All journeys must end, and when we take cannabidiol the end point is often our liver. In this post we go deep to examine just how CBD is transformed and removed by our livers, and how that process can both protect us and interfere with other medications. To do so, we will cover the proteins known as cytochromes, and look at what animal and human trials tell us about the likely effects of combining CBD with existing drugs.
How To Determine The Gender Of Your Cannabis Plant?
The note does not cite any of that scientific literature, but we will do our best here to identify and examine some of the main studies that likely steered the FDA to this conclusion. If the FDA are correct, then this is a significant issue that deserves close attention from all cannabis users, whether medical or recreational.
Further, CBD has never caused a single death in humans, at any dose level. We have known for several decades that cannabidiol can slow down or prevent enzyme activity in the livers of several animal species. They did so because CBD is known to inhibit metabolism of these drugs via the CYP3A4 and CYP2C19 cytochromes that we discussed earlier, which would leave more of them in a patient’s system than expected.
The conditions are both treatable, but the pharmaceutical drugs used have side effects including drowsiness, agitation, insomnia, and even worse, some are highly addictive. While all care is taken over the accuracy of information on this site, it is not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease. Please consult a medical professional before commencing any new treatment. Mice that were given smaller doses than the extremes discussed above were also fine, albeit often with temporarily heavier livers as a result of increased water needed to flush out all the extra CBD. The mice deaths occurred at a daily dose – over 10 days – of 615mg per kg of mouse weight.
But to compare this to humans with our much larger bodies, we need to appropriately scale up the dose. The equivalent in a 60kg human adult therefore would be around 3000mg of CBD daily, or 1500mg of CBD for a 20kg child. The maximum recommended dose for children taking Epidyolex is 20mg/kg per day, or 400mg for a 20kg child – the starting dose is 100mg per day. The damaged mice were therefore receiving around 3-4 times the maximum dose a human would take, even in CBD oil a medical context.
Not only that, in human studies some subjects began to show an increase in liver enzymes to such an alarming degree that they were removed from the study entirely. In addition, we should note that the human equivalent doses were on the low end of the spectrum.
- The first method is to apply the hemp oil directly to your skin.
- One option is to mix it into foods, like smoothies, salad dressings, or soup.
- If you don’t like the taste or consuming the hemp oil straight, you can also use it in different recipes.
- Hempseed oil is safe for most people to use and usually doesn’t contain any THC or psychoactive properties, although this has been widely disputed.
Humans often take much higher doses when using the drug for medicinal purposes. According to the World Health Organization, depression effects 300 million people worldwide.
Cbd, Dosage And The Mouse Study
Aside from alcohol, CBD has been researched for a number of common liver ailments. For example, a 2011 study looked at liver ischemia, or insufficient blood supply, in a group of rats. It found that CBD reduced the amount of inflammation caused by this condition, as well as protecting liver tissue from damage. And other potentially addictive substances may benefit from CBD’s assistance – a 2015 mouse study showed that cocaine-induced liver damage and associated siezures were alleviated by CBD.
