Ep. 46: Dr. Matt Dawson - A Doctor’s Take on CBD Oil, Sleep Trackers & PEMF Therapy - Wild Health
Dr. Matt Dawson has been obsessed with performance optimization as long as he can remember. Matt is co-founder of Wild Health, has his own personalized medicine practice where he works in genomics and functional medicine. He has lectured in over 20 countries and trained thousands of other physicians.
We thought it would be fun to focus our discussion today on CBD oil which is being used to treat seizures, autism, anxiety, sleep issues and more. Dr. Dawson discusses our endocannabinoid system and explains that lower doses (15 to 25 milligrams) tend to work better for anxiety and chronic pain but much higher does work for sleep (100 to 150 milligrams).
Dr. Dawson outlines how to select CBD oil. Because it is still new in the market it is important to go with bigger more established brands, check for a third party evaluations, and avoid processed versions placed in water and candy. His personal preference is to prioritize the “entourage effect”, which states that the closer to the whole plant that you get the more therapeutic it is.
Want to test what is working to improve your health? Looking at sleep is a major area which can impact alzheimer's, chronic disease, performance and immunity. The sleep tracker that Dr. Dawson currently recommends is the Oura Ring so he can measure the therapeutic interventions along side his patients.
John Muir once said, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." Dr. Dawson says this holistic approach applies to the body as well.
Listen in to learn about adaptogens, homeostasis, THC, CBD, Pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) technology and more.
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Show Notes
[00:56] Matt Dawson received scholarships to play two sports in college (even with minimal talent) because of his voracious reading and implementation of any fitness or nutritional techniques that would give him an edge. His obsession with performance optimization has morphed from initially athletic to now mental performance, business performance and longevity. Whether it's a professional athlete or a grandparent optimizing their mental clarity and mobility to keep up with their grandkids, Dr. Dawson is passionate about helping everyone perform at their absolute peak. He's an expert in personalized medicine and we thought it would be fun to focus our discussion today on CBD oil.
[05:00] Lower doses tend to work better for anxiety and chronic pain but much higher doses for sleep. 15 to 25 milligrams for example, is what I find helps for anxiety or chronic pain. We look at the studies on sleep and that 100-150 milligrams is a very different dosage.
[08:01] You may have heard of the “entourage effect” that's just that the closer to the whole plant that you get the more therapeutic it is. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes by Joan Gussow. She was the matriarch of act locally and think globally food movement she said, “I trust cows more than chemists.” She was talking about butter versus margarine.
[11:35] Every patient that we have, we actually have them order an Oura ring to track their sleep.
[20:15] There is some good research but most of it is from overseas from Europe and other places like I mentioned the Israeli study on autism.
[20:24] We actually have combined it with a broccoli seed extract that works really well for kids with autism.
[21:23] The dosages can be all over the place and so it's just not treated like a medicine right now it's not taken as seriously as it should be.
[21:40] An adaptogen is something that kind of stabilizes physiological processes. Your body wants to be in homeostasis at all times and normally we think of something for example being depressing or as being energizing. One of the two. But an adaptogen tends to help your body maintain homeostasis and kind of stabilizes physiological processes so that your body can just better take care of itself and just remain in homeostasis.
[22:18] Whichever way the body needs to go to rebalance and become more and homeostasis.
[26:07] I recently discovered Pulse Electromagnetic Field. I've been reading a lot of research and sort of trying it and it was profound the difference that it had on my deep sleep. I was just shocked by it and I would never have known that if I didn't have the Oura ring -- and now I've incorporated that into my wellness routine and I'm talking to a lot of the patients about it.
[27:23] There are great studies on it - If you don't get a good night's sleep, number one you make poor decisions around food. If you're sleep deprived your body preferentially goes after muscle and breaks it down for calories. If you're not sleep deprived then it goes after the fat.
[28:18] This is a big focus of our practice. We look at genetics and we dive into this. I think sleep is the biggest risk factor for dementia and Alzheimer's. I truly do. And when we do someone's genetics we look at specific markers.
[28:57] We know that when you sleep your system clears out all of these toxins that build up in your brain. And if you're not doing that appropriately you're just really setting yourself up for some bad things. And this not just to mention Alzheimer's it's pretty much every chronic disease. We do this incredible experiment in the US every year that we call daylight savings time and when we lose an hour of sleep that one day. I used to be an emergency room physician before I transition and that one day each year we see a spike in heart attacks and strokes.
[29:27] To think about what we're doing ourselves chronically being sleep deprived is really scary. I think it's a big public health issue. Reading Why We Sleep and getting a sleep tracker and trying to optimize that is really fantastic thing that people can do just for their overall health.
[31:12] John Muir "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe."
[31:27] There is no mind or body it's both. Every system is connected, and obviously that applies to even the CBD.
Thank you for joining us on HealthGig. We loved having you with us. We hope you'll tune in again next week. In the meantime, be sure to like and subscribe to this podcast, and follow us on healthgigpod.com.
“There is no mind or body, it's both. Every system is connected.” - Dr. Matt Dawson
“To think about what we're doing ourselves chronically being sleep deprived is really scary. I think it's a big public health issue. Reading Why We Sleep and getting a sleep tracker and trying to optimize that is really fantastic thing that people can do just for their overall health.” - Dr. Matt Dawson
“I recently discovered Pulse Electromagnetic Field. I've been reading a lot of research and sort of trying it and it was profound the difference that it had on my deep sleep.” - Dr. Matt Dawson
“Lower doses of CBD oil tend to work better for anxiety and chronic pain but much higher doses for sleep.” - Dr. Matt Dawson
“We do this incredible experiment in the US every year that we call daylight savings time and when we lose an hour of sleep that one day. I used to be an emergency room physician before I transition and that one day each year we see a spike in heart attacks and strokes.” - Dr. Matt Dawson
Keywords
CBD Oil, PEMF, Personalized Medicine, Precision Medicine, peak performance, longevity, nutrition, genomics, CBD, chronic pain, sleep, MS, bio-individuality, DNA, microbiome, supplements, Fatty acid hydroxylase, FAAH gene, pesticides, entourage effect, homeostasis, adaptogen, ashwagandha, endocannabinoid, sleep, melatonin, Pulse Electromagnetic field, dementia, alzheimers, John Muir, Microbiome, plant medicine,Pulsed Electromagnetic Field therapy, PEMF therapy, Why we sleep, Matthew Walker, Genomics, Functional Medicine