The Benefits of CBD for Children and Adults

Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Hi everyone, welcome to the show. I am Dr. Nicole and today, we are going to talk about a really hot topic in the health and wellness world right now, CBD. You’re probably heard about CBD, which is short for Cannabidiol, as an option to help with everything from pain to stress to sleep. It seems like CBD supplements are everywhere now, you can even find them in places like hair salons, gas stations, video stores — it’s important to understand what we’re talking about with CBD, what it can actually be helpful with, what to look for in these supplements, because while CBD can be really helpful for some adults and children, we need to understand all of these aspects about it to make good decisions with it. To help us sort through all of that today is my dear friend and colleague Brooke Albert, let me tell you a little bit about her. 

She is a certified holistic cannabis practitioner, nationally recognized nutrition expert and a best-selling author. She’s the founder of ‘Be Nutritious’, a private nutrition counseling and consulting practice in New York City. Brooke’s interest in cannabis, particularly in CBD came from trying to help her husband manage his debilitating autoimmune disease. Seeing what CBD could do for her husband, Brooke brought CBD into her private practice, saw many of her clients’ overall wellness improve. Having to navigate her husband and her clients through all the options and seeing how so many of the products out there were not adequate led Brooke to create her own brand of CBD products called ‘Daily Habit’. It’s a product I’ve been using in the clinic and personally, I absolutely love it, and I’m so happy to be talking about this topic on the show today, so welcome, Brooke!

Brooke Albert:

Thanks so much for having me!

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

So CBD is everywhere now, right? You go on any health website anywhere and it’s a hot topic, but many people don’t even really understand what it is, I’ve got people coming into the clinic all the time — “Oh, you know, I found this at my salon!” or “So and so recommended I should take some CBD for everything under the sun!” So let’s really delve into this and talk about — can we start with: What is CBD? What are we actually talking about here?

Brooke Albert:

Sure. So CBD is one of the hundreds of the chemical compounds that is found in the hemp or the traditional cannabis plant. We can just use the word marijuana to make it a little more user-friendly. So there’s marijuana and there is hemp. They are both in the same cannabis family. And both of these plants have these amazing compounds, and one of them is CBD. The difference between the two plants is the amount of THC, and that’s what we all know, for anyone that’s over 18, I’m sure has heard at some point, those psychoactive benefits or effects that THC can have, which causes that stoned or high feeling. But the CBD can be found in traditional marijuana or it can be found in industrial hemp. Most of the CBD that you are finding, the good and the bad comes from industrial hemp. Which means the THC percent is either 0.03% or lower. So you do not have to worry about any of those psychoactive effects, but for the most part, CBD is found in hemp and in marijuana and it has incredible health benefits, but it is not the miracle plant that people keep claiming it’s going to be. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Well, and I think that’s a really important point about the difference between CBD that comes from hemp vs. marijuana because that’s a point of confusion for people, right? I mean I know often even in the clinic, when I’ll raise the idea of using CBD therapeutically, people are like, “Oh, I don’t want to use drugs like that, I don’t want to use marijuana.” Or “I used to smoke pot back when I was in college, I don’t want to do that.” It’s like, “No, no, we’re talking about something different here.”, but I think there is a lot of confusion about that, right?

Brooke Albert:

Exactly. And so, the CBD that the majority of us are talking about, that’s legal to buy, federally across the country that you’re finding everywhere now, comes from industrial hemp, that you don’t have to worry about any of that psychoactivity. So it’s not a drug in that concept, or an illegal drug. It is a plant — that’s hemp. We have seeds from hemp, we have protein powders from hemp and even more awesome is we have this amazing compound called CBD that is possibly my favorite thing on the earth!

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Well, and it is really an amazing compound. I mean as I started learning a few years ago about how this supports so many aspects of body function, of brain function, of health, it really does do amazing things across the board for — physical health, mental health, all of those things. 

Brooke Albert:

I think where the confusion happens is that a lot of people are familiar with, let’s just say medical marijuana. We know that it is beneficial for people with pain and severe anxiety and PTSD and these things — what people don’t understand is that often, it’s the CBD, even in the medical marijuana that has so many of those health benefits, and what’s so amazing about industrial hemp is that we are now able to get CBD and use it without any of those psychoactive effects. So, CBD can be used for so many different things, it’s an adaptogen, which means it can go where it needs to go in your body and it can do all different things. So I think it’s really an incredible compound to work with. The differences that I have seen in a bunch of my patients and in my practice, the differences I have seen in my husband, in my daughter and in myself — I literally drank the CBD Kool-aid. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

You have a really powerful story around how you came to learn more about CBD and use it. It really started out on a personal level with your husband. 

Brooke Albert:

That’s right. So my husband has a really debilitating autoimmune disease and we have two small children, we live in New York City, we have fast-paced lives, and he really can’t walk more than a block or two. Shortly after the birth of our youngest, he was losing a lot of his ability to use his hands, which — try changing an infant’s diaper when you don’t have any motility in your fingers.

And being married to a dietician, this poor guy — I had him on every diet under the sun. I’ve introduced him to every new doctor that I’ve met to see what they can recommend. I had him literally eating liver and red cabbage for a month! I was desperate to help him, and he really sort of gave me the ultimatum that he was done. He wanted to eat what he wanted to eat. It was a very hard pill for me to swallow because all I wanted to do was help him feel better.

So I took a break and that’s when I started hearing about CBD, and I didn’t know much about it, and we joked that my husband is cannabis-friendly as a polite term, so I said, “Look, I don’t know anything about it, eat whatever you want to eat, but let’s try the CBD, and it was the brand ‘Charlotte’s Web’ that I felt very comfortable recommending, it was one of the only brands out there that had science-backed, legit claims that I could believe, and it was named after the original foundation of why CBD was used for children with epilepsy. So I said, “Just give it a try.” And we really noticed some big changes in him, when his diet was worse than ever because he could eat what he wanted. Poor guy!

But really, we saw a difference. And the biggest change was when we were teaching our oldest how to ride a bike. I mean any parent knows what a physical gig that is, and here I’m thinking I’m going to have to do it, and this is going to be my day and I’m going to be on my feet. He was able to push himself past any level we had ever seen before. He was in pain afterward, but the only change was the CBD, and that’s when we realized the great impact that this plant could have on him.

And so I wanted to learn more, so I brought CBD into my practice. I learned that CBD could be great for anxiety. A lot of my clients struggle with emotional eating, and what’s sort of the reason for emotional eating? It’s anxiety, right? The number one cause of emotional eating is that anxious feeling. So if I could then help them calm that anxiety down in a way that I was comfortable with them — we’ve tried food journaling, we’ve tried kitchen curfews, we’ve tried smelling of lavender essential oils, we did everything — and then finally, I said, “You know what?”, for 4 of my clients in one month, I said they’re nighttime eaters after the kids go to bed — so before they put the kids to bed, I have them try a CBD product, and most of the time it was the Charlotte’s Web oil.

And they said, “It worked!” And all of a sudden I had 4 clients that were plateauing and gaining weight and their journey completely shifter, and it was all because we addressed the underlying anxiety. That’s when I said I need to go back to school and the more I was looking for a wellness version — there are great clinical brands out there, again, Charlotte’s Web is certainly one of them. I couldn’t find one that would appeal to the rest of my practice, or to me, or to you, were we’re just like, “I feel great, but I want to feel better!”, because that’s what CBD can do for many people, and that’s why I created Daily Habit. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Yeah, it’s really — I mean it’s an incredible journey. I think so many of us start delving into these things from the personal standpoint, right? We happen to be professionals, but it’s either our children or ourselves or our spouse or whoever that leads us to delve into the research to look at what else is out there, and I loved that then you brought that into your clinical practice and now that you’re bringing it to the general public for a great supplement option that we can all use.

I want to circle back — because you said some interesting things about how you found it to be helpful for the clients that you were working with in your practice, and it really mirrors what my experience has been clinically both with children and with adults that I work with, particularly I have the parents here at the clinic who have very, very high levels of stress, anxiety, overwhelm due to raising special needs children, just having fast-paced lives, all of that. And my experience with that has been very similar to what you found in terms of relieving the stress and anxiety as it related to their eating and those things. I have found that for so many parents in my practice that CBD has been helpful for relieving anxiety, stress, just helping to manage that better, which not only helps them feel better and function better, but then it helps their family and it helps the kids to do better too because their anxiety and stress is better managed. 

Brooke Albert:

I always joke that when I take CBD, I am more of the parent I am in public, in private. So in public, if one of my kids is having a little meltdown or a moment, I was like, “Oh, that’s not how we speak to each other — And I can really keep it together, vs. at home where my ability to lose it happens so much quicker. So I can bring that public persona home with me more when I’m kind of putting the oxygen mask on myself first. Taking care of two children, it is so much work. Working mothers, mothers that stay at home, it is non-stop. And so finding something that can actually help parents cope better with the day-to-day lives and amazing lives that we all have, getting this ability and the opportunity to take care of our children is a gift, but man, is it hard and man, is it rough!

So I always joke that when I regularly use my own CBD or even when I’m testing out other brands and it’s good quality, it takes that little chip off my shoulder. I pick on my husband a little bit less, I have more patience in my practice and I have more patience at home.This is why I’m like CBD is a wellness vitamin for so many people. It just sort of optimizes me. And the cool thing is that for you, Dr. Nicole, it can do something very different for you, and yet we can be taking the same dose and have completely different reactions because my body is off-kilter is different is different than where your body is. What’s cool is CBD’s ultimate goal is about creating homeostasis. That’s why it works on so many different things. 

So whether it’s children with anxiety, grown-ups with anxiety, whether it’s pain, insomnia, PTSD — This is where things get tricky, because I don’t want to make promises — people say CBD is this miracle drug. It can do amazing, amazing things, but I don’t believe it’s a miracle. I think that is really important to differentiate. The ultimate goal of CBD is helping the body create homeostasis, so if you are off-kilter and your stress levels are off, it’s going to help reduce those stress-levels by affecting the cortisol levels and your hormonal balance. If you’re having issues sleeping, it’s going to help with those sleep hormones. It’s really a fascinating compound that deserves so much love but it also needs that respect of understanding what it can really do and the promises. Because when people make promises that CBD is going to change your life and it’s going to do this and do this, all that it does is bring the rest of us down because it’s promises we can’t fulfill. I think that CBD is awesome, though. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Yeah. Absolutely. And we need to understand it, and like you said, respect it because what is an appropriate dose or type of CBD for one person may be very different for another and I know that we’ve both seen people who have used it improperly and you can end up not feeling good from that too, just like anything else, right? But I love this idea that it can be used clinically and actually, it really came about and came on the radar, so to speak, from clinical cases as you’ve talked about, from children with intractable epilepsy, those kinds of issues — so certainly there are clinical applications to it, but then also, on the other end of the spectrum, there is just the general wellness.

So sometimes people will say, “Oh, well I don’t have a diagnosis, I don’t need that.” And the great thing is, just like we would look at other wellness types of approaches or supplements, this fits in with that too. And I know for myself, personally, I find much the same that you do — it just takes the edge off. It just helps me feel more balanced, like I can just go with the flow better with things and I definitely notice the difference when I take it vs. when I don’t. So you don’t need to have a clinical condition or a diagnosed condition. In fact, it can just be helpful for many of us just to support and supplement our everyday lives.

But I want to go back to some of the clinical applications because there is very good research out there now, I mean obviously, in my population of treating children, teens and young adults, the bulk of research on CBD has been in things like epilepsy, specific types of seizure disorders, those types of things — but we are also seeing research that has come out on everything from pain kinds of issues, migraine types of things. Even gut-related issues, anxiety, the mental health types of things — even things like impulsivity and behavior types of issues. And I think that type of clinical research is just going to continue to expand. 

Brooke Albert:

Yeah, I really think we are on the cusp of learning so much more about what CBD can do, especially for mental health. What really can make me sort of nerd out is we have these cool receptors. We have something called an endocannabinoid system in our body. Basically there are receptors throughout our body that are primed and ready to be utilizing CBD, which is just a shame that we haven’t been using it more, because just think about the health of the general public if we had been utilizing it more.

But this is where I can nerd out, in that the receptors aren’t sort of active in the brain unless there is trauma. So when there is some sort of head trauma or brain trauma, all of a sudden, these receptors become alive and awake, and that’s where CBD is being shown to be so effective for sort of traumatic brain injuries, concussions, or other sort of brain health. I think that we are only on the cusp of learning so much more. I think that a lot of that is sort of the door into understanding why CBD is beneficial for focus, why is it better and beneficial for children and adults alike struggling with ADD and ADHD? Why is it working for anxiety? I think that we know so little, still about its effect on the brain, but we’re seeing things and again — just knowing that we have these receptors just shows and proves to me even more that we are meant to be consuming this product and that there are so many opportunities that our body can heal and optimize while using a good quality CBD. It has to be good quality though. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Well, let’s dive into that because I feel so strongly about that as you do and I get really concerned. On the one hand, it’s awesome that something like CBD is rising in popularity, people are talking about it, the media is covering it, people are becoming aware of this. Sort of the downside of that is that it allows this situation now where lot’s of different companies and even random people are throwing products together, making it available everywhere — not unlike what we see happen in the general dietary supplement industry too, where we talk a lot about quality of the nutritional supplements and nutrients that you’re taking makes a big difference, and that is so true for CBD. So talk to us about that. 

Brooke Albert:

Sure. So quality of CBD is really the most important thing that you can do. I’d rather people not take CBD than take a poor quality CBD, no question right there. It’s amazing, as you said that we’re seeing it everywhere, because any time that we can reduce the stigma of people feeling uncomfortable, and the more we see the letters CBD out there, the more familiar and more comfortable we’re going to get, that’s a good thing, right? And I think it’s great for CBD, cannabis, marijuana across the board for the health benefits aspect. That said, I can have somebody come to me and say, “Well, I tried CBD, it didn’t work for me.” Or “I felt bad from it.”

And then I find out what brands, and we look and it actually wasn’t even CBD, it was hemp seed oil. And it’s really important to find brands that you can trust. So I normally have 3 levels of criteria that are important when it comes to finding any CBD brands, and when we were creating Daily Habit, I was adamant that we had to meet this level. Number one, I really believe in working with a full-spectrum product. So CBD could be found in something called an isolate, where they really just extract the CBD molecule from everything. Or it could be used as something called full-spectrum. As we mentioned earlier, that CBD is just one of hundreds of different compounds that are found in the industrial hemp or cannabis plant.

So what they say is that as a full-spectrum, you get the other benefits from the other compounds, and they work as something called the ‘Entourage Effect’. So when I think of — sure vitamin C is great for you, but isn’t an orange even better? Because an orange has the vitamin C, but it also has the fibre, the phytochemicals, the antioxidants, everything else to really help you optimize the intake of vitamin C. That’s where I think of full-spectrum CBD. We want full-spectrum so that you can get all the benefits and that CBD is optimized to be better utilized in your body. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Yeah, and I think that certainly, as a general rule — the full-spectrum, I think works well. There are specific clinical conditions where sometimes the isolates can be helpful. I find in a lot of the people that I am treating and working with, especially people with seizure disorders, some of the seizure spectrum kinds of things, migraines — sometimes we’ll use a combination, we’ll use a full-spectrum product and a more pure, distilled isolate product. So there is some trial and error, there is some need to understand how these different types of hemp products, CBD products do interact with the body or the brain. But I think what’s wonderful about the full-spectrum for most people, is that yeah, you don’t only get the benefits of the CBD, but all those other compounds that are in there, many of which, we don’t even really understand yet, but we just know that they’re helpful, right?

Brooke Albert:

And they’re all 3 letters, it’s CBD, CBG, CBN and there’s lots of letters in the alphabet that are used. But also in addition to that, there are things called terpenes, which are really the basis of essential oils. We know, and I know that we’ve had on the show before the benefits of essential oils, and you know all of that really helps support CBD to do what it needs to do. And sometimes yes, there are certain patients that benefit with an isolate. Often what I’ll do is I’ll give them a full-spectrum product, and then add the isolate, because they can’t get enough CBD and this is where super-high doses are necessary, and that’s just one way to bulk up the CBD number in there for them as well.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Absolutely. So looking for a full-spectrum product is sort of your criteria #1. What’s the next thing that people should be thinking about and looking for?

Brooke Albert:

I want it to be organically-grown. I think that’s really important. And organically grown in the US, this way, we have currently some sort of control. Until the regulations across the board are all standardized, it’s just safer to buy US-grown hemp. And the cool thing about hemp is that it is a bio-mediator and a bio-regulator. What that means is that it cleans the soil, right?

So they’ve used hemp in Chernobyl to help clean the radioactive — and the heavy metals that are in the soil, which is great, but I don’t want to be consuming anything from that hemp. So that’s why organically-grown hemp means that the hemp is being grown in soil that is healthy. That then you know that everything it’s absorbing from the soil are things that you’d want to be consuming as well, right? So I find it really important to have US organically-grown hemp. A lot of products can’t say — can’t get that USDA organic label on it, and I think that’s okay as long as it says somewhere on the website, on the bottle, on the container — for us, we have a little symbol on the side that really just says ‘organically-grown’. Hopefully, in the next couple of years, we will be able to get some sort of US approval and be able to stamp ourselves certified, but right now it is beyond challenging and sort of impossible. So organically-grown in the US is #2 for sure. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

So making sure that the hemp that is being used to make the product is a healthy, well-balanced hemp. Not something that is grown in bad soil or sprayed with things that are questionable, because all of that stuff ends up in the final product then, which really does concern me. That piece of it is so big to me.

When people are coming in and saying “Oh, look what I got at the gas station for $5!” Please don’t put that in your body. There’s not going to be anything good about that. And to your earlier point, then people go, “Oh well, I tried that and it didn’t work for me.” And it’s like, “What did you try? Bring the bottle. What was it? How much?” Or I get concerned too, there are a lot of places like even here, locally, where people will come in with a completely unlabelled bottle — “Oh yeah, somebody down in Eastown, they mixed this up and gave this to me, and I’m like, “What is that? I don’t even know what’s in that! And you should be concerned about that!”, because while yes, we’re talking about all the benefits of it, you need to know what you’re taking! And as you said earlier, sometimes people are taking products labeled as CBD that actually don’t have any of that in it!

Brooke Albert:

And that’s just a waste of money. I mean sure, hemp seed oil is great for you, great antioxidants, great healthy fats, but I’m not paying CBD prices for hemp seed oil. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

No, I can go to Costco and get a bag of hemp seed and put it in my shake and call it —

Brooke Albert:

Perfect!

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

So what’s the third thing then that people should be looking for?

Brooke Albert:

The third thing is you want to purchase from a company that is really transparent, and I think that this is so important for those of us who are working in the CBD industry. That transparency shows that we have nothing to hide. And ways that you can find out if a company is transparent is: Do they offer testing on their website? So do they show that there is either third party testing or something called the COA, which is their Certificate of Analysis. Even if you don’t understand anything that’s in there, just the fact that a company has this and it’s accessible to you, and you don’t have to email 100 times and it’s easier to find, whether it’s in the FAQ’s or anywhere on their website, that it is a trustworthy company, almost guaranteed.

Because companies who are willing to be transparent basically show you what we’re made of, are not going to have anything they are going to need to hide. It’s really important. So we have our COA and we also have third party testing, and we test our product regularly because we still have to trust the product and the supplies that we’re getting. So we get raw material from our supplier and I need to make sure that it is as good as they’re claiming, I look at their COAs, we re-test it before we manufacture it and it’s a lot of extra money and it’s a lot of extra steps and time, but it means that every time a customer goes to our website, that they can then trust the product that they are receiving.

There is a bunch of other brands that do an awesome job at transparency too. There are some brands, there is one called TONIC. What TONIC does is really, really great — but they basically have a QR code or a quality code, that you can check the bottle and compare it to every single lab that this bottle has undergone. I just find that great and really trustworthy. The more brands that are transparent, the better it is for as an industry but even more important and the better it is for the consumers because they’re getting exactly what they need, right?

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

And that to me is so critical that if we’re going to be taking something, whether it’s for our general wellness or it’s for a clinical condition — we need to know that what we’re taking is what we think we’re taking. That what it says on the bottle is in fact what’s in there and for me, as a clinician, from a dosing perspective, I need to be using products where I can trust and absolutely know if I’ve said this is how many milligrams we need to have, x number of times a day — that that patient is using a product that absolutely has that amount in it.

So I think that that’s so critical, especially if you or your child or your family member has a clinical condition that you are using CBD as part of your treatment protocol for that. You need to know, not just a bottle that says hemp or CBD or whatever, but you need to know how many milligrams — what is in this, and the testing then to be able to verify on a regular basis. And I agree with you, there are several companies out there that do a really nice job with that. 

You mentioned Charlotte’s Web earlier. Clinically, I use PlusCBD from CV Sciences, it does a wonderful job with that. Your products — you mentioned TONIC, but that is an important thing. And I think that gets to a bit of the cost issue with this, right? To me, CBD is like anything else in life. You get what you pay for. If you’re getting something for $10 off the shelf at the video store or the local spa or whatever, probably not going to meet these 3 important requirements that we’re talking about. You’re going to pay more for a quality product that has undergone lab testing, that has clean ingredients in it. But the tradeoff then, is you’re going to get better results from a product like that. 

Brooke Albert:

Right, and ideally, because it’s a high-quality product, you can use the smallest doses possible, vs. if you’re buying this who-knows-what, this white label brand or this convenience store brand — who knows what you’re getting? And even if it was only $10, you’re going to need a whole bottle to potentially feel anything. I’d much rather spend more money and have it last me longer and knowing it’s a sure thing. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Absolutely. So I think that quality piece is important, and I really appreciate that you took us to 3 really tangible things that people can start to look at. Because there is so much of this out there, and that helps our listeners to have a really specific way of evaluating products that they come across to see, is this something that I may want to try for myself or my child? We can talk about this all day, this topic is so fascinating, but I want to make sure that you share with people where they can find you online because not only do you have your Daily Habit product, but you’ve got such a wealth of information for people available, so where can people find you and your product on the web?

Brooke Albert:

Sure, so you can find out everything you need to know about CBD and Daily Habit at dailyhabitcbd.com and we are a powder, and I think that’s what makes it really more appealing for parents who are looking to supplement, or their own wellness. It’s actually really easy, I give it to my 10-year-old daughter, I find it really user-friendly in the format, but that’s what makes us really stand out amongst the crowds — the good crowds and the bad crowds, it’s that we are a powder formula. It happens to be extra user-friendly when it comes to double the serving and halving the serving — it makes it quite convenient to use. But dailyhabitcbd.com.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Awesome, that’s the thing I love. Typically, most CBDs out there, you get them in soft gel or capsule form, or they come in liquids. What I love about the powder is it does make it really easy to titrate the dose and it’s very easy to give to people who may otherwise have a hesitation about it — kids who don’t like the flavorings of certain things. What I love about the powder is it just mixes up in beverages, smoothies, apple sauce, whatever, there’s no taste, there’s no smell — there is nothing off-putting about it, it’s very, very easy for people to take. I use it as coffee creamer in my coffee every morning. It’s an easy way to do that. So really, really a wonderful product, a well-researched product and something that’s really easy to use for the whole family. 

Brooke Albert:

I agree, yeah. I find it really user-friendly and I love the concept of the powder, and that’s really been what our specialty niche is. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Yup, and I’ve had so many moms at the clinic, who are like, “Yeah, I actually have been using that for myself, it’s amazing. I totally notice a difference when I don’t take it!” And I’m like, “Great! Keep taking it! Let’s all take it!”

Brooke Albert:

Moms across America for CBD!

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

That’s absolutely right. Little dose in our coffee every morning does us good. Brooke, thank you so much for being here with us today and for sharing all of this really helpful information, I really appreciate it. 

Brooke Albert:

My pleasure, thanks for having me!

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Alright, everybody, that does it for this episode of The Better Behavior Show, we will see you back here next time.