One of my continuous goals is to show others the potential of these cannabinoids like CBD and THC when it comes to health and wellness. The reason why I am so adamant on doing so is because cannabinoids give us an excellent alternative to improving how we face disease whether it is pain, inflammation, sleep, mood, stress, anxiety, bone remodeling, improving someone's quality of life going through cancer treatment, or addressing neurological issues like seizures (epilepsy). Cannabinoid medicine holds a promising future in healthcare and as more studies unfold, we can get a better understanding of these amazing plant compounds. I want to show others how to use cannabinoids just as they are, a medicine.
Cannabinoids give us an alternative to address many things that affect our health and what I love most about them is just how safe and effective they are. Let’s all keep in mind that when we go to the doctor, they only give us a tool that they have in their bag, which is most of the time in the form of medications. This doesn’t mean that they give us what is most effective or best for our health, it simply means that this is what they have to offer. While pharmaceuticals do have an advantage, sometimes they can do more harm than good when discussing long term dependence because of how they can shift the body from homeostasis, creating an imbalance within our cells and systems.
What makes me irritable towards medicine is that they only give you the tool they have in their bag, regardless of other resources or studies that are being published, they are set in their ways. Most of the time, conventional medicine doesn’t even bat an eye when it comes to alternative treatment plans, but times are changing. Complementary and Alternative Medicine is becoming more and more popular, and we are seeing more and more MD’s that are recognizing that their approach to healthcare can be improved by utilizing alternative approaches and including herbal medicine. This new and emerging healthcare system called CAM Therapies utilizes a blend between conventional medicine and alternative medicine. This means that we are giving patients more options when it comes to their healthcare plans and utilizing safer and more effective approaches before pushing pharmaceuticals. The more we understand what health is and what health isn’t, we will see CAM Therapies becoming more available and cannabinoid medicine more common.
The truth is we have used plant medicine for thousands of years; it is only in the past 100 years that synthetically derived medicine has become mainstream and our dependence on herbal medicine dwindling, but it isn’t because it isn’t effective, but because of the big bullies in town (big pharma) trying convince people that plant medicine is inferior (we all know their motivation behind that $$$). The difference between the two is how effective plant medicine is because of the many interactions between the plant compounds (phytochemicals), which can’t be replicated. It is hard to replicate these interactions in pharmaceuticals because they often are synthetic compounds, which don’t have synergistic properties and if they are plant derived, they remove and isolate plant compounds, losing their synergistic properties and entourage effect (where these compounds enhance each other’s potential).
For example, Full Spectrum products contain 120+ cannabinoids because it is essentially full plant extract. All the medicinal plant compounds are removed and suspended into an oil or edible that we can take advantage of for their medicinal value, in this case the anti-seizure and neuroprotective properties of cannabinoids. These 120 compounds interacting together are too complex for scientists to fully understand each individual cannabinoid’s effect, which means that we could not even begin to replicate the interactions that these compounds have in a man-made drug.
One of the biggest discoveries with CBD was how effective it was at managing and controlling seizures. In fact, CBD was so effective at controlling and managing seizures that GW pharmaceuticals came out with a patented drug called epidiolex. Instead of sharing how effective cannabinoids like CBD are at addressing seizures and sharing and telling patients about it to improve their quality of life, they quietly try to make their own patented drug to sell. Here is what “they” (big pharma) doesn’t want you to know. Full Spectrum CBD products are effective at addressing many things including neurological issues (including seizures) because of their antioxidant and neuroprotective properties (1). Not only is CBD and various cannabinoids effective for addressing neurological and neurodegenerative diseases, but you also don’t need to go through your healthcare provider to acquire high quality, third party tested CBD products to improve your own health and wellness. Big pharma loves to create dependence on them, which is not very empowering.
The truth is that CBD has medicinal properties that are shown to have anti-seizure, antipsychotic, neuroprotective, anti-depressant, anti-anxiety, pain relieving, and anti-tumor properties that we can use to address seizures, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Huntington’s Disease, Spinal Muscular Atrophy, etc (1, 2). The best part? We don’t need a script to acquire some of the most amazing medicinal plant compounds that CBD has when it comes to seizures, as well as other neurodegenerative diseases.
This is plant medicine.
Bee Well,
Brandon Farless
References
- Silvestro, S., Mammana, S., Cavalli, E., Bramanti, P., & Mazzon, E. (2019). Use of Cannabidiol in the Treatment of Epilepsy: Efficacy and Security in Clinical Trials. Molecules (Basel, Switzerland), 24(8), 1459. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules24081459
- Bhunia, S., Kolishetti, N., Arias, A. Y., Vashist, A., & Nair, M. (2022). Cannabidiol for neurodegenerative disorders: A comprehensive review. Frontiers in pharmacology, 13, 989717. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2022.989717
