The Untold Story of Frankincense: Straight from the Source (Part 1)
Watch as Destiny D'Andrea and Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo discuss the Untold Story of Frankincense.
TRANSCRIPT:
Destiny D'Andrea
Welcome back guys to Queen Cup Tarot. So this is going to be our second episode with Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo. First off, Dr. Anjanette, I want to thank you so much for coming on and doing our first interview together, which was really impactful. You shared a lot about trauma, pain and how to translate it into power and stepping into mission. So I want to thank you for that. And for those of you that didn't check it out, you can go into the library, and I've created a separate category so you can see these interviews. And in today's interview, we're really going to focus on frankincense, all things frankincense, from trading a little bit about the history to its ecology, the biology, the ways we can use it in everyday practice and a bit about how our ancestors are using it. So, Anjanette want to say hello.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
Hi, everybody. It's great to be back. I really enjoyed that first interview.
Destiny D'Andrea
It was awesome. I was nervous because I'm not an interviewer. I got all clammy and stuff, but whatever you guys shouldn't have been able to tell, but I was very nervous.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
Yeah, today we're gonna get more into the substance of frankincense and the species of frankincense.
Destiny D'Andrea
Yeah we're gonna nerd out today, I love this. And Anjanette did a beautiful presentation. So there's gonna be some slides and stuff. And then, and yeah, so why don't we get started?
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
All right, great. Here I'm gonna share my screen. Okay. So I want to invite everyone to come on a journey with me to the majestic lands where frankincense grows.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
This here is a shot of a valley where Frankincense is growing in Somalia. And you can see just how magical these landscapes are. And there's there's quite a bit of variation. You're gonna see some of that in the slideshow. But we're going to start our journey together. And I want to invite you to come on this path with me to really understand the heart of the issues for frankincense trees and why Frankincense is so important to us - the health impacts - so that's where we're going today. And what you're looking at there is a frankincense trail, you can see that there's a couple guys, they're walking on the trail. This trail traverses this entire escarpment from Puntland, Somalia straight through to Somaliland, the Sanaag region where frankincense grows. And this is an ancient, ancient trail where frankincense has been moved for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Just phenomenal landscape. Not usually the images you see of Somalia, when people say Somalia, they wouldn't really associate this beauty, this forest, but this is the reality of just how gorgeous this place, this part of the world is.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
So frankincense grows across the range where you're seeing all these red dots. Now, within the the within the family of frankincense, there are 23 different species of frankincense trees. So you see there in India, you see some red dots where assessment of trees has been completed. That's the species known as serata. It's used a lot for the extraction of Boswellic acids, and we're going to talk about that. When you come across now into the Middle East and the obvious Africa is the majority of the growing region of different types of frankincense, you start to see that it grows along the the Red Sea in Oman and Yemen. But you can see also Somalia going into Ethiopia and across the Sahel belt, right this is also where the green wall movement in Africa is quite prevalent to be planting trees in this zone to halt desertification. Right so frankincense grows and that margin, right between complete desert and transitioning into sub tropical and then into tropical forests and that's exactly where frankincense grows all the way across West Africa, where we have other species called Dalzielii.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
So, I love trees. And I love what's cool about these frankincense trees. It's an old species, it's 26 million years old. There's 23 species of Boswellia, which means there's 23 different types of the trees. And everywhere that it grows, it's used locally for its health benefits. In fact, over 5000 years of history, with the trading of frankincense resins as a commodity, makes it one of the oldest internationally traded commodities in human history. They're also uniquely adapted. If you really look at this picture here. This is a frereana tree growing on a rock in Somaliland. And this tree literally will never get its roots into soil. It's growing there completely on the rock for the entirety of its life, you see how the roots are starting to kind of ball make a ball at the base. And for a tree to be able to do this - It's quite amazing. It's really quite amazing. There are many trees that will get their roots into the soil, but many of them will live out their entire life on the rock. And in fact, they can do both, which, you know, that's a lot of skill right there right now to be able to grow on rock or in soil, you know, you've got some moves there. They're also growing where it's dry, and not a lot of nutrients in the soil, not organic matter. So they're growing in marginal places, with very little water, sometimes never getting the roots into soil, but yet, they are chemists. They're alchemists, and they're creating this complex chemistry in their residence. Now we're gonna get into that more.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
Look at how beautiful these are just, these are glam shots of gorgeous frankincense trees. I mean, what else is there to say just how beautiful, gorgeous. Here's some more glam shots, you can see how rugged the terrain can be. You know, this is not an easy area of the world to go out into the forest and tap trees. You could see really how difficult this work is to be tapping and moving out at the base of the trees. And here's some more gorgeous trees. These trees now are these are being tapped there. They're in there under production to make frankincense resin and they're over tapped. This is partly why I'm showing these pictures because I want you to get a sense that these trees aren't growing in isolation, that they're growing in a forest community and that these trees are part of an ecosystem. They're not grown at mass scale in cultivation. They are growing in the wild and these are endemic. These are endangered ecosystems. Some of them this one is the EL MUNDO mountains, which means black mountains of Somaliland and Somalia. This is a very rare ecosystem. And many of the plants and animals in this ecosystem are endemic, which means they're found nowhere else than in this ecosystem. And so in fact, the fereana trees that grow here are endemic, the Frankincense is one of the species of frankincense grows nowhere else in the world. And so many of the species here are as important as the frankincense but the frankincense, she is the star of the show, that's for sure.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
There is a lot of hope for what happens with frankincense trees. When they're managed properly, they will regenerate naturally. And I just love this picture because you get a really good sense. Thi s is a baby Carteri tree. And if you see how it's growing out of the hole of the rock there?
Destiny D'Andrea
That's stone, that's wild!
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
What happens is you get a little bit of water and a little bit of leaf material - organic content - in these small holes, and it's just enough for if when a seed lands there that it has enough water to sprout. And this is how they start when they grow directly out of the rocks. And in fact, this will be probably one day like the tree I showed you that's living its entire life on the rock. And if the frankincense trees can do this, if the frankincense trees can overcome the odds, and grow out of rock, then human beings absolutely have the ability to heal and do things that we didn't think we could do.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
A lot of this work means talking to people. I spent a lot of time really understanding different fraspecies into decline, those are human caused problems, for the most part, right. And so, the good news about that is if human beings are causing the problem, that means that human beings can change and heal the problem and become solution oriented in the way we organize ourselves, and become a partner with nature, rather than dominating nature and trying to control nature and extract from nature and take from nature. If we change our perspective, to see ourselves as part of nature, then we can partner with nature to create abundance for both nature and for ourselves, which is one in the same thing. But that also translates into getting to know each other as people. And so I'll never pass up a good opportunity to talk with anyone who works in frankincense. And in fact, the majority of what I learned are from these guys right here. And so that's my translator, Ahmed. He's my bridge because he's educated in Ethiopia speaks English - understands me, understands his folks, and folk people like him. It would be hard for me to do this work without because he's a bridge and the incredibly important role that he does there.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
So we've been working for quite a while on frankincense and I just wanted to throw up a slide of the publications the academic publications that I've done in the last couple of years, we're incredibly committed to understanding frankincense and where the gaps lie in research around these trees. So there's a few and at the same time, we've seen just a rise in media attention around frankincense and what's happening with the trees. These are just some of the organizations that have interviewed me or colleagues of mine that we've done talks or companies have engaged to talk about how to protect frankincense going forward and so that's a good sign. That's a really good sign and if you want to see the full list of media that I've been involved in, you can see it on our savefrankincense.org blog, but I want to give you an example because this is good news. This means more more attention being put on how can we sustainably tap these trees and produce frankincense that's much needed for human use - for medical and other uses, but in balance with what the trees can put out without killing them or overriding their carrying capacity. And that's really where we're at right now is how much frankincense can be produced sustainably. And so, here's a gentleman tapping a tree like I said, not easy work. He's you know, up in the tree on a cliff, tapping these trees in a pretty hot time of the year. So I have a lot of respect for the work that these guys do. This is a fresh tap so I have to give the question what is frankincense? And where does it come from? A lot of folks are used to seeing as an oil I know destiny in your trib, A lot more folks are accustomed to the actual resin. Well, here it is. This was a cut that was made right in front of me. And within 10 seconds, the frankincense resin started to ooze out and you see it they're just starting to come out.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
What's happening here is the frankincense resin is the trees natural defense mechanism. So your branches break trees get cut, they immediately start to produce the resin to heal the wound, to act as a bandaid to cover it and protect itself, so that microbes that are dangerous to the trees health can't get into the tree. So it acts as a physical barrier like a bandaid, but also the chemistry of the resins is antimicrobial. And that also protects the tree from microbes that are dangerous to it. It also protects it from boring insects, insects that try to get into the tree, when they get through this very thin bark, they hit this resin and they physically get stuck in it and they can't penetrate any further into the tree. So just as Frankincense is good for us, it's good for the tree. This is the trees immune defense system.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
Here's an example: This is papyrifera in Ethiopia. We're right on the border of Sudan here in Ethiopia. And what you're seeing there is a very well managed frankincense tree. It's not over tapped, it has an appropriate number of taps. You see the tap on the top right and the close up here you can see the milky white resins coming out of the tap. And right below it. You see that darker black area? Yeah, that's last year's tap. And what they did was at the last time scraping the frankincense resin off, they left the resin so that the tree can make its natural bandaid and cover the wound from last year. And doing that is very sustainable to the tree the tree will be fine. If it's sustainably tapped - if it's done properly.
Destiny D'Andrea
It kind of reminds me of like if I were to scrape my knee and then the white blood cells create a pus and then eventually create a scab. It literally looks like that.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
Exactly. Well, and trees were here before us and definitely frankincense trees were here before us. So we evolved with plants, right, and so obviously a lot of the immuno defenses that they have, we do as well. You know, we're closely knitted together. And it's funny, we don't always think about that with plants as much as we do with animals or other things. But we're so closely related to plants in our evolutionary process. So yeah, it's pretty neat to see that and it's also great for me when I'm in the field, and I see people who are properly managing the trees.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
I would be very remiss if I did not acknowledge the work that women do. In the countries where frankincense comes from the women sort and clean the resins. When they're scraped from the tree, they'll often have pieces of bark, sometimes pebbles because it's very sticky when it's first harvested, and the resins are brought in in these jute bags you can see sitting behind her. In Ethiopia, they use only jute bags for frankincense which is great. And it's brought in it's great for the environment. That's why I'm saying that it doesn't create plastic. It's also good for the residents because we're fresh, they can air out a little bit. So women sit and sort resins like this. And I had so much fun with these young ladies acknowledging them they they appreciated being acknowledged. A lot of times you'll see pictures of women sorting frankincense resin with their head down, really being ignored, not feeling comfortable to look at cameras or intrusions from foreigners. And so acknowledging the role of women and what they do in Frankincense is so important. And I really like to spend time with them. And I'm a woman I like to hang out with other women. But they know a lot about the resins because they handle them, you know. And so there's a lot of insights from women that have been overlooked.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
And when we talk at another time, more about how people can get involved and what are some of the humanitarian things that can be done to improve the frankincense supply chain, empowering women is certainly a huge factor here and not necessarily pushing for women to be tapping trees, but planting trees or stewarding seedlings or making products, micro distilling oils, there's so many opportunities for empowering women in the countries where frankincense grows and I really look forward to doing more of that in the years to come.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
So after the frankincense has been cleaned, here's what it looks like. It's so beautiful. So what started as that milky white substance on the tree after time and curing and drying here's what it looks like. All right, so we're going to switch gears here a little bit and start talking about the therapeutic action of frankincense. I, for many years, have steered clear of talking about some of this, because not wanting to encourage over use of frankincense. Well, we need to be using - I've let that go, because it's not serving the cause for me in the sense that we need to be using frankincense and using it sustainably and purchasing it ethically, because there's tens of thousands of people whose livelihoods depend on these resins and and also, if the trees are not providing a benefit for the communities where they live, why would they want to steward them? When you're in the poverty trap, you have to make tough choices between what you can spend time on and what you can't and we all know that even in our own lives. But when you're in a situation and unfortunately, the majority of places where frankincense grows, are the poorest of the poor. That's just a reality, the majority of locations where it grows, we're talking about marginal lands and poverty. And so it's so important to use frankincense, but it's even more important to purchase it sustainably and ethically.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
So the traditional uses of frankincense like I said in the beginning 5000 years of history, where these trees grow in the countries like Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritria, people have been using the resins for 1000s of years for local and traditional applications. In fact, some elders have told me stories that the way that humans discovered frankincense resin was because they saw animals eating it, right. So there's some stories about baboons taking resins off trees and eating them and then humans doing the same thing. So even the animals get in on it. We haven't even talked about the bees. That'd be another great presentation. But even bees we have footage now of bees collecting the resin on their back legs as they would propolis. And also not just collecting the resin but eating it, eating it. And so even animals are using frankincense.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
So it's been used locally for for oral health for gums, gums and teeth, quenching thirst, relieving stomach aches, dressing wounds, preventing hemorrhaging. It's very prevalent in Chinese - and I am actually a little nervous, I shouldn't say ancient - Chinese medicine because it is ancient, but it's still in use today. So frankincense was traded on the silk routes, and it became a part of Chinese traditional medicine and it is still very widely used in Chinese medicine. In fact, I have all kinds of products from China that have frankincense and myrrh in them. Islamic physicians use it and all of them, the one thing they agree on, is used for inflammatory conditions. So those are the traditional uses before any Western or modern scientific studies being done to see what the health impacts of frankincense are. We know that it's psychoactive. And what we mean by that is that it has an impact on the brain. It's an entheogen, promotes a spiritual mindset. And so the traditional use of it this way, is very well established. Queen Hatshepsut was burning frankincense in the temple and in Egypt 24 hours a day, as a place of worship, I feel quite related to her in certain ways. And so that's very well established also using it as a fumigant. Right. So that the antimicrobial properties that we can identify now, traditionally, people understood that it can be used that way, and were fumigating bodies or clothing or rooms to clear the air. They're also doing that to ward off evil spirits and certain cultures.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
So last but not least, the Egyptians were using frankincense and myrrh to embalm because of its remarkable antibiotic properties topically. You could go into museums you will see displays of frankincense that were taken from Egyptian tombs. Frankincense is also really safe. Sometimes people get the wrong idea with essential oils that just because they're safe or aromatic plant material, that just because it's from a plant, it's safe. Well, plants can make some pretty dangerous chemistry, right? I mean, that's a misnomer. And really, some plants, you have to take very sparingly and be very careful with them. And really, that's all substances period. But Frankincense is quite safe. It has minimal safety issues, when it's distilled into an essential oil and or used as a resin. There's never been any serious or life threatening effects that have been reported with frankincense. And so of course, like with anything, if you, you know, drink a liter of it, you're gonna have some problems, but for the most part, Frankincense is really safe.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
Okay, so antimicrobial, antifungal and antiviral activity. Well, there is a lot of strong evidence that it's antimicrobial and antifungal. And that's several different species of frankincense, all demonstrating those properties. There is some variation between the different species in specific strains. But both the resin and the oils are both able to have this anti microbial effect, a lot of the studies have been done in vitro. And that's important. We all need to always remember the difference between in vitro and in vivo, in vitro is in a petri dish, you know, you've seen those in labs, right? That's done in a petri dish. In vivo is when it's done in people in bodies or in animals. So a lot of the studies that we base some of this on are in vitro. So we can't assume that frankincense would be an antibiotic if it's ingested. But it's effective topically, you know, that we can see. And it just means it's not studied yet, there hasn't been an in vivo study of it as an internal antibiotic. There's some evidence that frankincense has antiviral effects. And again, we still need some more studies on this.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
All forms of burning oil and extracts have been shown to have these antimicrobial properties. I mean, sometimes when you change from the raw form to a distilled you lose, but in this case, it's in both. Anti inflammatory conditions are something that are really prevalent in Western society with stress, diet, work, life, etc. and anti inflammatory for a lot of holistic practitioners is a precondition to more serious disease in the future. A lot of holistic practitioners will talk about, you know, reducing inflammation in the system, due to the fact that it can lead to you know, more serious diseases like cancer and other things. And so, I've always been extremely interested in Frankincense's ability to be anti inflammatory.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
So what I'm laying out for you here is something that can be extracted from frankincense resins. Okay, so you take the resins and you extract out, chemists can do this through process to remove the Boswellic acids, the Boswellic acids are in the resin. And when you remove them, you can make them a concentrate. And so some viewers might have seen in the health food store Boswellic acid supplements, and what that is they've extracted the Boswellic acids from the frankincense resin. The only problem there is, is that there's major quality and testing concerns for consumer safety across the board in herbal remedies and herbal products. There's been many cases where consumer testing has been done to find that there's not really what the bottle says is in there, right? So maybe it'll say oh, there's 500 Meg's of Boswellic acid, and it's tested and there's only 100. Or there's none. I mean, this is the reality. And this is why knowing where you're getting your products from knowing who's testing those products for safety is so important. And this is a real issue. So not only in frankincense, this is an issue across across the industry. So, Boswellic acids are an incredible component of frankincense. Again, we need more studies. We need these human studies of good methodological quality to indicate the clinical effectiveness of Boswellic acid.
Destiny D'Andrea
Just tell them I'll be the guinea pig, I'll eat it, put it on my face.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
Agreed because you know it is safe. So, being in a clinical trial taking Frankincense is not something I would worry about.
Destiny D'Andrea
Yeah, it's the only one clinical trial I'd probably do.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
Yeah, and you know, it's pretty well understood. There's quite a bit of science and traditional knowledge that frankincense resins are anti inflammatory. And it's due to this Boswellic acids, it's these Boswellic acids within the resins that can be extracted and concentrated so that you can take a larger dose of them if you already have arthritis or Crohn's disease. But, you know, from a holistic standpoint, using them regularly without those conditions, could be neuro protective. We're gonna have a slide on that a little bit, too.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
So, frankincense also has an impact on the central nervous system. It's been shown to be anti anxiety and anti depressant. And this is due to the impact of the incensole acetate, which is another component of frankincense resins. I should say there's over 300 compounds in frankincense resins. There's some variation there. But there's many different compounds in the resins and that's why when I say the trees are alchemists, they're amazing chemists in what they're creating, I really mean it because these are very complex chemistry in the resins. And so we talked about extracting one which was one component in the resin, which is Boswellic acids. Now we're talking about another component called incensole acetate that's in the resin. Incensole acetate is what interacts with our TRPV3 neural pathway. And that pathway is directly related to anti anxiety and anti depressants. So we have the same pathway. So do mice, there have been studies on this, that the extracts and particularly incensole acetate seem to exert also an analgesic and sedative effect that's not related to the TRPV3 pathways.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
So they can do both, right, the incensole acetate can impact this neural pathway that is related to anxiety and depression and the the impact of the Frankincense is to reduce anxiety and depression by interacting in this neural pathway. It can also interact with other pathways not related to this one that are analgesic, which is reducing pain and sedated, right, which is to reducing anxiety and calming. I want to get into a little bit more about this this term "entheogen" because when we talk about that, again, there's no human trials of the antidepressant or sedatives. But knowing that this pathway exists, and that it interacts with this pathway, and coupling that with traditional knowledge and also the use of frankincense in religious rituals for thousands of years. It's very likely that the basis for its use as an entheogen is this interaction with this pathway to calm and make a person feel better, it's you know, associated with feeling warm and feel-good sensations.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
So what our ancestors have known for thousands of years that when you burn frankincense resin, that it creates a feeling of feeling good and feeling warm and calming down and lifting off depression and things like that. They knew that it caused that feeling so of course you would burn it in spiritual settings of course you would burn it at a Tarot reading of course you would burn it in preparation for prayer or meditation and now with Western science, we can see the pathway which is TPRV3 pathway. That's so neat to me you know that it's so cool that we know that it's the incensole acetate within the resin and we know the pathway that it's working on to experience these feelings that we collectively call spirituality. Right? And that our ancestors knew that and that science also can start to identify that.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
Anti cancer activities of frankincense, there's some promise there. And I'm very careful about this, because one of the things we have to be careful about is making over claims about what a plant species can do, because that can cause a rush on that plant species that can hurt it. Right? So we have to be careful, we don't want to just throw around claims of being anti cancer. And it's certainly not there yet. But there have been and I want to address it, because there's research out there. In vitro, there has been some success, but many things are successful in killing cancer cells in a petri dish. So there is some success there. There have been some studies in mice and rats. And what they do see is that over time, decreasing in tumor size, happening in those studies. And so, you know, that's promising, but there certainly will have to be more research on that before, you know, we could do anything with that. But again, it's the Boswellic frankincense extracts within the resin that have that anti cancer activity. It's definitely bioavailable. Topically, the application of Boswellic acids appear very effective for skin conditions, because reducing inflammation in the skin. The oral consumption, again, traditionally was used for stomach pains, or gastrointestinal issues - effective for that. And that's good, because oral ingestion doesn't necessarily translate into being seen in the blood. So you can take it for gastrointestinal issue. And that's where it's going to go, it's not going to go into the blood.
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
I find this very fascinating, too, that some studies have shown that frankincense extracts have limited the neural damage after head injuries. And that's performed in mice, which is a little problematic. Animal testing is hard for me. And I try to imagine what was done that they were able to test that. I wasn't the scientist who did that, wouldn't be the scientist who'd do that. But here it is. And now there is some research, I believe underway in Europe around using this for humans who have suffered head injuries or going through brain surgery. It's a very specific niche.
Destiny D'Andrea
And just with regards to that, would that what kind of consumption would it just be burning? Or was it like actually like ingesting?
Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo
You know, these are high dose very specific applications of it. And not necessarily just from general use, but what it shows is the potency of the components within the resin that when they're extracted that they can be used to heavily reduced inflammation, right, because protecting and limiting neural damage after head injury would be related to reducing inflammation. So, doses are unknown. That's another unknown. I can't tell you that there's a study that says, "this milligrams does this". We don't know that that kind of research does not exist yet either. And the last thing that I want to note is that when you smell frankincense, what you're smelling in chemistry terms is called volatile terpenes. There's a lot of terpenes in frankincense and in all aromatic plants, so if you, you know, you smell a rose, you're smelling volatile terpenes it's a category in chemistry of a type of component and so, volatile terpenes - many which are linked with health impacts such as alpha pinene - also happens to be the most abundant in frankincense resin. This alpha pinene is shown to be a bronchial dilator as well as be as being anti inflammatory. So I hope I'm not confusing, but I want to be really clear. There's many different components in that chunk of resin you hold in your hand. There's hundreds of different chemical components in that resin. We've talked about three today: the incensole acetate, the Boswellic acids, and now I'm just pointing out the alpha pinene. That's what you smell - that's part of it, it's other terpenes combined to make that smell - but this is the dominant one. And a lot of people comment on frankincense, opening their lungs or feeling a sense of, you know, dilating in the lungs. And so I wanted to note that and also note terpenes for the chemistry-minded in the audience. And so we've reached the end of the journey, and we're back on the trail. And this is where I can come back on for any questions.
Destiny D'Andrea
Wow, that was so fantastic. We're obviously recording this, but we do want to set it as a premiere on YouTube so we can be all up in the chat and to answer all your guys's questions and stuff like that, to reach out to Dr.Anjanette DeCarlo directly, you can see her contact info below. She's got her own channel, and she does have her own.org. So save the frankincense as well. Dr. Anjanette, I thank you wholeheartedly for all this very valuable information that I really hope people take in.