The Real West Michigan
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The Real West Michigan
Blending Science and Nature: Secrets of Nutritional Supplements, Tracey Ward PhD., Founder, Professor, Research Scientist
Professor Tracey Ward brings her 23 years of expertise in medicinal chemistry and biochemistry to discuss how natural medicine can transform our approach to health and reduce pharmaceutical dependency. She explains how her research and clinical experience led to founding Blend, a company creating high-quality natural supplements designed with therapeutic effectiveness as the priority.
• Modern medical education largely omits nutrition and natural medicine due to pharmaceutical industry influence dating back to the 1940s
• Many common "healthy" foods contain harmful additives, GMOs, and chemicals that disrupt our endocrine systems and damage our microbiome
• The microbiome is the "second most important thing in your body besides your brain" with profound effects on overall health
• Cellular regeneration means nobody is "too far gone" - new healthy cells replace damaged ones when we improve our nutrition
• Most supplements on the market contain "pixie dust" amounts of ingredients rather than therapeutic doses
• Dr. Ward's Blend products contain up to 17 complementary ingredients in glass bottles to avoid plastic contamination
• Current Blend products include immune support, bladder support, and kidney stone support with more products planned
• Quality of life improvement is the ultimate goal rather than symptom management through pharmaceuticals
For more information and to purchase Dr. Ward's products, visit DrWardsBlends.com
Video Podcast available here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheRealWestMichigan
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Hey, welcome back. Today we have Tracey Ward, professor of medicinal and medical biochemistry. I'm going to have to read this today because it's a lot for me to handle In a doctor of pharmacy program. She's been a professor for 23 years, published in many peer-reviewed scientific publications, has three patents in related to Alzheimer's, fatty liver disease and cancer. She has a research program. I don't know would you call it a program.
Tracey Ward:Oh yeah, I have a research laboratory.
Eldon Palmer:So a research lab related to Alzheimer's, fatty liver, formerly diabetes and cancer. She's also the founder of Blend, so let's just get started. If I have to go through that and clean that up later, I can do that for the intro. But welcome. I appreciate you coming in Tracy. Thanks for having me.
Tracey Ward:Yeah.
Eldon Palmer:I'm excited because you know, over the past few years we've had a lot more conversation about health and pharmaceuticals and natural medicine, and I'm really just interested in hearing your take on that. You've founded a new company as well, and we can get into that a little bit later, but just tell me a little bit more about your background.
Tracey Ward:So I've taught in higher education for over 23 years in a doctor of pharmacy program. So I have taught a myriad of classes in drug action, medicinal chemistry, medical biochemistry. A lot of the classes that students struggle like it's hard science classes, but you need to understand the real science of how these molecules behave in the biochemistry of the body in order to be able to understand how the human body functions if that makes sense.
Eldon Palmer:Yeah, so how? Like? Let's maybe rewind back to how did you actually get started in pharmacy? What kind of drew you there when you were younger, I guess?
Tracey Ward:so in undergrad I took a lot of biology and chemistry classes, which is you know what I ended up getting degrees in for undergrad before I went on to grad school and I'm a little nerdy. I like the science, I like chemistry a lot because it builds on. You're not just memorizing topics and stuff, you're actually learning and applying the science and learning how things are constructed. And I've never really been much of a TV watcher, so I read a little too much, which you know. There could be far worse things I could do with my time than reading, but I mean, I do other things besides reading, but I like to figure things out a lot, and so I just naturally kind of gravitated towards chemistry. And then, when I went on to grad school, I got my doctorate degree in medicinal chemistry, which a lot of people ask me, what is medicinal chemistry? And it's kind of a mixture between organic chemistry and pharmacology. So I took all the organic and chemistry classes as well as all of the pharmacology classes.
Tracey Ward:Hindsight, I don't know what I was thinking. You know it was a lot of classes, but I can appreciate a lot more. You know how different types of molecules behave in the body and what I try and do. I mean, I'm never perfect, but I try and teach my students. You know why this happens and how it happens, and I always tell my students, when you're counseling patients or what have you, when you tell them, please don't take this with, for example, grapefruit juice, say why. Because if you don't say why, then people grapefruit juice, say why. Because if you don't say why, then people it'll go in one ear and out the other. And I said, anything complicated in life can be made more simplistic. You just have to think about how to communicate. That and it's probably a lifelong skill that I'm even still working on. But I like to try and make complicated things a little bit more simplistic because if people understand it, they'll retain it and understand it and hopefully improve their lives.
Eldon Palmer:I think that's super important and, on that note, for those of us like me, can you just go into a brief explanation of organic chemistry and pharmacology?
Tracey Ward:So organic chemistry is? It's all about electrons and atoms and moving things around. It's usually, unfortunately, the course that brings a lot of students to their knees, like if you're going into medicine or if you're going into dentistry or if you're going into pharmacy. It's a weeder class, because it's very intense and just kind of in your brain, think of all these atoms and electrons and how you form and build them and glue them together. I mean, I say glue as an analogy, but everything's comprised of atoms. And then pharmacology is really about how these small molecules and proteins and enzymes behave in your body and how they all work in unison to create this amazing life structure that we all get to pleasantly live every day.
Eldon Palmer:Yeah, I'm always surprised at you know how everything works. How everything works so well and when it doesn't, what's going on? There's so many interactive systems that work with each other. It's just always amazing to me, so that's why it's kind of interesting chatting with you about that kind of thing. So, from there, what was next for you? So you decided to go into chemistry, biochemistry and pharmacology. What was the next step? After you took the classes?
Tracey Ward:So after I got my doctorate degree I came to West Michigan and took a position in a doctor of pharmacy program. Teaching the classes over the years that is always full very quickly is advanced nutrition, and so students, nutrition isn't really ingrained in the medical curriculums, sadly actually, because you know, this goes back to probably the mid-40s when Rockefeller and Carnegie took over medical school education. They actually took out all of the herbal supplement and natural medicine type of science because it used to be in medical school curriculums. But Rockefeller actually owned Standard Oil and he wanted to kind of in his vision was to kind of push the petroleum-based pharmaceuticals.
Tracey Ward:And to this day a lot of people think that Western medicine's always been around. Western medicine's really not that old and humans have taken care of themselves for many thousands of years with natural medicine. But you can't patent natural medicine. So a lot of medicine, sadly, is about money and so a lot of people really don't understand nutrition, real nutrition, and they go to the bookstore, for example, and there's tons of books. But just because someone has a book about something doesn't mean that the science is true, if that makes sense. So my students love to learn about nutrition and I think that if you know how to care for your body, you don't need all these pharmaceuticals, you don't need to get on the pharmaceutical treadmill. I mean, sadly, the United States spends more money per GDP on healthcare in this country and we're among the sickest and we're not headed in the right direction. I think everybody agrees, you know they don't want to be on a pharmaceutical treadmill. Yeah, we need pharmaceuticals and they help.
Tracey Ward:You know a number of different ailments, but few people actually understand how they can use natural medicine to kind of enhance the normal function and health of the body, and so I try and help people with that. So, because I, my daughters are in college now and so I have a lot of alone time and so I get bored, I don't watch TV, and so I like to help people and you know people keep coming back to me. Oh, can you help me, can you give me recommendations? And you know I've helped a myriad of people, from Parkinson's to bladder issues, to prostate issues, regularity issues, kidney stones, I mean the list goes on.
Tracey Ward:And you know it warms my heart that I help people and I can, and they. It's a game changer in their life and it's a blessing actually. But I was raised in a family where my parents taught us all me and my siblings where much is given, much is expected. So if God blesses me with knowledge, then I shouldn't hoard it to myself. I should actually, you know, want to share that knowledge and help other people. So I try. I'm not perfect, but I try and do that.
Eldon Palmer:Yeah, that's awesome. I think that's so. I try. I'm not perfect, but I try and do that. Yeah, that's awesome. I think that's really important for people to think about. Like, I think we get so busy in our daily lives that we just kind of go on, we take things for granted and so much of it becomes self-focused. I think being outwardly focused is super helpful. It's interesting to me that, coming from a pharmacy professor you're I think most people would think of pharmacy and pharmaceuticals as chemicals that are maybe artificially produced. You know medicines that they receive, where I think maybe there's as much accuracy correct me here that these chemicals are just also naturally occurring and you know different herbs and supplements and minerals I mean natural plants and animal products can comprise. It can still be called pharmaceuticals or.
Tracey Ward:So I'm a synthetic chemist and so it's funny I teach students how to synthesize and make synthetic drugs. And one of my molecules is actually in clinical trials animal clinical trials for Alzheimer's disease. And what a lot of people forget is that Big Pharma they actually originally designed a lot of their drugs and pharmaceuticals from natural products. I mean Taxol, digitalis. There's a lot of different drugs that actually came from natural sources and to this day there's still a lot of scientists that actually test natural products. But they tweak the structure just a tiny bit to get around the patent laws so they can actually patent it and make money. And throughout history all across the world there's a lot of natural products that have shown significant promise with a lot of diseases and ailments.
Eldon Palmer:Okay, so we've kind of talked a little bit about the background of what these are like natural versus synthesized. What kind of applications have you taken there? Like you started a research program, I guess. Tell us a little bit more about the research program, why you decided to get into that.
Tracey Ward:You mean at the university? Yeah, so I work with anywhere between 10 and 12 students all throughout the year. This summer I'm actually it's the first time in 23 years I have not done research and I thought I was going to have a relaxing summer. And, oh dear Lord, what am I going to do with my summer Now? I'm launching a company. I'm actually writing a textbook working with a publisher that I'm going to use this fall. Writing a textbook working with a publisher that I'm going to use this fall and, you know, getting my little one off to college. She's following up, following her sister to the University of Michigan. So it actually ended up being very busy.
Tracey Ward:But, yeah, I mean I like inspiring the younger generation to pursue, and give them confidence to pursue, careers in science. Sometimes they go into chemistry, sometimes they go into pharmacy, sometimes they go into medicine. Some of them end up getting a PhD and going into different programs. But you know, I think a little bit of encouragement in life goes a long way and there's not enough people sometimes giving kids the encouragement. It doesn't take a lot, just a little bit. But you see the light bulbs go off and they're like oh, this is so interesting and I just think it's something we all should do. You know, find your strength and you know, try and inspire other people to pursue that.
Eldon Palmer:Sure. So before we get into blends because I definitely want to talk about how you got started there I think part of the story was we get into blends because I definitely want to talk about how you got started there. I think part of the story was we were chatting before we started recording. You're talking about some of the people that you've helped along the way. That kind of led up to this, so maybe can you share some of those stories.
Tracey Ward:Yeah, so I'm blessed with knowing a fair amount about nutrition and natural medicine and chemistry and such. So you know, the last couple years I've had quite a few people, you know, get my recommendations for how they can actually improve their body and their health naturally. And I think a lot of people are starting to wake up to, you know, wanting to be healthier and understanding that. You know some of our food is really contaminated and you know these dyes and estrogenics and plastics everywhere, and I think, you know, with Robert Kennedy and his position, he's starting to shed a lot more light on that and I think people are really starting to wake up and want to learn more. And so I think that that's important and I think it's important to you know, educate people so that they themselves can, you know, make changes along the way to help themselves.
Tracey Ward:So I don't know, I've helped a few people with Parkinson's, for example, and they were in kind of a terrible state and I actually just tried to give them nutritional recommendations on what I would do if I had Parkinson's disease and different things I would do to optimize and support, you know, your health, because your body actually has an amazing ability to heal itself if you remove poisons and toxins and kind of give it some of the basic biochemical building blocks that might be deficient.
Tracey Ward:You know a fair amount of people are deficient in just basic minerals and vitamins and they don't understand how all of these molecules work together to actually, you know, support the basic function of your body. And so you know, surprisingly, it's been a game changer. I've helped people with fatty liver disease and you know that it was in a terrible state and then he started taking these herbal supplements and he got a fibro scan and his scan and his scores are back to a healthy liver. So I've been blessed helping a myriad of different people with various ailments prostate issues, bladder issues, kidney stones, lots of things.
Eldon Palmer:So I think this is a real key to. I think a lot of more people have, um, I guess woken up to the idea that personal responsibility for their health, especially over the past five, six years, is like really important. Uh, I think a lot of people have also like realized that, hey, my doctor admittedly he's like I didn't. I didn't study nutrition. There was a very small part of nutrition in his education to get his doctorate, so I thought that was really interesting when he shared that with me. So, the personal responsibility of eating right, taking care of yourself, removing the poisons, making sure you have the necessary building blocks, like you mentioned. Making sure you have the necessary building blocks, like you mentioned. Why would you say that we're lacking in those vitamins and minerals, the proper building blocks, and what are some of the poisons that people should probably think about? That may be the endocrine disruptors and other problems.
Tracey Ward:Yeah, you know allopathic doctors. They don't have any nutritional training. So you know an allopathic physician that's like your mainstream MD or DO, a naturopathic doctor or even a functional doctor. That functional doctors have, for example, an MD, but teach themselves this after medical school. They know about, like naturopathic and natural medicine because they've taught themselves, but it's not in the medical school curriculum, so that's correct. They're not taught about this at all.
Tracey Ward:There's so many you know things that we come into contact with on an everyday basis. So, for example, endocrine disruptors. There's a slew of chemicals that's in everything from soaps to shampoos and perfumes and laundry detergents and foods even that are estrogenic and it messes up our endocrine system and where all your hormones are synthesized and it regulates your body. And chemicals are found in so much of our food. If you look at the label, you shouldn't. If you go up to go into the grocery store and you go up to a potato, does a potato have a label? That's what I tell my students. I'm like, no, it doesn't have a label. Have a label. That's what I tell my students. I'm like, no, it doesn't have a label. But if you, you know, because it's real food. You know. If you go in the middle of the store and you look at products. They sometimes, if you look at the label, there's, you know, a ton of stuff in the product and a lot as a chemist I know that it's chemicals. I'm like, ah, dear Lord, no. But most people they go in a store thinking everything's safe and Twinkies are safe. Twinkies aren't even real food. I tell my pharmacy students, if it seems too good to be true, it is. Do you go up to a carrot and see a label? And so it sounds funny.
Tracey Ward:But a lot of people sadly don't know what it means to eat healthy. I mean, if you ask the average person, is yogurt healthy? Most people would tell you of course it's healthy. Which it's not healthy. It's full of sugar and fructose and fructose kills your liver. It's a slow poison and it's everywhere, it's even in the breads. So you think like, for example, our flour in the United States is so toxified. I mean it's genetically engineered, and that's a whole other discussion about. You know, that's why, for example, some people have wheat sensitivities here in the US, but if you go to Italy they can eat all the bread you know and pasta that they want, because they don't have genetically engineered wheat, and there's other chemicals like potassium bromide and stuff that's even carcinogenic.
Tracey Ward:That is in some of these products that most people wouldn't know, and so if we as humans start being cognizant to decrease some of this exposure you know, buy organic foods that are safer and don't have glyphosate or atrazine or chloroquat. These are chemicals that get sprayed in the fields, in the farming fields, and you know atrazine, you know changes the gender of, you know, frogs, and chloroquat is a very toxic herbicide and pesticide that's used, and atrazine and glyphosate is roundup and that's correlated with cancers. And the problem is when you take in these products and you don't wash your foods and the chemicals are either in them or on them. They redistribute into your fat tissue in your body and they build up and, for example, if you're predisposed for cancer, then you can develop cancer. So we can't live in a bubble, if you will, but we can be cognizant and mindful of how we can do the best we can to give our body the building blocks that it needs. So, for example, going back to the flour, well, it's known that our GMO flour that a lot of all of us consume on a daily basis.
Tracey Ward:It destroys your microbiome and your microbiomes, arguably the second most important thing in your body besides your brain. There's a huge brain gut connection. Think of your microbiome as like a garden and you have to kind of tend to it and give it you know the good and bad products to let it prosper. If you planted a garden and never picked the weeds, what would happen? And so if you have these things called veli and microveli, think of them like octopuses and they kind of reach and grab the you know the basic building blocks of food that you consume. But if those get zapped along the way and are damaged, then by consuming foods and products like this, then those veli and microveli cannot absorb the basic minerals and vitamins that you think you're consuming and doing yourself good. And then you know your body becomes mineral and vitamin deficient and a lot of people have these various deficiencies and they don't know it, and then they struggle with various ailments. And so that's what I try and help give advice on.
Eldon Palmer:So along those lines. You know I'm envisioning this octopus and you're essentially cutting off half the legs or shortening them up so they can't grab this the same kind of stuff that makes sense, kind of an easy. Um, how can somebody know if they're deficient? You said many people don't. Are there tests for that? Is it just? You know things like eliminating certain things, adding certain things and seeing what happens? What's the solution there?
Tracey Ward:You know it's kind of a landmine, if you will, because your average physician, even if you do lab results or lab tests, it doesn't test for things like that, even like heavy metals. They don't test for heavy metals. Yet A number of foods have been found to be contaminated with heavy metals. So unfortunately they don't test for a lot of this stuff unless you specifically ask. And the average Joe wouldn't know to ask for those tests. You know, unless you're maybe inquisitive enough to. You know, do your research and you know, read about all this stuff or be talking to a good functional doctor or, you know, naturopathic doctor, you know. So a lot of people. That's the struggle. They don't know, and so they keep going back to the physician and saying you know what's wrong with me? And they themselves don't know because they haven't been taught it in the medical school curriculums.
Tracey Ward:And you know the system really isn't designed to educate a lot about that. It's really designed to push pharmaceuticals. And I mean, don't get me wrong. I mean some of my students are like well, dr Ward, you know you seem sometimes a little against big pharma. And I said well, listen, you know we need pharmaceuticals for certain types of disease and ailments and we're blessed to have them. But it shouldn't be the first thing that people you know try and you know if you could help yourself naturally with something, and then you're not on a pharmaceutical for life. Doesn't that seem appealing to you?
Eldon Palmer:Absolutely and a lot cheaper. And it's, frankly, a lot more affordable for everybody because you can. You can then spend those funds on more fun things, more interesting things, and the same with tax dollars. You know, if we were, you know you talked about healthcare being such a high expense here in the US and you know a lot of people will call it sick care because it's not really focused on preventative medicine, preventative health or, you know, increasing our functional health, versus it's more managing and treating illnesses and sicknesses that have been created.
Tracey Ward:Yeah, I look at it.
Tracey Ward:As you know, we all have so many grains of sand, if you will, in our glass and we don't know how many days God's going to bless us with living on you know the planet.
Tracey Ward:But why not improve your quality of life and try and take care of your body as best as you can to enhance your quality of life and live the rest of your days and get the most out of life?
Tracey Ward:So I think that's why my nutrition class is, so you know, popular among the pharmacy students, because they love learning about how to take care of themselves and how to actually they are going to take that information back and help everybody they come in contact with. So I kind of look at it as a ripple effect and help everybody they come in contact with. So I kind of look at it as a ripple effect. You know we all have strengths and weaknesses and you know I might know some nerdy stuff about. You know chemistry and you know nutrition and stuff. But if we all share that knowledge with others and start talking again, you know, unfortunately, like people get, so you know watching TV and you know doing different things that not as many people read and talk and just converse anymore. But if we share that with other people, then they themselves will go share it and you can kind of see the ripple, if you will, of knowledge.
Eldon Palmer:I think that's really helped a lot. And talking about sharing I follow a lot of people in the business and self-improvement space I would say almost all of them. Most of these have built successful businesses. They have podcasts or are doing other large things. They have plenty of money. They don't need to share this stuff. They're really passionate about sharing a lot of these types of things about health, even like Tony Robbins, peter Diamandis, a lot of these people have partnered to really focus on health and longevity and, with AI and everything coming in and helping that it's sort of helping speed that process up.
Eldon Palmer:Things like the testing I know there's tests that you can because I asked my doctor years ago for, hey, I want to do like a full blood panel, like I want to test for everything I can. Well, he just gave me a test that covers a lot of things, but maybe there's 50 things on that list, I don't remember. But I know there's companies now that will test for hundreds of things and they can look for a lot of different stuff. So sharing I think there's a lot more knowledge and information out there that's coming out. Again, you got to take personal responsibility, weed through that what's accurate and what's important.
Tracey Ward:Yeah, and I guess always do your research to see if something that someone's telling you makes sense or does it have like a solid foundation, so like, for example, I was just lecturing a week ago to my students about cholesterol and they were like, oh, ldl cholesterol. I said, guys, like you know, haven't. Don't. Do you remember when I was talking to you about cholesterol? Cholesterol is cholesterol. There's HDL cholesterol and LDL cholesterol. But a lot of people think cholesterol is bad. And it's not bad Because you know your brain's made up of lots of neurons and you know myelin sheaths surround the neurons so that you can get, you remember where your keys are or whatever.
Tracey Ward:You remember who your kid is, and that's made up of a lot of cholesterol. And so the cholesterol levels in this country used to be a lot higher and and then you know as much as even 400. And then you know, a decade later they moved it down to 300. And shortly before the statins were released they bumped it down to 200. So people freak out when they think that oh, my number's, like you know, a little bit above 200.
Tracey Ward:Listen, there's there's pattern A LDL and there's pattern B LDL.
Tracey Ward:And I tell my students, pattern A is large, buoyant LDL that's not harmful at all to your body. It's the pattern B, that's the small, dense LDL that gets caught in your endothelium and that causes plaques. And you get more of the pattern B if you're eating fake foods or fast foods or foods that you know aren't real foods, and so, you know, your cells will turn over in your body, all of them at a different rate, you know. And so it's not like you can say well, you know, I have been really bad to my body and you know, eating fast foods or whatever, I'm just too far gone. Nobody's too far gone. You can change, you know, from today forward, and the new cells that turn over in your body will actually be healthier as a consequence.
Tracey Ward:And you know, when I was helping somebody with fatty liver disease, your liver has the ability to regenerate itself, it has the ability to heal. You can't live, obviously, without a liver. But anything you take in orally, whether it's the liquids or the foods or anything, goes through the liver, and you know. So if you remove the poison you can, you know, slowly start to heal the liver.
Eldon Palmer:But I don't want to bore you with too much of that stuff so well, sometimes, sometimes, yeah, you talk about cell turnover and like, obviously I yeah, I take that for granted that people know that, hey, your, your body is constantly having cells that die off and get regenerated with new cells, um, so I think that's understandable. You talked about fatty liver. Let's get into some of that. So you've helped a lot of people in different ways. Let's kind of talk about some of that here. Do any of these products help with fatty liver, kidney disease? What do you kind of have going on?
Tracey Ward:here. I do have ones that I will launch in the future. My first three products I'm launching with is immune support. That's really healthy for your microbiome, it doesn't destroy your microbiome and it helps quite tremendously.
Tracey Ward:The bladder support. So people that struggle with bladder issues, especially as you age, both men and women the elasticity so, for example, I helped quite a few of ladies with. You know they were waking up four to five times a night to go to the bathroom, exhausted in the morning, and so this helps to support that cellular turnover in the bladder. And so now the ladies are sleeping through the night that I was helping. I said well, you know how I came out with the bladder support was because my mother had a very, very severe case of what's called interstitial cystitis and it's a progressive, very, you know, painful bladder disease. And so she was at a very low point to where she had so much pain and inflammation and she was only sleeping like every five minutes and you know her quality of life was terrible. But she had six specialists.
Tracey Ward:She said, you know, I tried to help her earlier and she said, don't worry, I have, you know, the best of the best helping me. And I said, okay, and it's painful. I had to watch my mother go downhill and downhill and she finally got to the point that she called me and said I just can't do this anymore. I mean this is terrible, the quality of life. And I said are you ready to? You know, try what I'd like to see you try. And she said I'll try anything. You know she had to get to that point and, needless to say, you know she's living her best life today. She's her bladder's perfectly fine. She is completely probably my biggest cheerleader.
Tracey Ward:She's like oh, you know I love my bladder support and the ladies that I've helped are very appreciative that I helped my mother to be able to come out with this bladder support. The last one is kidney stone support. There's a lot of people that struggle with kidney stones that you know. I don't struggle with them, but I'm told that they're extremely painful and I know the science of it in the sense that there's what's called oxalate salts that comprise most of the kidney stones that people struggle with and there's biochemical pathways, if you will, of normal metabolic transformation in your body that some people are born naturally, due to their genetics, with a higher concentration of certain enzymes and so they're naturally going to be undergoing certain reactions at a higher rate to make the oxalate salts.
Tracey Ward:So my product has a mixture of some different minerals and herbal supplements that work in unison together to help to support and keep that managed and under control. And a lot of the people that I've helped with kidney stones, these are people that have been hospitalized for kidney stones and you know they're taking two of these a day and they are just very happy and they are, you know, not struggling as much with their issues. But you know I also have a prostate support and a liver support, a gut microbiome support. I have a lot of other products down the road that I will be launching, but these are the three that I'm going to start with.
Eldon Palmer:So there are tons of products out there. If you walk into Meijer or the health food store, there's just racks and racks of different supplements. What makes your supplements different?
Tracey Ward:Yeah.
Eldon Palmer:And why?
Tracey Ward:So all supplements are not created equally. A lot of supplement companies are owned by big pharma. Okay, first of all. And secondly, a lot of them have very poor quality materials in them and I mean, I guess not a lot of people would necessarily know what's high quality and not high quality.
Tracey Ward:When I designed all of my products, I didn't pay attention to money and the cost. I paid attention to. If this is my ailment, what am I going to go grab and put together? And you know I am very good at knowing what goes with what, and so I put the best of the best together in order to, you know, support these various ailments. So it's not really a product. If you're out there wanting the you know the cheapest product on the market, you don't want to buy mine then Because you know it's. I didn't design it that way. This is top quality herbal supplements and I also, for example, like a lot of supplement companies, they give a one month supply and they want people to just keep buying it every month.
Tracey Ward:I have a different mentality, you know. For example, like my kidney stone support, I give a two month supply and you know I did have a little bit of a disagreement with my manufacturers. Like Tracy, you know you really should do a one-month supply. And I said with all due respect, you know I understand where you're coming from, but I want to give two months Because if I am somebody that gets kidney stones and I take this product for two months and I notice a huge game-change result, well then I know it works and I will want to buy it again and I will know that. You know it's working for my body.
Tracey Ward:I'm not like from a mentality. I guess if I was like you and more into business, I would think you know, oh well, I just want to make money. But I really don't just want to make money. Money doesn't drive me. I you know it doesn't. We all need money to live, but it's it drives some people. It doesn't drive me. I want to just help people. I want people to have a higher quality of life. I want them to actually be given really good supplements.
Tracey Ward:Actually, I didn't set out to do this. To be honest with you, I was spending more time trying to help people find good quality supplements that I was recommending than actually giving them the advice. And they would come back and say, tracy, all of this stuff you know is so helpful and it does work. But I get a little confused. I mean, I have these 10, 12 bottles on my shelf and I kind of forget, like how many of these and how many of these, and can it just be one capsule? And you, you recommend how many I take and I said, well, you know it could be, but it doesn't exist with what I think that you know you should, you know you want to think about taking, and it's not in one product.
Tracey Ward:So eventually, you know, I talked to my mother on my drive in to work every morning and because I'm a morning person and she wakes up early, and one day she was talking to me and she's like, aren't you a medicinal chemist? I mean, come on, make it happen, you know. And she's like, can it all be in one? I said, well, yeah, I mean this is easy compared to real chemistry, you know, and I was just joking with myself, yes, this is easy, you know. So I didn't set out to originally do that, but now she's so spoiled she will not do multiple bottles. She said I have your bladder support right next to my coffee maker and I take it and I don't go leave home without it. You know, she went and visited a friend of hers over the holiday and she took her bladder support you know, so she was worried going through the airport, thinking that you know they were going to say something.
Tracey Ward:I'm like it's not like you're, you know, carrying anything you shouldn't carry. It's just a nutritional supplement.
Eldon Palmer:So yeah, so you talk about multiples, but we still do have three different jars. And these are glass, I noticed not plastic.
Tracey Ward:Yeah. So I know I am not a big proponent of plastic. So there's a lot of endocrine disruptors that are in plastic. So you should never. We all should kind of avoid plastic as much as possible. It's like when people will cook food or put hot drink in plastics, those chemicals leach out into our drinks and foods and then we swallow them and it really, really causes a lot of damage in our body.
Tracey Ward:So in Europe you see a lot of glass bottles. They're awake to this. In the United States we're a little bit behind. See a lot of glass bottles. They're awake to this. In the United States we're a little bit behind. But I am not going to suggest, you know, and recommend a top quality herbal supplement and then put it in toxic plastic bottles Like these are glass bottles. They're also black because the sunlight can actually cause some of the nutritional supplements to degrade over time. So it protects it from the sunlight as well. Because some people like to put them in the windows. Sometimes they like to keep them on the kitchen countertop or they forget to take them, and so I kind of tried to think of everything.
Tracey Ward:You know I'm not perfect, I may not have thought of everything, but it's something that's important to me.
Eldon Palmer:Yeah, so we have three. So why would I choose one versus the other? Here we have immune support. We have the bladder support and the kidney support. What makes the difference between the kidney support and the bladder support? Because I think somebody like me might confuse the two a little bit, Even though obviously I know they're different things. But I kind of look at them as the same system.
Tracey Ward:Oh, okay, so you have different organs in your body and they work a little bit differently. So the kidney stone support is mostly recommended for people that struggle with kidney stones.
Tracey Ward:I didn't see the stone, sorry yeah yeah, it does help your kidney function as well, but I kind of designed it really to help the people that struggle with kidney stones, the bladder support. It's a product that's good for people Like I designed it for my mother that had interstitial cystitis and it's helped her tremendously with, you know, the inflammation and the bladder function. But it also helps people that find themselves waking up a lot in the night to use the bathroom, because it helps to strengthen your bladder cells. Now, because herbal supplements, you know, are the closest thing, because they're actually the products from nature and plants.
Tracey Ward:I mean, god gave us plants and herbs and spices and seeds and pollen and barks and you know, a lot of medicinal qualities and products and alkaloids are found in nature and so, as a consequence, when you take them in, similar to like food, if you're actually consuming good quality food, it's the basic building blocks and it helps to support cellular function. So the reason why, like the people that take my bladder support, they usually start noticing a big difference around three weeks and it's not going to be an overnight miraculous turnaround, because it kind of helps to support the cellular function. So it takes a while. It's not something that chases just the symptoms. It's not a pharmaceutical, it's, you know, a nutritional supplement and it's going to work at the cellular level, if that makes sense. So all the cells that comprise particular organs. I don't know if I answered your question, but does that kind of explain it a little bit more?
Eldon Palmer:Yeah, I think so. It's dialed in more towards each individual product. And then, how did you come up with I know you helped me out with some other suggestions here recently. You gave me three or four different suggestions, for I guess I don't even know what to call them, sorry Milk, thistle, chlorophyll and a couple other items. Now how do you decide what goes into these? Obviously without getting too deep, but what makes I mean somebody you talked about one pill, but somebody within this you have how many compounds or how many different items? Maybe?
Tracey Ward:Yeah, it depends on the product. So, like, I think I don't know there might be 17 in the bladder support, the immune support. That's really healthy for your gut. It doesn't destroy your gut microbiome, so when you're working on rebuilding it, you don't want to destroy it. There's certain products that go well together. So, for example, the best way I can try and explain in the most simplistic way is there's some herbs that you can add and products you can add with other ones very well and it helps to enhance their effects.
Tracey Ward:So like, for example, like people that struggle with infections a lot, like, let's say, you know, various types of infections. Like I helped one of my research students that used to get ear infections a lot and I was in the laboratory one day and she was talking to her friend about, you know, she was hospitalized for another ear infection and I was just sometimes I just am in and out and I'm running here and there and you know I wasn't trying to ease her up on their conversation but I'm like, oh, you need oregano oil, you know, and you should try that, you know. And she kind of chuckled, said what?
Tracey Ward:And I said, yeah, you know, and I told her where to go if she wanted to try it out and next thing, you know, like a week and a half later, she's in my office and she said you know, I don't know what kind of snake oil this is, but, man, my whole family loves this now. And I said what are you talking about? And she said well, I don't know. If you know, you heard me talking about ear infections and I get them all the time and I started taking it and now I don't get any ear infections and it's helped my quality of life so much more. And so she started reading about it. And if you actually start looking've and so she started reading about it and if you actually start looking at some of the research, there's certain products that go well with other products, and so you know I read. Like I said a little too much I could be doing.
Eldon Palmer:I do do other things. I play piano.
Tracey Ward:I like you know, walk the dog. I, you know, do other things. However, you know, I do admit I read a little too much and so I know, in over the years, with the chemistry and the nutrition, certain things go together. So the average Joe may not know what to sit down and put with other things, but like my manufacturer, he, he tells me, you know he's, he's another big cheerleader and he's like Tracy. He said you know, I was trained as a physician.
Tracey Ward:And he said I look at labels this way I do for a living and you know, every day. He said I wonder why can't people just come up with something really good that you know I would take? And he said there's just so much junk on the market. And he said and then you walk in here and you give me these formulas and I usually have to help people so much with their formulas and these are just amazing. And he said I want to be your first customer. And he said this is just great and I, it just warms my heart because I really hope it helps a lot of people. And you know it's quality stuff that I would give myself and my family. And, and I think you know that's the way I'm looking at it, I'm trying to help other people like I would help my own family, so I think where I was going is 17-ish items in there.
Eldon Palmer:I don't want to have to go buy 17 different things, understand what to put them, how to put them together Right, and so much easier to do one.
Tracey Ward:Yeah, and a lot of the supplements on the market they have like what's called pixie dust is a term that's used a lot in manufacturing. They sprinkle certain things in it just to put it on the label, but it might not be at the therapeutic doses and concentrations that it needs to be at. And so my products do, and I put it at therapeutic concentrations and, yeah, I mean it increases the cost. But you know, don't you want to do it right? I mean I want to do it right, or try to as much as possible, and so I use the top quality herbs that you won't normally find in other herbal supplements and I, you know, recommend the therapeutic doses. And you know the goal is to try and support and improve various functions.
Eldon Palmer:I actually like that you have the two months, because it's always there's a lot of different ways they come out and sometimes I'm inconsistent with certain supplements over time. So maybe I'll take something for a week or two and then I'll go on a vacation or I'll get busy and I forget about it. So even if it's, you know, maybe three weeks for where you start kind of noticing some things, at least I have two months and in that time period maybe I can string together three weeks with my kind of 80 D brain, three weeks with my kind of ADD brain. But so I do like that idea. Also the simplicity and not having to order or not having to go on a long guaranteed subscription If it's helpful. Great Subscriptions are great too if it's something that is helpful and that you want to have all the time. But I really do like the idea of having a two-month supply, I think from a convenience standpoint as well.
Tracey Ward:Yeah, people, they all live busy lives, and so I think it's just hard enough to, you know, remember some things throughout our day-to-day activities. We just don't want to always constantly feel like we have to order something every time or, you know, run to the store, and so, you know, I look at things a little bit differently, I guess, than a lot of the other companies out there.
Eldon Palmer:Well, I don't know if you took this in a different is better than better. I keep hearing in the marketing world and so I do like these. I mean, I like the idea that they're I from the aesthetics, even the black and the glass, just different. It feels high quality and I appreciate.
Tracey Ward:Yeah, I mean every a lot of the people that I've helped over the years. They, they all tell me you know what, Tracy, if I don't leave my supplements on the countertop in the kitchen or the washroom, I forget to take them, I can't put them away or I'll just forget it out of sight, out of mind. And so I tried to keep that in mind when I developed the product, because A I don't think people need flower power, pink, purple, gray, like all this. You go to Meijer and you see, like all these bottles that are kind of an eyesore a little bit.
Eldon Palmer:And.
Tracey Ward:I wanted simple, discreet. You know I don't think everybody wants to. You know broadcast that they, you know, have a kidney stone support or something and you know everybody has different aesthetics in their house and you know designs. I didn't want it to stand out and be an eyesore. I just kind of wanted it to be simple and discreet.
Eldon Palmer:Yeah, I appreciate that. Well, thank you for all of that. Now, how can somebody find these as this product launch? Have these launched? What's the story with where you're at?
Tracey Ward:Yeah, so I am launching towards the end of June and they can go to drwardsblendscom. We'll also be advertised on some social platforms and such, but you can learn more information going to DrWardsBlendscom and it'll have some more information about each of these products. Perfect.
Eldon Palmer:And we'll go ahead and put those in the show notes and the description as well, so you can find all of that there. Anything else you'd like to cover, like what's the goal here from the next steps for blends? So you have the launch. What else you'd like to cover, like what's the goal here from the next steps for blends? So you have the launch. What's the long-term goal? Like more products.
Tracey Ward:Yeah. So you know I will give some talks, you know around and I'm going to start. I'm going to launch with these first three and the goal is probably, within the next six months, to come out with two to three other ones, which will probably be that are already a prostate support, regularity support. I'm still continually amazed how many people struggle with regularity and gut microbiome support.
Tracey Ward:The gut microbiome is something that so many people struggle with and they don't really understand what types of products need to be in a product. You know, like, I've looked at so many products that don't have it all in it and it would be akin to like, you know, if you wanted to protect your family from mosquitoes and you're like, okay, guys, put in a chain link fence, we're all protected from mosquitoes People would laugh, you know. But you look in a chain link fence, we're all protected from mosquitoes People would laugh, you know. But you look at a lot of the gut microbiome supports out there and they only have one type of product in it and it's not. It's a collective, you know, mix of different types of things that need to be in the product in order to help support and rebuild your microbiome.
Tracey Ward:But a lot of the companies cheap out and they don't put the other things in there to help all work together to rebuild that microbiome garden in your gut, and probably from a cost perspective is what I come up with why they don't do that. But you know, I want to produce quality products that I myself would take and my family would take, and so I will put the best of the best in the products and hopefully my goal long term is to improve a lot of people's quality of life I mean, that's the ultimate goal and give people back you know their day to day activities without sitting around talking about their medical ailments every day, all day, and all the pharmaceuticals that they're on.
Eldon Palmer:I love it. It sounds like a great goal and looking forward to following up.
Tracey Ward:Well, thank you so much for having me.
Eldon Palmer:You're very welcome. Thank you, guys for watching again and we'll see you next time.
