CBD oil is showing up on store shelves everywhere! Sales of CBD oil products have exploded in the past 18 months as people have found this product helps ease pain and inflammation, among other problems. Be very careful where you buy this product, and how you use it. Synthetic versions have made up to 52 people in Utah very ill. The article didn’t say where the people bought this synthetic version but it was falsely labeled.
The illnesses occurred between October, 2018 and January of 2019. This prompted the CDC to urge that states begin to regulate the popular over-the-counter remedy “to minimize the risk for recurrences of this emerging public health threat.” This statement was in an Associated Press report.
More then 200 people in nine states have developed serious, unexplained bleeding linked to synthetic cannabinoids thought to be laced with rat poison. This was also reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). There have been 164 cases in Illinois, 20 cases in Maryland. Six or fewer cases in Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.
This is not to say CBD oil is bad all over the U.S. or the world for that matter. Not at all. It has many potentially healthful benefits.
CBD oil is made by extracting a specific compound from cannabis know as cannabiodiol. You can ingest it or apply it directly on your skin, depending on the product that it is in. It may have pain-relieving capabilities, but clinical studies need to prove many of the suggested benefits. It isn’t entirely clear how CBD may work to alleviate pain but it may be related to the compound’s anti-inflammatory properties. CBD also appears to activate a serotonin receptor, which may help reduce pain. Much more investigation needs to be done.
Cannabidiol (CBD) is a compound derived from cannabis (a hemp plant also known as Marijuana). However, unlike other compounds found in cannabis, such as THC, cannabidiol is not a psychoactive compound. Preliminary evidence suggests cannabidiol may modestly reduce anxiety, certain measures of dystonia (a movement disorder), and glaucoma (Health Canada 2013), and a placebo-controlled clinical trial found it to reduce the frequency of convulsions in a rare form of epilepsy known as Dravet syndrome, although it was also associated with a higher rate of adverse effects including diarrhea, vomiting, fatigue, pyrexia, somnolence, and abnormal results on liver-function tests. (Devinsky, New Eng. J. Med 2017).
Much of the confusion about CBD oil comes from the lack of understanding the difference between the main chemical in marijuana which is tetrahydrocannabionol (THC). Cannabindoil does not get you high.
CBD oil can be made from Cannabis Sativa or hemp and is made from the whole plant, including the flowering portion. In states where cannabis is illegal, CBD oil must be made from hemp, which means the stalks of the hemp plant.
CBD is made of the chemical elements carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. THC is made up of the same elements and has the exact same molecular formula, however the arrangement of the atoms is unique to each compound so they act in different says. This variance is what gives THC its psychoactive effects, which CBD does not have. CBD counteracts THC’s effects.
CBD (cannabidiol) is a component of hemp. A plant that looks a lot like marijuana. In fact, they’re both Cannabis Sativa plants. The key difference? Hemp is grown to have a legal limit of less than 0.3 percent THC. When people think of getting high on marijuana, it is really the THC they are thinking of Marijuana typically has THC percentages in the teens. In other words, nobody is getting stoned on CBD.
Hemp extract comes from the aerial parts of the plant -stems, leaves, flowers. It is here that we find beneficial phytocompounds called phytocannabinoids. One phytocannabinoid in particular – CBD or cannabidiol -gets a lot of attention for its benefits to the human body. That is because CBD and the other phytocannabinoids integrate into an internal system called the Endocannabinoid System.
The Endocannabinoid System (ECS) is responsible for keeping the body in a state of balance. It impacts the functions of sleep, mood, pain, appetite, hormone, and immune response. ECS also aids your body in creating natural cannabinoids.
CBD helps to stimulate your body’s natural cannabinoid production to maintain the efficiency of the receptors and optimal function of the endocannabinoid system. But CBD does more than just affect cannabinoid receptors. It impacts many other receptors too.
Opioid receptors are also affected by CBD. IT has also been shown to affect dopamine and serotonin receptors as well. Dopamine helps regulate aspects of cognition and behavior, i.e. motivation and reward seeking. Serotonin receptors deal with problems such as anxiety.
Over 100 different cannabinoids can be found within the cannabis plant. CBD is one of the most known due to its non-psychoactive therapeutic potential.
THC (the mind altering chemical) is associated with stimulating hunger causing munchies, this cannabinoid is capable of influencing metabolism. But does CBD affect metabolism? Research shows that yes it does, and in surprising ways. A Korean study shows that monitoring CBD effects on immature fat cell preadipocytes in three ways affecting fat browning as published in the Journal Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry.
It was discovered that CBD stimulates genes and proteins which play roles in increasing fat breakdown; CBD can boost activity and numbers of mitochondria increasing the body’s ability to burn calories; and CBD decreases expression of proteins which are involved in creating new fat cells within the body. White fat cells can increase risk of heart disease, diabetes, among others. Brown fat alternatively can promote weight loss by burning energy. Researchers agreed that CBD has the ability to induce fat browning, or more simply put to turn white fat into brown fat.
The reason why hemp oils would not be expected to contain much CBD is that hemp oil is typically made from hemp seeds (i.e. hempseed oil), which contain little CBD. CBD is not found within the seed (although some may contaminate the surface); it is principally found in the flowers and, to a lesser extent, the upper leaves of the hemp plant. A “CBD oil” product is typically an oil, such as from hemp seed or other sources, to which a CBD extract (from hemp flowers) has been added (Mead, Epilepsy & Behavior 2017).
Be aware that cannabidiol at a dose of 300 mg has been shown to worsen symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (Consroe, Int J Neurosci, 1986). Cannabidiol should be used with caution with sedative and sleep-inducing medications, as it may enhance their effects. In addition, CBD can increase blood serum levels of antiepleptic drugs (Gaston, Eplepsia 2017)
In 2017, the New England Journal of Medicine published a landmark study validating a standardized CBD isolate from a form of childhood epilepsy called Dravet syndrome. Every day, researchers gave 10 mg of CBD per kg of body weight to 20 children with Dravet syndrome (about 450 mg for a 50 lb child). The children also received the usual antiepileptic treatment. After 14 weeks, the average number of convulsive seizures per month dropped from more than 12 to fewer than six.
In June of 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a CBD isolate drug for the treatment of Dravet syndrome and another rare form of childhood-onset epilepsy called Lennox-Gastaut syndrome.
In dogs, giving 2 mg per kilogram of body weight, twice daily, (e.g., for a 20 lb dog: 18 mg of CBD in the morning and again at night) for a month was found to cause an increase in levels of the liver enzyme alkaline phosphatase, and the researchers recommended liver enzymes in dogs receiving CBD until long-term safety studies are conducted (Gamble, Front Vet Sci 2018).
This subject is lengthy. The amount of information available is endless. The anecdotes and small studies are ahead of the solid science, but more research is no doubt still to come on CBD and pain-and CBD’s effect on many other health issues. I urge you to work with your medical team and alternative practitioners.
