Making Sense of CBD

If you’re anything like me, you’ve started seeing more companies offering something called CBD, extracted from cannabis plants, and they absolutely swear that it’s not marijuana. Companies are adding CBD to foods and incorporating it into skincare products, because it apparently not only makes us healthier but also more beautiful. Because it’s currently considered a supplement by the FDA, there isn’t a lot of regulation surrounding how CBD can be produced or what it can’t do, which makes it hard to evaluate if these companies are telling the truth or using it like snake oil.

But what I find most confusing is getting a straightforward answer about what it is, what it does, and how it works. Aside from some slow-going (but hyped-up) scientific research laden with jargon, most of the information on the internet yields articles from companies trying to sell you on CBD. These health and wellness companies may have an interest in telling the truth about CBD’s benefits, but they also have an interest in my wallet, and that makes me doubt that they’ve carefully studied the literature out there.

Full disclosure: I am not a scientist (or an expert of any kind, really). I’m a person who takes my health seriously and is willing to read some scientific articles to get a sense as to what the truth is and how far it goes. I also haven’t personally used CBD in any form, so I can’t offer any personal testimonial, but maybe that’s a good thing. You decide.

First, the Endocannabinoid System (ECS)

In the early 1990s, scientists discovered the presence of a mostly neurological subsystem in pigs. After some observations about how this system worked and comparing it to information about the human neurological system, they were able to conclude that humans have a similar subsystem that behaves in similar ways, and this became known as the endocannabinoid system. This subsystem involves certain parts of our nervous system that respond to cannabinoids — the name given to chemical compounds found in cannabis plants.

The presence of ECS in vertebrates, mammals, and humans implies a role in several physiological processes, including appetite, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, fertility, immune functions, memory, neuroprotection, and pain modulation.

This is very exciting from a pro-cannabis standpoint. If our brain has natural receptors for cannabis, does this mean that part of our evolution involved the ability to ingest cannabis? The evolutionary argument is speculative, but many CBD companies use this pithy information to persuade you that your body can not only tolerate CBD, but it has evolved to do that.

However, science still doesn’t entirely understand how the endocannabinoid system works, and it’s far from being able to explain the interactions that certain compounds have on the system. This means that most CBD research, while promising, is inconclusive. That’s a big deal, because while people are singing CBD’s praises, there could be long-term side effects we don’t know about because we haven’t been studying it long enough, and once you factor in the time it will take to replicate studies with different samples to produce consistent results, you begin to get a sense as how long it might be before there’s any conclusive evidence to share. All this to say, the endocannabinoid system is a vital and complex biological system that we’re still figuring out.

Cannabinoids in General

Before we talk about CBD specifically, we need to talk a little bit about cannabinoids. Reminder: cannabinoids are chemical compounds that interact with the endocannabinoid system. Reviewing the variety of roles that the ECS has, you can probably imagine both beneficial and harmful possibilities that could occur from interfering with the ECS, yet people are ingesting cannabinoids faster than science can understand the full range of effects each chemical has on the human body.

There are two main types of cannabinoids. The type that nobody talks about are the endocannabinoids, also referred to as endogenous cannabinoids. (“Endo” being the word for “within,” like how humans have an endoskeleton, and bugs have “exo”-skeletons, “exo” being the word for “outside.”) Although the endocannabinoids lend their name to the biological system in our body that reacts to cannabis, the human body produces endocannabinoids all on its own. Cannabis may have inspired their name, but you don’t need any cannabis to experience the benefits these chemicals have. When studying the ECS, scientists are often tracking the effect of a particular endocannabinoid and how increases and decreases of its presence correspondingly affect the above-listed biological systems. This is straight-up “how does our body work?” kind of research.

So the other type, the type made popular by THC and CBD, are the exogenous cannabinoids, or cannabinoids that our bodies can’t produce so we can only get them through cannabis. There’s research on how these chemicals interact with the body and their potential therapeutic effects.

Before we dismiss CBD as being useless because it’s exogenous and co-exists with THC, being animals by definition, we know that many nutrients our bodies need to live come from exogenous sources, i.e. food. What makes an exogenous chemical good for our health (as measured by life satisfaction and longevity) or bad for our health tends to involve an intricate understanding of how the chemical interacts with our bodies. An example of a complex biological interaction: red wine. Red wine has antioxidants, which are good, and alcohol, which is bad. Is red wine, as a whole, good or bad for you? Are we better off drinking grape juice? Cannabis is in a similar predicament, with CBD being analogous to antioxidants and THC to alcohol.

Now Cannabidiol, or CBD

When we ingest cannabis as a whole plant, we’re taking the red wine gamble; some of it is beneficial and some of it is harmful, and the benefits vary. But cannabidiol is not a plant — it’s a cannabinoid that has been extracted from cannabis plants, including the relatively uncontroversial hemp, and studied for its potential therapeutic effects.

So what are some of the effects that CBD has on the ECS and therefore our health as a whole?

“Although the exact mechanism and magnitude of effects of THC and CBD are not fully understood, CBD has been shown to have analgesic, anticonvulsant, muscle relaxant, anxiolytic, neuroprotective, anti-oxidant, and anti-psychotic activity.’ — PubChem

I’ve provided some quick definitions below so you can understand what these effects mean:

• Analgesic: Means “acting to relieve pain.”
• Anticonvulsant: As you may have deduced from its root words, this means that CBD can be used to prevent or reduce the severity of convulsions
• Muscle Relaxant: Muscle relaxants can relieve muscle spasms
• Anxiolytic: Means to reduce or treat anxiety and panic
• Neuroprotective: Certain diseases or injuries can create neurotoxicity; neuroprotection means that it slows down or prevents it from occurring.
• Anti-oxidant: Antioxidants are chemicals that prevent oxidation; oxidation is a chemical reaction that produces free radicals, which are correlated with health problems such as oxidative stress and cellular damage.
• Anti-psychotic: Psychotic activity is considered to be delusions, hallucinations, paranoia or “disordered thought.” As an antipsychotic, CBD could be a treatment for people who experience psychotic activity, such as for individuals with schizophrenia.

As far as we know, CBD does some pretty good things for our health. By isolating CBD, scientists are beginning to understand how it interacts with the endocannabinoid system, but as I mentioned earlier: it’s too early to be conclusive, and there could be unknown side effects from extensive or prolonged use. But there are also those effects that haven’t been verified by any study or research into the chemical. It’s not to say that CBD eye creams claiming to reduce puffiness are wrong or misleading. It’s more like there’s no evidence that allows us to discern the truth separate from the marketing claims. Maybe it reduces puffiness, maybe not. There could also be side effects from putting it on your sensitive eye skin that we don’t know about yet.

In Conclusion…

Proceed with caution, use wisely, maybe drink some grape juice while you’re at it. If nothing else, you can take comfort in knowing that people have been ingesting CBD through traditional cannabis plants for centuries, if not thousands of years, and the human species has survived either because of it or in spite of it. I hope this clears up some of your own confusion surrounding CBD and gives you a starting point for making an informed choice before you decide to jump on this bandwagon, but I’m also including some sources for you to educate yourself further.

The endocannabinoid system: an overview. By Natalia Battista, Monia Di Tommaso, Monica Bari, and Mauro Maccarrone.