FOUNDER AND CEO, ANN ALLWORTH, Ph.D.
Ann Allworth earned a Ph.D. in cell biology in 1989, but has been teaching for over 35 years, on a wide variety of topics all of which involve the human body and it’s needs and has accumulated a comprehensive understanding of the human body. After leaving her position as the National Educator for a premium supplement company in early 2019, Ann learned that we all have an endocannabinoid system (ECS) and was baffled that in all those years of learning and teaching, she’d never heard of it. Once Ann learned the vast and critical nature of the ECS and it’s indispensable role in the maintenance of homeostasis in the body, she was appalled by the multifaceted injustice surrounding Cannabis and is on a crusade to illuminate the minds of as many people as possible that the endocannabinoid system is incontrovertible, scientific proof that Cannabis is Medicine!
Ann’s wonder of the human body, began right after high school when she took a 1-year program to become a Medical Assistant. Unlike most other students, she loved the Anatomy & Physiology course and learning all the body parts and what they did in the body. After working for several years in doctor’s offices, where she absorbed lots of new information about the human body, she acquired her first paid job as an educator teaching in a Medical Assistant program. Years later, she took a more in-depth Anatomy & Physiology course at a nearby community college and literally became enamored of cells, specifically the human oocyte (egg) and how, once fertilized, this seemingly simple structure could turn into an extremely complex and beautiful human being and so finished undergrad and went on to a Ph.D. program to try to figure some piece of this mystery out!
Ann began her research by studying the cytoskeleton (the microscopic “bones” of cells, supportive structures that assemble and disassemble to perform specific, critical cellular tasks) in oocytes and early stages of embryogenesis. Eventually she hit upon the idea that G-proteins must be involved in the process and went on to prove there are dramatic changes that occur to G-protein expression during that time. She took a break from this research, spent a year teaching Histology to first year medical students in the Caribbean, then spent 4 years as a post-doctoral research associate looking at structural changes in the cytoskeleton of various mammalian eggs at ovulation and fertilization and as a Gross Anatomy instructor for first year medical students. She was hired to teach and continue her embryogenesis studies as Assistant Professor of Anatomy, but her study of embryogenesis was cut short due to internal politics at the new medical school. Fortunately, she was able to collaborate with a colleague and for 9 years studied the cellular mechanisms at play when breast and ovarian cancer cells become resistant to chemotherapy drugs. During this time, she received 8 teaching awards and was appointed Co-Director of the Structure Function Block of the new curriculum, which represented 39 weeks of the students’ first year.
In 2004, Ann left medical academia, and spent the next fourteen plus years doing sales and education in the natural product industry. Having been exposed only to those who by and large thought the natural product industry was somewhat of a joke, she had never investigated it for herself, so thought about it the same way. But when confronted of the reality that she needed a job; thought she would at least give it a try when offered a job as an educator for a whole food supplement company. At the time, Ann was taking a calcium channel blocker for blood pressure, a statin for cholesterol and an opioid for chronic pain, but as she studied for her new role, she learned that, in fact she could replace 2 of the pharmaceuticals with a combination of supplements, though it wasn’t until she received a medical Cannabis card that she was able to eliminate the very low opioid dose she took at the start of the day, or more if a game of golf was on tap.
She was successful as a salesperson, primarily because she used her skills as a natural teacher to increase sales of the supplements and throughout her tenure with the company did many, many presentations to small groups of consumers in natural product stores, to staff of natural product stores, to a talk at the Western Canadian Natural Products Expo, to dinner training events for naturopaths, to a CME program for chiropractors.