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Joe Rogan Experience #1385 - Paul Stamets

Paul Stamets is a mycologist, author and advocate of bioremediation and medicinal fungi. Check out http://www.fungi.com/

Joe RoganhostPaul Stametsguest
Nov 15, 20192h 12mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 1:13

    Mushroom felt hats: amadou, Otzi, and portable fire

    1. JR

      ... three, two, one. And we're live. Hello, Paul.

    2. PS

      Hey there.

    3. JR

      What's happening? How are you, sir?

    4. PS

      I'm very well. How are you?

    5. JR

      And you have newfangled mushroom hats. These are surprisingly durable. So the thing about these mushroom hats, they're ... h- you would think, "Oh, it's gonna fall apart in your fingers." But no, it's got like... It's quite pliable.

    6. PS

      It's quite pliable, and it's known as German felt. And this, um, allowed the Ice Man, Otzi, to be able to travel into the Alps. It was a firestarter mushroom.

    7. JR

      Really?

    8. PS

      And this r- actually revolutionized warfare because it helped flint spark guns ignite the gunpowder.

    9. JR

      Really?

    10. PS

      So ... And so amadou and, uh ... It comes from a birch polypore mushroom, which is the subject of much of our research these days.

    11. JR

      Now, when this grows in the wild, what does it look like? 'Cause this is, uh ... You, you've fashioned it into this hat.

    12. PS

      Well, some-

    13. JR

      Or had someone fashion it.

    14. PS

      Some ladies-

    15. JR

      That's what it looks like?

    16. PS

      Yeah, some ladies in Transylvania.

    17. JR

      Can I see that?

    18. PS

      Yeah. It's called, uh, Fomes fomentarius.

    19. JR

      Mm.

    20. PS

      It allowed for the portability of fire. There's no doubt we all came from Africa, and we went north and we discovered winter. This allowed for fire to be carried for days, and so your clan was absolutely dependent upon fire starting in order to survive the winter. And this mushroom allowed and enabled people to survive.

  2. 1:13 – 4:02

    How amadou becomes fabric: ash-water processing and felting

    1. JR

      Wow. It's very light. Um, is it edible?

    2. PS

      Excellent question. Um, Hippocrates first described it in 400, uh, BCE, um, as a tre- ... as an antiinflammatory. So in teas, yes, but, uh, you know, that's very, very tough. When you put it in ash and water, it delaminates into mycelium. And so some ladies in Transylvania still make these and as a fabric that you pull. N- That mushroom there will become, uh, one hat or maybe more.

    3. JR

      Really?

    4. PS

      'Cause it just keeps on elongating and it's made of mycelium and, um-

    5. JR

      So, like, explain the process. How would you take this slab of mushroom that I have that looks like ... sort of like a ... an enormous Hershey's Kiss, and then you would put that ...

    6. PS

      In water with ash from a fire, from a fire. And wh-

    7. JR

      Now, why, why ash? What is that ash good for-

    8. PS

      'Cause it's highly alkaline.

    9. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    10. PS

      And then it helps it separate. It begins to delaminate.

    11. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    12. PS

      And literally, you start pulling this, and it's a fabric that you keep on felting.

    13. JR

      Ah.

    14. PS

      And so it's called German felt, and it's been used for literally thousands of years. And, uh, beekeepers actually use this for smoking hives. It ... We could, but it would be kind of ... It would be kind of bizarre. We, we could da- ... flick a Bic and you'd b- burn up one of these things. And there's a ... It's just amazing how much this is a fuse, and one spark on this, you know, can ignite this entire thing over 15, 20 minutes.

    15. JR

      Really?

    16. PS

      Yeah. And so beekeepers use it for smoking hives.

    17. JR

      So if I lit this right now with this lighter-

    18. PS

      Not that.

    19. JR

      No.

    20. PS

      If you lit this.

    21. JR

      That. The, the, the powder. What ... So y- ... This ... The ash, the powdered, powdered ash, and then the water, and then how does it flatten out and become what the, what-

    22. PS

      Because it soaks up and mycelium makes mushrooms, mushrooms make mycelium, and so when you soak this and then it gets soggy and then it get- tenderizes, and then you start breaking it and pulling it apart. This was actually probably first discovered because our ancestors noticed when insects were born to this mushroom.

    23. JR

      Can I see that?

    24. PS

      Yeah.

    25. JR

      Is that, like, the unprocessed version of it? This is-

    26. PS

      No.

    27. JR

      So this is what it's like on one side?

    28. PS

      Well, it was just made into a little table-

    29. JR

      Oh, I see.

    30. PS

      table thing, but it's the same thing basically.

  3. 4:02 – 4:51

    Preserving a vanishing craft: Transylvanian hat makers and how to buy

    1. JR

      How many folks are out there wearing mushroom hats these days?

    2. PS

      Uh, just a few hundred, and we've been trying to actually keep the, the industry alive by just inundating the ... There was a, like, 25 or 30 of these hat makers, uh, in, in Transylvania, um, 10, 15 years ago. Then it shrunk down to four or five, and a friend of mine, uh, David Summerland, visited and said, "Paul, this, this hat-making technology is on the verge of extinction." And so we just sort of inundated them with orders in order to build the industry and keep it alive.

    3. JR

      Oh, wow.

    4. PS

      So ...

    5. JR

      How could someone contribute to that if they wanted to? If people are listening to this, how could they buy one of these hats?

    6. PS

      Well, if you go to my Facebook.com/paulstamets, um, I think his name is, uh, Mako, um, actually, you know, squatted on my page to sell the hats, and more power to him, so ...

    7. JR

      Okay.

    8. PS

      Yeah. So-

    9. JR

      Cool. Interesting.

  4. 4:51 – 8:57

    Mushrooms and the bee ‘insect apocalypse’: antiviral discoveries and Nature paper

    1. PS

      But this hat, this mushroom, is figuring to be very prominently important for saving, uh, bees. And that's where our research has been astonishingly, um, interesting lately.

    2. JR

      Now, where is that thing that you brought in?

    3. PS

      Oh.

    4. JR

      What is that? What's going on there?

    5. PS

      This is, this is, um, I ... So, so to give some context to this, you know, I think, shamanistically, mushrooms, plants, animals become important because of, uh, plurality or multiplicity of benefits. This is one example. It not only revolutionized warfare, not only allowed for the portability of fire for us to save ourselves from the coldness and, you know, we mi- migrated into Europe from Africa, not only did beekeepers use it for smoking, but fly fishermen use it also for drawing flies, but we have found that this mushroom is extremely powerful for reducing viruses that harm bees. And, and we are ... It's been described today in CNN, a bee, uh, uh, insect apocalypse, 40% of, of bee, of insects are under threat. Um, this just came out. And this is a, a really an all hands on deck moment. Um, but I'm optimistic because I, I think we can find solutions in nature. So-... um, with my colleagues and when I was here before, I talked about my work with the BioShield Biodefense Program, and these wood conks are very strong in antiviral properties against, uh, flu viruses and herpes, et cetera. I use these ideas and actually, I had a waking dream (laughs) and I realized that the bees were being infected by mites, uh, with viruses and the deformed wing virus, in particular, is the worst virus. And so I contacted Washington State University, we started doing some research, and I'm really, really happy because I love s- skeptics who become my supporters. We published in Nature. Only 7% of the articles submitted to Nature get published in the Nature publication ecosystem. To this day, our article is in the top 1% of all articles ever published in the Nature publication ecosystem. Now, that's phenomenal because that's the most credible scientific, uh, journal in the world.

    6. JR

      Here it is right that. "Extracts of polypore mushroom mycelia reduce viruses in honeybees."

    7. PS

      And the ... This mushroom, the amadou, reduces the deformed wing virus 800 times to one with one treatment. And sh- and then, the reishi mushroom mycelium reduces the Lake Sinai virus more than 45,000 to one. Now, these are wood conks that grow on trees and we all grew up with Winnie-the-Pooh, but no one made the connection before me apparently, that bees are attracted to rotted wood because of immunological benefit.

    8. JR

      Mm.

    9. PS

      So amadou and reishi mushrooms, we found and we published in this article, that high significance and I think the reason why this article is in the top 1% of all Nature articles is that I've been able to present the theory with proof now, that a natural product can have a broader bioshield of benefits than a pure pharmaceutical. Up to this time, there's been no agents to reduce viruses in bees. Now, the deformed wing virus is being vectored by the v- varroa mite, came in 1984, and then injects viruses into bees. And so it's like a dirty syringe. And these viruses debilitate the bees and shorten their, their ability to fly. Now, look at that poor bumblebee.

    10. JR

      Oh, wow, that's crazy.

    11. PS

      I mean, that ... I have ... That is so sad because that bumblebee can't fly. Now, bees can pollinate up to a thousand flowers a day and the average flight time of, like, honeybees was, used to be nine days. A thousand flowers a day. Every almond you eat was visited by a bee. So one bee can pollinate a thousand flowers a day. Nine days was their pollination flight time, now it's been re- shortened to four days. So we lost by 50%. In the CNN article that I, we just showed, uh, in China now, they're hand-pollinating flowers.

    12. JR

      Yeah, with paintbrushes.

    13. PS

      Pa- of apples.

    14. JR

      Yeah.

    15. PS

      So apples, cherries, almonds, strawberries, tomatoes-

    16. JR

      Because of the lack of bees, yeah.

  5. 8:57 – 14:58

    Citizen-science bee feeders: deployment, vertical ‘ecological ladders,’ and big-data monitoring

    1. PS

      Because the absence of bees. So it's really ... It's, it's all hands on deck. Um, this is ... You know, I'm really optimistic about the future because we have solutions in nature that we can now amplify and be able to deploy and ... So one of my inventions, and I'm giving these away for ... the 10,000 of these for free, I've come up with a citizen scientist bee feeder that puts these extracts into sugar water. And we have a, a sign-up, uh, sheet up. It's all ... It's for free, it's at fungi.com/bees. Um, and we're gonna give away the first 10,000 of these, um, and this basically allows, uh, citizen scientists to help wild bees, um, because wild bees are giving about 80% of the benefits. Now, if you scroll down, there's a really ... We just got the CGI done. If you go all the way down and then click on the vi- click on that video and we just, um ... So here's the bee feeder being used.

    2. JR

      And this is available on YouTube, folks. It says bee mushroom feeder. Bee mushroomed, all one word, uh, and then feeder.

    3. PS

      Yeah. Now watch, that's the bees visiting and they're taking the, the, the sugar, sugar water-

    4. JR

      Their su- Look how much they're sucking out of it.

    5. PS

      I know, that's-

    6. JR

      Those little greedy bastards.

    7. PS

      Yeah. (laughs) And they're, I-

    8. JR

      That's crazy how it goes away so quickly.

    9. PS

      And this is a maze and bees are better at navigating mazes. And so you can see the bees going in and out. My grandson was afraid of bees, was really fascinated by this, so I, I got him to do this. And so these are something that we're gonna make these available all over and then I wa- I'm gonna create vertical gardens in, in apartment buildings.

    10. JR

      Ah.

    11. PS

      Get bees where they fly up 200 feet. You create ladders then, ecological ladders-

    12. JR

      Mm.

    13. PS

      ... and then this is a way the citizen scientists all over the world can take action to be able to help bees from collapsing. And then you station these, um, in neighborhoods for bumblebees, for other types of bees, and then we have it with a wifi-enabled device with solar panels, and then we upload into the cloud all this data about bee pollination visits.

    14. JR

      Whoa.

    15. PS

      So we create a metric on the baseline of, of bee pollination services. So if you see a, bees that are declining and suddenly below a baseline ... In Oklahoma two years ago, 84% of the beehives died. Now, think if you're a cattle rancher and you lost 84% of your cattle. So the idea is to help bees' immune system and the ... If we create baselines with these bee feeders, upload that data, and this becomes a new form of internet because they have wifi ability, so it's a distributed network as well, but they-

    16. JR

      Where is the wifi on that?

    17. PS

      Well, we don't have ... This is in development right now. We're working with a very, very large computer company who's making all the instrumentation and they're into big data. So we have a solar panel going in here, we have, uh, blue, uh, LED lights because bees are attracted to blue light.

    18. JR

      Wow.

    19. PS

      And they'll count the number of bees going in and out, and since the bees are only flying there at daytime, we don't need a battery. And so the solar, uh, power will then upload the data into the cloud and then we'll create mega datasets. And then we can look at Africa, Indonesia.

    20. JR

      How is it gonna upload into the cloud? What is it using?

    21. PS

      It's, uh, using LT- LTE.

    22. JR

      Oh, so it's using like a cellular system?

    23. PS

      Yeah, cellular system or low-frequency long-range, um, communication systems, which is-

    24. JR

      Can we, can we help? Can we contribute? Is there a way that this podcast can help?

    25. PS

      ... a lot. It's, it is, I want to enable people with solutions that they can teach their children the importance of natural systems and they can take action, so-

    26. JR

      This seems like a great one. I mean, I love this idea.

    27. PS

      Well-

    28. JR

      I think it's awesome.

    29. PS

      ... I can aff- I can afford to give away 10,000. Um, I talked to this computer company that everybody knows, but they asked me not to use their name, and they asked, "How many do we need?" And I said, "About 10 billion."

    30. JR

      B-

  6. 14:58 – 18:02

    Root causes of collapse: pesticides, monoculture ‘pollination deserts,’ and virus spread via flowers

    1. PS

      So this is something, this an actionable solution and the, the, you know, the scientific data out there is pretty disturbing. You know, 75% of flying insects in the past 27 years, in a report from Germany that just came out, have disappeared. Now, many li- many of your listeners are out in the country, you know? I grew up in the country. Remember all the bug splatter you used to have against your windshield?

    2. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    3. PS

      You don't see that anymore, because the, the insects are dying because exposure to pesticides, monoculture. When you have monoculture, you have what's called pollination deserts. When you have lots of biodiversity and lots of plants and, and diversity, the plants are pollinating at different times of the season. When you do to a monoculture, all the plants, like almonds-

    4. JR

      Yeah.

    5. PS

      ... they'll all produce flowers all at once, and then it, there's no pollen available. So the immune system of the bees, due to factory farming, loss of habitat, deforestation, glyphosphates, you know, heavy metals, pollution, all those things are co-factors, but the nail in the coffin is by far these viruses. And so immunologically empowering and supporting the immune system of bees then l- gives the bees the opportunity or the ability to be able to survive longer, do more pollination.

    6. JR

      Is there a specific source of these viruses that they can isolate? Or is it, uh, uh, are these a new thing? 'Cause th-

    7. PS

      Well, actually, there's a, um, there's a slide that just shows the pandemic spread of these viruses, uh, throughout the world. They came from Asia, uh, and it's now a global pandemic. Uh, all bees in the world are now infected with these viruses because when they ... Infected honeybee, for instance, visits a flower, it leaves viral particles-

    8. JR

      In the flower?

    9. PS

      ... in the flower, and then a wild bumblebee comes and visits it and it becomes infected.

    10. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    11. PS

      So there is, is a un- unfortunate, I don't wanna use the word perfect storm, it's a terrible storm of co-factors. And because, you know, 80% of the benefit the farmers receive is from wild bees-

    12. JR

      Right.

    13. PS

      ... but we can't count them. And you know, I have s- uh, I have, uh, beehives and, and what happens in a colony collapse, you go out on Monday, the bees are happy. You go out on Thursday, they're all gone. I mean, it's, it's-

    14. JR

      Really?

    15. PS

      Yeah.

    16. JR

      It's that quick?

    17. PS

      That quick. And it's not like there's hundreds of dead bees around your beehive. They're just gone. And there could be hundreds of pounds of honey and the bees, you know, they, uh, th- they're, they're gone.

    18. JR

      So they go off somewhere, do they die?

    19. PS

      What happens is because the newly hatched bees are called nurse bees, and the nurse bees take care of the baby bees, but when the colony senses there's not enough pollen and food to support the brood and the colony, the nurse bees are prematurely recruited to go out and find pollen, so they abandon the babies and then the varroa mites are un- they just go un- un- controlled-

    20. JR

      Infect.

    21. PS

      ... and they start injecting viruses. And so there are other co-factors, just like when you get an infection from a f- a s- viral infection, you can get bacterial infections.

    22. JR

      Yeah.

    23. PS

      And so there's a, uh, there's a cascade of opportunistic infections as the immunolo- im- immunology is decreased because of these viruses. So-

  7. 18:02 – 22:30

    Cellphone hypothesis, bee behavior stories, and research design nuances

    1. JR

      Wasn't there, um, a contributing factor that had to do with cellphones as well?

    2. PS

      I actually, it's ... I'm really glad you brought that up. Um, this is a contributing factor. I have not seen convincing evidence. It's a hypothesis that's not fully flushed out. Um, there are some people quite adamant in their belief in this, but I'm, I'm driven by science and data. I can, uh, the-... the rhythms, the frequency of the high, uh, of cell phones, there's an argument that's made is, it, it's not in the same cosine wave of the wavelengths that we experience in nature. And so this is disruptive. I understand that. I'm still on the fence. I'd like to see really strong data and scientific evidence of that. Um, but it's a hypothesis that needs to be tested. That's why we're looking also at, uh, uh, low frequency, long-range communication systems.

    3. JR

      Mm. Um, I, uh, you know, I think I told you this story. If I didn't, I apologize. But, uh, when we were on Fear Factor, we had a bee stunt where we had to cover these people in bees. And, uh, a local bee colony flew in to check out what was going on. And those bees and the bees that were brought there met in the sky and worked it out. And the beekeeper told us, "Okay, we have to shut down, and everybody's gotta back outta here." So we had to shut down everything and back out for, like, about an hour, at least a half hour, while these bees communicated with each other. So they're flying, a giant swarm of them flying in the eye, in the, in the air, trying to figure out why, "Hey, what are you guys here for? What are you doing? Why are you in our neighborhood?" Like, "Oh, we're not moving in. We're just filming a TV show." Like, they had to work it out.

    4. PS

      That is so unusual.

    5. JR

      It was really weird.

    6. PS

      That's extraordinary, you know?

    7. JR

      Yeah.

    8. PS

      So when a new queen, uh, splits from a hive, you know, a, a colony, they then take a big group of them with them. So it's all about protecting the queen.

    9. JR

      I just don't understand how they f- worked it out. There was no fight to the death. There was no nothing. They just sort of worked it out, and the other bees took off, and then the bees that were there came back to their hive, their little colony.

    10. PS

      Yeah, that's ex- there's a lot of-

    11. JR

      Yeah.

    12. PS

      This, this is also... Well, that's... I'm glad you mentioned that because there's also speaks to what's called bee drift. And so when we published our article in Nature Scientific Reports, actually I think the data is understated because 10 to up to 20% of bees will drift from one colony to another. So we had treatment colonies, and we had treated colonies. Well, because 10 to 20% of the bees in the treated colonies went to the control colonies, we actually diluted the differential because we had cross, um, you know, movement of control bees and beehive versus treated bees. And so when we actually, I think, and other, some of my other co-authors thinks we actually have understated the data.

    13. JR

      Mm.

    14. PS

      But when you look at the p-values of significance, um, you know, they're extraordinary. P is less than .009, and that, for scientists, is an extraordinarily significant data set that is clearly showing the evidence that these extracts help the immunity of bees and help them, uh, be able to survive and, and do a better job.

    15. JR

      That's awesome, and it's crazy that it's just a, a natural mushroom, but it ma- it makes sense what you're saying that they built their beehives in these rotting trees knowing that these fungi were there-

    16. PS

      I-

    17. JR

      ... or somehow or another being attracted to it.

    18. PS

      You know, the... I like to say the first five seconds that I got that first patent award, my ego did swell, and then 10 seconds later, I said, "Are you frigging kidding? Uh, we're Neanderthals with nuclear weapons? How could I be the first one to have discovered that bees benefit from mycelium immunologically but there's no what's called prior art? There's no evidence." And I mean, think of that. Uh, we have the intelligence of nature underneath our feet, and this is something we need to tap into. And the fact that we can show a natural product... You know, if you had HPV, HIV, and you went to a doctor 12 days after having one treatment of these extracts and your viruses dropped 45,000 to one, any physician would say, "Wow, you're doing really well." And this is what we've been able to see. Now the, now, we've been trying to find what's called the mode of action. How are these viruses actually being reduced? Putatively, our strongest hypothesis now is as providing essential nutrients that are important for the immune system to activate gene sequences than, uh, that attack the viruses and give, uh, more host defensive immunity of protection against further infection.

  8. 22:30 – 25:11

    From bee immunity to human health: translational medicine and the case for complex natural products

    1. JR

      Now, does this, uh, work with humans as well? Like, chaga is supposed to be good for your immune system, right?

    2. PS

      Well, this is, this is a great convergence of traditional Chinese medicine and European medicine and medicine from indigenous peoples all over the world have been using these mushrooms is that now we're finding scientific evidence that folklorically, the reputation of chaga, of reishi, of these mushrooms helping the immunity of humans, this is translational medicine. So but bees, it's an animal clinical study. Bees have been stated as being, besides Drosophila, uh, the second most well-studied animal in the world. This is a animal clinical study, passed digestion, passed what's called the cytochrome P450 pathway, which is your detoxification pathway, mostly in our liver. All animals use the cytochrome P450 pathway to break down toxins. And has passed the microbiome into the blood. So this is actually... This is an animal clinical study, and I think it's a gateway for us to take this as credible evidence that natural products could be more useful and offer a broader bioshield of benefits than pure pharmaceuticals that go after one molecule with one target, one set of receptors.

    3. JR

      Mm.

    4. PS

      They are... Immunological fields have developed in the complexity of nature. This is what our foods are. This is... We are, we're in constant biomolecular communication with the ecosystem. We have, we've evolved in this complex, uh, uh, molecular environment. And so our immune systems are upregulated through multiple stimuli, and this is why I think these extracts, because of their complexity, they build upon the complexity of natural systems that help our immune system.

    5. JR

      So you have hope that this is something that we could eventually see being, like, uh, a peer-reviewed proven thing for human beings as well?

    6. PS

      Absolutely. I do believe that's on the near event horizon. Uh, there's a lot of researchers now-

    7. JR

      Can you hold this thing up closer to you a little bit there?

    8. PS

      It's... I-

    9. JR

      Yeah.

    10. PS

      I believe it's on the near event horizon, is something that we're gonna, uh, see more and more. There's lots of clinical studies. I, I po- For physicians, it's not... no branding, no selling of anything. It's I populate a website called mushroomreferences.com. I, uh, I populate specifically for physici- physicians. I just spoke at Singularity University at Stanford Medical School in front of a thousand physicians. I try to make the bridge of the credibility of the science for physicians who are just not educated yet 'cause they don't have the resources or the time. So mushroomreferences.com, you can go to that website. It's got hundreds of references, um, that then you can put in any, you know, symptom or species, et cetera, and you'll be able to find the peer-reviewed references. There's about 30 references, for instance, on psilocybin right now, which is an area of, of research that I'm particularly focused on.

  9. 25:11 – 27:56

    Psilocybin enters mainstream science: universities, PTSD/addiction outcomes, and microdosing potential

    1. JR

      Now, uh, th- there was, for a long time, a stigma associated with anything that had anything to do with mushrooms, um, uh, particularly because of psychedelic mushrooms. Is that, has that alleviated? I know the John Hopkins study on psilocybin has shown some pretty incredible benefits and there's a lot of people now that are starting to look to it for treatment for people with PTSD or addiction issues. Has that become more mainstream in, in your experience?

    2. PS

      Oh, it's, it, there's a vast title change in medical science. There's a, a slide, um, these are just a few of the universities right now that have been approved by the FDA and other agencies for human clinical studies on psilocybin.

    3. JR

      Wow. So we're looking at-

    4. PS

      Har- Harvard, Stanford-

    5. JR

      Yeah. Purdue, um, Penn, Toronto, University of Toronto. That's amazing.

    6. PS

      So that's only a few of them. I actually could put out-

    7. JR

      Department of Veterans Affairs, that's very-

    8. PS

      Yeah.

    9. JR

      ... interesting as well, right?

    10. PS

      R- If you ... I could put up 20 more but you couldn't read them because I had to be able to-

    11. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    12. PS

      ... just to be able ... so but this, this is a huge shift and the, the clinical studies that are coming out for, as you know, PTSD in particular, has been extremely useful but one of them that came out of Johns Hopkins for breaking tobacco addiction.

    13. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    14. PS

      15 patients, small clinical study, statistically significant, 10 out of 15 people, after one or two heroic doses of psilocybin, 12 months later, had not smoked a cigarette.

    15. JR

      Wow.

    16. PS

      It ... so, I mean, to break tobacco addiction, which is one of the most addictive substances on this planet, is phenomenal.

    17. JR

      That's incredible.

    18. PS

      And, and the other research for PTSD, depression, I'm really excited about cognition, creativity, I think we can ... there's a lot of smart people out there, a lot of smart people listening to our podcast. I think the idea of microdosing and being able to increase our ability of cognition and creativity to come up with the solutions that can get it out of, get us out of this mess. Just think of that, if we had hundreds of millions of people thinking about solutions like I've come up with to solve some of the environmental challenges we have today for food biosecurity. The loss of bees is a threat to our national security.

    19. JR

      Mm.

    20. PS

      Just think about the threat to our economy. Um, so this microdosing, I think has enormous potential as well. And when you think about ... um, th- the, one of the issues I see right now with the clinical studies is like, it almost is too good to be true. I mean, the statistically significant, great universities, great science, published in peer-reviewed journals, at the top of their game. But they, they, th- these mushrooms have so many benefits, um, for fighting, uh, dementia, potentially Alzheimer's.

  10. 27:56 – 30:58

    microdose.me app: building baselines, cognitive tests, and finding signals in big data

    1. PS

      Johns Hopkins has an Alzheimer's clinical study ongoing, uh, currently, uh, for a dose of psilocybin to see if it helps, uh, pre-Alzheimer's patients and not go into full-blown Alzheimer's. There's so many different benefits potentially. It's almost like a chaos of data, how it's almost too good to be true. So, uh, my, my team and, and Pam Krisko's an MD from British Columbia, we've been working with people and we have just launched today a- an app, uh, that's at microdose.me, double-

    2. JR

      (laughs)

    3. PS

      ... entendre, microdose.me, it's available on the Apple Store, it's available on Android, and this is a quick little sh-

    4. JR

      Wait a minute. A microdosing study on mo- ... and Apple allowed this on the App Store?

    5. PS

      Yep.

    6. JR

      That's a big shift.

    7. PS

      And it's out today-

    8. JR

      Because this is a schedule I drug that they're talking about taking on- But- ... microdose levels, I mean, I'm, I'm, uh, you know, I'm just saying what it is, right? I mean, obviously you know what camp I'm in. I want everybody to do it.

    9. PS

      Right.

    10. JR

      But this, this is really significant.

    11. PS

      Is it measures, uh, uh, your ability to hear-

    12. JR

      Whoa.

    13. PS

      ... vision, your, the tap test, you know, and how quickly you can tap your fingers, it's, it's, uh, w- whether you're stacking it with, but it's also good for non, uh, psychoactive substance use. What is your baseline? So, you're getting older, I'm getting older. I'm getting-

    14. JR

      I'm getting younger, dude.

    15. PS

      (laughs)

    16. JR

      I have a new thing.

    17. PS

      Okay.

    18. JR

      (laughs)

    19. PS

      I vote for you.

    20. JR

      I figured it out.

    21. PS

      But the idea is to create baselines, you know, and then you create a baseline over time and then-

    22. JR

      So you find out how far you've deteriorated.

    23. PS

      Or what your trend line is-

    24. JR

      Right. Right.

    25. PS

      ... versus the general population.

    26. JR

      Mm.

    27. PS

      So, the idea with, uh, th- with micros- microdose, uh, uh, uh, .me is it will create a massive data set, massive amount of data, and then will offer this to clinicians for them to see signal from the noise. I suspect, hypothetically, I don't have the evidence, but several doctors have collected case studies of tinnitus or tinnitus, don't know if pronunciations are correct, of the buzzing in your ears-

    28. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    29. PS

      ... and being able ... and people have resolved that from doing microdosing.

    30. JR

      Really?

  11. 30:58 – 36:43

    Microdosing vs macrodosing: mouse fear-conditioning study and competing protocols

    1. PS

      And then the opposite is true. Malaise and depression. You're not as creative. You're, you're, uh, you're, you're not enjoying life, you're not looking forward to the next day. So I think it's almost a binary choice and the idea of using microdosing-And the, the, the definite of microdosing is, is, ha- has sort of a variable interpretations. So, the, using the psilocybe cubensis scale, which is the most common psilocybin mushroom in the world, um, one gram is liftoff, five grams is what Terence would say was the hero's journey. And when I was on last I did, with you, I did 20 grams (laughs) . You know, that was a little bit much-

    2. JR

      (laughs)

    3. PS

      ... um, you might say. But when you do 1/10 of a one gram, you don't feel it. For 1/20, for sure you don't feel it. So the idea as you do microdosing below the threshold of intoxication, but then it benefits neurogenesis. Now, there's an extraordinarily interesting study that came out with, uh, uh, mice, but I think it's translational medicine, and they were doing, uh, microdosing versus macrodosing. So at... Th- these are some numbers, but basically one gram is almost equivalent to one milligram per kilogram of body weight. 70 kilos is 152 pounds. And so at one milligram per kilogram of, with these mice, that's like one gram of cubensis, that's, that's a dose. Um, it's not super high dose, but it's a dose. So what they did with these mice is they had them in an arena with a metal floor, and they gave a tone, dong. Then 40 seconds later, they were shocked. So they had the tone again a few minutes later, 40 seconds later, they got shocked. After 10 rotations, the mice realized, like Pavlov's dog, when there is a tone, there could be a, a negative consequence, a shock happening, so the mice would cower in fear. So then they dosed them with a microdose, 0.1 milligrams per kilogram versus one milligram per kilogram, 1/10 of a, of a dose versus a full dose. Interestingly, the full dose, it took 10 rotations of no shock, the tone and no shock before they forgot or became reacclimated, uh, not to have the fear condition response. With the microdose, 1/10 of that, it only took two rotations. Two rotations with a microdose and they dissociated potentially PTSD.

    4. JR

      Why do you think it's less? What-

    5. PS

      Well, that's a really good question, and the evidence we have so far, and again, this is very early evidence, lots of research is going on in this, it looks like the neurogenic benefits of microdosing are greater than the neurogenic benefits of macrodosing.

    6. JR

      Really?

    7. PS

      You, you flood the receptors, you're having this incredible trip, it's fantastic, it's colorful, it's life-changing. Yes, that is all beneficial for changing your life. But doing microdosing over the long term, because the nerves don't regrow in six hours, but over weeks of regeneration of nerves with microdosing, it seems to me that the microdosings, instead of flooding and overwhelming all the receptors are feeding these receptors, they're allowing for neurogenesis. Now, this is, uh, again, a hypothesis. There's so many great people studying this right now, but I'm advocating to all of the clinic- clinicians at Johns Hopkins, at Stanford, UCLA, at Harvard, please do testing of the patients for hearing and vision and other behavioral tests that are not just about emotion and mood in PTSD, but let's actually get some physical measurements. So then you can track prior... D- during, during is too complicated. It's, it's too in- too much intervention. You're tripping your brains out. You don't have time to, to be tested, you know, for vision and auditive. But then post-wise, and then looking at, at the, the residual effects. Now, Dr. James Fadiman, he has the, the Fadiman protocol. I have my protocol, the Stamets proto- protocol. Uh, James Fadiman's protocol was microdosing one day on, uh, two days off, one day's on. My protocol that I'm suggesting is four days on, three days off. Um, and James and I are good friends. We talk about this, we laugh, and we're s- we're just basically, these are hy- hypothetical, um, potential treatments. And yet-

    8. JR

      Are you comparing data between the two of you?

    9. PS

      This is what, um, microdose, uh, uh, not me, will do.

    10. JR

      Right.

    11. PS

      We wanted to say, "Are you following the Stamets protocol, the Fadiman protocol-"

    12. JR

      Right.

    13. PS

      "... your own protocol? Are you using it with niacin? Were you doing it with lion's mane? What are you using it with?" And lion's mane, it's phenomenally, uh, powerful neurogenically, and where there's two clinical studies out of Japan with mild, uh, cognitive, uh, decline in dementia showing very positive results taking four to gr- uh, two to four grams of lion's mane per day, the mycelium. Actually interesting, not the fruit bite, the mycelium is much more powerful. Um, and we just have been contracting with a neurological testing laboratory in France, and we just got some amazing results back showing that when we had lion's mane, um, extracts of the mycelium exposed to neurons and the, the com- positive control was the brain-derived nerve growth factor, nerve factor, and it was, it's used as a baseline for measuring neurogenic compounds comparatively. And the neurogenesis benefits from, uh, this is where pluripotent stem cells,

  12. 36:43 – 51:45

    Psilocybin analogs, baeocystin self-experiment, and the ‘stack’ with lion’s mane + niacin

    1. PS

      stem cells that then differentiate into neurons, and the BDNF clearly shows that. It's a standard protocol. With a lion's mane, it also increased the number of neurons. And then we started looking at analogs of psilocybin, and the analogs, when we added the lion's mane mycelium with these psilocybin analogs, which are perfectly legal, they're not Schedule I substances.

    2. JR

      Psilocybin analogs are not?

    3. PS

      Yeah.

    4. JR

      What, what is it exactly a psilocybin analog?

    5. PS

      There's a number of them that have been reported in the literature. There's baeocystin and norbaeocystin are two of the more prominent ones. Now-Um, I- I'm a psychonaut and in 1960, baeocystin, a report of a child died outside of Kelso, Washington from eating mushrooms in his yard. The family ingested the mushrooms. Um, they went to the hospital. The child developed a fever, eventually had renal failure and died. Uh, a- a chemist by the name of Lung and then Benedict and Tyler picked up on this, they analyzed the mushrooms looking for a new toxin. The mushrooms were identified as being psilocybe baeocystis. It is a mushroom that grows in Washington State and Oregon, sometimes in British Columbia, but not in Northern California. It's a very rare species, but grows in yards. When they analyzed the mushroom looking for a new potential toxin, they found this alkaloid is a dimethyltryptamine-based compound and they named it baeocystin after psilocybe baeocystis. So baeocystin had the reputation of potentially being a deadly poisonous toxin. It's present in cubensis, it's present in many psilocybin mushrooms and my book, Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World has charts that show how much baeocystin is in these things. But no one had ever eat- uh, consumed baeocystin because of this reputation. Baeocystin is legal. I obtained some pure baeocystin from a laboratory legally. I have no psilocybin, you know, nature provides, I don't, people. Make this very clear. Um, but I can have, I can possess these psilocybin analogs. And so, uh, since there was no reports in the scientific literature of whether this was truly toxic or not, I, with my- with a doctor friend of mine, an MD that measured my vitals and hooked me up, you know, to blood pressure, ECG, did all the biometrics that are needed, and so we did an N-of-1 study. I decided that even though it had a history of potentially of killing this child, I think that's a false positive. I think it was bad science. I couldn't find no one who ever ingested this, so I decided I would ingest it. Now, my friend Pam, she's an MD that goes into, um, at the Antarctica, she's the only doctor on a research vessel and so she goes down there and she gets to bring a roommate and it was me. And so Pam and I were working really hard, we had all of our plane tickets, we're ready to go to Antarctica, we had been planning this for months, um, and then we decided, well, just before we go, "Paul, let's do the, the baeocystin test." You know, we've been talking about this for months, we finally got the- the time to do this, but the next day we're going to Antarctica. So Pam looks at her cell phone and this- this Russian research vessel crashed into a reef, tore a hole in it, and it's like, it's now the trip is canceled. Now, I mean, I have American Express, you know, plane tickets, hotels, I got 24 hours to try to recapture all this money because I can't- we can't go. The sh- the trips have been canceled. So I had super high anxiety and I told my doctor friend, "I- I- I have too much anxiety. I can't go. This is too crazy." And then she kind of looked at me going, "Listen, we've been planning this for months, um, you know, please." And- and I listened to her and so I did 10 milligrams of baeocystin. She measured my heartbeat, blood pressure, all those- all those metrics. My eyes did dilate. She said that was good . So's how drug-like effect. And then she checked in with me every 10, 15 minutes. 20 minutes, you usually have liftoff. One hour, you're full blown into it. And she checked with me and she checked with me and she has... and I didn't get high. Not at all. She goes, "How do you feel?" And I said, "I feel great. I have no anxiety. Everything with this trip is going to be fine." So here we found an analog of psilocybin that does not get you high, that's legal, that reduced anxiety. I think this is the tip of the proverbial iceberg because all the clinical studies are approved right now for pure psilocybin. What about the analogs? They activate other receptor sites, you know, in your field- in- in- in- in- in your neurological field and that's why I think this is why looking at the natural form of these mushrooms standardized to a psilocybin, a certain concentration, versus the pure molecule, I think that is the way of the future because pure psilocybin is up to $6,000, $7,000 a gram, uh, and you can translate that into growing psilocybin mushrooms for $2 a gram. Now there are people out there listening saying, "Well, the price is coming down." Indeed it is. It's down maybe to $1,000 to $500 a gram but how many people in the urban, low- lower income, you know, uh, impoverished population suffering from PTSD who don't- can't afford to go to Johns Hopkins to spend tens of thousands of dollars to have a clinical treatment? I think this democratizes the- the use of psilocybin and microdosing that could be a benefit across our society and then what I'm proposing is you stack it with niacin and the reason why you stack it with niacin is you take one tenth of a gram of psilocybe cubensis, microdose, you add 100 to 200 milligrams of niacin. Now if someone tries to get high by taking 10 times as much, they'll have like two grams of niacin. This is flushing niacin, vitamin B3 and that flushing niacin will give you such an irritable reaction of skin itching and people who have taken vitamin B3, they know this. So it becomes the Antabuse for microdosing but moreover, it excites, um, the nerves, uh, at the end of the peripheral nervous system and neuropathies oftentimes present themselves as a deadening of the fingertip, the nerves of the fingertips and toes and it's also a vasodilator. So there's three attributes of stacking niacin with psilocybin mushrooms that prevents abuse, becomes the Antabuse, it dilates the blood vessels to deliver the neurogenic benefits of psilocybin to the endpoints of- of the peripheral nervous system and the central nervous system, um, and, um, it then- and also excites the nerve endings. So I think those three reasons, this could- uh, I hope to see in the future psilocybin mushrooms being over-the-counter vitamins.... approved by the FDA, stacked with niacin that allows for the universality of use for the benefit, uh, of our, our culture. And when we were talking last time- (coughs)

    6. JR

      Can I, can I pause you there for a second?

    7. PS

      Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    8. JR

      Is there any other evidence of people taking these analogues and having this anti-anxiety effect other than you? I mean, this seems, is a very small sample size, right? It's just one person.

    9. PS

      Yes, there are. Uh, it's an antidepressant, as far as anxiety and, and, and depression are interrelated.

    10. JR

      Yeah.

    11. PS

      There are, are reports. James Fadiman, in his studies, uh, his population study, which admittedly is small, did not see an anti-exi- anxiety component, but other clinical studies at Johns Hopkins, also the anxiety of dying from cancer.

    12. JR

      Right, but that was actually psilocybin.

    13. PS

      That was actually psilocybin.

    14. JR

      But, you, what I'm saying with you is l- also you had a very profoundly stressful situation happening, something you had prepared for, for a long time then all of a sudden it was gone and all this money's gone. You gotta try to figure out how to get it back. It's like (gasps) it's immediate.

    15. PS

      Right.

    16. JR

      Right? Maybe with these other people, they didn't have such an immediate anxiety moment and maybe their anxiety w- was, was harder to measure whether it was coming or going.

    17. PS

      Well, absolutely. Um, it's at the end of one study. This needs, this is just, this is-

    18. JR

      How many people?

    19. PS

      Me, one.

    20. JR

      No, the other one with th- the other people that have, uh, experienced it but didn't experience any anti-anxiety.

    21. PS

      There's no one else that we know in the scientific literature. Johann Gartz mentions, he, I published psilocybe azurescens with him, the most potent psilocybin mushroom in the world. Johann Gartz, uh, says in one thing that he was asked and he said that the baeocystin was equal to that of psilocybin. I don't have high confidence in that statement. I consumed baeocystin. I was ready for liftoff. I was hoping for liftoff. I know what liftoff feels like.

    22. JR

      Right.

    23. PS

      And I didn't get it.

    24. JR

      Right.

    25. PS

      So, so this is, this is, what happens in science so much is, uh, the scientists, when they can't do a clinical study, y- you, we bioassay. This is very common. This is how Albert Hofmann, you know, discovered, you know, LSD. He bioassayed it.

    26. JR

      Yeah.

    27. PS

      So-

    28. JR

      Didn't he do it accidentally though? In-

    29. PS

      He did it accidentally, right.

    30. JR

      Yeah.

  13. 51:45 – 1:08:17

    Legalization and the cultural shift: decriminalization, ‘Spore Wars,’ and Fantastic Fungi

    1. PS

      It is, but this is a people's revolution.

    2. JR

      Yes.

    3. PS

      When you have decriminalized, uh- uh, nature coming out of Oakland, which I'm fully in favor of. How dare we make a species illegal?

    4. JR

      Yeah.

    5. PS

      Uh, that makes no sense to me.

    6. JR

      What are- what does Oakland specifically? They- they've made ayahuasca, psilocybin. What else?

    7. PS

      Um, all natural products with psychoactive properties, to the best of my understanding. Uh, both Denver and Oakland, they removed the funding of the- uh, for prosecutors and judges in the courts so you can't use public funds in order to prosecute people for possession. So this is a very-

    8. JR

      Can you still arrest them for it, though?

    9. PS

      Well, you- the law enforcement officer's not getting paid. He's not doing his job. He's violating his code of conduct. I mean, if you arrest him and you take him to a prosecutor, the prosecutor goes, "I have no funding for this. Uh, you're wasting our time."

    10. JR

      Hm.

    11. PS

      "You're just co- coming here is wasting my time. I have murders to- to solve," you know?

    12. JR

      What- what if someone's selling it? Decriminalization does not, it doesn't prevent you from being prosecuted for selling a psych- a Schedule I substance, right?

    13. PS

      And that's- that's- that's, uh, that's a really, really good question, and I have, um, thoughts on it that's controversial, um, because this speaks to the ability of- of some people having access and not. If you want th- I only trip on psilocybin mushrooms once or twice a year. Um, that's all- all I need. As Terence McKenna and I think Alan Watts said, "When you- when you, uh- when you get the message from the phone, hang it up."

    14. JR

      Right.

    15. PS

      Um, so if you just have the psilocybin mushrooms growing in your backyard or you know how to collect them, um, then you only need one or two doses a year, and even microdosing, you know, you could- you get a lot more extension of that. But my- my view, and I have never had any problem with law enforcement. Um, in Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia, in Canada in particular, law enforcement has a very pretty mature attitude towards this, that if you have a small amount and you're not trafficking and you're for individual use, it just doesn't raise the level of the need for enforcement.

    16. JR

      No, I understand that, but I just wish there was no incentive at all, there was nothing there. Like just the idea that you have to rely on the good grace of a cop who understands that there's no incentive to arrest you, that seems like horseshit to me.

    17. PS

      Yeah.

    18. JR

      Like, we're- we're grown adults in 2019 with a mountain of evidence. This is not- we're not living in the Dark Ages anymore, and the fact that it's still a possibility that you can get arrested or that you could- you could face some sort of criminal charges for having something that's only been demonstrated to be good.

    19. PS

      This is why the citizens' movement, the federal government, I mean, the Republicans and conservatives and libertarians are all about state rights.

    20. JR

      Yeah.

    21. PS

      This is a people's movement. They should get behind this 'cause individual community rights, uh, against the- the- the big man, against, uh, uh, the federal government.

    22. JR

      Yeah.

    23. PS

      The federal government, uh, there needs to be a- a- a title change. And how do we do that? Is because we ha- we have decriminalized, uh, uh, uh, nature in Oregon, we have the De- Denver, uh, Denver initiative, other cities around the country. It's now spreading throughout the entire country.

    24. JR

      Yes.

    25. PS

      There's probably 20 cities in the next 16 months that are gonna have decriminalization at their city councils. Um-

    26. JR

      I also think it's a sig- a significant solution to this problem that we're facing with pills and a lot of destructive drugs.

    27. PS

      Yeah.

    28. JR

      There's a lot of self-destructive drugs that people are taking because these people are hurting. What- what psilocybin gives you that these drugs don't, it gives you a potential to heal. It gives you a moment to reflect. It gives you a change in the way you think and you interface with the world. And that just, that doesn't exist in those other dru- those drugs are escape drugs, and the need to escape is what we gotta eliminate.

    29. PS

      Well-

    30. JR

      And I think that's one of the things that psilocybin can help. It can help alleviate the need to escape.

  14. 1:08:17 – 1:22:24

    Safety, responsibility, and who should not take psychedelics: schizophrenia risk and set/setting

    1. JR

      I agree. I think there's one thing we should talk about though. There are people that have a tendency towards schizophrenia and these people have ... Sometimes they have psychedelic breaks, like, they'll have psychedelic experiences and then they don't do well. They go off the deep end.

    2. PS

      I- I'm so glad you brought that up and that is a deselection from the, um, from the clinical studies of candidates who want to engage. Um, but my ... A good friend, Mark Hayden, um, who runs Maps Canada, um, had a very interesting story with a schizophrenic. Um, and he also cautioned, and every physician I know is on the same page as you-

    3. JR

      Including medi- um, not medical marijuana, edible, edible marijuana, seems to have a significant effect on people with it.

    4. PS

      What Mark noted with this one, uh, person who was a severe schizophrenic was that he still heard voices in his head, but the voices now were friendly. They were affirming. They weren't saying, you know, "Go kill somebody."

    5. JR

      That would be nice. Right.

    6. PS

      It was like, you know, "You are a good person."

    7. JR

      Right.

    8. PS

      And so he still heard the voice in the head, but the tenor and tone and attitude of the voices were supportive.

    9. JR

      What I'm talking about is it bringing on s- uh, these schizophrenic experiences that, that, that there has been some evidence particularly about marijuana that high doses of marijuana for people that have tendencies, and we don't know, right? What- what causes someone to have schizophrenic breaks 'cause there- there is a difference between pre and post, right?

    10. PS

      Right.

    11. JR

      People have had deteriorating mental health that's ... That correlates with schizophrenia. Like what- what it- what it caused them to be less schizophrenic or not exhibiting any of the- the- the problems and then all of a sudden having severe problems post psychedelic trip or post large dose, uh, edible marijuana and/or even large dose smoking it for some people. They dab and they smoke wax and then it's ... It happens to people that smoke too much pot. There's certain people that have that tendency. But-

    12. PS

      I- I would defer to clinicians who are extremely skilled in this area and who have seen many, many patients. I'm not a doctor, but I- I concur with you. I think that is a real concern. Um, the difference between a toxin and a drug can oftentimes be dose and um-

    13. JR

      Mm-hmm. Yeah.

    14. PS

      At lower doses you can see things, at higher doses you, you don't.

    15. JR

      Right.

    16. PS

      Um, so it's an entire spectrum and it's so complex and- and individualities of- of- of people are so uniquely different.

    17. JR

      Yeah.

    18. PS

      Um, I have a friend who's a doctor, if he smokes a joint he can't go to sleep. I smoke a joint and I'm a g- I'm into a cuddle puddle, man.

    19. JR

      (laughs)

    20. PS

      I'm ready for the pillow. (laughs) You know? At night I just ... I use it for going to sleep and-

    21. JR

      Yeah, I'm the opposite.

    22. PS

      Yeah.

    23. JR

      I- I start writing. I wanna read, I wanna watch documentaries.

    24. PS

      Yeah.

    25. JR

      But it's a sativa thing too as well, right?

    26. PS

      Mm-hmm.

    27. JR

      Isn't it? Do- do you have a significant difference between the way your body responds to sativas versus indicas?

    28. PS

      Um, I- I would like to be educated on this subject. I've used both for a very long time. Um, I love Afghani, uh, indica. I ... You have a beard, I have a beard, I love the smell of cannabis on my beard.

    29. JR

      You like the smell in your beard?

    30. PS

      Yeah.

Episode duration: 2:12:08

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