Why is CBD So Popular?

January 30th, 2020

Cativa CBD gums mints body cream There are two things that are true about people: One, at some point folks experience pain or discomfort and two, they want a quick solution to the problem. In the 1800s wagons rolled into town bringing a cavalcade of performers and carnival barkers who sold a variety of products health remedies and tinctures including snake oil. Snake oil, was touted as a cure-all for anything from aches and pains to deafness--the perfect panacea for fast relief.

In the 1800s, Chinese immigrants brought water snake oil, among other medicines, along with them from China. The oil was full of omega 3 fatty acids and helped with inflammation and pain. American salesmen copied the oil, often with petroleum and rattlesnake oil concoctions, that produced often questionable results. Hence the connotation that snake oil often refers to a fraudulent representation.

CBD is one of those remedies that has been touted to heal many ailments but can be marketed as a snake oil by some. This is because many entrepreneurs have jumped on the “green wave” of cannabis-based products such as CBD. In turn, the market is flooded with brands and products like CBD oil, tinctures, candies, topicals, patches and vapes that may not be up to regulatory snuff. There are also many claims that some marketers have made about CBD that may be false statements or not backed by third-party research.

The good news is that CBD is now widely researched and over time, more and more will be revealed about the promising potential for CBD to heal many types of ailments. The potential of CBD is far from “snake oil”. What we know, based on research on both animals and humans, is that there is strong evidence showing that CBD can severely decrease epileptic seizures, and that CBD can play a role in pain relief.

Seizures can be caused by many things but generally are a period of excessive neuronal activity, like an electrical storm in the brain that can cause convulsions and other symptoms. In fact, the popularity of CBD is rooted in a mother’s journey to cure her son of epilepsy. Catherine Jacobson’s son suffered from epileptic seizures since he was 3 months old. Despite trials of 16 different drugs to help her son Ben, CBD showed promise of helping her son and her tenacity and research paved the way for the popularity of CBD products and research.

CBD has also been shown to have an effect on the perception of pain. In a 2014 study animal subjects may have been experiencing pain but didn’t perceive the sensation. Another study on humans showed that CBD could potentially replace opioid-based pain medication. This study revealed long-term self-reported feedback to researchers. With many of the studies, further research is needed and being conducted.

Hopes of further and promising research on the effects of CBD are with inflammation, cancer, PTSD, high blood pressure, stroke and Alzheimer’s. Over time, the research will be beneficial with more human studies and larger sample sizes.

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