July 2019 – Page 2 – blog digital coin share

CBD for Seniors

Benefits of CBD for Seniors

Health deterioration is an almost unavoidable part of the aging process, often leading many seniors to turn to a variety of pharmaceutical drugs with complicated side effects. Many senior citizens are instead turning to CBD and are discovering the positive effects on their overall wellness and vitality.

Here are just a few of the common way’s seniors can benefit from CBD.

1. Joint Swelling and General Pain Relief

Most seniors will at some point deal with aches and pains and joint soreness. Several studies have shown CBD to be a promising treatment for joint pain as well as its underlying causes. This is because CBD attaches itself to the CB-2 receptors, reducing inflammation and alleviating discomfort in almost any part of the body. The overall relaxation effects of CBD can also provide tremendous benefit for overall pain relief.

2. Brain and Vascular Health

Scientists are beginning to understand CBD’s potential to support brain and vascular health and aid in post-injury recovery. A study in Neuropharmacology revealed that rats administered with CBD experienced improvement in brain excitotoxicity and neurobehavioral function, and a 2015 study in Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism demonstrated CBD’s promise as a “neuroprotectant”, with positive pharmacological effects.

3. Sleep Disorders

Quality sleep is necessary for health and vitality, especially as one gets older, and sleep issues are common among seniors. CBD has been shown to decrease chronic muscle spasms caused by neuromuscular disorders or random spastic episodes that can often interrupt sleep. Furthermore, CBD helps maintain homeostasis in our body’s endocannabinoid system, which can increase sleep quality and regulate sleep stability.

4. Heart Health

Studies show that CBD has tremendous benefit for our cardiovascular system in several ways. First, it causes vasorelaxation in our arteries, which can support healthy blood pressure and increase blood flow to the heart. In addition, it’s been shown to alleviate ischemic tissue damage, which can prevent the heart from receiving enough oxygen. CBD does not have to be smoked and can instead be consumed through oils and tinctures, making consumption for seniors easy and healthy. It can also be more cost-effective than using pharmaceuticals and produce fewer side effects.

Republished from an article in ECHO

Absorption of CBD into the Body

How CBD Enters the body

There are exciting results from recent studies on cannabidiol by scientists depicting how CBD interacts with our endocannabinoid receptors throughout the body to bring out the balancing and healing effects. Studies suggest that CBD may be able to minimize and even eliminate seizure activity, reduce anxiety and depression, manage pain, fight some cancers and provide anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective effects on the nervous system. This could potentially be beneficial for conditions like Alzheimer’s disease and arthritis. For non-psychoactive CBD to help with any problem it must be absorbed correctly into your system.

For CBD to work it must enter the bloodstream. Once in the bloodstream, it can move throughout the body thus interacting with and impacting the cannabinoid CB1 and CB2 receptors, while also affecting non-cannabinoid receptors within your body.

There are several methods for taking CBD. The method you use to get it into your bloodstream will affect how well it works for you, it can be swallowed, put on food or in a drink, placed sublingually under the tongue, smoked or vaped, or put in a tropical cream.

There are several methods to take CBD. The method you use to get it into your bloodstream will affect how well it works for you, it can be swallowed, put on food or in a drink, placed sublingually under the tongue, smoked or vaped, or put in a tropical cream.

CBD Ingestion

The most common route of CBD oil administration is oral. When CBD is ingested, it is absorbed by the digestive system. Once the CBD compounds enter the stomach they are carried into the liver and the livers enzymes reduce the CBD compounds concentration before moving them into the bloodstream. While taking CBD by oral ingestion directly into the stomach is the easiest way to take CBD it isn’t the best method. However, studies have shown that taking CBD with fatty acids can help increase the levels absorbed through ingestion.

Sublingual Method

If CBD oil is held under the tongue for 30 to 60 seconds before being swallowed, the mucous membranes in the mouth can absorb the compounds. This sublingual method allows CBD to completely bypass the digestive system and liver metabolism, so the compounds can avoid being broken down by enzymes and reach the bloodstream more quickly.

Absorption After Inhalation

When CBD oil is inhaled, such as through smoking or vaping, the compounds are absorbed through the air passageway in the lungs, which has a large absorptive surface area. Once through the air passageway, the CBD molecules are immediately transferred into the bloodstream. Compared to ingestion, the inhalation method allows more CBD to be absorbed and offers faster absorption. Be aware this method also can lead to dry throat and coughing.

Absorption After Topical Application

When CBD oil is applied topically, or directly to the skin, it never reaches the bloodstream but can be absorbed through the skin’s surface to interact with nearby endocannabinoid receptors. Human skin, in general, has low permeability, which means it blocks most substances from entering. The skin has a particularly low absorption rate for cannabinoids, so the application of CBD balms, salves, and lotions needs to be heavy enough to overcome this barrier. It appears that when mixed with other enhancer’s such as Menthol or Lidocaine CBD travels through the skin and functions to a greater degree for relief.

Whichever method you choose it is important to use the product on a consistent basis and dosage for best results.

Republished from an article in ECHO

What is CBD and How Does it Work?

CBD (Cannabidiol) is a compound found in the Cannabis plant. It can be used in several different ways including vaping, CBD Oils and tinctures, capsules, and edibles.

Unlike its close relative, THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol), CBD is completely non-intoxicating This allows us to benefit from the many health properties of the Cannabis plant without the negative side effects of “getting high.” Because of this, CBD became a very popular option for those seeking a natural alternative to treat conditions such as chronic pain, multiple sclerosis, PTSD, epilepsy, and other disorders.

At first, many were skeptical, thinking that a natural compound, let alone a Cannabis-compound, could effectively treat such a wide range of conditions. But as medical researchers learned more, and the stories from tens of thousands of people began to stack up, the truth was undeniable––CBD works.

So, how exactly does CBD work?

For starters, CBD inherits many of the medicinal properties of Cannabis such as being anti-inflammatory and anti-anxiolytic. This allows it to provide natural stress, anxiety, and pain relief. But this alone isn’t what allows CBD to benefit so many conditions.

What allows it to effectively treat so many conditions, and maintain health and wellness in the body, is how the cannabinoids found in CBD interact with receptors throughout our body.

Next let’s talk about the Endocannabinoid System.

The Endocannabinoid System

In 1988, the first cannabinoid receptor was discovered in the brain of a rat. Researchers found that these receptors reacted specifically to THC and were found primarily found in regions of the brain responsible for mental and physiological processes such as memory, high cognition, emotion, and motor coordination.

Two years later, in 1993, the second cannabinoid receptor was found as part of the immune and central nervous systems. It was then that researchers started to realize that they may have been onto something, but these receptors were only found in rodents, so what’s the big deal, right?

Fast forward to 1995, researchers discovered that these receptors, now officially referred to as the CB1 receptor and CB2 receptor, were found not only in rats, but within thousands of other species, including humans.

Thanks to advancements in technology and knowledge and tons of clinical trials, researchers were able to reverse engineer what they’d discovered, trace back through the metabolic pathways of various cannabinoids, and uncover an entirely unknown signaling system between the CB1 and CB2 receptors in our bodies and receptors found in Cannabis compounds, which they called “endocannabinoids.”

Due to the role of endocannabinoids in this system, the system was officially named the Endocannabinoid System (ECS). As researchers learned more about the ECS, they discovered that it was a vital component in maintaining the body’s homeostasis, which is the ideal balance between interdependent elements in the body.

To give you an idea of how the ECS helps maintain homeostasis, let me give you an example. When we become stressed, our mind releases cortisol, which is the compound responsible for how we feel when we are stressed. Cortisol can be helpful when we need to react quickly to a dangerous situation; however too much disrupts the natural balance of our body and mind can result in serious health problems.

When certain endocannabinoids are introduced into the body, it not only helps provide stress relief, it helps manage our perception of stress so that we can look at the situation with a clear mind and make the best decision.

With all the scientific jargon, this last section may have been a little confusing. So just to clarify… Scientists discovered that there are systems in our bodies that are solely dependent on their interaction with cannabinoids, and these systems are part of vital functions in our bodies.

Basically, our bodies were designed to work with cannabinoids, and they can even be considered as essential to our overall health and wellness. With such a discovery, you’d think we wouldn’t have to cover this next section… but here we go.

Article Credit: Aaron Cadena – 7/4/19