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Despite Having No Proof, CBD is Finding a Niche as a Cure-All
Due to the succeeding legalization in some states in the United States, as well as in other countries, CBD has recently dominating the research field of medicine, like pathology, neurology and psychology.
Moreover, a lot of people use CBD as an antiemetic or painkillers nowadays. But more and more researches are revealing that CBD doesn’t only work for that. To feed your interest, the following provides some other functions of CBD in three common yet debilitating diseases.
Fights Cancer
Synthetic cannabinoids have recently been used to prevent loss of appetite, eliminate nausea and reduce pain felt by cancer patients. However, recent studies show that natural cannabinoids from cannabis plants contain cancer-fighting properties that can fight against different kinds of cancers.
CBD is believed to have the ability to lessen energy production in cancers and trigger apoptosis. Apoptosis is a phenomenon in which cancer cells kill themselves, consequently stopping them from growing and stopping. CBD can also impede a newly discovered cannabinoid cancer pathway and become sensitive to lymphokine-activated killer cells or tumor-killing white blood cells.
In brief, CBD can prevent cancer cell growth and may kill cells of various cancers such as lung, cervical, colon, thyroid, breast and prostate cancer, or even the difficult glioma or brain cancer. Although these sound promising, most of the related researches so far have limited scope and are more focusing on cells yet.
Halts Neurodegenerative Diseases
Studies show that CBD can prevent nerves from dying; hence it can protect brain cells. It was determined that the effects of oxidative stress and toxic substances in brain cells could be countered by CBD. This is essentially good especially when recovering from stroke or other forms of brain damage.
One research studying animals’ brains show that CBD can protect animals from any brain damage like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases through decreasing beta-amyloid toxicity. What’s more, in that study, CBD successfully reverse animal with Alzheimer’s disease cognitive function.
With regards to studies relating to humans, one study revealed that CBD can also reduce uncontrollable muscle twitching of those human patients with movement disorders. This study has almost similar result with another study which revealed that CBD can relieve muscle spasms of patients with multiple sclerosis.
In addition, scientists in other researches claimed that when focusing in cells, CBD is a better antioxidant compared to α-tocopherol or vitamin E, and ascorbic acid or vitamin C. Because of its antioxidant as well as anti-inflammatory properties, CBD can possibly help both humans and animals who/which have Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) in extending their lives.
Furthermore, intaking too much vitamins C and E is harmful, yet CBD will only cause minimal side effects such as having diarrhea. According to statistics, there are many active users who testify that they’re satisfied using CBD not only for its few side effects but also for its efficacy. There are some who even indulge to business, like dealing to wholesale CBD oils, since they believe that CBD will soon hit the market.
As mentioned earlier, there are many ways how CBD can protect one’s brain. Unfortunately, these ways do not beneficially impact every mental condition that is an outcome of a brain damage.
Benefits Schizophrenia
A number of medical researchers have found out that CBD can reduce symptoms of schizophrenia and prevent psychosis. In fact, CBD is a natural alternative to antipsychotic drugs with the least side effects among other drugs.
It’s widely known that while the psychoactive THC provokes psychotic episodes of those patients with schizophrenia, CBD doesn’t. It may contain an enzyme that clear anandamide, which is a natural antidepressant controlled by the cannabinoid system of the brain.
Patients who are experiencing psychosis oftentimes produce too much or too little cannabinoids. As milder than human’s internal cannabinoids, CBD can help rebuild balance between cannabinoids in one’s brain. Besides, inflammation usually increases during schizophrenia. Intaking CBD can help during these situations for it can decrease inflammation, as well.
A few medical experts claim that CBD seems to decrease abnormal brain functions of those people who are associated with psychosis, those who are experiencing bipolar disorder and schizophrenia to be exact.
On the other hand, there are other research experiments which showed that CBD treatment didn’t improve any psychotic symptoms nor cognitive impairments associated with schizophrenia. Dosage of CBD intake and the status of the participants are two among other unidentified reasons for these inconsistent results.
Takeaway
If studies relating to CBD would be gathered, CBD can be generally identified as “cure-all”. The thing is, there are no clear proofs why it can be used for any disease, yet. Either researchers didn’t figure out the reasons yet despite the advancement of technology, or it’s just plainly politically influenced, which is definitely another story.
Author: Shay Masand is a writer and a mother of two. She loves to write about home improvement, health and lifestyle, and travel. When not writing or taking care of her children, she goes to her pilates class.