More and more people are ditching their pills for pot. According to a new study, 42 percent of people who use cannabis products with CBD, a prominent, non-psychotropic cannabinoid, stopped using more traditional medications like Advil or prescription drugs like Vicodin.
Conducted by Brightfield Group and HelloMD, an online medical marijuana doctor service, the study surveyed 2,400 members of HelloMD. The researchers found that 80 percent of CBD users found the products to be “very or extremely effective,” while less than three percent found them to be ineffective. The study also found that 55 percent of CBD consumers were women.
According to Dr. Perry Solomon, chief medical officer of HelloMD, people use CBD most commonly to treat insomnia, anxiety, depression, and joint pain. However, while CBD can work wonders on a number of ailments, it’s important to determine that the CBD products you’re using are legitimate. While there’s a lot of snake oil out there, here are some tips you should keep in mind before you buy CBD. Be sure it’s not derived from industrial hemp, which harbors a number of toxins from the Earth, and also look out for unhealthy additives.
If you’re looking to take less ibuprofen or other pharmaceutical drugs, here are some ailments you can use CBD for instead of pills.
Headaches
Migraines affect 12 percent of the worldwide population. In particular, while cannabis is known to treat pain in a general sense, in particular it helps to inhibit the receptors that control pain, vomiting, and other migraine symptoms, while binding to periaqueductal gray matter in the brain, which regulates pain transmission, which also is implicated in causing migraines.
Anxiety and Depression
While CBD’s anxiolytic effect is not fully understood, it’s known that CBD alters serotonin signaling, which plays a role in mental health. Because CBD also helps other physical ailments and is used to help people sleep, by improving your physical health, it helps people to feel better in their emotional health, as well. There’s also evidence that if you’re too high, paranoid, or anxious from THC, CBD is a recommended counter to those challenging feelings.
Insomnia
Because of its anxiolytic effect, CBD has been shown to help with regulating your sleep cycle. In particular, it helps block REM sleep, during which dreams happen. This might help if you have experienced trauma and can’t sleep well because of nightmares during REM sleep.
Seizures and Epilepsy
CBD became most well known after Sanjay Gupta showed just how effective it was in reducing the hundreds of seizures toddler Charlotte Figi experienced on a weekly basis. While it’s still unclear often what physiological process causes a seizure, in lay terms it can be described as a signal malfunction in the body. However, because CBD helps to balance the endocannabinoid system, which regulates numerous biological processes, it has been proven time and again to vastly curb the frequency or intensity of what could be life-threatening seizures.
Crohn’s Disease
CBD is known to be effective for bowel disease, such as Crohn’s, since both CBD and THC help control the function of your body’s gut. Cannabis anti-inflammatory effects also help treat the symptoms of Crohn’s Disease.
