Cannabis has been an ally of humankind since before the written word, providing fiber for cordage and cloth, seeds for nutrition, and roots, leaves and flowers for ritual and healing. During the Neolithic period, our ancestors discovered uses for every part of cannabis, which was one of the first agricultural crops to be cultivated and harvested some 12,000 years ago.
In the botanical world, there are, broadly speaking, two kinds of cannabis –hemp plants and drug plants. Hemp plants include plants grown for fiber and plants grown for seed oil. Drug plants include intoxicating THC-rich plants and non-intoxicating CBD-rich plants.
The main difference between hemp plants and drug plants is resin content. Industrial hemp plants are low-resin plants. Drug plants are high-resin plants. “Marijuana” (spelled with a ‘j’ or ‘h’) is the colloquial name for the flower tops of high resin cannabis.
Industrial hemp varieties are typically grown from pedigree seed, yielding as many as one hundred tall, skinny, bamboo-like plants (with skimpy foliage) per square meter. These plants are machine harvested and manufactured into many different products like paper, cloth, and edible oil.
Drug plants, by comparison, are typically grown from asexually reproduced clones, one to two bushy plants per square meter, and its flowers are hand-harvested, dried, trimmed and cured. The flowers are then consumed for their intoxicating and medicinal effects.
U.S. federal law originally defined marihuana in terms of resin content. Resin was mentioned no less than three times in the two-sentence definition of “marihuana” encoded in the 1970 Controlled Substances Act (CSA), which was copied word-for-word from the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act, the legislation that made cannabis effectively illegal:
The term “marihuana” means all parts of the plant Cannabis sativa L. [sic], whether growing or not; the seeds thereof; the resin extracted from any part of such plant; and every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of such plant, its seeds or resin. Such term does not include the mature stalks of such plant, fiber produced from such stalks, oil or cake made from the seeds of such plant, any other compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of such mature stalks (except the resin extracted therefrom), fiber, oil or cake, or the sterilized seed of such plant which is incapable of germination.
In essence, the CSA asserts that certain parts of the plant (“mature stalk” and “sterilized seed”) are exempt from the legal definition of marijuana. But the flowers, the leaves, and the sticky resin were not included in this exemption. The resin and its derivatives were explicitly forbidden wherever they are found on the plant.
The CSA was unequivocal on this point: the resin from any part of the cannabis plant, or any preparation made from the resin, is illegal. Fiber produced from hemp stalk and oil pressed from unfertilized hempseed got a pass, but not the resin.
But as far as medicinal and recreational cannabis goes, the resin is where the action is. Cannabis resin is contained within the heads of tiny, mushroom-shaped trichomes, found mainly on the plant’s odiferous female flowers (the buds) and to a lesser extent on the leaves. The sticky, gooey resin contains THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (cannabidiol), along with hundreds of other secondary plant metabolites (primarily other cannabinoids and terpenes) that augment human brain chemistry and ease physiological and psychological distress.
Hemp seed oil, it should be noted, is not the same as CBD-rich oil extracted from the flowers and leaves of the plant. Oil pressed from hemp seed contains no CBD, no THC, no plant cannabinoids to speak of, but it’s excellent for making varnish, paint, soap, protein-enriched food supplements, and much more.
Right from the start, the Feds understood that resin content is the key factor that distinguishes marijuana from industrial hemp. Today, however, federal law includes a recently added caveat that officially characterizes industrial hemp as having no more than 0.3 percent THC by dry weight. Products containing such a tiny amount of THC should not have an intoxicating effect.
Where did the 0.3 percent THC figure come from? It stems from a 1976 taxonomic report by Canadian plant scientists Ernest Small and Arthur Cronquist., who never intended for 0.3 percent THC to function as a legal demarcation between hemp and other forms of cannabis.
But that’s exactly what happened. According to current federal law, cannabis is considered hemp – not marijuana – as long as no part of the plant (including the leaves and flowers) exceeds a THC concentration of “more than 0.3 percent on a dry weight basis.” Any plant that tops 0.3 percent THC is considered marijuana and is therefore federally illegal to grow, according to Uncle Sam.
The passage of the Agricultural Act of 2014 (otherwise known as the Farm Bill) defined “industrial hemp” for the first time in U.S. history and distinguished it legally from marijuana. The ‘0.3 percent THC or less’ qualification for hemp was enshrined in Section 7606 of the Agricultural Act and renewed when Congress approved the 2018 Farm Bill.
There was no mention of resin in the 2018 Farm Bill, which a cynic might refer to as the ‘Keep Marijuana Illegal Bill.’ To put it bluntly, the 0.3 percent THC legal limit is an arbitrary, impractical, euphoria-phobic relic of reefer madness. Although it lacks a scientific basis, it has become the latest lynchpin of cannabis prohibition, a dishonest, anachronistic policy that impedes medical discovery and blocks patient access to valuable therapeutic options, including herbal extracts with various combinations of CBD and THC.
Despite its shortcomings, the Farm Bill is a momentous leap forward. It is now legal for American farmers to cultivate hemp as a commercial crop on domestic soil – a long overdue development catalyzed by the huge public demand for CBD.
On the day it became law (December 20, 2018), the Farm Bill removed hemp, but not cannabis, from the list of controlled substances. The Farm Bill also explicitly removed hemp products, including hemp-derived CBD, from the purview of CSA – but not from the purview of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which maintains that hemp-derived CBD is neither a legitimate food supplement nor a medication approved for off-label use.
Meanwhile, CBD oil derived from any cannabis plant with over 0.3 percent THC remains a Schedule 1 substance under federal law. It’s unclear how regulators will tell the difference between illegal cannabis-derived CBD oil and seemingly not-illegal, hemp-derived CBD oil given that the actual CBD molecule is the same.
The best source of CBD oil is organically grown, high-resin, CBD-rich cannabis not low-resin industrial hemp. Why? Because the more resin in the plant, the more CBD there is to extract. Low-resin industrial hemp grown for fiber or seed oil is not an optimal source of CBD for several reasons:
Prior to the 2018 Farm Bill, most of the CBD products available in the United States were derived from low-resin industrial hemp grown in Europe and China. Now that cultivating hemp is legal again in the United States, it should be easier to obtain better quality CBD products made from hemp grown in Colorado, Kentucky, Oregon, Montana, Vermont and other states.
The most prodigious source of cannabidiol are high-resin CBD-rich cannabis plants that tip the scales at 20 percent CBD by dry weight and around one percent THC. Unfortunately, under the current legal regime that’s too much THC to qualify as hemp, even though anyone who smoked the resinous flower tops wouldn’t get high because CBD is not intoxicating like THC. It can, however, do a person a world of good if they are struggling with pain or anxiety or depression.
Cannabis is a highly adaptable botanical; it can thrive in various environments, legal and ecological. It responds well to the human hand, which has stretched the genetic capabilities of the plant in unprecedented ways.
Against a shifting regulatory landscape, the distinction between hemp and other forms of cannabis is fast becoming moot. American horticulturists are successfully breeding high-resin cannabis varietals that satisfy the Farm Bill’s criteria for hemp – with THC measuring below 0.3 percent and double-digit CBD levels by dry weight.
In other words, farmers are now growing high resin cannabis (“marijuana”) with less than 0.3 percent THC. If that sounds a bit confusing, that’s because it is a bit confusing. But this much is clear: If grown, extracted and processed well, these CBD-rich plants qualify as good starter material for manufacturing CBD oil for medicinal and personal use.
https://www.projectcbd.org/cbd-101/cannabis-oil-vs-hemp-oil
Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
Cannabis has been at the center of one of the most exciting—and underreported—developments in modern science. Research on marijuana’s effects led directly to the discovery of a hitherto unknown biochemical communication system in the human body, the Endocannabinoid System, which plays a crucial role in regulating our physiology, mood, and everyday experience.
The discovery of receptors in the brain that respond pharmacologically to cannabis—and the subsequent identification of endogenous cannabinoid compounds in our own bodies that bind to these receptors—has significantly advanced our understanding of human biology, health, and disease.
It is an established scientific fact that cannabinoids and other components of cannabis can modulate many physiological systems in the human brain and body. Cannabinoids are chemical compounds that trigger cannabinoid (and other) receptors. More than 100 cannabinoids have been identified in the marijuana plant. Of these marijuana molecules, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) have been studied most extensively. In addition to cannabinoids produced by the plant, there are endogenous cannabinoids (such as anandamide and 2AG) that occur naturally in the mammalian brain and body, as well as synthetic cannabinoids created by pharmaceutical researchers.
Extensive preclinical research—much of it sponsored by the U.S. government—indicates that CBD has potent anti-tumoral, antioxidant, anti-spasmodic, anti-psychotic, anti-convulsive, and neuroprotective properties. CBD directly activates serotonin receptors, causing an anti-anxiety effect, as well.
In recent years, scientists associated with the International Cannabinoid Research Society (ICRS) have elucidated a number of molecular pathways through which CBD exerts a therapeutic impact. For example, a preclinical study by Dr. Sean McAllister and his colleagues at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco report on how CBD destroys breast cancer cells by down-regulating a gene called ID-1, which is implicated in several types of aggressive cancer. Silencing the ID-1 gene is, thus, is a potential strategy for cancer treatment.
“Cannabidiol offers hope of a non-toxic therapy that could treat aggressive forms of cancer without any of the painful side effects of chemotherapy,” says McAllister.
According to McAllister’s lab, the best results were obtained when CBD was administered along with THC. Several studies underscore the therapeutic advantages for combining CBD and THC—particularly for treating peripheral neuropathy, a painful condition associated with cancer, multiple sclerosis (MS), diabetes, arthritis, and other neurodegenerative ailments. Clinical research conducted by with GW Pharmaceuticals, a British company, has also shown that CBD is most effective as an analgesic when administered in combination with whole plant THC.
https://www.projectcbd.org/science/endocannabinoid-system
Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
]]>End-of-life care is one of the less frequently discussed uses of medical cannabis. After all, most of us who turn to cannabis, want to continue living, right? And yet, thanks to the ability of cannabis to ameliorate the heavy symptom burden experienced by patients with minimal side effects, palliative care is perhaps the area of medicine that would most benefit from its clinical use.
Dying is a journey all of us will inevitably take, however how to ‘die well’ is something we tend not to consider. Dignity with dying is only possible, I believe, when there is a certain amount of consciousness and acceptance of the process. Something that a skinful of morphine doesn’t allow. But cannabis does, and I experienced this for the first time with a friend’s mother.
As Jose neared the end of her life after battling pancreatic cancer, morphine failed to control her pain, leaving her confused and unable to connect with loved ones. Thanks to an open-minded doctor who recommended cannabis oil, the last few weeks of her life became the gift her family longed for. The pain no longer troubled her, the anxiety lessened, sleep returned, as did her appetite. Not only that, Jose remained fully lucid until moments before she died.
This changed me forever and it’s why I’m sitting here today writing about cannabis.
Sadly, when my mother became terminally ill with advanced cancer, this option was not available in the UK. Sure, I had a few offers from my cannabis contacts. But for an 82-year-old Irish ex-nurse, trusting a funky tasting oil (that I couldn’t say for sure how much to take) over the pharmaceutical meds prescribed in precise dosages was never going to happen.
Instead, I found myself administering a list of medications that just kept growing and growing as the disease progressed. This included morphine for the pain (which incidentally my mum couldn’t tolerate), antiemetics for nausea, laxatives for the constipation caused by both the cancer and the pain medication, as well as Lorazepam for the middle-of-the-night agitation.
The frustration was overwhelming. I knew that instead of the sledgehammer approach to her symptom control, a far more holistic, person-centred alternative existed that could not only ease her pain, take the edge off her anxiety and agitation, stimulate her appetite and help with the nausea, but also allow her to be present for the time that remained.
According to the World Health Organization, palliative care is “an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual.”
In other words, palliative care encompasses end-of-life care, but a patient receiving palliative care is not necessarily approaching death.
However, when a patient enters the end-of-life stage in a hospice setting, the emphasis on quality of life means rules often get bent in a bid to fulfil a dying patient’s wishes and beliefs. Dogs and family pets are welcome guests in a patient’s room, and a glass of wine is not unheard of, if that’s what the patient wants. So why not allow access to medical cannabis if that will help ease the suffering of a dying patient?
In some countries and states in the US, palliative and end-of-life care is considered a qualifying condition for the prescription of medical cannabis.
Since 2007, the Israeli Ministry of Health has approved medical cannabis for palliative care in patients with cancer. This led to a prospective study analysing the safety and efficacy of cannabis in 2970 patients and the responses were overwhelmingly positive.
Ninety-six percent of patients who responded in the 6 month follow-up reported an improvement in their condition, 3.7% reported no change and 0.3% reported deterioration in their medical condition. Furthermore, while only 18.7% of patients described themselves as having good quality of life prior to cannabis treatment, 69.5% did six months later. Tellingly, just over a third of patients stopped using opioid pain medication.
While observational studies such as these suggest cannabis can improve symptoms commonly found in advanced cancer, as well as improving quality of life, in practice physicians often feel insufficiently informed to prescribe cannabis to their patients.
A 2018 survey found that of the 237 US oncologists interviewed, 80% conducted discussions with their patients about cannabis, while only 30% actually felt they had enough information.
However, an encouraging 67% viewed cannabis as a helpful additional way to manage pain, and 65% said that it was equally or more effective than the standard treatments for the rapid weight loss often found in advanced cancer. And yet, only 45% of them actually prescribed cannabis to their patients.
These discrepancies mean that even in countries where cannabis can legally be prescribed for palliative care, many physicians prefer to stick to the usual methods of symptom control.
Claude Cyr, MD, a Canadian family physician and author of “Cannabis in palliative care: current challenges and practical recommendations,” believes palliative care is uniquely suited to cannabis.
“If we’re going to integrate cannabis products in medicine,” he told Project CBD, “palliative care is the best port of entry because of the fact that doctors have more time, and patients also have the time to deal with possible issues of the medication.”
However, in order for cannabis to fulfil its potential in palliative care, Dr. Cyr believes a shift in how physicians view symptom control is needed.
“What seems to be coming through with the research for symptom control,” says Cyr, “is that cannabis is mildly effective for pain, mildly effective for nausea, mildly effective for insomnia and anxiety. It doesn’t treat any one of these conditions dramatically better than the other medications that we have. So, many physicians are like ‘why would we take a medication that is mildly effective when I can take a much more incisive approach with specific symptoms.’ Instead of saying ‘Do you have a bit of pain, a bit of anxiety, a bit of insomnia, a lack of appetite and a bit of nausea? So why don’t we start with something that’s mildly effective for all that and then we’ll be able to work on more specific symptoms in the long run’.”
Cyr is also critical of fellow physicians’ tendencies to rely on clinical evidence while dismissing the validity of their patients’ positive experiences.
“Palliative care is a specific situation where we can actually put into question the core philosophy of medicine which is the evidence based paradigm. I think physicians need to stop obsessing over the evidence when their patients are dying and clearly telling them, ‘I’m really enjoying this, I’m getting huge benefits from this, I’m sleeping better, I’m eating better.’ But the physicians are nodding their heads and saying, ‘I hear you, but I can’t accept this because I’m still lacking evidence.’
“But I think there is enough data out there to convince physicians that it’s safe for palliative care patients, and it’s predictable.”
Cyr urges doctors to find peace with the idea that cannabis is psychoactive, which he believes could actually help patients process the existential anxiety often experienced at the end of their lives.
“When you look at the studies of psychedelics in depression and existential anxiety in cancer patients, some of these results have been dramatic,” says Cyr. “Although cannabis isn’t a true psychedelic, there are some similar experiences that patients tell us about.
At smaller doses patients experience a psycholytic effect, a lowering of the defenses allowing people to explore other aspects of their psyche, and that’s when they start making connections between different aspects of their reality.”
THC’s ability to reduce activation of the default mode network, the area of the brain involved in cognitive processing and where our ego or sense of self is thought to reside, could also potentially bring a sense of peace to dying patients.
Cyr explains: “Existential anxiety is rooted in the loss of the self, but when you can dissolve the ego temporarily and you realize it’s not all about me, that can be liberating.”
For the last fifty years, activists have been campaigning for the right to use cannabis to treat their health conditions in order to be well. This must also be extended to using cannabis to maintain quality of life in life-threatening illnesses, and when this no longer becomes possible, to die well and with dignity.
In memory of Jose and Agnes.
https://www.projectcbd.org/medicine/cannabis-palliative-care
Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
]]>The Food and Drug Administration bans CBD edibles while routinely promoting dietary poisons
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently reiterated its official disapproval of any nonpharmaceutical use of cannabidiol (CBD), a non-intoxicating cannabis compound with significant therapeutic attributes. In the world according to the FDA, CBD is not a safe substance and it is not a legitimate dietary supplement — and, therefore, we shouldn’t buy, sell or consume food or beverages containing CBD. But unregulated CBD-infused ingestibles are just a mouse click away for anyone who can’t make it to their local gas station or community market.
“CBD has the potential to harm you,” the FDA declared, noting that is it “has seen only limited data about CBD safety and these data point to real risks that need to be considered before taking CBD for any reason.”
The FDA’s precautionary overreach with respect to CBD contrasts sharply with its lax policy toward chemical poisons such as arsenic, which is an FDA-approved food ingredient. And arsenic is just the tip of an immense toxic iceberg. About 3,000 out of the 10,000 chemicals on the FDA’s list of approved food additives have never been reviewed for safety by the FDA. The list includes several known carcinogens.
Many of these compounds were “grandfathered in” without fanfare because they were widely present in food prior to the passage of the 1958 Food Additives Amendment (FAA). This amendment sought to allay public concern about the increased use of chemical additives in processed food.
While the ostensible purpose of the FAA was “to prohibit the use in food of additives which have not been adequately tested to establish their safety,” the amendment included a major loophole, whereby commonly used substances that the FDA deemed “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) prior to 1958 would be exempt from the new law.
The “GRAS system,” which the FDA still uses to determine food safety, relies on a voluntary process that enables manufacturers to assess health risks and decide whether an additive is benign or bad news. Manufacturers under the GRAS system can “establish a scientific consensus” by creating specialized expert panels for the purpose of reviewing a substance. These “experts” can include members of the company’s staff or consultants with undisclosed financial conflicts of interest.
Once an expert panel rendered its verdict, a manufacturer could simply notify the FDA about the GRAS determination — if the manufacturer felt so inclined. Notifying the FDA about a GRAS determination was completely at the manufacturer’s discretion. In other words, the responsibility for determining an ingredient’s safety was now up to the manufacturer rather than the FDA. This dubious arrangement spared FDA officials the hassle of having to conduct resource-intensive testing.
In February 2012 Nature published an article, “The toxic truth about sugar,” which discussed several substantial concerns about the adverse health effects of sweetener additives, including sugar’s lack of nutritional value as well as its pernicious role as a factor “responsib[le] for metabolic diseases [and] toxic effects on the liver.” Sugar’s high abuse potential, its association with cognitive decline, and its potential link to cancer were also cited.
“If international bodies are truly concerned about public health, they must consider limiting fructose — and its main delivery vehicles, the added sugars HFCS [High fructose corn syrup] and sucrose — which pose dangers to individuals and to society as a whole,” the Nature authors stated.
High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is a sweetener made from corn starch. The FDA considers HFCS to be GRAS. But exposure to HFCS is highly controversial for several reasons. HFCS-infused products like sodas typically exhibit “higher than expected” levels of fructose. (The fructose levels in these drinks are often not disclosed.) While glucose is readily absorbed by the body via the actions of insulin, fructose generates insulin resistance. This means that HFCS can trigger increased triglyceride production, leading to a variety of illnesses associated with obesity and metabolic syndrome, such as hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, abnormal increases in body fat, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
Obesity also increases the risk of developing several types of cancer. A team of scientists from Cornell University and several other research institutions found that ingesting HFCS promoted the growth of intestinal cancer cells in mice, to cite but one example.
According to Bart Hoebel, a Princeton psychology professor who specializes in the neuroscience of appetite, weight, and sugar addiction, “Some people have claimed that high-fructose corn syrup is no different than other sweeteners when it comes to weight gain and obesity, but our results make it clear that this just isn’t true, at least under the conditions of our tests.”
Another research group led by former FDA scientist Renee Dufault, found mercury present in almost half of the HFCS samples they collected in 2005. Despite the fact that Dufault alerted her superiors to the findings she got no response and no action was taken by the FDA.
The FDA also seems unperturbed by the widespread contamination of HFCS with glyphosate, a synthetic pesticide developed and aggressively marketed by Monsanto for genetically modified corn and other crops. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies glyphosate as a “probable human carcinogen.” In October 2018, the FDA released a report detailing residues of this highly toxic pesticide in many common household foods, including children’s breakfast cereals.
The FDA maintains that foods contaminated with glyphosate are safe to consume, whereas CBD is simply too dangerous for human consumption (except when given to children with refractory seizure disorders).
Commonly used as preservatives or color-enhancing agents for processed meats, cheese, and fish, nitrates and nitrites were among the first “GRAS” foods exempt from the Food Additives Amendment. But several investigations have raised serious questions about the health effects of these compounds.
In 2006, the International Agency for Research on Cancer published a report that classified nitrates and nitrites as “probable human carcinogens.” And a 2009 study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found: “The presence of nitrates and nitrites in food is associated with an increased risk of gastrointestinal cancer and, in infants, methemoglobinemia [a blood disorder].”
Furthermore, a 2015 meta-analysis of 49 nitrate/nitrite studies found “high intake of nitrites … resulted in an elevated risk of cancer.” Other studies have linked consumption of nitrate-rich cured meats to an increased risk of childhood brain tumors in the offspring of users. Nitrates and nitrites are also disguised as other ingredients, such as “celery powder,” found in products labeled “natural” or even “organic.”
“Many unanswered questions and data gaps about CBD toxicity exist,” the FDA alleges. Yet there are numerous peer-reviewed research papers that clearly delineate the toxic effects of nitrates and nitrates, which the FDA, perversely, still consider to be GRAS, while CBD is officially forbidden in food.
Another group of harmful additives is camouflaged by the umbrella term “artificial colorings.” You can find artificial coloring in just about every processed food product — from candy to sodas, juices, and even pickles.
A 2007 study published in The Lancet examined the effects of artificial colorings on children. The authors found that consuming artificial colorings and preservatives can increase hyperactivity in kids. These findings prompted the European Food Standards Agency to urge manufacturers to remove artificial coloring from their food products.
Published in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, a 2012 research paper by UCLA scientists reported that “all of the nine currently US-approved [food] dyes raise health concerns of varying degrees.” Specifically, they noted that:
The UCLA researchers also asserted that these dyes “do not improve the safety or nutritional qualities of foods.” They suggested that currently used dyes should be removed from the food supply and urged regulatory authorities to “require better and independent toxicity testing, exercise greater caution regarding continued approval of these dyes, and in the future approve only well-tested, safe dyes.”
The FDA’s stance on artificial colorings, however, remains impervious to scientific evidence and contemptuous of public health.
“Artificial flavorings” is an umbrella term that encompasses 700 different synthetic chemicals, many of which are harmful to consume. But according to the FDA’s Code of Federal Regulations Title 21, processed food manufacturers aren’t even required to identify these ubiquitous compounds on product labels. “If the flavor consists of two or more ingredients,” the label simply may state: “All flavor ingredients contained in this product are approved for use in a regulation of the Food and Drug Administration.”
Some of these omnipresent artificial flavoring substances aren’t even listed on the FDA Food Additives list. The FDA justifies omitting this information out of deference to certain trade groups, such as the Flavor Extract Manufacturers Association (FEMA), which “has established expert panels that evaluate and make determinations on the GRAS status of flavoring substances.”
FEMA, however, is not an objective third party research group dedicated to protecting public health. It’s a trade association comprised of FDA-appointed, industry-friendly “experts.” Many of these so called experts are actually employees of the manufacturer, and as such may bear financial conflicts of interest. But there are no rules mandating that the FDA must prevent such financial conflicts. It also bears mentioning that the average FDA review for food additives takes two years — “but some drag on for decades.”
Several environmental groups successfully sued the FDA to remove seven synthetic food additives after linking these substances to cancer in animal laboratory studies. FEMA protested the decision, arguing that it “demonstrates a limited interpretation of animal studies and cancer by failing to address risk or relevance in humans.”
The FDA also insisted that these additives were safe, even though it acknowledged that “there were findings of carcinogenicity in animal studies.” In the world according to the FDA, there is insufficient data pertaining to these synthetic flavoring substances to support “a finding that they are human carcinogens when consumed at the levels of intended use.”
What exactly are the intended levels of use for artificial flavorings or additives?
How are consumers supposed to access relevant information if these substances aren’t even included on ingredient labels for common products and are nowhere to be found on the FDA’s own Food Additive list?
And why is the FDA so quick to dismiss animal data that doesn’t align with the priorities of its corporate partners, while insisting that CBD is unequivocally dangerous based on dubious extrapolations from animal data?
There is nothing healthy about diet sodas spiked with aspartame and other FDA-approved artificial sweeteners. An additive found in many processed food products, aspartame has specifically been linked to cancer. A 2013 study by Austrian scientists found that consumption of aspartame increased the risk of developing non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHLs) and multiple myeloma in men.
A subsequent study in Nutritional Neuroscience classified aspartame as a “chemical stressor … which may have adverse effects on neurobehavioral health.” This report and several others have linked the ubiquitous artificial sweetener to a dizzying array of side effects, including “seizures, headaches, mood disturbances, and reduced mental performance.”
A 2012 report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found an “increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or the metabolic syndrome with higher intake of diet soft drinks.”
Ironically, weight gain is another adverse side effect of artificially sweetened beverages.
Sodium benzoate is widely used as a flavor enhancer, preservative, and coloring agent. Found most often in carbonated beverages like sodas, it has been linked to increased risk of hyperactivity in kids.
Researchers have found that sodium benzoate, when combined with Vitamin C, can convert to benzene, a compound associated with cancer development. The FDA’s website even states, “Benzene is a carcinogen that can cause cancer in humans.”
When the FDA tested samples of beverages that contained sodium benzoate and vitamin C in 2006 and 2007, it found that “a small number of products sampled” had benzene levels higher than federal safety standards.
But a five-year study published in the Journal of Agricultural Food Chemistry found benzene concentrations in common foods and drinks with more than 20 times the maximum contaminant level set by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Rather than banning sodium benzoate altogether as a food additive, as it seeks to do with CBD, the FDA has allowed noncompliant processed food manufacturers to reformulate their products before releasing them back on the market as “safe.”
Can anyone explain why benzene, a potential carcinogen, is allowed to remain on the FDA’s list of “safe” food substances, while CBD — a known anti-tumoral and anti-proliferative agent — is not?
BVO is an emulsifier and “clouding agent” commonly used in sports drinks and citrus-flavored carbonated beverages, such as Gatorade, Mountain Dew, Dr. Pepper, and Fresca (a Coca-Cola product).
Bromine, the main component of BVO, is a poisonous chemical. The Centers for Disease Control recognizes that bromine-containing compounds are “likely to cause symptoms such as nausea and vomiting (gastrointestinal symptoms).” Bromine toxicity can also cause “skin lesions, memory loss and nerve disorders.”
The use of BVO as an additive dates back to the 1930s. When Congress passed the 1958 Food Additives Amendment, BVO was placed on the generally recognized as safe (GRAS) list.
But in 1970, the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers’ Association (FEMA) reviewed BVO’s GRAS status. “At that time, they decided that there was insufficient data to support a GRAS claim,” says a report from Food Quality & Safety, a scientific journal geared towards the food industry.
The FDA responded by temporarily revoking BVO’s GRAS status in 1970 and requesting that FEMA research the compound more diligently in animals. Based on this data, the FDA made an interim ruling that deemed BVO to be safe in drinks at amounts up to 15 parts per million. However, what was meant to be an interim FDA decision has never been revisited, and BVO’s approved status as a food additive remains unchanged.
BVO products, incidentally, are banned throughout Europe and Japan.
The integrity of the FDA process for approving food additives is fundamentally flawed. The FDA’s industry-friendly GRAS system has allowed food additive manufacturers to rampantly abuse a system that is supposed to protect public health. The onus to prove the safety of a food additive should not be left in the hands of the additive manufacturer.
A 2013 report from Pew Charitable Trust found that “financial conflicts of interest were ubiquitous in determinations that an additive to food was GRAS.” Furthermore, according to this report: “The lack of independent review in GRAS determinations raises concerns about the integrity of the process and whether it ensures the safety of the food supply, particularly in instances where the manufacturer does not notify the FDA of the determination.”
The FDA has neglected to address these concerns. Federal regulators have failed to complete a review of GRAS substances that the FDA began in the 1970’s. The program was halted due to limited resources. The FDA has also neglected to re-evaluate the safety of thousands of approved compounds even when new findings detail potential negative side effects. Once a chemical additive has been approved by the FDA, manufacturers have no incentive to add additional toxicology information because the FDA does not have a reassessment program in place. Nor does it have the authority to require additional testing.
As for prohibiting CBD as a food additive, the FDA lacks credibility when it professes great concern about safety.
https://www.projectcbd.org/politics/toxic-fda-approved-food-additives
Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
]]>In November 2005, my dependably robust health took a sudden swerve into the dark unknown. It started with an occasional dizzy spell. I’d be teaching a college writing class when suddenly I’d feel light-headed and woozy. Excusing myself to run to the restroom, I’d take deep breaths and splash cold water on my face.
My crash-and-burn had begun. Soon new scary symptoms were bursting forth every day or so. I had room-spinning vertigo. All-over pain that made turning my head or biting an apple a self-inflicted torture. Rashes sprang up. Veins bulged. My hair fell out in clumps.
Chewing or speaking would make my face throb and tingle before it went completely numb. When I managed to talk, I struggled to find basic words or form a sentence. Lights, noise, and motion became dreaded enemies, and nausea was a constant companion. I could hardly keep food down. Before long I had shrunk to a sack of bones. I felt as though I was being swallowed alive, my life-force squeezed out of me.
In a few weeks’ time I had morphed from a high functioning writer, professor, and parent into a sobbing lump of misery who could no longer drive a car, read a book, wash a dish, or hold a pen. I was so weak that a routine task — like taking a shower — would flatten me for hours. I spent my time lying motionless in bed, waiting for the day to end. But nightfall brought no respite. Restful sleep had become a distant memory.
My doctor ordered tests. And more tests. I saw a neurologist, an endocrinologist, an internist, an oral surgeon, several psychiatrists, and three ear-nose-and-throat specialists. I had an MRI and a CAT scan. My blood was analyzed by state-of-the art, high-tech labs. Various possible diagnoses were tossed around: lupus, Lyme Disease, a brain tumor, multiple sclerosis. Mitochondrial dysfunction, temporal mandibular joint disorder … One physician tried to convince me that my illness was due to a buildup of wax in my ears, which he promptly removed, then charged me $250.
One by one, each of these unfortunate scenarios was ruled out. But I was no closer to understanding what was happening to me – until my doctor uttered those fateful words: “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.” He pronounced his diagnosis somewhat dubiously, as if he doubted its legitimacy. He may as well have said, “We don’t know what it is or what to do about it, and at the moment there’s no cure.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), about 2.5 million people in the United States and 17 million worldwide suffer from myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). ME/CFS is a serious condition that can cause significant impairment, rendering 75% of sufferers disabled, with 25% homebound and even bedridden. Eighty percent of Americans who meet the criteria for ME/CFS have not been diagnosed. Complicating matters even more, many sufferers are dismissed as addled with a somatic symptom disorder, which basically means, “It’s all in your head,” and prescribed antidepressants.
“Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is a very challenging disease,” says Robert K. Naviaux, MD, head of the Mitochondrial and Metabolic Disease Center at UC San Diego School of Medicine. “It affects multiple systems of the body. Symptoms vary and are common to many other diseases. There is no diagnostic laboratory test. Patients may spend tens of thousands of dollars and years trying to get a correct diagnosis.”
ME/CFS is now recognized as a real disease by World Health Organization, the CDC, and the National Institutes for Health, with working groups at Stanford, Harvard, and elsewhere. But many doctors still are not adequately trained to deal with a chronic condition like ME/CFS. There are no FDA-approved treatments and any medications doctors prescribe are off-label and fraught with adverse side effects.
Modafinil, prescribed to combat sleepiness, can cause severe skin rashes and psychiatric events like psychosis, mania, delusions, hallucinations, suicidal ideas, and aggression. Cymbalta, prescribed for pain and depression, is addictive and can trigger severe withdrawal, as well as suicidal thoughts, nerve damage, and weight gain. Vyvanse, an addictive amphetamine, is another problematic choice.
Like many ME/CFS sufferers, I was desperate. I tried medications for pain, sleep, and depression, but nothing helped, and most made me feel worse. After several months on temporary disability, waiting and hoping to get better, I was forced to quit the teaching job I loved.
Though I hadn’t given up on life, I wondered if I should start planning my own funeral.
Due to the lack of effective FDA-approved treatments, many desperate ME/CFS patients resort to self-medicating. I was one of those people. I drained my dwindling funds on all kinds of alternative therapies in hopes of finding something — anything — that could help.
I gave up gluten, sugar, and animal products. I swallowed handfuls of supplements and gallons of a slimy green concoction I called “bug juice.” A highly recommended massage therapist pounded me to a pulp while tsk-tsking that “holding on to trauma held me back from getting better.” I received weekly acupuncture from a dear old Chinese gentleman who refused my money when it became clear he couldn’t help me.
I’d heard that some people with ME/CFS found cannabis to be helpful. I hadn’t smoked weed in years, and, frankly, getting stoned sounded like the last thing a completely incapacitated person ought to do. But I was willing to try anything. A resident of California, I obtained a recommendation for medical marijuana and went to a dispensary, where I bought a thimbleful of Purple Kush, a strain recommended by a young budtender for pain and sleep.
That night I rolled a shaggy THC-rich joint. I nervously took a hit and coughed. Within minutes something had shifted. The background noise of paralyzing pain grew quiet, and a calming sensation washed over me. I effortlessly floated off to sleep for the first time in more than a year. In the morning I felt different — not cured, but hopeful. I’d finally found something that helped.
According to ME/CFS researcher Dr. Nancy Klimas, drugs typically prescribed for sleep — like Ambien and Valium derivatives Restoril and Klonopin — can knock you out but won’t lead to the deep, restorative sleep so crucial for those afflicted with ME/CFS. Chronic insomnia inhibits the body’s ability to repair daily cellular damage, and this is especially destructive to these patients. To fall asleep and stay asleep is a turning point for those who manage to achieve it, and most notice subsequent improvement in their symptoms.
I continued my nightly toke of THC-rich cannabis, and after a few days I was able to get out of bed and totter around. I left the house for short walks, which grew longer over time. My appetite improved, and I started to gain some much-needed weight.
Then a friend told me about CBD, a non-intoxicating cannabinoid, which was at the time a novelty in California’s medical cannabis community. He thought it might help my condition. CBD-rich cannabis hadn’t yet become available in most medical cannabis dispensaries, but he sourced some flowers with a 2-to-1 CBD-to-THC ratio.
When I added CBD to my cannabis regimen, more symptoms relinquished their stranglehold. The pace was slow but noticeable. I spent less time in bed. I began to read and write again. One night, I went to see my daughter Melati’s theater performance, the first evening I’d been out in a year. Abundant, grateful tears fell as I watched her onstage. With the help of homegrown CBD-rich cannabis, I was coming back to life.
How is it possible that cannabis could help my ME/CFS when prescription medications couldn’t touch it, or did more harm than good? The answer might lie in new research that aims to explain what underlies the disease.
Until recently, one of the major challenges has been the lack of a clear biomarker — a measurable biological indicator of a disease’s existence — for ME/CFS. But soon there may be a reliable way to test for this disorder.
A 2016 study published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences identified a “characteristic chemical signature” in ME/CFS sufferers, with an underlying biology similar to the state of dauer. “Dauer, like hibernation,” the study explains, “is a means of preserving survival by severely curtailing functions of ordinary life such as energy, digestion and movement.”
Mark Davis, an immunologist at Stanford University, has made some interesting discoveries with T cells, a type of lymphocyte that plays a major role in the immune system. T cell overactivation was found in the blood of ME/CFS patients, similar to what’s found in immunological cases like cancer, multiple sclerosis or infections. A 2015 paper by German scientists reported a marked increase in specific antibodies of chronic fatigue patients. And more evidence of a hyper-inflammatory response was presented in a 2017 study by Davis and Jose Montoya, showing elevated cytokines.
“There’s been a great deal of controversy and confusion surrounding ME/CFS - even whether it is an actual disease,” Davis says. “Our findings show clearly that it’s an inflammatory disease and provide a solid basis for a diagnostic blood test.”
With chronic fatigue, the immune system, spurred by an unknown cause, goes into full aberrant fight mode, activating a hyper-inflammatory response and setting off a nightmarish carnival of symptoms. A 2015 article in Science Advances reported heightened immune activity in ME/CFS patients during the early phase of the disease that was “consistent with a viral trigger or disrupted immune regulatory networks.” But in later stages, the levels of immune disturbance were much lower. It appears that whatever immunological threat initially triggered the disease could have been resolved – and yet the body continued its inflammatory, foe-fighting stance.
In ME/CFS patients, inflammation and pain are like conjoined demon twins. When the body responds to a perceived threat, it sends out legions of chemicals into the blood and tissues to beat back foreign invaders. When functioning normally, this inflammatory response is an important, life-saving mechanism, but in ME/CFS sufferers it’s driving pedal-to-the-metal, with severe pain and other symptoms as a consequence.
Why would the body keep shadow-boxing against an opponent that’s not really there? Dr. Robert Naviaux at UC San Diego explores this question in a beautifully-written article about his work on ME/CFS, mitochondria and “cell danger response” (CDR) — a term describing the body’s cellular metabolic response to chemical, physical and biological threats. Naviaux found that in ME/CFS patients, the CDR persists abnormally: “Whole body metabolism and the gut microbiome are disturbed, the collective performance of multiple organ systems is impaired, behavior is changed, and chronic disease results.”
Given that a runaway immune response and marked inflammation are major players in ME/CFS, it makes sense that both CBD and THC, two potent anti-inflammatory compounds, could be profoundly therapeutic. Anecdotal evidence bears this out. Do a search in any ME/CFS social media support group, and you’ll find accounts from people who have successfully used cannabis and/or hemp-derived CBD to improve their symptoms.
There are many published reports demonstrating the effects of cannabis on inflammation. A 2010 study in Future Medicinal Chemistry indicated that several cannabinoids were found to calm the inflammatory response through multiple pathways, which led to a reduction of associated symptoms. A subsequent report by scientists at the University of South Carolina disclosed that a combination of THC and CBD suppressed neuroinflammation (swelling of the brain) in patients with MS. The same neuroinflammatory symptoms – linked to cognitive impairment and severe neuropsychological problems – have been observed in brain areas of ME/CFS patients. Thus it’s reasonable to consider that cannabis could also be efficacious for treating neuroinflammation in ME/CFS.
CBD might also help to alleviate the difficult mood problems that ME/CFS sufferers experience. Brazilian scientists reported that CBD has “acute anxiolytic and antidepressant-like effects” and “therapeutic potential over a wide range of non-psychiatric and psychiatric disorders such as anxiety, depression and psychosis.” This assessment concurs with anecdotal accounts from people using CBD products that are widely available in state-licensed cannabis storefronts and elsewhere via unregulated sources.
There are many claims about CBD’s utility as a sleep aide, but the science is less clear. Several animal studies and some human studies suggest that CBD’s anxiety-relieving properties may help to improve sleep onset and quality. In one study, the administration of a generous dose of CBD (160 mg/day) increased total sleep time and decreased the number of arousals during the night. But low-dose CBD has been associated with increased wakefulness, underscoring CBD’s biphasic, dose-dependent effect.
THC-rich cannabis has also been shown to be helpful for sleep – with some caveats. In a 2017 literature review pertaining to “cannabis, cannabinoids, and sleep,” THC was found to help patients fall asleep. But THC can also cause daytime drowsiness, and tolerance to THC can develop, rendering it less effective. The review notes that THC combined with CBD in a 1:1 ratio has been associated with sleep improvements among patients with chronic pain conditions. This synergistic interplay of plant cannabinoids can mitigate pain as well as insomnia, while reducing THC’s intoxicating effects.
THC, CBD, and other cannabis components confer therapeutic effects by interacting with what scientists refer to as the “endocannabinoid system.” A principal function of this system is to maintain homeostasis, a state of dynamic equilibrium that keeps everything running smoothly. People with ME/CFS are the living antithesis of homeostasis, their biological processes have gone completely bonkers.
If we blend what we know about the pathophysiology of ME/CFS with our current understanding of cannabis therapeutics, one overarching theme emerges: ME/CFS is a disease of total body disequilibrium, and cannabis is a biological equalizer with the potential to treat several symptoms simultaneously. For many of us who had all but given up hope of a normal life, it’s as if cannabis was tailor-made for our disorders. For the chronically ill, a little hope goes a long way.
It’s been almost fifteen years since I was taken down by a mystery illness. These days I am functioning at about 80 percent of my physiological capacity – and that feels like remission to me. I manage my health by eating a mostly plant-based diet, exercise, stress reduction, some supplements, and daily dosing with a CBD-rich tincture, with occasional THC-rich cannabis at night.
I won’t claim that cannabis completely cured my ME/CFS, but I will say that, as part of a broader healing protocol, it has helped immensely. I hardly think about my diagnosis anymore. There are other mysteries I’m curious about, and I’m busy unraveling them, and in the meantime, I’m thriving.
For more information on ME/CFS, including how to treat it with cannabis:
Health Rising: Finding Answers for ME/CFS and FM
https://www.projectcbd.org/medicine/cannabis-and-chronic-fatigue-syndrome
Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
]]>Project CBD received this testimonial from a Canadian medical cannabis patient:
In 2008, I seized up while taking several different medications – in large part due to mineral losses associated with the excess administration of cortisone acetate, an adrenal steroid hormone. This drug was administered as part of an adrenal hormone replacement project in conjunction with several other medications. I’ve spent the last 10 years fighting the life-threatening consequences of that bad reaction.
The seizure left me feeling traumatized psychologically and physically. Muscles around my ears ended up pinching nerves; there was asymmetry of my neck and a slight rotational pressure on my brain stem; and I developed severe refractory lockjaw -– any movement of my jaw, be it from eating, chewing or grinding, resulted in intense pain in my neck. The pain was horrendous, persistent, and fluctuated wildly.
None of the medications I was prescribed did anything to touch the pain.
I tried a variety of non-narcotic pain relievers, including anticonvulsants and antispasmodics. I started with Gabapentin in 2009, and quickly stopped when I developed life-threatening rage, depression and suicidal ideation. Then I took Tylenol and Arthrotec for eight years, but these drugs also failed to keep the pain away and my mental health issues took a serious turn for the worse. Things got so bad that I overdosed on two of the painkillers out of anger and despair over their inefficiency.
The reason that these medications did not work isn’t obvious to me, though I suspect it may have something to do with a dietary deficiency of potassium, which is depleted by chronic use of non-narcotic pain relievers. Still, I think that most non-cannabinoid medications are just toying with the body and actually make things worse by not addressing the underlying problems.
For almost ten years, I had a persistent spasm of the neck (torticollis) that would not go away until I started to use a combination of cannabis products. I think that cannabinoid molecules – tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) as well as cannabidiol (CBD) – helped immensely by inhibiting nerve responses, which I believe played a role in my torticollis.
To finally get my jaw to release and to relieve pressure on the nerves and muscles in my neck, I used a combination of smokable cannabis and CBD-rich oils. Throughout the day, I took 5mg each of THC and CBD in a 1:1 oil in lots of divided doses, and it finally got me to a place where now I can say I am pain-free. It has allowed me to move forward and function in a way I had not seen for years.
I am not sure if I am 100% cured, but I will say I am 90% on the way to not thinking about it. It has been a very long and difficult journey, but I am hopeful that I can make additional strides towards employment and financial independence.
Cannabinoids saved my sanity and my quality of life.
Thank you for listening to my story and for the work that you do.
Dennis Sloane, age 38, is a graduate of the University of Manitoba.
https://www.projectcbd.org/medicine/cbd-rescue
Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
]]>What do we actually know about the relationship between cannabis and sex?
From suppositories and lubes to massage oils and vape pens, there’s no shortage of cannabis products on the market that supposedly increase libido. And there’s also no shortage of claims about how cannabis can enhance pleasure and supercharge our sex lives.
A Stanford University study generated headlines in 2018 by revealing that regular cannabis users have 20 percent more sex than non-cannabis users. What’s more, according to several surveys cannabis consumers aren’t just having more sex – they’re having better sex, as well. And this could have significant implications for treating common sexual problems that burden much of the populace.
The Cleveland Clinic reports that issues with sexual function affect 43 percent of women and 31 percent of men in the United States. As it stands, effective treatments for sexual disorders are woefully inadequate. If cannabis could help with sexual function and performance issues — meaning anything from low libido and vaginal dryness to premature ejaculation and inability to reach orgasm — it would be the remedy that millions of people have been waiting for.
Despite the many claims about cannabis and sex, there’s currently no clinical research proving that cannabis has any direct influence on sexual experience. Official barriers to researching the plant — and the extremely nuanced and complicated science of sexuality — have frustrated efforts to study the relationship between cannabis consumption and sexual function.
Thus, we don’t have any double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trials on the effect that cannabis — or any single plant components, such as CBD (cannabidiol) or THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) — has on sexual experience. What we do have, however, is a mishmash of animal studies, surveys, and related research that make some interesting connections between the world of sex and the world of cannabis – connections that are that compelling enough to warrant further consideration.
Cannabis has been used as an herbal aphrodisiac for thousands of years. To cite just one example, practitioners of Ayurvedic medicine in ancient India often recommended cannabis to improve male sexual performance and virility. A review article in BioMed Research International, citing historical data in a section on “Ayurveda and the Concept of Aphrodisiacs,” referred to cannabis as a plant that delays ejaculation and improves ejaculatory function.
It appears that humans have been mixing cannabis and sex, with positive results, for quite a long time. But it wasn’t until relatively recently that academics began to focus on this area.
A 1979 study in the Journal of Clinical Psychology was among the first peer-reviewed papers to reveal substantial evidence of a link between cannabis and sexual functioning. Eighty-four graduate students were asked about their experience with cannabis and sex; the results showed that “experienced cannabis users” believed that the plant improved orgasm and should be considered an aphrodisiac. As the authors (Dawley et al) concluded: “The implication is that there may be value in researching the use of marijuana in treatment of sexual disorders.”
Similarly, a series of anonymous questionnaires given to college students in 1984 showed that over two-thirds reported greater sexual pleasure and satisfaction with cannabis use. Published in the Journal of Sex Research, this study also found that “most had used marijuana as a preparation for intercourse on occasion, and 20% did this on a regular basis.”
Indeed, most of what we know about cannabis and sex has been gathered through surveys. This is somewhat problematic as surveys rely primarily on a person’s memory. Survey responses are highly subjective – “enjoyable sex” could mean many different things depending on the individual.
Why does cannabis lend itself so well to sexual intimacy?
According to a 2017 report by Czech scientists in Psychopharmacology, cannabis stimulates a part of the brain called the right nucleus accumbens, which also plays an important role in controlling sexual arousal. Otherwise known as the brain’s pleasure center, the nucleus accumbens is densely populated with CB1 cannabinoid receptors that are activated directly by THC and indirectly by CBD.
CB1 receptors are part of what scientists refer to as the endocannabinoid system (ECS), the major regulatory mechanism in the brain and body that balances many physiological processes and mediates how we experience the effects of cannabis.
As it turns out, there’s quite a bit of overlap between the ECS and the physiology of sexual function. For starters, cannabinoid receptors are located in organs that produce sex hormones, as well as in the reproductive organs themselves. Cannabinoid receptors are also present on the axon terminals of dopaminergic and serotonergic neurons, which play an important role in sexual function and interact with testosterone, estrogen, and oxytocin to modulate sexual response. The ECS influences the ebb and flow of various hormones and neurotransmitters.
Italian scientist Mauro Maccarone has described the ECS as “the guardian angel” or “gatekeeper” of mammalian reproduction. Extensive preclincal research has established that cannabinoid receptor signaling is involved in every stage of the reproductive process – from sexual arousal to climax to fertilization to embryo implantation and throughout fetal development.
A 2012 study by U.S. and Canadian researchers shed additional light on connection between the ECS and sex. The authors (Klein et al) measured serum concentrations of the endocannabinoids 2-AG and AEA (the brain’s own marijuana-like compounds) in 21 healthy women before and after they viewed neutral and erotic film stimuli. Sexual arousal was also measured through vaginal photoplethysmography, a technique that allows you to observe volumetric changes in an organ or body. Another device, called an “arousometer,” measured continuous subjective arousal throughout the duration of the film.
The findings of this experiment were published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine. The authors observed a direct correlation between circulating endocannabinoid levels and sexual arousal in women: AEA concentrations dropped significantly as female sexual arousal increased, and 2-AG concentrations were also “significantly negatively correlated with increased perceptions of physiological sexual arousal, overall subjective sexual arousal, and increased continuous subjective sexual arousal.”
When arousal culminates in climax, our endocannabinoid levels suddenly spike, according to a 2017 paper titled “Masturbation to Orgasm Stimulates the Release of the Endocannabinoid 2-Arachidonoylglycerol in Humans.” In this report, a team of German scientists noted that “endocannabinoids are critical for rewarding behaviors such as eating, physical exercise, and social interaction,” as well as sexual pleasure. Published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, the results of this single-blind randomized study showed that 2-AG is released after climax and “may play a role in the rewarding consequences of sexual arousal and orgasm.”
According to a 2019 survey of 373 women published in Women’s Sexual Health, more than half of those who had used marijuana before sex reported an increase in sex drive and better orgasms. Similar findings were highlighted in a 2019 review paper — titled “Effects of Cannabinoids on Female Sexual Function” — coauthored by Becky Lynn, M.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Women’s Health at St. Louis University School of Medicine. Lynn’s team concluded that combining cannabis and sex appears to be associated with prolonged and more satisfying orgasms.
Physiologically speaking, what explains the positive associations between cannabis use and sexual experience? There are likely dozens of factors involved. THC and CBD are both vasodilators, which means that cannabis relaxes and dilates blood vessels. And vasodilation plays a key role in sexual arousal. Cannabis can also improve sexual function by reducing anxiety and pain, which are common barriers to positive sexual experience. Seventy percent of 199 men and women, who responded to a survey by University of British Columbia researchers, said they could relax more during sex when they used cannabis.
In a 2011 review of existing research titled “Impact of Cannabis Use on Male Sexual Health,” two Canadian doctors suggested that cannabis may actually promote erectile dysfunction. But the same review article also concluded that “most results of these studies are conflicting and contradictory.” These inconsistent findings may be attributable to the biphasic nature of cannabis and its key components, THC and CBD, whereby low and high doses generate opposite effects.
The dose-dependent signaling of CB1 cannabinoid receptors – which THC and CBD interact with – could have a major impact on the quality of stoned sex. Multiple sources have shown that the CB1 receptors play an important role in sexual function. A 2008 Canadian study determined that antagonism of CB1 receptors promotes ejaculation, which suggests that CB1 could be “a novel target for pharmacological agents aimed at treating ejaculatory-based sexual dysfunction.”
From this one can reasonably infer that a moderate dose of cannabis, which stimulates CB1, will delay ejaculation, while a high dose could desensitize the receptor and inhibit how it signals, thereby facilitating ejaculatory processes. A similar dynamic may apply to marijuana’s impact on libido: a small amount of cannabis tends to energize, while a large amount can be sedating. In support of this theory, a 2011 study on rats showed that low doses of THC enhanced lordosis (a measure of libido), but high doses did not.
So when it comes to cannabis and sexual pleasure, a little less weed might mean a lot more fun.
https://www.projectcbd.org/wellness/sex-and-cannabis
Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
]]>In what has become an annual autumn networking ritual, the International Association for Cannabinoid Medicines (IACM) hosted a three-day conference (October 31 - November 2) in Berlin. Cannabis geriatrics and age-related pathologies were major topics at this year’s gathering of preeminent scientists, physicians, educators, and business representatives.
Seniors are currently the fastest-growing demographic of cannabis users worldwide, but is cannabis safe for the elderly? What might be the benefits?
These questions were addressed by Israeli researchers who examined clinically supervised cannabis use among the elderly. Dr. Ilya Reznik discussed the findings of a prospective observational study, which involved 184 elderly patients at a geriatric clinic in Israel. Eighty-three percent of the patients were 75 years or older.
The study entailed a comprehensive examination of each patient at the outset of cannabis therapy, plus a follow-up evaluation six months later. None of the participants enrolled in the study had any previous experience with cannabis. Most suffered from chronic pain (77%) and other age-related conditions, such as sleep disturbances, cancer-related symptoms, mood disorders, and Parkinson’s Disease.
The majority of the subjects (66%) utilized cannabis oil sublingually as the sole method of administration, and half of them took three doses daily.
The investigators sought to assess the efficacy of cannabis and the frequency and risk of adverse cognitive and cardiovascular effects, as well as postural instability and other problems. For the most part, side effects were relatively mild, affecting one third of the seniors enrolled in the study; these included dizziness (12%), sleepiness (11%), and dryness of the mouth.
Most significantly, the six-month follow-up appraisal revealed that one-third of the cannabis patients were able to discontinue opioids, as well as other pharmaceutical painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs.
In his presentation, Dr. Addie Ron, an Israeli geriatric specialist and colleague of Dr. Resnick, shared details of the medical cannabis protocol that their team successfully designed and implemented at the Soroka University Research Institute and Clinic, which sponsored the prospective observational study of elderly patients.
The first step prior to commencing cannabis-based therapy involved a case-by-case, risk-benefit analysis of older adult participants. A cautious approach was recommended due to polypharmacy, nervous system impairment, potential cardiovascular risk, and pharmacokinetic variables.
In keeping with the principle “Primum non nŏcēre” or “do no harm,” the typical protocol required a start-low, go-slow approach to dosing cannabis – with a 5mg increase every 7 days until reaching the desired effects. Specifically, this is how patients were told to titrate their cannabis medicine:
Each patient’s progress was closely monitored for side effects and efficacy; when the desired effect was achieved, the dosage stabilized with no need for further increase.
Most patients chose to consume cannabis oil via sublingual administration – with positive results for all involved. With respect to THC (with CBD), the prospective observational study found that a low, nonintoxicating dose, comprising between 0.75 mg and 1.5 mg of THC twice daily, was well tolerated and resulted in better functioning, increased body weight, improvement in cognition, decreased constipation, and improved mobility.
With 35 million people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s worldwide, there is an urgent, unmet need for innovative approaches to treating this degenerative neurological illness. Can cannabis help someone suffering from dementia?
Dr. Javier Fernandez-Ruiz and a group of researchers at Complutense University in Madrid, Spain, are probing the role of the endocannabinoid system in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). At IACM, Fernandez-Ruiz presented research showing that cannabinoid receptors – which are instrumental in the preservation, rescue, and/or replacement of neural cells in a healthy brain – become dysregulated during AD neurodegeneration.
Certain prescription meds, such as Donepezil, work by inhibiting an enzyme known as acetylcholinesterase, which breaks down acetylcholine, a key neurotransmitter involved in memory and cognition. Scientists have learned that cannabinoids – in particular, THC – act in a similar way as they also inhibit acetylcholinesterase. Moreover, cannabinoids can confer other possible benefits, as well, such as increased appetite, weight gain, and decreased anxiety and aggression.
Another team of Israeli scientists, in collaboration with Tikkun Olam, a medical cannabis producer, conducted a phase II randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled study to determine the safety and efficacy of whole plant CBD-rich oil for treating Alzheimer’s-related agitation, one of the most common symptoms in patients with severe dementia.
64 patients, average age 79, were enrolled in this clinical trial, which lasted 16 weeks (6 weeks titration and 10 weeks of assessments during stable dosage). Weekly medical examinations focused on the following:
By the end of this study, which found no significant adverse effects, 72% of patients treated with CBD-rich oil (compared to 30% of the placebo group) achieved relief from dementia-induced agitation. The authors concluded that CBD-rich oil is a safe treatment that can reduce agitation and other adverse behavioral symptoms in patients with dementia.
The research and clinical experiences reported at IACM 2019 confirm the strong safety profile of cannabis-based medication for the senior population, especially when THC levels are balanced by high levels of CBD and the remedies are administered sublingually. Scientists and doctors have also observed promising results with cannabis therapy that may help to improve the quality of life of older adults by mitigating normal as well as pathological age-related decline. For senior citizens that means improvement in cognition and mobility, increased body weight, decreased constipation, and better overall functioning.
https://www.projectcbd.org/medicine/its-never-too-late-start-using-medical-cannabis
Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
]]>Cannabis and its extracts, like CBD oil, can be consumed in an astounding number of ways. Most options fall into a few general categories, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. You’ll experience different effects if you smoke CBD-rich flower or vape a THC-rich cartridge; swallow a gelcap or drop CBD oil under your tongue.
Everybody processes cannabis and cannabinoids a little differently. The diversity of human experience means that finding your ideal form of cannabis consumption may take some experimentation.
The key differences between ways of using cannabis pertain to these questions:
The dosage required, of course, depends on the quality of the product and the reason for its use. The doses we describe below are based on initially managing the psychoactivity of THC.
When drugs are inhaled through the lungs, they are sent to the brain before getting metabolized by the liver. This makes inhalation the fastest method for administering cannabis. Usually, between 20-30% of the phytocannabinoids like THC and CBD are absorbed this way. The heat from either smoking or vaporizing cannabis converts the acid cannabinoids into their neutral forms.
The short onset and duration make inhalation appropriate for acute problems (e.g. nausea or acute pain). The near-immediate onset also allows patients to titrate (adjust) and quickly find a desired dose. For those new to THC, overdose (getting too high) is short-lived when inhaling compared to other methods.
One inhales cannabinoids by smoking or vaporizing flower. Cannabis oil extracts can also be vaporized or dabbed. The main issue with smoking is that smoke is harmful to the lungs. Although smoking cannabis is not associated with lung cancer or COPD, there are health issues associated with breathing any kind of smoke (e.g. chronic cough, congestion, asthma). The cannabinoid tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV) appears not to vaporize well, so smoking or non-inhaled administration methods may be necessary to get benefits from THCV.
Vaporizing, compared with smoking, has a slightly slower onset but facilitates better absorption. Although vaping is generally better for the lungs, thinning agents and other additives in oil extracts and cartridges can break down into carcinogens when heated in poorly-made vaporizers. This is not an issue when vaporizing flower.
Both flower and oil can be vaporized, but there is very little research on the effects of vaporizing oil concentrates. Oil extracts will have different terpene and cannabinoid profiles than the cannabis plants from which they are derived. On the other hand, flower is one of the least consistent products – consumers cannot always access the same plants.
Ingested cannabinoids are absorbed through the intestines and sent to the liver. It takes about an hour to feel effects when taken on an empty stomach, or up to three hours with food. People should not re-dose THC edibles for at least three hours after ingestion.
On the way to the liver, cannabinoids will interact with receptors in the gut, so the effect on conditions like inflammatory bowel disease will be more pronounced. Once in the liver, three enzymes will start to modify THC and CBD in a process called “first-pass metabolism.” THC is largely converted to 11-OH-THC, which appears to cause a stronger high than THC. This, along with the long duration of edibles, is why new users should become comfortable with being high before using edibles containing more than 5 mg of THC.
The longer-lasting effect of edibles and capsules make them suitable for many chronic conditions.
Oral-mucosal drugs are absorbed directly into the blood vessels in the mouth and under the tongue. If sprayed under the tongue, the patient should try to wait at least one minute before swallowing (see Accidental Ingestion below.) Effects usually start after 15-30 minutes and peak around an hour and a half after administration. For consistency, it is best to avoid eating immediately before or after using a tincture. [4]
Oral mucosal tinctures usually come in one of two forms: an under-the-tongue spray or a dropper with a marking at a specific volume (usually 0.5 ml or 1.0 ml). This allows for consistent, measurable dosing. Pay close attention to the labels on these products. Products should be labeled with the dose of cannabinoids per spray or per ml.
Tinctures involve a solvent like ethanol or sesame oil. [5] Some of the adverse side effects attributed to cannabis extracts may actually be due to ingesting large amounts of the carrier oil.
Although sublingual sprays can provide rapid and precise dosing, they are often confusing for patients. If you spray CBD oil under the tongue but then swallow immediately, your body will process most of it like an edible. This means that you will receive a lower dose over a longer period of time. With CBD products, this may just make for a weaker effect. But with a THC-rich tincture, people may take another dose after half an hour – thinking they hadn’t had enough – leading to accidental intoxication with THC.
Low doses of cannabinoids have not been shown to cause problematic interactions with other drugs. When people start using hundreds or thousands of milligrams of CBD, however, the body may struggle to break down the other pharmaceuticals a person is taking. But such high doses are not normally required for therapeutic benefit when using quality products. People with certain conditions or those who can only access CBD isolates may need to use large doses. Tell your doctor if you are taking high doses of CBD, so that she or he can help manage potential cannabinoid-drug interactions.
The metabolism of THC plays a pivotal role in its psychoactivity. About 20-25% of people of European descent have genetic mutations that slow the metabolism of THC [6]; this mutation is less common in those of Asian or African descent. People with this mutation may be considerably more sensitive to the effects of THC; it can double or triple the dose someone experiences. The effect is most dramatic for edibles, so people should understand their sensitivity to THC before using edibles.
Topicals and rubs are one of the more common kinds of cannabis products. They can be used effectively for skin or joint issues, but will not be absorbed into the bloodstream. The presence of terpenes or non-intoxicating acid cannabinoids (THCA and CBDA) seem to increase skin permeation, but still not enough to get it into the blood. Large concentrations of terpenes in topical products may irritate and damage the skin.
Although transdermal products are applied to the skin, their effects are nothing like topicals. A transdermal patch is designed to release cannabinoids into the bloodstream at a constant rate. If it has THC, the user can experience psychoactive effects.
Transdermal administration should confer an experience somewhat like sublingual use, although a transdermal patch could be designed to work for longer periods of time. It’s worth noting, however, that a transdermal CBD isolate failed to treat epilepsy in a clinical trial, whereas a sublingual CBD isolate was successful. Any company claiming to market a transdermal product should have public data demonstrating how well it is absorbed.
Cannabinoids are sticky, waxy chemicals. They like to mix with oil, not water. There are, however, a number of ways to get cannabinoids to dissolve in water [7], allowing for products like CBD-infused and THC-infused beverages. But the research in this area is limited. The processes that make cannabinoids soluble in water may also make it easier for your body to absorb THC and CBD. This means that such products will have a quicker onset compared to an edible (as quick as 20 minutes) and the dose may be stronger over a shorter period of time.
The process of solubilzing CBD and/or THC can reverse over time, so groups developing water-soluble formulations need to ensure the stability of their product. On the whole, ingesting water-soluble cannabinoids shouldn’t be much different than ingesting an edible, though the former may turn out to be faster acting and a bit more potent.
Adrian Devitt-Lee is Project CBD’s chief science writer. Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
https://www.projectcbd.org/how-to/use-cbd-and-cannabis
Footnotes
1. Consumer Reports suggests looking for products made by companies in states that have legalized the recreational and medical use of cannabis “since they tend to have stricter standards.” If you live in a “CBD-only” state, choose CBD products made with American-grown hemp (from Colorado, Kentucky, Oregon, Montana, Vermont, Tennessee, etc.) rather than foreign sources.
2. Choose “full spectrum” CBD-rich oil extracts, not isolate, distillate or products labeled “pure CBD” or “no THC.” Full spectrum means it includes numerous cannabis compounds, including a small amount of THC. If THC is completely illegal in your state, opt for so-called “broad spectrum” CBD oil products that include other cannabis components but no THC.
3. Look for product labels that indicate the amount of CBD and THC per serving – not just the total cannabinoid content for the entire bottle.
4. Beware of companies that make explicit health claims about CBD products (this is not allowed by the FDA).
5. Seek out CBD-rich products derived from high-resin cannabis grown sustainably in accordance with certified regenerative organic standards.
6. Avoid CBD hemp oil vape cartridge products with toxic thinning agents (such as propylene glycol and polyethylene glycol), flavor additives, and other harmful ingredients.
7. Avoid poor quality CBD-infused gummies made with corn syrup and artificial colors.
8. Think twice about brands that claim their CBD is derived from the seed and stalk of the hemp plant. CBD is not present in hempseed and barely any CBD is present on the stalk of the hemp plant.
9. Beware of multilevel marketing schemes and companies that seek to sign you up right away for recurring purchases.
10. Don’t be afraid to contact CBD companies directly and ask questions. And if you cannot reach them directly, try another brand.
https://www.projectcbd.org/how-to/10-tips-for-buying-cbd
Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
]]>The use of cannabis to treat seizures is nothing new. Cannabis has been described as a therapy for people with seizures for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
In recent years, cannabis, and cannabidiol (CBD) in particular, are once again being considered for the treatment of seizures in both humans and animals.
In ancient times, cannabis was used for seizures based purely on observational data, but today in-depth scientific research is being conducted to determine how and why cannabis is beneficial in the effort to determine how best to limit, and hopefully eliminate, seizures.
Despite the renewed interest and availability for research funding, the mechanisms by which cannabis effects seizures are still unclear. One consideration is a specific receptor on neurons, known as “GPR55,” which is thought to mediate seizure activity through regulating the excitability of neurons. CBD appears to limit GPR55’s ability to cause neuronal excitation which is speculated to reduce seizures.
Additionally, some studies have shown epileptic patients to have reduced anandamide (AEA) concentrations in their cerebrospinal fluid and/or alterations in their CB1 receptors. AEA is one of the naturally occurring neurotransmitters in the body that regulates the endocannabinoid system (ECS). CB1 receptors, also part of the ECS, are binding sites for AEA and changes in AEA and/or CB1 receptors are presumed to lead to changes in levels of other neurotransmitters that may ultimately lead to seizure activity. Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) binds CB1 receptors and, in this way, may reduce seizure activity.
Pre-clinical research into other cannabinoids and terpenes suggest other compounds found in cannabis may also be effective for seizure treatment. For practical and legal reasons, however, much of the current research focuses on CBD.
Although the exact reasons why cannabis compounds have a positive effect on seizures are not crystal clear, great strides have been made with regards to their therapeutic use. In 2018, the FDA approved the first cannabis-derived pharmaceutical, Epidiolex. A single-molecule CBD formulation, Epidiolex is approved for the use of refractory seizures in two forms of pediatric epilepsy known as Lennox-Gastaut and Dravet Syndromes. Not only is Epidiolex of great benefit for the children it helps, the drug also represents a huge step forward in the federal government’s acknowledgement of the medicinal value of cannabis.
Veterinary specific research has also taken a big step forward this year with the publishing of the first clinical trial evaluating the effects of CBD on seizures in epileptic dogs. The study, conducted at Colorado State University, evaluated seizure frequency in dogs with and without the use of CBD. Results showed an 89% reduction in seizure frequency in dogs who received 2.5 mg/kg CBD twice daily compared to a 43% reduction in dogs not receiving CBD. Both groups of dogs were receiving other anti-seizure pharmaceuticals at the time of the study which is the reason the group not receiving CBD had a large reduction in seizures, as well. While these results are considered statistically significant, they are certainly not as dramatic as many hoped they would be. The authors noted this in their conclusions and stated further studies are warranted to see if higher doses of CBD may be more beneficial in the treatment of seizures in dogs.
One specific point to note about the study is the CBD formula used was not a CBD “isolate.” The hemp-based formula contained “trace amounts of other cannabinoids” which may or may not have contributed to its efficacy. Research suggests that multiple cannabinoids (CBD, THC, and others) as well as terpenes have anti-seizure properties and it may be that greater effects can be found with a “broader spectrum” formulation.
Speaking from the perspective of the benefits of “whole plant medicine,” broad spectrum formulations are usually more effective than single components. That said, from a research perspective, using pure CBD would clarify what effects are specific to the one compound.
Anecdotal reports from pet owners and veterinarians suggest that cannabis can not only reduce seizure frequency, it may be able to lessen seizure severity, shorten recovery time, and potentially even prevent an imminent seizure if the animal is medicated at the first signs of trouble.
With research ongoing, we certainly see promise in the use of CBD, and potentially other cannabinoids, for the treatment of seizures in animals. That said, cannabis as medicine should be used with caution. CBD given at moderate to high doses can potentially effect blood levels of other medications, including anti-seizure drugs. Because of this, it may be necessary to monitor levels at the beginning of cannabis therapy. For the safety of your furry family members, always consult with your veterinarian before starting any form of cannabis therapy for your pet.
https://www.projectcbd.org/medicine/cannabis-therapy-seizures-animals
Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
Late last year, Bloomberg reported that Coca-Cola was in serious talks with Aurora Cannabis, a Canadian company, to develop a CBD-infused beverage. While the news provoked little more than an eye-roll for some, others were shocked and dismayed, including Warren Buffett, a 10% Coca-Cola, Inc. shareholder and billionaire junk food addict who drinks five Cokes a day.
“It would be a mistake for Coca-Cola to get into the marijuana–cannabis business,” Buffet opined. “They have a wholesome image and that would be detrimental to it.”
The “wholesome image” that Buffet seeks to protect is really just that – an image, one that Coke has shrewdly crafted since the inception of its brand in 1886. Maintaining and promoting ‘The Pause that Refreshes’ has certainly paid off. Coca-Cola is the largest and most popular soft drink company on the planet, with 500 different brands distributed worldwide. Ninety-four percent of the world’s population recognizes the Coca-Cola logo.
Around 2005, while Coke was rapidly growing its syrupy drink market share in the developing world, its soda pop sales were sinking at home as Americans in increasing numbers turned to bottled water. Coke responded by getting into the bottled water racket, adding “health” and “sports” drinks to its beverage repertoire while occasionally embroiled in legal kerfuffles, like when it made unsubstantiated health claims about its heavily-sweetened Vitaminwater.
Now Coke apparently wants to join the CBD profiteering parade. CBD is short for “cannabidiol,” a nonintoxicating component of cannabis that has gone mainstream. A compound that until recently was known mostly in underground, fringe academic and science circles, CBD is now coveted by many as a magical cure-all.
Americans have gone plum crazy over cannabidiol. A 2019 survey by Consumer Reports showed that one in four have tried CBD at least once in the past two years, and a significant number of those continue to use it every day.
According to this report, millennials use CBD mostly for stress and anxiety, while boomers typically rely on it for pain and insomnia. Some people find it helpful for getting off opioid medication. But a significant number purportedly just use CBD to relax, thus making it, in the minds of corporate drink moguls, the perfect additive for a beverage.
According to Zenith Global, a food and beverage consulting firm, the cannabis- and CBD-infused beverage market is predicted to grow to over $1.4 billion in the next three years. Already, several big players in the weed and drink sectors have teamed up.
Constellation Brands, makers of wines, liquors, and beers (including Corona), invested $4 billion in Canopy Growth, a major Canadian cannabis company. Heineken, through its subsidiary Lagunitas, has partnered with CannaCraft, the California cannabis exemplar, to launch “Hi-Fi Hops,” a non-alcoholic, unsweetened herbal beverage infused with CBD and/or THC. And Tilray, also from Canada, is looking to do something similar with Anheuser-Busch.
If Coke decides to add a CBD-infused beverage to its product portfolio, the company will have ample means to promote its new offering. With a $3 billion annual advertising budget, Coke aims to convince consumers that its products are compatible with a healthy lifestyle. CBD, a wellness all-star, could be a great asset for Coca-Cola’s image-crafters, who go to great lengths to deflect attention from the company’s unwholesome history and the adverse health effects of its sugar-laden sodas and other drinks.
While ad jingles cheerily proclaim that “things go better with Coke,” Americans are guzzling almost 11 pounds of sugar per person each year just from Coca-Cola alone. (One bottle of Coca-Cola Classic contains a whopping 27 grams of refined sugar, more than the American Heart Association’s daily recommendation.) Consumption of sugary drinks is a major risk factor for obesity and many chronic diseases. As Coca-Cola spread across the globe, it also spread across the world’s waistlines, increasing girth and decreasing life span.
There is a clear link between excessive sugar intake and epidemic levels of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, dementia, depression, and other manifestations of metabolic syndrome. High sugar diets promote inflammation and insulin resistance, both of which increase the likelihood of cancer and kidney disease.
Published in JAMA (2017), a study of 451,743 individuals in ten European countries found that greater consumption of sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened soft drinks is associated with a higher risk of all-cause mortality. The results of this population-based cohort study underscored the need for public health measures to reduce the consumption of soft drinks – measures that Coke has consistently opposed.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the percentage of obese children and adolescents has more than tripled since the 1970s. Data from 2016 indicates that nearly 20 percent of school-age children and young adults are obese. Sweetened soft drinks are a major culprit. Sugar accounts for up to 14 percent of the total caloric intake of children, and up to 17 percent for adults.
In March 2015, the World Health Organization published a report that identified sugary drinks as a primary cause of childhood obesity and urged countries to limit their soda consumption.
Coca-Cola’s public relations apparatus went into overdrive. The company launched a misleading PR campaign – involving Coke-subsidized scientists and front groups – to convince consumers and policymakers that the scourge of childhood obesity is driven by a lack physical activity rather than by widespread overindulgence in sweetened food and beverages.
Exercise is a must for people of all ages, but when it comes to good health no one can out-exercise a crappy diet.
Coca-Cola and other sugar-sweetened sodas, juices, and teas are typically loaded with high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a particularly pernicious refined sugar that’s pervasive in processed food. Why is HFCS so bad for us, compared to fructose in an apple, for example?
For starters, an apple contains fructose but also lots of fiber that slows digestion. A study published in Obesity Reviews found that sugary drinks are metabolized by the body differently than solid foods containing the same amount of sugars.
Unlike eating an apple, when we imbibe sugary drinks “the journey from liquid sugar to blood sugar happens quickly, delivering more sugar to the body’s vital organs than they can handle,” according to the educational website Sugarscience. “Over time, that can overload the pancreas and liver, leading to serious diseases like diabetes, heart disease and liver disease.”
Excessive HFCS consumption can cause resistance to leptin, a hormone that regulates hunger and tells you to stop eating. And that throws everything out of whack.
What’s more, a sugar-charged beverage like Coke is chock full of empty calories lacking in nutritional value. Consequently, Coke and other sweetened drinks don’t produce a complete “satiation sequence,” meaning that they don’t give us a feeling of fullness and they don’t curb our appetite. This makes it more likely that we’ll keep swigging Coca-Cola, thereby leading to weight gain.
Even more disturbing, a 2019 study published in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Review showed that sugar alters part of the brain that’s responsible for impulse control and addiction, making it even harder to resist the sugary foods causing the neural changes in the first place. Sugar makes you want more sugar. Think of HFCS as an addictive drug with greater disease liability than cigarette smoking.
How apropos that America’s favorite soda gets its name from the addictive, cocaine-laced formula the original Coke was based on.
Concerned about gaining weight from too much sugar, many people opt instead for artificially sweetened diet soda. But artificially sweetened drinks might be even worse for your health than regular soda.
Contrary to popular perception, artificial sweeteners can actually stimulate hunger and increase carb cravings. Diet soda has been linked to poor health outcomes, including weight gain and raised blood sugar levels, which are consistent with metabolic syndrome.
Aspartame, the artificial sweetener found in Diet Coke, is implicated in a long list of harmful effects, ranging from insomnia, headaches, and seizures to depression, diabetes, and preterm delivery.
Diet drinks and artificial sugar substitutes also promote gut dysbiosis, resulting in the proliferation of unfriendly intestinal bacteria that wreak havoc on one’s health.
Instead of avoiding sugar by turning to diet soda and artificially sweetened snacks, better to boycott processed foods altogether.
Coca-Cola’s role as a groundwater polluter and creator of over 100 billion plastic bottles annually, its alleged support for union-busting and abusive regimes in the developing world – these activities are beyond the scope of this article. The focus here is on how Coke in all its forms is bad for human health.
It’s fair to ask: Could adding a dollop of CBD isolate to a soft drink counteract the metabolic mayhem caused by refined sugar or artificial sweeteners? CBD is a potent anti-inflammatory, and sugar-induced obesity is an inflammatory condition. If soda pop is so treacherous, would mixing in some CBD make it healthier? What’s wrong with that idea?
f preclinical research is any indication, CBD could emerge as a much-needed corrective for metabolic disorders. A 2006 Israeli study found that CBD lowers the incidence of diabetes in a mouse model. And a 2016 article in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry showed that cannabidiol does exactly the opposite of what sugar does – CBD helps to burn fat and it promotes the “browning” of white adipose tissue, a process associated with better health.
Lest we forget: CBD and other cannabis products work best when used as part of a healthy lifestyle, not as a feel-good excuse to consume harmful drinks and empty calories. Sugary drinks are unhealthy with or without CBD.
Coca-Cola, for the time being, has nixed any plans to make a CBD-spiked soda. The company released a statement asserting that it has “no interest in marijuana or cannabis.” But it acknowledges that it is “closely watching the growth of non-psychoactive CBD as an ingredient in functional wellness beverages around the world.”
In the meantime, I’ll take my CBD straight up, no high fructose chaser.
https://www.projectcbd.org/wellness/cbd-and-coke
Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
]]>Cancer doesn’t play favorites. It doesn’t care what color you are, if you’re young or old, or whether you live in a penthouse apartment or a shanty town. When the diagnosis comes, as it will for half of us in our lifetime, we pin our hopes on accessing the best treatment to maximise our chance of survival.
Almost exactly a year ago, 30-year-old George Gannon found himself facing a bleak future. Doctors had discovered more than 12 tumors in his brain. The melanoma he’d had removed three years previously had metastasized.
The aggressive nature of George’s BRAF positive melanoma meant that even with standard treatments of radiotherapy, immunotherapy, and chemotherapy, his tumors had increased in size. With a prognosis of six months and no options left on the table, cannabis seemed to be the only hope.
George was determined to source a cannabis oil containing THC, the cannabinoid which until now has the most robust evidence for anti-tumoral effects. But living in the UK meant that anything other than the hemp-based CBD oils was illegal. So he turned to the black market.
George began taking his cannabis oil just before Christmas last year. By his next MRI scan in March, his tumors had stopped growing. For the next few months he resumed low doses of chemo, never once stopping his cannabinoid therapy.
The next scan in August, was a surprise to both George and his oncologist: the main mass on his left ventricle had disappeared and the other remaining lesions had decreased in size.
The oncologist – who had repeatedly told George to stop taking cannabis oil – said it was the best day of his professional career. But he wouldn’t acknowledge that cannabis may have played a part in the cancer’s reversal.
The oncologist’s reaction typified the skepticism of health professionals with respect to cannabis and cancer. Without solid evidence from clinical trials, most doctors dismiss the idea that cannabis could have antitumoral effects in patients. Which begs the question – How far away are we from getting the solid clinical evidence necessary to convince the medical profession that cannabis is a serious anticancer treatment?
The only way for a drug to make it into the oncologists’ anticancer arsenal is for it to successfully pass through three phases of randomized double-blind placebo clinical trials testing safety, dosing, and efficacy.
Thirteen years have passed since the first small pilot study was conducted by Professor Manuel Guzman and his group at the Complutense University in Madrid.
They tested the safety and antitumoral action of THC on a small group of patients with recurrent glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer – and the results were encouraging.
Project CBD spoke to Guzman to find why, more than a decade later, progress has been so slow. One answer lies in the nature of cancer itself.
“Cancer is a very complex disease,” says Guzman. “There are at least 150 different types of cancer from a histological point of view and there are hundreds if not thousands from a molecular or genetic profile standpoint. So when we speak about cannabis or any treatment for cancer, first you should define what type of cancer we are dealing with because it’s really unlikely that a unique substance or a mixture of related substances, as is the case in cannabis, will be effective in all types of cancer.”
To this date, all cannabis-based clinical trials have focused on patients with glioblastoma. GW Pharmaceuticals followed up Guzman’s pilot study with a yet unpublished phase I/II trial using Sativex, a 1:1 THC:CBD sublingual tincture, alongside temozolomide, the standard chemotherapy treatment for glioblastoma.
According to a 2017 GW Pharma press release, administering a combination of Sativex and temozolomide increased one year survival rate by 30% and increased the median survival to 550 days from 369 days with temozolomide alone.
“[The GW study] is the first and so far the only trial that has been conducted on cannabinoids and cancer that is more robust, that it is controlled by placebo, and is randomized,” says Guzman. “It’s also a double-blind trial in which neither the patient nor the doctor knows whether the patient is taking Sativex or the placebo.
“That trial was also promising. It has enhanced our optimism that maybe cannabinoid drugs can have an anti-tumour effect, at least in glioblastoma and at least in the relapsing phase. But we have very little clinical information only for one specific type of cancer. I hope that other cancers will be treated with cannabinoids in the frame of a controlled clinical trial. But to date we have nothing.”
Two further phase II glioblastoma clinical studies are also about to commence. This time, Guzman’s group will be assessing whether a 1:1 THC:CBD ratio combined with conventional cancer treatment is effective as a first line treatment rather than a relapsing state.
And an Australian study (5) investigating tolerability of different cannabinoid combinations alongside chemo, radiotherapy or immunotherapy is also currently recruiting.
As exciting as these initial clinical findings might seem, progress is still painfully slow considering how long scientists like Guzman have been researching the antitumoral potential the cannabis plant holds. It seems like the odds are stacked against a cannabis-based anticancer drug ever making it to market.
Guzman: “Doing clinical research with cannabinoids is very complicated because THC, which to me is the main active ingredient in cannabis, is controlled by the United Nations and is a schedule 1 drug. So, it is subjected to very strong restrictions in the production, manufacturing and exporting, etc. That means many clinicians and investors get frightened. They don’t want to get into so much bureaucracy and they prefer to go for substances that are not classified as schedule 1. In general, my experience is that the bar that is set for cannabinoid clinical trials is higher than for other substances.”
Dr. Guzman suggests the notable absence of pharmaceutical companies in cannabis-based drug development may also be holding up progress.
“Clinical trials are very much controlled by Big Pharma companies who have the financial means and resources. Philosophically speaking, I’m against the protection of the drug, but on the other hand, the pharma companies are not going to make any movement in any field unless they have the possibility to protect, to patent their products or the indications of their products. So that makes cannabis research more complicated because cannabinoids are natural products and can be extracted from the plant by anyone.”
One way to navigate the intellectual property quagmire is to concentrate on rare conditions with an ‘orphan’ status. Developing a drug for orphan diseases can be an easier route to gaining FDA marketing approval and enjoys various incentives such as tax breaks. Orphan status also allows for usually unpatentable substances such as isolated cannabinoids to be awarded exclusivity – and is likely the reason why the likes of GW Pharmaceuticals are concentrating on rare cancers like glioblastoma.
Another avenue is to patent specific cannabinoid combinations and ratios. This is another speciality of GW Pharma.
Guzman: “Basically the whole cannabis field is mined with GW patents. So, whenever a new company starts to get interested in the field and they make a first overview of how the patent situation is, many times they leave because they realize that everything is basically controlled by GW Pharma. They have been very intelligent in that respect and they are basically the owners of all the intellectual property rights, all active rights and future rights in this field. So that also scares companies.”
Strategic decisions made in drug company boardrooms stalling the development of cannabinoid-based anticancer drugs means patients like George Gannon have little alternative but to figure out how to source their own cannabis oil, with all the difficulties that entails. Given the life-or-death stakes involved, Guzman does not begrudge someone’s decision to use cannabis oil for cancer. But he feels that a patient’s decision should be guided by common sense.
“First try to get a standardized preparation,’ Guzman says. “One has to know at least how much THC and CBD is present in the preparation, not ‘I’m just taking cannabis.’ There are a million types of cannabis. So try to get to know how much THC, CBD and other well-known active ingredients are present.
“And if you are using cannabis oil as a treatment, know at least that the oil has been produced with good agricultural practices and is not contaminated by different types of toxic substances: organic solvent residues, pesticides, heavy metals, mould etc.”
“I would include a regime of administration starting from very little, increasing over 3 or 4 weeks, until one gets a standard dose that is well tolerated and at least overtly efficient. Second, I would combine THC and CBD, starting with more CBD and then including THC to get it to a final balanced preparation. I can’t say exactly what is a balanced. Usually you can go for a ratio of say 1:5 ratio of THC:CBD.
“Third, as cannabinoids accumulate in the body because they are very lipophilic, in theory, receptors can desensitize and lose response. So, I’m in favor of including some ‘wash out’ periods from time to time when at least THC is taken out. I would say for instance 3 weeks of cannabis plus 4 or 5 days of wash-out, so there is time for CB1 [cannabinoid] receptors to get re-sensitized.”
Many patients feel uncomfortable when faced with the question of whether or not to tell their oncologist about taking cannabis during cancer treatment. For Guzman, informing the medical team in charge of care is not only a matter of safety, but a major way of increasing awareness about cannabis within the medical profession itself.
“I think patients are very important, he says. “They are key players in this effort, and they have to push for cannabis to get into mainstream medicine. And one of the ways is simply by normalizing its use by patients. And yes, it’s likely that in some instances the physician is going to react negatively. But we have to try.
“Before I retire,” Guzman continues, “I’d like to know that using cannabis as a cancer treatment has been successful. But at the moment we don’t know. There are some preclinical signals, and also some very tiny clinical signals supporting that there may be an anticancer effect of cannabinoids.
“We have to improve that. And the evidence must come from different sites. Not only controlled clinical studies, but also observational studies, case studies that are reported by doctors about individual patients, and also the active role that I believe patients must play. They have to push. They have to speak about it. We are many different actors, and altogether we have to work hand in hand, otherwise it’s going to be almost impossible.”
https://www.projectcbd.org/medicine/using-cannabis-treat-cancer
Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
]]>When you cut yourself and start to heal, your body forms a matrix of tissue largely composed of collagen. It’s the basis of the scar tissue that forms where the cut was. For people with scleroderma, a rare auto-immune disease, their tissues continue developing even without an injury, resulting in the overproduction of collagen and other fibrous tissues, called fibroblasts, in the skin and internal organs.
People with scleroderma often experience pain and inflammation. As is the case with many autoimmune diseases, there aren’t any therapies that have been specifically developed to treat this condition. The scarcity of treatment options makes scleroderma an “orphan disease” – a special classification that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) uses to incentivize drug-makers to develop new and innovative “orphan drugs” for the treatment of rare diseases.
Two compounds that target the endocannabinoid system are currently in development to treat scleroderma – and they’re already in clinical trials. Scleroderma patients are hoping that these efforts will prove to be as successful as Epidiolex, the cannabis-derived CBD pharmaceutical approved by the FDA in 2018 as an orphan drug for two forms of severe pediatric epilepsy (Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome and Dravet Syndrome).
Degenerative autoimmune diseases are often poorly understood, and such is the case with scleroderma. Medical scientists don’t really know what causes it, or how to treat it. It’s theorized that both genetics and environmental factors can play a role in its development.
The earliest symptoms of scleroderma usually involve a thickening of the skin and a condition known as Reynaud’s phenomenon, which constricts the arteries and turns the fingers blue when they’re exposed to cold.
There are two primary types of scleroderma – localized scleroderma (morphea), which affects specific areas of the skin; and systemic scleroderma, a potentially fatal condition characterized by the thickening of tissues around organs. Systemic scleroderma can lead to excess collagen and scar tissue in the lungs (interstitial lung disease), resulting in the constriction and blockage of pulmonary arteries (pulmonary artery hypertension).
Scleroderma usually appears at first as an abnormal skin condition. Skin diseases typically involve a dysregulation of the endocannabinoid system (ECS). This is true for scleroderma, as well as for more common maladies like acne and psoriasis.
Comprised of endogenous compounds that bind to cannabinoid receptors – CB1 and CB2 – that are expressed in all types of skin cells, the ECS plays a vital role in maintaining skin homeostasis through a signaling mechanism that promotes healthy skin renewal and barrier function.
There are several reasons why the endocannabinoid system might present a good target for scleroderma drugs. Both cannabinoid receptors subtypes are overexpressed in scleroderma fibroblasts, as is the endogenous cannabinoid 2-AG.
Additionally, the expression of FAAH, the metabolic enzyme that breaks down the endocannabinoid anandamide, is abnormally low in the skin of scleroderma patients. This indicates that something is fundamentally out of whack with the endocannabinoid system.
In petri dishes and rodents, CB1 and CB2 receptors appear to play opposing roles in disease models of scleroderma. Activation of CB1 receptors actually promotes the growth of excess connective tissue.
CB2 receptor activation, on the other hand, seems to limit that same growth. CB1 signaling in peripheral organs has a profibrotic effect (and also promotes wound healing); CB2 signaling has an antifibrotic (and blood-thinning) effect. A well-functioning endocannabinoid system maintains a balance between the pro and antifibrotic properties of CB1 and CB2.
Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the principal intoxicating component of cannabis, conveys therapeutic benefits by activating both cannabinoid receptor subtypes. When THC binds to CB1 receptors in the brain and central nervous system, it makes a person feel high and hungry, among many other effects. When THC binds to CB2 receptors on immune cells and in the peripheral nervous system, it eases pain and inflammation. THC can induce profibrogenic or antifibrogenic effects in the liver, where both cannabinoid receptor subtypes are present. So, too, in the skin.
WIN55,212, a synthetic cannabinoid compound that activates both CB1 and CB2, is commonly used instead of THC in experiments. Some scientists decided to see what WIN55 would do in a rodent model of scleroderma. They found that rodents treated with this synthetic cannabinoid developed less excess collagen and generally fared better compared to untreated animals.
Would other compounds – such as THC – that bind to both cannabinoid receptors confer similar effects? Or would THC accentuate problematic tissue growth by activating CB1 receptors? Unfortunately, in the United States clinical trials involving THC have gotten short shrift because of marijuana prohibition, resulting in a paucity of data pertaining to scleroderma and many other conditions that might respond to cannabis-based therapies.
A single case study from Israel indicates that smoking cannabis helped to alleviate inflammatory pain and improve the quality of life of one young scleroderma patient.
Given that CB1 receptor activation in preclinical research has been shown to promote excess tissue and collagen formation whereas CB2 receptor activation has the opposite effect, pharmaceutical researchers have their sights set on developing a drug that bypasses CB1 while boosting CB2. Referred to as a “selective CB2 agonist,” such a compound would appear to have potential as a treatment for scleroderma.
What’s more, CB2 receptors are localized primarily outside the brain and therefore are not responsible for mediating THC-induced intoxication. A drug that selectively targets CB2 receptors would not cause any of the psychoactive side effects associated with CB1 activation – and that’s a big plus in terms of getting FDA approval.
Incentivized by the potential of developing an orphan drug for scleroderma, a couple of companies are betting on selective CB2 agonists that are currently in clinical trials. Ajulemic acid (AJA), under the brand name Lenabasum, is in a Phase 3 trial. And an orally administered, partially synthetic cannabinoid derived from CBD called EHP-101 (formerly VCE-004.8) is pursuing Phase 1. Both of these compounds have been shown to mitigate the production of excess tissues in rodent models, and both are well tolerated in humans.
It remains to be seen whether these efforts will bear fruit. Although earlier attempts to develop synthetic CB2 agonists into effective therapeutic modalities came up short, the progress of current clinical trials is encouraging. But there’s no telling if or when these scleroderma drugs might go to market. Meanwhile, readily available whole plant remedies may already be a viable option for scleroderma patients in states where medical cannabis and adult use are legal.
CBD-rich cannabis, which remains off-limits (with few exceptions) to medical researchers, has never been formally studied as a scleroderma treatment. But extensive preclinical investigations with molecular isolates suggest that cannabidiol could be helpful for a number of reasons.
In vivo studies indicate that CBD inhibits CB1 receptor signaling without completely blocking it. Imagine that CB1 operates like a dimmer switch – CBD turns it down but not entirely. In theory, this would impede tissue or collagen overproduction.
At the same time, CBD is a potent anti-inflammatory that augments CB2 receptor signaling, thereby boosting the antifibrogenic activity that’s sorely deficient in scleroderma patients. Scientists have yet to sort out exactly how CBD induces effects that are similar to CB2 activation without binding directly to the CB2 receptor.
But this much is known: CBD can differentially modulate CB1 and CB2 receptor signaling by down-regulating the former while amplifying the latter – a beneficial combination for treating scleroderma. CBD also holds promise as a remedy for several other disorders (including fatty liver disease, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and metabolic syndrome) that are associated with overactive CB1 receptor signaling and inadequate CB2 stimulation.
Cannabinoid science suggests that scleroderma patients (and many others) could also benefit by increasing their dietary intake of ß-caryophyllene, a common botanical compound found in cannabis, bitter greens, and kitchen spices such as black pepper, oregano, and cinnamon. ß-caryophyllene, an aromatic terpene, selectively activates the CB2 receptor without activating CB1.
Perhaps a CBD-rich cannabis remedy – a topical and/or an ingestible – with a robust terpene profile that includes a healthy dose of ß-caryophyllene would be worth a try for scleroderma patients. Those who are using cannabis to treat an autoimmune condition should make sure their doctor knows; high doses of CBD and other plant cannabinoids may interact with pharmaceutical meds. And keep Project CBD in the loop, as well. If you use cannabis for scleroderma, let us know how it goes.
Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
https://www.projectcbd.org/medicine/cannabinoids-scleroderma
With the growing awareness of CBD as a potential health aid there's also been a proliferation of misconceptions. Find questions and responses to common misinformation.
It doesn’t get you high, but it’s causing quite a buzz among medical scientists and patients. The past year has seen a surge of interest in cannabidiol (CBD), a non-intoxicating cannabis compound with significant therapeutic properties. Numerous commercial start-ups and internet retailers have jumped on the CBD bandwagon, touting CBD derived from hemp as the next big thing, a miracle oil that can shrink tumors, quell seizures, and ease chronic pain—without making people feel “stoned.” But along with a growing awareness of cannabidiol as a potential health aid there has been a proliferation of misconceptions about CBD.
#1 “CBD IS MEDICAL. THC IS RECREATIONAL.”
Project CBD receives many inquiries from around the world and oftentimes people say they are seeking “CBD, the medical part” of the plant, “not THC, the recreational part” that gets you high. Actually, THC, “The High Causer,” has awesome therapeutic properties. Scientists at the Scripps Research Center in San Diego reported that THC inhibits an enzyme implicated in the formation of amyloid beta plaque, the hallmark of Alzheimer’s-related dementia. The federal government recognizes single-molecule THC (Marinol) as an anti-nausea compound and appetite booster, deeming it a Schedule III pharmaceutical, a category reserved for drugs with little abuse potential. But whole plant cannabis, which is the only natural source of THC, continues to be classified as a dangerous Schedule I drug with no medical value.
#2 “THC IS THE BAD CANNABINOID. CBD IS THE GOOD CANNABINOID.”
The drug warrior’s strategic retreat: Give ground on CBD while continuing to demonize THC. Diehard marijuana prohibitionists are exploiting the good news about CBD to further stigmatize high-THC cannabis, casting tetrahydrocannabinol as the bad cannabinoid, whereas CBD is framed as the good cannabinoid. Why? Because CBD doesn’t make you feel high like THC does. Project CBD categorically rejects this moralistic, reefer madness dichotomy in favor of whole plant cannabis therapeutics. (Read the foundational science paper: A Tale of Two Cannabinoids.)
#3 “CBD IS MOST EFFECTIVE WITHOUT THC.”
THC and CBD are the power couple of cannabis compounds—they work best together. Scientific studies have established that CBD and THC interact synergistically to enhance each other’s therapeutic effects. British researchers have shown that CBD potentiates THC’s anti-inflammatory properties in an animal model of colitis. Scientists at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco determined that a combination of CBD and THC has a more potent anti-tumoral effect than either compound alone when tested on brain cancer and breast cancer cell lines. And extensive clinical research has demonstrated that CBD combined with THC is more beneficial for neuropathic pain than either compound as a single molecule.
#4 “SINGLE-MOLECULE PHARMACEUTICALS ARE SUPERIOR TO ‘CRUDE’ WHOLE PLANT MEDICINALS.”
According to the federal government, specific components of the marijuana plant (THC, CBD) have medical value, but the plant itself does not have medical value. Uncle Sam’s single-molecule blinders reflect a cultural and political bias that privileges Big Pharma products. Single-molecule medicine is the predominant corporate way, the FDA-approved way, but it’s not the only way, and it’s not necessarily the optimal way to benefit from cannabis therapeutics. Cannabis contains several hundred compounds, including various flavonoids, aromatic terpenes, and many minor cannabinoids in addition to THC and CBD. Each of these compounds has specific healing attributes, but when combined they create what scientists refer to as a holistic “entourage effect” or “ensemble effect,” so that the therapeutic impact of the whole plant is greater than the sum of its single-molecule parts. The Food and Drug Administration, however, isn’t in the business of approving plants as medicine. (See the scientific evidence.)
#5 “CBD IS NOT PSYCHOACTIVE.”
CBD is not an intoxicant, but it’s misleading to describe CBD as non-psychoactive. When a clinically depressed patient takes a low dose of a CBD-rich sublingual spray or tincture and has a great day for the first time in a long time, it’s apparent that CBD is a powerful mood-altering compound. Better to say, “CBD is not psychoactive like THC,” than to simply assert that CBD is not psychoactive. CBD won’t make a person feel stoned, but it can impact a person’s psyche in positive ways.
#6 “PSYCHOACTIVITY IS INHERENTLY AN ADVERSE SIDE EFFECT.”
According to politically correct drug war catechism, the marijuana high is an unwanted side effect. Big Pharma is keen on synthesizing medically active marijuana-like molecules that don’t make people high—although it’s not obvious why mild euphoric feelings are intrinsically negative for a sick person or a healthy person, for that matter. In ancient Greece, the word euphoria meant “having health,” a state of well-being. The euphoric qualities of cannabis, far from being an unwholesome side effect, are deeply implicated in the therapeutic value of the plant. “We should be thinking of cannabis as a medicine first,” said Dr. Tod Mikuriya, “that happens to have some psychoactive properties, as many medicines do, rather than as an intoxicant that happens to have a few therapeutic properties on the side.”
#7 “CBD IS SEDATING.”
Moderate doses of CBD are mildly energizing (“alerting”). But very high doses of CBD may trigger a biphasic effect and can be sleep-promoting. If CBD-rich cannabis flower confers a sedating effect, it’s likely because of a myrcene-rich terpene profile. Myrcene is a terpene with sedative and painkilling properties. CBD is not intrinsically sedating, but it may help to restore better sleeping patterns by reducing anxiety.
#8 “HIGH DOSES OF CBD WORK BETTER THAN LOW DOSES.”
CBD isolates require higher doses to be effective than whole plant CBD-rich oil extracts. But that doesn’t mean single-molecule CBD is a better therapeutic option than CBD-rich cannabis, which has a wider therapeutic window than a CBD isolate. Reports from clinicians and patients suggest that a synergistic combination of CBD, THC, and other cannabis components can be effective at low doses – as little as 2.5 mg CBD and/or 2.5 mg THC. Some patients may require significantly higher doses of CBD oil to obtain satisfactory results. Keep in mind that CBD and THC and cannabis in general have biphasic properties, meaning that low and high doses can produce opposite effects. An excessive amount of CBD could be less effective therapeutically than a moderate dose.
#9 “CBD CONVERTS TO THC IN A PERSON’S STOMACH.”
Orally administered CBD is well-tolerated in humans. But concerns about possible harmful side effects, which might limit CBD’s therapeutic utility and market potential, were raised by misleading reports that CBD converts to high-causing THC in the stomach. It does not (read the evidence). There have been extensive clinical trials demonstrating that ingested CBD—even doses above 600 mg—does not cause THC-like psychoactive effects. On the contrary, CBD in sufficient amounts can lessen or neutralize the THC high. The World Health Organization studied the issue and gave CBD a clean bill of health in a 2017 report that asserted: “Simulated gastric fluid does not exactly replicate physiological conditions in the stomach [and] spontaneous conversation of CBD to delta-9-THC has not been demonstrated in humans undergoing CBD treatment.”
#10 “CBD IS FULLY LEGAL IN THE UNITED STATES BECAUSE IT’S NO LONGER A CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE.”
Not quite. The 2018 Farm Bill legalized the cultivation of industrial hemp (defined as cannabis with less than 0.3 percent THC) in the United States and removed various derivatives of hemp, including CBD, from the purview of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Controlled Substances Act. But the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) views CBD as a pharmaceutical drug. And because it has already approved CBD as a pharmaceutical (Epidiolex) for treating two forms of pediatric epilepsy, the FDA maintains that it is illegal to sell hemp-derived CBD as a dietary supplement. The DEA, meanwhile, retains jurisdiction over CBD derived from marijuana (cannabis with more than 0.3 percent THC), which is still prohibited under federal law. Rooted in reefer madness racism and enforced disproportionately against people of color, marijuana prohibition is akin to the Confederate statue still standing – a testament to enduring bigotry and social injustice.
#11 “LEGALIZING CBD, BUT NOT CANNABIS, ADEQUATELY SERVES THE PATIENT POPULATION.”
Seventeen U.S. states have enacted “CBD only” (or, better said, “low THC” or “no THC”) laws. And 30 states have legalized medical marijuana (not just CBD) in one form or another. Some states restrict the sources of CBD-rich products and specify the diseases for which CBD can be accessed; others do not. But a CBD-rich remedy with little THC doesn’t work for everyone. Parents of epileptic children have found that adding some THC (or THCA, the raw, unheated version of THC) helps with seizure control. For some epileptics (and many other people), THC-dominant products are more effective than CBD-rich products. Most patients are not well served by CBD-only laws. They should have access to a broad spectrum of whole plant cannabis remedies, not just low THC medicine. Anything less is a national scandal. One size doesn’t fit all with respect to cannabis therapeutics, and neither does one compound or one product or one strain. (Read more: Prohibition’s Last Gasp: “CBD Only”.)
#12 “CBD IS CBD—IT DOESN’T MATTER WHERE IT COMES FROM.”
It may be possible to extract CBD oil from some low-resin industrial hemp cultivars, but fiber hemp is by no means an optimal source of CBD. Industrial hemp typically contains far less cannabidiol than high-resin CBD-rich cannabis flower tops. Huge amounts of industrial hemp are required to extract a small amount of CBD, thereby raising the risk of contaminants because hemp is a “bio-accumulator” that draws toxins from the soil. But the debate over sourcing CBD is quickly becoming moot, as plant breeders focus on developing high-resin cannabis varietals (marijuana) that satisfy the legal criteria for industrial hemp – with THC measuring less than 0.3 percent and CBD levels exceeding 10 percent by dry weight. “Pure” CBD extracted and refined from industrial hemp or synthesized in a lab lacks critical medicinal terpenes and other plant compounds that interact with CBD and THC to enhance their therapeutic benefits. (See also: Sourcing CBD: Marijuana, Industrial Hemp & the Vagaries of Federal Law.)
Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
]]>There was a time when glossy magazine ads touted the supposed health benefits of cigarette smoking. For years, mainstream media and public officials routinely aided and abetted the false claims of the tobacco industry until the publication of the U.S. Surgeon General’s 1964 report on Smoking and Health. Cigarette commercials were subsequently banned from television, but tobacco products were never outlawed.
More than a half century later, the nicotine capitalists are at it again. This time they’ve been claiming that highly addictive e-cigarettes are safer than smoking. And until now they’ve gotten a free pass from industry-friendly “regulators” who don’t seem to give a hoot about all the toxic crap – especially texturizing and flavoring agents – that’s added to e-cig juice. Aimed at teens as well as adults, Juul ads were extolling the virtues of vaping on national television at the very moment the Center for Disease Control (CDC) issued an alarming report that attributed a sudden outbreak of deaths and pulmonary disease to the consumption of harmful vaping products.
Over 500 people, including teenagers and seniors, have been hospitalized with problems ranging from shortness of breath to severe nausea and coughing up blood. Nine deaths have been reported thus far. The likely cause is “unknown chemical exposure,” according to the CDC, which has not been able to conclusively link a single product or substance to vaping disease incidents. Any number of questionable chemical combinations could be the culprit.
Of those who were stricken by vaping-related lung disease, some had been using only nicotine e-cigarettes. But most cases have involved people who vaped poor quality, unlicensed cannabis oil products. Many of the same sketchy additives that are ubiquitous in e-cigarettes are present in cannabis and CBD vape oil blends. CBD vapes can easily be purchased from head shops, gas stations, internet storefronts, and an assortment of less-than-savory underground sources.
Some black market vape oil products are also spiked with potent synthetic intoxicants (erroneously described as “synthetic marijuana”) and other dubious compounds, such as vitamin E acetate.
Project CBD has been warning about the potential dangers of toxic vape oil additives, particularly thinning agents and flavoring additives, since 2015, a year before e-cigarettes came under the FDA’s regulatory purview. Thinning agents, such as propylene glycol and polyethylene glycol, and loads of flavoring additives so dear to the processed food industry are approved by the FDA based on data related to oral consumption of ingestible compounds. But there’s little evidence to show that FDA-authorized texturizing agents and flavoring agents are safe when heated and inhaled. Heating or combustion can change a compound into something much more dangerous than the original. Such is the case with many e-cigarette additives that the FDA deems safe for ingestion.
Let’s be clear: inhaling additive-free, artisanal whole plant cannabis oil with a well-made vaping device is just as safe, if not more so, than smoking organically grown cannabis. Tobacco smoke and cannabis smoke both contain noxious polyaromatic hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide, but the negative effects of cannabis smoke are significantly mitigated by the cytoprotective and antitumoral properties of THC, CBD, and other cannabis components; thus, there is no causal link between smoking cannabis and cancer.
One of the advantages of vaping over smoking is the odorless discretion it affords the consumer in a society that continues to stigmatize cannabis. As the vaping scandal unfolds, one can detect a whiff of moral panic reminiscent of past chapters of cannabis history: The Assassin of Youth is back with a vengeance, lurking in a vape cartridge.
Different groups have been trying to spin the vaping tragedy to advance their own agendas. Prohibitionists are calling for a total ban on vaping cannabis. Trade industry groups, who were radio silent on the dangers of vape oil additives before the scandal surfaced, are now professing concern about the health risks of illicit vaping options. And there’s always China to blame for exporting cheap vape pens with erratic heating coils that turn seemingly benign compounds into carcinogens and cause tainted oil to smolder.
It’s certainly possible to make high quality artisanal vape oil without additives or solvent residues, as is the case with some of the leading cannabis brands. And it’s generally true that state-licensed cannabis companies provide better quality vape oil products than black market sources. But state regulators continue to follow the Food and Drug Administration’s lead with respect to thinning agents and flavoring agents. Consequently, these FDA-approved additives are widely present in e-cigarettes and much of the legal cannabis market, despite a lack of relevant safety data.
The FDA is a big part of the vaping problem. State health officials should not take their cues from the FDA when it comes to regulating vape oil additives. Project CBD, in public comments submitted to the FDA, stated: “The precautionary principle mandates that any thinning agent or flavor-enhancing chemical that has not been safety tested for heat and inhalation exposure should be prohibited as a cannabis oil additive.”
The solution isn’t to ban cannabis vaping across the board. Such a misguided policy would be both impractical and counterproductive, boosting black market commerce and increasing risks for users. That’s an example of unnecessary overreach. Rather than banning an entire product category – be it vapes or edibles– state health officials should implement a rigorous regulatory program that prioritizes public health and raises the safety standards for all edibles and food supplements.
CBD consumers frequently assume that vaping cannabis or hemp oil is a healthier method of administration than inhaling smoke, which contains noxious substances that can irritate the lungs. Theoretically a vaporizer heats the cannabis oil concentrate without burning it so the active ingredients are inhaled but no smoke is involved. But there may be a serious downside to vaping CBD oil and other cannabis oil extracts. Vape pens contain a battery-operated heating mechanism, which at high temperatures can transform solvents, thinning agents and flavor additives into carcinogens and other dangerous toxins.
Here are some of our concerns:
Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
https://www.projectcbd.org/politics/what-should-we-do-about-vaping
]]>
Obesity and type 2 diabetes are, to some extent, an expression of long-term, low-grade inflammation. An unhealthy diet taxes the body and wears down one’s ability to regulate blood sugar. So, scientists are researching ways of activating the CB2 receptor — the major immunomodulator of the endocannabinoid system — to aid the treatment of diabetes.
A recent publication by Indian scientists in The European Journal of Pharmacology; described the effect of the CB2 agonist β-caryophyllene (BCP) on type 2 diabetes. BCP is a terpene present in cannabis and many other dark green, leafy vegetables. Much research has demonstrated that dietary BCP has anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant effects. The Indian scientists reviewed the cellular actions of BCP and its consequences in diabetes.
BCP directly activates CB2 receptors on insulin-producing β cells in the pancreas, leading to insulin release. But CB2 activation by BCP also has a positive effect on diabetic complications, like nephropathy (kidney damage and loss of function), retinopathy (eye damage and partial blindness), cardiomyopathy (heart damage), and neuropathy (nerve damage and hypersensitivity to pain). Activating CB2 — whether with BCP, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), or another compound — has the potential to limit many of these problems.
Depletion of CB2 receptors in the kidney is implicated in chronic kidney disease, but activation of CB2 with BCP has been shown to limit kidney damage in mouse models of diabetes. Cardiomyopathy is the leading cause of death among diabetic patients, in which inflammation leads to fibrosis, but CB2 activity reduces this (whereas activating CB1 receptors often worsens fibrotic conditions in animal models.)
Thus far, however, there have been few studies on BCP or other CB2 agonists for treating the cardiovascular complications of diabetes. As with most research on the endocannabinoid system, the authors conclude by highlighting promising preclinical results, but point out that there are few, if any, clinical studies to validate the excitement.
Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
https://www.projectcbd.org/news/quick-hits/leafy-greens-diabetes
]]>Despite the huge public interest in CBD products, and an endless stream of media stoking that fire, there have been limited efforts to figure out exactly how and why people are using this darling compound of the cannabis world.
In early 2019 Project CBD began collecting responses to a survey we designed to figure out who is using CBD, how and why people are using CBD, what kinds of products they are consuming, and whether or not CBD is working for them. The analysis in this report (available in its entirety here) covers an eight-month period and encompasses over 3500 responses.
The survey asked about CBD’s impact on six quality of life measurements: pain, mood, sleep, physical function, energy or motivation, and the ability to socialize. A majority of participants reported some improvement across all measures, but the most significant were in the areas of pain and mood.
Of great interest were the efficacy reports for specific conditions. The survey elicited information about 17 different conditions for which CBD is sometimes used, including:
The survey asked what type or stage of disease the person had (e.g., type 1 or type 2 diabetes), and how they felt CBD impacted their symptoms.
This observational study validated some well-established facts about CBD – namely that it has a strong safety profile, and it is very effective at ameliorating pain and anxiety. Participants reported significant improvements in pain and mood regardless of the underlying medical condition.
That said, the study also showed that CBD is not a panacea for all that ails us. Some symptoms were decidedly less responsive to CBD products. For example, CBD was not particularly useful in helping people with gastrointestinal diseases maintain a healthy weight. Nor did it have much of an impact on PMS-related bloating, cancer-related diarrhea and constipation, or low sex drive during menopause.
Nonetheless, CBD was effective in simply making people feel better – most likely because of its positive impact on pain, mood, and sleep.
The survey also found that there were few adverse effects, which is consistent with studies showing that CBD is safe and well-tolerated even at high doses.
CannaCraft, Inc., the Santa Rosa-based cannabis company, provided support for this survey. Project CBD will make the survey data available to researchers. We hope the data generated by this survey can provide guidance for those seeking therapeutic relief and for those curious about where CBD research might lead. And we’re not done collecting data! If you’re interested in sharing your CBD story, head to the survey and let us know how it’s been working – or not working – for you.
Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
]]>The desire to anoint our skin with potions is as old as humanity itself. But is slathering an oily substance onto the skin really useful? And if so, what kind of skin elixir should one use, and why? Let’s look at how the skin protects and maintains itself, and what, if anything, can help it along.
The outermost layer of the epidermis (the skin’s outer-outer layer, if you will) is called the stratum corneum (SC). The SC is a brick-and-mortar-like barrier of skin cells surrounded by a matrix comprised of our own natural lipids, all working together to help to protect the skin. So, given that we make our own lipids, why would we want to add even more oil to our skin?
For a few reasons.
While it’s true that sebum and other lipids secreted by the skin are meant to keep skin cells soft, moist and protected against allergens, pathogens and water loss, these skin secretions are often depleted. According to a recent study in the International Journal of Molecular Science, most skin disorders involve an impaired skin barrier, which results in water loss, lower permeability, dry and irritated skin, and eventually, skin disease.
Aging and years of accumulated DNA damage from sun exposure, cigarette smoking, poor diet, heavy alcohol consumption, and environmental factors such as dry, hot weather can all impair skin barrier function. So can excessive skin cleansing or exposure to irritants, detergents and other products that strip the skin’s natural oils. A disrupted barrier creates skin with a weak microbiome that is more vulnerable to pathogens, microbes, irritants and allergens. This increases the likelihood of inflammation, which disrupts the barrier even more, thereby compounding the problem.
Most commercial skin creams and lotions are composed of lots of water, oils (natural, synthetic, or petroleum-derived), emollients (such as silicone), chemical emulsifiers, thickeners, neutralizers, humectants, fragrances, preservatives, colorants, etc. Some common ingredients can actually irritate the skin, which defeats the supposed purpose of restoring the skin’s barrier and maintaining a healthy epidermis.
Natural, plant-based oils have been used for centuries in many cultures to improve the skin’s health and appearance. Oils for topical usage fall into two categories: fixed (or carrier) oils, which retain natural waxes and fats when extracted using a mechanical cold-press method; and essential oils, which are extracted using heat and retain a much higher percentage of terpenes and terpenoids, the volatile compounds responsible for smell, taste, and many potent biological properties.
When choosing a carrier oil, it’s important to note that not all naturally-derived oils have the same effect on the skin. While some might carry antimicrobial, antibacterial, anti-cancer or antioxidant properties, the ratio of essential fatty acids (EFAs) in an oil may also determine its skin barrier benefit. Oils with a higher ratio of linoleic acid to oleic acid have been shown in some studies to be more beneficial for skin barrier function.
If you’ve never used a good skin oil, you are in for a treat. Contrary to assumptions, once absorbed into the skin, a well-made topical is not oily or greasy. Once you become accustomed to using it, you’ll be hooked. Sure, a CBD topical won’t necessarily have the fluffy, creamy, slick feel of a chemically-laden potion, but a cannabis-infused product is also less likely to stir up trouble in your delicately balanced skin barrier.
A high-quality CBD-rich extract combined with the right ingredients can confer noticeable benefits that improve and protect the skin over time. Most skin oils are made of one or more carrier oils and a much smaller percentage of essential oils. A CBD-infused topical can help with inflammation, which is at the root of many skin problems.
The best way to go about producing your custom-made skin oil is to do your own research on the properties of various plant oils, then mix accordingly.
Given CBD’s potent antioxidant, anti-cancer, anti-bacterial, and anti-inflammatory properties, it’s a perfect ingredient to add to a natural skin oil preparation. CBD-rich extract can be sourced from cannabis or hemp, but best to be sure that it’s from a trusted source with third-party lab testing, preferably in a state where cannabis commerce is legal and well regulated. I recommend cannabis extracts that are full-spectrum, CO2 extracted, and diluted in MCT [medium chain triglyceride] coconut oil, which has been refined to exclude its fatty components, making it ideal for cosmetic use.
What follows is a basic recipe for a nourishing, plant-based, CBD-rich facial oil that’s beneficial for most skin types. You can purchase organic, cold-pressed, cosmetic-grade oils from many online sources.
Ingredients:
Optional: six to eight drops each of one to three essential oils for fragrance and skin-nourishing properties. Some suggestions:
Mix together in a ceramic, glass, or stainless steel bowl and store in a dark glass dropper bottle in a cool, dark place. Makes approximately 2 oz (depending on the diluted strength of the CBD extract), and will last you two-to-three months of regular use.
A little goes a long way. Too much and you can gum up your skin barrier. Best used first thing in the morning or before bed, 4-6 drops for face and neck, and a little more for décolletage (chest) area. Dot your fingers with oil, rub together lightly then pat gently on freshly-cleansed face and neck, lifting often to distribute to other areas. Wait for a few minutes for your skin to absorb the oil before putting on other skin products or getting dressed.
A 6-drop serving will yield approximately 10 mg of CBD, much more than the typical, expensive CBD skin product you’ll find out there. You can certainly use this oil over your whole body, but at that rate it might get pricey. To save money, keep it for your face and décolletage areas (which tend to need it the most!) and make a companion body oil that is maybe a little less luxe.
SEE PART 1: CAN CBD HELP YOUR COMPLEXION?
Melinda Misuraca is a Project CBD contributing writer with a past life as an old-school cannabis farmer specializing in CBD-rich cultivars.
Just a few years ago, most of the cannabis-infused topicals and skincare products available were jars of greasy green glop, handmade in someone’s kitchen and smelling suspiciously of bong water. Not so in 2019.
In today’s 17-billion-dollar “prestige beauty” industry, cannabis-infused skincare is the hottest trend since snail mucus, and the non-intoxicating cannabinoid known as cannabidiol(CBD) is its sparkly little darling. CBD is the reason why executives from top outfits like L’oreal and GOOP are leaving lucrative jobs to join forces with cannabis skincare start-ups.
CBD blasted into the entrepreneurial stratosphere after the passage of 2018 Farm Bill, which removed hemp from the Controlled Substances Act and supposedly made it legal to grow, produce and market any part or derivative of a cannabis sativa plant containing a minuscule amount (0.3 percent or less) of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). These days, CBD-spiked skin products are everywhere. Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Forbes sing their praises. Gwyneth Paltrow and Martha Stewart are big fans. And while it’s not surprising that Bob Marley’s daughter has her own cannabis-infused skincare line, you can also buy CBD-infused lotions, massage oils and lip balms from Amazon or at the mall in stores like Sephora, CVS, and Walmart.
Manufacturers, distributors and investors are flinging themselves onto the CBD bandwagon, while the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) dithers, trying to figure out how to respond to the CBD upsurge. Given the uncertain regulatory environment and the FDA’s qualms about ingestible CBD supplements, topicals are a safer bet for those seeking business opportunities in the CBD market. It appears that the FDA is much less concerned about the safety and efficacy of CBD topicals than CBD edibles and beverages. In general, FDA policy with respect to cosmetics and deodorants is shamefully lax, fostering widespread exposure to carcinogens, endocrine disrupters, and other toxins that pose a serious threat to public health.
Thus, it’s important to carefully scrutinize all the ingredients listed on the label before you drop a couple of Benjamins on CBD-infused facial creams or bath bombs. Don’t assume that it’s a high-quality product just because it contains CBD.
Slick marketing campaigns are touting CBD as a miracle compound for the skin, with healing properties that range from relieving pain to soothing rashes and eradicating acne. The most alluring (and profitable) CBD-related promises pertain to anti-aging and beautifying the skin. But is there anything substantive behind all the hype? Can CBD really protect, heal and restore the skin? What, if anything, does the science say about all this?
Human skin is a complex, multifunctional, protective barrier for the body. It’s also the heaviest organ we carry around — about one seventh of our total body’s weight, or 8 to 22 pounds on average — with a surface area of about 2 square yards. (Apologies to the rest of the world that measures in terms of meters and kilos.)
The skin is comprised of three layers. The outermost, called the epidermis, is like a fortress wall, a strong-yet-flexible barrier made up of constantly-renewing skin cells known as keratinocytes that shield the body from physical assaults — everything from sunburn and irritating substances to attacks from invading pathogens; from biting and stinging creatures to burns, punctures, cuts, abrasions, and other inflicted traumas.
Below the epidermis is the dermis, which houses a complex collection of nerves and capillaries. Most of the body’s sensory cells (those that feel pressure, heat and cold, touch, vibration and pain) are found here, as well as sweat glands, hair follicles and sebaceous (oil-producing) glands. The dermis is also where collagen and elastin are made, substances that support the epidermal outer layer and gives it that youthful, spring-back-when-pinched quality so coveted by the older set. Seniors are particularly vulnerable to manipulative advertising that banks on society’s obsession with youthfulness to sell beauty products that promise to rejuvenate the skin’s once-glowing exterior.
And then there’s the deepest layer, known as the hypodermis, which attaches the skin to the rest of the body. Composed mostly of fat, connective tissue and water, it helps to insulate the body from temperature extremes and cushions bones and joints. Vitamin D and other essential hormones are synthesized in the hypordermis.
The many different cells contained in all three layers of skin work together in a complex, interconnected, delicately-balanced neuro-immuno-endocrine network that is regulated by the endocannabinoid system(ECS). Comprised of endogenous compounds that bind to cannabinoid receptors (CB1 and CB2), which are expressed in all types of skin cells, the ECS engages in a homeostatic process called cutaneous cannabinoid (“c[ut]annabinoid”) signaling. This signaling mechanism promotes healthy skin renewal and barrier function.
The ECS regulates numerous physiological functions, including cellular apoptosis (cell death), a process that allows the body to eliminate aging and damaged cells, enabling regenerated cells to take their place. Cannabinoid receptor signaling can slow abnormally high skin cell production (thereby lowering the likelihood of cancer) and can also soothe the skin’s sensory nerves, reducing pain and inflammation.
The ECS also regulates the activity of pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines (proteins in the body involved in immune activity), and helps to maintain the action of Treg cells, a type of T cell that modulates immune response in the skin.
Hungarian scientist Tamas Biro has documented how the ECS influences the production of sebum (the skin’s natural oil), increasing it to keep the skin’s waterproof barrier intact or decreasing it, which helps to keep acne at bay.
A recent report by German scientists in Experimental Dermatology noted that a “disruption of the delicate balance in cannabinoid signaling might facilitate the development of multiple pathological conditions and diseases of the skin such as atopic dermatitis, irritative allergic contact dermatitis, acne, seborrhea, psoriasis, itch, pain, hair growth disorders, systemic sclerosis, and cancer.”
The report goes on to explain how skin barrier dysregulation can delay wound healing and concluded that a “depletion of CB1 or CB2 receptors resulted in enhanced contact allergic inflammation, while cannabinoid receptor activation resulted in a reduction of inflammation.”
Based on their preclinical findings, the report suggests that pharmacological intervention to delay the breakdown (and thereby prolong the action) of endogenous cannabinoid compounds, which activate CB1and CB2, could be a viable strategy for treating skin disease.
Most negative aspects of the skin’s appearance are due to years of accumulated damage to cutaneous cells. Wrinkles and roughness, for example, can be caused by environmental and lifestyle factors such as excessive sun exposure, alcohol consumption, smoking, and poor diet. In addition to these epigenetic intrusions, the dryness common in a mature woman’s skin is associated with the drop in hormone production that occurs after menopause. All of these factors can cause biochemical changes in our cells’ DNA, which in turn can trigger DNA methylation, a process that alters the function and expression of genes in our skin and throughout the body.
Let’s face it, as we age, everything slows down and becomes less efficient, including our skin’s ability to generate the fresh new cells that give us that healthy, youthful look we took for granted during all those summers on the beach, when the only sun block we wore was a bikini.
As we get older, our cellular functions start to go a little haywire. And when this starts showing up on our faces, it can be truly sobering. There’s even a scientific term for time’s cruel ravages upon the body: inflammaging, the continuous, low-grade inflammation associated with aging. A 2019 article in the journal Cosmetics linked many skin conditions with such inflammation, and suggested that natural, anti-inflammatory compounds might help.
Some people will do crazy things to themselves in hopes of slowing down the inevitable decline that occurs with aging. But consider other options for restoring skin function and appearance before you go shooting your face with laser beams, injecting it with tiny spheres of polymethylmethacrylate or sandblasting it with diamond-shaped crystals.
Maybe there’s some hope-in-a-bottle you could try, thanks to cannabis.
Cannabis-infused skincare has a long history. According to Dr. Eduardo Muñoz, professor of immunology at the University of Cordoba in Spain, topical preparations of cannabis were used to treat various skin disorders in ancient China, Egypt, and the Arab world. Unlike the dubious efforts of some U.S. and British women of yore, who tried to beautify their skin by ingesting arsenic tablets, for example, or applying lead-based face paint, there are no known side effects from using topical cannabis.
Pure CBD has demonstrated anti-inflammatory activity in preclinical models of skin inflammation. But how does the efficacy of single-molecule CBD in a topical compare to a full spectrum CBD-rich oil extractcontaining hundreds of other cannabis compounds?
A 2019 in vitro study by Italian scientists in Phytotherapy Research found that the anti-inflammatory impact of cannabis oil exceeded that of pure CBD, indicating that compounds other than CBD contribute to the inhibition of pro-inflammatory triggers in the skin. The Italian team determined that the cannabis oil downregulated several genes involved in wound healing and skin inflammation, whereas the anti-inflammatory effect conferred by the CBD isolate did not involve the same molecular mechanisms.
Since CBD can calm inflammation, it makes sense that it might be a useful ingredient in topical skincare products. But can CBD penetrate human skin deeply enough to really make a difference? A recent in vivo study by University of Kentucky scientists suggests that it can.
Published in the European Journal of Pain, this report found that a topical gel containing CBD significantly reduced pain and inflammation in a rodent model of arthritis. Moreover, it appears that CBD is much more permeable through the skin than THC. According to a 2004 article in the Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, the transdermal permeability of cannabidiol is 10-fold higher than delta-8 THC. (The permeability of delta-9 THC is very similar to that of delta-8 THC.)
So, should you buy a CBD skincare product? It depends. Just because a product has a fancy label and a high price doesn’t mean it will deliver what it claims. CBD products are still unregulated by the FDA, and according to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), a significant number of CBDproducts surveyed contained less of the compound than labeled.
A lot depends on what else is in a CBD-infused topical. CBD skincare products may include a “full spectrum” cannabis oil extract containing CBD, THC, and all inherent cannabinoids, fatty acids, and terpenes, which combine synergistically to create a therapeutic entourage effect that’s greater than the impact of CBD alone. Or a skincare salve might contain an infusion of “broad spectrum” cannabis oil without any THC. Or, more likely, it will include a less effective CBD isolate that could be synthetic or naturally-sourced.
Keep in mind that studies on how CBD and other cannabis compounds affect the skin are mostly pre-clinical. Randomized, controlled clinical trials have yet to verify anecdotal accounts (and marketing claims) of CBD’s efficacy for skin ailments. Given the paucity of clinical research, it’s hard to know exactly how many milligrams of CBD per milliliter would be optimal for a skincare product or what a recommended dose should be.
So, if you decide to try a CBD skincare product, do your own research first. Buy from a reputable source – preferably one with a good track record of making cannabis-infused products from organically-sourced ingredients. If possible, make sure it’s third-party lab-tested for consistency and purity. Or you might also consider making your own CBD topical.
PART 2: HOW TO MAKE A CBD TOPICAL FOR HEALTHY SKIN
Melinda Misuraca is a Project CBD contributing writer with a past life as an old-school cannabis farmer specializing in CBD-rich cultivars.
Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
https://www.projectcbd.org/wellness/cbd-skin-care-can-it-help-your-complexion
The 29th annual International Cannabinoid Research Society (ICRS) symposium, which convened last month in Bethesda, Maryland, featured new developments in CBD science that have far-reaching implications for many areas of medicine.
Just over 500 participants from around the world attended the four-day conference, which included 65 oral presentations and nearly 200 posters covering a wide range of topics – with the caveat that researchers had to present new, unpublished data.
Harvard University scientist Staci Gruber shared encouraging results from “the first open-label to double-blind clinical trial” assessing the impact of a high-CBD, low-THC sublingual tincture in patients who experience moderate anxiety. None of the participants had been using any cannabinoid-based products prior to this study.
Preliminary data “suggests significant improvement following four weeks of treatment when compared to baseline,” Gruber noted. “Specifically, findings suggest that the use of a custom-formulated, whole plant-derived high CBD sublingual tincture results in less severe anxiety and fewer anxiety-related symptoms.”
After the completion of this open-label trial, Gruber intends to undertake a double-blind, placebo-controlled experiment that will generate “empirically sound data regarding the efficacy of sublingual CBD for anxiety.”
Human subjects were also recruited for a CBD study at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, where Saoirse E. O’Sullivan and her team examined the acute and chronic effects of cannabidiol on cardiovascular function.
Previously, the Nottingham scientists had shown that “acute oral administration of CBD (600 mg) causes a reduction in blood pressure at rest and in response to stress.” But would tolerance develop with repeated dosing, thereby mitigating CBD’s hypotensive effect?
To find out, twenty-six healthy males were given 600 mg CBD or a placebo orally for seven days in a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, parallel study. The results were mixed. Measurements of resting blood pressure revealed that tolerance developed in response to chronic CBD administration, but CBD’s ability to lower blood pressure persisted during stress.
“The reduction of arterial stiffness, and improvements in internal carotid artery blood flow and endothelial function after chronic CBD treatment, indicate a positive effect in vascular function that warrants further investigation in relevant patient populations,” O’Sullivan reported.
ICRS 2019 included several talks devoted to clinical studies, but most of the CBD presentations showcased cutting-edge data based on preclinical research. The astonishing depth and range of this research underscored CBD’s versatile therapeutic potential.
There’s good reason to be excited about CBD’s potential health benefits, but a word of caution is necessary. Administering pure CBD to animals in a controlled laboratory setting is not the same as human consumption of a CBD oil product purchased from an unregulated internet storefront.
The Prague-based International Cannabis and Cannabinoids Institute (ICCI) analyzed the quality of 70 hemp-derived CBD oil samples available in the European Union, and the results reported at the ICRSsymposium were sobering, to say the least. Twenty percent of the samples contained less CBD than indicated on the label. THC was present in 89 percent of the samples, but in most cases no amount of THCwas provided. And traces of highly toxic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons were found in all the oils tested, underscoring the strong need for better extraction and processing practices by CBD product-makers.
Similar problems plague the CBD market in the United States. Inaccurate or incomplete CBD product labels undermine a consumer’s ability to make well-informed decisions. According to researchers at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and Washington University in St. Louis: “Recent studies have demonstrated that hemp-derived CBD products purchased over the internet are frequently mislabeled, contaminated, or are outright fraudulent (contain no cannabinoids whatsoever). Therefore, patients are more likely to receive medical benefit from products that are routed through state-licensed cannabis markets, where lab testing for CBD content is required.”
Licensed cannabis dispensaries and delivery services also need to up their game and improve their product offerings. “Despite the obvious medical benefits, the availability of CBD-containing products in state-licensed retail stores is highly variable and surprisingly sparse. In one Pennsylvania store only 20 of products (39 or 196) contained CBD,” the U.S. researchers noted. “Results highlight the need for expanded patient access to CBD products.”
Martin A. Lee is the director of Project CBD and the author of several books including Smoke Signals: A Social History of Marijuana – Medical, Recreational and Scientific and Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD– the CIA, the Sixties and Beyond.
Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
https://truebloomwellness.com/blogs/news/how-cbd-works
Although CBD has little binding affinity for either of the two cannabinoid receptors (CB1and CB2), cannabidiol modulates several non-cannabinoid receptors and ion channels. CBDalso acts through various receptor-independent pathways—for example, by delaying the “reuptake” of endogenous neurotransmitters (such as anandamide and adenosine) and by enhancing or inhibiting the binding action of certain G-protein coupled receptors.
Here are some of the ways that CBD confers its manifold therapeutic effects.
Jose Alexandre Crippa and his colleagues at the University of San Paulo in Brazil and King’s College in London have conducted pioneering research into CBD and the neural correlates of anxiety. At high concentrations, CBD directly activates the 5-HT1A (hydroxytryptamine) serotonin receptor, thereby conferring an anti-anxiety effect. This G-coupled protein receptor is implicated in a range of biological and neurological processes, including (but not limited to) anxiety, addiction, appetite, sleep, pain perception, nausea and vomiting.
5-HT1A is a member of the family of 5-HT receptors, which are activated by the neurotransmitter serotonin. Found in both the central and peripheral nervous systems, 5-HT receptors trigger various intracellular cascades of chemical messages to produce either an excitatory or inhibitory response, depending on the chemical context of the message.
CBDA [Cannabidiolic acid], the raw, unheated version of CBD that is present in the cannabis plant, also has a strong affinity for the 5-HT1A receptor (even more so than CBD). Preclinical studies indicate that CBDA is a potent anti-emetic, stronger than either CBD or THC, which also have anti-nausea properties.
CBD directly interacts with various ion channels to confer a therapeutic effect. CBD, for example, binds to TRPV1 receptors, which also function as ion channels. TRPV1 is known to mediate pain perception, inflammation and body temperature.
TRPV is the technical abbreviation for “transient receptor potential cation channel subfamily V.” TRPV1 is one of several dozen TRP (pronounced “trip”) receptor variants or subfamilies that mediate the effects of a wide range of medicinal herbs.
Scientists also refer to TRPV1 as a “vanilloid receptor,” named after the flavorful vanilla bean. Vanilla contains eugenol, an essential oil that has antiseptic and analgesic properties; it also helps to unclog blood vessels. Historically, the vanilla bean has been used as a folk cure for headaches.
CBD binds to TRPV1, which can influence pain perception.
Capsaicin—the pungent compound in hot chili peppers—activates the TRVP1 receptor. Anandamide, the endogenous cannabinoid, is also a TRPV1 agonist.
Whereas cannabidiol directly activates the 5-HT1A serotonin receptor and several TRPV ion channels, some studies indicate that CBD functions as an antagonist that blocks, or deactivates, another G protein-coupled receptor known as GPR55.
GPR55 has been dubbed an “orphan receptor” because scientists are still not sure if it belongs to a larger family of receptors. GPR55 is widely expressed in the brain, especially in the cerebellum. It is involved in modulating blood pressure and bone density, among other physiological processes.
GPR55 promotes osteoclast cell function, which facilitates bone reabsorption. Overactive GPR55 receptor signaling is associated with osteoporosis.
GPR55, when activated, also promotes cancer cell proliferation, according to a 2010 study by researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai. This receptor is expressed in various types of cancer.
CBD is a GPR55 antagonist, as University of Aberdeen scientist Ruth Ross disclosed at the 2010 conference of the International Cannabinoid Research Society in Lund, Sweden. By blocking GPR55 signaling, CBD may act to decrease both bone reabsorption and cancer cell proliferation.
CBD also exerts an anti-cancer effect by activating PPARs [peroxisome proliferator activated receptors] that are situated on the surface of the cell’s nucleus. Activation of the receptor known as PPAR-gamma has an anti-proliferative effect as well as an ability to induce tumor regression in human lung cancer cell lines. PPAR-gamma activation degrades amyloid-beta plaque, a key molecule linked to the development of Alzheimer’s disease. This is one of the reasons why cannabidiol, a PPAR-gamma agonist, may be a useful remedy for Alzheimer’s patients.
PPAR receptors also regulate genes that are involved in energy homeostasis, lipid uptake, insulin sensitivity, and other metabolic functions. Diabetics, accordingly, may benefit from a CBD-rich treatment regimen.
How does CBD, an exogenous plant compound, get inside a human cell to bind to a nuclear receptor? First it has to pass through the cell membrane by hitching a ride with a fatty acid binding protein (FABP), which chaperones various lipid molecules into the cell’s interior. These intracellular transport molecules also escort tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and the brain’s own marijuana-like molecules, the endocannabinoids anandamide and 2AG, across the membrane to several targets within the cell. CBD and THC both modulate receptors on the surface of the nucleus, which regulate gene expression and mitochondrial activity.
Cannabidiol, it turns out, has a strong affinity for three kinds of FABPs, and CBD competes with our endocannabinoids, which are fatty acids, for the same transport molecules. Once it is inside the cell, anandamide is broken down by FAAH [fatty acid amide hydrolase], a metabolic enzyme, as part of its natural molecular life cycle. But CBD interferes with this process by reducing anandamide’s access to FABPtransport molecules and delaying endocannabinoid passage into the cell’s interior.
According to a team of Stony Brook University scientists, CBD functions as an anandamide reuptake and breakdown inhibitor, thereby raising endocannabinoid levels in the brain’s synapses. Enhancing endocannabinod tone via reuptake inhibition may be a key mechanism whereby CBD confers neuroprotective effects against seizures, as well as many other health benefits.
CBD’s anti-inflammatory and anti-anxiety effects are in part attributable to its inhibition of adenosine reuptake. By delaying the reuptake of this neurotransmitter, CBD boosts adenosine levels in the brain, which regulates adenosine receptor activity. A1A and A2A adenosine receptors play significant roles in cardiovascular function, regulating myocardial oxygen consumption and coronary blood flow. These receptors have broad anti-inflammatory effects throughout the body.
CBD also functions as an allosteric receptor modulator, which means that it can either enhance or inhibit how a receptor transmits a signal by changing the shape of the receptor.
Australian scientists report that CBD acts as a “positive allosteric modulator” of the GABA-A receptor. In other words, CBD interacts with the GABA-A receptor in a way that enhances the receptor’s binding affinity for its principal endogenous agonist, gamma-Aminobutyric acid (GABA), which is the main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the mammalian central nervous system. The sedating effects of Valium and other Benzos are mediated by GABA receptor transmission. CBD reduces anxiety by changing the shape of the GABA-A receptor in a way that amplifies the natural calming effect of GABA.
Canadian scientists have identified CBD as a “negative allosteric modulator” of the cannabinoid CB1 receptor, which is concentrated in the brain and central nervous system. While cannabidiol doesn’t bind to the CB1 receptor directly like THC does, CBD interacts allosterically with CB1 and changes the shape of the receptor in a way that weakens CB1’s ability to bind with THC.
As a negative allosteric modulator of the CB1receptor, CBD lowers the ceiling on THC’s psychoactivity—which is why people don’t feel as “high” when using CBD-rich cannabis compared to when they consume THC-dominant medicine. A CBD-rich product with little THC can convey therapeutic benefits without having a euphoric or dysphoric effect.
Photo credits: CPD events, Lafaza, CGStudio
Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
]]>Cannabinoids are bemoaned for their low bioavailability. When someone eats THC or CBD, less than 10% gets into their blood stream. A recent study from pharmacologists at the University of Minnesota examined how eating a meal affects the absorption of CBD. Normally researchers have people fast and take CBD in the morning before eating — this reduces variability, but it also changes how well your body can absorb the CBD. On a full stomach, CBD will stay in the gut for longer and have more time to be uptaken. If the meal is particularly fatty, the body will try to collect the oils, and CBD might get caught up along with them. This is exactly what the researchers found! When taking CBD half an hour after a fatty meal, people were exposed to nearly 5x more CBD. The peak plasma concentration of CBD was 14x higher when participants ate first. This suggests that eating before taking CBD might reduce the required dose, but could also be more likely to cause drug interactions. The researchers note that this effect should be considered for epileptic patients on a ketogenic diet, which is a high-fat diet. Such patients may need to take a smaller dose of CBD. People shouldn’t be too caught up with bioavailability, however. Cannabinoids are metabolized into active molecules: THC turns into 11-OH-THC, which appears more intoxicating than THC, while CBD is converted to 7-COOH-CBD, a molecule proposed to have an anti-epileptic effect. These chemicals aren’t represented when one talks about bioavailability.
Although cannabinoids have shown promise for epilepsy in general, Epidiolex is only approved for two kinds of childhood epilepsy. But this may be more a reflection of the FDA’s drug approval process than of the conditions for which CBD helps. (It is much quicker and cheaper to get approval for an untreated disease.) CBD appears to work well for many kinds of epilepsy. A study from the University of Alabama’s CBD program looked at the use of CBD for seizures in patients with brain tumors. The report described three male patients, between 17 and 40 years old, who developed seizures due to brain tumors. One patient’s seizures were reduced by over 50%, though he was taking an extremely high dose of 50 mg/kg/day CBD. A second patient, taking 20 mg/kg CBD per day was seizure-free for a month, a major decrease from 5 seizures every two weeks at the start of the study. This patient died during the study, seemingly unrelated to CBD. A third patient had a slight increase in the number of seizures, and he stopped CBD treatment due to side effects. Despite the increase in the total number of seizures, the researchers reported that the severity of his seizures were reduced during CBD treatment.
Giving medical cannabis to infants is a difficult taboo to shift, but new research is paving the way. The launch of a clinical trial examining the use of CBD in newborns suffering from hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (brain damage caused by lack of oxygen) means new hope for the million plus babies born each year with this condition. These infants are often left severely disabled, and many die.
Hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) caused by asphyxia is the leading cause of infant fatalities in the United States (1). Despite this, HIE is considered a rare disease as it only affects 2 or 3 newborns in every 1000. Factors leading to HIE include maternal diabetes, lack of blood circulation to the placenta, preeclampsia, congenital infections of the fetus, drug and alcohol addiction, as well as complications during delivery. Premature babies are at particularly high risk of death or disability if HIE occurs after delivery.
Right now, the standard treatment for severe HIE is hypothermia - reducing the baby’s body temperature to 33-34°C. Hypothermia has been found to have neuroprotective effects, reducing brain inflammation and glutamate production, as well as lowering the production of free radicals. Given within 6 hours of birth, hypothermia can prevent death or severe disability in 60% of cases.
“Before the appearance of hypothermia a few years ago, there was nothing that could be done,” explains Dr. José Antonio Martínez-Orgado, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and head of the Neonatology Division at San Carlos Hospital, Madrid, Spain.
“So time after time, you were at the bedside of a very nice, very good looking baby, and it had some kind of problem during the delivery and it was close to dying or with very, very substantial damaged brain,” Dr. Martinez-Orgado told Project CBD, “It was for me a challenge. We should do something.”
Dr. Martinez-Orgado began his hunt to find an adjunct treatment to hypothermia that would improve these babies’ outcomes. In preclinical studies, the neuroprotectant effects of cannabinoids came up time and time again, so he decided to investigate their effects in animal models of HIE.
Martinez-Orgado and his team opted to focus on CBD rather than THC, as the non-intoxicating cannabinoid was considered safer for immature brains due to its lack of direct CB1 receptor activation. They consistently found that CBD reduced neuro-inflammation, minimized damage caused by oxidative stress, and diminished glutamate-related excitotoxicity – which are considered the three major causes of brain damage in people of all ages (2). However, in newborns, this triad of events cause disproportionately severe brain damage compared to similar occurrences in older children and adults.
“That’s why,” says Martinez-Orgado, “it’s so difficult to treat babies suffering from brain damage, and how mandatory it is to find something that acts on the three components at the same time. This was hypothermia and this is CBD.”
Despite years of successful studies proving CBD’s potential as an effective drug for HIE, the Spanish researchers have struggled to move forward to the clinical trial stage. “Maybe because it’s looked on as cannabis, we have been asked to give a substantial amount of evidence of efficacy and safety for CBD treatment that for other treatments had not been required,” reflects Martinez-Orgado.
However, the team’s most recently published preclinical study (3) proved to be a real game-changer. They tested CBD alongside hypothermia in a piglet model of hypoxic-ischemic brain damage and the results were astonishing.
Intravenously injected, purified CBD was given in three doses to hypoxic-ischemic, insult-induced newborn piglets that had already been through hypothermia.
“When we used them together,” says Martinez-Orgado, “they were reducing brain damage by almost 100%. So there was a dramatic synergistic effect because hypothermia alone and CBD alone were not working. CBD and hypothermia together led to a remarkable neuroprotective effect.”
These positive results have paved the way for this summer’s GW Pharma-backed stage II/III clinical trial taking place in hospitals across Spain and the UK.
Using the same intravenous CBD delivery method, newborns with brain injuries will be given either hypothermia and CBD, hypothermia on its own, or hypothermia plus a placebo. The CBD will be highly purified as even small amounts of other cannabinoids or compounds may not be tolerated when given intravenously.
While Martinez-Orgado feels hopeful about the results, he knows that doctors will face many unpredictable factors not experienced in a controlled, preclinical setting.
“When we were doing the preclinical studies with animals,” he explains, “you know exactly when the hypoxic-ischemic insult occurs. And you know exactly how many minutes or hours after that you have to start the treatment. The problem with the human baby is that it’s inside the mother’s womb, and when the mother comes to the hospital, we don’t know when the hypoxic-ischemic insult started.”
To complicate matters further, doctors have a very limited window of opportunity as hypothermia must be carried out within 6 hours of birth. However, CBD may widen this therapeutic opening: in a previous study on mice, the cannabinoid was found to be neuroprotective when administered for up to 24 hours after the hypoxic-ischemic insult occurred (4).
In the end, there’s never any guarantee that positive results from a preclinical study will be replicated in humans with sufficient efficacy and safety for a drug to be approved. In the case of this particular clinical trial, the team will have to wait 18 months after the CBD has been administered in order to know for sure whether the babies are free from long term neurological impairment.
It’s noteworthy, however, that CBD has already reached this stage as a potentially life-saving treatment for the most vulnerable of patient populations – an achievement that highlights CBD’s potential as a safe and highly effective treatment for minimizing the severe effects of brain injuries in patients of all ages.
Mary Biles is a journalist, blogger and educator with a background in holistic health. Based between the UK and Spain, she is committed to accurately reporting advances in medical cannabis research.
Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
https://www.projectcbd.org/medicine/cbd-brain-damaged-babies
Cannabidiol and CBD oil seem to be everywhere these days, despite the confusing legal status of this prolific compound. But how much do we actually know about CBD?
Cannabis was effectively outlawed by the federal government in 1937 with the passage and implementation of the Marihuana Tax Act. The Act explicitly stated that cannabis resin or any extract from the resin was considered to be “marihuana” (i.e. the Evil Weed). Cannabidiol (CBD) is found in the resin, nowhere else in the plant. (Tetrahydrocannabinol – THC, aka The High Causer – is also concentrated in the resin along with a slew of other therapeutic compounds.) In effect, CBD, a nonintoxicating cannabis component, was prohibited by federal law before anyone actually knew that CBD existed.
It wasn’t until 1940 that Roger Adams, a University of Illinois chemist, first identified and synthesized CBD. Two years later, he was awarded a patent for his unique method of isolating CBD. Adams observed that CBDhad pain-killing properties and he contributed to the 1944 La Guardia Report on the Marihuana Problem, which debunked many of the scaremongering reefer madness claims promoted by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. By the time Adams retired in 1957, he had published 27 studies on CBD and other plant cannabinoids. He was subsequently honored by the American Chemical Society, which established the prestigious Roger Adams Award in recognition of his life’s work. Israeli scientist Raphael Mechoulam picked up where Adams left off and elucidated the precise molecular structure of CBD in 1963. And he did the same for THC in 1964.
Cannabidiol (CBD) not only protects brain cells – it also stimulates the growth of new brain cells, a process known as “neurogenesis.” New neurons are continually being created in two areas of the hippocampus: the subgranular zone of dentate gyrus and subventricular zone of lateral ventricles. These brain regions are densely populated with cannabinoid (CB1) receptors. Activation of CB1 receptors stimulates the creation of new neurons, a process that underscores the central role of endocannabinoid system the in embryonic and adult neurogenesis, according to a 2019 study by a team of Brazilian scientists.
Whereas THC binds directly to CB1, CBD boosts CB1 signaling through other pathways. Both CBD and THC are “neurogenic” substances that promote neurogenesis. “The pro-neurogeneic effects of CBD might explain some of the positive therapeutic features of CBD-based compounds,” German scientists reported in 2010. The antidepressant properties of CBD, THC and several other compounds are contingent on enhanced neurogenesis and neuroplasticity, the ability to adapt to stress and injury – unlike “chronic alcohol exposure [which] reduces endocannabinoid activity and disrupts adult neurogenesis,” Spanish researchers disclosed in 2015. It’s worth noting that preclinical research shows that a low dose of CBD increases neurogenesis, but higher doses decrease neurogenesis.
When Project CBD formed 10 years ago to educate the medical marijuana community and the public at large about cannabidiol, we typically referred to CBD as “non-psychoactive,” and it subsequently became the mantra of the upstart CBD industry. “CBD is not psychoactive, it doesn’t get you high” – that’s always been a key selling point about CBD. According to politically correct drug war dogma, the cannabis high is a bad side effect. At Project CBD, we’ve since come to an understanding that while CBD most certainly is not an intoxicant, it’s misleading to call it non-psychoactive. When a clinically depressed patient or a PTSD sufferer consumes a CBD-rich tincture and has a very good day for the first time in a long while, it’s apparent that CBD is a powerful mood-altering molecule. Cannabidiol won’t make a person feel euphoric or dysphoric like THC does, but CBD can impact the psyche in positive ways.
Best of all, when combined THC and CBD confer a greater-than-additive therapeutic effect. Accordingly, it makes sense to medicate using a CBD-rich remedy with as much THC as a person is comfortable with. For some people that means as little THC as possible. Those who are very sensitive to cannabis may have a genetic variant that impedes their ability to metabolize THC, which stays active in their system longer. About 20 percent of Caucasians express a polymorphism of the gene that encodes the cytochrome P450isoform that breaks down THC. About ten percent of those of African descent and five percent of Asians also have this genetic anomoly, which makes them supersensitive to THC. Those who don’t like to get high have the option of utilizing a non-intoxicating CBD-rich product with a minuscule amount of THC.
CBD oil companies often tout cannabidiol for its ability to neutralize THC’s psychoactive effects. But this emphasis distracts attention from one of CBD’s greatest gifts: It enables a person to manage marijuana’s tricky psychoactivity in a way that suits one’s particular needs and sensitivities. That might mean reducing the high without eliminating it entirely. Finding the optimal balance between CBD and THC is a key challenge of cannabis therapeutics. CBD and THC are the power couple of the cannabis plant; they work best together.
Extensive clinical research has demonstrated that CBD combined with THC is more beneficial for neuropathic pain than either compound as a single molecule. Scientists at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco found that a CBD-THC combo has a more potent anti-tumoral effect than either compound alone when tested on brain cancer and breast cancer cell lines. And according to a 2010 study in the British Journal of Pharmacology, CBD potentiates THC’s anti-inflammatory properties in an animal model of colitis: “CBD increased some effects of an ineffective THC dose to the level of an effective one.” In other words, a low, non-intoxicating dose of THC on its own might not be effective therapeutically. However, when combined with CBD a non-intoxicating dose of THC may result in a desired therapeutic outcome. That’s great news for those seeking the medical benefits of cannabis without the buzz.
The canonical endocannbinoid system consists of two cannabinoid receptor subtypes (CB1 and CB2); two principal endocannabinoid ligands (anandamide and 2-AG) that activate these receptors; and various proteins that regulate the biosynthesis, transport, and metabolic breakdown of our endogenous cannabinoids. CBD, it turns out, has little binding affinity for either cannabinoid receptor, but instead conveys effects through a bewildering array of molecular pathways. According to Mayo Clinic neurologist Eugene L. Scharf (writing in 2017), the scientific literature has identified more than 65 molecular targets of CBD, including various G-protein coupled receptors that activate or inhibit serotonin, adenosine and opioid signaling. CBD binds to several so-called orphan receptors (GPR3, GPR6, GPR12, GPR18, GPR55 …) and also interacts with GABAa receptors; nuclear receptors (PPARs); several members of the transient receptor potential (TRP) channel family of ionotropic receptors; and various ligand-gated ion channels, such as glycine (GlyR), nicotinic acetylcholine (nACh), and sodium channels (NaV).
That’s a lot of scientific mumbo-jumbo for a little molecule, but there’s more. CBD functions as a negative allosteric CB1 receptor modulator, which means that CBD interferes with THC’s ability to signal through CB1 without entirely blocking it. This appears to be one of the ways that CBD lowers the ceiling on THC’s intoxicating effect. In addition, CBD acts through various receptor-independent conduits to confer therapeutic outcomes. As Paula Morales and Patricia H. Reggio report in Medicinal Chemistry, CBD’s promiscuous nature “offers novel prospects for the treatment of neurological, oncological, and inflammatory diseases.”
Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
CBD interacts with a body’s Endocannabinoid system which
regulates a variety of physiological processes such as mood,
energy, immune system, memory, stress, hunger and other
important functions.
CBD activates the CB1 and CB2 receptors found in the brain to
feed the Endocannabinoicd system. By bonding with our body’s
CB1 and CB2 receptors, CBD not only helps to maintain vital health
functions―it helps to restore the homeostasis, or balance, within the
body.
CBD is found in agricultural hemp as well as cannabis. While
cannabinoids are present in several plants in nature, cannabis is
the only plant known to contain CBD. Unlike its cousin THC, CBD is
non-psychoactive.