In this episode, I talk to Dr. Jim Collins about the benefits of CBD oil and why you may want to add it to your wellness plan. We talk about the benefits of CBD oil for menopausal symptoms, energy, mood, addictions, pets and sleep among other things. We also discussed why full spectrum CBD is important and why you want to look for high quality, third party testing, which is so important for any supplements, powders or vitamins you use. If you want more detail about why using CBD oil is helpful, especially for aging and longevity, check out Dr. Collins’ book, Living Longer and Stronger with CBD.

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Living Longer and Stronger with CBD Book

Heal Nourish Grow Podcast Episode 17 Transcript

Cheryl McColgan: Alright, welcome everybody. Today, I am joined by Dr. Jim Collins, and he just wrote this excellent new book, All about the benefits of CBD oil, and I am really excited to chat with him today, so, Dr. Collins, I’ll just let you kind of introduce yourself and give some background on how you got into Gerontology, and then we’ll go from there.

Dr. Jim Collins: Yeah, fantastic. Cheryl, thank you so much for having me, I appreciate it. I kinda knew what I wanted to be early in life. My father was an electrical engineer and my mother was a nursing assistant in the same nursing home for 30 years.

Cheryl McColgan: Oh wow.

Dr. Jim Collins: Yeah, a long long time. So it’s a bit… It’s kind of a funny story, and it’s related to the movie Driving Miss Daisy.

[laughter]

Dr. Jim Collins: So… But I was driving Ms. Mary. So my father worked in the afternoons, and my mom worked at 7:30, eight o’clock in the morning until three or whatever. So my father made me a deal and he said, “Son, I’ll buy you a car the minute you turn 16, but you’ll have to drive your mom to work and you’ll have to pick her up after work,” and I said, “Oh,” because mom didn’t like to drive. But my high school was over here, the nursing home was approximately six minutes away, so it was no big deal whatsoever. So I got out of school, high school, about 30-45 minutes before my mother got off her shift.

Dr. Jim Collins: So, I’m a very social person, so I didn’t wait in the parking lot listening to music or anything like that. I parked the car and I went into the nursing home, five days a week, and I was just amazed at what I saw. Elderly people who were very wise, very cognitively alert, but they had physical illnesses. And then there were elderly people with Alzheimer’s disease and neurodegenerative conditions, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s. So I was introduced to all of that at an early age, and I was fascinated and freaked out, all at the same time, within the nursing home setting. So I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to work with seniors and older adults, in some capacity. I didn’t know that I would become a gerontologist by any means whatsoever.

Getting into Gerontology

Dr. Jim Collins: But after high school, I went right to college, and they didn’t offer a degree, a bachelor’s degree in Gerontology, so I put together my own degree and I took it to the Dean and then the Dean said, “You’re crazy, but if that’s what you wanna do, I’ll sign it.” And he signed it, and I put together the very first degree in Gerontology here, in Youngstown, Ohio, at YSU, Youngstown State University, called Applied Gerontological Studies. And from there I went to graduate school. I started consulting, I went back for a PhD, and now I own an online learning system for senior care healthcare professionals. And I trained live, prior to the pandemic, I was out and about, on the stage, in a car, on a plane, because I love live presentations and training people and educating them on all the newest ways of staying healthy and the gut to brain connection, and how to reduce your risk for Alzheimer’s disease and treating the body in natural ways.

Benefits of CBD Oil

Dr. Jim Collins: So all of that led to an interest of mine in medical cannabis. I started reading study after study after study, became convinced that it was very effective. And then I said to myself, “Well, I’m not going to recommend medical cannabis to seniors and older adults or licensed healthcare professionals because of the THC.” That led me into the world of CBD, several years ago. And after reading 500 or 600 medical studies, academic journal articles on the health benefits of CBD, I said, “I have to start my own company. I have to make sure it’s the greatest product, and I have to write about this and get it out to the world,” because there are natural solutions versus so many prescription medications, that all come with side effects. And the older we get, the more dangerous and/or deadly those side effects can be. So that led me here where I am today.

Cheryl McColgan: Right, and I think it’s really exciting that you took this on. So this is just so people can see, this is an example of the CBD oil that you have produced. And it’s third party tested, kind of all the things, if you really do research into supplements, there’s so much garbage out there [laughter]

Dr. Jim Collins: Oh my God, yeah.

Cheryl McColgan: And not well-produced, but your particular product is full spectrum. It’s got all the things that you’re looking for when… Once you start to dive into this whole CBD arena.

Dr. Jim Collins: Right.

Cheryl McColgan: Because it can be made with solvents, it can be… There’s a lot of things that can adulterate the product. So maybe if you could explain… I’m sure some of that is the exact reason why you’ve developed Sapphire Essentials.

Benefits CBD Oil: Why Full Spectrum?

Dr. Jim Collins: Yes. Not all CBD products are equal, as you know, Cheryl. So some are coming from out of the country, who knows what are in those products? Some companies use CBD isolate and isolate is ineffective by itself. So being either full spectrum or broad spectrum means that we have all of those cannabinoids, phytocannabinoids, working together synergistically. And we know through science that you need all of the molecules working together with terpenes and with vanilloids and other things that are in CBD. So we use the best source, organically grown, cleanly extracted… Very natural and 100% THC free. That’s a very important thing for us, because doctors, nurses, chiropractors are using our product, and they can not afford to have a THC positive on a drug screen.

Cheryl McColgan: Right.

Dr. Jim Collins: So we had to use the best product that we possibly can. And another thing that differentiates CBD companies, is the actual volume or the amount of CBD they put in to the oil. Because you could fill it with coconut oil, and grapeseed oil, and hemp oil, and all that stuff it’s nice. But it’s not giving you the amount of CBD that the body requires, and that was a must for us, to have the highest amount possible. So some companies get in trouble you know somebody tests their product, they’re saying 78% CBD and it’s 27%, it’s 32%. Ours is guaranteed between 70-90% CBD, which is very high for the market.

Cheryl McColgan: Wow, that’s amazing. Yeah, so that is one reason that it is… When we first started talking, because I’ve been approached by some other CBD oil companies, and when I look at their website and look at the background, I’m just not super happy with how they’re being produced and everything.

[laughter]

Dr. Jim Collins: Well, I feel special then. Thank you.

[laughter]

Benefits of CBD Oil for Autophagy and Anti-Aging Properties

Cheryl McColgan: Yeah. No, I always appreciate high quality products, and they’re not always that easy to find. So did you do… I’m assuming at some point, both of us being older adults, myself, I talk about this a lot on my content. I’m 48 and fighting aging every step of the way. So there’s a lot of things that I do to try to you know do anti-aging disease prevention, the things that promote autophagy, that sort of thing. And I did actually read… And somewhere in the book, it mentioned autophagy. So I’m just wondering like as you were developing this product, did you start to play with it yourself at all, and what were maybe some of the things that you noticed from using CBD. Basically what are the benefits of CBD oil for fighting aging?

Dr. Jim Collins: Absolutely.

Cheryl McColgan: Prior to that?

Benefits of CBD Oil for Menopause and Female Reproduction

Dr. Jim Collins: That’s exactly right. So as a gerontologist, I’m always trying to slow down the aging process or give the body what it needs to age at an optimal level throughout our lives. And aging is not the problem, developing diseases is the problem. You know. So, yes I experimented on myself, my wife experimented with it. We’re 55. My wife is 55, I’m 55, and she started to go into menopause about two years ago, and the hot flashes and the night sweats, and waking up in the middle of the night, all that. So in my studies I said, and her name is Annabel. I said, Annabel, I would really like you to try this because I do understand that the vital cannabinoids found in CBD oil or other CBD products, help to feed the female reproductive system and the cells of the reproductive system. //There are benefits of CBD oil for the reproductive system.

Dr. Jim Collins: And there are actually receptor-sites throughout the reproductive system just sitting there waiting to receive something nourishing to it, but we haven’t had hemp in our diets since the 1930s when the United States government made it illegal. So there’s this big come back now, so the experiment looked like this. The experts say start 25 milligrams a day. Target a symptom, take it four or five to seven days, see how you feel, write it down, journal it, do whatever you wanna do, but really monitor a symptom. Don’t go crazy. Just pick something, right? So she chose sleep, you know menopause brought upon her a pretty bad insomnia, so we started with 25 milligrams for a week, nothing. The rule of thumb is to double the dose.

Dr. Jim Collins: So we went to 50 milligrams per week, nothing. She doubled it again to 100 milligrams, which is not difficult to take, we have a 1,500 milligram bottle and each dropper holds 50 milligrams, so she would just do two full droppers. She’s sleeping through the night. She’s sleeping through the alarm. She has never slept better in her life. So while she was monitoring the symptom of insomnia, it took three weeks, she started to notice something else. Her hot flashes reduced by, these are her words, 85%. //That’s a pretty good sign of one of the benefits of CBD oil.

Cheryl McColgan: Wow.

Dr. Jim Collins: That is incredibly significant. Incredibly significant. So those were her results, extremely good results. So I have… You know I am 55 I have some aches and pains, but not that much. With me, I’m a high energy person, so and I like to maintain that high energy throughout the day, like right around now, 2:30, 3:00, 4:00, it’s like, you know the crash that the late afternoon crash, so I hate that I don’t want to get another cup of coffee. I don’t believe in power drinks with all the sugar and the caffeine in it, I think those are really bad for you. So what I started doing in the morning is we have these super drops, and super drops are actually not oil, they are water-based. They’re water soluble CBD drops, and they look like, yoo-hoo, that chocolate milk drink.

Cheryl McColgan: Yeah.

Benefits of CBD Oil for Energy

Dr. Jim Collins: Kinda chocolate looking. So what I do is I put just four five drops, not droppers, drops in my coffee in the morning, and it feeds my endocannabinoid system and I am full of great energy, bright, on target, I think clear. So it wasn’t… And I don’t notice pain, as a matter of fact if you feel pain and you notice it, sometimes the pain actually gets worse. Have you heard that? If you focus on your pain it exacerbates. I don’t even think about being painful or uncomfortable at all. So that with the energy has been my success story with our product.

Cheryl McColgan: And then since you did that, and I think one of the applications you mentioned in the book that I was really interested in because I have this, is osteoarthritis, and then so many other things that you mentioned, like Parkinson’s and some of the other… You know, I guess, for lack of a better word, just diseases of old age that are more likely to be just from aging.

Dr. Jim Collins: Yeah.

Cheryl McColgan: Have you any other interesting stories in your time of experimenting with this, where people took it and kind of got relief from various other issues?

Dr. Jim Collins: Yes, absolutely. As a matter of fact, this is a good story. It’s a sad story but then it gets happier. So I know of a wonderful licensed professional, healthcare professional, who doesn’t live in Ohio, lives in another state near Ohio. And has a very good career, married with children, the whole nine yards. And she started to develop multiple sclerosis, up later in life, and, I mean, it’s tough earlier in life, sometimes it’s worse when you develop it later in life. So she goes to work and she struggles for years, and the MS is getting worse, and with MS, it attacks the muscle, it attacks tendons, it causes horrifying spasms. You know, your entire… If you think about your arm and you were to take your arm and just twist it like a rag, for hours, that’s how it feels, and it’s very painful. So her only option, according to her physician, was to go on a very expensive medication. The medication was $5000 a month.

Cheryl McColgan: Whoa.

Dr. Jim Collins: Yeah, we’re talking one of those like, if you don’t take it, you’re really gonna suffer, your quality of life is gonna be very, very terrible. So why not do it? So literally, Cheryl, she was working to pay for that pill.

Cheryl McColgan: Crazy.

Benefits of CBD Oil for Pain

Dr. Jim Collins: And it wasn’t working all that great and she was having terrible side effects, like weight gain, and, you know, any of us, like, men do not want weight gain. She was a yes a very attractive, you know, beautiful person, and then any type of weight gain bothered her psychologically, emotionally and physically and everything else. So I gave her a couple of 1,500 mg bottles, because that’s the heaviest, strongest stuff that we have, and I said, “Please just take it, try it and let me know how it works, please.” And she got in touch with me maybe three or four weeks later, and she said, “I love this. For the first time in a long time, my spasms have reduced, the intensity sort of the frequency, the intensity of my pain has reduced dramatically.” She’s still on her medication because her physician is really recommending that she does remain on it, but CBD has become a wonderful complementary medication for her. And it’s feeding her endocannabinoid system. It’s reducing pain and spasms, and it’s bringing back quality of life. So that’s a wonderful thing.

Cheryl McColgan: Absolutely, that’s amazing. And I feel like, I mean, not every supplement or substance or medication works for every single person, or maybe not in the same way, but I think the beauty about CBD oils, if you find a high quality one like Sapphire, all you can do is try it, right, and see how it works for you. And I think the other thing that I just wanted to highlight, that I probably have been guilty of in the past when I’ve tried certain things, is your method of starting with the lowest dose and then kind of just increasing and you know, you might have stopped after two weeks thinking, “Well, this is not gonna work.” But you just hadn’t hit the right dosage yet.

Dr. Jim Collins: Right.

Cheryl McColgan: And so it’s probably a little different for everybody, so I guess I would encourage people like, “Hey, if you’ve tried CBD in the past and maybe it didn’t work, it could be, number one, that it wasn’t very high quality, or number two, that they just didn’t reach the threshold that they actually need to treat whatever it is they’re tracking,” so I thought that was…

Dr. Jim Collins: That’s exactly right.

Cheryl McColgan: Yeah.

Benefits of CBD Oil: Need for Consistency and Finding the Right Dosage

Dr. Jim Collins: Yeah. And think about this too, for your audience, you know, when you start any type of prescription medication, the physician is going to start you on the lowest dose possible. You know, in Psychiatry we call it, “Go low, start slow”, and so you go on the lowest possible dose and then you monitor and then the doctor titrates. The doctor will titrate the milligram up or down or take you off the med completely and try a different medication. If you’re depressed and you’ve been on Prozac 10 mg, and it didn’t work for three or four weeks, the doctor most likely is going to increase it up to 20 mg or 30 mg and then you start… You might start feeling a difference. It’s the same thing with CBD. Think of CBD as a natural medicine, it’s a natural supplement and it’s a natural medicine, and no two chemistries are the same.

Dr. Jim Collins: So you have two things, like you said. Number one, stay on it. People tend… “Oh, I tried it for three weeks and nothing happened so I put it away.” Well, you’re are not using it correctly. As a supplement, you take it daily. CBD is meant to be taken daily. That’s why we have the soft shells, because they look like little vitamin Es and take one a day, take them along with your vitamins. So stay on your CBD, take it every day for a lengthy period of time, but then monitor your symptoms and adjust it. Like I said, give it a week on 25 mg, and give it a week on 50 mg, give it another week on 100 mg. Your audience needs to know that, number one, it’s safe. No one ODs on CBD, you know, no one’s gonna get high on CBD. It’s THC-free completely. No one is going to become addicted to CBD whatsoever.

Dr. Jim Collins: And there are virtually no side effects whatsoever. The only side effect that we see in research is sometimes a little GI distress, little gastrointestinal distress, like loose stool or diarrhea sometimes, things like that. And sometimes, if you take too much, some drowsiness. But there are studies where individuals are taking 1000 mg a day, or 1500 mg a day, and they are getting phenomenal results out of that dosage. So it is, it’s a dosing, titrating type of game, you have to figure out where your sweet spot is with CBD.

Benefit of THC free CBD Oil for People Who are Being Drug Tested

Cheryl McColgan: Yeah. Yeah, I’m really glad that you brought up that point, because I think that that happens too often when we give up on something too soon. [chuckle] And you also mentioned the THC again, being THC-free, and I thought one of the best points was because obviously drug testing, not just healthcare professionals, but many jobs have that now. So…

Dr. Jim Collins: Correct.

Cheryl McColgan: Are there any other reasons that consumers may want to avoid THC in their CBD products besides just that testing problem that you mentioned already?

Dr. Jim Collins: Yeah. Well, by law and after the 2018 Farm bill was signed, CBD is allowed to legally contain 0.03% THC. Now that’s not enough to get anybody high, it really is not, but that can be misleading for people who do work and can be drug tested. They think oh, that’s so little, it can never come up on a drug test, it can [chuckle] actually come up on a drug test.

Cheryl McColgan: That’s good to know.

[chuckle]

Dr. Jim Collins: So… Yeah, it’s good to know, because think about it, you’re taking it daily, you’re taking it every day, 0.3% so on and so forth daily, it can create a residual amount of THC in your system. You’re not gonna get high, but if you are tested, a trace element might appear in a test. So I just… I steer away from anything with THC in it, that’s my preference. Yeah.

Cheryl McColgan: And what about as far as Sapphire essentials, what do you attribute to the success of the brand so far? I mean, is it because it’s more effective, more pure, all the above, [chuckle] what do you contribute the success of that to?

Dr. Jim Collins: Well, I think it’s because I’m a gerontologist and I am the founder, and I don’t know of any other CBD company out there that has an aging specialist. And we also have a medical director, Dr. Leonard Wisneski. He is a firm believer in the power of CBD. He has studied, as a matter of fact, in Israel, where the endocannabinoid system was discovered. Okay, in Jerusalem. Also, we don’t put marijuana leaves on our products as you can see the box, it looks high quality, it looks medical, it looks serious. You’re not gonna find that on a gas station shelf, you know, we don’t… We could and sell a lot of it, I refuse to do that. I want this to go to practitioners, and I want this to go to older adults, Baby Boomers, Gen X-ers like ourselves who… You know, we’re aging, we could use a little more help.

[chuckle]

Cheryl McColgan: A lot.

[chuckle]

Dr. Jim Collins: But I wanted people to know this is a serious product, it’s not a fly by night thing. I wanna be around for a long long time, and I wanna help a lot of people. So, we have a great wholesale program at Sapphire Essentials but we also have a practitioner Advantage Program. And that’s where chiropractors, nurse practitioners, physicians, acupuncturists get 40% off the free book. We train their staff for free, we give them signage for their office, and we help them to teach their clients and their patients about the power of CBD. So we’re taking a real serious healthcare approach, not a fly-by night, no gimmicks, no marijuana leaves, it probably won’t excite Generation Z or millennials much, I don’t know, maybe it might, [chuckle] but it’s a serious product for serious people who want to improve their quality of living.

Cheryl McColgan: And to that point, one of the things that I noticed, again, I’ve tried several brands in the past, and one thing I noticed that yours is not filtered. Can you maybe touch on why that is? Are there any additional benefits of CBD oil when it’s unfiltered? And it has a little bit more flavour than some other… And it’s not objectionable in any way, it’s just…

Dr. Jim Collins: Right.

Cheryl McColgan: Some brands have put a little sweetener in or I think they completely filter out any of the green, so can you explain maybe why that’s in there and why that might be good?

Why Unfiltered and Unsweetened CBD Oil is Better

Dr. Jim Collins: Well, filtering anything out, you lose potency. Adding artificial flavours… I know a lot folks who love their lemon flavoured CBD and their spearmint flavoured CBD, but here’s what you’re doing, you’re taking a natural organically grown product and you’re putting something unnatural and artificial in it, and that defeats the purpose for me. As a team we decided we want full 100% hemp. The greener the better, the darker the better. You know, it’s like a red wine, it’s like a stout beer, the darker the better. The more un-filtered, the heftier, the heartier, the better. So, we take nothing out and we don’t add anything artificial whatsoever into our product. So I will tell your audience that it’s very hempy, [laughter] it’s very green tasting, but a lot of people like that. And it doesn’t bother people.

Cheryl McColgan: I didn’t mind it. It’s definitely stronger, but I was just… I was surprised, because it’s… Again, I think some of the ones I’ve tried in the past, when people sent them have been like, a little bit lower quality or just didn’t have that full spectrum the way that they made it, so.

Dr. Jim Collins: Right.

Cheryl McColgan: Yeah. It’s a hearty product.

Cheryl McColgan: Yes.

Dr. Jim Collins: Hearty.

[chuckle]

Cheryl McColgan: And I mean, don’t let that scare anybody away, because again, it just tastes a little green, but that’s not a bad thing, and I think knowing why it’s like that will help people understand it’s okay, [chuckle] it’s not gonna…

Dr. Jim Collins: Yeah.

Cheryl McColgan: It’s actually gonna help you more, so…

Dr. Jim Collins: It will help you more right, because it’s all natural properties, that’s right.

Cheryl McColgan: And so it also can help pets too, right? One of the…

Dr. Jim Collins: Yes.

Cheryl McColgan: Products that you sent, which I don’t have dogs anymore, but I passed it along to my good friend [laughter] that has some dogs.

Dr. Jim Collins: Good. Good.

Cheryl McColgan: And they had already had their dogs on CBD in the past, and they really enjoyed this particular product a lot better, so can you maybe talk about why you decided to include geriatric pets in this mix?

CBD Oil for Pets

Dr. Jim Collins: Absolutely. Two reasons, number one, every animal on the planet besides insects have an endocannabinoid system, we know that as a fact now. We didn’t know that until the ’90s, so that’s a newer concept. So dogs in particular, cats as well, but dogs suffer from a lot of the same illnesses and ailments that human beings do. Various forms of arthritis, anxiety, depression, you know? I’m one of those people who really do believe that animals have emotions, quite a few emotions. So, I knew animals have an endocannabinoid system, they… Talk to any vet who knows about this, and they’re a firm believer in this as well. And then, I love dogs. I’ve always had dogs in my life, we have two dogs at home right now, Buddy, he’s in the book, he’s the white fluffy Havamalt, and he’s my boy. I mean, Buddy is the right name for that dog, [chuckle] he follows me everywhere, jumps in bed, jumps in the car. We have a rock and roll room, big drum set, guitars, pianos, and everything, and he’ll sit right next to the drum kit, the bass drum while I’m bashing away at it, and he loved it. He’s like a rock and roll dog.

Dr. Jim Collins: But Buddy was born with a neurological disorder that makes him shake. You know when little logs have that shaky shake syndrome? And as far as I know, veterinarians don’t have a technical term for it, I had two or three vets tell me it’s called White Dog Shaking Syndrome, [chuckle] and I’m like, “Did you make that up?” [laughter] “Now, you’re just making stuff up, stop it.” But here’s the deal, it’s a true neurological disorder, we have proof, evidence in research that CBD is a neuroprotectant, it protects our nerves. It helps our nerves to fire and work more effectively and efficiently. So, Buddy is maybe 15 pounds. One little chicken chew is all he needs a day and he loves it. I shake the bottle and the dogs come running, and instead of saying, “Treat, treat, treat,” I go, “CBD, CBD, CBD.” [laughter] And they run and get the CBD.

Benefits for Pets

Dr. Jim Collins: After a few weeks, Buddy slowed down his shaking, quite significantly, we all saw it. And that’s amazing. That’s an amazing thing for him. The other dog is a rescue, and it’s a Chi-Wiener, [laughter] which… This doesn’t even sound right, or a chi-wee-wee, whatever, a chi-wee-wee, chi-Wiener, and it’s a long red chihuahua, [chuckle] and her name is Kitty. The dog’s very confused. The dog’s name is Kitty. Kitty was abandoned in a house with her mom and a bunch of other puppies, the house was on fire, someone had to rescue the pups and the mom, so early PTSD for Kitty. And then she was abandoned again, and we finally brought her in. So now we know she has PTSD, she has separation anxiety, she has stranger danger, and all these other things. With CBD, it calms her down, doesn’t make her high, it balances.// That’s one of the great benefits of CBD oil for pets.

Benefits of CBD Oil for Balancing Your System, Adaptogenic Properties

Dr. Jim Collins: And that’s a very important point for your viewers. CBD is not gonna take you up, CBD is not gonna bring you down, CBD is the great balancer. Because it’s feeding the endocannabinoid system. The endocannabinoid system regulates so many other systems within our body and our brain. It basically just moderates and makes us kinda medium about things. You’re not up, you’re down, you’re right in the middle.

Cheryl McColgan: So, would you kinda put it in the same category as an adaptogen type of substance, is one of the benefits of CBD oil is to act as an adaptogen in the body?

Dr. Jim Collins: Absolutely, 100% right. It’s providing something to our bodies that we’ve not consumed for many decades and because of that there’s a theory called endocannabinoid deficiency syndrome. Which means, we are all walking around with a deficient endocannabinoid system, and that’s the reason for more illnesses and diseases today more than, say, a hundred years ago.

Cheryl McColgan: Interesting.

Dr. Jim Collins: And we’re not feeding ourselves what we need.

Cheryl McColgan: And in so many ways, right? Because I don’t mean… You probably don’t know as much about or nothing about my background as I do about yours, [chuckle] and I’m very focused on proper nutrition and again, the things that can help with aging and to promote autophagy. So, I can totally appreciate that.

Dr. Jim Collins: Perfect.

Cheryl McColgan: Because we’re deficient in so many things, magnesium, vitamin D, I mean, it’s a really…

Dr. Jim Collins: Oh, yeah.

Cheryl McColgan: An epidemic of its own, of the lack of… You know, lack of nutrition and lack of proper nourishment in our bodies.

Dr. Jim Collins: Right, and I am a strong believer in feeding your gut. Your gut is probably more important than your brain, is what we’re discovering.

Cheryl McColgan: Just from microbiome perspective and how that affects your entire system.

Dr. Jim Collins: Yeah, the microbiome. The microbiome tells the brain what to do, not the other way around.

Cheryl McColgan: Interesting.

Dr. Jim Collins: Yup.

CBD for Everything?

Cheryl McColgan: What else did you learn, Dr. Collins, when you were researching for the book, and again, just to say this in the middle, in case people aren’t watching, Living Longer and Stronger with CBD? When you were doing the research for this, and obviously this has been your life’s work, but was there anything that you kinda ran across that you were shocked to learn or that made you think of something in a new way? Any benefits of CBD oil that were new to you?

Dr. Jim Collins: Absolutely. Well, first of all, when I read these studies, the first word out of my mind was, “Snake oil, CBD cannot do all of this.” [laughter] Right? I was like, “No way.” Medical cannabis for certain things like cancer, pain, nausea, obviously, epilepsy, seizure disorder, I get that, I got that, okay, but that’s a handful of disorders. You know, I’m reading and I’m going on and on and on. CBD and depression, CBD and anxieties, CBD and sleep disorders, CBD and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS. Come on. CBD and diabetes, CBD and lupus, CBD and brain cancer. And… But these are peer-reviewed medical or academic articles, white papers. And I drove my family crazy because I literally had a stack of CBD and depression studies in one area of the house and a stack of CBD and Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s. So the biggest thing that hit me was, “It’s not snake oil, the medical and scientific reason that it works for so many conditions, is that so many conditions are associated with our endocannabinoid system.”

Dr. Jim Collins: It’s like having a second central nervous system, if you will. And if we’re not… If we don’t have a healthy central nervous system, how many disorders can develop? A ton. If we don’t have a healthy endocannabinoid system, how many disorders can evolve? Almost all of them. Almost all of them. So that’s what I learned. That’s sort of like the big picture. I had to move away from all these articles and step back and say, “What’s the grand connector here? What’s really happening?” And it’s all about the endocannabinoid system.

Cheryl McColgan: And that goes back to that syndrome that you mentioned about us being deficient in that.

Dr. Jim Collins: Correct. Yep.

Cheryl McColgan: Yeah. This discussion just makes me wanna be more religious [laughter] with my intake, for sure. I really want to start getting benefits from CBD oil.

CBD Oil for Addictions Issues

Dr. Jim Collins: I’m glad. Well, that’s the other thing too Cheryl, I love motivating people. And I love telling people you could do this. You could do so much better. And it doesn’t happen to cost a lot of money, it doesn’t have to take a lot of your time. I just had a gentleman in my office here last week, and he’s battling something we haven’t talked about yet, some addiction issues. And there’s no lack of studies out there that indicate that CBD can help wean people off of multiple substances. And that to me is a great hope for a lot of people.

Cheryl McColgan: Yeah.

Dr. Jim Collins: His substances that he relied on would interfere with his daily life and his work. I just gave him free products, and I said, “Please take the… ” And I gave him the biggest most potent ones we had, and I said, “Please start to take… As a matter of fact, take it right now in front of me. Okay, put it under your tongue, the oil, and let it absorb into your sublingual vein, and let me know how you feel.” We spent two hours together, and he started calming… I could see him almost start melting back in his seat. At first he was like this, and then it’s more like, “You know, I’m starting to feel a little bit better. I can’t explain it, but I just feel calmer.” Several days later he told me that he hadn’t drank or done anything else, and he loves his CBD. And I love hearing that.

Dr. Jim Collins: Because you know, the opioid crisis that we have in the United States is horrifying, and the amount of fentanyl coming into our country is horrifying. People are dying every hour. And if this can help them in any way whatsoever, then that’s a great, great thing, because non addictive, no THC, it’s natural. So, that gives me a lot of hope that others might have something to bring them back to life.

Cheryl McColgan: Yeah. And again, I think it’s just… You know, try it and see if it works for you, but be consistent, I think is what we have…

Dr. Jim Collins: Try it.

Cheryl McColgan: I have taken away from this [laughter] is to be more consistent.

Dr. Jim Collins: Yeah.

Cheryl McColgan: Well, Jim, before we wrap things up and move on, what’s next for you? Are you planning any other books or what’s going on with the company and… Without revealing any big secrets or anything?

[laughter]

Dr. Jim Collins: Well, we have a lot of big plans. New products. But I wanna share with you something that is super exciting. There is a media company called Shark Discoveries, which are associated with Shark Tank.

Cheryl McColgan: Oh, interesting.

Dr. Jim Collins: And they reached out to me about a month ago. And they said, Dr. Collins, we really don’t go after CBD companies. They were thinking the way you were thinking, Cheryl. We don’t like the way they look. They don’t present themselves the way we want to. We don’t wanna align ourselves with that particular style or whatnot. But we like your story, we like what you’re doing, would you be interested in shooting a commercial in Florida at Shark Tank… Shark Studios and working together with us to get your story out on Hulu, Netflix, and all those other Disney+ channels? I said, “Absolutely.” And they said, “Well, we’re gonna have Kevin Harrington in the first 10 seconds of the commercial, but we feel you’re natural and we want you to come down to our studio and be in the commercial yourself, because people should see you. And they could feel your passion,” right? I said, “I would be delighted to do that.” So I think I’m gonna be going down to Shark Studios next month, [laughter] which is kind of cool.

Cheryl McColgan: It’s very exciting. That’s awesome.

Dr. Jim Collins: Yeah, that is exciting. So that’s the next big thing, I think.

Cheryl McColgan: Yeah, that’s amazing. Because I do think getting the word out there and… I listen to interviews with thought leaders and experts like yourself every day and try to keep up with this stuff as much as I can and really try to amplify that when it’s possible. I mean, I don’t have the most huge platform, but I think the more people that keep just getting this information out there in the world that eventually we can affect some kinda change and let people know it’s not a snake oil, this really does help people significantly, and it’s all natural and… My gosh, if you can feel better as we age and hopefully replace some of those cannabinoids that might even prevent disease… We don’t even know maybe about yet, but…

Dr. Jim Collins: Right.

Cheryl McColgan: So it seems like a win-win for everybody.

Up and Coming Research on CBD

Dr. Jim Collins: It sure is. And research is moving forward rather rapidly. Right now, we know that we have two CBD receptors, Receptor A, and B… Or one and two… And they’re throughout the body. But there is word that scientists have discovered another CBD receptor in our body, and that’s exciting. We’re discovering things that we just never knew we had, that can be related to health, imbalance, mental illness and all sorts of diseases. So, try the product for sure, but do some research on your own. Do your due diligence out there. Get online… And I like to use Google Scholar, because that’s where all the research is. These are peer reviewed, physician-written, laboratory studies, academic studies. Don’t listen to some guy that lives in his mom’s basement and he’s on the computer, [laughter] and that’s bad as good as eggheads. Go to the experts and learn what’s happening. And stay in touch with the research as much as possible. //That’s where you can really learn more about the science backed benefits of CBD oil.

Cheryl McColgan: Yeah, that’s awesome.

Dr. Jim Collins: Yeah.

Dr. Jim Collins: Well, to finish this off, where can people find out more about you, about your work, where can they buy the product? Tell us all of those kinds of things.

Sapphire Essentials

Dr. Jim Collins: Okay. Well, the main website is sapphire-essentials.com. That’s where Sapphire… That’s the Sapphire store, online. Then we have a great… You order it today, it’s shipped the same day or the next morning. So you get your products in about two or three days, unless there’s something weird going on. I have a blog and I’m very, very active. It’s drjimcollins.com. D-R-jimcollins.com. And I write a lot. We shoot a lot of videos on health and wellness, on different disorders, on psychiatry, psychology, aging, aging well, all of that stuff and of course, benefits of CBD oil. But I go off into some really interesting areas as well. It all depends on what I’m into that day, or what not. And my two other companies collinslearning.com provides online compliance training and continuing education to nursing homes, assisted living, home healthcare and hospice companies around the entire country.

Dr. Jim Collins: We just won an international award for being the most innovative regulatory online training system, and it came from England two days ago. So that’s pretty cool. And then the other company is ceu.academy. And that’s where nurses, social workers, counselors and therapists go to get their own continuing education for themselves. So, always writing, always creating, I’m a content generator like crazy. [chuckle] Because you know, that’s what we need to do online…

Cheryl McColgan: Yes.

Dr. Jim Collins: Content, content, content.

[chuckle]

Cheryl McColgan: Yes. [laughter] Well, this has been so wonderful and I really appreciate you taking the time to share all of your knowledge and all of this stuff that you’re doing, I just think is so exciting and I’m just happy to have been a small part.

[laughter]

Dr. Jim Collins: Oh, no. You’re not a small part. Every little bit helps. The more connected we are, the more we share with people, we will definitely reach somebody that we can help. So thank you, Cheryl, I appreciate your time.

Cheryl McColgan: Yeah, thank you.