Diagnosed with Cancer? Your two greatest challenges are understanding cancer and understanding possible side effects from chemo and radiation. Knowledge is Power!
Learn about conventional, complementary, and integrative therapies.
Dealing with treatment side effects? Learn about evidence-based therapies to alleviate your symptoms.
Click the orange button to the right to learn more.
- You are here:
- Home »
- Blog »
- side effects ID and prevention »
- Understanding CBD and its Help to Cancer Patients
Understanding CBD and its Help to Cancer Patients
Understanding CBD and its Help to Cancer Patients
The healing properties of CBD have made it one of the most talked-about compounds in recent times. It has also been credited with having a ton of health benefits including relieving stress and anxiety, handling insomnia and other sleeping disorders, and alleviating pain, among many others. Besides that, there are indications that it can help those with cancer, and that is the focus of this article.
Understanding CBD
Cannabidiol (CBD) is one of the cannabinoids (chemicals) derived from the cannabis sativa plants-hemp and marijuana plants. The hemp plant is the most used plant from the cannabis family, and the majority of the CBD oil in the market is from cold pressing the hemp seeds as a whole. CBD is quite different from the other main cannabinoid, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive substance in cannabis, and it is responsible for the high sensation associated with marijuana. CBD does not cause a high feeling.
CBD for Cancer
So, what is known about the ability of CBD to prevent or cure cancer? Well, at the moment, there is no clinical evidence supporting the use of CBD in the prevention or cure of disease. However, some studies that mainly involved animal models showed that CBD halted the spread of cancer cells and they eventually died off. But it is worth noting that those studies used CBD that was highly concentrated and in its pure form. It is therefore necessary to carry out clinical trials to find out if CBD has any capacity of anticancer effects.
Use of CBD as a Complementary Therapy
Although there is no conclusive evidence of the ability of CBD to cure or prevent cancer, there is adequate evidence that CBD and cannabis therapies could be useful in complementing cancer treatment. It is for these uses that CBD is highly sought. To get quality products, users should buy from trusted sources or sellers like the https://cannaflower.com/.
Here are some ways that CBD may help cancer patients:
Pain Relief
People with cancer experience pain due to the disease and its treatment. Inflammation, pressure on internal organs, and injuries to the nerves are the cause of pain associated with cancer. The pain may get so severe that it’s resistant to the most powerful painkillers-opioids. CBD helps to relieve such pain by acting indirectly on CB2 receptors to reduce inflammation, thus assisting with widespread pain alleviation.
Improve Appetite
Those undergoing cancer treatment are likely to experience poor appetite and nausea, so they have a difficult time maintaining a healthy weight. Consuming cannabis can help to introduce THC and other cannabinoids to the bloodstream, thus stimulating appetite. However, no evidence support that CBD alone can be effective in this issue.
Nausea
CBD and other cannabinoids, as well as cannabis, can be useful to people with cancer who suffer from frequent nausea and vomiting, especially when it is a result of chemotherapy. But of importance to note is that the antinausea properties of cannabis are due to THC, not CBD. Those seeking the antinausea effect of cannabis should be ready for the psychoactive effect of THC contained in the products they will use. They should also discuss this treatment with their physicians.
Clinical evidence on the effectiveness of CBD in curbing and treating cancer is still not available and studies on the subject are ongoing. However, there is sufficient evidence of the efficacy of the cannabinoid to complement cancer treatment. It helps to reduce symptoms from the disease and its treatment. These symptoms include nausea, loss of appetite, and pain.