DECEMBER SALE: 20% off every course & program we offer, all month long! Use code KINDNESS at checkout!
This week we return to our home herbal apothecary shelves and discuss two medicinal barks: slippery elm and cat’s claw.
Ulmus rubra, slippery elm, is an at-risk plant. We don’t work with it frequently, for this reason – other demulcents will usually do the job, just fine. It is a standout mucilaginous plant, though, that’s for sure! It can be difficult to strain cut & sifted herb for tea, in fact, because of the thickness of mucilage creates when infused in water. For this reason it’s often easier to work with it as a powder. Never forget that other elms – especially the abundant / “invasive” species Ulmus pumila, the Siberian elm – can do all the same work as slippery elm!
Uncaria tomentosa, cat’s claw, is an herb with a lot of reputations. It’s reputed as an “anti-cancer” herb, as an “immune stimulant”, as an “herb for joint pain”… It’s easy to put herbs into conceptual boxes when we talk about them this way. To break out of those boxes, try two paths. One is a return to fundamentals: here is a cooling, drying, tonifying herb, which acts correctively on hot/damp/lax areas in the body. Another is a dive into research: here’s an herb with extensive research demonstrating its activity on chemical messengers of the immune system involved in the regulation of inflammation. Weaving these threads together is a good way to broaden your application of this plant and evade the trap of selecting herbs “for” diagnoses.
Everything’s on sale in December!
All our offerings, are self-paced online video courses. They all come with free twice-weekly live Q&A sessions, lifetime access to current & future course material, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more!
Use code KINDNESS at checkout to get 20% off!
If you enjoyed the episode, it helps us a lot if you subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you!
Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas.
You can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!
DECEMBER SALE: 20% off every course & program we offer, all month long! Use code KINDNESS at checkout!
This week we return to our home herbal apothecary shelves and discuss two medicinal barks: slippery elm and cat’s claw.
Ulmus rubra, slippery elm, is an at-risk plant. We don’t work with it frequently, for this reason – other demulcents will usually do the job, just fine. It is a standout mucilaginous plant, though, that’s for sure! It can be difficult to strain cut & sifted herb for tea, in fact, because of the thickness of mucilage creates when infused in water. For this reason it’s often easier to work with it as a powder. Never forget that other elms – especially the abundant / “invasive” species Ulmus pumila, the Siberian elm – can do all the same work as slippery elm!
Uncaria tomentosa, cat’s claw, is an herb with a lot of reputations. It’s reputed as an “anti-cancer” herb, as an “immune stimulant”, as an “herb for joint pain”… It’s easy to put herbs into conceptual boxes when we talk about them this way. To break out of those boxes, try two paths. One is a return to fundamentals: here is a cooling, drying, tonifying herb, which acts correctively on hot/damp/lax areas in the body. Another is a dive into research: here’s an herb with extensive research demonstrating its activity on chemical messengers of the immune system involved in the regulation of inflammation. Weaving these threads together is a good way to broaden your application of this plant and evade the trap of selecting herbs “for” diagnoses.
Everything’s on sale in December!
All our offerings, are self-paced online video courses. They all come with free twice-weekly live Q&A sessions, lifetime access to current & future course material, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more!
Use code KINDNESS at checkout to get 20% off!
If you enjoyed the episode, it helps us a lot if you subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you!
Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas.
You can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!
<silence>
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm Katya and I'm
Speaker 3:Ridden.
Speaker 2:And we're here at Commonwealth Holistic Herbalism, the Boston, Massachusetts,
Speaker 3:And on the internet everywhere. Thanks to the power of the podcast, woo , whose power is intermittent, but no, in , no, why is diminished
Speaker 2:<laugh>?
Speaker 3:How about that?
Speaker 2:It is like a torrential rainstorm, and the power has flickered off and on several times today . Um, just enough to have to reset the clock on the stove. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , but not enough to, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So we're doing great, is what we're saying.
Speaker 2:<laugh> <laugh> .
Speaker 3:And we hope you are too. Uh , and we hope you haven't missed us too much, but here we are, and it's time today to talk about Slippery Elm and about Kaz Claw.
Speaker 2:What you're pretty excited about.
Speaker 3:These are some exciting barks.
Speaker 2:These are some <laugh>. I now,
Speaker 3:Kaz Claw bark is a good bark when you've been clawed. No , uh,
Speaker 2:I , I just have that,
Speaker 3:You know , Wolf meow . Yeah ,
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah . No , I get it. I just have the who let the dogs out song with the barking. Yeah . I will not sing it. So thank you . Don't worry. Yeah .
Speaker 3:Thank you. You're
Speaker 2:All welcome. <laugh> .
Speaker 3:So those are our herbs to talk about today. But before we get to that, it's December. There's still time left in the month, and that's good news for you because all December long we have our sale. It is 20% off of everything that is one individual course, or a bunch of courses, or a whole program or everything. We've got
Speaker 2:<laugh>,
Speaker 3:It's up to you. It
Speaker 2:Does work on payment plans. So if you are , um, enrolling in one of the large bundles and doing a payment plan, don't worry. It will automatically take 20% off of every payment for you. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , you don't even have to think about it. It will just do it for you.
Speaker 3:Yes. And new, new shiny available for you now is that you can also give , uh, give courses as gifts. Yes. Yes. There's an option.
Speaker 2:Yes. So when you are at checkout, you just click the little box that says, this is a gift, and then it'll open up and it'll give you a space to put in the, the recipient and a gift message and all that kind of stuff. Um, if you want to give a gift and you have any kind of trouble with that system, just email. We're at info@commonwealthherbs.com. We will totally help you out. You maybe have been listening to us for a really long time. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and just been like, Hey, those people make a podcast. They're like, you can email us at info@commonwealthherbs.com, and Yes, we will. We will. Right back to you.
Speaker 3:We'll, we , we encourage this. We do. Um, you're gonna need to know something though for the sale, which is that there's a code and the code is kindness.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Kindness.
Speaker 3:Don't, don't forget that part.
Speaker 2:<laugh> <laugh> , it's important to remember kindness. Don't
Speaker 3:Forget the kindness. Yes, exactly . Or you don't get your sale brace . Yeah .
Speaker 2:<laugh> <laugh> .
Speaker 3:Sure. That's how this works. Why not ? Yeah . Okay. Um, let's give the reclaimer, that's where we remind everybody that we are not doctors. We are herbalist and holistic health educators.
Speaker 2:The ideas discussed in this podcast do not constitute medical advice. No state or federal authority licenses herbalists in the United States. So these discussions are for educational purposes only.
Speaker 3:We want to remind you that good health doesn't mean the same thing for everyone. Good health doesn't exist as an objective standard. It's influenced by your individual needs, experiences, and goals. So keep in mind that we're not attempting to present a single dogmatic right way that you should adhere to.
Speaker 2:Everyone's body is different. So the things that we're talking about may or may not apply directly to you, but we hope that they'll give you some new information to think about and some ideas to research and experiment with. Further
Speaker 3:Finding your way to better health is both your right and your own personal responsibility. This doesn't mean that you're alone on the journey, and it doesn't mean that you're to blame for your current state of health, but it does mean that the final decision, when you're considering any course of action, whether it's discussed on the internet or prescribed by a physician, that's always your choice to make. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> . Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Yeah. So let's turn to the slipperiest bark around. That's slippery elm bark.
Speaker 2:You know, I feel like whenever we talk about slippery elm bark , um, we, we say slippery elm , uh, work with marshmallow instead. Like, and then we talk about marshmallow. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Slippery Elm work with this only for people who really, really need it. For someone who's convalescing after a serious accident, for someone who's got a chronic , uh, disease, and it's, it's really knocked over their digestive capacity and they need something nourishing and easy to digest and hey, that's slippery elm . That's pretty great. But save it for only that situation. Yeah. Or
Speaker 2:Like during chemo kind of a situation because it Yeah . It's safe. And , um, you know, they usually have a lot of trouble eating, and so it's like, and chemo is very drying, so it's like, okay, this is a super moistening nourishing thing. Yeah . But like, you see how the theme here is like very serious situations. Right. And like everything else marshmallow root.
Speaker 3:Yeah . Well, we, we've taken that advice to, to heart possibly a little too strongly. And so I wanted to share that with you. Right. What happened was, we moved, and this was a while ago now, right? This was a year ago and two months <laugh>. But who's counting? We are <laugh> , um, <laugh> .
Speaker 2:We are ,
Speaker 3:Yes. Uh, but we moved, right? And so we moved all of our herb jars and we were, we were looking at things we hadn't looked at closely for a minute. And I was like, wait a minute. There's this whole jar of slippery elm in here. Wait, there's this whole backup bag of slippery elm in the cabinet and it's just been waiting and sitting around because Slippery Elm is for someday special <laugh> for someone who really needs it. All of those words capitalized, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah . <laugh> it like bold font. Yeah. Yeah .
Speaker 3:Yeah . Uh , and there we were letting it sit there and it , oh , here's the , here's the good news. It didn't go to waste because it's a bark and barks are pretty resilient when it comes to storage.
Speaker 2:If , and part of the reason that we forgot that we had it was because it was in dark storage. Right? Like it was in a tub, like all closed up in a cool space that was dark. So like all the degraded degradation factors were controlled for, right? Yeah. Right.
Speaker 3:Um, but still, you know, you don't wanna leave things forever. And so after the move I was like, well, I'm gonna put some slipper ymm in my teeth from time to time. <laugh> . It's
Speaker 2:<laugh> ,
Speaker 3:It's gonna be so nice. And you know what? It is, it is . That's what I kind of wanted to come around and say is that , um, we don't wanna waste this herb , right. But we don't wanna waste it in either of the waste. We don't want to be buying a million pounds of slippery elm and throwing it all around and just , uh, taking it whenever we need a little bit of a demulcent activity. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Right . We can have marshmallow for that. We can have other emulsions for that. We can have other elms for that, for that matter, right? Yeah. Um, but slippery elm, yeah. We should treat it with respect. 'cause it is an at-risk plant and we don't want to exacerbate , uh, that issue any further. Right. Um, but on the other hand, don't waste slippery elm by like buying some and then saving it for No, no. The really serious case. No, no. The next person with the big digestive discomfort. Yeah . Yeah . No, the other time when I need a nutritive , um, food that's , uh, got a vulnerary impact on, on the guts while it's also getting you some minerals and so on. Uh, don't let it go to waste that way either, right? Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And this, this isn't just about slippery elm. Like some of you have some cabinets and closets. You need to go digging in <laugh> <laugh> . I know, I know. I
Speaker 2:Think probably every herbalist like has some back stock that they're like either saving for a special occasion and therefore just never using or , um, like maybe forgot like it was under something else and maybe forgot. And so it's really , um, it's really just good to, to make sure that you actually are drinking up the herbs that you, that you buy , um, or making them into whatever you like to make them into. For us, it's usually tea, but whatever you like <laugh> , uh, yeah,
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So, you know, but in the course of that, I , I kind of like had a , a re reapp appreciation for slippery elm and like, ah , yeah, this adds a , a moistening element to my tea formula. I can put in some ginger and some fennel and some catnip and maybe even some sage and a little bit of slippery elm like marshmallow. It's gonna help to reduce the drying impact of the formula or , or even balance that out depending on how we formulate and our proportions and so on. Um, but it also has a nice flavor of its own. It's sweeter than marshmallow root is. It's more pleasant <laugh> <laugh> if you were to taste it by itself than , than marshmallow root. Um, and that's nice. That's very
Speaker 2:Nice. I mean, it's like, it's kind of like just the more intense version of marshmallow root. And listen, marshmallow root is super, super sustainable and um, 'cause you can just grow more of it next year. Um, and , um, it does everything that slippery around will do. But like to nine and slippery elm is to 13 <laugh>, like, you know, like, like marshmallow is just nearly at 10. But then, okay. Slippery elm, it just is amped up, you know, like more demulcent if you can imagine that. And, and yeah. More sweet and a little bit more nutritive and a little bit more, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And demulcent really in the slime way, right? In the mucilaginous way, as opposed to, you know, we've talked in, in I think re not so recent episodes, but other ones about licorice and about fennel and how they're demulcent , but not really mucilaginous . Right? They're not slimy. They're velvety and coating, and they have that , that feeling of soothingness, but they're not slimy the way that your marshmallow can be, or your slippery elm will be <laugh> when it's in the water.
Speaker 2:It's also important, just since this is like a , a tangent, but relevant , um, marshmallow roots, mucilaginous quantity can vary from batch to batch Yeah . Of the actual roots. Yeah . Depending on the growing conditions, the soil, the, this, the , that, the other thing, how it was dried, there are a lot of factors that really do impact how much slime you're gonna get out of the marshmallow root. And I feel like slippery is much more consistent in that slime, the , like , the quantity of the slime. Now listen, all herbs are variable from year to year, from region to region, from, you know, whatever. So, and slippery elm also will have some variability, but , um, I, I, that variability is m much less noticeable, and the slime is pretty much always present at a very high level. Whereas with marshmallow, sometimes you get a batch that doesn't slime up quite as much. It doesn't mean that it's not doing other good things. It just doesn't, sometimes you really want that thick slime , and occasionally you get a batch of marshmallow that doesn't slime up quite as thick. Right?
Speaker 3:Right. So the, the mage , the slime, that's something you really have to consider when you wanna work with slippery elm. And when you, and when you wanna work with it as tea , right? You wanna do a water extract of it. Um, and, and so there's a couple things to know about that, right? So first off, if you get, if you get the , like, shredded bark, the cut and sifted form, and you put some in a jar and you pour water on, it will get quite sick depending on how much water and how much bark you've got. It can get so thick that you take it and you pour it into a strainer and it sits there, it
Speaker 2:Will never
Speaker 3:Strain and like , and like a few drops come out. Yeah. But most of it is just sitting there in this, in this hydrocolloid matrix. Moha ha right? <laugh>. So yeah. So you have these like polysaccharides, these like long chain , um, structurally related to sugar and also related to starch, these kind of things, right? But they're like long complex molecules and they kind of make a web or like a , a pile of spaghetti or a net, and then water molecules come and they get sort of trapped in that net Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And so the whole thing holds together and it's wet and it's slimy, but it doesn't really flow right? And so you can, it can be hard to be like, okay, I'm gonna make my slippery elm infusion and drink it because it won't pour through my strainer. Yeah . And this is a whole like, jar of sludge and it's a little hard to consume in that format. Right? So here's some things that can help. Um , one is just formulating it, putting it together with other herbs, and we're talking like one part out of five or something like that. Um, so yeah, like 20% of your formula, something like that, that doesn't , doesn't tend to get too stuck <laugh> in your, in your strainers or in your French press or whatever else. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . Um, I've been making tea in our press pot. And you know, when we do it in the press pot, there's a couple things that help us. One is that the water stays really hot the whole time. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , right? And that does kind of thin it out a little bit, even though those misage are extracting, they're, they're a little more mobile, they're a little more flexible. And so they, they do flow easier. Um, in the press pot in our version, we've got a , uh, you made , uh, a , uh, a filter that attaches right to it. It's made out of like a metal mesh and it just attaches right to the bottom of the strainer. And so none of the bark itself is getting stuck up into the tube. If we didn't have that, it would not be a great idea to put slippery elm into your press pot t 'cause it will get stuck in the tube <laugh> . Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And that'll be hard to get outta there,
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Um, everybody always asks about that pre-filter or the , the strainer that is on there. Um, and so in the medicine making course, there is a chapter that includes how we use a press pot to make lung infusions. And it , there's a video where I showed step by step how I made that strainer. And there's a , um, a quickie version of that on our Instagram feed as well.
Speaker 3:Nice. Nice. So that's an option. Um, but if you were gonna just like, put things into a , into a mason jar and then you were gonna pour it through something to strain , um, at that point , uh, it really does depend on how much slippery Im versus how many other herbs you've got in there. <laugh> . Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Right . And also, again, and again, the temperature, if you let it sit and you let it set it, it really will, you know, and then it'll become , uh, more resistant to flow <laugh> at that point also. Yeah . Um, so in a lot of cases it might be easier to work with slippery elm powder in some water. And we're not talking about like, just a little bit of water. Like if you had a glass of water and you take a spoonful of slippery on powder, you put it in, you stir and you stir and you stir, and it's kind of swirling around as you're drinking it down. That's a good way to get it all the way into you. It's also a nice way to get the full benefit of the plant, right? You're getting in that mucilage and all of that slimy, slimy slime creating stuff, but you're also just like, literally eating the bark at that point, right? Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , you're getting the mineral content. It has, you're getting some protein and other things in there too,
Speaker 2:If you were taking it for like, pain in the esophagus, either from like heartburn or pain in the upper digestive tract. So the esophagus and the stomach, again, either because of like acid problems, but also like chemo kinds of problems can cause like burny sorts of problems there too. Um, then stir in that powder. Sure. But , uh, let it sit for like an hour, stirred a few times through the hour and let it get thicker. Because that way, like if you're trying to get the moistening action to the lower part of your digestive system, then it's okay to drink it before it gets totally thick. 'cause it's gonna kind work its way through. But if you really want that moistening action up at the top, then let it get thicker so that it, it , like, you know, the lower digestive tract is long and stuff stays in there for a while , but the upper digestive tract is , um, you know, I mean, your esophagus is just a straight tube <laugh> and like, there's gravity, like stuff doesn't stay in the esophagus for very long. So , um, having it thicker will help it to stick in the esophagus a little bit longer. Just coating the sides of the Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> of the tube. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Nice. But listen, if you have the , um, the cut and sifted or like the shredded bark , uh, to work with, don't, don't throw that out. And don't worry that you have to like, get a really good orb grinder, <laugh> and turn it all into powder before you can do anything with it. No , it's not,
Speaker 2:Not
Speaker 3:Needed. Like I say , you can mix it with other things in a formula , um, and, and work with it that way. You can also take that cut and sifted , um, bark and you can cook it up like a porridge. Um, it's like, it's like preparing oatmeal, you know? Yeah . It's, it'll absorb water as it cooks, and then if you let it cool a bit, it will set, set in even more. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Um, and, and it will be very much like that. So you can cook that with , um, some spices, maybe some pumpkin spice, you know, cinnamon and clove and ginger. You can throw some raisins in there, blueberries or whatever. Right. Um, and cook it up and eat it like that. And again, this is a really excellent food for people whose digestion is just a wreck. <laugh>. Yeah . Yeah . It's like, it feels like I've been swallowing sand and nails and like everything's all scratched and red and inflamed and painful and blah . Right. That's a really great time to, to eat something like this.
Speaker 2:Yeah. If you , um, let's say you have some digestive issues like, you know , Crohn's or IBS or whatever , um, and your guts are just sore and inflamed and cruddy , um, then you might add that slippery into soup. Uh , you might add it into some other hot breakfast cereal that doesn't irritate your stomach. Um, you know, you could go with just plain rice, like hot , um, rice that was cooked with too much liquid , um, so that it gets really, really soft and mushy and like a little cinnamon maybe, and a little. And then put the slippery elm with it. Um, if you make it, if you make porridge with just the slippery elm and nothing else , um, then it will have, even though it'll be slimy compared to breakfast to like hot breakfast cereal, it will be quite thin. And so if you are really in a lot of digestive pain, that's probably gonna be super appealing. But if you're in like medium digestive pain, then the amount of appealing that it is might not be enough to like, make you really wanna do it as often as you digestive tract would like you to. So you can kind of like decide like, how much do your guts hurt? And if they hurt like tons, then eat it straight, just how it is. And if they hurt a medium amount, put it in with something else. Um, so that you are definitely getting it. But , um, it might be a little more palatable that way. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> .
Speaker 3:Yeah . Yeah. Nice. Okay. Well, shall we , uh, talk about cat's claw?
Speaker 2:I'm really excited to talk about cat's claw. Nice. Um, we, we, when we were looking at the herbs for this week , um, and thinking about Kaz Claw, we both in two different mechanisms realized that we've kind of , um, we we've had a real journey with Kaz Claw <laugh>.
Speaker 3:It's true. It's true. Um, I'd like to read something to you. This is the second monograph that I ever wrote. And , um, you
Speaker 2:Can tell that it is the second monograph that he ever wrote because there's just not enough words.
Speaker 3:There's so much missing here, <laugh>. It's , it is amazing. So I'm , I'm gonna read this just as it is and we'll have comments after. Um, but I bet a lot of you, it's
Speaker 2:Not even a whole page. We'll
Speaker 3:Also have comments and thoughts about this , uh, as we go along. Right? So I've got on here cat's claw on tomentosa parts used bark and root taste, bitter woody astringent, constituents pent acyclic and or tetracyclic oxon ol alkaloids tendons, saponins actions, anti-inflammatory immune stimulant, digestive tonic indications. Cat claw is useful for treating rheumatoid arthritis, reducing inflammation, and to a lesser extent, pain as an immune stimulant. Cats claw has gained widespread use even being used in therapies for cancer. And HIV it was traditionally used in Amazon cultures as a daily immune tonic and gastrointestinal cleanser. It has tonic and healing actions on the digestive system for conditions raging from gastric ulcer to parasitic infection to colitis cautions. Women trying to become pregnant should avoid cat claw. It can be an abortifacient, it may be avoided by those with any chronic conditions resulting from overstimulation of the immune system such as lupus or multiple sclerosis preparations and dosage. Decoction of cut and sifted herb or a powder tincture, tannins in the herb are released in an acidic medium at a dropper full of tincture with some lemon juice to a quarter cup of water. Sorry, my voice is giving me away here. <laugh>. Uh , and then , and then lastly, capsules. 300 milligram capsules three times a day. Wow. I have notes.
Speaker 2:<laugh> <laugh> . Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:First of all, first of all, the word used is in here, like 12 times. And you know, we don't do that anymore. Right. <laugh> . And it's been a long time. It's been since, well, this was 13 or 15 years ago now. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You wrote this a million years ago. Yeah . I mean, you can even just tell because you have very little to say Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and none of it is your own words. Absolutely not. Like all of this was copied from somewhere. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And
Speaker 3:I guarantee I had no idea what , uh, like I could not give you a definition of alkaloid at the time, let alone ox indole , let alone why it matters whether they're penoc cyclic or tetracyclic <laugh>. By the way, most of that isn't actually that important. Some of the difference between the, the, the POA and the TOA has been overstated, it seems. Um, if somebody out there is like, I know a lot about Kaz claw already, ha ha
Speaker 2:<laugh>.
Speaker 3:Um, but, but look like that is a problem, energetics isn't addressed here at all. Right? Mm-Hmm . It's just not even, not even indicated.
Speaker 2:I mean, a smidge in the astringency, but you didn't realize that you were doing energetics when you were putting astringent Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Uh, digestive tonic is not descriptive enough as an action, you know, unless you literally mean that it exerts a tifying impact upon the digestive apparatus. But I don't think that's what I meant at the time.
Speaker 2:<laugh> plus gastrointestinal cleanser, what does that even mean? Very nice <laugh> .
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. And then look , also, I don't, I don't , um, regard cat squat today as an effective abor officiant herb. Um,
Speaker 2:There are no effective abort herbs.
Speaker 3:That's, that's a big reason. Yeah. <laugh>,
Speaker 2:I also don't have really any concern. Um, I don't have any generalized concern about cat's claw with autoimmune issues, especially ms.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You see what that is, is leaping from immune stimulant to therefore contraindicated in all states of autoimmunity. Right . In fact, there's been, there's, there's research , um, out there , uh, which I've become aware of, which indicates that this has actually been very, very helpful for people with autoimmune , uh, arthritic conditions. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and specifically helping to bring down the inflammation there. Um, and you know, today, we can talk about this more in a moment, but like, we'd think of cat clot as at most a selective immune stimulant. And in fact, in a lot of cases, the, the palpable or the observed effect of it is to like calm down the arm of the immune system that we call inflammation. Um , and to sedate that in some ways rather than to stimulate that,
Speaker 2:Which makes it, in fact helpful for people with , um, like chronic inflammatory diseases, which, and that is often a component of autoimmunity. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Yeah .
Speaker 3:I like how in the, the preparations and stuff, there's like weird specificity in some places and then not enough in others. Like, how do I even make my decoction out of cut and sifted herb ? Like, where do I start <laugh> or whatever. What , I don't even have any idea what was going on with the tannins and the acidic medium and all of that. Like, none of that's accurate, by the way. Um, it's fine to put some tannins into something that's a little bit acidic. There might be a little bit of binding between them or some precipitation , um, but not a lot. And I don't think the word released is really appropriate for, for what's going on there. A
Speaker 2:Also all of it is if you, if you want the acidity in the tincture and sometimes that you do want that, you have to put it in at the time of making the tincture. You can't just put the tincture into some water with some lemon juice and get the same effect because the plants aren't there anymore. Like, right . That the action of the acid on the tincture is acting on the plant matter and, and helping to release certain constituents. And we could have a whole debate about whether that's really the case or if it is just like some , um, specific, and it doesn't really matter in the, in the like functional aspect. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And that debate would be probably different from one herb to another. Yeah. But , uh, but yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So , um, yeah, we can do better <laugh> . Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, and the thing is that , listen, like you were just learning herbalism at the time. It was like the concept of writing a monograph was really new. And so part of the reason to share this is that all of y'all are also learning herbalism. And for you, maybe writing a monograph is new and intimidating and whatever. And so the first lesson here is just write it. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , it doesn't matter. Like it's, it's not written in stone. And it turns out that actually things written in stone are not as, you know, they're more permanent than paper, but they too wear away <laugh> . Yeah . Um, but like where, whatever level you're at right now, just take some notes and if the notes that you're taking are pure research that you are just getting from other sources, that's fine. You have to start somewhere. So start wherever you are now . And I guarantee that wherever it is that you're starting 15 years from now, when you look back at it, you will laugh at it just as much as we just did on this one. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . Because, because in 15 years, or in 25 years, or in however many years it is, you are going to learn so much.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that, and then one other thing I do wanna mention is that, 'cause we were saying that there's no personal experience in that monograph. Right. And, you know, people all write their monographs in different ways and there's no like virtue in writing monographs, there's no like, inherent on its own value in that unless taking notes helps you to learn. Yeah. Right. But the thing that there is value in is personal experience. How does the plant feel when you work with it? And if you can get some friends to be experimenters with you, what do they report? 'cause they might not report the same things. And so if you're gonna write a monograph and you are like, oh, all , every monograph I've seen has been really sciencey or has been really highly formatted, or lots of things that maybe you don't feel like you would normally do. The single most important part of a monograph is your personal experience. Well, and maybe also the Latin name, you do need to know that <laugh>, but , but your personal experience with that plant, honestly is more important than all the other stuff. And plus you can look up all the other stuff anytime you need to.
Speaker 3:Yeah . Yeah. Right. So yeah, at the time I didn't really have personal experience with Kaz Klaw , and honestly, it's not one that I've worked with a lot, like day in and day out , um, over the years. But honestly, I think you have have done more direct consumption of Kaz Claw than I have.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah . And the funny thing is, okay, so we made fun of your monograph , um, but also we now have to tease me because , um, you know, we always talk about don't put herbs in boxes, and we have to say this because human brains want to put things in boxes, like in categories, you know, like, ah, that is a thing. Um, and it's just the way that human brains organize information. And so we have to be really aware of that and work to keep the broad spectrum and like multifaceted and nuanced information about all the different things that we're learning. It doesn't matter what it is, it could be any topic. Um, and so when I first started working with Kaz Claw, I had it in my lime box because I was working with it to support clients with Lyme . And all I focused on was lime , lime, lime , lime . How can Kaz claw help with Lyme? Okay, well that was like, I don't even know how many years worth of work, but for years Kaz Claw was Lyme and then , um,
Speaker 3:Which is not unusual among American herbalist. Oh yes. Because of the much haunted , uh, bee protocol.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. So , um, yes, yes. It , it really, in the US you will find almost everywhere. You will just find , um, people reporting Kaz Claw, Lyme , Kaz Claw Lyme . You'll probably see stuff about CD 57. You might not even know what that means, but you read it in a book by some guy. Um, not the best Lyme protocol on the planet, but cat's call itself can be quite helpful. It is worth noting that it is on the drying side, and most people who have Lyme also experience quite a bit of dryness. Um, and if you just Google herbs for lime, almost all of the herbs that you Google will be super, super drying. And so ka
Speaker 3:Claw , red root, high dose of Luo , you
Speaker 2:Know ? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so , um, it is really important to keep that drying aspect in consideration and make sure that you are correcting for it , um, for the person's constitution. But even if a person has a constitution that is that, like before they got lime , they weren't a dry person, lime does tend to dry people out, so it's always important to pay close attention to that. But correcting for that, actually ka claw is, is helpful for many people with Lyme. Okay. Well, fast forward then, I started to get really interested in ka claw for , um, joint problems. And in my own body, specifically the joints in the back, the vertebrae, right. We don't, we don't always think about the spine as made up of joints, but that's like every vertebrae is a joint. Right. They all are , um, capable of that movement. And so , um, I had a spine injury when I was in my twenties, and , um, it has been in like varying degrees of severity over my lifetime since then, depending on how active I manage to stay versus how much I am sitting at a desk. Um, and so throughout my life I have gone through many different phases of working with different herbs to support joint health. Um, and I really got in a rutt with Katz Claw about my back, and it was super, super helpful. Um, but that, that rutt lasted for years and suddenly I like really just threw the whole Lyme disease box out the window.
Speaker 3:<laugh>, I forgot it entirely and swapped it out for a new one. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I swapped it for a new box.
Speaker 3:Can you say the , anything about the kind of pain you had and the way that Kaz clot itself was changing that feeling? Yeah.
Speaker 2:So , um, in this particular case, the pain was very inflammatory pain. So it was , um, less of, you know, sometimes you have a joint pain and it could be any joint. It doesn't have to be your back. And like you step wrong and you get a sharp kind of pain. Or if it's in your hands, like you use a knife and you hold the knife the wrong way and you get like that sharp pain in that goes kind of like up the, like in the joint, and then it's so sharp that it maybe goes up the bone from the joint. Um, that's not the pain I'm talking about that is like, I , I'm going to , I'm gonna call that an impact pain, even though , um, like it's a residual kind of pain. It's a pain that can last for a really long time, but it's not always that sharp. Hmm . It, that sharp is happening in the moment of I stepped off the curb wrong or whatever. Like I have a chronic problem here, I have a chronic level of dull pain, whatever. But in this moment it is super painful. Okay. Kaz claw is not necessarily what I'm gonna reach for in that moment. Um, in that moment I would be looking for like topicals probably with some cayenne, with some Solomon seal , with some maybe St . John's wart , um, some maybe wintergreen. And also if there was a dampness component, maybe also some like prickly ash or something to that would help move things through that dampness. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , what I'm talking about with Kaz Claw is the other kind of pain, the one that reminds you that you shouldn't step off the curb the wrong way. Um, but you were in a hurry and you forgot, like the one that's just sort of with you all the time, you just wake up and you're like, yep , there's that joint pain. You know, the one that's just always there. Hmm . It's a duller kind of pain. Um, and like, it's the kind of pain that you can acclimate to , um, and you can work in spite of whatever that work is. Like, if it's in your hands, maybe you're like, well, I like to knit. I'm gonna knit anyway. 'cause today is not a really bad day, you know?
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's not one of these pains, it's like innervating the capacity of the muscle to even contract anymore. Mm-Hmm. You know, like, like sometimes if you have like an arthritic issue going on, you're like, well, I , I can get this far, but then if I try to press harder first I get a spike of pain and at the same time all of my muscles don't work.
Speaker 2:Like kind or cramp up or Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, it isn't that one. It is the, it is the old friend pain. It is . Yeah . You know,
Speaker 3:And you, you started off by talking about inflammation, and this is like, again, not like an acute situation of, you know, I , I smacked myself with a hammer and now there's inflamed part there as my body responds. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , this is like, we've had this fire burning for a while , right? Yeah . <laugh> . It's burning up some resources in there and it's making everything tender and a little icky and , um, it's a , it's like a slow burn situation. So that has an element of persistent heat and some degree of some dampness to it as well. Yeah. And, you know, I'm just, I'm raising that 'cause this tracks straight to the energetics with cat cods . This is like a nerve that's cooling, it's drying, it's tifying and so it matches that particular tissue state, which leads to this particular type of pain Yeah. That you were feeling there.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It is, it is that like chronic inflammatory kind of state, which then often, even if you're not a damp person, becomes a dampness issue. Um, but I am a damp person, so that is like an extra bonus. Mm-Hmm . Um, if you are a person who runs cold or if your chronic inflammatory state has created coldness, because that can also happen then , um, it's important to remember that Casca is cooling, so we're gonna need to correct for that. Easily done with ginger or any number of other things. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Yeah . Uh , okay. So,
Speaker 3:Right. So you had Lyme sort of an immune hovering thing around there, but mostly lime , right? Yeah . <laugh> and then this focus on the joint pain and not just this particular like, back issue. Right. But like I said before, there's a lot of research onto this for like rheumatoid arthritis Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> and some other , again, of these like chronic long slow burning , um, inflammatory type , uh, type issues. But yeah. With that joint affinity to them. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . Yeah . Um, so the way that I took that was , um, you know, I make like not coffee and it always has like a bunch of different roots in it and it, it has a vaguely coffee like flavor, especially when you mix in a little cocoa and a little milk of your choice. And then you call it mocha <laugh> . Yes, absolutely. Um,
Speaker 3:It's a , it's an herbal roots and barks and sometimes fungi. Decoction. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Usually it usually has no , it always has reishi, ashwagandha and Angelica. And then
Speaker 3:For the last five years, yeah . For the first five years you were drinking this reishi was not invited. Oh,
Speaker 2:That's true. Or like, I would put like one tiny little thing of
Speaker 3:Reishi, little , little no of REI in there. Yeah .
Speaker 2:Now I put like two handfuls of reishi. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . Yeah . It's funny. Um, reishi took me a while, but now I think it's delicious. But , um, there's always something warming in there. So that already deals with the cold aspect of the
Speaker 3:Yeah. Ginger cloth . Angelica calamus .
Speaker 2:Yeah , exactly. Absolutely . Ella campaign if there's lung stuff going on. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Nice. Um, okay. So yes. Uh , and, and I really feel like a water detection is the best way to work with it , um, because the water is counteracting some of that astringency as well, but also , um, oh man, I wish I could put my finger on like a really good science reason about solubility and cell types and whatever. Like I feel like it is there, and whenever I talk about like, my preferences for water versus tincture, I feel like it sounds like vibes and it's not. It's just that I need to take the time to like, sit down and work out the math of my reasoning. Hmm . But there are some things that I feel pretty strongly about. Water feels drastically more effective in my body. Yeah. And, and Kaz Claw is one of them . Yeah. You know , I wouldn't say a blue ver vein , for example. Right. Um, yeah. But, but
Speaker 3:Yeah, we would, we would need to dive in pretty far I think because like usually when people talk about cat's claw, it's all of that focus on those alkaloids Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , we , me mentioned those briefly earlier. Right. Why? Because, because alkaloids act strongly on mammals, basically. <laugh> , right ? Yeah . Like, they tend to have some, some either a noticeable impact on nerve function, sometimes on immune activity. And that's kind of more where cat's cloth falls in. Um, and so they capture attention that way. Right. Alkaloids tend to be the thing, if you find one in a plant that's most likely to be ultimately developed into your , um, your synthesized pharmaceutical. Right, right, right. You know what I mean? Right. So that's where they tend to get the intention. But I mean, you know, there's tannins in Kaz Claw , there's saponins, most of that would come out in alcohol. Okay . But it does come out differently in water. Yeah . It , it feels differently. And
Speaker 2:The alkaloids also do come out in water. They don't only, I mean they , oh yeah . Alkaloids are very alcohol soluble, but they're also super water soluble. Just try coffee. You know, you're getting so many alkaloids there.
Speaker 3:Yeah. They're , they're a little promiscuous in that sense. <laugh>. It's a chemistry term. It's a go go check <laugh> .
Speaker 2:Alright . So anyway , so Catz claw then got stuck in this like joint pain box for a really long time. Um, but then covid happened and especially in the last year of covid research, which isn't, that isn't fair. Some of this research does go back to 2020. Um, some of this research was done really early on and just didn't get a lot of publicity. Um, but a lot of the research about how Covid damages the immune system specifically incidentally tracks very closely with the ways in which HIV damages the immune system specifically right down to many of the same immune responder cells ca have the same types of damage. And I'm thinking here specifically of CD four and CD eight. Um, but there's others, but those are two that are like with great big tags on them. Um, and so that kind of damage is really interesting because we already have a lot of research of Katz Claw with respect or with regard or working with HIV specifically and
Speaker 3:Right. I mean, in my terrible monograph, right. <laugh> here we have, it's being used in therapies for cancer and hiv , right ? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And again, not, not to be pulling that out of nowhere, right. Uh, we can probably dig in further and be like, well actually, how , how were they preparing the herb? Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> or was it some extract, or was it just these oxon alkaloids that they were working in a Petri dish? And all of that can get us to how relevant this is gonna be to real humans. But on the other hand, that's not the extent of it. Right? Like there is some lab science stuff there and then there is also like folk practice and people saying, well, yeah, we were real sick. We couldn't afford that medicine. We drank this and seemed to do a little better than the people who didn't Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Right. And that does count for a lot in our, in our view of this world <laugh> .
Speaker 2:And there's also that like middle place between the lab science and the anecdotal data, which is like, maybe we call it the functional science. Probably somebody's already using that term for something else, but I'm gonna just say it for this right now.
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm fine with folk wisdom. I'm fine with empirical observation.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I guess when I'm thinking about here is like, okay, we took that folk wisdom and we tried it clinically a lot and now we have some data where we were specifically trying to see if we could, if we could instigate improvement. Yeah. Um, okay. All the m also, they were also trying to specifically create improvement, but like we just do it for a reason . Listen, science is you test out a theory or a hypothesis and then you get a result and then somebody else tests it out too. And then lots of people test it out and then we all compare our results and then we say, Hey, they look like they're the same or they're not the same, or whatever else. And so really when we are, we of this generation, of this time and place are doing like clinical, not even trials necessarily, but just working with it clinically as herbalists. Uh, we're just adding to the base of research that , um, allows us to draw conclusions. It's not like science was invented when laboratories were invented. Mm . Humans have always been doing science with whatever tools they could get their hands on.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Anyway,
Speaker 3:Okay. Covid, right? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah , yeah, yeah . So now I have swung right back around to the immune actions of , uh, Kaz Claw. Yeah. And I, so now I've described a situation in which I just oscillated back and forth between two functions. Um, but that still isn't enough because Kaz Claw has many more actions, even if we just start with the reality that it's astringent just starting there. There's so much work we can do,
Speaker 3:Right? Yeah. Yeah. And you know, you , you look at this plant and, and it's , um, applications and there are some topical , uh, approaches to work with the herb . And there the astringency is gonna be really important right. When we're working on a wet wound, when we're working on like a viral sore <laugh> . Okay. Um, like from the herpes virus family for instance. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , um, the astringent activity of those tannins is gonna be really important, even though that may not have a direct impact on white blood cell activation in the region. <laugh> like it doesn't have to, this other element of of its effect is gonna be really, really relevant. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , when we talked about this herb in the immune health course , um, we, we talked about a lot of these ideas around this capacity to bring down inflammation to help your body Mm . Make better choices <laugh> about where to cultivate inflammation and where to cool it off. Um, you know, on a mechanistic level, some of that is done by these things called t helper helper cells, right. Um, they're a type of white blood cell, but their job isn't to go down and kill things directly. They're , um, also referred to as immunomodulators. Right. Um,
Speaker 2:They're like managers. Yeah. Yeah. Like really good managers though, not managers you don't like to work for. Right?
Speaker 3:So in a sense, it's like cat clock can stimulate the activity of somebody who goes in and says, let's cool things down around here. <laugh>. Yeah .
Speaker 2:<laugh> , right ? Yeah . Yeah , yeah , yeah . Yeah. And so when we hear immune stimulant and all we, and it's just like super general, the immune system is so complex and there are so many layers all working together. And so when we hear immune stimulant, that is like wildly generalized and immediately what we imagine in our mind is dialed up inflammation. But like, it's really important to ask what part of the immune system is actually being stimulated here. Mm-Hmm . Um, and because because parts of the immune system that you can stimulate dial down inflammation. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Right, right. So look, if you wanna dig into , um, you know, some, some studies and some research and some, you know , uh, details about immune system cells with names that have letters and numbers in them, <laugh>,
Speaker 2:There's,
Speaker 3:There's actually a really great monograph put together , uh, by the American Botanical Council folks , um, a while back. And this is one that they've got available for free on their website , uh, in the extended version. So we're gonna link to that in the show notes here. And there's some cool stuff in there. There's some fun things to see. Um, I find it interesting when you kind of zoom out a little bit and you say like, okay, so here's this plant that has these actions on the chemical messengers of the immune system that are involved in regulating inflammation. And that does connect directly over to, oh, this is an herb where you take somebody and they have these like hot wet expressions in their body, maybe in their lungs as part of what today we call asthma or maybe in some other part of their body as , as some pathology there maybe in the joints, right? Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> with those like inflamed like long slow burn things going on. And the herb comes in and it cools that down and it dries it up a little bit and it helps things to function a little more smoothly. So these are two ways to look at or talk about or kinda work towards the actual experience of a living person who feels bad, drinks some cath claw a bunch of days in a row and starts to feel better. <laugh>. Yeah.
Speaker 2:<laugh> , right ?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think I bring that up. 'cause that's like a way to think about how do we get out of boxes? How do you get out of the box that you've put an urban into , right? So coming at it from more than one perspective I think is really handy to say like, all right , well what does folk practice look like? What does ancient practice look like? If we have any information about that, what does some, like if I go to PubMed and I put in the name of my ear , what comes up there is like the newest thing. Yeah . Right? Or , or a recent review that's, that's digging into a whole bunch of papers put together. Um, and then ask a bunch of other herbalists what they do with it, right? Because that's another important point of our, of our compass of information sources. <laugh> .
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:All right . So , um, that's some thoughts on cat's claw and getting herbs outta boxes. Some thoughts on the Bri Elm as well. And that'll be it for this week. But before we go, one more reminder. Sale , sale sale,
Speaker 2:<laugh>
Speaker 3:20% off everything, 20%
Speaker 2:Off everything, including the immune health course where you can learn more about cat's claw and lots of other immune helping herbs. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> stimulating, modulating all those things.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That course has a really healthy , um, serving of how to read and interpret scientific studies. Mm . Um, but don't get worried because it's hooked directly to Material Medica study. It's directly into the herbs that you're gonna be learning about and how to work with , uh, in that course. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Um, and also you could take 20% off of the musculoskeletal course if you deal with back pain or joint pain or any of those things. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And then you can learn more about Kaz Claw in that context. You could take 20% off the digestive health course and learn more about slippery and marshmallow root, and you could take 20% off all of them because it's totally unlimited. You can have as many as you want, it doesn't matter. Um, you could get the entire Community Herbalist program, which has all those courses and , uh, 13 more. 13 , 14 more, some more ,
Speaker 3:More others. Yes .
Speaker 2:More. More, yes indeed. <laugh> . Uh , right. So the code that you need is kindness. Uh, it works until the end of December. Uh, if you are listening to this way in the future, the end of December, 2023 , um, if you are listening to this in the future and you missed it, don't worry. Our sales are semi-annual. They're in July and December every year so that you can plan your herbal learning , uh, to fit into your budget. So stock up now is what we're saying, <laugh> , uh, for the first half of the new year.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Mm-Hmm , <affirmative> . All right . We'll be back soon with some more holistic herbalism podcasts for you. Until then, take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Drink some tea. Drink some tea, and clean your claws,
Speaker 2:<laugh>.
Speaker 3:All right , everybody. Bye.