Beating Benzos: Kava and the Battle Against Anxiety with Cameron George

Boomer Anderson: [00:00:00]Welcome to decoding superhuman. This show is a deep dive into obsessions withhealth performance, and how to elevate the human experience. I explore thelatest tools, science and technology with experts in various fields of humanoptimization. This is your host Boomer Anderson.

Enjoy the journey.

10 years ago, I was looking for an alternative to thatnighttime bourbon. Why was I drinking bourbon at night? Well, many of you arefamiliar with the situation you get home from work, and you really just want torelax. And sometimes the drink is what you turn to. And so I was looking for analternative surfing all around the internet and came across cava Kaba at aearly blog that was done by mr. Dave Asprey himself. I purchased some and itworked really, really well for me. And fast forward now, Cava has become astaple in my evening routine on most days, but it's not a compound withoutcontroversy. In fact, there's quite a lot of controversy on cava. And so I'mdedicating this entire episode to.

Cava itself and really trying to understand it a little bitmore. And my guest is Cameron George. He's an entrepreneur and founder of truecava, a company that is striving to set the industry standard for quality,safety, and education around kava within the mass market. True cava is focusedon developing scalable user-friendly products that deliver full therapeuticaction of the traditional kava drink, which has been around in the Pacificislands for over 3000 years.

Cameron's got an amazing story on how he came to cava himself,whether that be through issues with benzodiazepines, anxiety, panic attacks,uh, things that came about. After a career in athletics, et cetera. And we getinto all of that today, but we also get into the benefits of CA cava, whetherit's the NZ alytic properties and numerous other benefits as well.

So check out the show notes. This one. It's going to be atdecodingsuperhuman.com/ trukava that's T R U K a V a and cava is something thatI've studied for a long time. So I was fascinated and absolutely delighted tohave Cameron on the show today. So enjoy my conversation with Cameron George.If you're over the age of 35, your enzyme levels have already begun to declineand your immune system can be more susceptible to viruses.

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All right, Cameron. Welcome to the show, my friend.

Cameron George: [00:05:14]Thanks for having me, man.

Boomer Anderson: [00:05:16]So you're joining us from lovely Arkansas, which the weather here in Amsterdamtoday. Feels like Arkansas. And for those watching this on the YouTube channel,they may notice that I start sweating that's because I'm in the box.

That is my podcast studio. But today we're going to betalking about just one of my favorite topics, because it's something I'vestruggled with my entire life, but specifically how to deal with it. And that'sanxiety. Um, I've experimented with kava.

For probably about eight years now. And when I was lookingat, you know, in doing my work research, there's a lot of just esoteric publiclocations out there and people's opinions around cava.

And then I met you Cameron. And I finally found somebodythat I have a degree of confidence in, in terms of being able to explain thestory to people. So thank you for taking the time today.

Cameron George: [00:06:10]Oh, absolutely. I love this topic. So. For

Boomer Anderson: [00:06:15]those that are here and asking, you know, Hey Boomer, are you doing an episodeon the Spanish version of champagne?

Can we just talk about what is kava?

Cameron George: [00:06:27]Right. Yes. Kava is a stress relieving nootropic elixir. Traditional Kava isthat's produced from the roots of a shrub like plant that grows in the SouthPacific islands called piper methysticum. And the word piper methysticum andliterally means intoxicating pepper because this plant is in the pepper family.

So it's got these beautiful heart shaped leaves andbasically. The roots of this shrub have been used for over 3000 years inislands like Fiji and this Island chain called Wianno Watsi right at the coastof Fiji. Um, you know, Tonga, Papa, new Guinea, even Hawaii it's been used forover 3000 years there.

Um, You know, as a stress relieving preparation, that's usedin a lot of the same context that like we use alcohol say in the West. Um, butalso in the same context that we use coffee, it's a very sort of socialenhancing, um, anxiety, alytic substance, uh, you know, it helps people loosenup and helps people connect.

It helps people get into a state of, you know, introspectiveand creative thinking, um, as well to, uh, you know, Which is, which is part ofwhy people are drawn to it. Um, so it has this amazing effects profile, butthen as you start to dive into some of the scientific literature, that's beenvetted out on Cabo over the last 20 years, which is one of the most wellstudied.

Herbs and the planet outside of cannabis, Jen, and some ofthese other ones, there's been a lot of publications on it. Once you start todive into that, you find out that there, there are many, many other sort ofadjunctive mechanisms that cava provides and therapeutic effects that Cabo provides,um, that work at all different levels of human biology.

Which is, which is not that dissimilar from so many other,you know, w what we see with cannabis, what we see with adaptogenic herbs,right? They have their effects of their most popular for in this case stressrelief, but then we have all these other effects to all these other systems inthe body as well.

So, but, but anyways, traditional kava and these islands. Isa drink preparation. That's prepared specifically with certain parts of theplant. Meaning the roots of the plant are the only parts that are consumed theabove ground portions of plant, these leaves and the stems contain plantdefense alkaloids that are actually mildly toxic to human beings.

So they're not consumable. They're just people found thisout. Hundreds of years ago, thousands of years ago. Um, so they take the rootsbasically, and these islands and they grind down the roots and then they putthem sort of in a strainer bag, they need them into a bowl of cold water or hotwater in some cases.

And they produce this sort of full spectrum, sort of cobblelactone matrix, drink, where these active constituents called kava lactonessort of come to the surface. And it's like a suspension, cause they're notwater soluble. So they come, you know, to the top of the drink and then that'sconsumed, um, in all these contexts in weddings, funerals, spiritualceremonies, social gatherings, you know,

Boomer Anderson: [00:09:21]all of these are single day.

Right?

Cameron George: [00:09:23]Basically. Yes. I mean, so, so in Von want to like, you know, 80 or 90% of thepopulation is consuming a daily, um, you know, in, in varying degrees indosages, but it's just, it's, it's a core fundamental part of, of living inthese islands. It's, it's a core fundamental part of the social fabric of allof these islands too.

So it's just, it's a very. Over there to them. It's reallytheir most sacred commodity. And like in Vanuatu, it's like their number one,number two export. Right? So it's, it's, uh, it's very, very, very common,obviously over in the islands and virtually not even known throughout manyother places in the world.

And it's in this form, there are other forms that we cantalk about that have made their way into the marketplace that, um, aren't quitethe same, you know, still sort of under a similar umbrella, but there's,there's definitely differences there.

Boomer Anderson: [00:10:13]Yeah, so let's connect some dots, right? So Cameron, you are in Arkansas rightnow, which is a hell of a long way from Vanuatu. Vanuatu for everybody thatdidn't remember what Cameron just said near Fiji, near New Zealand, let'sconnect some dots for people here.

How do you, did you become interested in cava? And how didthat, I mean, I guess it led to Vanuatu the cava, but how did cava come intoyour life?

Cameron George: [00:10:41]Yeah. You know, it, you know, for me, I always call my story kind of a pain topurpose store. I mean, most of the discoveries that I made, the reason that I'min the industry that I'm in right now doing the things that I'm doing reallyall came out of my own pain.

It came out of me developing a pretty severe. Auto-immunesort of neurotoxic driven illness in my early twenties,

Boomer Anderson: [00:11:03]the in condition. Was it or was

Cameron George: [00:11:05]it, well, I, you know, it was difficult to get a diagnosis. It was one of thosethat just sort of exploded that I got many different diagnoses, you know? Youknow, you know, from lupus to Krohn

Boomer Anderson: [00:11:14]the diagnosis X.

Cameron George: [00:11:16]Yes, exactly. Yeah, it was, it was just, you know, the underlying autoimmuneprocess. And a lot of times these diagnoses are just a correlate to symptomclusters so that you can be given a corresponding medication through theallopathic model, but really the autoimmune process is consistent throughout,um, all of these conditions.

Um, and for me, it was to a degree that it was manifesting.On my skin and my brain, you know, and my circulatory system, my liver, thewhole thing. And so I really had kind of a complete breakdown of my health thatcame right from a, it many different environmental factors and stressors, toxicexposures, bad reactions to medications and just genetic susceptibility.

It was just one of these situations that I call the perfectstorm. Right? Whenever you have susceptibility in place. You've got some toxiclifestyle circumstances and then maybe a huge emotional trauma and acombination of things. And there's the bottom falls out. And, um, at the time

Boomer Anderson: [00:12:16]let's talk about that bottom falling out because you and I have chatted beforeand that bottom falling out took you to some very interesting places before youarrived at cava.

Cameron George: [00:12:25]Yes.

Boomer Anderson: [00:12:25]If you don't mind just hinting at a couple of those places and what were thethings that you were trying.

Cameron George: [00:12:30]Yeah, exactly. Well, the bottom fell out in my early twenties. I was about 20years old and I'd had some egregious circumstances and some different, uh, youknow, toxic circumstances leading up to that.

But, uh, at the time I was extremely functional, uh, youknow, 20, 21 year old kid and I was working multiple jobs and I was, um, youknow, a competitive athlete, uh, here in the NCAA, in the United States, a, youknow, a distance runner and a triathlete, all those things. And so I was alsoputting an enormous amount of stress in my body with, with those sports.

And I kind of had an abusive relationship with it that wasbased more on performance than it was longevity. So all those things came to ahead. I ended up in a. In a psychiatrist's office, I was prescribed a wholehost of pharmaceuticals, the main one being amphetamines, Adderall, um, whichthat was the thing that sort of was the icing on the cake that sort of wipedout a very vulnerable system that was already quite depleted.

So the bottom basically fell out at that point. Um, and Igot extremely sick over the next couple of years and basically cut to. Youknow, a year or two years later, I was completely handicapped. Couldn't leave.My home was having all kinds of severe cognitive deficits, digestive issues,severe reactions to foods and supplements and all this kind of stuff.

Um, so that sort of started me on the Odyssey of sort of, Ihad really no choice, but to sort of. Um, spend some time in introspection, aswell as go into, uh, you know, scouring medical and scientific literature. AndI was already someone who was kind of prone to that to sort of finding answersfor myself.

Cause I had exhausted the whole allopathic model at thispoint. Um, and I sort of made the rounds and uh, you know, traveled around thedifferent, you know, physicians and healthcare providers and such to, you know,accumulating, uh, knowledge about different treatments therapies. Modalitieslifestyle changes.

And it was just sort of the process of trying to assimilate.All of these different things that I was learning into a multi therapeuticapproach, that was a system that I could navigate and a lot. And that's how Igot integrated into this world of, you know, sort of functional medicine andstuff. And eventually started working in it.

I came across a, you know, a couple individuals, you know,one of my mentors, dr. Dan Pompa who's, you know, he's a chiropractor. Um, andhe sort of coached me in a process that he calls true cellular detox. And thatwas sort of the core of how I got my life navigating that different dietarychanges, targeted supplementation.

And then the icing on the cake, right. Did a lot ofdifferent regenerative, modality STEM cells. I've traveled around doing stufflike that. And so it was this combination of things that over time got mebetter. But when I was in the midst of my process, though, Um, I had a, well,I, I was one of my main symptoms that I was having were like severeconvulsions.

I was Devin had multiple seizures a day and crazy reactionsand stuff. And I was on these heavy doses of benzodiazepines to try to controlthose things, these bad reactions and stuff. So, um, that was becoming aproblem pretty quick because as I sort of referred to earlier, uh, You know,drugs were a problem for me.

And that was sort of. You know, one of the factors thatdestroyed my system to begin with and sort of the addiction and the dependencyand stuff, and the benzos were having some terrible effects on my brain thatwere having some terrible effects on me, um, from a personality standpoint, aswell as I was getting highly dependent on them, obviously very fast and waswhat was completely dependent on them.

And, uh, You know, there's a tolerance, so they weren't evendoing much for me anymore, but I couldn't just go off of them because you gointo severe withdrawal. That's sort of one of the silent epidemics, you know,that's going on right now is just benzodiazepine. Addictions are a hugeepidemic, right?

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, there. Probably second, only toopiates, but any, any person who's been through that process would tell youwho's been through both, you know, who's been through addiction of both opiatesand benzos, benzos can, and many times is worse when it comes to the withdrawalsymptoms, they absolutely can kill you.

Uh, you know, they can bring you into severe life,threatening seizures and heart attacks and strokes and all this stuff. It'sjust a horrible experience to go through. So, you know, we're starting to getinto this sort of, um, Mentality, I guess this, this, this sort ofunderstanding around that particular class of drugs where physicians are very,very hesitant to prescribe them, even, even the most mainstream secularallopathic physicians who go straight and only to drugs.

Um, are becoming really hesitant to prescribe them for anymore than short term, acute sort of interventions to like, you know, severepanic attacks because the, the drawbacks just aren't worth it. So I kind of gotdown this road and I was actually working with dr. Pompa at the time. And wewere, he was trying to coach me through some different protocols and things.

Um, And, uh, I was, I, the problem was I couldn't tolerateanything. I couldn't tolerate supplements. I couldn't tolerate foods. And mynervous system was so fragile and I was getting progressively worse because ofthese benzodiazepines that was on. And I was gonna start going cause they hadreached their maximum.

Efficacy. And, you know, there comes a point where you stopgetting effects and then if you don't keep increasing your dose, you start, youknow, getting a ricochet effect. And if you go off of it, then it gets reallybad. So we had to find an off ramp off of these drugs. Right. Because it wasjust, they were, they were holding me back.

Right. I mean, I was, I couldn't. You know, first of all, Icouldn't tolerate anything and my convulsions were really bad, so I need tofind something else anyways. So what I was looking for at this point, I R I, Ideveloped a sort of intimate understanding of the difference between. Sort ofsynthetic pharmacology and plant pharmacology, um, you know, synthetic pharmacology,meaning, uh, you know, pharmaceuticals are usually single compounds, like abenzodiazepine, a single molecule that has a very linear action in the body.

Right. Which is great for therapeutic, you know, for acutetherapeutic application. If you need, you know, general or local anesthesia,you know, for a surgery, if you need an acute, you know, you an antibiotic orsomething like that, then that's. Then that's a good option in certaincircumstances. But the problem with that is because.

They have a singular mechanism. It's not part of the body'ssort of signaling sequence or, you know, complete what we call the innateintelligence of the body. And so the body doesn't recognize it. It's sort oflike you have an assembly line, you try to intervene at one step, like threesteps down the assembly line.

And that throws off the whole thing. Uh, you know, that'skind of what can happen with drugs. Body says, Whoa, this is not part of oursystem. It starts to downregulate. The very system that you're trying tostimulate with the drug in the case of benzos work on the calming calmingsystem of the body. It's it's the GABA system.

Um, and you know, basically what you get is you get adownregulation and a depletion of that system, which leads to the tolerance, dependencyand withdrawal symptoms. So it's sort of like you're using up your bank accountof, you know, available Gabba and all the different. Processes around it, plantpharmacology.

So what I was looking for when I was looking for analternative to a benzodiazepine was something out of the plant or fungalkingdom that delivered in bounds of the same receptors as a benzo. So thatcould get me through the withdrawal process, hopefully easier as well as startto give me some of the therapeutic effects I was getting in the beginning.

But without creating that sort of ricochet response, right.Because. Plant compounds have what we call the entourage effect, which is theyhave a multitude of different synergistic. Active compounds that sort of workas a living system, just like the, the, you know, the cells in our body are theactive signals in our body.

Well, it's, it's, it's a living system and there's all thesedifferent steps, the system, and it all balances itself out. There's anintelligence behind it in other words. Right. So, you know, plants are the sameway. That's why you made times with plants. We sort of all intuitively knowthat if it's a plant, it's going to be safer in your body.

It's going to be more biologically compatible usually,unless it happens to be a toxic plant or something. But when we talk aboutthings that have been used medicinally for a long time, we're talking aboutplants, they usually have therapeutic action that is, you know, synchronizesmore with the bodies.

You know, biological processes. So basically that's what Iwas looking for. I was looking for an analog or a replacement, but somethingthat was more complex and give me the, you know, the addiction dependency andwithdrawal symptoms. And I didn't know if I was going to find it, honestly,because. You know, I'm thinking I've tried so many different plant compoundsand usually, you know, they're just not as strong.

I mean, there's cannabis over here, but that didn't work forme. It doesn't bind to the same systems, made me more paranoid, a lot ofdifferent, uh, you know, effects that were too psychoactive. Um, and thenyou've got a whole host of other different herbs, like a mile Valarie androots, passionflower, lemon balm, these kinds of things that you can find inevery health food store that just, I mean, there's something, I mean, I likethose herbs and they all do interact with this GABA system, but in such asubtle way that it was sort of like for me, Trying to use those to get off ofbenzodiazepines was like trying to take down an elephant with a BB gun kind ofthing.

It was like, it just wouldn't happen. Right. It was like,you know, they're, they're helpful, but it's just not nearly enough. So at thetime, like, you know, say, you know, I was doing dr. Pompous protocols andthings. And so we were talking about this and I had already been. Doingresearch for years and years.

Right. And so I had sort of found my way and, uh, you know,around the, around the side scientific literature also, as far as, you know, Philosophicallyunderstood the idea behind plant medicine and sort of how to navigate thisworld of the ethno botanical community as well. So what I was looking for waswas this analog and, um, you know, going through the literature and looking atall of the different known compounds out of nature that do bind to thesereceptors, you're going to come across cobble because it's known as one of theall stars.

But as I started to go through this list, I had alreadytried what I thought was kava before. Um, you know, at the beginning of myillness, before I even gave her got on benzos and I really just went to thehealth food store and picked up, uh, you know, tea kava. Yes, exactly. Like,like a Yogi tea kava, or like a, you know, or the, the, you know, these othercompanies that are.

That are there that you just get like capsules or powdersor, um, or, you know, tinctures and, or, yeah. You know, the, uh, you know, theteabags there. Um, and I, and I picked up that and it wasn't like, it wasnothing, but it just wasn't, it wasn't that impressive at all. Um, so I getkind of shelled it. So now cut to when I'm back in this horrible, you know,benzodiazepine, addiction process, and trying to scour for an appropriatereplacement, I was kinda like.

You know, I, you know, I've already looked at that. I mean,you know, people even told me I should, I should give it another look. And, um,I was like, I've already tried it. It's not, it's not that big of a deal. Um,but intuitively I just decided, well, maybe there's something more here becausewhenever you read some of the anthropological accounts, when you read a lot ofthe historical accounts and even read.

In the literature. Um, there are effects that were beingreported from Kali use that I did not experience with those store boughtproducts. And I'm like, there's a disconnect here because as I started to readabout, um, and talk to people from Vanuatu, I got in contact with a supplierwho connected me with a bunch of farmers and indigenous people and started tosort of accumulate the story behind kava and.

You know, to me, it was just, there was this huge disconnectbetween what I had experienced, what they were experiencing. Right. So Idecided to give it a try because one of the indigenous people I was talking to,I told them, well, I've tried this, I've tried that. And I know you haven'ttried Tava. So they started sending me some of the, the dried root.

That was, well, actually some of the fresh fruit too, thatthey had, um, you know, ground down that was still fresh. That was justdenatured. They sent it to me with a bunch of instructions of how to prepare ittraditionally. Right. Which was like,

Boomer Anderson: [00:24:51]okay, this is like a macho, most experienced, like a traditional macho ceremonykind of thing.

Cameron George: [00:24:55]Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's very similar to that. Yeah. So. They, um, right.Given instructions on how to prepare it through the strainer bag in the water.And it was a really tedious process. Took like 30 minutes sometimes to squeezethis stuff out. It was like, it got my strainer bag, all nasty. It got his likefilm that's in there, which is like the kava lactones, but it also got allthese tannins and root fibers and stuff.

And, you know, I, I ended up with a very. I mean, it was amessy process that took time. But then at the very end, you end up with thisbig bowl of what looks and tastes like muddy water. Right. Which at the time Iwas perfectly happy to drink. Right. Because, um, but you know, that's a,that's a problem whenever you're trying to, you know, reach a lot of peoplewith it as we'll talk about, but right.

So I started preparing it and I started consuming it. Andimmediately I knew that it was different, but, um, after consuming it for likeone to two weeks, I was like, Whoa, I'm, I'm like super impressed by this. Thisis like really amazing because my reactions and convulsions. Uh, within liketwo, well, probably about four weeks were reduced by like up to like 80 or 85%.

Like it was, wow. It was astounding. Like I was like, it wasgiving me therapeutic action that bends, you know, that the benzodiazepine,drugs, Xanax, Klonopin, the ones I was on were not even. Coming close to givingme, and it wasn't given me this tolerance effect that happens almost immediatelywith, uh, with the benzos.

And so there was this period of time. And so it's like, youknow, there was this short period of time where I was able to get off regularuse of these things, you know, within like, One to two months maximum. Um,really it was around two months, which is sort of unheard of in this class ofdrugs. I mean, tapering from these things, some, for some people is like nearimpossible.

If their system is fragile enough and you know, wheneverpeople do do it successfully, it takes a year. Usually minimum. They've been onthem for years. Um, sometimes a year and a half, two years. So I was just, atthat point, I was completely just blown away by the effects and started to diveinto it. Fully from there.

Boomer Anderson: [00:27:00]So just like quick question here before we delve into the next part of this,but, uh, the tolerance level with kava, has it built up over the years or doyou, are you still kind of at that similar first experience, if you will, interms of the amount that you take every day?

Cameron George: [00:27:16]That's a great question. Cava is really unique in that way.

Um, you know, Cabela's. You know, pharmacology is, is verycomplex and there's a lot that we don't fully understand about it yet on whysome of these phenomenons experiential phenomenons occurred. One of theexperiences that indigenous people have always reported on that'swell-documented the anthropological accounts and it's not.

Fully accounted for in the scientific literature is aphenomenon called reverse tolerance. Okay. So it's well known by, by, you know,Kali users. And this is something that really only happens with thistraditional preparation. I can explain why as well, but basically what, whathappens with kava is that unlike a pharmaceutical, like if I take abenzodiazepine or if I take Adderall, if I take a street drug, I'm going to getthe most prominent effects.

The first time I take it, nothing's like that first time,the biggest hire, the biggest, whatever you're trying to get from it. Therapeuticeffects. And then tolerance starts is it starts to ensue because like I said,the system realize it's there, you start to deplete it. You start to downregulate. And so you get less and less of an effect.

You start to get this neurotransmitter resistance, right.You start to build up this resistance, um, which is tolerance, um, with cavait's. Well known that as you start to take it, you get the least effects. Thefirst time you take it and you get this cumulative effect as it starts to buildup in your system.

And, you know, and there's this sort of crescendoing effectthat ensues over probably about the first one to two months until it sort ofreaches a peak and then it stays very consistent. Um, so it's, it's really,really amazing. Uh, what's been proposed is that there's a, and there's beensome, you know, you know, you know, a couple nuggets of evidence to suggestthat there might be some, um, increase in GABA receptor density over thislongterm use and upregulation of the GABA system as well, sort of, you know,bringing up the parasympathetic nervous system.

So it seems to be having this, um, rehabilitative effect onthat system. Uh, as, as well, in addition to sort of the, you know, therapeuticeffect that it's giving you, but the, but, but yes, so that, you know, for me,my experience with it. Uh, it has been that, you know, as soon as you build itup and reach that therapeutic level, you never have to build up again.

It's only in the beginning and then it's very consistent.It's one of those things that keeps working. Sometimes if you use one strainfor too long, It'll keep working, but the effects will go a tad bit. And so ifyou cycle the strain, then you'll, then you know, you'll get full effects andthen you cycle back to that strain and it's working completely again.

But no matter what, even if you use the same strain, it'snot something that loses its effectiveness, which is something that's one ofthe best characteristics in my opinion.

Boomer Anderson: [00:30:05]Amazing. So when you plug in Carver to the Google machine, right, uh, Ofcourse, if you go to a site like examine, it's one of the top recommendationsfor dealing with things like anxiety.

But if you go into Google, inevitably, you're going to comeacross some websites, advocating for a hepatic toxicity of cava, becausehistorically there has been concerns raised, which actually resulted in Bans ina number of different countries, particularly in Europe, but. Can we talk aboutthat hepatic toxicity issue, because I'm sure that there's somebody listeningand due to the conversations that I've had over the years about cava.

There's probably somebody listening here with a little bitof skepticism and a little bit of questioning. Okay. Why the hell are wetalking about kava? When there's a hepatic toxicity issue is hepatic toxicityactually an issue with Cabo.

Cameron George: [00:31:02]So the answer to that question. It depends totally on context. And this is whythis has been an enigma or had been an enigma for a period of time.

But with traditional kava, it's, it's, it's basicallysettled. So this is really the most important conversation that we can havearound cava, because like I said, it's like, why even bother if it's toxic orwhy even go down that road, if we shouldn't be taking it at all, um, You know,in, in all these circumstances, pretty much every plant medicine, big plantmedicine, that's sort of circulating through our culture right now.

And some of the ones that aren't even circulating so muchyet, or completely yet all the big ones. So, you know, we're kind of in themiddle of like a, uh, a plant Renaissance on those where we have, you know, youknow, the legalization of cannabis and you've got, you know, we're, we'remaking a rediscovery a lot of, of, of a lot of these very powerful plantcompounds that have been used by.

Indigenous people around the world for thousands of years,and that have been misunderstood due to lack of context in the conversation,knee jerk, reactions, belief systems being developed, pushed by governments.And then it's just repeated, repeated, repeated, and most people just sort ofpair it that without actually examining the initial set of evidence that, uh,you know, hovered around the situation, trying to decide.

Okay. What context here is it good in all circumstances? Isit bad? In all circumstances? A lot of these powerful plant medicines aretools. And if you use the tool and correctly, it's like a hammer, you can builda house with it, or you can hit yourself in the face with it kind of thing. Andso context matters in all these circumstances, just like we've learned with,you know, in the cannabis world.

There's a huge difference. Whenever we say, you know,whenever you even say the word cannabis. What are we talking about? Are wetalking about CBD oil? That's pure a hundred percent

Boomer Anderson: [00:32:47]Delta nine THC, or are you talking about yeah.

Cameron George: [00:32:51]You know, you know, that, you know, have a, you know, 30 to one hybridizedsorta like denatured, like, you know, THC concentrate, like it's all cannabis,it's all cannabis to keep our indicum Mino most likely.

So that's kind of what's going on with cava as well too isjust like with cannabis. There's a huge spectrum, right? Of differentpreparations forms and quality that's going to dictate your outcome. Right? Sojust like with the situation with cannabis, it's like, you know, if, I mean,even, you know, the negative effects that were there have been sort ofover-exaggerated obviously, and prohibition, there's a whole story behind that,but there are some concerns, obviously in certain contexts, but then we can'tjust blanket that and say, well, let's just prohibit it and just sort of denyany of its medicinal application based on that.

Now with kava, kava is far, far more benign and welltolerated by light years then than cannabis. Um, Cabela's reputation issuesreally, um, are all quality based, uh, you know, and toxicity based, you know,in the context of it, it all came from. One circumstance that occurred back inGermany and Switzerland, back in the early two thousands, 2000 to 2002, therewere a small set of studies that were unpacked using a one pharmaceuticalproduct that was produced by one pharmaceutical company.

Um, that was trying to. You know, make kava into a drug, wastrying to do what, you know, a lot of companies are trying to do. They'retrying to find the medicine in it, and they're trying to extract that medicineand Patten it. Yes, exactly. Put it into a patentable preparation. Um, and theproblem is sometimes as, as researchers and scientists, we get a little bitahead of ourselves because we get really caught up in our knowledge and we getdisconnected from our wisdom a little bit.

Right. Meaning that there's a difference between knowledgeand wisdom, you know, wisdom is sort of intuitive and it allows you to look at.Past experiences and see the big picture behind things on, not just, can you dosomething, but should you, or is it the most complete way of doing something?Is it wise in the long term?

Um, you know, knowledge is being able to take a plantisolate, certain compounds, looking at under electron microscope or some sortof lab analysis and then create a preparation on it. Um, and that's, that'swhat a lot of pharma companies to try to do. So in this circumstance, Um, thiswas sort of at the precipice of what was about to be a huge cava boom in theworld, because it was just now really making it out into the West, into Europe,becoming popular.

And this company was trying to get a preparation that waspure kava lactones, um, which are those active constituents. And they didn't.Pay homage or really pay close attention to how kava had been used safely. Forthousands of years in these islands, they were just looking for the activeconstituents and said, okay, we're going to make a preparation on it.

And then it ended up in, so they made this preparation and,um, you know, they gave it to. Uh, you know, series of patients and subjectsand, you know, uh, uh, uh, you know, a collection of studies who most of whichwere actually already liver compromised because they're coming off alcohol,which is why they were taking part in the studies to begin with.

Um, they were on height, no sort of acetaminophen, many ofthem, there are all these different confounding variables that weren'tcontrolled that made them vulnerable. And this product that they produced wasnot with the traditional preparation, right. At all. It was a solvent-basedextract. Um, and you know, a lot of their preparations were done with egregioussolvents, like acetone and things I believe, uh, in which, you know, obviouslysome of the solvent up to 20% can be left back in the final preparation.

But whenever you use aggressive solvents with cava, um, itcomes concentrates and dissolves. A lot of the most active constituents, butleave some of the, uh, you know, some of the supportive constituents thatcreate this balance in the body that I spoke of. So we can't expect to get thesame effects and the same safety profile out of something that we've now turnedinto a pharmaceutical.

So yeah. You know, a good way to understand this is youcan't isolate. Caffeine from coffee Arabica from the coffee bean in call itcoffee, right? You can't take a caffeine pill and call it coffee. There aremany people who go into the ER from overdosing on caffeine pills. Some peopledie from taking synthetic caffeine and massive dosages.

If they're susceptible. But that's really not happening withcoffee because coffee is the living constituent mixture. The same thing couldbe said in a stronger form of, of Coca tea. Yeah. And you know, if you go toPeru, you can consume Coca tea and it's it's as medicinal value and they use itregularly.

And no one's robbing convenience stores and no one's, youknow, you know, losing their life or whatever, if you isolate the mainactivity, the stitching went from it, um, and turned into a synthetic compound,which is cocaine. Then we know what happens, right. It turns into numerousWars. Yes, exactly. Exactly.

So that's, that was the situation. So this company got aholdof some, um, so you know, some, you know, some not good preparation methods,but also in addition to that, This conversation has been better, has beenvetted out for the last like 15 years, because basically what happened in thestudies is they, they gave it to some people who were susceptible.

It hurts some people who had some cases of liver toxicity,even a few cases of liver failure. And then there was this huge media campaignaround it that just, and even though it was just in this one smallcircumstance, Once media got ahold of it. Once regulatory agencies got ahold ofit in a few countries, they just started parroting and mirroring each other.

And we ended up with kava bands around the world, but the scientificcommunity sort of. You know, it was an enigma, like in the U S it was never baddue to insufficient evidence. Right. For example, there was just a disclaimerthat was issued. So, um, right. So, so basically it's been unpacked over thelast 15 years and it's been well looked at by the scientific community and somuch, so.

Now, what we know is that basically this company gotinvolved and, you know, source their comp material from some unscrupulousfarmers who were most likely selling them their waste product, which is theabove ground portions of the plan. I mentioned earlier with all the toxicalkaloids in them, they weren't getting specific daily use strains.

The we call noble varieties. It's a classification term andthey're more domestic forms of COVID that had been dialed in for daily use. Andthey use these tools, extractions that are taking these extra. Um, play defensealkaloids and super concentrating in them. So they're like making apharmaceutical plant defense alkaloid product.

And so you ended up with something that you can't call itCabo and no more than I can call a caffeine pill coffee. So, so what happenedwas, is that that was believed to be what caused this circumstance that hasnever been. Demonstrated, um, outside of that context and has never beenobserved in 3000 years of daily traditional kava use.

Um, there's, there's, there's virtually no accounts of, but.Of of, um, you know, liver toxicity or even chronic health issues at all oranything but good health outcomes. And in, in these populations from takingcava, um, so, you know, the evidence was so overwhelming and the world healthorganization issued a statement back in 2010.

Well, you know, one there and then one in 2014, Um, youknow, basically saying that this was a quality control issue. And if you, this,this whole, you know, situation in Europe and, um, if you adhere to traditionalpreparation methodologies, that cava has been shown to be, you know, a safefood, like substance that has been used for this period of time in the islands.

Right. So, um, and the, and there's no evidence in the ethnopharmacological data that it's not. So that was their position on it. Um, weare in the process and have been over the last few years of working with someof the leading researchers, both in Vanuatu and in Europe, that helped sort ofthat all of this process out over the last 15 years, uh, to develop and a well,and it has been submitted and the codex Alimentarius commission, which is asubset of the who.

That sets sort of, you know, quality standards for a, youknow, you know, for products in the world, um, is in the process of adoptingthis proposal that was created for an international quality standard, it'ssuspected to be adopted adopted by the end of this year, early next year, thatlays on all these criteria.

You know, it has to be traditional preparation methods, nosolvent extraction, blah, blah, blah. Um, and it doesn't mean that all productsthat don't meet, those aren't even necessarily dangerous because if you don'tget the aerial parts, then it's still may be pretty safe. With with, withsolvent extraction, but we don't know, there's a question Mark around it.

So basically the quality standard is going to dictate if itmeets these criteria to be considered, to be the definition of traditional kavato be, then you, you're going to be able to get food classification in manycountries around the world because many regulatory agencies are going behindthat. So.

Which is going to be great. So it's going to be a situationwhere you might be able to get food classification here, just like coffee. Um,so the situation has really been completely vetted out right now. It's just,uh, the idea on liver toxicity is just a Relic of a dogmatic process thathappens any times that a regulatory agency in government gets a hold ofsomething.

The best sort of comparison to this is like what happenedwith certain amino acids in the, in the United States trip to fan, you know,this happened with trip to fan. Back in 1990, 1991, where one company developeda product, you know, a synthetic product that was supposed to be tripped to panthat was produced incorrectly and then had some neurotoxins in it.

So it was chemically tripped a fan and it killed somepeople. And so then regulatory agencies come back and they're like, okay, sonow we're going to ban trip the fans, like what, wait a minute. That'd be like,you know, You know, my buddy was telling me, or, you know, on an interview theother day, um, uh, you know, someone was comparing it.

So it's like, well, if we ban meat, because someone soldsomething that wasn't meat and, uh, it hurts some people, right? So at thispoint, it's dogmatic and unfortunately, It's integrated into some of ourinformation systems and there's still this belief system out there. Um, butit's been well settled in the, in the scientific community and even the mainregulatory bodies.

So

Boomer Anderson: [00:43:24]beautiful. And thank you for explaining that. I really hope that this processaccelerates because for instance, I mean, here in the Netherlands, I can stillget it. It's not technically something I should be able to get, but theprocess, it appears to be very slow to repeal these things. You see this invarious other spaces as well, where we've banned certain exorbitant ofsubstances and.

Despite the fact that there's overwhelming evidence torepeal those bands or that some of the original claims or not true, or someother products out there are actually more harmful than the products that we'rebuying. And it just seems like the, the bureaucracy of it always gets in theway. And so my hope is, is that by working with the who, that you guys are ableto accelerate that process, Quite instantly.

Let's take a break from the episode to talk a little bitabout sleep.

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Cameron George: [00:45:01]Yes, exactly. And it's just, you know, the way that you find that informationis with good information and going through the proper, you know, the, theproper scientific process to be able to develop, because, you know, withscience, we're, you know, we're building evidence, right.

And, and that's, uh, that's what we need to do. We have.Tons of anecdotal evidence. We've got tons of historical evidence, but, but youknow, it was really the scientific evidence or the lack thereof. Right. It's,you know, um, on the, on the toxicity side that really created the overlap. The,you know, the, the overwhelming amount of, um, of inertia that was needed toreally get some of these regulatory process in place.

Most countries around the world, Germany lifted its CAVA banback in 2014. Um, you know, most countries in the world have either listedtheir bands are in the process of lifting their bands. There's still some, someissue Australia has been kind of slow to, uh, Canada has been kind of slow toit.

Netherlands have been a little bit slow. Of course, there'sstill, you can still get it in, but it's a. It's sort of in this gray areaprocess where it's like, it's not, it's never been like a schedule onesubstance, of course, cause it's not a substantive abuse at all. And it justwas like certain preparations, uh, you know, tradition, no prep.

And in a couple of these countries, like the bags of it, youcan sell, you can't sell extracts and sometimes it'll get stopped sometimes at,you know, so it's like, uh, but in most places around the world, the U S. Itwas grandfathered in under the, the Shea act of 1994, dietary, you know, foodand supplement act.

So it's considered a dietary supplement. We're getting foodclassification for these in the future for these things. And so that's a wholenother thing. Um, you know, the UK K is one that there's some challenges aswell, too, but most countries around the world, it's completely fine. Uh, youknow, at this point, so it's, it's moving, it's just taking time, you know,let's put it this way.

It's in a way better position than, than cannabis and CBD.Are, and the CBD market is doing amazing. Of course. It's

Boomer Anderson: [00:46:52]yeah. I just wish people would produce better quality CBD, but that's going tobe a, that's going to be an issue in the future. Uh, you mentioned a wordearlier and we're going to kind of, for the audience listening to this,therewas a couple of words that Cameron mentioned that I'm going to pick apart.

We're going to get delve into those a little bit. You saidkava lactones and. People listening to this are like, Oh, I thought we weretalking about kava kava. And so Kovalev tones. My understanding is, is thatsort of what I look at that as the active ingredient and if so, can we explainwhat Kavalla ketones are?

What the differences are between and what's from thebenefits maybe each half.

Cameron George: [00:47:33]Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So. Cuddle. Lactones just like Canadian of annoys incannabis. Right? Whenever we think about cannabis, we think about this array ofactive constituents, the effects of, and just like I, I alluded to earlier theentourage effect, the combination of all the different constituents that makeup the full therapeutic action of the plant are due to this class of compounds.

Like, like in cannabis, there's over 200 or so. Aye. Aye.Aye. Cannabinoids in several supportive constituents with cava, the most activeconstituents are these kava lactones and they're they're lipid like compoundslactones or lipid light compounds, um, that come to the surface of thetraditional brew. Um, they kind of give it this gloss and it's this sort ofthis oil gloss that sort of comes to the top.

Um, there are 1918. Well, there's actually 19 now. Totalknown kava lactones, which we think that there may be more, but the ones thathave been isolated and identified, we know of 19 six of which produced theoverlap whelming, majority of the effects that you know, that, uh, you know,kava is become so famous for.

So the main one that's been studied the most is, is onecalled coffin. And then there's the hydrocarbon, it's a double bonded form ofcoffin. Then there's one called . There's one called dihydro with his skin, adouble bond form of that. And then there's one called  and then there's one called  and bonus. So these are the primary six thatelicit most of the effects that we know to be so great with col.

Um, now that being said, a lot of people you want, if welook at kava lactones and I mean, we do collect an analysis on all the productsthat we produce. Um, you know, to try to give people a percentage of total kavalactone percentage and, you know, even, you know what what's called the chemotype, which is like six digit number sequence that gives us the ratios, youknow?

Boomer Anderson: [00:49:25]So you're effectively like sequencing the kava plant. Is that right?

Cameron George: [00:49:28]Yes. Yeah. You know, well, it's. You know, I came on topic, you know, he givesus, right, exactly. I mean, it gives us, you know, a six digit number sequenceof, you know, each, each kava lactone is assigned the miracle value one throughsix, and you put them in order, based on, you know, the concentrations inrelation to each other.

So you get a general idea of the ratios and the amounts ofeach one and a various restraints. If you get a, you know, a. You know, a chemotype from a specific strain from Vanuatu, that happens to be more of a sedatingstrain versus one from Tonga that happens to be more of a social enhancingstrain, more of a daytime strain.

Then you can look at the chemo side and get a general ideaof what the effects might be. But the problem is is that there are so manyother. Compounds in Caba that aren't accounted for. You could actually have asolvent extract with a key, you know, you know, with a chemo type that'sidentical to a traditional preparation and the effects be totally different asfar as like the potency and what you can expect to get from it.

But it gives you a ballpark idea, which is really the bestwe have right now. Um, as to, uh, you know, you're trying to get a total ideaof the, you know, the, you know, the effects of kava now. Total Cadillac, 10percentage is more useful because you have a higher collection percentage. Youknow, you're going to have a more potent drink, but the ratio thing, um, is, isnot quite as useful in knowing exactly, exactly what you're getting, but we'rehelping to push that process further in the future to try

Boomer Anderson: [00:50:51]essentially creating the wine menu of kava.

Cameron George: [00:50:54]Yes, exactly. Exactly. Because just like with cannabis, there are. Hundreds ofdifferent strains of that. Some are more daytime, so we're more nighttime, someshowcase, more of commons, nootropic, mood boosting, cognitive enhancing, yeah.Affects and are not sedating at all. And some are very heavy in like bedtime,sedating type of.

Type of compounds cause coma also has effects on dopamineand stuff as well, too, without being addictive. So it's, it's, you know, it'sreally interesting. So it's important when you get into real coffee, mostpeople don't even have the discussion around different strains of Cabo. We justsee these capsules in the health resource shelf, they just call it karma.

And the main reason is, is because. They can't evendistinguish between strands because they're getting from one of five majorbrokers in Vanuatu that gets, you know, huge bushels in from hundreds ofdifferent farmers and all the strains are mixed together and they can'tdiscern. So you can't get a lot of consistency and effects when you extractthem with solvents, you lose a lot of the effects anyways, so you can't tellthe difference.

Um, but when we're talking about actually getting into cava,medically, like we're talking about with cannabis strain matters, right? You goto dispensary's, you want to get the right strain, obviously for the righttherapeutic application. So that's something that's really important with Cabo,but in regards to cobble lactones, um, like, you know, with our products, we domeasure for the chemo type, you know, using HPLC methodology and we'll actuallyuse HPLC now.

Uh, and then we also get a, you know, a total kava lactone.Content. And so it does give us that, that general idea, and it is veryhelpful. Um, you know, to know that, you know, if we're getting say high levelsof carving and young going, and we're going to have more of the euphoriceffects and the angiolithic affection that , then we would get, say from thedouble bonded DH, K dot hydrocarbon or dihydro majestic in that are very, very,the extended half life of the overall.

Um, experience and are much more in the body and extremelycalming less in the head and more in the body. Um, so it, it, it helps us knowsome of these things by looking at chemo type, but the general gist is, is ifyou're getting a higher contract on content, you're going to have a strongerproduct. Um, and then you sort of dial it in from there with expertise.

Amazing. This is a.

Boomer Anderson: [00:53:07]Well, thank you so much for going into that. I I've even lost my train ofthought here. That was, I was so caught up in that moment. Um, and in terms ofjust let's talk about some of these percentages of kava lactones because you'vementioned to me a few times in passing 70% plus cover lactones what's theremaining percentage, is it because I know some people out there are going tobe concerned about fillers, right?

Because, um, And supplements, you can get fillers in thosefillers can actually be more harmful than good. What is the remainingpercentage that's not covered doctor,

Cameron George: [00:53:42]right? Yeah. So all the products that we produce and that was sort of, youknow, whenever I got into this. The whole world of kava and, you know, decidedthat I was going to start a company and partner with individuals in the, in,um, in, in the islands and get a supply chain in which we could verifyindividual strains and trace every step of the process and make sure that therewasn't mold growing on things and where we could control it from a qualitystandpoint.

I also had to develop. Some extraction methods that thatmimics that were the basically completely paralleled the traditionalpreparation methodology so that our products could be classified as food gradeproducts that are in so that we could get that full array of different effectsfrom it. Um, so the, um, The, the, the extract process that we use with ourprocess, we have several different forms.

We have some forms that are much lower kava lactonepercentage that actually sometimes can be stronger than the higher percentageones, depending on how they're they're made. But we do have like, you know, saylike a preparation that comes out in, in, you know, An encapsulated form, um,you know, very small volume where we've removed all the water from it afterdoing the extraction process.

And we ended up with something that's 70 and you know,anywhere from 70 to 95% pure kava, lactones the excess in that we don't use.You know, any chemicals, we don't use any fillers. We don't use anything. It'sthe pure cava. What you're getting is you're getting a little bit of the excesscarbon material in there.

You're getting, um, some of the, you know, some of theresidents and the, and the, you know, the fibers that are still in there. Areyou also getting some of the, um, I mean, very little of the fibers, but you'regetting some of the, uh, Um, you know, you know, the flavonoids and the, youknow, sort of the enzymatic activity and a lot of the other different Xs sortof just plant material that's that comprises the, the, the lateral roots in thebasal stump that we're using there.

Um, so no, there are no fillers that's taking up any of thatextra volume there because there's, you know, there's, there's more to thecomposition of cava. I mean, there's, you know, kava is like, it's like 40 orsomething, you know, Percent around 40 something percent starch. And thenthere's a percentage that's fast as a percentage of protein because it's, it'slike a food.

So there's more to the overall weight to cava than just theoily complex. The kava lactones, even though the Cadillac lactones is like thespecial sauce or the most special sauce, it's still this composition thing. Soit really is sort of, kind of like a whole food at that point. And that'sreally what makes up the didn't the rest of it in some of the traditionaltraditional preparations that aren't concentrated into smaller volumes, likethe drinks that we're in the process of producing, they have much lowercollective elective percentage and much higher on the starts content muchhigher on the, um, on the, on the, you know, on the fat content and on theprotein content as well.

Um, so you end up with lower capralactone percentage, butbecause you have this whole entourage, sometimes that's the strongest form thatyou'll get it in. Okay. But if you want immediate effects, it affects, youdefinitely can benefit from higher kava lactone content, especially if it'sstill produced through the same method as you had produced the drink, and youcan get up to these really high levels of these kava lactones and.

Um, the instill have that, that extra percentage ofsupportive constituents, that access sort of the bedrock that helps increasethe bioavailability of these main kava lactones helps increase the halflife ofthem to where we can get this sort of whole depth, uh, of, of, of, of the full,you know, effects profile that you would expect from a traditional drink,

Boomer Anderson: [00:57:22]Nobel cava.

What is that?

Cameron George: [00:57:25]Right. So I, I mentioned it earlier, just kind of touched on it. So Nobel kavais a classification term. That was, well, it comes out of Vanuatu. So it's,it's a classification term, uh, that has been given to a specific class ofdomesticated cava that has been dialed in over thousands of years by plantingand replanting and selecting for certain characteristics of certain cobbleplants.

Um, it's been dialed in for daily use, right? So this basicclass. Is it know basically to be classified as well. It has to meet a certainchemical composition standard. So it has to have a specific chemo type. Like Ikind of just touched on it has to fall within a certain range and it can't haveover a certain level of these, these extra compounds that are.

Not as egregious as the aerial part compounds, but they'restill kind of in the plant's defense system there, they're sort of subtlyirritating in the more wild forms and they're called . Um, and they're theselittle child cone compounds that actually have therapeutic action in smalldosages. And there's a hormetic response.

Our body adapt to them and they upregulate certain hormonalsystems. If they're in the right ratios of certain. You know, otherconstituents in the plant, but if in the wild forms and the non noble formsthat haven't been and dialed in, they're in higher amounts in the ratios arehigher. So you can get side effects, you can get stomach upset, you can get,you know, next day grogginess.

And we don't even actually know that you can ever get reallyto a dangerous level with them. If you prepare it, you know, traditionally weknow if you. I have a bunch of clavicle veins and then, and then concentratethem with solvents. You can end up in some egregious territory, but we do knowthat they give side effects.

So these non-normal varieties in the islands, they call themtwo day varieties, U D E I, but really it comes from the words today becauseyou can get like a tutor hangover from these, sometimes in these more of these,these. Cause that are closer to wild cava. These ones that come straight outthat are wild Cabo, they express high amounts of these Flava Cobain.

So you get really potent effects because they have highlevels of Blackstone's as well, but you can only use them really for acutemedicinal value, um, for like, you know, emergencies or for like, you know,ceremonies or something. Cause if you. If you use them every day and you startto accumulate these stomach side effects and it's sort of like, it's, it's justnot a smooth experience, but the vinyl one people have been selecting for themost tolerable ones, the ones that, um, that express lower amounts of theseflavor combines.

And they've dialed these in over thousands of years to wherenow we have this class of cava that is so smooth. That that has that meet thischemical composition standard that you can take continuously, virtually withoutside effects at all, and with very low levels and sometimes no levels of theseflavor commands of these flavor combines.

So, um, that's very important. So basically all of ourstrains that we use, we control every step of the process. We partner withfarmers who started, you know, farms ourselves, where we grow individualstrains, where we have a chemo type for each strain. We certified that it's ahundred percent Nobel cava for daily use.

We're not opposed to going into some of the non noble causesfor acute, but it's no value in the future. But right now we're only workingwith novels because they're the ones that we know are safer daily consumptionover a long period of time through this traditional. Preparation methodology.Um, but noble causes.

Yeah. It's very important for us to make this, this, thisdistinction. I'm not against these other forms of, of cava, especially for, youknow, acute medicinal application, but they do need to be separated out becauseif people get side effects, we don't want to hurt Colvin's reputation. We needto know what you're getting.

Right. And so, you know, bill karma is the class that'sgoing to be under, you know, the food classification standard as well and stufftoo. So all of our products that we produce are produced with a hundred percentcertified noble cotton material from individual strengths.

Boomer Anderson: [01:01:18]Very cool. Uh, Cameron, this has been an absolute education.

Now just keeping an eye on time here. I want to transitionnow into a little bit of final four questions, but just given the, the level ofconversations that we've had before, I'm sure we're going to come back to kavaon the show at some point. Uh, so let's start with those final four questions.

What's your, what book has most significantly impacted yourlife?

Cameron George: [01:01:43]Oh, wow. Let's see. That's an interesting one, you know, um, probably. Youknow, I, I could, I could throw out some from a, I guess from a philosophicalstandpoint, you know, in regards to plant medicine, I read Christian rashes,encyclopedia of psychoactive plants. And I know that's kind of like, it's likea full encyclopedia, right?

So it's probably like a standard book, but I had a lot oftime whenever I was sick. Right. So I literally read through this entire thingand it's probably the most comprehensive overview. Of of the ethno botanicalworld and some sort of context to the, you know, the, you know, from aphilosophical standpoint point that the role of psychoactive compounds with themanifest through the natural ecology, right?

So, you know, everything from extreme potent, uh, you know,psychedelics compounds that have amazing application in certain circumstances,I've been that. You changed my life and given me perspective and really areresponsible for, uh, the depth and understanding of sort of, you know, give theecosystem behind and plant medicine, um, all the way to kids cannabis, all theway to kava all the way to Morrison well compounds and just understanding plantpharmacology and just sort of the value of this, of.

Plant medicine. Right. And sort of the, that it comes out ofthis intelligent living system that is this organism that is the planet. Andthey're extensions of this world, just like we're extensions of this world. Um,just like an Apple is an extension of the Apple tree. Like we're notindividuals on this world where we're part of an, uh, an integrated system,which is why these compounds are so compatible with us because the sameintelligence that developed that our bodies sprung out of.

You know, the plants also manifest from that sameintelligent network call it what you will. So I guess that would be just onethat comes to mind just off the top of my head, because after spending time inthat. Work. Right. Which is it, it isn't encyclopedia, but it's, it's kind oflike an extended book as well, too.

Um, it just, it changed my whole perspective on plantmedicine. And I had experiences with psychedelic compounds on top of that, andthat really sort of set the stage with everything I do philosophically goingforth with plant medicine. So that was a big one for me.

Boomer Anderson: [01:03:59]Amazing. Um, what's your top trick for enhancing focus?

Cameron George: [01:04:06]Well, you

Boomer Anderson: [01:04:08]know, I may be biased,

Cameron George: [01:04:10]so yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, cava is one of my go tos as far as acompound that I would take. Right. But I mean, I'm a huge, a huge advocate forthe multi therapeutic approach. I'm a huge advocate for getting the basicsright before you take any supplement or compound.

Right. I mean, kava is an amazing substance and there's allkinds of individual amazing substances, but there is no pill or powder lotionor potion, or even amazing plant medicine. That's going to undo horrible, youknow, Life circumstances are horrible. Um, you know, bad habits basically,right? So horrible dietary habits, you know, lack of movement, right?

Lack of good quality sleep, which of course called it helpswith it feeds back into it, of course. But, um, but you know, for me doingeverything I can to improve sleep. To improve the lighting conditions in my, inmy house to not eating after a certain time to getting movement throughout theday to, you know, make sure that my circadian rhythms are on in line with eachother.

I'm keeping my levels of systemic inflammation low. So I,you know, all those basic things that getting into tooth is sort of like healthand wellness, biohacking world that people are trying to do to invest in theirhealth, to get better performance out of themselves. Um, uh, you know, bothfrom a. From a family standpoint, a business standpoint, you know, everything.

Um, I would go to all of those things first and, you know,cava definitely, honestly. I mean, and not just even saying that because it's,it's, it's something that we happen to be talking about. It really is anamazing nootropic compound that has probably the best therapeutic to drawback ratioof any powerful plant medicine that I've ever seen.

Like it gives you these amazing benefits without thetolerance, you know, addiction and withdrawal process. But it gives you amazingacute benefits and it has effects on dopamine as well without being addictive.Um, and it's just, it's got this great sort of balance to it, right? There aremore powerful compounds that you could take.

You can take, you can take Modafinil, you could take a, youknow, you can take a lot of things that are. Well, I wouldn't even necessarilysay that they're even better and always more powerful, but, um, but you, youhave to take into context, you know, the, you know, the cost benefit ratio ofeverything. And is it actually giving to your system?

That's that knowledge, wisdom thing that I mentionedearlier, right? It's like the business of taking something over a long periodof time. So all things considering, um, and you know, cava is definitely one ofmy favorite individual compounds. Um, you know, improving sleep, doing thebasics, you know, grounding outside, getting lots of sunlight's, you know,getting, um, you know, you know, chemicals and processed foods out of yourdiet.

That is the, I mean, those are all the basics of how youreally improve and invest in your health and improve your cognition so that youcan bring it in every aspect of your life. And then things like Carver, sort ofthe icing on the cake.

Boomer Anderson: [01:06:54]What excites you most about the health world right now?

Cameron George: [01:06:57]Right now?

You know? I mean we're in this time right now, where we'regetting, uh, uh, a tremendous acceleration, uh, in, you know, progression of,of everything from, you know, technology, geez, the biotechnologies, even just,just general intercommunication human consciousness on the planet. It's areally exciting time because things are moving so fast.

And the rate at which they're moving is also accelerated.Right. Um, so we're more connected than we ever have been. So we can sit andreceive information faster than we ever have been before, too. So we're able tofast track. Pretty much everything. Um, you know, some of the things that arecoming out of the, the field of biotechnology is really excite me.

Um, STEM cell medicine really excites me. Um, you know,certain things, you know, within, uh, You know, uh, you know, anti senescentdrugs, you know, the, the deal with, you know, senescent cells, possiblythere's, there's, there's a lot of things within sort of like the biotechnologysort of circuit around enhancing the body's ability to turn over new cells, tolink the telomeres, to extend, you know, the, the, um, Human lifespan thatactually look really promising towards the future.

It actually really moving the dial, excite me a lot, butwhat excites me even more is individuals being able to send and receive muchmore good information. That's not compromised, kind of like a, you know, thestory with kava where people just pair it, something that's not based on anyobjective evidence and, and, and, and looking at.

You know, historically what makes sense as well too. So I'mtalking about just general health principles, like people getting access togood information. That's complete about general approaches to upkeeping thismachine that is the human body and the human psyche, you know, just, justprinciples, like, um, feast, famine, cycling, like fasting, like when to eatwhen to not right.

There's there's a time and a place context matters there.And you can, you can do so much for your health. By just understanding basicsof how a human being traditionally and ancestrally has developed to be able tointerface with the natural world in all of its cycles and all of its sort ofnatural compounds.

How do we derive energy from our environment in the best wayas possible? Right. Um, you know, from, you know, different forms of, of foodthat we consume. All right. So there are a lot of things here that are becomingmuch more popular. Um, and we're just able to really dive in deep on thembecause we can like, you know, you and I can communicate from across the world.

We can have this podcast, we can have long formconversations. We can unpack the context in this, get clarity. I can take thatinto my own world over here, which, you know, accelerating things in certainaspects of the, of the, uh, Uh, you know, of, of the space of the industry andyou do the same, right? So all of this excites me, right?

There's so much going out, you know, you're coming out ofthe more sort of like, you know, therapy world. And then there's, there's muchmore coming out of like the lifestyle, you know, sort of, you know, applicationintegration world as well. So it all excites me missing

Boomer Anderson: [01:10:08]Cameron, where can people find out more about you, your company?

And if they want to get the cava, where can they get it?

Cameron George: [01:10:13]Yeah. Yes. So you can go to, to get true cava.com. It's a good resource foreverything, the information we're just, uh, you know, making some renovationsto the side, you know, providing pretty much everything that, you know, anindividual would need to know.

Um, and of course you can email us if you have any. Extraadjunctive information about the regulatory status or about the science orspecifics on, you know, something more than what the average person would wantto know as well. So get true. kava.com is the website. You can find us on, on,you know, Facebook, true cava page or at TrueCar on Instagram or at your Covelland Twitter, any of those.

So we're on all social media, just, just search through Cobband you'll find us. And yeah, so.

Boomer Anderson: [01:10:54]Yeah. And, and true just for everybody's edification is

Cameron George: [01:10:57]spelled T R U not T R U E. Okay.

Boomer Anderson: [01:11:01]Thank you. So get, get true. cava.com T R U.

Cameron George: [01:11:05]Yes,

Boomer Anderson: [01:11:06]Cameron. This has been an absolute pleasure education and so many other things.

I've enjoyed the conversation a lot and, uh, I need to finda way to get this stuff into the Netherlands. So we're gonna have aconversation shortly after this. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.

Cameron George: [01:11:20]Oh, absolutely. Man. Thanks so much for having me.

Boomer Anderson: [01:11:22]So all the superhumans listening out there. Can you check this one out onYouTube, Spotify, iTunes, wherever you want, but half an Epic  how'd you guys enjoy that show?

It's amazing that in certain places, even the place that Ilive today, cava is still trout and in controversy. It's something that I hopechanges very, very soon, but if you want to go and try true Kaba, you can headon over T R U Kaba, K a v.com and get yours today. If you enjoyed this episode,I encourage you to go on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

And leave a five star rating and review. I read them out asI did earlier. And I really hope to hear from you. Thank you, super humans fortuning in today and have an absolutely Epic day.