It’s still early, according to researchers in England, but studies are showing evidence that suggest cannabidiol (CBD) may be an effective treatment for stress.
We already know that the too-stoned feeling, which may cause a sense of discomfort, or even paranoia, can be mellowed out with CBD.
Researchers are now digging into some of the other chemicals in the complex plant, and they report that there is a lot more to it than the we have previously known.
CBD’s calming effect might extend throughout the body, all the way down to the very vessels through which blood flows.
If that is the case, it could be a way to help the 75 million Americans with high blood pressure and eventually the 1.13 billion people worldwide who suffer from this dangerous condition.
In a paper published this year, the University of Nottingham’s Professor Saoirse O’Sullivan described how nine healthy volunteers exhibited reduced blood pressure responses to stress after just one treatment of CBD.
It was a double-blind study, and researchers did not unblind (make treatment details available to the trial participants) until they finished their analysis of the data.
While the blood pressure response to stress was lower after taking CBD, blood flow didn’t degrade; that is, the system was still circulating well and the heart didn’t suffer as much under stress.
It was a small test, and it suggests that more research could reveal positive results.
“What we’re doing now, currently, is looking at whether or not we can repeat that,” O’Sullivan told the Observer, “and, also: what happens when you do repeated dosing?”
Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and the University of Chicago earlier this year released a study that found THC has stress-relieving properties that are most effective when micro-dosed but that too much can have the opposite effect.
