Articles by Dr. Erdman are for informational purposes, and are not to be taken as specific medical advice.
With the next
three part series of articles I’m going to try to take a complex, controversial
subject down to simplified, easy to understand terms.
There is so
much confusion surrounding the emerging CBD/Hemp oil market. I get a lot of
interest on the subject in my office. Over the next series of articles I will
attempt to answer three questions: What are CBD products, What is the Endocannabinoid System (ECS) and
What health conditions can be helped with CBD/Hemp oil? We
will start with what are CBD products?
Most people
associate cannabidiol (CBD) with marijuana. But CBD products used for health
benefits are actually derived from hemp plants.
Now, there is a
huge difference between hemp and marijuana. These are not interchangeable
terms, they are two different plants. Both are considered Cannabis Sativa by
genus and species, but that’s the only similarity.
Hemp has been
cultivated for thousands of years for food, clothing, fiber and fuel.
Marijuana, on the other hand, has been cultivated primarily for its
phytocannabiniod tetrahydrocannabinol or THC. THC is the psychoactive component
that can get you “high.”
Nevertheless,
hemp got dumped into the definition of marijuana many years ago and has been
unjustly regulated as a controlled substance up until 2018. In 2018, President
Trump signed a Farm Bill that finally deregulated hemp. This opens up academia
to study it, farmers to grow it and consumers access to it. Hemp is probably one
of the most important botanical products we have on this planet.
The hemp plant
contains over 100 different phytocannabinoids of which CBD is one. Hemp oil is
food that has CBD in it.
CBD alone
cannot fully support your body endocannabinoid system (ECS). You also need
other phytocannabinoids and terpenes, which complement the CBD. If you
understand anything about botanical medicine, you know that the sum of all the
parts of the plant is greater than any one part of a plant. While CBD may be
the dominant phytocannabainoid in hemp, it isn’t the only one you should be
interested in to get the full benefit of using hemp.
Increasing
endocannabinoids in your body can result in better health. Hemp oil should be consumed in a “full spectrum” product. This means not just CBD, but also
accompanying terpenes and lesser known phytocannabinoids. By incorporating the
whole plant, you have a better product and better outcomes.
This means you
need to know what your CBD/Hemp oil is made from, how it is processed, and
where it comes from . My suggestion is to never buy from Amazon and most big
box stores. There are many bad actors (sellers) there, with no way of knowing
what product you are buying. Look for the “full spectrum” label on whatever you
buy, it is simply a better way of delivering the entire plants benefits over
just the CBD component.