What Is Saffron Actually Doing in the Body? Mechanism, Delivery and the Potential Menopause Evidence with Benoit Lemaire

Most people think saffron is just a spice, but when you look closely, it’s a surprisingly complex botanical with a real problem in modern supplements: the compounds you can smell, and feel are often the first ones you lose during processing. We sit down with biochemist and Active Inside co-founder Benoit “Ben” Lemaire to unpack why safranal (the signature aromatic molecule) is volatile, why many extracts struggle to retain it, and how Safr'Inside uses a traditional adsorption and encapsulation approach to protect the raw material’s original profile.

We also get practical about what “standardised” should mean. Ben explains why older UV methods mainly measure colour and can misrepresent “safranal”, and why UHPLC testing changes the game for quality control, consistency, and even adulteration detection. From there we explore the clinical implications: chronic stress studies versus the need for acute stress support, and the proposed roles of safranal and crocins across serotonin and dopamine pathways.

Then we widen the lens to the gut-brain axis and published microbiome work (including Akkermansia and indole metabolites), plus where saffron research is heading next, like vision support in type 2 diabetes. If you care about evidence-based herbal medicine, stress supplements, and what actually matters in manufacturing, this chat gives you a clearer framework to assess saffron products.

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Transcript

Welcome And Why Saffron Matters

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Welcome back to Wellness by Designs, everyone. I'm your host, Andrew Whitfield Cook. And joining us today is Benoit Lumaire. We're gonna call Benoit Ben for easy sake because I will stumble. And Ben is a biochemist historically, but also the co-founder of Active Inside. This is going to be an intensely interesting podcast because we're going to be talking about Safra Inside, a new formulation of Saffron. Welcome to Wellness by Designs, Ben. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Thank you, Andrew. Thank you for this nice presentation and your wonderful French presentation. Pronunciation. Nice. I'm good. Yeah. Yeah, we will we will talk about Safron side indeed. And um, and I hope uh I will um explain and make your uh audience experts on the saffron in in a few minutes.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Well, my my only um problem is that we're only gonna have about 40 minutes to talk. I wish we had a couple of hours. So let's get started because I really want to drag as much information out of that brain of yours as I can.

Making Saffroncide Through Encapsulation

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Firstly, can we explore what's different about saffron inside? You prepare it in a different way, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Yeah, exactly. Actually, the the secret is to respect the raw material. Maybe you know that the saffron, the raw material, is the most expensive raw material in the world. And uh and then you need to make an extract which is quite easy. There is, you can even do that when you cook, actually. Yeah, uh, it's a spice, but for the industrial application, you need two different things. First, you need to have a dry extract. So you need to dry your extract. Uh, and second, you need to be sure that you have always the same profile and the same specifications that was used in the clinical studies. Otherwise, how can you be sure that we have the same efficiency? It's easy to say, but don't forget that in the saffron extract or any other extract, you have about 100 to 150 different molecules, and we don't know all of them. So, the first thing is to respect the raw material. And in the saffron, when you smell the saffron, the spice, you detect directly a very typical smell, which is the safranal. The name of the molecule is safranal, coming from the saffron. And because you smell it, it means it's a volatile compound, easy to extract, but difficult to keep when you dry, because the boiling point is 70 degrees Celsius, where the water, of course, is 100. So, whatever you do, whatever the condition you do, you will lose first the safranal. So it means you buy the most expensive one and you lose one of the most important molecules. Does that make sense? So we were working first to know the composition of the original raw material. So the first publication with it, it's not about science, it's just about analytical method. And then you can make the mesuration. If you cannot make any measure, it means you are not engineered, you cannot progress. And based on that, we develop a very traditional, there is nothing new. It's just to apply a technology that is more talking about adsorption and then more encapsulation. Why? Because we are based in Europe, we are we have the pleasure to be in Europe, and the regulation in Europe is getting worse and worse, and we don't have the right to do something new. We call that novel food. It's worse than the TGA, believe me. And yes, it's possible. And so we we are we cannot invent a new system. No, we need to use the traditional system. And you know what is the the best system of adsorption in the world? Rice. The the or the yes, rice is the best. When you cook the rice, uh you start to make the the water hot, yeah, okay, you boil the water and then you add the rice. If at that moment, or when you make a risotto, no, you don't need the the water at that moment, but it's the same process. If you had anything that will give um smell or taste at that moment, it will go inside the rice during the cooking process. Industrially speaking, it means you have a protection against oxidation and evaporation. If you do that with the saffron in your in your kitchen, you will see that the rice starts to be yellow. But if you cut the rice, you will see it's yellow inside.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Inside.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

We just we just do the same, basically, we do the same. So it's a natural process, but at industrial scale, and of course, to be sure that we have always the same composition. So it's uh it's just that. The secret is just that. But because of that, we keep the original saffronal. And that's why, yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

I was just gonna say, oh, and what about um, you know, there's two other main bioactives that we discuss, but as you say, saffron is hundreds of molecules. But let's um just talk about you know the crocin and picrocrosin as well. Oh, how do you stabilize those? What's their importance?

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Oh, yeah, definitely, yes. So, first, uh crocints, they are carotenoids, they are responsible for the red color of the stigmat of saffron, and that's the only carotenoids that I know that are soluble in water. So easy to protect in the same process of encapsulation because they will be also adsorbed. And in fact, my example of the color is based on the carotenoids. So you have a better protection, and it means directly that if you have a better protection, you need to use less starting raw material to get the same specification at the end of the process. So it means it's cheaper. Right. Because you don't destroy when you make extraction, whatever. Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, soon you make an extraction. It means you remove the molecules from the natural matrix that it was growing. So you start to have degradation, could be oxidation, could be evaporation, could be hydrolyzation, they could be many things, and that's why you need to control temperature, pH, and condition at industrial scale. But if you have a during the encapsulation, I mean sorry, during the extraction, you are doing also the adsorption and the encapsulation. You save a lot of uh raw material because you protect directly and you prevent the degradation that you naturally have even in your kitchen, but much more at industrial scale, because we have a scale effect.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

So is it is it kind of like the garlic story? Like, you know, we have to freeze dry it so we have to protect the the cell from degradation from the um allison to alien, sorry, alien to allison. Um and uh broccoli sprout extract is another one, the myrosinase gets released, and so you need myrosinase and um uh the glucosinolates to make sulforophane. But if you have sulforophane, it's not gonna last. Same sort of thing.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Exactly the same. It means you are, especially that saffron is again the most expensive one that you can you can work on. So it makes sense to invest in a protection system that will protect the natural molecule. And also another thing, you mentioned the picrocrosin, there is also the crocetines, there is the campfron, there's many other what we know is that the saffron is working. Extract of saffron, that's another story. You need to make your own study to prove that. But the saffron is used since 3,000 years for against stress, for sleep, and for menopausal as well, and many other applications. So, what do it means is it's not an extract, it's the powder directly, a different quantity, different qualities. That's the problem. So, when you are uh promoting something with clinical study, you need to respect the raw material, it means you know the molecule, you know the full spectrum. And again, if you change a ratio between there is, for example, six different crossings. If you change the ratio, because one of them is maybe more sensitive to uh, you know, it's not exactly the same product at the end. So all job, the the secret, if I can say, of all job is like I love, uh you can imagine as a French guy, I really love to eat and I love to go to the best restaurant. And I'm always impressed because I have exactly the same raw material, but I never get the same result as the cook. You know, it's exactly the same. What we we need to respect, we need to have the good material, but then the process is also important. But in our case, it's not for the taste, it's to be sure that you have always the same efficiency. So you have bioindicators like the safranal or the crossings, but you know, the specification of the market is 2% safranal and 3% crossing, so it's 5%. I will ask you a question. Do you like the car? Because I have a wonderful car here, $200,000. But you know what? The seat, the seat is wonderful, it's uh you know, massage, integrated. But the you know what? The seat is only 5% of the car. Do you will buy because the seat is wonderful? So why you do why you do that with the most expensive raw material? You need the full spectrum, and and you need bioindicators, you know, you need to know the crossings, but you need to take care about the raw material. That's my responsibility.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Can

Sourcing Zargol And Avoiding Shortcuts

SPEAKER_01 9:50

can I ask you with regards to looking at raw material, choosing raw material? Uh, you know, there there seems to be these sort of three uh quality um, what do I say? The raw material qualities, like the there's the um uh pushal, the nigin, and the Zagol. Zagol. Zagol. Zagol. And and yet I remember one site I went to said that the the Nigin uh was basically a made-up thing, and it was the pushal? Is that what the one which is used?

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Or yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So that's interesting. Actually, you know, again, saffron is expensive. So they're Iranian, they are very smart since many, many years. They are the biggest producer of saffron in the world and produce like 85, maybe 90 percent of the uh of the production. Still know, huh? Still know, and so the so they have a knowledge, and because they are pretty good in business also since centuries, they are, and that's one of the secrets to produce the saffron stigmat. You don't cut the stigmat, you don't cut the three stigmas that you have in every flower of crocus sativus. No, you need to pull slowly, and then you have also a little part of the stigmat that it was inside the flower, but interesting, yeah, and they are without color and without smell. Why? Because crocus sativus, the saffron, the flower saffron, they don't care about giving uh anti-stress to humanity. No, what they want is that the insect is coming on the flower for the pollinization and in what color, the crossings, and the smell saffranal. So the highest concentration of those molecules are on the Zargol quality. Zargol in Farsi means top of the flower, and because they are good in business, it's still the name saffron, but the quality is totally different, yeah. Right, so yeah, it's like the beef, you have different parts of the beef, it's not the same price, correct? It's exactly the same, yeah. And the quality is not the same, depends what you want to do. So I don't say this part is not good, but I say it's not adapted for the medicinal use we want to do because traditionally they were not using the other part. So one of the guarantees is that 100% of the saffron we use is coming from a specific area in Khorazan province of Iran. We are working with them since more than 10 years, and they are excellent to produce. And we are using only the Zargol, only that. That's a guarantee from Active Inside because that's also our interest. This uh more expensive to buy for sure, but the concentration, concentration in molecules are nothing to compare. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

Okay,

Acute Versus Chronic Stress Research

SPEAKER_01 12:55

so let's now, because you and I, seriously, I could talk to you for hours just about the plant. Uh, let's talk about clinical trials because this is somewhere where you're really shined. Um, so when we're talking about these compounds, the crocons, the saffronel, um, how do these compounds respond differently? How do they act differently when you're talking about humans and you're talking about chronic stress, maybe versus acute stress, say?

SPEAKER_00 13:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitively. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. So um, if you look at all the studies uh on uh the traditional saffron extract uh made by Iranian universities, other universities, and also industrial, like Active Inside, they have proprietary studies they published. If you look, all of them, all of them they are talking about stress, all of them they are not really precise about the mechanisms, they are putative mechanisms sometimes, but not really clear. And more important, all the studies is made on a long term, like it's a chronic studies, uh, about I think a minimum I can see it's uh two months. So, why? Because they are following your stress status during time. Okay, why not? But when you have a stress, you don't want to wait two months, correct? So that's why we was investigating to an acute effect, and right it's coming, and then to understand that you need again to understand which molecule is responsible for what. So clearly, safranal, the real safranal, because I will come back on that. But there is two kinds of safranal, but the real safranal is acting on the serotonin receptors, exactly like the Prozac. But the Prozac is doing only that, so it's an inhibition of the reoptake of the serotonin, which is the mechanism to make the regulation of your stress. So, because safranal is the volatile compound, very small molecule, we were expecting that you can have a very quick absorption that you cannot have with carotenoids, uh the crossins that are long chain by definition. So, safranal is working on serotonin and the crossins are working on the dopamine. And this is why you don't have any side effects from the saffron compared to Prozac, because again, you have the molecules that can make an equilibrium, and that's what we love in the phytotherapy. Otherwise, if safranal is the most important, well, buy pure synthetic safanol, then. But that's the pharmaceutical industry is doing, and why not? But this is not phytotherapy, this is not the respect of the tradition. Very true. And you and you see, dopamine is uh, I will say that will give you a positive stress, and the serotonin is regulated by the same and the condition to have the good molecules and the good ratio, and to use, and that's the most important, the good analytical tools. That's the second responsibility of an industrial that produced for you as a saffron extract.

Neurotransmitters And Better Testing

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Everyone was using the UV method, UV, or they call it also uh ISO, but because you know saffron is a long, long history, and if you come back 100 years ago, there was no HPLC on the market. So they needed to make the evaluation of saffron with the analytical tools that was at that moment, and UV was the top-of-the-art uh technology uh long time ago. So they use UV, but UV is making the measure of color. And saffranal is a volatile compound without any color, otherwise, every time you will smell the saffron, your your nose will be pink or orange or whatever. Yeah. So it's not the good one, it's the official one, and like many, many often, the regulation is not following so quick the evolution of the technologies. So we developed, that's the first things we developed. It's a new analytical method adapted to the different compounds, not only saffranal of the uh saffron. And by UHPLC, ultra HPLC, you can make the analysis of the real saffranal. Why is it so important? It's because you have a ratio of 10 between UV and HPLC. So it means when people say 2% safranal, actually, the truth is that they are less than 0.2%. It's not the same. But good news, 0.2% is is enough. But the pro the problem is that the analytical method by UV is making analysis of everything except the safranal, because safranal, no color again. So you have 2% by UV, you call that safranal, but it's not safranal. And that's not acceptable. That's not acceptable. You need the 2% safranal because it's an official method, okay, and because they were using that in the very old studies, makes sense, but this is not today uh enough. You need HP and C, like we do for the crossing as well. And if you do that, then you realize that all the extract on the market, there is absolutely no exception, and I can I can give you a guarantee of that, you will see. There is nothing that has more than 0.01% of sarfanol on the market, because they don't do the encapsulation. And why they don't do the encapsulation? Because this is the patent of active inside since 20 years.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Is this is the ultra HPLC also a way or a method to um uh to thwart adulteration with uh saffron because we're now seeing this, yeah?

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Yeah, yeah, they they was using um they can use uh gardenia. Gardenia is also giving some crossings, yeah. Okay, right. So, but it's not the price of the saffron.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

So you can imagine that sometimes, or by accident, of course, uh well, you you have uh the a blend with some gardenia, and gardenia is the same molecule, it's the same crossings as the saffron. So if you use HPLC, you don't you see a peak, you see a peak and you say, well, it's crossing. If you are using UHPLC, the peaks start to be just a little bit different, right? But you need the U for ultra, ultra power, and making that we don't have any adulteration in our uh quality control, but we are able to make analysis of any kind of safranal uh during the process, and safranal is the most responsible for the acute effect, so that's why to make it very clear, all the saffron extract on the market they work because they have crossing working on dopamine, but you need time, it's a chronic process, and yeah, that's okay, but we don't want to have only chronic, so that's why we need the saffrana. And to need the safrana, you need the encapsulation, and that's all patterned.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

So I I I can see like when you were talking about the neurotransmitters involved, the serotonin dopamine, uh like, and you're talking about how you can now work in acute stressful, acutely stressful um uh situations. I'm thinking things like you know, acute stress, obviously dir, so somebody's just received some bad news, somebody gets acute anxiety. Exactly. Uh i irritable bowel syndrome, ADD, autism, these neuroatypical conditions where they might have a flare. I I can I can hope that these may have a use for these quite acute situations. In in my mind, things like IBS, where a stressful event can set up a flare, often in uh they're often seen in adults. It's going to be hard to um to look at kids with this sort of thing. But I can just see research opportunities opening up for this in so many aspects.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Yeah, especially that you don't have any side effects. In any of the studies we did, there is absolutely no side effect. And more than that, you have a first effect on the acute stress. Um and higher is the acute stress, better it will work because again, it's a system of regulation, and you come back to the normal. It's just like this. But you still you can take sulfur inside every day, and then you will have a prevention uh effect against the chronic stress that it's coming from several acute stress you get all the time. And yes,

Fast Absorption And Ex Vivo Proof

SPEAKER_00 21:52

and um I I just would like to uh to explain maybe uh one of the last uh clinical studies we did, to be sure. That saffranal is working on the serotonin. Because that's a very original design. Uh maybe uh you know that's so the serotonin is produced in the synapse, part of the neurons, so in the brain. So uh the only way to be sure um it's not in vitro test because you lose all the digestion process. We are here in the we are not making injection, of course. So we you need to eat the saffron side. So we uh we did what we call an ex-vivo clinical study. So what it means simply that we were giving saffrin side to eat to some people, to human. Before that, we take a sample of plasma. Before that, after 30 minutes, because we know that's the peak of uh absorption, we take another sample of plasma and we keep that. The first part of the study is finished. Then we were working with uh universities in France that are able to collect human tissue when you pass away. Of course, no diseases here, uh accident or something like that. Um, and then we have access to the fresh brain tissue. And on the other side, you still have your human plasma, and then you have to put it in the same condition, and you recreate it exactly what happened. Just the time you do it is different, and the people you do that is different. But the interest is that you can be sure that you have all the metabolite that even me, I don't know what could be, at the good concentration in the plasma. We are talking about 0.2% safronal and 3% crossin in 30 milligrams of extract that you give to someone that has maybe five or six liters of plasma. So it's not easy. And when we did that, we proved that if it's true, the the saffron, the saffron site is working clearly on the uh inhibition and the reuptake of the serotonin. But we also did exactly the same protocol with the pure safanol to be sure that it's coming not from another metabolite that you don't know, yeah, and it works, but lower than the saffrin size. So, yes, so yes, the safranal is responsible for the action on the serotonin, but probably also other molecules that I don't know, but working synergistically, yeah. Again, the the equilibrium, the respect of the profile of the raw material. That's it. But the tools we are using is coming from the pharmaceutical industry. But the mindset is the phytotherapy.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

Yeah. How often have we seen this with plants though? Back in the 60s, 70s, they used to make uh a very unstable blood pressure drug called rezipin from the herb Ravulfia. Now, Ravulfia, Gandhi used to take Ravulfia. Um no problems, but rezipin, highly unstable, you see, kill people everywhere, was taken off the market because of that fact. So again, we find that once you and this is my um my issue, if you like, with standardizing any herb to one compound is what about the others? No, plant is a plant. You if you don't want to do that, go and do drugs, go and do medicine. Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

And that's that's the most exciting part because if it's just to make a pure purification, well, don't use your time, make a synthetic product. Look at the vitamin C, it's the same, exactly the same. Look at the quantity of vitamin C or pure vitamin C you need, but you don't need that when you are eating a lemon juice. Why? Even if you don't understand, we have to respect that.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

Yeah, absolutely. Um can I ask you, Ben, with regards to uh serotonin receptor agonism, there's different types of serotonin receptors in the body, different ones from the brain, from the gut. So I think I'm gonna get this wrong, I know, but in the gut, I know there's a four and I think there's a seven, but blah blah. And they help with propulsion and relaxation of the smooth muscle in the gut. And so I'm wondering if you've had, even if not a clinical trial, but just experientially, when you're looking at people with stress, have you ever noticed noted people are saying, My gut symptoms have settled down? Do you get that often?

Microbiome Mechanisms Beyond Mood

SPEAKER_00 26:47

We did a clinical study on that, obviously, because yeah, yeah. Uh we know by our own data, uh, we have more than six different mechanisms proven and that we publish. So we we have the the serotonin, we have the dopamine from the crossings, but we have also a superb clinical study made in UK with one of the most famous uh doctors working on the microbiome evolution. And for the first time, it's not only for saffron, it's uh true, but I will say for any kind of extract, we were able to prove a link, a casual link of direct effect between what you are eating, suffrin side, and the evolution of your microbiome. Yeah, more precisely on acermencia. Interesting is that acermencia is very famous for the uh overweight people, but in South Korea they are focused on that microbiome for the stress, right? Uh yeah, so there is probably, I don't know exact, but we make an influence and we can prove a direct link. And believe me, it was really difficult because you I don't know how many different bacteria we have. So we obviously we was not selecting all of them, but that's the and everything I tell you here is published. Uh I can share the publication, everyone can find that with the name I will see. Yeah, yeah, we are my pleasure, of course. And that's the first time we were able to prove that you have finally a mechanism that it's indirect to the stress, you are not acting directly on something that is on the stress, but we know that when you have stress, you have gut problem. And if you have gut problems, you have brain problem. That's clear, it's our second brain is here.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

Yeah, yeah. So this is acting on the indole metabolites, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 28:52

The exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

All right, cool. So we are still looking for new mechanisms because saffron is old, it's it's very old, 3,000 years of tradition, but it's quite new, only 20, 30 years that people start to think, oh no, well, that's that's why it's working like that. Uh, the next uh product that we will develop is on the vision, and that's totally different molecules from zephron. Exactly, exactly. Because when you have a diabetes type 2, the first problem you can have is to lose your vision capacities.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:35

And there is again, I love that there is no drugs. The only way to stop it, not to come back to cure, but the to stop it is to make an injection in the ice of strong antioxidants. And we know and we have already four clinical studies showing that actually some molecules of the saffron with higher concentration than we have for the stress can prevent this problem. So imagine, because we are talking about a food, there is no safety issue. So you can just add in the food a food supplement that because you have diabetes, okay, so you have to prevent the consequence. And and that will be the next generation of saffron extra that is coming. So I love the story because yes, saffron is expensive, but so rich. And the good news is that the daily dosage is very low. That's why today, though, Active Inside, I created Active Inside a little bit less than 20 years ago. Saffron was absolutely zero in the European market. Today it's number one or number two for the anti-stress product. And we just started a new office in USA. Well, the story is wonderful there. So, because that's the biggest market in the world for food supplements in America. You don't have the right to be sick, otherwise, it costs you your house. Yeah, well, very true. So they love they love the prevention, and and uh I know that and you know in Australia it's a little bit new, but it's time because there is uh already saffron extract on different food supplements for stress and sleep, and that's wonderful. But it's time to go for the next generation of saffron extract, encapsulate it, respect of the full profile and acute effect. The consumer needs to feel something very quickly, especially for stress or sleep problem. If you are talking about okay, I need a better skin, maybe you will accept to wait one month, two months. Well, you need that. But for stress, why you should wait two months?

SPEAKER_01 31:43

No, they need now. Yeah. Can can

Sleep Depression And Medication Caution

SPEAKER_01 31:46

I ask? Because we, you know, we've spoken about the acute anxiety and acute stressful um uh conditions, but another one that's crossing my mind is insomnia. Have you used suffering side for insomnia at all?

SPEAKER_00 31:59

And no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we didn't do that. It's in probably interesting. But if you look at the mechanisms, uh serotonin, so it's a precursor of melatonin. Melatonin is helping you to start to sleep. Yeah, yeah. If you wake up in the middle of the night and you start not to, it's not the same mechanisms. Honestly, I don't know which one. I'm not a medical doctor, but um uh we never try. We never try. And second problem, if you want to prove that, um it will be difficult to make the clinical study in a in a in a scientific condition. So uh, but um no, we didn't try that. I I think one of the the secrets to develop is to use maybe the saffron site because you will have an anti-stress effect that will always help to sleep better, but you have to make formulation with other ingredients, and that's that's the thing we love to explain with our uh laboratories, with our customers that want to make the job. The second job is to use saffron site in a very adapted formulation. Um, we cannot prove everything. It's it, you know, a clinical studio today, it's a a good one, it's $300,000. So and it's not no problem that you cannot have 10 uh for 10 different applications.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Um and and that's yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

Can can I ask then, going the other way, we've spoken about acute anxiety. Um, again, chronic. Yes. The chronic, um, for instance, depression, um, where saffron really shines in you know liquid extracts and things like that. Um, have you any experience and would you recommend saffroncide for long-term depression? And can I do a second part to this question? These people are very often, in fact, almost always, on medications, often SSRIs, SNRIs. Some people are still on the old M AOIs. Um how does saffroncide uh work in combination?

SPEAKER_00 34:09

Yeah, uh, first of all, there is absolutely no side effect. There is it's it's a it's a spice, and and and we do uh what we call uh technically speaking a five to one extract. It means we use five kilos of raw material to have one kilo of extract. So it's it's not and the daily dosage for stress is 30 milligrams a day. So it means the equivalent of 150 milligrams of the pure spice, but for the reason, so you can do that yourself in your in your kitchen. It's not it's not a lot, uh it's it's an Iranian people or uh the um uh Indian people they are eating much more every day because it's a part of the many, many different recepts. So even in Iran, they put the saffron in the bread. So you have yeah, there is absolutely no risk on that. The problem is that you don't know exactly the molecules you are giving. That's the reason to to make a standardized extract. So I will say for the safety reason, there is absolutely no risk to take the saffron for a long term. But when you have whatever is the problem, I always recommend to make some period of treatment and to stop because your body starts to be to take the habit of that. So it's better to end that you something you need to do with your doctors, with your naturopaths, with uh whatever nutritionist maybe, just to adapt to yourself. Uh, and that's very, very important with the natural product. So that's the a part of the the answer. The second is more important is if you have a treatment, yes, you can use the saffron, but you will have the same effect. So you have to be careful not to add two different sorry two same effects to the same target. Then in France, for example, the doctors they love to decrease slowly the drugs and to replace slowly in order by the saffron side, in order to have finally the same action, but you start to go more and more on the natural product, and they do that many times because the uh drugs are giving some side effects, especially on on the sleep disorders. And I think Australia is the same as in Europe. We don't want to use drugs every day. We want to use drugs when we have a specific problem, but when it starts to be something you need to take every day, except for the disease, of course. But if you can have a natural solution, well, I think it's better, no?

SPEAKER_01 36:40

So so I think I think the last six years has shown us uh the where uh drugs shine and certainly where they're lacking.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

Yeah, so so the again it's a question of equilibrium. So if you have a treatment, only the doctor can tell you if it's good or not because he knows you, he knows the drugs, I don't know the drugs. And then after, it's a it's a question of equilibrium and to go slowly. To go slowly, don't stop something and start another thing. That's for me the worst things to do if you have uh symptoms of depression or anxiety and something. Don't do that. Check with your naturopath, your doctors, whatever, but don't shift from one to another one.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

That's the worst, yeah, yeah. Ben, I um I know you've you've got another meeting, you have to have a hard stop in 10 minutes, so I'm gonna respect that, even though I wish we could talk for another hour or two. But

Where It Fits And What’s Next

SPEAKER_01 37:39

but can I ask you a last question? And it's just where do you see um um suffractive sorry side suffering side? Where do you see saffron side fitting like most powerfully in clinical practice nowadays? Is it this acute anxiety or is it uh a blend of acute and chronic?

SPEAKER_00 38:06

Um good question. Um I think the the saffron extract is good for prevention. Whatever is uh the quality of the extract, it's it will work because the main compound is crossin' and you have crossin in every extract of saffron on the market. But the the the difference of saffroncite is again the saffronol contained by HPLC. And this is the only one you can have a direct action on the serotonin. And serotonin is uh a key mechanism in many different things, including acute problems. And I don't know any other problem uh that can be fixed so quickly by a uh botanical extract, whatever it is. If you feel something directly after 30 minutes, and we have some American customers, maybe it's a good concept for Australia, they are doing uh oral step uh that you have a sublingual absorption, and then it's not even 30 minutes, it's much more, much more. Wow, so it will be like uh maybe 15 minutes, 10, 10 minutes, because you don't need to make the digestion process.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:21

So just because saffranal is going directly through the uh the the mood directly in your plasma and then then going in the brain. So we don't need to have all the digestion process, which is going fast with the saffranal again because it's a volatile compound, but still 30 minutes. So, yes, to come back to your question, I will definitively recommend saffrincide if you have acute problems and you want to see something. It's also good for the formulators. Um, we were working with uh probiotic companies because they have wonderful studies on distress by the probiotics, but it it takes more than one month before you feel something. And that's normal. You are you are working on bacteria, you cannot change like in 30 minutes. So the concept, which is very smart, coming from them, is that we want to use saffrincy with the probiotics. Like this, the people will feel something and they will give time to the probiotics to act in a second step. And then you have a very large formulation, whatever the people have, acute or chronic, and and and you are working on the probiotic as well. So because saffrinite is encapsulated, you can still use alive probiotics. Yeah, there is no interaction like you can have with the other botanical extract.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

Yeah, cool.

SPEAKER_00 40:46

So so yes, yes, I think the chronic is important in terms of prevention, but when you have a problem, you don't want to use it right. You need to fill something quickly.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

Yeah. Ben, I I this is fantastic news. Like, seriously, you've done such great work, and I love it that you've I well, I love it that you've actually asked the the right questions and gone and then said, well, what if we do this? But we need to do that to make sure that we get the right answers. So, as you said to me, I think it was off camera before, you know, you get the answers to the questions that you ask. If you ask the wrong question, you're gonna get the wrong answer. So so I'm very pleased that you're asking the right questions that are going to help clinicians in their practice. That's fantastic. And I just I'm so excited about this product, it's fantastic news. Thank you, Antina.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

Thank you, thank you. Um, I I really appreciate what you say because Australia is quite new for us. Um, and we really want to give a new generation of extract uh that we are. We are just focusing on two raw materials at Active Insights. We are we are not a global extractor, that's not us. What we do is saffron and grape extract, right? And specific grip. So we know very well the two raw material, we know the mechanisms, and based on that, you can make a multiple different formulations adaptive, and you prove by clinical study, but we are always focusing on two raw material, and so I hope, I really hope that uh the Australian consumers they will they will because we we are all of them we have stress, correct? We have sleep problems, that's number one. And natural solution works, but you need to know how and how fast it's working. Yeah, then after it's your decision.

SPEAKER_01 42:36

Ben, thank you so much for taking today. I I so much appreciate it, and thank you everyone for joining us today. Remember, you can catch up on all the other podcasts and today's podcast on the Designs for Health website. We'll be putting up so much information. I think this is going to be really useful for you. But thank you so much for joining us today. This is Wellness by Designs. I'm Andrew Whitfield Cook.