Can CBD protect you and help you get better from Lyme disease?
Lyme disease & CBDCan CBD protect you and help you get better from Lyme disease?
I’m Dr. Mary Clifton. I’m an internal medicine doctor practicing and an expert in CBD and other cannabinoids.
THE PEARLS:
[0:20] Lyme disease is a complicated chronic infection with considerable ongoing chronic inflammation, both in the skin and in the joints, but also involving the central nervous system in the brain and spinal cord.
The CBD can definitely get in the brain. Then, the question is what can it do to modulate the inflammation? It can do a lot.
[3:15] Very preliminary data suggests that you can see significant symptom reduction with pretreatment with CBD before exposure to colds and flu, and also significant symptom reduction after you’ve gotten sick when adding CBD.
[3:58] There is a significant amount of immune modulation that can be seen with administration of CBD.
THE FULL TRANSCRIPTION
Can CBD protect you and help you get better from Lyme disease? I’m Dr. Mary Clifton. I’m an internal medicine doctor practicing in Manhattan. I’m an expert in CBD and other cannabinoids.
Lyme disease is a complicated chronic infection with considerable ongoing chronic inflammation, both in the skin and in the joints, but also involving the central nervous system in the brain and spinal cord. Controlling inflammation and immune response in settings of chronic diseases like this is a very important part of controlling the symptoms of the chronic disease. That may be exactly what CBD could do for you.
For a number of reasons, CBD could be especially valuable for Lyme disease. — Tweet this!
It crosses the blood-brain barrier and can treat conditions in the brain fairly easily because it easily crosses that barrier. It also reduces inflammatory cytokines, and it changes overall in the response. The blood-brain barrier is a very tight, restrictive barrier around the brain and spinal cord that limits the flow and the ready communication between the body and the brain. It’s very important to do that because we need highly functioning brains and spinal cords to do our jobs as human beings.
But the problem is, when you’re sick, things can’t get in and out. It’s hard for antibiotics or antivirals to cross that blood-brain barrier. We often have to use very high doses for long periods of time, but in situations like multiple sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s disease, Alzheimer’s, and probably also Lymes, when there’s chronic inflammation in the brain, the blood-brain barrier becomes a little less restrictive and products are able to flow a little more readily.
But even if the blood-brain barrier wasn’t impacted, we know that cannabinoids cross that barrier easily. We have data on reductions in central nervous system symptoms like insomnia or anxiety in as little as just a few minutes after administering cannabinoids like THC or CBD. The CBD can definitely get in the brain. Then, the question is what can it do to modulate the inflammation? It can do a lot.
All kinds of cytokine production are significantly reduced in the setting of CBD, particularly IL-17. The interleukins and the tumor necrosis factors, the cytokines, are the chemicals that your body makes that make you feel terrible when you’re sick. They’re the chemicals that give you the fever and the body aches, the loss of appetite, so by regulating the production of those chemicals, you can actually see a significant reduction in the symptoms that you’re dealing with.
Very preliminary data suggests that you can see significant symptom reduction with pretreatment with CBD before exposure to colds and flu, and also significant symptom reduction after you’ve gotten sick when adding CBD. There’s other data that’s been done over the course of three years, but on very low numbers of human subjects, that show modulation in the immune system and all kinds of ways with the administration of CBD, changes in B cells, T cell function, natural killer cell function, of reductions in IgM and IgG in the immunoglobulins, the antibodies that the body creates to infection.
There is a significant amount of immune modulation that can be seen with administration of CBD. If you’re dealing with a chronic immune condition, it may be worthwhile talking to your doctor or with a cannabinoid expert who could give you some advice on how to potentially use these products to improve your overall health and potentially reduce the symptoms that you’re dealing with related to your chronic medical condition .
DR. MARY CLIFTON
Dr. Mary Clifton is an Internal Medicine doctor and is a recognized expert in CBD, Cannabis, and Medical Marijuana.
She is a published researcher, national speaker on women’s health and osteoporosis, and author of four books, and two new soon-to-be-released books on CBD and Cannabis — what you need to know, how to use them and a COOKBOOK to support ease of use.
Originally published at https://cbdandcannabisinfo.com on October 24, 2019.
