’s in South Africa and he’s like, thank you for calling Premier you know, and, you know, I was like, wow, they are upscale, you know. So when interviewed and had no idea what I was getting into with Dr. Bob, anyone that knows him would understand that statement without even clarifying. But you know, that began a journey of working with Dr. Marshall for 12 years of my life, you know, and supporting him on while he was delivering lectures and seminars and things. 

And over that time absorbing, you know, as much as I could from him, and, you know, he really was a key mentor in my life, both on the health front, but also, you know, as business and so forth. And then kind of evolved into myself delivering the seminars and delivering the courses and working with healthcare practitioners, and, you know, I think, you know, in the 12 year span probably, you know, thousands of practitioners, you know, kind of around the world even. And it was just amazing, I mean, honestly, I learned as much every time I taught a seminar, as I taught, you know, from the practitioners that were present both in the healing arts, but also just in humanity and human interaction. And so just an incredible time. And after I moved on from Premier, I was kind of worked with another company that was very much in a similar space, a little bit of a different focus in their, in their products, but, you know, same space, but it wasn’t quite my home. And I decided to move on. 

And then I get this call kind of out of the blue from the group over at Charlotte’s Web. And they found me on LinkedIn and they were looking for people that had experience with dietary supplements, but especially with practitioners, with the clinical approach of dietary supplements. And you know, I hung up the phone and I was like, who are these people, you know, and then looked it up. And I was like, oh, wow, that’s the same people that won that documentary I saw on CNN with Sanjay Gupta, with the little girl with epilepsy. And you know, it was kind of that red pill, blue pill moment, which I’ve had multiple times in my life, but of, you know, I had a company over here, offered me a position to run their North American business, which you’re probably familiar with, you know, standard process gets their products from a Australian company called MediHerb. 

And that was, you know, one side. And then the other side over here was this crazy, you know, Charlotte’s Web company was very young at that point and just dove in headfirst with them. And didn’t think I’d be working in the cannabis field, you know, working with hemp and so forth. And it just opened my eyes incredibly to the powers of that whole world of cannabis and the endocannabinoid system and what we can do there. And we’ll talk about that some, but, you know, also the connection to the people to the patients. 

Spent five years with Charlotte’s Web and have moved on from them, but we actually stay in close contact and I’ve done some consulting with them. And then now I’ve currently kind of landed at a company that produces and makes products for people based out of Nashville, a company called Newsatchee With your background on nutrition, and now going into this whole endocannabinoid system, understanding how that works in the body and what it does for people with chronic ailments, that really is really where I want to deeply dive into this whole, the whole line piece today. 

So let’s unpack that a little bit. Let’s start sort of at the top about another concept of using herbs as antibiotics, as opposed to the pharmaceutical synthetic type of approach You know, I think it’s good to take it from the micro kind of level and then, you know, back it out macro and, you know, that is really the approach that a lot of people take, right, you know, I have X thing and what is the compound that kills that, and then I can get on with my life, right. 

And that mindset is detrimental to so many people who view the body in that mechanic kind of way, you know, if I just changed a spark plug, then everything’s back to normal and the body just doesn’t work that way, right. But I think, you know, we need to start with an understanding that traditional herbal remedies, you know, have been around for millennia and all the drugs that we do, not all, but you know, the large majority of drugs that are produced and then synthesized chemically, start with plants right. 

And compounds in these plants and so forth, so, you know, there’s this kind of, and I, and I actually had this misconception before I really started my own healing journey was that, you know, if it was medicine, it would be made into a prescription pill or something, right. So how could this herbal supplement be that effective right? You know so I totally people when people have that mindset because I did at one point in my life as well, but, you know, certainly with Premier Research Labs, I saw that to be absolutely not the case and the true healing power of herbs and botanicals and nutraceuticals. But when we’re talking about antibiotic components or equivalents to prescription antibiotics and, you know, anyone dealing with Lyme disease, you know, whether they kind of got a bite and were fortunate enough to maybe catch that really soon, and they did a short round of antibiotics, you know, and that was effective for them or whether they’ve kind of in a more chronic phase and have had long periods of antibiotics with that, I mean, you know, when I was kind of preparing for us to talk, I was just, you know, brushing up on like recent literature on Lymes and just making sure, you know, it’s up to date on any kind of new innovations or stuff like that. And I saw a recent study that was basically showing that, you know, in the group that they had, you know, six months on an antibiotic cycle was still ineffective at, you know, at quelling the Lymes and keeping it at bay. And of course it’s such a difficult thing because even if the antibiotics do work on the front end, you know, the corkscrew nature of the spiral sheets and all of that can linger in the body and there’s all kinds of defense mechanisms to have them be dormant and so forth that we’ll talk about. 

But suffice to say that, you know, antibiotics for a lot of people is not the answer or not the complete answer, I should say for, you know, some herbal remedies that actually do have good research that, you know, show effectiveness against this kind of bacteria and can help the body, you know, along with this challenge. And I think, you know, any of these supplements, you know, I’m not here, you’re not here to represent a brand or pitch a product or any of that stuff, so any of this that we talk about, obviously is kind of, if you haven’t tried any of these approaches in your own approach to Lymes, I would suggest, you know, Googling and finding some supplements perhaps that have these compounds and either the information is out there, but, you know, for a lot of people that’s challenging because they’ve never heard of some of these things. 

And there’s just kind of weird, like, you know, how could that be effect, I mean, if that was effective against Lymes everyone would know you know, and unfortunately that’s just not the way things work in our world, but, you know, there are some common components people may have heard of Black Walnut, lots of products that either contain that, or you can get, you know, separate products for that, you know, monolaurin is a component from coconut oil. It’s, let’s say a concentrated form of lauric acid. So you might be saying, well, I might take coconut oil. I put it in my smoothie, or I use it for cooking, or I eat it in some other ways, so I’m getting that one, so I’m good, but it doesn’t really work that way. 

You would need to take a more concentrated form of that. And so, you know, monolaurin is a way in a supplement form to get kind of higher amounts of that compound, which does have, you know, shown ability to be an antibacterial as well as antifungal and other pathogens, but as a key component. And I think if you look at natural approaches to Lymes, that comes up quite a bit in people’s programs and protocols, so not necessarily anything new, but a lot of people, like I said, I’ve seen information where people talk about it, and then they say, well, it’s in coconut oil. And then people make that mental leap and go on, I’m eating coconut oil, so I’m good there. 

Another herb that I actually really like that I discovered kind of in the PRL days was cat’s claw, is a south American herbal remedy, very easy to find and tinctures and capsules and things like that, but again, wellresearched, and I think should be considered as part of any sort of program, but there are two specifically that have, you know, kind of recent research comparing their effectiveness against traditional antibiotics that are prescribed and used for Lyme’s disease. And in that context, when you take something and you go, okay, generally, you know, let’s say Black Walnut, right? 

Generally anti biotic, generally, you know, antiparasitic antifungal, that kind of thing, which is why you see that herb in a lot of detox formulations and colon cleansing things and so forth, antiparasitic formulas, but two specifically Japanese knotweed and quinine, you know, from Ghana is the one that they looked at that have an equal effectiveness in these studies to the antibiotics that are used and prescribed for Lyme’s disease. 

So the knotweed one is interesting. You know, we at Premier Research Labs, we actually used the knotweed derivative for our Resveratrol product. And I think Resveratrol is out there enough that, you know, more people have heard of it. A lot of people think of it as like the red wine, you know, kind of nutrient if you will, but you know, it can come from multiple sources and Resveratrol is an interesting one because there’s so much research out there on it from as an antioxidant and then use in all kinds of other things. But this one was specifically looking at its antimicrobial properties with Lymes which is an interesting one because I, you know, I actually didn’t think of that. You know, that it would really, I know Resveratrol is good. A lot of people will take it from an antiaging antioxidant standpoint, but I hadn’t really heard about it in context to Lyme’s as well as the Ghanian quinine. 

It has an alkaloid called crypto lupine. That is, you know, same thing like a compound that has this intense antimicrobial activity. But you know, until I was really looking into it, it’s like that bottle, I’ve never taken Ghanian quinine before, and the only, you know, quinine supplement that even references in my head is like a gin and tonic or something, you know, it’s kind of like, oh, wow, okay. I didn’t even know you could get that in supplement form much less, like, what the heck would it be useful for? So you know, I would recommend to the listeners and to go check that out, go look at the research herself, you know. Is it bulletproof, is it ironclad? 

Nothing is, right? Everything needs to be researched more and in different parameters and with larger control groups and blah, blah, blah. But in terms of the starting point of compounds, have they’ve at least compared the effectiveness to the conventional approach is important. And with that, I think it’s a good transition kind of point because there is something to be said for in vivo effectiveness versus in vitro and what you see with a lot of herbal compounds and things like that is, you know, a look at it kind of in vitro and you see this activity and it looks amazing and then people take it and they don’t quite get that effect, right. And the reason for that is that there’s just too many factors at play when you isolate these compounds and you put it in a Petri dish, and then it acts on a bacteria in a particular way, cool. But that’s not how life works. 

I guess one analogy you could make as it’s kind of like, it’s pretty easy to shoot a target when it’s a, you know, a target, a paper target on a wall. But when that thing starts moving around, it becomes much more difficult to determine how good of a shot you are, right. And so for some of these herbal constituents, it’s like, yeah, like in a Petri dish, they’re amazing. But then in the body, maybe it doesn’t work as effectively. And there’s a lot of factors for that, right. And one of the big ones, I guess, that scientists talk about starting to get a little bit more on people’s tongues of understanding. But again one that I really had never even heard of until I met Dr. Bob Marshall was biofilms.

Robby Besner PSc.D.

You know, before we jumped there, I just wanted to jump recap a couple of things that you’ve mentioned, because first off quinine has been used for ages as like an antimalarial remedy. And so I know you and I gin and tonic, DA, bitters, the English have always used that, but from a medicinal point of view, just prophylactically, this is an amazing, simple way to just naturally medicate your body and essentially, affect your internal chemistry to just keep the balance of the bacteria and the parasites in your microbiome. The other thing I wanted to mention was about cat’s claw. And this brought to me brought to my attention from a super, one of my goto doctors who actually is in Texas, similar to kind of were a little more Southern than where you got, where you guys are now. 

And the discussion I was having with him was, well, what do you think of all these like blood labs and Western blots and, you know, the hygienics and you know, way back when we were doing them actively, they were a thousand, a pop, they, you know, depending on when you caught the actual production in, you know, or the immune response against the invader would very much determine whether you’re getting false positives, false negatives, like it just was all over the board. And this guy said to me, you know, what I’m doing is something completely different. I’m saying, okay, you come to me clinically symptomatic. And I have a pretty good understanding and thinking that you may have Lymes and or the coinfections like bartonella or the babesia and so forth. And there are various strains of them. 

So how about if I introduce something like a homeopathic or a natural remedy, like you’re mentioning like cat’s claw and I give you I dose you with two drops on the first day, two tablets second, day four tablets, third or fourth day six tablets, and see how your body responds, if you have that flulike reaction, then we know we don’t need to do all these other blood testing things, we already know you’re symptomatic, you’re clinically showing us symptoms. And the one natural remedy is already showing us that your body is responding appropriately. 

So we can take a pretty good proactive approach to whatever the game plan is for going after building up your immune system, opening up your detox pathways, and then actually going after the . And I just thought that was so beautiful because you know, the other thing too, was how you differentiated with the way that your body responds to natural remedies that are extractions from either plants or flowers, like the homeopathics and all that, as opposed to the pharmaceuticals that lack all those energetics. And so even like you talked about what happens in a Petri dish, as opposed to the living organism, there’s also this whole energetic disparity. And that’s why always seem to shift towards the natural approach, the bringing nature in, because it not only works well with your body energetics, but it also allows the, your body to respond appropriately. And it catches the bugs by surprise, because they’re very smart and they respond very actively to antibiotics and to the nonnatural changes in your chemistry, but when you start hitting them with natural remedies, it’s a whole different ball game. So go on, you’re doing so well for us. What’s the next area that you want to cover? 

Matt Storey

Well, I mean, that’s a perfect kind of dovetail into the biofilms really, because what are biofilms, right? I mean, at the, at the simplest level, it’s a collection of microorganisms kind of all pitching in to keep their tribe alive, right. And they do that through a different methodology and creating, you know, protective barriers. You know, I’ve heard it likened to you know, like a snot layer, you know, but even in the scientific journals, you know, referred to as a slime layer, but basically, you know, a collection of microorganisms that may or may not be the same thing. 

You know it could be a fungal microorganisms with bacterial, with other kind of all living together with the instinct and their genetics that we all have as humans to survive. And so they are, they are basically creating their little home, you know, in defense of your immune system and using, you know, particles to have, you know, quorum, sensing, communicate amongst each other, you know, and this is all welldocumented in the scientific journals about how these organisms are able to create these biofilms and protect themselves from the immune response, but also communicate with each other and share information about the immune response, which is, you know, really, you know, if you just take, if you take the mechanical view of nature and you just take this one molecule and you expect it to have all the activity against these things, it’s very limited. 

And these things can learn about that one molecule quite readily and share information with each other and figure out how to beat it, but in natural compounds, the extractions of whole plants that have all of these compounds that science may say, well, that’s not important when, you know, that’s an ancillary compound with it, but the real guy is, you know this what’s missing from that approach is again the nature of things and the true energy of the whole plant and all of the compounds that come with it, that have different impacts on different things in the body. And coinfections, especially with Lyme’s, it’s such a big deal, right? 

I mean, you have, yes, you have this one down, you’re pulling Lyme’s, but you have all kinds of different coinfections, which is why the, you know, this broad approach, just this full spectrum of botanical compounds and, you know, and that can be done with prescription antibiotics, you know, I don’t want to demonize that either, right? Like that can be incredibly helpful for some people, you know, and I think, especially with our understanding of antibiotics today and the ability for people to, put beneficial bacteria and food to feed that beneficial bacteria, you know, back in, you know, I think it can, it doesn’t have to be the worst thing ever, right. 

But with that approach it’s kind of like the other compounds in these herbal components can be such a help for the coinfections, but with that, is that understanding that, Hey, just know that they are conspiring, you know, not necessarily against you, but for themselves, you know, and it’s a natural instinct of defense that these microorganisms have the same as if we were banded together in a tribe and we had some kind of outside threat, right. And so the along with that, there’s things that you can do, you know, prophylactically or preventatively to create a more optimal environment in your body to help with the prevention of the formation of biofilms, as well as things that you can do to help disrupt or break down these biofilms, should they already be formed and prevalent in the body. 

And there’s a lot of research out there around implants into your body, you know, foreign material put inside your body as a harbinger for, these organisms to set up camp and basically build little bacterial colonies and biofilms and make it significantly challenging for your immune system. And so, you know, this idea of my body’s riddled with infections, and it’s a continuous process of inflammation, and it continuing the higher, the inflammation goes to the easier it is for more infections to take place. And it’s this never ending cycle, right? That I think so many people with Lyme’s experience and it can feel overwhelming, just know that people that have a foreign matter and, you know, put into their body, you know, whatever that might be, right. 

A knee replacement distinct, or that now, you know, science is advancing with materials and coatings to help prevent that kind of thing from happening. But for so many years, I mean, it’s basically like when people were getting those things, it was like an open invitation for a similar kind of event going on in the body of perpetual infection and inflammation and so forth. So you know, what can you do today? I mean, what can you do right now to make your body, you know, less prone to biofilm formation? Kind of, you know, and this’ll be the theme for everything really, right. It’s like all that boring stuff that everyone says about, you know, living a cleaner life, exercising more, getting more sunshine, living positively in the moment, eating a diet that is not an inflammation promoting diet, you know, all that boring stuff that everyone says and no one wants to do that all is clearly something that you can do to make your body less prone to that, but from a more specific standpoint, you know, in the research, again, what you’ve seen is that compounds from green tea, you know, the EGCG, as well as the ellagic acid and other compounds that are in the green tea and the tannic acids, and so forth actually disrupt the ability of these several organisms, not all, but several organisms from creating biofilms. And you know, we all have, all of us are fighting one biofilm in particular that every day, and that’s dental plaque. 

Maybe if you’re trying to wrap your head around what the heck are biofilms, and what does that even look like or mean a dental plaque is a biofilm, right. So why do you do this activity of brushing your teeth? Hopefully you’re doing more than that, you know, using the Sonic toothbrushes or Waterpiks, or, you know, why are we doing all these things to prevent cavities and so forth, well, you’re actually disrupting the formation of biofilms when you do that. So we, it becomes even more important, right? So in your body, how can you do that? Right, we can’t get in there and use the Sonicare on my gut, at least not yet, right. But you know, either a part of, you know, your regimen is drinking green tea, but maybe that doesn’t jive for you. 

The caffeine is too much, like drinking tea, whatever, right now we live in an era now where you can get super potent, you know, dietary supplements or things that have these compounds from green tea, so you can still get that benefit without having to drink the tea, if that doesn’t jive for you or your lifestyle or something. But I think, you know, there’s umpteen thousand good reasons to take in these compounds from green tea outside of the context of our discussion today, so suffice to say, I think it’s one of those things that just at a baseline health program benefits just about everybody, right. 

I don’t necessarily believe that everything benefits everybody, you know, we’re just, we’re just too complex of organisms for that, but really good research on that. So if you’ve never heard of that, if you’ve kind of heard of green tea and like, it’s good in some ways, but you’re not totally sure why, Google EGCG and Lyme’s disease or EGCG and biofilms, and what you’ll see is some really cool research that does show the disruption of that. What else can you do? There’s also another compound called lactoferrin comes from dairy products typically, but you, it really prevalent in a supplement that I’ve enjoyed throughout the year is called colostrum, you know, very high in lactoferrin, colostrum, is one that, you know, now you can just get in powder form, I like to throw it into my coffee and blend it in sometimes, or just into a shake. 

But you know, lactoferrin, again, has been shown to disrupt the ability for these organisms to actually even create biofilms, which is big. Right, and so it’s another reason for something like that, to just be a basic part of your health program, right? With that in mind again, when I was looking into maybe innovations, let’s say, in the field of Lyme’s, right? One of the things I thought was pretty cool, and this is not a dietary supplement. This is really going to be in like a pharmaceutical type format, but was selenial esters basically derivative compounds from selenium and their ability to kill bacteria and disrupt biofilm formation. So how does that translate into my daily thing, right? Well, selenium as a basic mineral is incredibly important, right, what are deficiencies of selenium? What does that look like? Tired all the time, gaining weight, mental fog, you know, if your hair is falling out, all of these can be just basic signs of selenium deficiency.

Robby Besner PSc.D.

How many people out there can relate to every single thing that Matt is talking about now? And the thing about the biofilm is I always envisioned it, it’s sort of like the cloak or what makes the organisms sort of invisible to the immune system. And so if you can break down that biofilm, now we’re taking the cloaking effect away from them, your immune system. Once we start to build up that up a little bit more, then you have a fighting chance of actually using your natural resources to go after the, and create that balance back in to your microbiome. So your discussions and your approach is amazing. 

I remember Dr. Marshall, he worked with my daughter and he had him, he had her on a accelerated hydrochloric acid approach, beefing up the HCL in your normal digestive track as another method for a 30 day protocol to, again, dissipate some of the thickness, or at least some of the biofilms that were existing in your body, and then that would again, lower your, the cloaking effect and allow your immune system to really go after the organisms. So I love what you’re saying and the angle that you’re taking, because everything you’ve mentioned so far are readily available, they’re not really expensive. And these are things that people can put into action tomorrow in terms of getting themselves positioned properly for that health and wellness and getting back on track.

Matt Storey

A hundred percent, you know, and selenium is definitely one of those things that, you know, is amazing, but, you know, it can be too much of a good thing, you know, so be careful as far as dietary supplements that contain selenium and kind of understand how many micrograms you are taking in per day, especially if you’re getting selenium rich foods in your diet already. So maybe don’t eat shellfish or some of the other meats that are high in selenium, you know, Brazil nuts, that’s kind of a common one that people look at as being incredibly high in selenium, but, you know, spinach, oatmeal, other stuff. 

I mean you’re likely getting it in your diet, whether you’re vegan, vegetarian, or omnivore or whatever. So from a supplementary standpoint, I would urge caution, I guess, and just pay attention to the amount of micrograms to you’re taking in. But you know, additionally to that, it’s other kind of all around good guys for you. There’s research on curcuminoids and their impact on biofilm formation. I think at this point in the natural health community at large, probably everyone has been beaten over head with a tumeric stick enough that we’re like, I get it. 

I should be taking tumeric, right for, you know, again, umpteen million reasons that you should, but it’s just, so to me it’s not like this silver bullet compound or whatever. Yeah, I mean, I think everyone, if you tolerate it well, you know, from a gut level, it’s probably something good to be eating kind of on the regular, but if you, if you don’t like tumeric or you don’t like how it stains the food or whatever, like again, there nowadays we’re fortunate to have these nutraceuticals to have the curcuminoids and in combination with Piperine from black pepper and they can just make it so much more effective for getting into your body. So definitely something to look at another one in that category to me is quercetin. 

Quercetin again, likely if you’re eating a varied diet, you’re eating quercetin right now, you know, and that does have the ability to disrupt certain microorganisms from forming biofilms. So again, definitely eat it in your diet. I always encouraged that as the first approach. Quercetin is actually one of the things that I personally supplement extra with because, you know, again, we’ve advanced in nutritional science to the point that we can have this flavonoid and in a potent format, but it’s also bioavailable, you know, and again, if you can Google it, you can find it kind of all over the place. I would just encourage you to, you know, Google bioactive forms of quercetin in supplements. And you can find the right ones, I think for that. 

But you know, and that kind of gives the picture of, you know, yes, you have infections, right. But there’s more going on to how these infections are trying to just go about their day and live their own lives. And so it’s not as easy as just taking an antibiotic or just taking even a herbal extract to just it’s going to fix it like that. It’s like, no, if you’ve, if you’ve been, you know, living the kind of typical diet and, you know, again, I am not hating. I mean, when I was a young man in the army, I was smoking cigarettes and drinking Mountain Dew and eating Taco Bell, right. Just all the things, all the giant middle fingers to your body basically, right. 

You know, and so if you’ve been living that, and then you get hit with the Lyme’s thing, it’s like, just know that you’ve kind of been living a great environment for them to set up shop and build biofilms. And it makes things that much more difficult to deal with it, and as Robbie, as you were talking about earlier and the Herxheimer reactions and all that, I think a big thing that’s so tough with the, you know, taking antibiotics, taking a herbal antibiotics, or especially when you start taking these compounds to break down biofilms is you’re unleashing the garbage truck into the body, so it’s like if you’re not taking care of the elimination of that, you know, healthy bowel movements and regular elimination through your bodily processes and your lymphatic massage, sauna, all the things that you can do to just help elimination. Yeah, you’re gonna feel like crap, you know, I mean, it’s just going to happen cause you’re flooding the body with all of these toxic byproducts and compounds and just the, you know, you’re opening up the cesspool, you know, into your bloodstream. So I think it’s important for people to really remember that, but they’re like, yeah, if you hit it on the, if you find that silver bullet, likely it is going to make you feel like crap for a bit, as your body works through to try to eliminate that stuff. Another one that, you know, we never really had it at PRL, you know, I think Dr. Marshall had his own kind of thoughts there, but silver nanoparticles, you know, silver as a compound-

Robby Besner PSc.D.

Colloidal silver.

Matt Storey

Yeah, exactly.. Yeah colloidal silver is, you know, being used in drug technology, you know, silver nanoparticles to deliver drug therapies, but you know also you can commercially get colloidal silver products. And those are exceptionally effective at breaking down biofilms and starting to, and they’re also introduced to antimicrobial in nature, definitely something to take a look at and then probably something that maybe everyone’s heard of, but they’re not totally sure about is enzymatic cleansing using proteolytic enzymes, enzymes that break down proteins, right. 

Taking those between meals. So it’s not just about digesting the food that you ate, but it’s about scavenging the body and breaking down compounds and molecules and things that are toxic in nature. And so biofilms, you know, again, being formed of polysaccharide bonds is one of those proteins and all of that. By doing proteolytic enzyme cleansing, you’re bringing these like powerful scrubbers and compounds that can break down these things and start to clear them out and get them out of your body, but again, it’s with a caveat of like, you know, buckle up, cause you may or may not feel the greatest for a little bit when that starts to happen.

Robby Besner PSc.D.

I love that, and what we find in our own journey and helping many Lyme people to pull from the Lyme community is basically, they’re sort of understand the order that you do things in so that you kind of get a little game plan going. And if you have this vision that you really want to go after the underlying source or unpack, like you say, you know, unveil the unleash the organisms, and they’re all their, the biofilm is a toxin by changing the chemistry a little bit, that’s going to cause them to get active and they poop, and that’s a toxin. If you’re successful in whatever approach you take to lower the population or rebalance the population of these organisms in your body, that die off becomes a toxin. And so if you’re already toxic before you go into that event, of course, you’re going to feel horrible. 

And so we can avoid that whole Herx response by just understanding that probably a good plan would be to try to lower your toxic burden and lower your inflammation accordingly cause inflammation and toxicity seem to travel on the same highway together. And once you lower that, then we can start getting a little bit aggressive with sort of the things that you were talking about so that the impact on your body isn’t going to be as great, and you’ll be supporting your body with natural remedies. So that’s the good part, and also rebalancing that microbiome inside of you at the same time, so I think everything you said, these are amazing attributes. Like almost every single thing that you, every single thing that you mentioned has a place at the table and is easily attainable and not that expensive to go through and people can do them at home. And I just love your insight, so continuing on our journey, we have a few more minutes to talk today, so let’s keep going because there’s so many more things that pearls you want to offer to us. So I just don’t want to cut it at all short. So what’s next on your list today?

Matt Storey

Well, I mean, I think you brought up the, you know, the I word, right, inflammation. We’ve talked about some herbal components that will help with inflammation, I think at this point, you’d, everyone’s very aware that the curcuminoids from tumeric also are potent antiinflammatory compounds as well as the ones from green tea, as well as, I mean, most of the things we talked about are, you know, antioxidant in nature and antiinflammatory either primarily or secondarily, but you know, inflammation is such a huge thing, and tied in with that is controlling your cortisol levels or maintain them optimally. 

And again, when you talk about healthy cortisol and healthy adrenal response and maintaining healthy cortisol, that’s all the, it’s all that boring stuff that no one wants to hear, right? Like go to bed on the, on time, you know, wake up and go to bed at around the same times, you know, do everything you can to protect your sleep patterns. You know, and there’s a just a whole host of things that you could spend an hour just talking about optimal sleep and sleep patterns and how to do that. 

You know, and when people talk about cortisol, the two biggest things, right, are always sleep and stress management, right. And what do we do better than anyone else in the world in America? We stress out about everything and we put a bunch of stuff on our plates and we have to race against, you know, the world to work, work, work, work, and then we wonder why we’re all stressed out, right? And then the advent of these and everything else and the electromagnetic field exposure that people have, it’s just for people trying to maintain that healthy circadian rhythm. And you know, I challenge anyone who says to me, you know, I, well, I just, you know, I just have the sleep problems and I just, you know, I can’t go to bed to this time, this time, I mean, quit what you’re doing and go work on a farm for a week. And I bet you that you will fall asleep in the evening and not be racing with things, especially if there isn’t wifi connection out on the farm, because the temptation is there, right. 

I mean, like, you know, just checking on things, we feel like we have to be connected to the world all the time. You know, and a lot of us work, not physical jobs. I know a good majority of my day is kind of death by conference call, right. You know, we’re just in front of the laptop all day long or, you know, sitting and so forth. But you know, again with cortisol, it’s all that boring stuff of getting your sleep in order and managing your mindset so that you’re not stressed about every little thing that really doesn’t matter in the end anyways, but there are some actionable things outside of that and things to know around cortisol, you know, because I hate leaving people with the, and this is I think, a big frustration for medical doctors, you know, and of when people try to put it on the doctors as like, well, all they do is just prescribed drugs and all that. 

Imagine being a doctor and talking to, you know, 300 people in a week that you try to give them a good understanding of the diet and exercise and sleep thing. And they look back at you, like, just give me a pill doc, right? Like how does a doc do that before they throw their hands up in frustration and all that? So I don’t demonize any doctors for that, where they land with it, it’s the patient meeting them in the middle of the road as well. But that’s what I think a lot of the docs that are working with the Lyme’s community that have more holistic practices, or they have more, not insurance, but, you know, maybe cash based models or whatever that can spend the time with the patient to really explain like, okay, man, if you really want to know, this is all the stuff that’s going to take to turn this around. 

And it is not just a script and have a nice day, right? So part of that and the onus of that, and this would no one likes to hear everyone likes to put the power in the doctor’s hand and be like, well, I paid you, so now you prescribed thing to me, and then it’s on you, that didn’t work. It’s like, Nope, it’s on you a hundred percent. So you know, with cortisol, the challenge is like, when you’re elevated cortisol all the time or stressed about things, you’re thinking about, you know, the mortgage and your work and this and that, and adding stress on top of it, of reading the news, right? Like I’m looking out the window and everything was cool to me, but I pick up my tablet or whatever. 

And then all of a sudden the sky is falling and everyone’s dying of COVID and, you know, we’re the planet’s melting and it’s just, you know, you can freak yourself out. And if no one believes that look at the last four years of the news cycle to where we’ve become like a nation divided, right, where everyone’s just, you know, spending hours a day, arguing with idiots online about, you know, their positions on things, right? So people can just create a bunch of stress for themselves that’s not even there. But when you, when you have elevated cortisol, you have elevated inflammation, it’s going to have elevated inflammation. You have elevated response for these micro organisms to create biofilms and to create coinfections. And so it becomes this neverending cycle, basically where your body can’t catch up. Because every time you put out a fire, you’re starting a new one over here, and it becomes incredibly difficult to manage, just having elevated cortisol levels can dramatically drop hormones like progesterone. 

So what happens when your progesterone is chronically low? Weight gain, depression, mood swings, chronically tired, maybe fibroids thrown in the mix as estrogen becomes dominant, i.e. a bunch of problems that are all intermingled with how you may feel today, and it may be all because, you know, it’s because of the Lyme’s, right. It may be driven by, it may be a huge factor of, but it’s never the full story, right? So getting your hormones checked and like full panel checked, but also understanding one thing is that everything in science is based off statistical significance parameters, groups that we’re trying to designate reference ranges for. 

That may not be optimal for you. And you know, an example of that for men is like, I know for sure how I feel if my testosterone measures 700 versus how I feel, if it measures 900 and both are within normal range, right? Like I wouldn’t a doctor wouldn’t take a 700, you know, measurement and go, well, yeah, man, you gotta get on testosterone or they wouldn’t, right, it’s normal, but it doesn’t feel that way. 

It certainly doesn’t feel optimized. And so as a female, if you have Lyme’s, and let’s say you are noticing this kind of continued flare up cycle around your menstrual cycle, that could absolutely be tied into dipping progesterone levels. And again you may go get an assay and the progesterone looks normal. I one, would encourage you to get readings both around the menstrual cycle, as well as away from the menstrual cycle, but also just understand that may still not be optimized for you. And a lot of the docs that are working with hormones and things can help steer you towards a much more optimal program rather than just kind of like hitting the bare minimums that people have, but you know, what else can you actionably do today, and all of that, there’s actual, real research around hobbies, you know, developing a new hobby and putting your mind into that and taking your mind off of other things, I mean, as I’m learning how to do sculpture or whatever, I’m not thinking about the news cycle, I’m not thinking about my mortgage or any of that. 

My mind is focused on this activity at hand, whatever it might be, whether you’re going fishing, whether you’re painting, whether you’re learning an instrument and you’re learning a new language, your brain is focused around that. And that is actually important, so are having pets, the simple, the simple thing of just puppy love, right? That lowers cortisol, and it’s shown, it’s measured, it’s done in studies, like it’s not, it’s a real actual thing, right. And yes of course there are dietary supplements that you could take, you know, like ashwagandha has pretty good research showing its ability to combat stress and help balance cortisol levels. You know, fish oils, there’s a host of herbal things going on, but to me, those are, you know, at best icing on the cake, right, like you can’t have a lifestyle where you check in with the news first thing in the morning, and right before you go to bed and you’re on your screen with the blue light, you know, an hour before bed and your, and your mind is racing by like no supplements is going to combat that period. And so I think it kind of dovetails into the other talking point of mindset, right?

Robby Besner PSc.D.

I just want to comment on a couple of things, ’cause you’ve just said so many important things and everybody out there, I haven’t been 25 years, I haven’t really interviewed or talked to a Lyme patient that hasn’t had a sleep challenge. So one of the first questions I ask them, how’s your sleep. So if you don’t get a good night’s sleep, then you wake up tired or I’ll ask the question differently. When you wake up in the morning, are you feeling energetic or are you feeling tired? Mostly everyone’s feeling tired. So you may be getting a lot of sleep, but many patients who are Lymies, they get a lot of sleep, but it’s not a quality sleep, they’re not getting into REM. They’re not getting into Delta where their body’s in repair, their mind is shutting down and they’re actually getting to a point where it’s fixing all those stressors from the day prior, or even before that. So this cortisol topic is so important and you know, it seems so simple, well just get some more sleep, but it isn’t that simple if you’ve got that sleep challenge, or I remembered from my daughter, her circadian clock, her bioclock was completely upside down, she lived with two cats. 

The cat would jump on our bed, like at one in the morning, she was a light sleeper and it’d wake her up. Then she’s up from like one to five. As soon as the sun came up, she’d fall asleep. So all of her hormones were all whacked out. And then I, you know, what you just said a few minutes ago resonated with me because many when men’s menstrual cycles are also tied to moon cycles and the gravity changes and the moon cycles also affect parasites and microorganisms, they become way more active, right, going into full moon cycles. So now you’ve got a double whammy where you got your cortisol, your sleep challenges, the bugs are more active, you’re going through your menstruation, my God, you know, the simple things, just like, you know, the background that you see me at today is actually I’m on the farm, my farm in Michigan and I was commenting to melody just yesterday, how I don’t nap in the middle of the day. 

I normally get up in Florida where I live at 4:30 or 5:00 without an alarm clock, I get up, you know, almost systematically within that range, every day. Here, I’m sleeping until 8:00 in the morning. Like I wake up and I almost feel disoriented. And in the middle of the day, I feeling like I need to take a nap and I don’t nap. I never nap during daylight. 

And so what is that? It’s not like I’m feeling the ocean energy like I do in South Florida, but it’s definitely different. And change that up a little bit, like you’re saying, I think that’s so important oftentimes with younger families and especially in these days with COVID and restrictions, the kids are gaming a lot more and they’re just on the screens more even now with, you know, the way that they’re going to school, it’s everything is on a tablet or it’s on a wireless device. So we recommend that they spend an hour or so on some kind of device and then an hour off. Well, we’re coming out of winter, so maybe we can get out a little more, but just kick your shoes off, hug an Oak tree or a Palm tree, walk on the sand, walk on the grass, bring that earth energy into your body to balance out your body battery. 

These are all simple things, inexpensive, you just have to understand how important it is and start integrating that back into your lifestyle in order for it to create that balance you need, and ultimately balance out your rhythms, your cortisol levels, you know, it takes a while to do this isn’t like you said earlier, it’s not the blue or red pill deal here. This is a shift in your mindset, getting yourself set up and understanding what kinds of things you need to rebalance and then get back on that road for recovery in a nice, healthy, systematic manner, that takes time to do so. 

It’s realistically it could take, man, if you’re chronic, you could have been building up those toxins and that perfect storm inside of you for years, right? This isn’t going to go away overnight. And like I said, I often say, I fashion it sorta like climbing a toxic mountain, right, it’s one step at a time, for the most part, you can’t really fall down, you can’t really fall going up a mountain, but you can fall coming down a mountain. So if you start getting too aggressive in going after these things, and I certainly understand that because people that a chronic Matt, they’re sick of feeling sick and they get some kind of result from something and then they just want to do it and do it and hit it hard, and you can overdo these things. 

So taking a slow go, you know, a low and slow approach, getting down that toxic mountain is something that we’ve found really effective and having realistic understanding that it’s going to take a while to unravel, I think is also important. So we covered so much today, like herbal approaches, the biofilms, managing your cortisol levels, adjusting your mindset with, you know, the sparing time we have, and you’ve given us so much of your life and your time today, so we so appreciate it. What other things do you feel that is important for us to know?

Matt Storey

Well, you know, I think the mindset thing is like easy to talk about, hard to do, right. You know there’s a reason why people are Zen masters or disciplined, you know, martial artists or what have you like, it takes time to build that up and the mindset, but I think for a lot of people, you know, it always makes me think of a friend of mine from New York to kind of has that classic, you know, New York kind of abrasive, whatever, like, you know, not afraid to speak their mind, you know, kind of thing, and it’s just like, what am I supposed to do to smile and it’ll get better? You know, it’s funny because you know, there’s more and more research coming out about the actual, real impact of your emotions and your mindset on your immune response. 

I just literally saw one in kind of thinking about how I was gonna approach this call, you know, they took 350 adults that volunteered and were well compensated, but volunteered to be exposed to the cold virus. But prior to that, they took a bunch of different, you know, kind of qualitative inputs on their emotions, their mood, their outlook on life, you know, from a positivity standpoint and all of that, and overwhelmingly, the people that had a high index on that you know, high positivity, high, good outlook on life, all that kind of stuff, smiled often, laughed often, so forth, were way less of actually catching the cold than the other people who scored low on that index. And little things, you know, smiling, not like fake smiling, but you know, really smiling, really laughing, really looking at life that, it’s a gift, it’s a journey. 

None of this really matters in the end when people are on their deathbeds, they sure as shit don’t care about what’s in their 401k. You know they care about who’s in front of them and their families and all of that kind of stuff, and, you know, so it’s really about that mindset. But I think for the Lymes community, it’s an even bigger challenge because you’re not feeling good and you’re feeling dragged down and maybe for quite some time, and maybe you spent a lot of money and maybe you’ve seen a lot of people and you’ve tried a lot of things and you’ve done a lot of crap that you don’t think tastes good. And you’ve felt awful throughout periods. So not the easiest to be like, Hey wake up and smile and it’s all good, right. 

But it’s really that whole thing of like, I am willing to commit to the end of this journey of what it takes, and for some people that, like you said, I mean, slow and steady and it could be a multiyear kind of thing was no one wants to hear, right. Everybody wants to seven minute abs, right. You know, but much like weight loss, you know, a pound or two a week as reasonable trying to, you know, drop that 50 pounds in a week is extremely unreasonable, right. And so it’s that slow and steady methodology approach to it, that it’s just critically important and finding reasons to find joy in life. The cool thing with that is that science is actually starting to show like, yeah, it totally matters. And guess what, you create little molecules inside your brain and inside your body, and, you know, obviously your gut is your brain and your gut is your immune system, so it’s all interconnected and it’s all important. 

But you know, as you’re creating these compounds and telling yourself that this disease does not define me, you know, I am not a victim of this disease. I’m facing a challenge. And I am going to overcome this and I am going to be in a state, you know, state of ideal and optimal health, which can take quite some time. Right, but it’s just such a critically important thing. And part of that is the willingness to move a lot of sedentary, lifestyle people. And you know what, you know when I least feel like doing anything, when I feel like crap, if I’ve got a flu, I don’t feel like doing anything physical, but it becomes critically important, right. Even if that is walking. Sanjay Gupta, actually he just, I think he wrote a book or something, but I saw an interview with him recently. 

And it was like out of all of this stuff, you know, supplements and you know, these therapies and not therapy and this, and what is the most important thing if someone could do, if you had to whittle it down to just one activity thing that they could do, and his response was taking a walk with someone you care about and talking about your problems, those three combined activities of movement tied in with relationship tied in with, you know, allowing yourself to go through what the challenges in your life are and talk through it and work through it and understand that it’s there, but it doesn’t own you and it doesn’t define you and then adding movement to that. 

Right, so, you know, we got to get the limbs moving, we’ve got to get everything circulating, and all of that unto itself is like a, you know, a base foundational recipe for success, to me, of what you can do. And part of that, and because I don’t want to take, you know, a whole bunch of time on it or whatever, but now I’ve spent the last several years of my career working with cannabis and cannabinoids, and really understanding that whole thing, and, you know, we all, as humans have an endocannabinoid system. And it’s insane when you think about the fact that if you go to a doctor today that got their medical degree in 1990, they definitely did not study this in medical school. And it equally, if not as important as your nervous system, your pulmonary system, the cardiovascular system, all of these basic human systems that we all understand. 

The endocannabinoid system is there, it’s tied in with your everything, your brain, your gut, your immune system, all of that. And the chief role of that system is to help create homeostasis as an organism. So was everything I just said about mindset and coming to a sense of balance within your organism. So with the endocannabinoid system, you know, again, I’m not here to hawk CBD or tell people to go consume cannabis in any format or whatever, but just know that you have this system, it’s crazy important, it’s tied in with your nervous system, your immune system and everything. And you’d likely if you’ve never gone down that road, it’s something for you to take a look at as a Lyme’s patient, of course, but also as a human, as maybe these compounds would be beneficial to help your body start to shift things back to homeostasis. 

And there’s lots of things you can do, and again, I don’t believe in any sort of one compound is a miracle, so CBD, awesome, it’s great, it’s part of the plant, the plant has hundreds of compounds that are beneficial for the body. So look for those kinds of things and maybe explore that, unfortunately, no, you’re not going to find a research paper right now linking cannabis to Lyme’s disease in any meaningful way, at least that I’ve found and I’ve trust me, I’ve looked through the journals, but when you understand that, like it has an impact on the endocannabinoid system and you have one, it would be the same as if I said, hey CoQ-10 actually really important for your cardiovascular system. 

So it’s definitely something you should incorporate into your program in some way, that’s my takeaway message for the endocannabinoid system and cannabis as a whole, is that it’s a really important system for your body. It is involved 100% in the regulation of your immune response. And so especially if that has not been part of your approach to date, I would, I would ask you to consider it.

Robby Besner PSc.D.

Wow, that’s so well, we know many of us know that CBD and even cannabis or any other derivations, we’re not talking about the one necessarily getting high or the THC side of the discussion, but people are using it very effectively for pain management and for sleep management and just to calm them down and move shift in a sense from that, that sympathetic dominant state in their autonomic system, to the parasympathetic where they’re just calm and everything else seems to be kind of cold running. And so there’s a whole bunch of that I think is super important in this overall backdrop that you talk about.

Matt Storey

I think so I think it’s a new frontier because of the prohibition of the plant and so forth to the research is still very much catching up, you know, but again, it’s never going to be a silver bullet. So I am in no way suggesting that someone would take hemp oil or CBD or whatever, and then all of a sudden that is the thing. But you know, in terms of could it be an ally in your combined approach to helping you clear the hurdles with Lyme’s, a hundred percent.

Robby Besner PSc.D.

By the way I have in one of my drugs of choice for the optimal health category for 2021, which is my research for this year, I’ve added laughter as one of my drugs of choice. So I do believe, like you say, like just taking your life and the world a little less seriously. I have an emotional coach that I work with every day. We were best buddies and he that’s what he does is an emotional healer. And when one of his things, when he signs up a new patient, he tells them that they can’t, if you’re going to work with me, you can’t, you can’t watch the news. And I just thought that was so original given everything that we have been going through, so, and by the way, you know, these little devices that we all have, you know, they do have on and off buttons in case you guys didn’t know that, you can-

Matt Storey

Little known fact.

Robby Besner PSc.D.

Yes, yeah. And you don’t have to watch a TikTok in order to discover where that on off button is. Matt, you’re awesome, man. Thank you so much for hanging with us today, yeah. You really nailed it. And you covered, like you went from the, you know, from the ground level all the way up to the 40,000 foot view, everything you mentioned is super important for us to know and understand, things we can take care of and we can do every day and that we should just be patient with ourselves and understand the journey and try to enjoy every single breath, and every single day of that journey, it’s not just about pain to purpose, it’s just about understanding, and, you know, there was one thing that really resonated with me that you said, cause there was something I learned early on with my daughter, Julia. She was very smart, very intelligent. And I felt like she wasn’t utilizing all of her assets. And I I felt not having Lyme that she was hiding behind the Lyme diagnosis as the reasons why she could slack. 

And so as a father, I was a little extra hard on her. And then my wife Melody would say to me, why so hard on her? If you were just coaching a regular patient, you wouldn’t be that, but it’s your daughter, and you’re so hard on her. Why aren’t you taking the same approach to her? So I said, you know, Donna, you’re absolutely right as she is usually, my wife has only been wrong since 1951, by the way, once, once. So I said, you know, Julia, let’s sit down and let’s redefine what health means. And it’s not about your diagnosis. It’s about living purposefully and living symptom free. 

Because like Lyme could be like malaria or hepatitis or some virus like Epstein Barr, something that we all have and will always have inside of us. So why don’t we focus away from the diagnosis and just focus on our lives and our lifestyle and our purpose and our bliss and get centered there? So yeah, you may not be able to work 14 hours a day. I’m not sure that that’s right, anyway, I think that’s a Western approach to work and I love the european approach much better, or even in South America where they take three hours off in the middle of the day to just enjoy life. What’s so wrong about that? And so that being said, you know, life is about understanding your purpose, finding your bliss, and just acting on that. 

And that could be finding your religion, finding a new hobby, giving back to your community or just, you know, reorganizing your family structure and just finding that wholesome, grounded feeling. And I think that if we can get ourselves organized, work on that part of the application and then the other part, just getting that symptom free so that we’re actually liberated to live our life to the fullest, that to me is what the true definition of healthcare is, or wellness is.

Matt Storey

Could not agree more.

Robby Besner PSc.D.

Yeah, Matt Storey you’re amazing, you’re an all star, thank you for joining us.

Matt Storey

Thank you so much, my friend.

Robby Besner PSc.D.

Can’t wait to hook up with you again and happy trails to you.

Matt Storey

Thank you so much for the opportunity, all right be well, and thank you for everyone that tuned in. 

Robby Besner PSc.D.

Hey, everybody, it’s Robby Besner. Thanks so much for joining us today. Please share this content with anyone that you think might benefit from it. And we’re looking forward to having you with us tomorrow for another great interview.