Episode 239: The Research Behind MetaPWR Pt. 1

doTERRA: doTERRA puts an incredible amount of effort behind research for new products. But you don't always get a chance for the experts to give you an in-depth look at the results. So that's what we're going to do today.

Welcome back to Essential Oil Solutions with doTERRA, the podcast where you'll hear exciting, useful and simple everyday uses for essential oils from experts in the field.

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Today, we're excited to talk to Dr. Nicole Stevens, Director of Clinical Research at doTERRA, about some of the science and research behind the MetaPWR system. This is the first part of a two part episode where we will go into all the details. Nicole, thank you so much for being here today.

Dr. Stevens: I am so excited. Thank you for having me.

doTERRA: I am really excited to just dive into this topic. So to begin, I know people have heard a lot of different things about the research we've been doing with MetaPWR. Can you provide us a little bit of an overview on the MetaPWR research and where we're going with future research?

MetaPWR System Research

Dr. Stevens: I love to. You're speaking my language here. So of the three different parts of the MetaPWR system, let me talk about each one individually because we have research on all of them and more is coming. So in the oil blend, we've conducted an initial in vitro study on human fat cells, and that's kind of where we got our direction for what do we need to now study in humans? So we're currently gathering some research on the use of the oil blend in humans as part of the system as well as by itself. So watch for that to be coming soon.

On the Assist, we've already done two human clinical studies and they've both shown positive effects. We're going to talk about that more in just a minute. But currently we're gathering data on the use of Assist as part of the system, too. We want to know how these parts interact with each other.

And then for the Advantage, we've conducted a small human pilot study showing positive effects. Now, when I say small, it was small. So we know that we want to get more data in more people over longer periods of time. So that's where we're at now. We're running a larger human clinical study on the Advantage by itself, and we're looking at Advantage as part of the MetaPWR system.

So all three of these parts, we're so excited about the data we already have and all three of them are having more studies coming out. We want to be able to support you. And as you're educating people about the MetaPWR system, you're going to have a lot of great data to do it.

doTERRA: Wow. I'm always a little bit in awe of the amount of research we are putting behind this MetaPWR system, and with good reason, because the results have been, like you said, very fantastic. To look at the oil blend itself, the MetaPWR oil blend, can you explain the dosages that were used in the study and does the study tell me how much I should be taking every day?

MetaPWR Oil Blend Research

Dr. Stevens: That's a good question. And we got this asked by quite a few people at convention. So in the initial study, the in vitro study with the human fat cells, the dosages were measured in micrograms of oil per milliliter of solution that were bathing those cells in the dish. Now, that doesn't translate straight across into humans, which is why we're now doing our human clinical studies. You know, dosages in humans really depend on the person's genetics and on their physical build and their medical needs and their lifestyle and a whole bunch of things that we could talk about.

So when you're looking at this data, the in vitro data that's already in process of being published, there's not yet determined, you know, a an optimal dose for each person. This is something that you would want to look at the label on the bottle and see. This is kind of a good starting place, but for you it may be a little more, a little less go for those standard recommendations and then go for what's going to work for you. A little bit of experimentation. Sometimes people say, oh, you know, I noticed that it works better when I separate two soft gels over time or it works better if I take two softgels together or if I take one drop of oil or it's going to be very different for you. So as we're getting our data or our scientific research, you're going to have some more information about that. But until then, if you're wanting to use the product, go for the label recommendations and adjust according to your needs.

doTERRA: I love that. And I think that's such a key part of the adjust according to your needs. Find what works for you and your body. Because like you said and I know you say this a lot, everyone is different. Everyone is going to need something a little bit different. Now, you mentioned that you're working on publishing those results. So for the people that are data minded that want to go in depth into this research that you've done, how are they going to be able to get their hands on that?

Dr. Stevens: Yes, we are working on multiple publications right now. Actually, the peer review process, you've probably heard of that term, peer review process means once we get our paper written up, we submit it to a journal and then our peers so other scientists in our field read these papers and I'm going to be honest, sometimes they pick it apart and they say, 'Oh, you've got a gap here, or I don't understand this,' which is good. That's why we have that process. We want to make sure that when we get our data out there, it's as good as it can be. And that peer review process can sometimes take up to a year or more. So we knew we wanted to get that started soon and we had it started last year at convention time. Right now we've got one of those papers submitted, two more that are in the peer review process.

So we hope to be able to have announcements for you and links to where you can actually access these papers. We'd like to publish what's called open access, meaning anyone can download the entire paper, not just the abstract. We want you to be able to see all this data and to be able to take it in your hand to a doctor if they're curious, or a scientist or anyone who may not understand how the MetaPWR is working. That's our goal. So we will be able to announce that to you, hopefully very soon.

doTERRA: That is so amazing. And that open access piece of it, like you said, so that no matter who you are, you can have the access, you can use this data to help you. Nicole, you mentioned that the studies done for the MetaPWR Assist and the MetaPWR Advantage. They had slightly smaller numbers. Why were more people not included in these initial studies?

MetaPWR Assist and Advantage Research

Dr. Stevens: Yeah. So on the MetaPWR Assist studies and the Advantage pilot, the participation numbers are a little bit small. So we got some people that asked us, Well, why didn't you have bigger studies? This is a really good question. Let me let me see if I can explain a little bit about what our thinking was and why these were conducted the way that they were.

So let's start with the Assist. On the Assist trial, the two trials were conducted in sequence. The first trial that we did was called what we what we consider a dose finding study. What this means is because it was the first time we were looking at this in humans, we really wanted to understand what was going to happen. We wanted to make sure it was safe. We weren't especially looking for clinical significance yet at that point, just because we needed to understand our endpoints first. And really we were more interested in seeing the participant responses to various doses. So that's why we call it a dose finding study. And this study included 15 people, right? And we looked at two different doses. So we split them into smaller groups, watch them very carefully, looked at some important safety markers, got feedback from them. And really we were just going to say, okay, this is our foundational study and this is what we're going to base a larger study on.

Now, when we were designing this study, we had to also understand what was going to be the response in people. So what I mean by that is we didn't really know how it was going to affect them, how was going to affect their blood sugar. And we needed that measurement called standard deviation. If you're familiar with statistics, standard deviation is really just this this kind of scatter, this randomness amongst people and how much they differ from kind of an average response. So we had to have that information in order to design our bigger study. So that first study, when we actually found statistical significance with this tiny population. Okay. Got to say, we were excited. We were surprised because it was a very small sample. We knew that. But here we were finding statistical significance.

Now, what that means in a very small sample, if you find something statistically significant, it means the response is big and it's something that is very important. And we were so excited to study it. In our second study, using the data from our first study, we calculated the size of the sample we'd need for a larger, longer study. And because the response was so big, we knew we wouldn't need a huge population of hundreds. Those extra participants would just add to the cost, the duration of the study. And frankly, it's unethical to research with more people than you need to, and we have to follow those ethical regulations. So we wanted to understand exactly what size of sample we would need to run this larger study to confirm the results of the first study. And we did. In the second study, we found highly significant effects. Even more than the first study because it was larger. Now, this confirms that the supplement was working the way that we expected it.

So the same concept was applied to designing the Advantage pilot as well before we launched a large scale long term clinical study, we really need an idea of that response and the dosage and that standard deviation in the population. So that first study that we did with Advantage with a very small sample size was done on purpose. We wanted to see exactly what a study would look like if we were going to design it. So the great news is the data from that first pilot Advantage study, we've now fed into the larger clinical study that is going on right now, and we're excited to see what that has to show us.

doTERRA: Absolutely. I'm excited to see those results as well.

We had such an incredible conversation with Dr. Stevens that we couldn't fit it all in one episode. Watch for the second part of this episode next month.

Thanks for joining us and congratulations on living a healthier lifestyle with essential oils. If you want to try any of the products you learned about, click on the link in the episode description or find a Wellness Advocate near you to place an order today. And remember, if you liked what you heard today, rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen.

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.