Omega-3s and Pharmacy with Easton Bryant
OmegaMatters: Episode 43
Hosts: Drs. Bill Harris & Kristina Harris Jackson
Guest: Dr. Easton Bryant
About this episode: In this episode, Drs. Harris and Jackson welcome Dr. Easton Bryant, a pharmacist and a practitioner, who uses omega-3s and omega-3 testing in the real world. For more information on OmegaMatters, visit: https://omegaquant.com/omegamatters-broadcasts/
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
Hi everyone. Welcome back to Omega Matters, where we talk all things omega. I am Kristina, this is Bill, and we have Dr. Easton Bryant on today, who is a pharmacist and a practitioner, someone who uses the test in the real world, uses our omega-3 testing. And so today’s going to be a little different. We’re not going to dive deep into research, but we’re going to talk about what testing actually looks like right now in the real world. So thank you for coming on. Dr. Bryant, or should we call you Easton?
Dr. Easton Bryant:
I’ll answer to anything. Easton is just fine with me, yeah.
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
Okay, great. Thanks so much for coming on. So can you tell us a bit about yourself and your practice?
Dr. Easton Bryant:
Sure. And first, if I can say this at the outset, I have tremendous respect for what you guys have done and you continue to do and really admire the way you go about doing things, and you’ve been a great resource for me. So I just want to say that at the outset and it’s an honor to be you and I mean that. Yeah, so the pharmacy has been open 10 years now. We just hit our 10-year anniversary this past November. I say this lovingly, we’re in the middle of nowhere in Kentucky and we’re a full-service pharmacy. We do compounding, we have traditional dispensing. We have a robust supplement and e-comm business and we do consults with patient, which patients that I really, really love. And we hit some good fortune on social a few years ago and, relative to our industry, got a pretty strong following. So it’s been a great opportunity to educate folks. And the goal in my whole career being a pharmacist has never been to over medicate folks. I’ve always wanted to be more of an answer instead of just, “Oh, you’re really good at counting to 30.” That’s kind of what pharmacists get pinned in at sometimes. So it’s never been the goal to over medicate folks. So yeah, it’s been a blessing to find ourselves where we are now. It’s been a fun journey.
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
So what’s the name of your pharmacy?
Dr. Easton Bryant:
North Century Pharmacy.
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
North Century. And you’re in Kentucky. Do you have multiple pharmacies?
Dr. Easton Bryant:
No, I think one’s plenty.
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
It’s enough.
Dr. Easton Bryant:
I can say so.
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
I feel the same.
Dr. Easton Bryant:
It really is. Yeah. One’s enough.
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
One’s enough.
Dr. Easton Bryant:
Exactly.
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
Yeah. So you’re able to be there and be really involved, and I think that shows. It’s like a lot of small businesses, it’s just when that ownership is there and the people who really care about it really makes it a unique place to go. Because you think about pharmacies, you can go to all these chains and things, but to think about going to independent pharmacies and the difference that … it sounds like you guys have just a totally different idea of how to treat people or how to work with people on their health. So do you want to go into that a little bit more about how you interact with your … would you call them your patients or your clients? I’m not sure for pharmacies.
Dr. Easton Bryant:
Well, it depends. We found ourselves in this kind of unique situation where we have a one-to-many approach online with folks and then we do virtual one-off consults, and then they have the opportunities to work with us deeper as well. So traditionally in the pharmacy, their patients, if they’re local and coming in all the time, but if they’re virtual or whatever, they can be customer’s clients, it doesn’t really matter. We just treat them all the same. We try to treat everybody like family. And just on that same note, I will say as passionate as I am about foundational approaches and disease prevention instead of prescription dependence, I do love modern medicine. I never want to sound like I’m talking out of both sides of my mouth or sound like a hypocrite, but the big thing for me is that we should be very appreciative of modern medicine and, at the same time, it should not be first line for every condition, every time. And that’s kind of where we found ourselves in America. So it’s all about balance for us and, yeah, that’s what we go for.
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
Well, that’s just surprisingly rational. It sounds just-
Dr. Bill Harris:
Very good. Very good.
Dr. Easton Bryant:
What a concept, right?
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
Yeah, I know.
Dr. Bill Harris:
Let me ask a question about omega-3. How did you find out about omega-3 testing?
Dr. Easton Bryant:
Actually, a colleague reached out to me. We were already starting to do some different types of testing in the pharmacy and they asked me if I had come across and when she asked me I said, “No, so let me go investigate.” So I got right on top of that. I was very intrigued.
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Harris:
How long ago was that?
Dr. Easton Bryant:
Oh man, probably, not all that long ago. Probably less than two years ago when I first learned about it or maybe around two years ago.
Dr. Bill Harris:
Yeah, so how do you use it in your practice?
Dr. Easton Bryant:
Yeah, so let me see the most efficient way to explain this. We work with patients, however we try to meet patients where they’re at, however we can serve, and doing content online is great, put out education, we take that very seriously. People are just overwhelmed, overloaded with info, and then responding to messages and comments, stuff like that is one thing. But how do we go a little bit deeper? So last February, February 2024, I launched an online, basically a wellness community where we could go a little bit deeper with health coaching and in a group setting essentially. And kind of what I did to make the deal very sweet for people, make it a no-brainer. Everybody that joined, I sent them a welcome bundle with lots of stuff in it. But one of the things that over 1,200 people received from coming into the community in that first year was an omega-3 index and vitamin D test.
So we sent one of those out to everybody essentially probably zero out of 1,200 knew what their score was. So it was a great opportunity to go into the education and what it means, and how this can be something that essentially is a pretty easy lever to pull when it comes to being proactive about your health. I was able to, unashamed here, lean into a lot of y’all’s resources and build out a multi-video, a curriculum of very short quick hitting videos and walk them through the process of understanding their results when it comes to both vitamin D and omega-3.
Dr. Bill Harris:
Yeah, what kind of reactions did you get from-
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
Yeah, those are two nutrients that are easy.
Dr. Bill Harris:
What kind of reactions did you get from people-
Dr. Easton Bryant:
They were intrigued. Yeah, they were intrigued because, again, most of them had never even heard of the concept because it’s not brought up in those seven minute visits where you get to talk about one thing for seven minutes. The docs aren’t going in and, “Hey, let’s talk about your omega-3 index today.” So it was eye-opening for lots of folks, especially when they saw those scores for the first time. I’m sure you guys are very well aware. It could be humbling the first time you find out. And then even on the vitamin D side as well, which I love the combo that you guys are able to provide. When I went to my own PCP a couple of years ago and I said, “Hey, I want to check out my vitamin D,” he had to essentially … man, I don’t want to throw him under the bus here, but he had the document that I was feeling blue in order to get my vitamin D check. And I was like, “What?”
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
Yeah.
Dr. Easton Bryant:
How backwards can we get this thing?
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
You have to be sick first to check it out.
Dr. Easton Bryant:
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Harris:
So what did the omega-3 testing do for your sales? I mean, did people start buying omega-3 from you or they go to the drug store and get it, or what do they do?
Dr. Easton Bryant:
Yeah, I’m sure there was an uptake in sales, and I’ll say it again. We try to treat patients, customers, clients like family, and I try to be as transparent as I can with any information we give. With that being said, there are some supplements that you could probably get by with grabbing it from a big-box store and be okay. Omega-3 is not one of those, and I really go into lots of education about that. So it’s not my style to be like, “Hey, we have the best. We’re the only people that have anything that’s worth touching. But we know that some of the things you pick up off the dollar store may be three years old and rancid.” And also, I’ll try not to go down a rabbit hole here, but you look at some of the data out there on Omega studies, a lot of them have been terribly under-dosed and then tracked for a really short amount of time. So it’s something that takes a lot of TLC when it comes to educating on omega-3s, and what the expectations are as well.
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
Yeah, we’ve experienced that as well. I mean you can find it, you can look at the supplement facts panel, but there’s just so many choices I think that overwhelms people and then it’s really hard to tell quality and dose, and what’s going to work for them cost-wise. So it is nice to have some guidance from trusted practitioners and we try to also be kind of agnostic. There are a lot of great options, but not every option is great. And it’s important to know your level, so you kind of have an idea of how much you should take to feel to have an impact on health. Because if you’re taking a random supplement twice a week or something, you’re still not going to have a very good score. And that surprises people. So there’s just tons of education I feel like is what we’re doing.
Dr. Easton Bryant:
I kind of compare it to CBD when it was so popular years ago, and I think CBD is good, it has wonderful applications, but the big unfortunate piece of that is people were getting stuff that either wasn’t great quality or they got something that was decent quality and had no idea how to use it. So I don’t know how many people I came across and they would say, “Oh, you got CBD? Yeah, it didn’t work for me.” And then you start talking to them and they should have been using a full dropper and they were using one drop for example. So it’s one of those things. And then if somebody grabs an Omega off the dollar store shelf and takes it for five days religiously and nothing happens, if they don’t have those [inaudible 00:11:17], education, just the importance of it. I know I’m preaching to the choir here with you guys, but it can’t be overstated.
Dr. Bill Harris:
How often do people come back for a second test?
Dr. Easton Bryant:
Again, I’m not as pushy as maybe I should be a lot of times, but right now I have some parents of pediatrics and we’re looking at doing three months initially. And a lot of people understand an A1C, I like to compare it to that. If you guys have different thoughts on that, I’d be glad to hear it, but I like to compare it to that. It’s not something that’s going to shift week to week.
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
Yes.
Dr. Easton Bryant:
Expectations, again, this is going to take time. So obviously no sooner than 90 days, and we look at the whole picture as far as what’s sensible for them as well.
Dr. Bill Harris:
And people are typically willing to do a second test?
Dr. Easton Bryant:
Yeah, if they’re in it, if they’re committed. And I have those very frank conversations with folks too. There’s so many things that we offer and that we can help with, but it’s like, “Honestly, I don’t want you to do this at all unless you’re committed for 90 days or there’s just no point you doing it if you’re not going to be committed to it. I don’t want you to waste your money and I want to lay those expectations out.” And yeah, I will say as well, with the course that I was able to build out with omega-3, and vitamin D of course, I was able to put together a nice little sheet. If your score is this, then take this much of this. So we do tie those back to our products. However, they can do what they want with the info, but we do have that guidance. If your score is 5.5, then take X number of these.
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
And we’ve done work on that to try to give good recommendations, but it’s still not a guarantee. That’s where we still see individual variation in response. Even if they’re very diligent in taking it, there could be little bioavailability issues or own digestion and fat absorption. And so I love having a good recommendation, but also the test is to me the ultimate because some people just need more, some need less, some have more background diet, it’s biology we’re dealing with. And so there’s more than one variable, even though the supplement is very powerful in changing the omega-3 index, it’s not the only thing happening.
Dr. Easton Bryant:
I’m sure you guys love this term that what gets measured gets improved, right?
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
Yeah.
Dr. Easton Bryant:
That’s where we went. When I wrote up the community and offered the testing as part of that welcome bundle for over 1,200 people, that felt right to me because we had had good fortune and had some really great sales out of nowhere online. It’s like all of a sudden people … It’s great that they trust us, that are buying from us. And then it was like, “Well, now what?” So it’s not just blindly taking something, it’s what’s happening. What’s the outcome from it? We want to build long-term relationships with folks. We don’t have an [inaudible 00:14:33] business where we do the math. It’s like if we can get X number of people to buy one time, we’ll be at a good financial shape. We’re still an independent really … Our store is 1,300 square feet. We’re a small business, literally a small business. So we still have that yearning to build real relationships and have long-term relationships with folks. And that’s a great way to do it, I think, to show them why they’re doing what they’re doing, and measuring and outcomes. All that stuff fits together. It’s not just about selling something; not attractive to me.
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
Yeah. Well that’s great. Do you have any anecdotes, stories about some of these relationships that you’ve had and working with people in this very different way for a pharmacy than I think most than I’ve ever seen? I think it’s pretty cool.
Dr. Easton Bryant:
And if I can set the stage for a couple of pediatric stories, the first thing that ever kind of went crazy for us online, or one of the first things I should say, was a video I did on the importance of magnesium and omega-3s, not only in children but adults alike. And that really, I had no idea what was going to happen. And I think one of my technicians sent me a text. They were like, “Have you seen this video you put up today?” I was like, “What?” Yeah. I was like, wow, people really care about this. I thought they did, but I mean, it’s such a hot topic for parents and rightfully so. Anyway, a friend of mine was going through some struggles with her son and just every other parent was like, “I’d rather not go down the Adderall route if we don’t have to. If we do, we understand, but we want to make sure we’re doing what we can as his parents first.” And I laid out a plan. I was like, “Do this test, take these things.” So we used a very particular type of magnesium, including magnesium L-threonate, to get across the blood-brain barrier, gave her omega-3s obviously. And this is a strategy I like to use, whether it’s only magnesium or only omegas, and it’s even better with testing.
But I like to say, “What are your top three concerns? And score those 1 to 10, with 10 being an ideal, and 1 being not ideal.” So I said, “Pick out the three things that you want to see the biggest improvements with him.” And she picked focus and attention as one thing, and she scored him at a 5 out of 10 to begin. Aggression was 6 out of 10, and impulsiveness and talking too much was a 7 out of 10. And after 90 days, the focus and attention went from a 5 to an 8. The aggression went from 6 to an 8, so a two-point improvement there. And then the impulsiveness went from 7 to 8.25 in 90 days. And she has a medical background of sorts, and the notes she shared with me, I have so much data from her, she really went way, way beyond my expectations.
His omega score was 3.4 to start with, his omega-3 index score. I was hoping to have that final score for our podcast today, but it’s processing, so I don’t have it quite yet, but I’ll be interested to see what that score is.
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
Oh, great.
Dr. Easton Bryant:
And then a separate case, a lady came into the store, she had called me, same exact concerns with her son. She’s like, “I have an intelligent kid.” He’s a little older, maybe early high school. And she’s like, “He just can’t focus and it’s a problem.” And within five weeks … And I told her, “It’s only going to get better.” He improved by one to two letter grades in every single class. And she didn’t tell his teachers. And the teacher started coming to her saying, “All right, what’s going on here?” So now the teachers are like, “Okay, we need to find out what he’s doing, how he’s doing it. We need to make sure all the parents know about this.” But man, it’s so life giving-
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
That’s incredible.
Dr. Easton Bryant:
… to be able to serve that way.
Dr. Bill Harris:
What was the treatment?
Dr. Easton Bryant:
Same thing with the kid that was a little older. We used omega-3 obviously. We used magnesium L-threonate again, and we also use [inaudible 00:18:55]. Now, this kid was already using a morning ADD medicine, but the hurdle here was she didn’t want to have to add that afternoon dose, which is so common in children and adults as well. So instead of adding more, she’s like, “What else can we do?” So she made a plan, I worked the plan, and she walked in the store five weeks into treatment and I was not expecting that. So I was like … And again, to lay the plan out for how omega-3, the timeline of what to expect of that, I said, “It’s only going to get better from there.”
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
What is the-
Dr. Easton Bryant:
One to two letter grades every class.
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
That’s amazing. That’s really cool.
Dr. Bill Harris:
So I guess I’m curious what dose we’re talking about, one capsule and 300 milligrams of omega-3, or 10 times that, or what do you do?
Dr. Easton Bryant:
Man, you put me on the spot on that. I don’t have that documented. I can’t remember exactly what we did for him.
Dr. Bill Harris:
Oh, okay.
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
For the pediatrics, I was curious about, what are they able to take? Was the high school taking capsules or using the gut gels?
Dr. Easton Bryant:
We use two different types. We use a triglyceride form that does have some lemon flavor to it. I made a point, it’s like, “Hey, you can just have to tell if your fish oil is rancid.” I bit into it to make a point and I was like, “Hey, that tastes pretty good.” So I call those chewable. So we have a chewable triglyceride because it does have that lemon flavor. And then we have a monoglyceride form, which is really, really small and of course a better bioavailability profile. So we have basically those two core options. A small one that you swallow or the one that’s bigger, but you can chew it essentially, or swallow it.
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
Yeah. Because a huge barrier, and especially if talking about kids-
Dr. Easton Bryant:
Oh, my gosh.
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
How do we actually do this?
Dr. Easton Bryant:
At the end of the day, I’m a pharmacist and compliance is everything.
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
It’s everything.
Dr. Easton Bryant:
You can make all the suggestions you want to, but if they’re not doing the thing, whatever the thing is, what’s your expectation really?
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
It’s the same in research, but we don’t measure it enough to be like … Was the study actually a reflection of changing biology or a reflection of people’s behavior, whether or not they did something that you thought they were doing? Yeah, we need to do a lot better in research, I think, and reporting that and analyzing data around people who actually did the thing that the study was about. So that’s my soap box. Well, this has been fantastic. Is there anything else that you wanted to chat about or share?
Dr. Easton Bryant:
As I’ve started to scale the availability to consults, there’s two words that I cling to. If I’m working with somebody and helping them kind of devise a plan. It’s confidence and clarity. And I feel like if I can talk to somebody and have them come away with confidence and clarity, then I’ve done what I’ve set out to do. But then a third thing, a third word I’ve added to that is optimism. And I just really encourage people to, whoever the person is or the resource is, find people that you can stick with, lean into and trust. Because yeah, there’s a lot of noise out there and our healthcare system, I don’t think this is a hot take at all. It’s really failed us and it continues to fail us. And just to put it bluntly, nobody’s coming to save you, so be proactive. I love to see patients who are being proactive and yeah, I’ll tie it into omega-3s. This, it just fits the picture. Our approach is detoxing, balancing hormones and then nutrient deficiencies. And you guys know how common it is for people to not have an optimal omega-3 level.
I just had a consult with a lady yesterday morning, early seventies, incredible health, incredibly active. I was like, “I don’t know how to help you, really.” But she wasn’t using omega-3, brain fog wasn’t really an issue. Her joints weren’t really an issue, but I was like, “Your type of avatar,” is what I was telling her. I was like, “Omega-3 test would make sense. And knowing where you’re at and optimizing that,” because she wants to get ahead of things and be proactive about her health, and it just fits into the conversation for us very easily.
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
Yeah, that’s fantastic. Thank you so much for talking with us and for using the test and just giving us insight into how it’s been useful because we work on this all the time behind the scenes. So it’s really nice to hear that it has helped people. Because we also want to help people, so it’s very motivating
Dr. Easton Bryant:
I was just going to say again, it’s just foundational and it just makes sense for us as so much of what we do as kind of a one-to-many thing. It just feels very responsible within our scope to … There’s all these things out there that could be distractions and these little things that ultimately people don’t really stick with. So it just makes sense for us to, how can we help solidify the foundation and then we can look at other stuff if you want to, but it just fits into the narrative for us.
Dr. Kristina Harris Jackson:
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Well, thanks so much for talking with us, and we will hopefully be back with more stories from the real world here on Omega Matters with clinicians and practitioners, and it’s just really fun to hear these stories. So thanks so much.