By Hannah Lail, Ph.D. student in chemistry with a concentration in nutritional sciences
Whether you're driving around downtown or scrolling through social media, CBD is everywhere. From local gas stations to grocery stores and specialty popup shops, CBD is making itself known. Various kinds of CBD products are available for purchase, including pure oil, tinctures, capsules, gummies, and sleep aids. And many popular social media personalities encourage adding it to baked goods and lattes. Even CBD pet products have made their way to market shelves. But what is CBD, and is it safe to consume?
Cannabidiol, more commonly known as CBD, is a chemical taken from cannabis or marijuana plant leaves. But unlike marijuana, CBD has no hallucinogenic properties, which means that you aren't going to get "high" from CBD. However, like marijuana, the legal status of cannabis-derived CBD is illegal pending Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, leaving the content and quality of non-FDA-approved products otherwise unchecked.
Are the CBD products on the market safe for consumption? It's important to understand how CBD works. CBD produces its effects on the body through various molecular pathways, and the scientific literature has already identified a wide range of molecular targets of CBD. As mentioned above, CBD does not cause any hallucinogenic effects because CBD does not bind to the same receptors as THC, the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Instead, CBD binds and activates various pathways that release calming chemical messages throughout the body.
It's also important to understand how CBD is digested, or rather, what it becomes in the body after we eat it, and if it has any harmful side effects. A 2018 study aimed to determine CBD's safety and impact using 56 healthy male and female individuals. The participants were given an oral solution of CBD either once daily, twice daily, or once daily with a meal, at different doses for one week. So, how did they measure digestion? When the body absorbs nutrients and other chemicals, it usually breaks them down into smaller parts, broadly known as "metabolites." When CBD is broken down, it has three primary metabolites, and the researchers were able to measure them in the blood. The researchers found that the amount of CBD ingested and the number of doses greatly affected the level of circulating CBD metabolites, which means that the body absorbs CBD to use it and is not merely excreted as waste. They also found that CBD taken with a meal greatly enhanced the absorption of CBD, and, as a result, the participants in this group reported more unpleasant side effects. The most common side effects reported were diarrhea, nausea, headache, and drowsiness, also shown in previous studies. Overall, this study concluded that most individuals could safely tolerate CBD supplementation at doses up to 6,000 mg daily.
Due to the non-lethal nature of the chemical, new studies are investigating CBD as a potential treatment for many disorders, including anxiety, chronic pain, and Alzheimer's, to name a few. While these studies only use the highest quality CBD products, you should be aware that over-the-counter CBD products could be contaminated with any number of unknown ingredients without FDA regulations. Furthermore, many of CBD's health-related claims are not yet based on substantial scientific evidence and may instead be due to placebo effect.