Trending Now
Everywhere you turn today, you see a new CBD shop popping up. And I’ve heard plenty of people raving about how much they enjoy using CBD (Cannabidiol) to relieve a number of things, including pain and anxiety. It’s also been touted as a safer alternative to taking pills to help out with a number of ailments.
But a recent study might change popular attitudes about consuming CBD. Researchers at the University of Arkansas for Medical Science concluded that CBD could be damaging our livers in the same way as alcohol and other drugs.
The team behind the study experimented on mice to find out what levels of CBD hepatoxicity were in the animals after they consumed CBD. They found that even though CBD has been gaining a reputation as an alternative to traditional medicine, people who use CBD products have an elevated risk for liver toxicity.
The researchers used the CBD-based drug Epidiolex to conduct the experiments. Epidiolex has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat childhood epilepsy, the first time in American history a cannabis-based medicine has been approved for nationwide distribution.
Photo Credit: Pixabay
Three-quarters of the mice that were given higher doses of Epidiolex died or were on the verge of death within a few days.
Igor Koturbash, the lead author of the study, said…
“If you look at the Epidolex label, it clearly states a warning for liver injury. It states you have to monitor the liver enzyme levels of the patients.
In clinical trials, 5% to 20% of the patients developed elevated liver enzymes and some patients were withdrawn from the trials.”
It seems like, at this point, there are too many question marks regarding CBD, so is it worth the risk?
A fair amount of research still needs to be done in the Cannabidiol field, so you might want to hold off on using CBD products on a regular basis.
