CBD and Mental Health with Hyla Cass, MD

Hyla Cass, MD

CBD and Mental Health

Aired On: Nov 8, 2024

Show Notes

CBD has many health benefits with few side effects. It is antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and reduces anxiety and depression. It promotes bone growth and reduces nausea and vomiting. Learn about the medical uses of marijuana, as well, and how both CBD and THC can help you stay healthy.

CBD and Mental Health with Hyla Cass, MD

Books

Natural highs
Eight weeks to vibrant health
Supplement your prescription
What your doctor doesn’t know about nutrition
The addict brain and how to break free
Your amazing Iddy Biddy Guide to cannabis

Website

www.Drcass.com
- Drcass/gift will give a 10 % discount
Has high quality organic CBD with many cannabis components and helps with pain

Her Story

In her residency training she realized the medications were not very helpful and had side effects
She believes the biochemistry of mental health is essential
- She followed the psychiatrists who looked at the biochemistry (Carl Pfeiffer Abram Hoffer). Who believed nutrient deficiencies, toxicities and biochemical imbalances can cause mental illness
- Some patients lacked resilience because of things such as nutrients missing in diets or needing more nutrients than they couldmetabolize
- Can make a difference with nutrition and supplements
- Other helpful lifestyle choices
  - Exercise, Avoid sugar and alcohol healthy diet avoid toxins

Integrative approach in Psychiatry

She looks at history,
She takes such patients of the medications, replaces what is needed (usually including essential fatty acids, lithium orotate
Assessment questionnaire
- Deficiencies in a particular neurotransmitter such as dopamine or serotonin can show up with certain symptoms
- Tyrosine makes dopamine, 5 HTP makes serotonin, GABA decreases anxiety
- The person can titrate
  - For example if they feel anxious, take more GABA
  - If you feel out of focus and brain fog, take more tyrosine
  - Make sure eat as low blood sugar episodes result in symptoms
    - Eat regular meals
    - Makes sure there are sufficient minerals such as chromium and sufficient amino acids such as lipoic acid
  - It is what you eat and how you eat
    - If you eat simple carbs, will result in fluctuating blood sugar levels and fluctuating moods
    - As we age, we are more sensitive to these fluctuations in our blood sugar levels
    - Many ca n reverse diabetes type II within 30 days by diet
Yet some physicians prefer giving medications which are “cashcows”
lab tests
- For example toxic metals;
  - E.g. one case of depression, removing mercury helped the man improve
  - In interview with Dr. Kennedy, DDS, the fact that brushing teeth, cleaning teeth can set off mercury vapors which go straight to the brain
Her philosophy
- We are the steward of our own bodies
- We are Mind, Body and Spirit
- The psychiatrist is the educator to convey information to client in a way they can use it
- The psychiatrist is the resource.
- My (Susan) view is we are cheerleaders, coaches, partners, and the patient is in charge of his health

Toxins

Effects of heavy metals
- The body is complex, metals are electrolytes and they interfere
  - Mercury
    - One patient with severe depression removing mercury improved depression
  - Lead
    - Lowers IQ in children
- Toxic molecules replace working molecules
Other toxins
Exposure to fluoride in utero can decrease the child’s IQ by six points. Exposure to lead and also other chemicals can decrease the child’s IQ by six points
Exposure to other chemicals in utero result in a high risk for ADHD

Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI) eg. Paxil, Zoloft, Prozac

They work for only a short period of time
They fool the brain into thinking there is more serotonin
Eventually make less so the SSRIs stop working, and another medication is given
There are horrible withdrawal side effects
- Need to taper in a withdrawal from the medications with decreasing doses through time.
- Need to give a precursors of serotonin so there are the raw materials to make serotonin
  - 5 hydroxy tryptophan or tryptophan, B vitamins, minerals. These help make serotonin in the brain. It supplies the raw materials.

Withdrawal effects from stopping psychiatric medications

Some People have severe withdrawal effects when stopping medications
It is important to taper the medications by giving gradually decreasing doses
Have to support with what is missing
- Need to give a precursor of serotonin (which will give the raw materials to make serotonin if stopping a serotonin increasing medication)
- CBD
  - Raise dose of CBD as lower dose of medication a\
  - Start at 15 – 20 mg put it under your tongue. Wiat 15 minutes, If no help, can increase
  - Stay under 100 mg CBD per day

For example one cause of anxiety is pyrroles indicating a lack of zin and vitamin B 6

Endocannabinoid system

Discovered in 1992
Controls our body
Connects digestive system, nervous system, hormones
CBD can activate and support this system
Is a communication system designed so we can rest, digest, protect, and sleep
When this endocannabinoid system is low, we are prone to anxiety, depression, autoimmune disease, cardiovascular disease, migraines, PTSD, PMS, pain eating disorders, seizures, failure to thrive in newborns, GI illness, multiple sclerosis, nausea, Parkinson’s Disease and even schizophrenia

Cannabis

The cannabis plant has many components
hemp part of the cannabis family is stocky, tough and can be made into paper, cloth, rope and other durable products
THC
- s more psychoactive and has resulted in anxiety, agitation, paranoia and psychotic symptoms evenpresentations to the emergency room
  - Some end up in the emergency room psychotic
  - Such marijuana induced the psychosis
  - These people may be put on a cocktail of medications
- In the last 30 years cannabis has been bred for increasing percentages of THC
- The cannabis of thirty years ago is similar in its components to the cannabis used medicinally for thousands of years
CBD
- Affects many parts of the body as it is part of the endocannabinoid system
- It activates our neurotransmitters, and controls how much neurotransmitter is released
- for anxiety
  - If take with 5Htp take with CBD at same time as CBD as they work in sync
- If need more activation, take tyrosine (dopamine precursor with CBD)
  - CBD regulates it
- Relieves pain
- Anti-inflammatory
- Is anti-bacterial,
- Anti-cancer reducing proliferation and metastases and angiogenic components,
- Prevents seizures
- Promotes bone growth
- Reduces anxiety and depression
- Reduces nausea and vomiting
- Changes the flow of neurotransmitters in the brain
- Some say CBD is more effective when some THC is combined with it
- May have reverse tolerance meaning may need a lower dose at a later point
  - Your don’t develop tolerance meaning the need for increasing doses
- Dose
  - Start at 15 – 20 mg put it under your tongue. Wiat 15 minutes, If no help, can increase
  - Stay under 100 mg CBD per day
- Drug interactions
  - Only at high doses (over 100 mg) don’t take at same time as other supplements/ medications
  - Check with your physician
- Side effects
  - It may elevate intraocular pressure affect appetite, and sedating at higher doses
Terpenes
- are the medicinal parts of plants that give the medicinal effects. Gives the skunky smell of marijuana, includes vitamins and minerals
- Terpenes and terpenoids
  - Used as essential oils,
  - Have flavonoids, (which are anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidants
- She developed her brand to increase the content of one of the terpenes that work with pain
- Her brand insures that it is organic as she knows the process starting from the soil the plants are grown in
CBG, CBN (helps sleep), CBDa, CBDV are other components

Marijuana tips

Marijuana is neither good nor bad. It depends how it is used
Take a supplement with as many of the cannabinoids as they work synergistically
- In pharmaceutical drugs, one component is isolated from the other protective, mitigating components which can lead to side effects
Important that it is organic for many years\
- Old soil may have chemicals from the past, the hemp plant and kale plant concentrates these chemicals
Idea to analyze components
Need to know the pitfalls

For patients who have become psychotic due to use of high doses of THC, she

Neutralizes the THC by giving them CBD
- THC and CBD work on the same receptor CB1 receptor. So CBD competes for the same receptor and displaces the THC knocking it off the receptor
  - So there is a calming CBD on the receptor rather than the anxiety provoking THC component
  - Small amounts of THC are OK (less than .3 %) as it is more harmful to try to remove and element from a compound as there are mnay important components
- Lithium orotate is an essential element used at very low doses such as 5 mg and 10 mg rather than the physician prescribed doses of 1500 mg of lithium carbonate
  - Where the water levels of lithium orotate are high, people are more peaceful, there is less crime, there is less depression, less suicide attempts, lower anxiety
  - Lithium orotate can help with cognitive functioning

Essential fatty acids

Precursor to endocannabinoid
Use in any mental or brain issue

Energy Healing/ Spiritual

Source of our healing
Energy precedes form
Everything starts in the energy field
The more we connect with energy system, more can heal
There are unseen parts of our system; we have an energy system
More connected we are with higher power
The more modalities we use, the better
- Good to connect with energy system, meditate
  - Helps calm down sympathetic nervous system, PTSD, endocannabinoid system
Energetic connection facilitates communication
Meditation practice, breathing practices, being quiet Is important
- Is importance in our body healing
We are all connected, everything is connected
We are beings of love and light
- When question go to that place, the heart, the higher power
- Take care of the human body