On Sun, 30 Dec 2018 10:18:06 -0000, "Ophelia" >
wrote:

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>"GM" wrote in message
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>https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...pYVpXTQVFac2Fk
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>"Does CBD Really Do Anything?
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>As marijuana is legalized in more and more states, the wellness world has
>whipped itself into a frenzy over a non-intoxicating cannabis derivative
>called cannabidiol. CBD products can be found on the internet and in
>health-food stores, wellness catalogs and even bookstores. (A bookstore in
>downtown Boulder, Colorado, displays a case of CBD products between the cash
>register and the stacks of new releases.) Celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow,
>disgraced cyclist1 Floyd Landis and former Denver Broncos quarterback Jake
>Plummer are all touting CBD products, and according to Bon Appétit,
>CBD-infused lattes have become “the wellness world’s new favorite drink.”
>
>But, uh, what is it that CBD is supposed to do? I visited a cannabis
>dispensary in Boulder to find out what the hype was all about. After passing
>an ID check, I was introduced to a “budtender” who pointed me to an
>impressive array of CBD products — tinctures, skin patches, drink powders,
>candies, salves, massage oil, lotions, “sexy time personal intimacy oil” and
>even vaginal suppositories to treat menstrual cramps.
>
>Most of these products promised to relieve pain or otherwise enhance
>well-being, and none of it was cheap. (Prices started at about $30.) But I
>wanted to know: Does any of this stuff really work? After a deep dive into
>the scientific research, I learned that the answer was a big fat maybe.
>
>Although there’s enticing evidence that good ol’ cannabis can ease chronic
>pain and possibly treat some medical conditions, whether CBD alone can
>deliver the same benefits remains an open question. What is clear, at this
>point, is that the marketing has gotten way ahead of the science.
>
>Cannabinoids are a class of compounds that interact with receptors
>throughout your body. CBD is just one of dozens of cannabinoids found in
>cannabis, including tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is the one responsible
>for marijuana’s famous high. Medical cannabis is technically any cannabis
>product used for medicinal purposes, and these can contain THC or CBD or
>both, said Nick Jikomes, a neuroscientist at Leafly, a website that provides
>information about legal cannabis. “A common mistake people make is to think
>that CBD is ‘the medical cannabinoid’ and THC is ‘the recreational
>cannabinoid.’” That’s inaccurate, he said, because THC is a potent
>anti-inflammatory and can be helpful for pain.
>
>What makes CBD so appealing is that it’s non-intoxicating, so it won’t get
>you high, though it “is technically psychoactive, because it can influence
>things like anxiety,” Jikomes said. Although much of the marketing blitz
>around CBD centers on the fact that you can take it without getting stoned,
>there isn’t much research looking at the effects of CBD when used in
>isolation, with a couple of exceptions. One is the use of CBD to treat
>seizures: CBD is the active ingredient in the only cannabis product that the
>Food and Drug Administration has signed off on — a drug called Epidiolex,
>which is approved for treating two rare forms of epilepsy. Animal models and
>a few human studies suggest that CBD can help with anxiety, but those are
>the only conditions with much research on CBD in isolation.
>
>Last year, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine
>released a nearly 500-page report on the health effects of cannabis and
>cannabinoids. A committee of 16 experts from a variety of scientific and
>medical fields analyzed the available evidence — more than 10,000 scientific
>abstracts in all. Because so few studies examine the effects of CBD on its
>own, the panel did not issue any findings about CBD specifically, but it did
>reach some conclusions about cannabis and cannabinoids more generally. The
>researchers determined that there is “conclusive or substantial evidence”
>supporting the use of cannabis or cannabinoids for chronic pain in adults,
>multiple sclerosis-related spasticity (a kind of stiffness and muscle
>spasms), and chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting. The committee also
>found “moderate” evidence that cannabis or cannabinoids can reduce sleep
>disturbances in people with obstructive sleep apnea, fibromyalgia, chronic
>pain and multiple sclerosis, as well as “limited” evidence that these
>substances can improve symptoms of Tourette’s syndrome, increase appetite
>and stem weight loss in people with HIV/AIDs, and improve symptoms of PTSD
>and anxiety.
>
>Donald Abrams was a member of the committee that reviewed the evidence that
>went into producing the report, and he said that the studies they reviewed
>overwhelmingly used pharmaceutically available preparations that contain
>THC, including dronabinol, nabilone and the whole-plant extract spray
>nabiximols, which contains equal parts CBD and THC. It’s impossible to know
>whether the benefits of cannabis can also be obtained from CBD alone, Abrams
>said, because CBD is just one of 400 chemicals present in the plant. So far,
>CBD in isolation has been studied in only a handful of randomized,
>placebo-controlled trials (considered the gold standard of evidence in
>medical research), and the evidence remains sparse.
>
>Still, as the saying goes, absence of evidence isn’t necessarily evidence of
>absence, and there’s a reason we don’t have a ton of solid research on CBDs
>yet — “to study it, we need a good source, ” said Ziva Cooper, who is an
>associate professor at Columbia University and was on the National Academies
>committee. CBD is hard to get because it’s still technically a Schedule I
>drug, which limits its availability, Cooper said.
>
>Cooper recently got funding from the National Institutes of Health for a
>study looking at cannabinoids — including CBD in isolation — as a substitute
>for opioids, and numerous other clinical trials of CBD are underway. It will
>be several years before results are available, but these studies should help
>clarify both what benefits the substance may provide and any side effects it
>may come with. Most of the adverse effects so far associated with cannabis,
>such as impairments in short-term memory, coordination and judgment,2 come
>from products that contain THC as well as CBD, Cooper said, but we need to
>do more studies to find out for sure whether CBD has fewer risks. Studies
>are also needed to identify the best way to administer and dose CBD. “I get
>emails from people asking me what dose of CBD to use, and the truth is, we
>really don’t know,” Cooper said.
>
>In the meantime, some physicians are forging ahead — and cashing in. Joe
>Cohen is a doctor at Holos Health, a medical marijuana clinic in Boulder. I
>asked him what CBD is good for, and he read me a long list of conditions:
>pain, inflammation, nausea, vomiting, intestinal cramping, anxiety,
>psychosis, muscle spasms, hyperactive immune systems, nervous system
>degeneration, elevated blood sugar and more. He also claimed that CBD has
>anti-cancer properties and can regenerate brain cells and reduce the brain’s
>levels of amyloid beta — a kind of protein that’s been linked to Alzheimer’s
>disease. I asked for references, noting that most of these weren’t listed in
>the Academies report or a similar review published in the Journal of the
>American Medical Association. “I think you just have to Google search it,”
>he said. It’s true that a preliminary study found hints that cannabinoids
>might reduce beta amyloid proteins in human brain cells, but the study was
>done in cells grown in a lab, not in people. As for cancer, the FDA sent
>warning letters last year to four companies that were selling products that
>claimed to “prevent, diagnose, treat or cure” cancer.
>
>Those warning letters aside, there’s not a lot of federal oversight right
>now over the claims being made or the products that are being sold. Cohen
>warned against buying CBD products online, because “there’s a lot of scams
>out there.” Yet his clinic sells CBD, and he admits, “I say ‘Don’t buy
>online,’ but ours is worth doing, because we know what we’re doing. We ship
>all over.”
>
>Right now, there’s a good chance that you don’t really know what you’re
>getting from any source. Testing and labeling rules vary by state, but many
>states that allow legal cannabis also require some kind of testing to verify
>that the THC and CBD levels listed on the label are accurate. However, this
>testing is controversial, and results can vary widely between labs, Jikomes
>said. A study published in March found measurable variations in test
>results, with some labs consistently reporting higher or lower levels of
>cannabinoids than others. There are no guarantees that the label accurately
>reflects what’s in the product. For a 2015 study published in JAMA,
>researchers tested 75 products purchased in San Francisco, Los Angeles and
>Seattle and found that only 17 percent were accurately labeled. More than
>half of the products contained significantly lower levels of cannabinoids
>than the label promised, and some of them contained only negligible amounts
>of the compounds. “We need to come up with ways to confidently verify the
>composition of cannabis products and make this information available to
>consumers,” Jikomes said.
>
>“All these people are making claims,” Abrams said, but right now, there’s
>little verification. “It’s the Wild West..."
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>Thanks for posting that, Greg. I have seen CBD oil in my local health food
>shop and I was wondering what it was for!

Yeah, thanks Greg! Post some more!

PS: I had to bring lunch to make it all the way down here.