Herbal Medicine with Bonnie DArcangelo

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: This is something that I think people misunderstand about herbal medicine. Herbal medicine is not blanket safe 100%. Across the board. There can be herb-drug interactions and herb-herb interactions that can take place within the body as well.

Narrator: You are listening to the Dr. Haley Show, the podcast dedicated to helping you optimize your health. Each episode there will be an interview or a message to help you discover better health. We will be featuring health radicals on the show to bring new ideas to the table, as well as doubling down on key fundamentals to support you living your best life. Your host is no other than the founder of Haley Nutrition Dr. Michael Haley.

Dr Haley: This is the Dr Haley Show podcast. I’m Dr Michael Haley, show host. And today, well, you know, millions of people buy an herb because they heard it was good for sleep, anxiety or inflammation, hormones or digestion. And when it doesn’t work well, they conclude that herbal medicine doesn’t work. But what if the real problem is that you’re using plants as though they were. Generic pharmaceuticals? What if two people with the same diagnosis actually need entirely different remedies? Today, clinical herbalist Bonnie D’Arcangelo explains why herbal medicine is not one size fits all, how she looks for the patterns beneath a person’s symptoms, and how she distinguishes traditional plant wisdom, clinical experience and modern scientific evidence. Those are the things we’re going to be talking about.

Dr Haley: Bonnie D’Arcangelo is a clinical herbalist, holistic health consultant, formulator and botanical conservationist. She holds a master of Science in Herbal Medicine. She completed clinical herbalism training through David Winston’s Center for Herbal Studies. She’s a certified aromatherapist and is pursuing doctoral studies in integrative health. Bonnie is founder of Botanical Healing Arts, co-founder and formulator of Ætherbal. I have a hard time saying that one. Ætherbal. It’s easy though. And founder and president of Michigan Protects, a nonprofit working to preserve native medicinal plants at risk of disappearing from the wild. Hats off to you on that one. A very important undertaking there. Her work combines personalized herbal practice, whole plant formulation, botanical stewardship, and a spiritual understanding of the relationship between people and plants. I’m looking forward to digging into that. Bonnie, welcome to the show. And I already asked you. You’re in. Did you say Detroit, Michigan, of all places?

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Yeah, just outside of Detroit.

Dr Haley: You know, I actually used to have family there and myself. I lived in, well, near Cleveland, Ohio, so we kind of met in the middle at Cedar Point. Is that.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: A that’s a that’s.

Dr Haley: A place you’ve been.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: I have two teenagers, so we frequent Cedar Point a lot. I am not really well suited for roller coasters. But I go on them anyway. And last summer I took my son and bunch of his teenage boys to Cedar Point. So they think I’m the cool mom because I went on the roller coasters with them. They didn’t know that I had to visit my chiropractor the very next morning.

Dr Haley: Oh, yeah, a little whiplash, You know, and they actually, I don’t know, you probably never even heard of the Blue Streak. That was probably way before your time. I’m guessing.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: I’ve heard of.

Dr Haley: That, but.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: I rode I rode that. So, yeah, I’ve been on it.

Dr Haley: No way. Because that was the whiplash roller coaster of all time.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Well, I was a kid then, so it didn’t, you know, bothered me. Now I’m in my mid 40s, so it definitely takes a toll on you.

Dr Haley: Yeah. And I think it’s funny because you automatically went to roller coasters because, well, it’s this big amusement park and that, you know, it’s like the roller coaster capital of the world. There’s not just, you know, 1, 2 or 3. There’s a whole bunch in the park. And it’s pretty crazy.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Yes it is. It’s kind of like life, though. Life can be a roller coaster. Throw you for a loop every now and then.

Dr Haley: This is true. You know, and especially in our area of expertise, our niche when it comes to natural health. And, you know, there’s a lot of edgy concepts. And both of us are probably considered out there by certain professionals in healthcare. So.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: You know.

Dr Haley: What.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: I have found when my clients that I really try hard to form a relationship with their regular MD because it is important, especially when you’re taking herbal medicine, and if people are on pharmaceuticals simultaneously, that you build that bridge. And while there’s usually resistance in the beginning. Over time, I actually find that the doctors really start to soften because they see the changes that are taking place in their patients, and they want to know how that’s happening.

Dr Haley: You didn’t come out of the womb and herbalist and just, you know myself when it comes to my beliefs and the things I use for health. Well, it’s kind of evolved over time. I’m wondering who are some of your big influences, whether it be nutritional or. Medical or spiritual? Who are some of the influencers who made you who you are in this area?

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Yeah, so I was pretty sick as a child. You know, nowadays they would call it celiac disease. But 30 years ago they didn’t have this idea of this gluten. And I was in and out of the hospital. My stomach was bleeding. I was really sick as a child. And so a doctor said, we have this new concept that some people have a problem with eating this thing called gluten. And you might want to try not feeding her anything with Wheat in it. Well, at the time, this was totally bizarre to my mother, and she didn’t know what to feed me. She would drive a half an hour away to health food store just to buy this bread that tasted like a brick, and I didn’t even want to eat. And so I grew up kind of on the fringe of things because nobody else was like me. Nowadays, there’s gluten free stuff everywhere. So when I went away to college, I think I just bumped into those people who were different than everyone else. You just naturally draw people towards you. And so I started out my career in fashion design because I loved to sew as a child and became really dissatisfied with the industry.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: And I moved out to the middle of nowhere and lived in an Amish log cabin without running water and lived off the land. And I just met people like old herbalist ladies who taught me things. And then I learned that I could eat the food that was in the forest around me, and it just became natural for me to look around the world and to see the different possibilities. And yeah, lots of people came into my path. One of my biggest mentors has been David Winston. He has a very extensive herbal program. And he has a Native American heritage. He’s Cherokee, and so is my family, Cherokee. They’re from Oklahoma. And so it was just really kind of tight bond into learning the things of our ancestors and where we came from and how we historically treated ourselves.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: But I then pursued a master’s of science degree because I love scientific evidence to back what ancient wisdom has always known, and even now, in my doctoral studies, really bridging that ancient wisdom with the modern science so that we can see herbal medicine coexist. So my dissertation is on breast cancer and conjunctive therapies with herbal medicine and breast cancer treatment, because there is a lot of evidence that shows that we can actually improve the quality of life of people who are going through these treatments and are really suffering with some simple additions. And so finding that way to bridge the two is what I really am passionate about in life, and helping people to simply have a better quality of life and to feel happy in their treatment. In my clinical practice. I see a lot of people with multiple chronic medical conditions, and we find a way to find a balance between the need for some pharmaceuticals and herbal medicine so they can feel satisfied in their care and happy knowing that they’re doing something. Yeah.

Dr Haley: I want to explore that a little bit deeper right there. What you just said. Let me come back to it in a moment, because as you were talking about learning, you know, growing up in an Amish type cabin, it’s like, oh, wow, you were introduced way differently than most people. It wasn’t books and. Schooling, but you did kind of grow up in the right in this, and it almost sounds like a, you know, back 100 years ago, the medicine man, this is how the medicine man learned things. So I’m finding this to be very unique and interesting already, just giving us that,. That background,.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: I mean, being separate from the world, you know, and this was I was gone in the country during the major financial crisis of 2007, 2008. I didn’t have a cell phone. I didn’t have internet. I didn’t even know what was going on in the world. All of my food. Was coming from. My rabbits and my chickens and my turkeys and the land around me. And I think I emerged somewhere into society sometime around 2010, 2011. And everybody was like, oh, this whole real stuff had happened.

Dr Haley: And yeah, that’s that’s neat.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Yeah.

Dr Haley: Let’s go. Let’s go back into the, the integrative approach, though, now, because you talked about some people that will come to you and maybe they’re taking medications and they might have a terrible diagnosis, or at least in their eyes, a terrible diagnosis because you might have simple solutions to it. How do you balance the medicine. That they’re on versus the direction you might want to take them or add to what they’re currently doing? Tell me about, you know, when do you do an integrative approach? When do you do a all natural approach? When do you do a medical only approach?

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Yeah. So I’ve never had anybody walk through my door and is not on at least two, usually five pharmaceuticals. So it is a balancing act. So let’s just take an example. Like cardiovascular, a lot of people are on statins and other different types of medications for their cardiovascular health. And they come to me because they don’t want to be on them anymore. That’s a choice that they are actively seeking a different solution for. So I can’t just take them off of those medications. It’s a tapering act. It’s an introduction of certain herbs that have a similar effect on the body, and a careful monitoring of their blood work. I do a lot of blood analysis in here because I like that scientific data to back it up. So if I’m going to start introducing herbs in your on pharmaceuticals, we’re going to do blood examining every three months to check and make sure that we are tapering. And we’re working with your doctor tapering off of those medications appropriately as we start to see those changes in blood pressure. I don’t want to drop so many blood pressure so low that we have a different set of problems. So. It’s a balancing act and it’s understanding.

Dr Haley: And are you in this case are you treating like the blood pressure with herbs or. Are you also saying what’s the cause of the. Blood pressure? In your case, it’s too much weight. So are we going to address that?

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Absolutely. So usually in my formulas I. Practice a formulation called Triune, and this was first put out by an herbalist called William LeSassier. And it takes four systems of the body and brings them together, and you create herbal formulas that harmonize across the different systems. And it’s really beautiful because it forces you to look at the whole system. And when somebody comes in with cardiovascular issues, there’s other underlying causes. It’s not just that they’re overweight. Maybe their diet is really poor, but what is your body doing with the cholesterol that you’re ingesting? We need cholesterol for our body to function. It’s not an elimination of an intake of cholesterol. It’s how is your body using it? How is it digesting it? How is your liver functioning? You know, how are all of these systems working and what has gone awry? Not to say that we can eat hamburgers and French fries and ice cream every day of our life and not become unhealthy, but there are reasons why certain people’s systems start to fall farther and farther offline. And so, yeah, I’m going to give herbs for the heart to.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Help support the heart and to lower blood pressure. But I’m also going to check their liver. I’m going to check their digestion, their GI tract, their bowel movements. There’s a joke amongst herbalists that we really love to ask you about your poop, because it’s such an important diagnostic tool to see how everything is processing through the body. And so that’s more of a whole system approach. I can’t just give somebody cardiovascular herbs and send them out my door and expect that they’re going to become healthier. That’s not the way that works. That’s. What we do with pharmaceuticals. We give them a pill and it kind of erases the symptoms that somebody is experiencing, but it doesn’t heal and restore. Now, that’s the difference between curing, which is the elimination of symptoms and healing, which is helping to bring back homeostasis to the body, which eventually will eliminate those symptoms. Because we have to understand those symptoms are the body’s sending signals that something is wrong. And if we just eliminate. The signals and never fix why the body is sending those, we’re not helping our clients at all.

Dr Haley: Yeah. You know this guy Sid Williams, he was a chiropractor and he was also the founder of a chiropractic university in Marietta, Georgia. And one of the pamphlets he had written is when Is a potato, a pill? And. When you take something to get a certain effect and you’re using it like a medicine,. It’s essentially like a drug. And it’s no different than practicing medicine. In your case, you seem to be looking at more than that and saying, okay, not only what can I use to help this, but what’s the underlying cause and how do we address that?

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Exactly.

Dr Haley: So it’s different than I’m assuming you’re not using it like medicine but more as like nutritional support is.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: That you could call it nutritional support, but it very much is a medicine because this is something that I think people misunderstand about herbal medicine. Herbal medicine is not blanket safe 100%. Across the board. There can be herb-drug interactions and herb-herb interactions that can take place within the body as well. And we do have.

Dr Haley: A.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Lot of studies that have shown people ending up in hospitals with liver failure and other issues taking place in their body because they think, okay, a little bit of an herb does this. If I take a ton of this herb, then maybe it’ll do more. And so I always like to say like, yes, herbs are safe, but they’re only safe if they’re taken appropriately and you understand them. One of the most common herbs is Saint John’s wort. It has a lot of contraindications with different pharmaceuticals, because it actually causes the body to not absorb those pharmaceuticals. And then it can also enhance other pharmaceuticals. So it’s changing the clearance rate. And so this is where we say taking a supplement off a shelf like you started the show with like, you know, turmeric is a very popular one anti-inflammatory all these benefits. And then people take it and expect that it’s going to do something for them, that herb can only do so much. And herbs really need other herbs to support them. In traditional Chinese medicine, they use a four tier system when developing an herbal formula. So you have the chief or the main herb that is like the focal point of the formula.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: And then you have what they call the deputy, which aids the chief. It helps to support it, to make it stronger, to be able to do what it’s meant to do. But then you also have the assistance which brings balance. So herbs have certain energetics to them. They can be hot or cold, dry or moist. And if you take a bunch of herbs that are hot and dry, you’re going to dry out the system too much so the assistant can come in. And balance out that formula to make sure that it doesn’t go too far in the wrong direction. And then we also have what are called envoy herbs. And these are herbs that have an affinity to a certain organ in the body and can direct the other herbs where to go. And so in using these principles, it helps me to formulate and target specific parts of the body. And so understanding that a single herb by itself is really, really weak, you know, it’s like a single person going up against an army. Your body is that army. And it has so many different systems and different mechanisms.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, especially with depression, you know, from an herbalist standpoint, there’s something like 20, 30 different types of underlying causes of depression. You can have GI based depression, hormonal based depression, liver based depression, and the list goes on and on. And that’s where it’s my job to look at the underlying cause. Because, you know, mental illness, as we like to call it, our body is chemically based, right?

Dr Haley: I use a zinger as an example, and that probably shouldn’t have been the one to pull out, because we can go down a big rabbit trail. On that. And we might, we might get there. But before going down that rabbit hole, what’s an example? And what did you call this system when you’re mixing 3 or 4 herbs together. What do you.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Call it. So first I mentioned the Triune, which is actually nine herbs coming together in the system. And then in TCM, they have the four principles, which doesn’t necessarily mean there’s just four herbs, but there’s four principles on the theory behind it. Okay.

Dr Haley: Give me a practical example of one of these herbal formulas and how it might be used to help someone with a certain situation.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: So the first example that comes to my mind is, you know, female reproductive issues. So in the. Triune formula, the main focus and the bulk of the herbs are going to be herbs to support the female reproductive system such as white peony which is a very nourishing to the yin to the that female energy system of the body. But another system that I might bring in there may be digestion. Maybe. They’re constipated. And so I’m going to bring in an herb like Chai Hu, which is Bupleurum, which is really good at moving the bowels. And it has an affinity for white peony, which is called Bai Shao in traditional Chinese medicine. And the two herbs are what’s called a dui yao. And apart, they’re great, but. When they’re put together, they really love each other. And so the white peony is going to help to nourish the female reproductive system, and Chai Hu is going to help with the elimination. Because if you have your elimination system, which is also the bowels, which is what the body’s also. Using to clear out the. Hormones, if that’s backed up, your body is recirculating and recirculating the toxins.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: So I can’t look at the female reproductive system alone. And I’m going to give, you know, three herbs to that. And those are so based on the person you know, white peony is one of those herbs that if I had 12 women come into my office with reproductive issues, ten out of 12 of them are going to get white peony because it’s so good at nourishing the system. But those types of herbs are rare. And so. If 12 people come into my office with the same diagnosis, every single one of them is going to walk out with a different herb. And that’s the important part.

Dr Haley: It sounds complicated, though. It almost sounds like you have to have like an herbal compounding pharmacy.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: And I do I have an herbal compounding pharmacy, and then I use a compounding pharmacy for because I probably only keep about 120 herbs, that I and I make the tinctures myself, because the way I was trained to make tinctures is very different than the tinctures that you buy at a store. And I have a materia medica of over 600 working herbs to draw knowledge from. So yeah, it is complicated. And that’s the difficult thing for people trying to access herbal medicine off the street, is that you’re buying something off the shelf, and you don’t really understand it. I like to explain herbs, like a lot of people are familiar with homeopathic. When you look at like the little side bottles of the homeopathic, it gives you these kind of indications that it’s for herbs are the same way. They have energetics.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: They’re hot or cold or dry or damp. And understanding how they’re going to influence the body is really important. So like let’s take astragalus for instance, because we’ve been talking about cardiovascular herbs. That’s one of like the top five cardiovascular herbs. But it’s particularly indicated for people who have kidney problems. Along with that, cardiovascular issues and kidney issues can actually be one of the underlying causes of that downstream cardiovascular issue, because you can have uric acid backing up into the system. And so. That’s a really good example that understanding that affinity of astragalus for the kidneys. But it’s actually working on the heart.

Dr Haley: Well tell me a little bit about delivery systems such as what’s better taking something orally, putting it on topically. How do you get herbs into the body?

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: So, you mentioned earlier, I have my company. That’s really hard to say the word Ætherbal And so that’s actually a topical delivery of herbal medicine. So I have a patent pending delivery system. Because of my clinical practice, I found that a lot of people were getting supplement fatigue, vitamin fatigue. They get tired of taking things every day. And so I invented a really pleasant way to deliver herbal medicine through the skin, because our skin is the largest organ of the body, and it can readily absorb stuff through the skin if it is the right molecular size. And so that’s where the patent comes in, is that devising of the right molecular size. But internally I have a huge preference for tinctures because the alcohol is very readily absorbed by the mucous membranes of the mouth and of the throat and of the digestive system, versus if you were taking a. Encapsulated herb that herb one it’s gone through these machines, it’s been chopped up, it’s been powdered, it’s been dried.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: It’s losing a lot of its life force along the way, if you can call it that. And then you’re taking this capsule, and it has to go through the digestive and metabolic processes of the body. So the amount that you’re actually absorbing from that is greatly reduced. So in my clinical practice, I will I do occasionally give people, supplements, mostly focusing on vitamins and minerals. I use tinctures in my practice because I find them to be very effective.

Dr Haley: Yeah, yeah. And you sound like you’re like a doctor. You don’t necessarily have a shingle on your wall, though.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: No. I mean, I do have several plaques on my wall. I suppose you can say that people like their plaques on their wall. So I have a Master of Science because my focus in school was on the chemical molecular structure behind the plants. And that focus on understanding their effect on the body.

Dr Haley: All right. So you kind of have a chemistry brain.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Yeah. Chemistry brain I’m going to school for a doctorate of science too. So another science degree. Definitely chemistry focused. Okay.

Dr Haley: Now. Let’s work with that a little bit. Tell me about the transdermal delivery system.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Yeah. So it’s based off of this wonderful. Word called Dalton sizes which essentially for listeners it’s kind of the molecular size of a molecule. So I’ve varied. The molecular size of the molecules that are in the topical so that some of it stays on the surface of the skin to nourish the tissues, but it’s designed to penetrate deep past that skin barrier and get straight into the system. So most of the products focus on chronic pain. So like I have a lot of clients who see me for fibromyalgia and fibromyalgia can be a very tricky one to work with clients because it’s this kind of more transitional all over pain. And so by delivering the medicine exactly where they’re experiencing the pain, it works much faster. And so that’s one of the things that I find that is easiest. And another one I do is a lot is lipomas are a very.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Poorly vascularized fat deposit on the surface. And because they’re poorly vascularized, no matter what you take internally, the bloodstream can never get there. And so the transdermal delivery only makes sense in certain circumstances. You can kind of see where I’m getting at, like it works when it’s something that’s localized in the physical body versus I can’t put a topical on your stomach to fix digestive or GI issues.

Dr Haley: All right. That makes sense. Now, what would be. The evidence for the transdermal absorption. Is it simply is it results or is there a way to test. You know, we. Actually see blood changes because of this. Or how do you know that it’s working? Well.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: So a lot of it’s on theory. I mean, if you look at things like we have nicotine patches, we have vitamin patches. So there is evidence of use of the skin to convey certain chemicals to the body. So have I spent millions of dollars to do clinical trials on my products? No. The answer is no. But I did spend extensive number of years working with clients, getting their response. And I also have doctors. So that’s the biggest part. I have a number of doctors that I go to and I say, here’s a new product. Do you have a client that has this issue to test them on? And because I’ve formed such deep relationships with these doctors and they know my products and they trust my products, they’re always willing to give them to their clients. And so it’s that feedback of that as well.

Dr Haley: And I agree with that. And I think the clinical evidence is. Great. It would be neat if we could afford the studies. And prove it now. And I always like to make the connection that,. Your skin and your gut are very closely related,. Your guts a little more mucosal folded on the inside with the purpose of absorption, but it kind of folds around the outside of our body with a similar tissue that also absorbs and excretes just like the gut does. So there’s no doubt. And like you mentioned, the pain patches and the hormone patches that people are taking. Myself, when we make a topical in our brand, we’re actually making a topical that’s really meant to moisturize the skin and have certain effects. But we choose our ingredients carefully, knowing that we’re putting it on a digestive organ, the skin. Yeah. So we don’t know, you know, how much of that is going to be absorbed. But we want to make sure we’re using ingredients that if you took orally would be safe.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Yeah. And so I.

Dr Haley: Think for that same reason.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: With our topicals, the herbs are alcohol-based. And so if you’ve ever heard of, like, a Dit Da Jow, which is a traditional Chinese liniment that the martial arts masters would use, and they were essentially herbs soaked in denatured alcohol, and they would apply them to their skin before and after a match to prevent injury. And so the alcohol would evaporate very rapidly. Right. And you would have that absorption of the herbs. And so we use that, but we also use what’s called an amphiphilic delivery system, which is that oil and water bond which is similar to the structures of the body. And so when you put on our topicals in about 30s, you will not notice that you have anything on your skin. You’ll have a slight aroma of some of the essential oils that I put in the topical, so they smell pleasant. But other than that, and maybe a little bit of a smooth surface, it’s not like your typical fatty oils where you have moisturization to the surface of the skin. They really don’t moisturize in that sense because they’re designed to be. And the design, when I say they’re designed, it’s based on research that has been conducted by other people as to what passes that skin barrier.

Dr Haley: All right. Tell me about the amphiphilic delivery system. First of all, what does that word mean? And,. What’s unique about your delivery system?

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Yeah. And so essentially.

Dr Haley: That compared to what others delivery.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Just means that it’s a bond of oil and water. And, and I did this because if you look at the lipid bilayer of the body, you have the oil loving and the water loving tails to the cells, right? That is regulating what is going in and out of the cell. It’s a protective mechanism. And the body is both oil loving and water loving throughout. And so essentially the amphiphilic just means that I have found a really neat way to hold oil and water together in solution so they don’t come apart unless you freeze them. That’s the one thing about our topicals. If you stuck it in the freezer, oil doesn’t freeze as quickly as water does, and that’s the only thing that really pulls that bond apart.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Otherwise, the oil and the water is there, and the water and the alcohol, those evaporate and sink into the surface of the skin very quickly, where the molecular structure of oils and fats is a little bit heavier, which is why most pain topicals stay on that surface in that water. And so the reason of bonding those is that I had to have some oil to give some texture to the topical, but I want it mainly water and alcohol so that it’s passing by that skin layer and that any residue is evaporating in the air.

Dr Haley: So we really understand.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: So essentially. They’re similarly they’re emulsified together in some sense like usually emulsification. Most people introduce something that emulsifiers them or they have machines that emulsify them ours are very, very gently in a stir pattern, move together so they’re not whipped up, to keep the oil from going rancid, for one, because we are mixing oil and water, so we don’t want any rancidity. So the main thing that’s holding them together is hyaluronic acid. And hyaluronic acid comes in varying Dalton sizes. And that’s part of the key of that passing through the skin barrier, is the hyaluronic acid having the correct Dalton size and acting as the carrier. The skin naturally produces hyaluronic acid. The body has an affinity for it because it’s recognized as similar to self. And so that’s part of what’s holding them together, along with several other things. I mean, the patents out there. So that’s the thing about filing a patent. People can see what it is that you’ve done. And so we do use aloe in every single one of our topicals as well. But we use aloe powder, not the gel form of aloe.

Dr Haley: Yeah, I have an envelope of it right here, which has not made. By my brand, but, there’s definitely it’s definitely useful. In topicals. All right. And I think the difference we’re getting, you know, you’re talking about the hyaluronic acid that’s used in a lot of cosmetics for anti-aging. It is very friendly. To humans. And the big difference is, you know, I’m making something that’s topical. You’re making something that’s made to be ingested through the skin so that it has a medicinal effect.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Yeah. I think.

Dr Haley: The.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: One other really big difference that it didn’t even touch on is, you know, your base is in that coconut oil. Our base is in something called orthosilicic acid, which is essentially silica, which is an. Essential micronutrient to the body for building healthy connective tissue, skin, hair, nails. And so there’s no well, there is some oil in our products. It’s very, very minimal in consideration that, you know, 70% of the ingredients in our topical is orthosilicic acid. Because the orthosilicic acid in and of itself has healing properties. And this is where we do have scientific research and studies. So the orthosilicic acid that we use actually comes from a parent company that my husband is partners in with a professor in Switzerland. And he’s a professor of neurosciences and has a significant amount of research into using silica for conditions like Alzheimer’s and dementia. And so we’re using that same orthosilicic acid that he’s researched in Switzerland as our base delivery. So it has this medical potency behind it as well. And then there’s only a small amount of oil.

Dr Haley: All right. Are you saying the orthosilicic how do you say it? Orthosilicic.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Orthosilicic acid. Yes.

Dr Haley: Orthosilicic acid. Are you saying that specifically was used to help Alzheimer’s or it was a carrier of other things that.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Yeah. So the. Research is on an internal version of that, not the topical version. And yes, there is research that has been conducted in Switzerland and in Germany. On Alzheimer’s because,. The orthosilicic acid readily forms a bond with aluminum in the body, and it forms aluminosilicate, which is a benign molecule that can be excreted through the urinary tract. And so the research is on, essentially, the chelation of aluminum from the body.

Dr Haley: Okay. So the orthosilicic acid was the active ingredient so to speak.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Yeah it is an active ingredient. And we had that in research and development for five years before we created. The Ætherbal company.

Dr Haley: Okay. Now the thing that you’re patenting, is it the herbal formulas. Is it the orthosilicic acid as the carrier. What’s unique that you’re actually patenting.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Yeah. And so it’s a chemical patent. So it’s the formula behind making that amphiphilic delivery system. So it has the silica as the base, the four main ingredients that are used to bond to the oil. And so that’s the basis of the chemical patent, is the silica, which is the water based ingredient of the amphiphilic delivery, and the oil, which usually, you know, we use a lot of black seed oil. Sometimes even primrose oil. It just depends, because we want to have that be intentional. So it’s those two coming together with our four ingredients from our patent that are held in bond. And so it’s a chemical patent. Okay.

Dr Haley: Interesting. And is that something that you would. And the reason you’re patenting is because you could use that as like a base formula that other people could purchase from you.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Yeah. So it is for there product. Yeah. A base. Formula that other laboratories and other research places have consulted with us about using that as a delivery system. And so. It is essentially patented to protect the proprietary knowledge, so that we can also include the ingredients on the back of our list. So then we’re not saying proprietary formula and everything. And people understand in an open, you know, that we have these clean ingredients and where they’re coming from.

Dr Haley: All right. I’m finding this interesting. And I know orthosilicic even though I can’t say it, I know it naturally exists, but it’s something, if I understand correctly, that’s more, in small amounts. How do you actually make a concentration of it?

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Yeah. So silica is actually one of the most, prevalent molecules on the Earth. Like 94% of the Earth’s crust is made up of silica. And I always like to tell this is one interesting fact, because we all think that everything on earth is carbon based life forms. There is actually one type of life form on Earth that is silica-based. And almost everybody, especially if you’re a natural gardener, has heard of this. It’s called diatomaceous earth, and it is a silica based life form, and it gathers and sequesters the silica through this really interesting process that actually is part of a carbon sequestration cycle that takes place on the Earth as well. And so when the rocks are exposed to the rain and the sunlight, the silica in the rocks actually forms this bond with the carbon and then is washed away into our streams.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: And that silica feeds these life forms on downstream and actually takes carbon from the air. So, without to get into, like, depths about silica, but the point is that silica is all around us and is playing this major role in life on Earth. In the human body, it is in very small amounts in our bones. Actually, when you’re first born as a baby, you have far more silica in your bones than you do as you age. But the silica is also essential in creating cartilage and collagen in the body. And so those are those connective tissues. So it also is used and has a lot of research in taking internally for cardiovascular health as well. So there’s a lot of a lot of research on silica out there. You can go on forever.

Dr Haley: You know, if you had an unlimited research budget. Well, I shouldn’t say unlimited. Let’s say it was limited to enough to fund one major study. What would you want to find the answer out to scientifically? Or maybe you know the answer, but you want to document and prove scientifically. What would.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: It be is going to be totally. Off track from what we’ve talked about. But it is part of my master’s thesis on diabetic wounds. And so one of the very early formulas that I made for my company was actually built off of that research. So, amputees from diabetic wounds is one of the leading causes of amputations in the United States. On average, about 150,000 people a year lose a limb due to diabetic wounds. And we don’t have, even in the pharmaceutical industry, very strong and, effective treatments for diabetic wounds. And when I was working on developing this, a friend of mine told a story of his grandmother who had survived the Armenian Genocide and had come over here as a young girl. And like so many people ate the American diet, lived the American lifestyle and later in life developed diabetes and eventually diabetic wounds.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: And one by one, she lost more and more of her legs until when she passed away, she had no legs left and was laying in a hospital bed. And it was very difficult for him because he felt like this was somebody who had survived so much to end up in that place in life, and he told me that I should never stop pursuing it and that I should continue because people need it. And so if I had money to research one and only one thing, it’s a hard choice to make. I’d ask for two, but that would be first on the list would be to actually have the clinical evidence to get that product, to have that FDA stamp that I could say that this is for diabetic wounds, and that this can be something that helps people interesting.

Dr Haley: And, you know, you piqued my curiosity. So if you had enough for another study, what’s the other one?

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: So a breast cancer formula that is part of my doctoral thesis and a close at heart. And so again, it’s using that topical delivery system to kind of get the medicine where it’s needed. And the focus of it is moving heat and toxins away from the breast tissue and dispersing them into the lymphatic system. And so it would be a two part system where you had a topical delivery, but you would also have an internal delivery, so that I can target the lymphatic system to make sure that the lymphatic system is properly functioning, and flushing out those toxins so that we just don’t move toxins away from one area, and then it gets. Backed up into the lymphatic system. So that would be research subject number two.

Dr Haley: All right. So for the wealthy listener that wants to make a difference in this world now you know contact Bonnie and help people with diabetic wounds and breast cancers.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Absolutely. I would be forever grateful.

Dr Haley: You know, it’s a it’s a thankless,. Industry. You know,. The research and the people always trying to get enough money to fund the studies. It’s a I know a researcher, and, you know,. It’s hard work because these things cost money. In his case, he studied aloe vera as it was related to, Alzheimer’s. And it was funded by someone that had an emotional reason because they had lost someone to Alzheimer’s, and they funded the particular study, and they found actually results on something that could have helped that person. So it can really make a difference. Someone just needs to step up with the right reason. And enough finances.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Sometimes it’s people knowing that it exists or it’s even an option. I mean, with the going back to the diabetic wound one aloe vera has research as well for use in diabetic wounds. And so that is one of the things that’s included in the formula. And. The concept behind it is based upon the healing cascade and the four phases of healing, and that with most diabetic wounds, they get stuck in this stage of inflammation. And because of the internal processes that are going wrong, the body is never able to get out of that inflammation stage. And then it opens them up to other infections as well, because then you have this open wound. And so when you can move somebody through that healing cascade and help the body to progress. And so the foundation of the formula, of course, I had to write a master’s thesis on it.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Right. So I took all of those clinical studies of these individual herbs and studies that focus on that healing cascade, and brought that into the formula with that delivery system. Again, because that silica has this beautiful ability to help to build healthy skin and connective tissues. And so it’s both affecting that healing cascade, but helping to heal and rebuild at the same time.

Dr Haley: Tell us about some of your favorite products that you sell.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Some of my favorite products. So my favorite products are always the ones that come with the stories behind them. And so I have one. Let’s see if I have it here. Yeah, I do have one next to me. So this one is your new path. And it was designed for a new path for people who are struggling to walk due to neuropathy. And I made it for a friend who couldn’t even get off his couch to answer the door because he was in so much pain. So he would just yell, just come on in and couldn’t leave his couch. And so I really looked for the herbs and the targeted formulas. And this is one of the things we talk about, like, I was just working on a video on why do I have six different pain topicals at my company? Why? Because not all pain’s the same. So. Here’s a couple more, right? I’ve got six on my product line because pain is different. The underlying cause of the pain is different. And so the pain that my friend was experiencing, being unable to walk is different than somebody who has, say, fibromyalgia or arthritis. And so you’re looking at them differently from an herbal standpoint.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: And so I love that formula because he wrote me back a few days later and just, you know, in tears, he said, I put it on in the morning and I’m able to get up and live my day and walk around until about 6:00 at night. And then I put it on again, and I sleep like a baby. And that’s why I do what I do, because sometimes my family’s like, why did you even start this company? You know, I just started it two years ago. So you have all those ups and downs of starting up a company, especially when you don’t have millions of dollars to back something. And I said, because I see my friends and the people that I help and their lives are changed, and I want other people to get to experience that too. When you have people who come to you and they call it your magic potion, and their husband says that you’re their voodoo doctor because you can magically apparently make their wife happier. And so the husband’s happier because the wife isn’t complaining about being in pain all the time. That’s why you do it. And I’m sure you have those experiences to where you see people living a better life, getting to interact with their family. Oh for sure. And. That’s what’s important.

Dr Haley: So. Yeah, I mean, the reality is, is the reason I went to school to be a chiropractor was, you know, I wanted to raise the dead like Jesus. And when you when you see someone benefit so much from what you do, it does bring a tremendous joy. I’ll say the hand of God moved me into the aloe business. Long story, but definitely the hand of God. And in the same way, now we’re using aloe vera to help certain people with, you know, just improve their health. So there is. That joy that you get out of meeting, a need that no one else really can. So yeah.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Yeah, I mean,. That’s the continuance of it all. You know, I’ve been doing some research with phantom pains from amputees. Of course they have the diabetic wounds, you know, with the. But my father for many years was the head of a local charity that helped wounded veterans who had amputations. And they did fundraisers for them to help them outfit their cars, outfit their lives, whatever they needed, sometimes purely for pleasure, like one of the amputees. He’d love to go off roading. And so they built him this custom off road vehicle that he could use so he could still enjoy what he wanted to enjoy. And this was long before I had built my company, but I had grown a close relationship with some of these veterans. And one of the things I always complained about was these phantom pains. And there was no pharmaceutical on the market that can make phantom pains go away. There’s nothing. And it is this experience of the mind really saying that they’re supposed to be a limb here, but there’s this disconnect with the body. And so one of the coolest kind of experiments we did, and I had no idea if it would work.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: So I gave it to my first veteran and said, I have no idea if this is going to work, but I have a hunch I put together this formula. Let me know what you think. And they wrote me back the same day. They said I put it on and in 2 to 3 minutes my phantom pains were gone. What did you just give me? Wow. And so that those are those driving moments when you’re like, I can help somebody who sacrificed their lives to make sure that I have my life and I can help them to improve their life. Those keep you going through the trenches. So, yeah, I don’t have $1 million for a clinical study. To back that statement there. But I have a person whose life is changed and that’s all that matters to me.

Dr Haley: In that particular case, what was it that you treated to help with the Phantom?

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: So you mentioned earlier you were interested in some of the spiritual side of things. And so the name of the company, Ætherbal comes from the word aeon A E O N which means, you know, an eternal existence of, you know, it relates to the spiritual, the non-material world. Right. And then it’s herbal is the ending name of the company. And so when we’re talking about these phantom pains, we have to get into the spiritual a little bit here, because that’s the only way that you really can understand it. And science, because I love science, has actually proved the existence of what we call the etheric body, or the prana, which is your energetic body. So in the Eastern tradition, they call it your prana, your life body, your energy body. In kind of more Western European spiritual traditions, it’s called the etheric body. And science has measured this etheric body. Some people call it like the auric egg that is around you, but they have measured that there is this radiating energetic body that extends from the human being. And so when you remove a portion of the physical body, you do not remove that same portion in the etheric body.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: It still exists. Energetically, that is there. And this requires some understanding of some esoteric teachings and principles, and I’m a big fan of Rudolf Steiner. And if you read enough Rudolf Steiner, you will fully understand the premise behind the etheric body, that we would have to have an entire session just to explain. So for your listeners and for you understanding that the etheric body or your energetic body is an exact replica of the physical, but it’s energetic. And so essentially what was in that topical was some energetic resonance medicine to tell the body to stop sending that signal shut off and recognize that etheric body is not there anymore. And that. It’s not a particular herb. Yeah, there is herbs in there for nerve-ending pain, like sweet melilot and stuff like that’s known for sharp, stabbing nerve pain, because there’s still the physical body there. But it really was focused on this energetic exchange of communication between the etheric and the physical body.

Dr Haley: That the patient did not understand, nor have to.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Do not need to understand. That’s what I understand from my years of research of both herbal medicine, but also understanding that there is these spiritual components behind everything else. The plants themselves have their physical and their spiritual. And this I see. I love science because I feel like it actually confirms these things that the ancients knew. So there’s this ancient teaching among the Native Americans and many other cultures around the world that when you are going out into the wild to harvest a plant for medicine, you should ask that plant for permission before cutting it down. Otherwise it will withhold its medicine from you. We have recent scientific evidence to substantiate this. Science has proven that when you cut a plant down, it sends a chemical signal to all the plants surrounding it, and their chemical structure changes. Essentially, they pull down into their roots all these constituents that are important to them, which are important to us as medicine. And the plant becomes devoid of those constituents. It’s the two concepts coming together.

Dr Haley: So, you know, behind me is a photograph of an aloe farm. What do I need to instruct the people that actually harvest the leaves to do or say as they’re removing the plants? It’s about moving the leaves from the plant.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: It’s about approaching the plant. So plants, let me explain this first.

Dr Haley: And they’re in the field just, you know, whacking and stacking.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: So it’s about cultivating a consciousness that imprints into your energetic signature about you. You approach the field, you bow gently, you say, I’m here for medicine, for the people. And you. I recognize that you’re living. And I thank you for your gift that you’re giving. It can be as simple as that.

Dr Haley: Okay. And not that they have to say it, but they have to possibly work with that.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: It’s up here if you and it’s there’s a lot of this out there in the world that your consciousness is the energy that is drawing things together. If you are walking around all day saying, I hate myself, I hate myself, you, you’re not going to generate good energy or feelings about yourself. You’re going to spiral down farther, right? So if you’re going through that field saying, I hate my job, my back hurts, I hate this. I’ve got to cut this aloe. What do you think the energy surrounding you is? And then it’s the same thing with cooking food. I love when somebody taught me this about when they cook food and they’re stirring the pot, that they put all of their love and all of their good wishes, that everybody who partakes from this gets all these loves and love and blessings. That’s incredible energy to put into something.

Dr Haley: Yeah. I wonder if that even ties in with maybe why people pray over their food before consuming.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Absolutely. And you can go back to science again. They have those studies where they put two plants in two separate rooms. Identical soil, identical feeding, identical water, identical everything. But in one room they’re saying hateful things to the plant, and then the other room they’re saying loving, sweet nothingness. Right. And the plant and the hateful room eventually withers and dies, and the other one grows. They. And all it is, is somebody walking in with an intention, and worse, that they are speaking at something. And this is one of the things in some of my more spiritual sides of work and lectures that I give. The words that come out of our mouth are very powerful. I hate the saying sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. It’s the exact opposite. When you say something to somebody, they remember that, that stays with them. It influences themselves and their lives and they eventually live by that.

Dr Haley: We have to get rid of that saying.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: We do. I just like one of my things when people say that, I’m like, no, no, no, no. I wrote rather somebody throw a stone at me. I could heal. My physical body. But if you say something that really hurts me, that’s going to resonate deeply within me and is going to influence my actions out in the world. I mean, we could all think about something that our parents said to us when we were little, that we carried with us for the rest of our lives.

Dr Haley: Let’s do a rapid fire closing session here. I’ll just say a phrase and you tell me what comes to your mind. What’s the most overhyped herb?

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Curcumin. Not even turmeric.

Dr Haley: Curcumin and the most underappreciated herb.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: White peony.

Dr Haley: You already answered this one. Tea, tincture, capsule or topical? Tincture. One that people should never use casually.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Saint John’s wort.

Dr Haley: One plant every family could reasonably grow aloe. Thank you. One supplement label red flag.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Oh. Supplement.

Dr Haley: Yeah, a red flag. On a label.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: If you turn it around and it’s got 15 herbs in it.

Dr Haley: Oh, interesting. I wish we had time to explore that. A misconception about herbalists.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: That we’re all walking barefoot through a field.

Dr Haley: Even though you do that.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: I do. I walk barefoot through my garden all the time. But that we don’t have any scientific basis for what we do,. Right?

Dr Haley: Right, right. Figurative. Because, you know,. I’m out in the backyard barefoot harvesting aloe pups that we ship all over the world. So. Yeah, but it’s all with purpose. And there’s a lot going on up here.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: And your feet should touch the ground. So your energy is there and they recognize you.

Dr Haley: That’s right. We’re grounded. We’re grounding something that we don’t get enough of. And you know, it’s funny because even now I’m at the office in my podcast studio area and sometimes customers come in and I run downstairs. I don’t have shoes on. It’s just, you know, that rubber barrier between you. And the earth is a horrible thing. Now, I’m still on concrete, so we’re not necessarily perfectly grounded, but yeah, grounding is a it’s a real thing. And it probably ties in with that,. That field you were talking about. Let’s see. We got a couple others here. One practice that costs nothing but improves almost everyone’s health.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Grounding with your bare feet. Step on the earth. So much healing.

Dr Haley: What have the plants taught you that people have not?

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: The plants are living, conscious beings.

Dr Haley: That’s deep. But like you said earlier, what are you currently studying that may change your mind?

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: So I’m currently studying breast cancer and herbal medicine, and I am constantly learning things that definitely shape and change my perspective on modern medicine.

Dr Haley: Yeah, it’s kind of neat. We never, you know, you’ve never arrived. There’s always more. You’re always. There’s always more.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Like my teacher said, after 45 years as an herbalist, I now consider myself an advanced student.

Dr Haley: That’s perfect. That’s beautiful for someone listening who has tried several natural remedies without success. And maybe they’re beginning to lose hope. What is the first thoughtful step you would want that person to take?

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: See a well qualified herbalist. See somebody who really has the knowledge and background to help you to create a formula that is specifically tailored for you.

Dr Haley: Great. Where do people go to find out more?

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: So I have a hub called bonniedarcangelo.com On there you will find links to all of my websites, even my art.

Dr Haley: Awesome. Bonnie, thank you for joining us today.

Bonnie D’Arcangelo: Thank you for having me. It was wonderful.

Narrator: I hope you enjoyed that episode today on the Dr. Haley Show. Make sure to hit subscribe on whichever platform you are listening to this. If this episode made you think of someone, go ahead, take a screenshot and share this exact episode with them. You can catch the show notes for this episode on drhaley.com. If you want to geek out with Dr. Michael Haley on other radical health topics. Be sure to check out his YouTube channel where he posts exclusive video content. All the details are at drhaley.com and we can’t wait to hang out with you on the next episode.