Feel stupid and guilty yet? That seems to be the goal of The Game Changers, which is available on iTunes and features former UFC fighter James Wilks, strongman Patrik Baboumian, and even Arnold Schwarzenegger arguing for the superiority of a plant-based diet.

But, just as with What The Health, the last major vegan rally cry that came out in 2017, it’s not hard to deflate most of The Game Changers arguments, one by one.

Is A Plant-Based Diet Better for Health?

The movie references several scientific studies that seem to point to a diet rich in animal foods being dangerous. But the film never gives us the whole story.

It cites a 2010 study that showed that drinking cows’ milk can increase estrogen and lower testosterone in men. But look closer at the findings and you’ll see that the cows that produced the milk were pregnant at the time. It’s probably fair to say that, just as with pregnant humans, their hormone profiles might have been a little off of what is considered normal, but even still, the reduction in testosterone was not below levels that are considered healthy and normal. Furthermore, this testosterone dip was only measured in seven men—hardly a sample size to draw a major conclusion from.

Naturally, Game Changers has to dredge up the old idea that meat and dairy are bad for your heart, impairing circulation to the point that even your erections will suffer. It points to a 2012 study that had men consume either a hamburger patty by itself or with avocado. Hours later, the hamburger-only meal resulted in constriction of the blood vessels while the burger-avocado hybrid didn’t. The researchers blamed the beef for causing inflammation, and declared the avocado to be anti-inflammatory.

Look up the study, and you’ll see right away that it was funded by the Hass Avocado Board. Of course this doesn’t invalidate the findings, but it casts suspicion over them. And equally untrustworthy are the two experiments the movie shows—one where blood is drawn from people who just ate a vegetarian or meat-filled burrito, and another where burritos are consumed and the subjects’ dicks are assessed for erection strength and frequency. Unsurprisingly, the movie shows that both experiments found that the animal-protein meal wreaked havoc and the plant-based one was healthy. But in neither case are other factors considered. Were the subjects stressed, dehydrated, under-recovered? What else had they been eating? Or smoking? Or doing that day? Rather than elaborate, Game Changers wants you to simply accept its truth: meat is bad.

Finally, on the health front, the doc again takes aim at animal foods’ alleged cancer-causing potential, naming a bevy of chemical compounds in them (TMAO, heterocyclic amines) that might hurt you. However, the science to support it just isn’t there. “The studies showing that TMAO is bad are epidemiology studies,” says Paul Saladino, MD, a functional medicine practitioner and author of the upcoming book, The Carnivore Code (carnivoremd.com). “They show that humans who have health problems have higher levels of TMAO. It doesn’t mean that TMAO caused those problems. TMAO is produced in our bodies in response to two very important compounds—carnitine and choline. Carnitine is an antioxidant, and choline is a precursor to a neurotransmitter and is in every cell in the body.” Meanwhile, Saladino says, there’s 40 times more TMAO in fish than in meat, but no one has ever accused fish of causing cancer. “TMAO is also found in plants,” he says, “but [plant-based propaganda] will never tell you this.”

As for heterocyclic amines, potentially-carcinogenic compounds present in charred meat, these can be greatly mitigated by simply not overcooking your food. “There are no heterocyclic amines in raw meat,” says Saladino. “I’m not advocating eating meat raw, but using gentler cooking methods—sous vide, crock pot, or other slow, low-temperature cooking—will result in lower levels of heterocyclic amines. The truth is that cooking any food creates some compounds that are linked to cancer.” Acrylamide, he notes, is in the brownest parts of a piece of toast, a bagel, and roasted coffee, so plant foods carry their own risks. “The best way to prevent cancer is to give the body healthy micronutrients—which meat has plenty of—sleep enough, keep your immune system strong, and live a good life,” says Saladino. Not to toss out your hamburger.

Now let’s look at some of the research that supports the consumption of animal foods.

Animal Foods and Testosterone

So The Game Changers wants you to believe that milk-drinking will make you less of a man, huh? Well, a 2018 review of 80 studies in the European Journal of Endocrinology concluded that you don’t need to shop for a bra for those man boobs just yet. It explains that while some farming methods can result in milk drawn from cows that are well along in pregnancy, and consequently have higher estrogen levels in their milk, “it seems that there is stronger evidence suggesting that amounts of estrogens in cow’s milk are too low to cause health effects in humans.”

If you’re really concerned, buy organic milk from grass-fed cows that are treated humanely. This will greatly reduce the risk of any toxicity in the milk, and the farming practices are better for both the cows and the planet.

It may also interest The Game Changers’ producers to know that diets that are high in fat—including that from animal sources—boost testosterone levels. A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that men who followed a high-fat, low-fiber diet for 10 weeks had 13% higher total testosterone than subjects who ate low fat and high fiber. We’re not saying to toss out your vegetables to eliminate fiber from your menu. Only that diets rich in meat are good for being manly.

Animal Foods and Heart Health

We love avocados and fully appreciate their heart-healthy fats. But to cite a study funded by the avocado business and imply that beef on its own puts your arteries in a vise just ain’t right.

First of all, the study didn’t find a statistical difference in blood vessel function between the burger alone and the burger with avocado. The results seem to have been exaggerated for dramatic effect (Game Changers is a movie, after all). Secondly, we don’t know what kind of beef was used in the study, but it’s a safe bet that it was conventional—taken from unhealthy cows raised in a feedlot and featuring a nutrition profile that’s significantly different from what pasture-raised, organic cows would yield. As with dairy, we feel that eating beef that is grass-fed and organic won’t produce the same kind of inflammatory response that a factory-farmed, grain-fed serving would. In fact, it may have the opposite effect, helping to fight inflammation and improve heart health.

A 2010 review from Nutrition Journal demonstrated that grass-fed beef has two to three times higher levels of conjugated-linoleic acid (CLA) than grain-fed beef. CLA is a fatty acid and antioxidant that’s been shown to fight heart disease and cancer.

But organic animal foods aside, it’s difficult to say that meat puts your heart in any peril at all. A 2013 review compared the effects of four different animal-rich diets—Mediterranean, low-carb, low glycemic-index, and high-protein—to other options, including vegetarian and vegan. All four of the animal-based plans were found to be effective in improving various markers of cardiovascular disease risk in people with diabetes. They were also more effective for controlling blood sugar than the plant-based controls, and the low-carb and Mediterranean approaches delivered the greatest weight loss of all. The animal diets improved heart-friendly HDL cholesterol as well.

That same year, the journal Metabolism showed that subjects who ate a high-fat, low-carb diet had lower markers of systemic inflammation after 12 weeks compared to people who followed a low-fat, high-carb diet. The researchers concluded that high-fat eating may be more beneficial to cardiovascular health.

Animal Foods and Cancer

In 2015, PLOS One showed an association between processed meat and colorectal cancer, but acknowledged that there is “little evidence that higher intake of unprocessed red meat [more than two servings a day] substantially increased risk.”

And other research suggests that grass-fed beef is in the clear. A Nutrition Journal review of studies comparing grass-fed beef to the conventional kind spanned more than 30 years, finding that grass-based meat diets raise cancer-fighting antioxidant activity (glutathione and superoxide dismutase) to a greater degree.

“Meat from grass-raised animals has anti-carcinogenic compounds,” says Saladino, “and you get more of them when you eat nose to tail.” That is, eating not just the muscle meats that most of us are used to, but organs and connective tissue. Animal livers, for instance, are rich in riboflavin, a B vitamin that may help to protect against cancer.

The Red Meat Study

Interestingly, about a week after The Game Changers was released, a massive study led by researchers from McMaster and Dalhousie universities appeared. Its findings? That red and even processed meat are not the devils they’ve been made out to be. One review of 12 trials that included 54,000 subjects did not find a statistically significant association between meat consumption and the risk of heart disease, diabetes, or cancer. The Indiana University School of Medicine stated the following: “This [study is] sure to be controversial, but is based on the most comprehensive review of the evidence to date. Because that review is inclusive, those who seek to dispute it will be hard pressed to find appropriate evidence with which to build an argument.”

The researchers also acknowledged that there were no primary external funding sources for the study. In other words, the research wasn’t paid for by the beef industry, Oscar Mayer, or any other corporate entity with a conflicting interest.

Check mate.

Is Plant-Based Better For Performance?

This is where The Game Changers really wants to make its mark, showing what no vegan movie has shown before: that plant-based athletes can be just as big, strong, fast, and durable as those who eat more traditional performance diets. They show us stars such as Patrik Baboumian, a pro strongman, and tennis great Novak Djokovic, who credit plant-based eating for better recovery and performance.

On this point, we’ll agree with them: plant-based athletes probably can perform as well as the rest of us. However, we’re far from convinced that they can perform any better than omnivores, and yet that’s what the movie implies.

Plant-Based Athletes and Protein

The main argument the film makes with respect to building muscle and strength is that, while protein intake is important, the exact source of your protein doesn’t matter. Whether you get 200 grams of protein from beans and rice or steak, chicken, and fish, it’s still 200 grams of protein, so the plant-based approach works just as well. This is more or less true, but it’s also a little misleading.

Game Changers asserts that a peanut butter sandwich packs about as much protein as a three-ounce serving of beef or three large eggs. That’s technically correct, but there are a few drawbacks to consider here. One is that peanut butter, while delicious and healthy, doesn’t offer complete protein. As legumes, peanuts don’t contain all the essential amino acids—the ones your body needs to support muscle—in adequate amounts. Now, combined with bread—assuming one made from whole grains that will offer some complementary nutrition, not some bleached white variety that’s devoid of nutrients—you probably will get all the aminos you need, but there’s still some doubt as to how many complete proteins your body can make from that combination, and how much of it your body will be able to assimilate.

“Animal protein is [generally] more than twice as bioavailable as plant protein,” says Saladino, meaning that your body can’t absorb and make use of plant protein nearly as efficiently. Vegans, however, often make the mistake of thinking that plant foods work as well as animal ones when their protein content matches gram for gram. “When people say they’re getting 60 grams of protein from a plant source,” says Saladino, “I say, ‘No, not really.’ It’s only about 30 grams of usable protein, or less,” in many cases.

When you eat beef or eggs, on the other hand, you can rest assured that you’re getting complete, highly bioavailable protein that your body can utilize. The protein is all from one source, and it’s easy to count.

The other issue with getting your protein from peanut butter sandwiches—or any plant sources, for that matter—is the other macronutrients you’re ingesting along with it. A peanut butter sandwich has a good amount of carbs and fats as well, and packs 200 more calories than three ounces of beef or three eggs. For athletes such as bodybuilders, or physique or figure competitors, who strive to hit certain macro numbers and generally try to keep carbs and/or fats in check, a sandwich just isn’t a good choice. The same applies to fighters and weightlifters who compete in sports where they have to make weight, as well as the public at large that’s just dieting to lose a few pounds. It’s a matter of efficiency. Do you want 20 grams of protein with 430 calories (the peanut butter sandwich), or 20 grams of protein with 210 calories (a serving of beef)? Which one do you think will fit more easily into a diet plan?

And this is why you don’t see ripped people eating peanut butter sandwiches all day.

The movie cites a review of vegetarian athlete studies that says plant-based eating can support training as well as omnivorous diets can. But once again, it doesn’t show the full picture. The researchers go on to say that, “as a group, vegetarians have lower mean muscle creatine concentrations than do omnivores, and this may affect supramaximal exercise performance.” So, they theorize that vegetarians may do better if they supplement with creatine. “I make sure that any vegan or vegetarian athletes I work with take creatine post-workout,” says Shannon Ehrhardt, RD, an EXOS Performance Dietician.

Supplementation does seem to be key for athletes who go totally vegan (that is, it’s even more important than it is for omnivores). That makes sense: if you’re not going to get all the nutrients you need from whole foods, you’ll have to get them from supplements. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with supplementation, but it begs the question, “If a plant-based diet is so great, why does it come up short on so many nutrients?” 

A 2017 article in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition concurs, explaining that “veganism creates challenges that need to be accounted for when designing a nutritious diet,” such as getting adequate vitamin B12, iron, zinc, calcium, iodine, and vitamin D, as well as omega-3 fats. “However,” the scientists write, “via the strategic management of food and appropriate supplementation, it is the contention of this article that a nutritive vegan diet can be designed to achieve the dietary needs of most athletes satisfactorily. Further, it was suggested here that creatine and [beta]-alanine supplementation might be of particular use to vegan athletes, owing to vegetarian diets promoting lower muscle creatine and lower muscle carnosine levels in consumers.”

A strict plant-based diet would also forbid the use of whey protein, a supplement that’s been shown to aid both performance and wellness. A 2017 meta-analysis of nine studies showed that whey helped overweight/obese people lose fat and reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease. And if you’re wondering, no, soy protein supplements don’t work as well. A 2014 study found that when subjects drank a whey shake before eating their biggest meal of the day, it promoted better changes in appetite, body composition, body mass, and waist circumference than drinking soy protein did.

Plant-Based Athletes Vs Omnivores

According to an article by the American Council on Exercise, plant-based dieters might have an easier time losing weight than meat-eaters, but a harder time gaining muscle—mainly because a plant diet is generally less calorie-dense (peanut butter sandwiches aside). Vegans may also find they do better at endurance sports than when they try strength sports, since the plant-based diet is rich in carbs and carb stores are thought to be one of the limiting factors for endurance performance. But there’s little research comparing plant-based athletic performance against that of omnivores, so these ideas are only speculative.

It’s worth mentioning that many athletes who try switching over to veganism wind up coming back. One famous example is NFL tight end Tony Gonzalez, who read the book The China Study (which preaches the so-called dangers of animal foods) and cut out animal products in the hope of improving his health and lengthening his career. However, Gonzalez lost weight and strength. Then with the Kansas City Chiefs, Gonzalez consulted the team nutritionist, who recommended he add a few servings of meat and fish to his menu. Ultimately, Gonzalez’s performance improved, and he went on to break the league records for most receptions by a tight end and career receiving yards by a tight end.

Is Plant-Based Better For the Environment?

In addition to all its claims about plant-based eating being superior for health and fitness, The Game Changers naturally plays the environmental card, saying that raising animal foods contributes to pollution while eating plants is sustainable. It’s generally true that factory farming is damaging to the planet, but going vegan won’t immediately absolve you either.

As one article points out, demand for trendy plant foods such as avocado and quinoa has led to shortages in countries that produce them, like Mexico, and rising prices now make them unaffordable to people whose cultures have depended on them for generations. Avocado exports are so lucrative that forest lands have to be clear cut to make way for more avocado trees.

Scientists in the UK have warned that intensive farming practices have depleted the topsoil to the extent that the country may only have 100 harvests left in it. The solution? The Food and Agriculture Organization recommends letting animals graze it, as their poop provides a natural fertilizer that restores the soil.

Vegans love to cite the methane emissions of livestock that contribute to climate change, but in biodiverse pasture areas—used in organic farming—wild plants provide fumaric acid, a compound that has been shown to reduce methane emissions by 70% when added to the diet of lambs. Meanwhile, as The Guardian reported last year, plowing the earth to raise crops releases a tremendous amount of carbon into the atmosphere—70% of that which top soil once contained has gone up into our air since the dawn of the industrial revolution.

Saladino argues the potential for meat production to actually help the environment by pointing to farms that practice regenerative agriculture, such as White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, GA, which not only treats its animals humanely but manages to capture more carbon than it produces. Its cows graze the grass while sheep and goats eat the weeds and chickens eat insects. The result is an eco system unto itself that doesn’t rely on the use of hormones, antibiotics, and pesticides, and produces zero waste annually. In 2017, White Oak’s beef production sequestered 919 tons of carbon in the soil—more than its cows emit in their lifetime. The farm’s total emissions are less than what is released by farming soy beans.

“White Oak has revived destroyed grasslands by grazing animals on them,” says Saladino. “That farm is greenhouse gas-negative. Regenerative agriculture may be the only way we can decrease greenhouse gas in our eco system. We can decrease our emissions, but what else can actually take carbon out of the environment? It’s like, a Tesla car doesn’t emit greenhouse gas, but producing those cars still does. A farm that sequesters more carbon than it produces is actually reversing the damage.”

Finally, there’s the ethical argument. There’s no denying that raising animal foods kills millions of animals each year, and most of them die cruelly (again, organic methods are much more humane). Still, this doesn’t mean that vegans don’t have blood on their hands.

Harvesting crops inadvertently kills rodents, reptiles, and insects that get caught in machines, and the pesticides used to protect plants from predators poison millions of mice. Research on Australian farming practices indicates that “at least 55 sentient animals die to produce 100kg of useable plant protein: 25 times more than for the same amount of rangelands beef… When cattle, kangaroos and other meat animals are harvested they are killed instantly. Mice die a slow and very painful death from poisons.”

But surely a plant-based diet must be more efficient at feeding people worldwide, right? Vegans are always arguing that if everyone “went veggie,” we’d wipe out world hunger. A 2016 study published in Elementa looked into this.

Researchers compared numerous eating styles—vegan, two kinds of vegetarian diets, four omnivorous diets, one low in fat and sugar, and one similar to the modern American diet. They found that the amount of people the vegan diet could sustain based on the resources of the ecosystem was less than that of the two vegetarian diets and two out of the four omnivorous ones. An article on the study on PBS’s website noted that the vegan diet wasted land that could otherwise feed more people. The diets that contained the most meat, by contrast, used all available crop and grazing land. The author wrote: “If modern agriculture in the U.S. were adjusted to the vegan diet, according to the study in Elementa , we’d be able to feed 735 million people—and that’s from a purely land-use perspective. Compare that to the dairy-friendly vegetarian diet, which could feed 807 million people. Even partially omnivorous diets rank above veganism in terms of sustainability; incorporating about 20 to 40% meat in your diet is actually better for the long-term course of humanity than being completely meat-free.”

Conclusion

We don’t mean to bash plant-based diets. If you follow one for your own personal or ethical reasons, kudos to you. Virtually everyone can benefit from adding more plant foods to their diet, and it seems that vegan athletes can perform as well as omnivorous ones if they plan their eating carefully and supplement appropriately.

Just stop feeding us the line that eating meat makes us sick, irresponsible, or unethical. We won’t bite.

The post The Game Changers: Are Plant-Based Diets Better For Health and Fitness? appeared first on Onnit Academy.

If you still think of hemp as a banned substance, it’s time you discovered the many ways this plant’s protein can help you reach your goals—legally and safely.

What is Hemp Protein?

Hemp is part of the species Cannabis sativa, which also includes marijuana, but it’s important to understand that they’re two distinct plants.

Hemp is a miracle crop that has been grown for thousands of years for a wide array of medicinal and industrial uses.

It can be refined into paper, clothing, biodegradable plastics, paint, insulation, biofuel, animal feed, food, and many other things.

The hemp plants that are permitted to grow these days are bred to have less than 0.3% THC, an amount so little that they have no psychoactive effect when ingested. Read: hemp will NOT get you high.

To make hemp protein, oil is extracted from hemp seeds and the remaining seed meal is processed into powder.

A typical 30-gram serving of hemp protein powder will provide 12–15 grams protein.

Is Hemp Illegal?

The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 unfairly classified all forms of cannabis as a drug, making it illegal to grow. However, it was still legal to import hemp products as long as they had ultra-low levels of THC.

The Agricultural Act of 2014 gave power to the states to grow hemp again for research programs, and follow-up legislation has done more to remove the stigma.

Today, more than 30 states have begun raising hemp for research, industrial, or commercial purposes. However, commercial production of hemp remains illegal at the federal level.

What Are the Health Benefits of Hemp Protein?

In addition to its protein content alone, hemp protein powders often include two other components that support great health.

Fiber

Hemp contains both soluble and insoluble fiber, and most of its protein products contain around 10 grams per serving—almost half of the FDA’s 25-gram Recommended Daily Value (for those following a standard 2,000-calorie diet).

The soluble fiber in hemp protein is a source of beneficial digestive bacteria that has been shown to help regulate blood sugar. The insoluble fiber assists the body in passing waste through your intestinal tract.

Fiber is also filling, making hemp protein an excellent choice for use in a meal-replacement shake. In this regard, it may be a better choice than whey protein, which offers virtually no fiber.

Healthy Fats

Hemp protein often offers three grams of fat per serving, coming from omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, which have been found to support heart health. Omega-3s are hard to come by in non-fish sources, and hemp’s high stearidonic acid content (a type of omega-3) makes it a good alternative for those who don’t eat fish.

How Does Hemp Protein Powder Compare to Other Proteins?

Hemp’s protein is highly digestible. A Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry study found that when hempseeds are hulled prior to removing their oil, the protein absorption rate is comparable to casein (a popular dairy protein supplement). The researchers concluded that the digestibility of hemp protein is equal to or greater than various other grains, nuts, and seeds.

Although hemp’s protein contains all nine essential amino acids, it has particularly low levels of a few of them—including lysine and leucine—and is therefore not considered a complete protein like animal food products are. Nevertheless, Finnish research has shown hemp to be high in arginine and tyrosine. The former has been shown in some studies to boost blood flow and the latter to support cognition under stressful conditions.

Hemp is a great protein choice for those following a plant-based diet. It’s higher in most amino acids than rice protein and doesn’t contain the trypsin inhibitors that are common in soy protein powders—compounds that hinder protein digestion in the stomach and small intestine. When combined with small amounts of pea and rice protein, hemp’s amino count can be improved.

Will Hemp Protein Raise My Estrogen Levels?

Soy protein—probably the most popular non-dairy protein supplement—often comes under fire for its isoflavones. These compounds have been rumored to raise estrogen levels (although research hasn’t confirmed it). However, hemp protein has not been shown to have any effect on estrogen, or a negative effect on testosterone.

Could Hemp Protein Make Me Fail A Drug Test?

As mentioned above, the THC content of all commercially-available hemp products is so low they won’t do anything to satisfy your friendly neighborhood stoner. Nevertheless, there is a slight possibility that some THC could turn up in your urine, and you might be red flagged for it. But research has shown that it’s very unlikely. A study from the Journal of Analytical Toxicology found that hemp foods did not cause subjects to fail required workplace drug tests.

How Can I Incorporate Hemp Protein into My Diet?

Making protein shakes is the most common way to consume hemp protein. Beyond shakes, there are dozens of ways to add hemp protein to your diet. You could easily mix it into juice or your favorite beverage. A chocolate-flavored batch can be added to your morning oatmeal, or you can blend the powder into yogurt, fruit, or a coconut curry. Hemp protein can also be used as a replacement for flour in baking recipes—you can make protein bars and high-protein pancakes, muffins, and breads with it. (Don’t worry; heat won’t damage the protein.)

The post Hemp Protein Powder: Everything You Need To Know appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Since pot has long been known to reduce discomfort, maximize stomach health, and improve mood, it’s no surprise to see marijuana legalization seemingly accompanied by a surge of use among both recreational and hardcore athletes who are facing multi-hour, grueling training regimens, and who are turning to versions of weed that don’t harm the lungs, such as vaporizing, edibles and pot-based energy bars (recipe coming later in this article), and oils (if you want to try 100% legal and highly absorbable CBD Oil Extract, use discount code BEN10 to get 10% off at BioCBD+).

Some athletes swear by using marijuana or its isolated active ingredients, such as delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) as performance-enhancer drugs, saying these substances ease anxiety and increase pain threshold so that they can push themselves during workouts. Others say that smoking pot disintegrates their motivation to work out, and instead they find themselves munching Doritos while watching cartoons (a great way to decrease cortisol, but not an incredibly effective way to make big fitness gains).

Though marijuana (cannabis sativa) is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and the NCAA, its increasing legality has many wondering whether using marijuana will help or hinder our quests for optimum athletic performance and fat loss.

Do THC, CBD, or other ingredients in marijuana enhance athletic performance on a molecular level? In this article, Ben Greenfield and GreenfieldFitnessSystems author Alyssa Siefert (a PhD in Biomedical Engineering) attempt to answer this question.

A few notes before we dive into the science – because only a few double-blind placebo-controlled human studies exist (the classification of cannabis as a Schedule 1 Drug by the DEA inhibits academic research), many of the purported effects of marijuana are extrapolated from rodent studies. So because there are significant differences between the endocannabinoid systems of rodents and humans (science geek-speak for “mice are not men”), certain findings from science are tough to extrapolate to actual people; you’ll notice, as you read, that in many cases the science you read about elsewhere simply does not apply to humans.

Also, as you read, it is important to remember that cannabis exerts different effects depending on dose, gender, acute versus chronic use, and route of administration (smoking vs. edibles vs. ingesting).
OK, caveats and clarifications aside, let’s jump right in.

What Happens To Your Body When You Consume Marijuana?

Here in the USA, legislation defines marijuana as all parts of the cannabis sativa plant, which contains over 700 chemical compounds. The primary active ingredients are cannabinoids, including THC, which is responsible for psychoactive effects and is the most studied.

Peak blood concentrations of cannabinoids occur about 3-8 minutes after you inhale, as opposed to 60-90 minutes after you eat a weed- or oil-containing edible, with neural effects beginning after 20 minutes and maximizing within a range of 2-4 hours. Cannabinoids bind cannabinoid receptors (easy to remember, eh?) on neurons and peripheral cells, receptors which are normally engaged by natural endogenous substances (called endocannabinoids) that your body already makes, but that also can be bound by substances from exogenous (outside) sources.

THC binds cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1), mainly localized in the brain, while cannabinol (CBN) binds CB2, which exists mainly on immune cells. CBD binds neither receptor, but still affects numerous metabolic processes including appetite, pain sensation, immune function, stress reactivity, hormonal secretions, and muscle and fat tissue signaling.

The image below does a pretty good job visualizing this for you, and explaining the lock and key mechanism of receptors and substances that bind to those receptors.

Dosing: Real Life vs. Lab Studies

The effects of marijuana differ enormously depending on strain, as each type contains varying amounts of cannabinoids. A good resource to examine specific strains is Leafly, which is the Yelp of marijuana and extensively reviews cannabis components and makes recommendations based on mood and activities. Generally, because the majority of folks seem most interested in the psychoactive THC properties of weed, most marijuana strains have been developed over time to contain increasing amounts of psychoactive THC (up to 25% THC as shown on lab certificates and reported values of up to 35% THC) and lower amounts of other cannabinoids like CBD.

The “sweet spot” for mild psychoactivity is about 2-3 mg THC (with users reporting feelings similar to 1-2 alcoholic drinks), with significant and strong psychoactivity reported at 5 and 10 mg, respectively. As such, Colorado dispensaries have set THC units at 10 mg for edibles. So how does this translate for recreational users?

Some of our fellow PhD’s calculated that the average joint contains slightly less than half a gram of marijuana (0.018 ounces), and 50-60% of cannabinoids like THC are absorbed into the bloodstream and bind receptors when smoking, with the rest lost to combustion and sidestream smoke. So depending on the strain, the total THC absorbed per hit could range from 1 mg to 15 mg. Eating marijuana in edibles or consuming it in oils actually decreases the amount of cannabinoids absorbed (10-20%), but the liver converts THC to 11-hydroxy-THC, which has more significant psychedelic effects and lasts about twice as long in the body.

Keep the above doses in mind as we review more marijuana studies below.

How Does Marijuana Affect Athletic Performance?

It is generally accepted that smoking or ingesting marijuana decreases reaction time, disrupts hand-eye coordination and perception, and divides attention, and these effects can last up to 36 hours after usage.

A double-blind flight simulation study assessing motor performance in licensed pilots “flying” through pre-specified (and practiced) holding patterns showed that smoking marijuana significantly increased major and minor errors, and led to larger average deviations from the assigned flight sequence, compared to those who smoked placebo cigarettes. Performance was adversely affected for at least two hours after smoking, returning to control levels six hours later. The dose used was 0.09 mg THC per kg, translating to 7-8 mg THC for an average American male, equivalent to 1-4 joint hits, depending on strain.

Just in case you were entertaining the adorable thought of mouse pilots, the study cited above was indeed a human study.

This cognitive impairment may be explained by differential blood flow in the brain. In one study, brains were imaged by Positron Emission Tomography (PET) to measure the acute effects of smoking marijuana. In the study, subjects performed auditory attention tasks before and after smoking pot.

After smoking, there was a substantial reduction of blood flow to the temporal lobe, an area important for focused tasks, and this reduced blood flow correlated with impaired performance. Interestingly, smoking marijuana increased blood flow in other brain regions, such as the frontal lobes and lateral cerebellum, regions associated with decision making, sensory perception, sexual behavior, and emotion. So it seems that the brain engages in significant blood flow shifting to specific areas under the influence of substances in marijuana.

Given these studies, one could conclude that smoking weed before a complex game, a task that requires very fast decision-making or reflexes, or a workout that incorporates new exercises could be a poor decision for peak performance. However, many studies supporting this logic use unrealistic doses (such as 100 mg THC), and behavioral studies suggest that only complicated tasks are impaired by marijuana, as a similar study with tasks of variable difficulty level showed that people are still able to perform simple tasks.

Therefore, an endurance athlete may benefit from the pain-numbing and bronchodilatory effects of marijuana to get through a tough training session, and a UFC fighter who is using THC in moderated doses could actually be able to experience a combination of pain-killing, creativity and focus. But including marijuana in high amounts – and especially meeting or exceeding doses of 100 mg THC – into a routine requiring complicated movements, an element of danger and teamwork, such as a Spartan Race or Tough Mudder, could be a recipe for disaster.

How Does Marijuana Affect Muscle Growth?

So let’s say you decide to use marijuana before a boring or standard lifting session in which you know the movements like the back of your hand. Will weed inhibit muscle building? Despite a number of adamant bloggers insisting it will diminish your power output or amplify your gains, the answer actually remains unclear.

For example, because long-term use of marijuana downregulates the expression and responsiveness of the CB1 receptor, in a manner similar to frequent blood sugar swings leading to insulin resistance, some say that THC may impair muscle building by interrupting the mTOR signaling pathway, which is important for protein synthesis. Furthermore, an oft-referenced human study shows that marijuana inhibited secretion of Growth Hormone, which does indeed suggest inhibited muscle building.

However, this study used a very high dose of 210 mg THC per day for 2 weeks (that’s a boatload of weed), and while mTOR disruption by THC has been elegantly shown in the brains of rats, it has not been studied in human muscles; thus these deleterious effects on muscle synthesis are purely speculative.

Notably, the non-psychoactive component of marijuana, CBD, has been shown to regulate mTOR in a different way than THC, and CBD has been repeatedly shown to induce several health-promoting effects such as, increasing cognitive performance in mice. Perhaps CBD counteracts the potentially detrimental effects of THC on muscle building. This would simply mean that the different components of marijuana could be helpful and harmful for muscle synthesis, and in practice, consumption of THC-rich strains would need to be accompanied by absorbable CBD oil to counteract any loss in muscle gain potential. Ultimately more focused muscle-building studies are needed on human athletes to make conclusions.

Ben, always the relentless self-experimenter (as we know from photos like the one below from his UConn study), has actually been experimenting extensively with CBD oil extracts in his training (combined both with and without THC-rich edibles) and will be reporting on the effects in detail soon. As a matter of fact, if you listen to podcast #314, you can hear Ben’s thoughts on 10, 15, 20 oil-based THC doses and even a rather humorous 250mg (yes, 250) edible THC doses.

What Weed Does To Your Hormones

Because hormones are critically important for overall health and performance, it is important to understand how marijuana affects these systems. Numerous forums insist that marijuana induces unfavorable hormonal changes. For instance, marijuana has been shown to suppress the hypothalamic-pituitary axis (HPA) in rodents, but human studies suggest variable effects on the HPA axis. In both males and females, a realistic dose of THC (cigarettes containing 2.8% THC) immediately lowered Luteinizing Hormone (LH) and raised the dangerous stress-associated hormone cortisol, which may underly the paranoia some users experience. A recent study, one of the few with sufficient sample sizes, showed that the cortisol response to physiologically-relevant amounts of THC was blunted in chronic cannabis users; while plasma cortisol levels increased in a dose-dependent manner in both non-users and frequent users, frequent users showed less of a cortisol surge.

Many people believe that HPA suppression decreases the production of testosterone in men. Yet, the vast majority of testosterone in human males is produced by Leydig cells in the testes, with about 5% produced under the control of the HPA axis, so HPA suppression is unlikely to significantly alter the total amount of testosterone in humans. The hormonal effects of marijuana on women are complicated by natural hormonal fluctuations depending on menstrual cycle. A popular report posited that THC competes with estradiol to bind estrogen receptors and thus THC acts like estrogen; however, this was a rat study that may not translate to human biophysical interactions. Overall, surveying the literature found no definitive evidence that marijuana depresses sex hormones long-term.

Furthermore, chronic marijuana use may induce tolerance and reset HPA set-points such that any suppression of hormones returns to normal levels. Supporting this logic, the largest human study to date found no significant long-term hormonal changes in chronic marijuana users, and suggested that earlier studies involved insufficient sample sizes. Furthermore, a meta-analysis and human simulation study showed that male testosterone levels, while depressed immediately after marijuana use, returned to previous levels after 24 hours. Overall, based on the current evidence, it’s very tough to believe that marijuana induces permanent, damaging hormonal changes in most people.

Does Weed Make You Fat?

As stoners seem to come in all shapes and sizes, it is unclear from mere observation whether weed leads to weight loss or gain. Perhaps counterintuitively, a 2013 adjusted epidemiological study showed that obesity rates are significantly lower for all groups of cannabis users (inclusive of gender and age) compared to those who had not used cannabis in the last 12 months. Although these findings have been replicated, the cross-sectional nature of this study precludes establishing causality; we cannot conclude that marijuana causes weight loss.

The lower Body Mass Index (BMI) of pot-smokers may be explained by an adaptive down-regulation of brain endocannabinoid signaling. While acute THC stimulates appetite, the repeated stimulation of CB1 receptors by THC decreases receptor expression and sensitivity, and long-term stimulation may result in antagonistic rather than agonistic triggering of CB1 receptors, which would dampen hunger signals.

Furthermore, CBD and another component of marijuana, tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV), may reduce body weight, as animal models of obesity using overweight mice have shown THCV to increase metabolism of fat cells. But before you get excited that marijuana may burn fat, please realize that very few strains on the market have significant levels of THCV, so do your research (such as these four strains of skinny-pot that won’t bring out the munchies).

Therefore, research shows that marijuana does not directly contribute to fat gain, and properly harnessing its dose-dependent stimulation or suppression of appetite may enable muscle gains or fat loss. For example, biohacking bodybuilders (or others desiring a post-workout anabolic state) can increase post-workout protein intake for mass and muscle building by consuming THC (in a higher-than-usual dose) before big workouts, while those pursuing fat loss and appetite control may actually suppress nighttime cravings by using smaller doses of THC on a more frequent basis.

A Personal Experience

After reading the article “How to Make Pot-Infused Energy Bars at Home“, in preparation for a self-report in this article, Ben actually made pot-infused energy bars (100% legal in his state), following this exact recipe for “No-Bake Toasted Coconut Energy Bars”. Be extremely careful to know how much you are consuming if you use a recipe like this. You may find this article helpful to make sure you do not overdose on THC like Ben did.

Ingredients are as follows:

• Ground weed (a little goes a long way – make sure you use a digital kitchen scale and know exactly what a “gram” of ground weed is if you don’t want to repeat Ben’s mistakes!)
• At least 2 tablespoons of coconut oil
• ¼ cup butter or coconut butter
• 2 cups of unsalted cashews
• 1 cup of pitted dates
• Ground cinnamon
• Sea salt
• 2/3 cup of unsweetened shredded coconut
• A brownie pan
• Parchment paper
• A food processor

With full credit to this article in Men’s Journal, the instructions are as follows:

Step One

First, extract your THC. Grind a tablespoon of pot, whichever strain you want — sativas will keep you from wanting to stay on the couch (Ben found approximately 1.5g to be a sweet spot for him, close to 15mg THC) , but indicas will be better for relieving discomfort, if you’re aiming to go for a longer distance, so it’s up to you and what you’re used to (Ben noted that hybrid stains with a blend of indica and sativa are good for any kind of workout – particularly a strain called Lemon Haze). Then, in a crock-pot or a double boiler (or a regular sauce pan), on very low heat, cook 1 cup of oil with the ground herb. Stirring occasionally, every half hour or so, you should heat the oil and the pot together for at least 2 hours, if not 3. You can modify these measurements according to what you want to make, of course; do the math.

Step Two

Preheat your oven to 350° F. Spread 2/3 cup of unsweetened shredded coconut onto a baking sheet, and cook it for 5-6 minutes, until the coconut is golden.

Step Three

Put the coconut aside, and spread 2 cups of unsalted cashews onto the baking sheet. Cook those for another 5-6 minutes, until fragrant.

Step Four

In a food processor, mix the coconut, cashews, 1 cup of pitted dates, a healthy amount of cinnamon, and a tiny amount of sea salt. Pulse until the mixture is crumb-like.

Step Five

Add ¼ cup of unsalted butter (you can also use coconut butter, if you’re lucky enough to find it) and 2 tablespoons of your THC-infused coconut oil. Pulse until the mixture starts to clump. If it looks too dry, go ahead and add a little more butter. (Or more coconut oil, if you’re feeling optimistic.)

Step Six

In a brownie pan (8 by 8 inches should do the trick), dab some oil and lay down a sheet of parchment paper. Make sure the paper sticks to the sides. Then pour out your mixture into the pan, smooth it out, and stick the whole thing in the freezer for 15-20 minutes.

Step Seven

Slice them up and eat one (Ben found about 45-60 minutes prior to a workout is a sweet-spot). Or put one in your gym bag for later. Makes 8-16 bars, depending on your tolerance.

Seems like a lot of work to go through for experimenting with whether weed works for your workout? If so, you can use a small portable vaporizer, an oil-based vaporizer, or you can get more targeted microdoses of THC in oils or lozenges, which generally have about 10 mg THC per serving, but can be microdosed, split into smaller pieces, etc, for doses as low as 1-5 mg THC, or even consumed in their non psycho-active (and legal in all 50 states) CBD capsule or oil version.

Summary

So now that we’ve thrown a bunch of science at you, are you thinking that marijuana is an asset or an obstacle to burning fat, building muscle, and performing at your best? Like any other tea, herb, powder, oil, capsule or supplement, its utility depends on your unique physiology and how you use it. If you read the article above carefully, you’ll notice many practical tips from Ben about what has seemed to work for him with the moderated doses of both THC and CBD he has been experimenting with.

While marijuana often has an anxiolytic effect that can aid sleep and thus enhance recovery, some people (often those hard-charging overachievers with high cortisol) find it antithetical to their goal of finding inner peace. So once again, it is crucial to find the dose that complements your hormonal baselines to promote feelings of well-being, rather than paranoia, and combining smaller amounts of THC with ample amounts of CBD can be a good way to achieve this sleep and recovery goal.

Ultimately, it appears from science that most of the beneficial effects of weed are derived from CBD and THCV. Unfortunately, if you live in a state or area where weed is not legal, most of the marijuana you get from the guy across town contains high levels of THC and little or no CBD, and the data is fairly conclusive that THC impairs cognitive and motor performance.

So when it comes to exercise and physical activity, we wouldn’t recommend smoking up before a complicated event requiring fine motor skills or people depending on you, such as a team Tough Mudder, a doubles tennis match, a basketball game, ballroom dancing, or lifting ungodly amounts of weight over your head, but you probably don’t need to worry too much about taking a pre-lift or pre-run toke or edible if you have normal cortisol levels and you find your motivation and performance remains intact or improves.

If you’re interested and within the bounds of legality, we’d advise performing an n=1 experiment to determine if marijuana increases or decreases your levels of stress, motivation, and appetite, and then rationally use it to aid your training and recovery plans accordingly. Let us know how it goes, and leave your questions, comments and feedback below!

The post The Effect Of Weed On Exercise: Is Marijuana A Performance-Enhancing Drug? appeared first on Onnit Academy.

As a matter of fact, 58% of Americans said cannabis should be legal in a survey conducted in 2015.

Go America! We’ve come a long way since the days of Reefer Madness.

Now that having an occasional joint after work is beginning to become as normal as having a beer when you get off work, it’s time to discuss the implications that this may have on your ability to maintain a lean physique.

It’s true that smoking weed alone is not going to directly lead to you putting on body fat, but there is this side effect you may have heard of…

“The Munchies”

Some emerging research points to a specific cannabinoid called tetrahydrocannabinol (or THC) that contributes to a heightened sense of smell, which can often lead to an increased appetite as well.

When you’re hungrier – you want to eat more. It’s as simple as that.

I know there are those amongst us who have been smoking so long that they now claim to be immune to the appetite increasing effects of marijuana.

This may be true and in that case, this article is not for you.

Personally I’ve been smoking weed for over 12 years now and regardless of how high my tolerance gets, I still feel the need to eat everything in my general vicinity.

If you fall into this camp as well – then this article is for you.

And within this article my main objective is to answer the age old question, “How can you smoke weed and not get fat?”

Way back when I weighed almost 250 lbs, I had not yet mastered the art of smoking weed and getting (or staying) ripped.

It was the same old routine. I would tell myself I would stick to eating a certain way or working out and once I smoked weed, I immediately came down with a severe case of the “Fuck its”.

“The Fuck its” is a term my old college football coach introduced me to – referring to when you are supposed to do something, but then smoke weed and say, “Fuck it, I’m no longer going to do what I said I was going to do.”

He warned us that if we smoked weed we would be especially vulnerable to coming down with a severe case of “The Fuck its” where we would not study for our tests, skip classes and end up ineligible to play.

Anyhow, over the years I got wiser and was able to manage both smoking weed and achieved success in the areas of my life I cared about most. Eventually I dropped down to my maintenance weight of about 190 pounds.

My physical transformation was made possible by applying some very simple principles I am about to teach you.

Rule #1 – Don’t Rely on Will Power

We all feel super confident in our ability to stay disciplined right up until we eat an entire bag of Double Stuff Oreos and a quart of Ben & Jerry’s. Don’t put yourself in that position.

Instead, just get rid of all the unhealthy foods in your house, so if you do go on a little binge it will be on healthy foods. Personally, I just don’t bring junk food in the house, because I know for a fact it will be eaten about 45 minutes after I smoke.

In general this is a smart strategy even if you aren’t smoking weed. Research tells us that willpower is a finite resource that takes both mental energy and motivation. Get rid of the temptation and willpower is no longer needed.

Rule #2 – Be Prepared

Let’s face it, you’re going to eat something. Unless you are one of the few people who don’t experience the munchies, you’re going to be at risk of experiencing a significantly increased appetite.

Be prepared with a ton of healthy and nutritious options for food in your pantry and refrigerator. I usually have greens powder, batch cooked veggies, fruit, hemp protein and some beef jerky ready for me at all times.

Rule #3 – Get Your Workout In Early

I personally like to smoke and then workout, but many people don’t. If you know you’re likely to skip a workout if you get high – then make sure you get your workout in before you indulge in smoking.

It’s simple, but this needs to be mentioned, because otherwise you will fall victim to the “fuck it” syndrome. This also goes for anything else important that you have on your agenda. If you need to get something important done, don’t let yourself fall into the trap of “I’ll do it later”.

You probably won’t, so just do it before you smoke.

Rule #4 – Have Clearly Defined Realistic Goals

Research tells us that if you have a clearly defined realistic goal that has been previously established, it makes it much easier to stay within integrity of whatever it is you said you wanted to do.

If you decided that you are going to be eating in a calorie deficit for the next week, then you know that you cannot go off the hinges when you smoke. You’ll have a set amount of calories you’re supposed to eat and you can hold yourself accountable to that.

We’re on a mission to help every dude out there who wants to live green – and also live life ripped and feeling great.

I hope you find this useful!

The post A Recreational Marijuana User’s Guide to Getting Ripped appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Never was.

Growing up, I was originally a fantasy-fiction writing, World of Warcraft dominating geek in my early years, and later in high school and college was a clean-living, well-shaven jock athlete with a substance abuse problem that consisted primarily of copious amounts of creatine, caffeine and canned protein shakes.

Until recently, unless you count smoking a very small number of joints at a few random parties in college, about the closest I’ve come to what might be considered “fringe” substance use has been via occasional use of nootropics and rrbal extracts like packets of concentrated Chinese herbs, smart drugs like piracetam, anirecatam and alpha-GPC combinations. ( See my white powder on a kitchen scale video here) and vaporizing nighttime sleep extracts of melatonin and L-theanine. ( Yet another creepy video here).

Of course, if you’re a regular podcast listener or you read my recent article on the “The Effect Of Weed On Exercise: Is Marijuana A Performance-Enhancing Drug?“, then you already know that subsequent to the legalization of weed in my home state of Washington, I’ve been experimenting with edible tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) for exercise performance, and also experimenting with vaporizing indica-rich strains of marijuana for creativity, relaxation and sleep.

So there: now I’m a bonified druggie. But let’s move on, because in this article, we’re going to delve into a derivative of the cannabis plant family that has some pretty massive payoffs for balancing your endocrine system, relieving anxiety, modulating chronic stress, shutting down inflammation and chronic pain, decreasing blood sugar, decreasing appetite and lowering abdominal obesity.

In other words, you’re going to learn about a form of cannabis without the paranoia inducing effects of regular weed, and all of the benefits.

Weed 101

So let’s say you didn’t grow up in the 60’s, never had stoner parents, have lived a relatively clean life, or simply smoke joints without ever thinking too hard about what’s happening chemically. Here’s a bit of “Weed 101”.  

When people talk about marijuana or use marijuana, they’re usually referring to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). What’s THC? It’s the part of the hemp plant (AKA the cannabis plant) that induces a euphoric state. Or an annoying, mildly schizophrenic state, depending on your perspective. We can at least say beyond a shadow of a doubt that it makes Family Guy episodes way, way more funny.

And of course, THC is what most recreational weed users are looking for, which is probably why botanists have figured out since the 1960’s how to increase the amount of THC from around 3% to 5% in the 1960s to as much as 28% in our current decade. So yes, it’s true that we’re not smoking the weed our parents smoked, and one draw on a typical joint these days would probably knock your mom on her ass.

As you learned a little about in my article on the effects of THC on exercise performance, THC fits into a site called the C-1 receptor in the cerebral cortex of your brain, and this is what causes you to experience a cerebral high, and if you fill in too many of those C-1 receptors, a very, very long time sitting on your couch.

And then there’s cannabidiol (CBD), pictured right, which is one of at least 85 active cannabinoids identified in cannabis, but is a major part of the cannabis plant, accounting for up to 40% of the plant’s total cannabinoid extract. CBD has long been researched for a much wider scope of medical applications than tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). We’ll get into the most relevant of those medical applications later.

But first more Weed 101 – specifically, how CBD is actually separated from THC. And to understand this, you need to put on your straw hat and for the next 60 seconds become a hemp field farmer.

See, hemp fields are simply fields of cannabis plants that grow under conditions in which the male plants have been allowed to fertilize the female plants. When you separate the male and female plants, the females can’t be pollinated, so they produce lots of THC (in what is known as “resinous THC form”) as a result. But when the female is allowed to get pollinated, she barely produces any THC. In fact, the happily sexed up female produces less than 1% THC.

So to gain a higher production of THC in a field of cannabis plants,  you simply take away the male plants so the females can’t be pollinated, and to lower THC production, you keep the male and female plants together. Plants used for CBD oil or CBD capsules or hemp oil or hemp protein or your hippie neighbor’s tie-dyed hemp headwear meet the international standards of less than 1% THC.

——————————–

The Wonderful World Of CBD Chemistry

Screech.

Back it up!

Why on earth would you want to dump a bunch of CBD into your body with none of the fun, psychoactive properties of THC? Don’t worry, we’ll get to that. There are some very, very good reasons.

But first, it’s important for you to understand what’s going on inside your body when you consume this CBD stuff from those happily mating male and female plants.

You already learned that THC attached mostly to C-1 receptors. On the other hand, most people will tell you that CBD fits into a different receptor, the (…drumroll please…) C-2 receptor, thus magically minimizing the effects from the C-1 receptor and providing all the medical benefits without the psychoactive high from THC.

Sigh. I wish it were that easy.

CBD actually has a very low affinity for both C-1 and C-2 receptors but acts as an indirect antagonist of their agonists. Woo-boy. Head spinning? All this means is the following: all the things that would normally activate the C-1 or the C-2 receptors are turned off or turned down by CBD.

For example, CBD can increase C-1 receptor density so that there’s just too many C-1 receptors for THC to bind to, thus taking the edge off the potential psychoactivity of weed, while still retaining all the opioid-like painkilling effects. In case you are concerned about this, meaning you have to buy more weed or take more hits if you’re using CBD oil, you should also know that CBD can extend the duration of the effects of THC by inhibiting the cytochrome P-450 enzymes that would cause you to more rapidly metabolize THC.

So your plasma concentrations of THC increase when you’re using CBD, resulting in a greater amount of THC available to receptors and increasing the effect of THC in a dose-dependent manner (which means the more CBD you use, the more THC becomes available). But along with this increase, CBD also acts as an antagonist at the cannabinoid receptor called GPR55 in the caudate nucleus and putamen sections of your brain, reducing paranoia-like effects or heart-beat racing from weed.

Yes, I know. Eyes glazing over.

Blah, blah, insert Ben Greenfield geek-speak drone sounds here. Place propellor hat on head. Tuck in shirt and gently put pocket protector in its place.

Wake up!

Here’s what I’m getting at: the magic of CBD is not really based on it’s action on C-1 or C-2 receptors, unless you’re using CBD to specifically elongate the effects of THC or to take any unpleasant psychoactive edge off THC. Which works just fine, by the way.

As a matter of fact, if CBD did indeed attach to C-1 and C-2 receptors, it would have the same addictive potential of THC. But since its mechanism of action is not dependent on receptors associated with addiction, CBD is not addictive or habit-forming in any way. So while the receptor explanation is conveniently simple, it’s not quite accurate.

Instead, CBD acts as an agonist on an entirely different receptor called the 5-HT1A receptor, and this is how CBD actually works as an antidepressant with anti-anxiety and neuroprotective effects. It also serves as what is called an “allosteric modulator” of your opioid receptors, which is how it works to remove pain and reduce the effects of chronic inflammation. Other positive medical effects of CBD (there’s over 60 of them, if you care to read up on them here) are due to increased intracellular calcium release and agonism of another receptor called the PPAR-γ receptor.

So let’s put this into real world context.

As you may know or as you may have forgotten (ha!) short term memory problems are really common with THC. That’s why the extremely funny, laugh-snorting joke you told last night is impossible to remember the next morning. Don’t worry, it probably wasn’t as funny as you thought it was last night. But a 2010 study found that CBD eliminates any memory loss problem from weed. In the study, researchers used plants bred for high CBD and low THC plants, and attributed this attenuation of memory loss to CBD’s role as a C-1 antagonist.

Here’s another interesting fact for you: CBD has really strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, due primarily to its effects on your adenosine receptors and cytochrome P-450 and 2C enzymes. When this was first discovered, the US government insisted that cannabis has no medical benefits, but at the same time, they took out patent 6,630,507, which gave them rights to the antioxidant properties of cannabis (which they ironically still claim don’t exist). Incidentally, that patent was not extended to actual oil or capsule extracts of cannabis, so the good ol’ US guvmint missed out on some pretty good business opportunities, if you ask me.

It’s also nearly impossible to overdose on CBD. Kind of like water, dark chocolate, and steamed kale, it has an unusually low level of toxicity. In the last 6,000 years, CBD hasn’t killed anyone via overdose, which is particularly impressive when you compare it to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as ibuprofen, Advil and Tylenol, which can wreak havoc on your gut lining, liver and kidneys. Or aspirin (salicylic acid) which kills over 1,000 people every year. Or alcohol, which kills over 110,000 people a year. No one’s ever died from CBD.

As a matter of fact, leading up to this article, I’ve used very high amounts of CBD (100+mg) with no ill effect, aside from extreme feelings of relaxation, calm and the impression that if my home caught on fire, I probably wouldn’t care (OK, so maybe that’s an ill effect).

A Very Brief History of CBD

Now of course, you could stop reading here and scroll down to fill yourself in on all the benefits of CBD oil, and the specific conditions for which it can come in handy. But I actually find the history of cannabis quite fascinating, especially given America’s persistent widespread disapproval and/or fear of it’s use. It’s not like this stuff just popped up like Red Bull energy drinks, ecstasy, Lunesta, or Adderall. Instead I’d kinda clump cannabis right in with organic vegetables and essential oils.

About 2,700 years ago, in Persia, a spiritual teacher named Zoroaster penned a sacred text of about 10,000 plants. As you can read about in this more incredibly detailed history of cannabis, Zoroaster interestingly included hemp at the tippy-top of his compendium. Hippocrates, the father of western medicine, also recommended cannabis extracts.

Later, Queen Victoria’s physician and one of the world’s leading doctors of that era, Sir Russell Reynolds, prescribed medicinal cannabis for the Queen’s menstrual cramps, for which CBD still works fantastically. When writing about medical marijuana in the first edition of the British medical journal The Lancet, Reynolds proclaimed that cannabis is “one of the most valuable medicines we possess.” Another widely hailed physician at the time, Sir William Osler, used CBD for migraines with excellent results.

The father of French psycho-pharmacology, Dr. Jean-Jacques Moreau de Tours, used the cannabis plant to treat depression, another condition still widely treated with cannabis in the modern era. Later, during the Revolutionary War, soldiers were paid with cannabis, and presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson encouraged farmers to grow more hemp to produce more rope and paper, as well as clothing and ship sails (which dates back to the Egyptians using hemp sails on their Nile boats 3,000-4,000 years ago). During WWII, American farmers were also asked to grow as much hemp as possible. Last time I checked, the US government isn’t politely asking farmers to grow hemp anymore, although corn and grain subsidies are booming.

Anything that can be made of plastic can also be made from hemp, which can reduce exposure to phytoestrogens and other chemicals in plastic and other synthetic compounds. Hemp plant fibers are long and tough, and can be woven into a soft cloth that wears well and has fewer of the herbicides and pesticides associated with other modern cloths like cotton. Even copies of the Declaration of Independence used to be written on cannabis paper, since it doesn’t yellow with age like other papers do.

As you’ve probably already heard, the hemp plant itself is is a highly useful plant, and every part of it has been used to make a wide variety of products, including biofuel and medicine. Biofuel made from hemp seeds is far less expensive and more effective than ethanol derived from corn. If there weren’t so many federal restrictions, growing hemp would highly benefit any agricultural state, but unfortunately most states must pay an absurdly high premium to import hemp seeds. And of course, as you’re probably aware, both THC and CBD seem to be immersed in a constant struggle of medical legality that I simply don’t have the time to address in this post.

Nonetheless, when it comes to CBD oil and cannabidiol, people seem be getting more aware of the fact that you don’t need to be a pothead to get all the medical, relaxing, hormone and metabolism-balancing properties of weed. Not that the image below is based on hard scientific epidemiological data, but a quick glance at a Google trends profile of searches for “CBD Oil” speaks volumes, doesn’t it?

Is CBD Addictive, Unsafe or Illegal?

So if CBD oil is so freaking magical, there must be a downside right? Addictive potential, perhaps? Toxicity and lack of proven safety? Illegal? Although I touched on the absence of C1 and C2 receptor binding earlier in this article, let’s delve into the addictive or unsafe potential of CBD just a bit more.

First, there is zero evidence, anywhere that CBD is addictive. This is because CBD does not act on any receptors in the brain that would produce addiction. You already learned about the science behind that whole receptor thing.

There, that was easy, huh?

But if you want more details then click here to read some of the writings of Dr. Tod Mikuriya, former national administrator of the US government’s marijuana research programs, was quite outspoken on the subject of addiction. The late Dr. Mikuriya stated that no other single drug or substance has as many therapeutic benefits as cannabis, and he never discovered any evidence of cannabis addiction.

Now don’t get me wrong – some will indeed claim that cannabis is addictive. For example, the Boggs Act of 1951 established mandatory sentences for drug users and also claimed that cannabis was addictive. But since then, testimony given by Dr. Harris Isbell, Director of Research at the Public Health Service hospital in Lexington, Kentucky exposed this as false, explaining how cannabidiols from marijuana are not physically addictive.

But Dr. Isbell’s research was mostly ignored, and instead overshadowed by the argument that the plant  inevitably is the stepping stone to heroin addiction, and the calling for harsh penalties against offenders of the marijuana laws. But the concept of marijuana as a “gateway drug” remains completely unproven.

In over 6,000 years of usage in Oriental Medicine, there have been no cases of addiction reported (although Emperor Fu Hsi referred to cannabis as a popular remedy as early as 2,900 BC).

In the early 1900s, as part of the Prohibition movement, cannabis was claimed by many to be addictive. But this was not based on research, and ironically the recommended treatment for cannabis “addiction” in most cases was the use of heroin.

An actual long term study, Ganja in Jamaica: A Medical Anthropological Study of Chronic Marijuana Use, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1975, showed zero concerns with addiction, even after patients who had used cannabis for decades had stopped. The 1980 study Cannabis in Costa Rica: A Study in Chronic Marijuana Use backed this up. Most interestingly, studies like this are not finding any addictive potential even in the presence of THC along with the CBD!

In the early 1990’s, rehabilitation facilities did indeed experience a significant surge of patients who were “addicted” to cannabis. But a survey done at that time noted that nearly all of them had come from the court system, where judges gave convicted criminals the choice between entering into treatment for addiction or entering prison, which was probably a pretty simple choice for most.

Later in the 1990’s, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) funded research that had the goal of proving that cannabis is addictive. But instead of identifying any biochemical pathway that could cause addiction, any research defined addiction by the presence or absence of some degree of withdrawal, with no specific parameters for withdrawal actually defined. In other words, if you’re thirsty, this NIDA-funded research could argue that this means you are addicted to water.

As a matter of fact, here’s what this article reported about NIDA.

The ugly truth is that the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the agency that oversees 85 percent of the world’s research on controlled substances, is on record stating that its institutional policy is to reject any and all medical marijuana research. “As the National Institute on Drug Abuse, our focus is primarily on the negative consequences of marijuana use,” a NIDA spokesperson told The New York Times in 2010. “We generally do not fund research focused on the potential beneficial medical effects of marijuana.”

Bummer.

And how about the safety of cannabis?

Dr. Lester Grinspoon, Professor Emeritus at Harvard Medical School, spent the majority of his professional life studying cannabis, from the 1960’s to 2000’s. The result was “Marijuana: The Forbidden Medicine“. As you can see, Dr. Grinspoon didn’t find one single case of death, stating that

“There are no deaths from cannabis use. Anywhere. You can’t find one.”

There are dozens of other doctors and similar studies, too many to list here – but you can certainly delve in at ProjectCBD website. On September 6, 1988 Francis Young, an administrative DEA judge, took medical testimony for over two weeks, and at the end of it, he said,

“Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.”

Once again, even when talking about the THC combined with the CBD, and not the isolated, non-psychoactive CBD component, marijuana is shown to be both non-addictive and safe.

But when it comes to pain management, one of the primary uses for CBD oil, deaths from drug overdoses and drug poisoning continue to rise. Deaths from opioid analgesics – one of the most universally prescribed pain management drugs – increased from 4,030 in 1999 to 15,597 in 2009 and 16,651 in 2010. In 2010, 60 percent of all drug overdose deaths (22,134) involved pharmaceutical drugs, and pioid analgesics showed up in about 3 of every 4 of those pharmaceutical overdose deaths. That confirms the predominant role that research has shown opioid analgesics to play in drug-related mortality. Opioids are nasty, brutal drugs with side effects nearly as bad as the conditions they’re taken for, and although deaths from opiods are common, they’re still one of the most turned to bandaids in modern medicine.

CBD in proper dosages gives nearly the same pain reduction compared to opioid prescription drugs such as morphine, hydrocodone, and oxycodone are examples, and when combined with these drugs, allows you to use far less of the actual prescription, thus reducing the toxic load on your liver and kidneys. And of course, as you already know, these benefits come without the proven addictive or unsafe nature of opioid drugs.

Considering the complete non-addictiveness and safety of cannabis, Dr. James Hudson, PhD, Professor Emeritus, University of British Columbia Department of Pathology and Lab Medicine, has said that pharmaceutical companies have an enormous incentive to chemically recreate the natural compounds in marijuana and somehow sell a drug from it. You probably already know this, but pharmaceutical companies can’t patent a natural compounds, but if they can make a synthetic compounds that mimics ingredient from cannabis, they can formulate that as a drug and potentially make a lot more money off of it.

To get an idea of the medical benefits of CBD (again, I need to emphasize to you that this is not medical marijuana or anything illegal, just the completely natural form of CBD), just take a look video of CBD oil helping with a form of childhood epilepsy called Dravet syndrome. The first use of CBD for Dravet’s syndrome was given to a patient who was having 300 seizures a week. I first talked about this video last year Is Weed Healthy? The Controversial Truth About The Science Of Marijuana…

Do you see that? The form of epilepsy in that video usually kills the child.

Here’s a nearly identical video of a patient with multiple sclerosis (MS) who was given CBD…

…and cerebral palsy. When you watch the video below, it becomes even more ironic that the government once created a prohibition of cannabis, declaring that it “has no medical usage”.

You get the idea, and now you probably also have a pretty good idea of why pharmaceutical companies would want to patent some chemical-ized version of this. So I’d suspect that we’re not too far away from an enormously overpriced cannabis-like chemical produced in a pharmaceutical factory. But in the meantime, you can get the identical effects from entirely natural sources of CBD. Let’s take a look at what some of those most relevant effects would be.

As for the legality, here’s the skinny for my home country of the USA (original source here):

“The drug Schedules list “Tetrahydrocannabinols” and “marijuana” both as Schedule I drugs under the Controlled Substances Act, however cannabidiol is unlikely to be considered as a Schedule I drug on the basis of being covered by the listing of “Marijuana” or by the listing of “Tetrahydrocannabinols” under Schedule I of the CSA.

“Marijuana” has a DEA Drug Code of 7360 (distinct from cannabidiol’s Drug Code of 7372) and is defined by the CSA as “all parts of the plant Cannabis sativa L., whether growing or not; the seeds thereof; the resin extracted from any part of such plant; and every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of such plant, its seeds or resin.” Exempted from regulation under the definition are “the mature stalks of such plant, fiber produced from such stalks, oil or cake made from the seeds of such plant, any other compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of such mature stalks (except the resin extracted therefrom), fiber, oil, or cake, or the sterilized seed of such plant which is incapable of germination.”

A DEA Interpretive Rule published in 2001 states that the “definition of marijuana was intended to include those parts of marijuana which contain THC and to exclude those parts which do not. … The legislative history is absolutely clear that Congress meant to outlaw all plants popularly known as marijuana to the extent those plants possessed THC.”Cannabidiol isolated by extraction from marijuana sources does not contain THC, and synthetically produced cannabidiol does not contain THC either. It therefore stands to reason that cannabidiol is not covered under the prohibition on marijuana.

“Tetrahydrocannabinols” listed under Schedule I of the CSA are unlikely to include cannabidiol. Tetrahydrocannabinols are defined as follows:

Unless specifically excepted or unless listed in another schedule, any material, compound, mixture, or preparation, which contains any quantity of the following hallucinogenic substances, or which contains any of its salts, isomers, and salts of isomers whenever the existence of such salts, isomers, and salts of isomers is possible within the specific chemical designation (for purposes of this paragraph only, the term “isomer” includes the optical, position and geometric isomers):

(31) Tetrahydrocannabinols (DEA Drug Code: 7370)

Meaning tetrahydrocannabinols naturally contained in a plant of the genus Cannabis (cannabis plant), as well as synthetic equivalents of the substances contained in the cannabis plant, or in the resinous extractives of such plant, and/or synthetic substances, derivatives, and their isomers with similar chemical structure and pharmacological activity to those substances contained in the plant, such as the following:

1. 1 cis or trans tetrahydrocannabinol, and their optical isomers

2. 6 cis or trans tetrahydrocannabinol, and their optical isomers

3. 3,4 cis or trans tetrahydrocannabinol, and its optical isomers

(Since nomenclature of these substances is not internationally standardized, compounds of these structures, regardless of numerical designation of atomic positions covered.)

Furthermore, cannabidiol was not placed into Schedule I when The Controlled Substances Act was amended in July 2012 with the US Congress‘ passing of the Synthetic Drug Abuse Prevention Act of 2012 (SDAPA) (which came into effect on January 4, 2013) to ban various cannabinoids, cathinones, and phenethylamines. The part adding to Schedule I various “cannabimimetic agents” which include molecules more closely resembling so-called “classically” structured cannabinoids reads as follows: Since cannabidiol is chemically not a tetrahydrocannabinol (nor indeed a “cannabinol” of any kind) and cannabidiol has a DEA Drug Code of 7372 (distinct from Tetrahydrocannabinols’ designated Drug Code of 7370), it stands to reason that cannabidiol is not considered one of the drugs placed into Schedule I under the listing of “Tetrahydrocannabinols” in the CSA.

(d)(1) Unless specifically exempted or unless listed in another schedule, any material, compound, mixture, or preparation which contains any quantity of cannabimimetic agents, or which contains their salts, isomers, and salts of isomers whenever the existence of such salts, isomers, and salts of isomers is possible within the specific chemical designation.

(2) In paragraph (1):

(A) The term “cannabimimetic agents” means any substance that is a cannabinoid receptor type 1 (CB1 receptor) agonist as demonstrated by binding studies and functional assays within any of the following structural classes:

(i) 2-(3-hydroxycyclohexyl)phenol with substitution at the 5-position of the phenolic ring by alkyl or alkenyl, whether or not substituted on the cyclohexyl ring to any extent.

Cannabidiol, while being a more “classically structured” cannabinoid (not like the much more recently discovered cannabinoid receport agonists with indole rings such as many of the JWH- and AM- named series), was not on the list of specifically newly banned cannabinoids (even among those with a more so-called “classic structure”) and it does not fall into the category of unlisted cannabinoids which are caught by the definition above for several reasons. Primarily, CBD is not a CB1 agonist; it is a CB1 antagonist. Also, unlike CP 47,497‘s homologues and similar synthetic “classical structured cannabinoids” which the above definition was written carefully to include, the cannabidiol molecule has a cyclohexene ring where the amended law requires a cyclohexane ring, and further cannabidiol does not have the required 3-hydroxyl moiety bonded to its cyclohexenyl functional group where the law requires a hydroxyl moiety bonded to the 3- position of a cyclohexyl functional group.”

OK, yes I’ll admit. That part hurts my head. But in a nutshell it simply means that cannabidiol, aka CBD, is a far different chemical than cannabinol or THC, and because of that, can’t fall into the class of being a controlled drug .

Of course, it’s extremely important to draw a distinction between cannabidiol from medical marijuana vs. cannabidiol from industrial hemp. The first form of cannabidiol is extracted from medical marijuana plants grown to be high in CBD and low in THC. It’s often sold under the title “Charlotte’s Web” and is a Schedule I controlled substance. It is only sold to licensed dispensaries and prescribed by doctors for particular conditions in places where marijuana is regulated, such as the USA. Marijuana-based CBD oil like this is only legal in states such as Colorado and Washington that have enacted medical marijuana laws.

While medical marijuana is grown to be high in CBD for the treatment of specific ailments, the THC content can vary dramatically, sometimes getting as high as the CBD content. The other problem with medical marijuana (besides the possibility of getting a strain that is high in THC) is that it’s not currently legal everywhere. In the United States, you must be living in certain states and obtain a prescription from a doctor to receive medical marijuana.

The water soluble CBD I use called “BioCBD” contains less than 0.001% THC, which is far below the legal threshold of 0.3% set by the DEA. Because of this unusually low amount of THC, this also means that a CBD source like BioCBD will not cause a positive drug test.

Since regulations can vary for each country, I’d recommend that if you want bulletproof confidence that you are completely within the bounds of legality, you reach out to your specific country’s customs department. Ask if you can import dietary supplements from the USA. If you are allowed to do this, then you can probably order CBD from hemp-based products.

Now…how about if you’re an athlete concerned about CBD use being considered “doping”?

No search of CBD Oil or Cannabidiol turns up any results on the World Anti Doping Association’s (WADA) prohibited substances list, and the article “Why should Cannabis be Considered Doping in Sports?” explains why:

“The WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency, 2013) establishes a 15 ng/mL urinary 11-nor-9-carboxy-THC (THCCOOH) threshold; urine analyses involves THCCOOH-glucuronide conjugates cleavage, which significantly increases free THCCOOH concentrations and detection time. Urinary THCCOOH concentrations above the 15 ng/mL threshold are considered Adverse Analytical Findings and may be interpreted as a violation of anti-doping rules (World Anti-Doping Agency, 2009). Studies showed that even occasional and single cannabis smoking might yield a THCCOOH positive result (≥15 ng/mL) for up to 5 days (Huestis et al., 1996). Thus, consuming cannabis even weeks before a match may imply a considerable risk of being detected in a doping test. In light of this considerable risk, some users started using a new preparation of herbal smoking blends named “Spice.” Such substances are highly potent cannabinoid analogs, with unknown and potentially harmful toxicological properties that may cause prolonged intoxication. These substances mimic or worsen cannabis’ toxic effects provoking cognitive and motor impairment (UNODC, 2011).

The non-psychoactive cannabidiol (CBD) is anxiolytic in humans following a single dose (Zuardi et al., 1993; Bergamaschi et al., 2011); decreased anxiety and fear memories extinction after oral CBD intake may enhance sports performance with no “violation” of the Code, as no THCCOOH is detected in urine. One way to protect athletes’ health and to promote health, fairness, and equality in sports is to include any illicit drugs, their constituents and analogs in the anti-doping program. The sports may assist to create educational program for youth and athletes as an alternative to keep them away from drugs and to preserve the intrinsic value about the “spirit of sport.””

The US Anti Doping Association (USADA), is a bit more cautionary, and in the following statement sums up the fact that you should probably make sure you get any CBD you use from a “clean” source:

“Athletes need to be aware that while some papers show that the likelihood of testing positive from a hemp product (at least in workplace testing) is very low (1), there are at least two peer-reviewed articles that show it is possible to sometimes detect THC in the urine of people who have consumed hemp products (2,3). Athletes who choose to consume hemp products may be at risk for a positive anti-doping test, even though many of these products claim not to contain THC. Thus, the risk of testing positive from hemp is low, but nonetheless it may be possible. Because athletes are strictly liable for what is in their systems, irrespective of how it got there, it is very important to be aware of this possibility.”

And then there’s the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). To confirm a positive test for marijuana in NCAA testing, the level of THC in your urine would have to exceed 15 nanograms per milliliter. This is impossible to attain with a CBD oil derived from a hemp plant, and the only forms of cannabis that appear on the NCAA banned drugs list are marijuana, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and synthetic cannabinoids such as spice, K2, JWH-018, and JWH-073.

Finally, if you want to be 100% informed on legality of CBD or any other substance both in and out of competition, you simply cannot beat the Global Drug Reference Online (GlobalDRO) search engine, which allows you to search for any substance, in any sport, in any country, from any nation of purchase.

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The Effects Of CBD On Hormones

Anyways, now we’re about to get to the good stuff, specifically things that I figured health-minded readers like you would actually find helpful, such as hormone balancing, de-stressing, enhanced sleep, fat loss, etc. But if you want to simply stop reading now, and take a side-track to go peruse the more than 20,000 articles published in peer reviewed journals that show the medical efficacy of CBD for a variety of other conditions in addition to what I’ve listed here, then knock yourself out.

Let’s begin with your endocrine system and hormones. Here are the studies:

1. Endocannabinoid system participates in neuroendocrine control of homeostasis (PubMed)

2. The emerging role of the endocannabinoid system in endocrine regulation and energy balance(PubMed)

3. Endocannabinoids in endocrine and related tumours (PubMed)

4. Role of the endocannabinoid system in food intake, energy homeostasis and regulation of the endocrine pancreas (PubMed)

5. The role of the endocannabinoid system in the neuroendocrine regulation of energy balance (PubMed)

6. Effect of cannabidiol on plasma prolactin, growth hormone and cortisol in human volunteers (PubMed)

Your endocrine system consists of glands throughout your body which regulate everything from energy levels to metabolism to sex drive. One major function of this system is to produce excitation in response to stress, which is of course necessary for survival, but when it gets out of hand it can be a source of excess stress. One big effect of cannabidiol in the endocrine system seems to be to protect against excess stress by reducing susceptibility to stress-induced activation in the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis. CBD significantly decreases plasma cortisol levels, and this is actually why I started using CBD in the first place – to reduce my cortisol.

But CBD has other effects on your endocrine system, particularly your appetite. You may simply think that marijuana produces the munchies and therefore makes you fat, and although this makes logical sense, science has shown that it’s not the case that marijuana makes you fat, especially when CBD is present.

Here’s how it works…

Your pancreas secretes the hormones glucagon and insulin to regulate blood sugar by signaling your liver to break down fat into sugar (glucagon) or to store sugar as fat (insulin). These hormones work as a pair to maintain homeostasis, and they stimulate the release of each other through a complex feedback mechanism. While THC primarily increases glucagon and blood sugar, CBD lowers insulin levels, and it is this CBD action that helps to explain why marijuana users tend to eat more calories but do not gain any extra weight, have less obesity and have lower rates of type II diabetes than non-users, and is also why some diabetics find that marijuana makes it easier to manage their blood sugar.

Type II diabetics (whose pancreas still functions) tend to have very high levels of insulin, but the liver is unable to use that insulin, so blood sugar stays high, and the pancreas eventually damages itself by trying to continually produce more and more insulin, eventually leading to organ failure if the diabetes is unmanaged. By lowering pancreatic insulin release, CBD may alleviate or prevent the progression of type II diabetes and blood sugar disorders. Cannabinoid antagonists such as CBD have been shown to reduce obesity, and not only do rodents given these antagonists eat less, but they also lose more weight than their reduced feeding can account for.

So the summary of the biggest effects of CBD on the endocrine system? Lower cortisol and better blood sugar control. Let’s move on.

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The Effects Of CBD On Anxiety & Stress

You’ve already seen the data on the big cortisol-lowering effects of CBD. But when it comes to anxiety and paranoia in general, a THC-rich strain of marijuana will actually increase not decrease stress unless there is enough CBD present to balance out the stress-increasing effect of weed.

Studies in humans, including many of those cited below, have demonstrated that CBD dosage reduces anxiety (once again, compared to the increased levels of anxiety that THC produces), and that when you combine CBD with THC, it takes the anxiety edge off THC. This is due to the action of CBD on 5HT1A and TRPV1 receptors, both of which are involved in mitigating the anxiolytic, panic and fear responses to stress.

Here are the studies that have specifically investigated CBD’s role as an anti-anxiolytic:

1. Cannabidiol, a Cannabis sativa constituent, as an anxiolytic drug (PubMed)

2. Antidepressant-Like and Anxiolytic-Like Effects of Cannabidiol: A Chemical Compound of Cannabis Sativa (PubMed)

3. Cannabidiol reduces the anxiety induced by simulated public speaking in treatment-naïve social phobia patients (PubMed)

4. Neural basis of anxiolytic effects of cannabidiol (CBD) in generalized social anxiety disorder(PubMed)

5. Central anandamide deficiency predicts stress-induced anxiety: behavioral reversal through endocannabinoid augmentation (PubMed)

6. Effects of cannabidiol (CBD) on regional cerebral blood flow (PubMed)

7. The anxiolytic-like effects of cannabidiol injected into the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis are mediated by 5-HT1A receptors (PubMed)

8. The anxiolytic effect of cannabidiol on chronically stressed mice depends on hippocampal neurogenesis: involvement of the endocannabinoid system (PubMed)

9. Plant-based medicines for anxiety disorders, part 2: A review of clinical studies with supporting preclinical evidence (PubMed)

When it comes to stress, which is of course significantly related to anxiety, the host of studies are just as impressive:

1. Endogenous cannabinoid signaling is essential for stress adaptation (PubMed)

2. Regulation of endocannabinoid signaling by stress: Implications for stress-related affective disorders (PubMed)

3. Functional interactions between stress and the endocannabinoid system: from synaptic signaling to behavioral output (PubMed)

4. Neuromodulators, stress and plasticity: a role for endocannabinoid signalling (PubMed)

5. Downregulation of endocannabinoid signaling in the hippocampus following chronic unpredictable stress (PubMed)

6. Endocannabinoids and stress (PubMed)

7. Stress regulates endocannabinoid-CB1 receptor signaling (PubMed)

8. Chronic Stress Impairs α1-Adrenoceptor-Induced Endocannabinoid-Dependent Synaptic Plasticity in the Dorsal Raphe Nucleus (Pub Med)

9. Endocannabinoid-mediated modulation of stress responses: Physiological and pathophysiological significance (PubMed)

10. Cannabinoid receptor activation prevents the effects of chronic mild stress on emotional learning and LTP in a rat model of depression (PubMed)

11. Cannabinoids ameliorate impairments induced by chronic stress to synaptic plasticity and short-term memory (PubMed)

12. The anxiolytic effect of cannabidiol on chronically stressed mice depends on hippocampal neurogenesis: involvement of the endocannabinoid system (PubMed)

13. Low-frequency stimulation evokes serotonin release in the nucleus accumbens and induces long-term depression via production of endocannabinoid (PubMed)

This is just a small sample of the research showing the role that CBD plays in reducing stress and reducing anxiety. I’ve found that as little as 10mg CBD vastly lowers my anxiety at the end of the day, and have dosed with as high as 100mg CBD to be as calm as a baby during trans-Atlantic plane flights, nights sleeping in hotel rooms, and other situations where I have difficulty sleeping or tend to be stressed out. The stuff works like a charm, and saves me from having to hunt down an unhealthy, addictive alternative like valium or diazepam.

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The Effects Of CBD On Inflammation

You can pretty much consider inflammation to be the freaking bane of our modern, fast-paced, industrialized lifestyles. Of the ten leading causes of mortality in the United States, chronic, low-level inflammation contributes to the pathogenesis of at least seven, specifically heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and nephritis.

But from joint pain to irritable bowel syndrome to diabetic retinopathy, CBD has been shown to modulate both acute and chronic inflammatory issues via several different mechanisms, and from the research I’ve seen and cited below, it’s even more powerful than many of the commonly recommend natural remedies for inflammation, such as curcumin, fish oil, resveratrol, anti-oxidants, protelytic enzymes, Vitamin C, etc.

For example, cytokines are the signaling proteins synthesized and secreted by immune cells upon stimulation. They are the modulating factors that balance initiation and resolution of inflammation. One of the mechanisms of immune control by CBD during inflammation is stopping cytokine production by immune cells and lowering cytokine production by the T-helper cells Th1 and Th2 (which are interestingly the same cells in which overactivity can contribute to autoimmune issues and food intolerances). The inflammatory compound interleukin-6 (IL-6) can also be decreased in the presence of CBD.

In one interesting study, researchers decided to test the effect of CBD on four cell signaling or mediating molecules associated with intestinal inflammation and oxidative damage to the gut. Their findings were as follows:

1. Inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) – CBD reduced the overexpression of iNOS in response to colitis. iNOS overexpression is well correlated with disease activity with colitis, and inhibitors of iNOS lead to improvement in experimental models of IBD. iNOS results in high-output production of NO, which results in oxidative damage to the intestine via reactive oxygen species (ROS).

2. Interleukin-1β – levels significantly increased with experimental colitis. CBD was shown to decrease levels. IL-1β is shown to have potent pro-inflammatory activity and thus heightens the inflammatory response that leads to intestinal injury. IL-1β amplifies the production of inflammatory leukocytes (immune system cells), resulting in an increase of inflammation.

3. Interleukin-10 – levels significantly decreased with experimental colitis. CBD was shown to restore levels. IL-10 has anti-inflammatory activity by inhibiting the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Restoration of IL-10 activity is critical to intestinal health.

The reduction of iNOS and reactive oxygen species by CBD, along with the reduction of lipid peroxidation, shows the important therapeutic action of CBD in reduction of colonic inflammation by indirect reduction of oxidative damage. In addition, the dysregulation of the interleukins IL-1B and IL-10 is a well-known disruption caused by irritable bowel disease (IBD). The restoration of these interleukins to normal behavior by CBD, although the specific pathway is unknown, is another important therapeutic action that CBD has on reduction of colonic inflammation.

Many of the folks I coach and do consults with have always struggled with a “sensitive gut”, irritable bowel syndrome, bloating, gas, constipation and other signs of gut inflammation, and being able to use CBD to reduce gut inflammation could be a game-changer for these people. But from the joints to neural tissue, CBD has a variety of other natural anti-inflammatory effects. Here are just a smattering of the studies done on cannabidiols and inflammation.

1. Cannabidiol as an emergent therapeutic strategy for lessening the impact of inflammation on oxidative stress (PubMed)

2. The endocannabinoid system: an emerging key player in inflammation (PubMed)

3. Anti-inflammatory role of cannabidiol and O-1602 in cerulein-induced acute pancreatitis in mice (PubMed)

4. Cannabinoids, endocannabinoids, and related analogs in inflammation (PubMed)

5. Cannabidiol, a non-psychotropic plant-derived cannabinoid, decreases inflammation in a murine model of acute lung injury: role for the adenosine A(2A) receptor (PubMed)

6. Cannabinoids suppress inflammatory and neuropathic pain by targeting α3 glycine receptors(PubMed)

7. Cannabidiol reduces intestinal inflammation through the control of neuroimmune axis (PubMed)

8. Diabetic retinopathy: Role of inflammation and potential therapies for anti-inflammation (PubMed)

9. Cannabidiol reduces Aβ-induced neuroinflammation and promotes hippocampal neurogenesis through PPARγ involvement   (PubMed)

10. Cannabidiol attenuates high glucose-induced endothelial cell inflammatory response and barrier disruption (PubMed)

11. Vanilloid TRPV1 receptor mediates the antihyperalgesic effect of the nonpsychoactive cannabinoid, cannabidiol, in a rat model of acute inflammation (PubMed)

12. Cannabidiol attenuates cisplatin-induced nephrotoxicity by decreasing oxidative/nitrosative stress, inflammation, and cell death (PubMed)

13. Cannabinoids in clinical practice (PubMed)

Interestingly, the connection between CBD and inflammation can be highlighted using professional sports as an example. From MMA fighters to NBA basketball players, cannabis use is widespread among hard charging professional and a growing number of recreational athletes, specifically for shutting down the extreme amounts of joint inflammation and pain from constantly pounding the mat or the court and for helping the body relax and sleep at night after a day of stress combined with hard and heavy training. Many NFL athletes are now experimenting with cannabis extracts to manage post-head injury symptoms and to reduce the chronic mid and post-career aches and pains.

I’m sure that if these same athletes realized they could get all the same anti-inflammatory, anti-anxiety and sleep effects from CBD, without having to worry about THC testing by their athlete’s federation, they’d likely leap at the chance.

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The Effects Of CBD On Metabolism & Body Fat

Bet you never thought you’d hear somebody recommending a weed derivative to lose weight, but it’s true. Earlier in this article, you learned how CBD can help to stabilize insulin levels, regulate appetite, and decrease cortisol – all of which can have a profound effect on your body fat levels.

1. The impact of marijuana use on glucose, insulin, and insulin resistance among US adults (American Journal of Medicine)

2. The potential use of cannabidiol in the therapy of metabolic syndrome (PubMed)

3. Cannabinoids and endocannabinoids in metabolic disorders with focus on diabetes (PubMed)

4. Cannabinol and cannabidiol exert opposing effects on rat feeding patterns (PubMed)

5. Cannabis and Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) for weight loss? (PubMed)

6. The endocannabinoid system in obesity and type 2 diabetes (PubMed)

7. Role of the endocannabinoid system in abdominal obesity and the implications for cardiovascular risk (PubMed)

8. Cannabinoids and endocannabinoids in metabolic disorders with focus on diabetes (PubMed)

As I mentioned earlier, cannabidiol is known to counteract some of the effects of THC like the “munchies.” Just as THC can significantly increase your appetite, CBD can suppress your appetite, which is ideal if you’re watching your figure. Here is a great two minute video that sums up how marijuana can help obesity and body fat:

In the video, you learn about one study in which researchers found that pot smokers had lower levels of obesity than people who do not smoke pot, and another study that found that a brain chemical with a structure similar to one of the active compounds found in cannabis might actually help people lose weight. The findings are just the latest addition to a growing body of evidence that marijuana may be useful in countering issues related to obesity.

The researchers leading many of the studies on marijuana extracts and obesity are affiliated with the UK’s GW Pharmaceuticals, which makes me cringe that pharmaceutical companies are going to make some kind of very expensive CBD-based weight loss drug.  But regardless of motive, in these studies, the researchers found that the two compounds, THCV and cannabidiol, boosted metabolism, and reduced levels of liver fat, and blood cholesterol. These same compounds also made mice more sensitive to insulin, protected the cells that produce insulin, and increasing metabolic rate – all while suppressing the appetite. Nice.

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The Effects Of CBD On Sleep

In the United States, approximately 70 million people suffer from insomnia, insufficient sleep or another sleep disorder. CBD extracts have been mistakenly described as sedating, but I haven’t found that to be the case with my own use and neither has research. Although it’s true that if you take a bunch of CBD (I’ve found 30g+ of a good, absorbable CBD will do it for me) you will fall asleep like a baby, in modest doses, CBD is mildly alerting, and simply provides a calm, relaxed focus.

Cannabidiol actually activates the same adenosine receptors as caffeine, which is technically a stimulant. But patients with sleep issues report that ingesting a CBD-rich tincture or extract a few hours before bedtime has a balancing effect that facilitates a good night’s sleep, and I’ve certainly found this to be the case.

Here are the studies on CBD and sleep.

1. The nonpsychoactive Cannabis constituent cannabidiol is a wake-inducing agent (PubMed)

2. Cannabis, pain, and sleep: Lessons from therapeutic clinical trials of Sativex, a cannabis-based medicine (PubMed)

3. Effects of acute systemic administration of cannabidiol on sleep-wake cycle in rats (PubMed)

4. Effect of Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol on nocturnal sleep and early-morning behavior in young adults   (PubMed)

5. Cannabidiol, a constituent of Cannabis sativa, modulates sleep in rats (PubMed)

6. Endocannabinoid modulation of cortical up-states and NREM sleep (PubMed)

7. Intranodose ganglion injections of dronabinol attenuate serotonin-induced apnea in Sprague-Dawley rat (PubMed)

In sum: smaller doses of CBD provide you with a calm and relaxed focus that comes in handy during everything from writing to music to parties to workouts – very similar to what you would experience with THC, but without the psychoactive or paranoia properties. And if you combine these smaller doses of CBD with common natural sleep-inducing compounds like melatonin, magnesium, or lemon balm, then you can get yourself into an even more relaxed state. But larger doses of CBD (which are going to range based on the actual absorption of whichever CBD blend you are using) can be used all by themselves to enhance sleep or combat insomnia.

Speaking of dosage, in most clinical trials, you’ll see CBD dosing ranges from 10-800 mg of CBD a day (although to treat schizophrenia, I’ve seen doses as high as 1,300mg). But as with everything from whey protein to creatine to magnesium, everyone is different and you’ll likely need to experiment with a dosage range that works for you. The CBD capsules I personally use contain 10mg in one capsule, but based on the absorption (an important variable which you’re going to learn about next), I need to use far less CBD, about 1/10 the amount, compared to other CBD tinctures, extracts and capsules I’ve tried.

Why Most CBD Isn’t Absorbed & What You Can Do About It

OK, so there must be a catch here, because at this point you’re probably under the impression that I think CBD is some kind of cure-all magical tonic that ranks right up there with Belgium chocolate, Bordeaux wine and kale smoothies.

But problem is, CBD oil, capsules, powders, etc. are not easily absorbed by your body. They can spoil and become contaminated. They smell bad. They often taste bad too. And they’re not water soluble.

The water soluble thing is a biggie.

Your body is composed of over 60% water, and this means that you’re going to either A) need to take way, way more of a non water-soluble CBD product if you actually want to feel the effects or B) smoke or vape your CBD, which is logistically annoying and not something your kid or your pet can do (and yes, both kids and pets can enormously benefit from CBD usage).

This is why most CBD hemp oil products have an extremely poor bioavailability and most people simply don’t experience or feel any of the effects of the CBD they take.

So how can you make CBD absorbable?

Enter turmeric, the same flavorful spice that I mix with black pepper on my salads every single day of the year.

Turmeric comes from the rhizome in the turmeric plant, and the rhizome can grow up to 3 inches in length. The rhizome is then harvested and dried before being ground into a yellow powder, the very concentrated form of which is also known as curcumin (yes, the same curcumin that is currently the darling of the “natural anti-inflammatory” industry).

Kind of like cannabis, humans have been cultivating turmeric for a long time – over 4,000 years. The Ayurvedic medicinal herb was originally used as a medicinal herb in Southeast Asia, where turmeric also carries significant religious significance. Turmeric was a highly sought after commodity in the ancient spice trades that swept across China and Africa, all before the end of the 9th century.

India is the main cultivator of all the world’s turmeric crops and consumes 80% of the world’s supply. Due to the high content of the main bioactive component in turmeric (curcumin) Indian turmeric is considered to be the best in the world for medicinal purposes. The Indian city of Erode, located in the South Indian State of Tamil Nadu, is the trading hub for turmeric in the Eastern hemisphere. Erode is so well known for its turmeric production that it is referred to as “Yellow City,” and “Turmeric City” (similar to the way that my living room couch is covered in yellow stains from my frequent turmeric sprinkling on most of the dinners I eat).

And here’s why turmeric plays such an important role in CBD absorption…

…when the cannabionids and terpenoids in CBD are mixed with the the isolated curcuminoids of a high-curcumin containing turmeric plant, the bioavailability of the CBD absolutely explodes. This means that if you’ve used CBD oil before in the absence of a curcuminoid blend from turmeric, you probably only felt about 1/5 to 1/10 of the actual effects of the CBD, since CBD by itself is very poorly absorbed.

For you aspiring Bulletproof Coffee drinkers out there, this is a similar concept to the idea that you simply never get to feel several of the bioactive, wakefulness and focus-enhancing terpenoids in coffee until you have actually introduced fats and triglycerides into the coffee to help these terpenes cross your blood-brain barrier – hence the butter and coconut oil blended with the coffee.

Using an extraction process called “hybrid-nanoengineering”, which basically involves a combination of CBD with turmeric herbal extracts, it is actually possible to get a completely bioavailable and absorbable form of CBD. The way that hybrid-nanoengineering works is that the cannabinoids and terpenoids are extracted from the cannabis herbs and then blended in a lab with curcuminoids to create CBD particles that are on the nano paricle size level. Nano particles (1/100 the width of a human hair) are easier for your body to absorb and transport to where they are needed within your body. This means that a hyrbid-nanoeingeneered CBD is over 10x more bioavailable in the body than any other oil based CBD, CBD tincture or CBD capsule, and it means that just 10mg of a nano particle CBD is the equivalent of taking at least 100mg of oil based CBD.

The result of hybrid-nanoengineering with turmeric is a raw oil that is high in CBD, virtually free of THC (less than 0.001%,) and complete with a full spectrum of other cannabinoids and terpenes, which work synergistically to make CBD even more effective. The oil is then encapsulated, and…

…voila…

…you’ve got an extremely absorbable CBD capsule, along with all the benefits of curcumin. Here’s a video that demonstrates the absorption difference between water soluble CBD that’s been hybrid-nanoengineered, compared to regular, non-water soluble CBD.

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Summary

Whew. Congratulations, you made it.

You now know:

1. CBD is the non-psychoactive form of marijuana, and can actually combat unpleasant effects of smoking weed, such as paranoia or over-excitability…

2. CBD acts on completely different receptors and enzymes than THC, resulting in a significant effects on anxiety, depression and stress…

3. CBD is completely safe and non-addictive…

4. Pharmaceutical companies can’t patent CBD unless they turn it into synthetic chemical first…

5. There are shocking demonstrations of the potency of CBD for several serious neurological conditions such as epilepsy, MS and cerebral palsy…

6. CBD can also be used to balance hormones, reduce anxiety, lower inflammation and chronic pain, combat metabolic syndrome, and reduce obesity…

7. It is very difficult for your body to absorb CBD, unless the CBD has been blended with curcuminoids and made bioavailable in a nanoparticle size…

I would never endorse anything that I don’t use and benefit from myself, and I can honestly say that CBD is now one of my major go-to supplements, it allows me to get all the benefits of smoking weed without actually smoking weed.

In addition to my morning and evening multivitamin and fish oil, I’ve now added two CBD capsules (about 20mg absorbable CBD) to my early evening protocol, specifically to lower inflammation from exercise, to lower my stress and anxiety, to help me to have more creative focus for writing, and to cause me to fall asleep much, much faster at night. Since I travel frequently, I can – unlike weed – take CBD extracts through any airport, anywhere in the country, and also unlike weed, CBD is not banned by any governing bodies of sport like USADA, WADA or the NCAA.

Do you have more questions, comments or feedback about how to use CBD oil? About the nanoengineered formulas? Do you have other questions about THC, cannabis or marijuana? Leave your thoughts below and I promise to get you an answer!

The post How To Get All The Health Benefits Of Marijuana Without Smoking appeared first on Onnit Academy.

How about the endocannabinoid system? Have you heard of that? If your profession has nothing to do with the biological sciences, I would expect the answer to be “no” (save a few individuals). Don’t feel bad. I have asked this question to many health and medical professionals that I have taught over the years and have received many a blank stare or look of confusion.

What if I were to tell you that this biological system permeates the entire human body with receptors located in skeletal muscle, the digestive tract, adipose (fat) tissue, and throughout the peripheral and central nervous systems (including the brain)? Again, you would question why this system is not studied, discussed, or even mentioned in most in physiology/health classes.

Benefits of the Endocannabinoid System

What if I were to tell you that the Endocannabinoid system (or ECS):

– Is involved in neuromodulation and immunomodulation in the immune system
– Helps regulate the central control of energy balance
– Plays a key role in the maintenance of bone mass
– Regulates intestinal motility
– Helps regulate metabolic processes (including storage)
– Promotes/regulates sleep
– Is involved in modulating insulin sensitivity
– Is involved in the regulation of pain signaling
– And much more

In fact, Dr. Michael Beigel (Faculty of Medicine – The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) has said that the ECS is “involved in ALL physiological processes that have been investigated.”

Can I sneak in its possible involvement in cognitive function and creativity? Schafer and colleagues (2011) reviewed literature and concluded that its activation leads to connecting seemingly unrelated concepts, an aspect of divergent thinking considered primary to creative thinking.

At this point I assume you’re in disbelief. If the endocannabinoid system plays a vital role in physiological functioning and has the potential to treat such a wide variety of ailments and diseases, why has it received further attention or recognition?

It’s because the endocannabinoid system is stimulated by cannabinoids. That includes those that are produced by our bodies (endocannabinoids), and those released while smoking, or otherwise consuming Cannibis (exogenous cannabinoids – aka “Marijuana”.)

• ENDOCANNABINOIDS – cannabinoids produced by our bodies
• EXOCANNABINOIDS (Exogenous cannabinoids) – cannabinoids contained in the cannabis plant

Now I am not an Oncologist, nor an Internist for that matter. I am a manual therapist, physical conditioning, and sports specialist. As such, I am writing this to highlight what I know best – the involvement of this extensive bodily system in manual therapy and exercise as a result of being activated by the endogenous cannabinoids.

When treating patients for musculoskeletal conditions such as lower back pain, neck pain, headache, osteoarthritis, sports injuries, etc., using manual therapeutic approaches, two of the main goals are to reduce pain, and remodel soft tissue structures. In the scientific literature, much time and effort has been put forth in attempts to understand the mechanisms behind how treatment techniques can contribute to these goals.

We now have some understanding about the role of several bodily systems including the central nervous system, peripheral nervous system, endocrine system, and the myofascial system. What about the endocannabinoid? Can this system also contribute?

Preliminary research suggests that it can. As noted by McPartland et. al in 2005 and 2008, the effect of soft tissue manipulation on the ECS affects fibroblast remodeling (and hence soft tissue remodeling), dampens cartilage destruction (thus preserving joint health), diminishes nociception and pain, and even reduces inflammation in myofascial tissues.

This has been shown to occur specifically in subjects with chronic lower back pain following soft tissue therapy as per Degenhardt et al. (2007) who identified a significant alteration in the concentration of several circulatory pain biomarkers lasting for up to 5 days post-treatment.

Thus soft tissue therapy may act through the ECS to:
o Change tissue structure
o Preserve joint health
o Reduce inflammation
o Decrease pain

If physical manipulation by a manual medical practitioner can stimulate this important system, how about physical manipulation by way of movement and training? Does the ECS play a role in exercise? Research on this topic suggests that it does indeed.

Endocannabinoid System & Exercise

Exercise induces changes in mental status, pain levels, sedation, anxiolysis (anxiety levels), and a sense of wellbeing (Dietrich & McDaniel 2004). Many of these changes have been attributed to the “endorphin hypothesis” which was thought to, for example, produce the “runner’s high” (which I am sure many of you are familiar with).

However, research on the exercise-endorphin connection has produced equivocal results. One of the main issues is that endorphins are too large to cross the blood-brain barrier (meaning they are not ‘allowed’ to leave the blood and enter brain tissue to produce the effect).

In recent years, several prominent endorphin researchers including Dr. Huda Akil and Dr. Solomon Snyder, have publicly criticized the hypothesis noting that it is “poorly supported by scientific evidence” and that it is a “myth perpetuated by pop culture” (Kolata 2002).

What then is creating this effect? Recent findings show that exercise increases serum concentrations of endocannabinoids, suggesting a possible explanation for a number of these mental, and physical changes.

To begin with, there is a large body of scientific literature documenting that exercise suppresses pain, induces sedation, reduces stress, and elevates mood (Dietrich & McDaniel 2004). It can also induce ‘Flow states’ (Csikszentmihalyi 1996) whereby the participant becomes so immersed in the activity that they have an altered perception of space and time.

Similarly, a large body of evidence also demonstrates that the consumption of cannabis, or marijuana, produces almost identical effects including sedation, pain reduction, reduced anxiety, euphoria, enhanced sensory perception, a state of silent introspection, altered time perception and feelings of wellbeing.

This results from the fact that the psychoactive constituent of cannabis, Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) exhibits a high affinity for the CB1 receptor, which is densely expressed in brain regions implicated in the control of emotion and cognition (Glass et. al 1997).

Both endogenous and exogenous cannabinoids function by the same mechanisms. The brain’s receptors accept both. Exercise increases your body’s production of its own cannabinoids. Therefore theoretically the state that one claims to achieve during running, the “running high,” is equivalent to a mild plant cannabinoid induced high.

In addition to these mental changes, research also demonstrates the effect of ECS activation on creating various beneficial physical effects. For example, research looking at ECS stimulation has demonstrated its necessary involvement for the refinement of movements needed for coordinated locomotion (Steiner et. al 1999).

This stems from the fact that the highest concentration of the CB1 receptors in the brain are actually found in regions that control motor behavior and movement. This means that the majority of cannabinoid receptors are in the area of the brain that controls movement.

Further, activation of the ECS may also produce beneficial peripheral effects (effects outside of the brain/central nervous system) leading to other adaptive responses to exercise including vasodilation (increased blood vessel size allowing for increased blood flow), and enhanced respiratory function facilitating improved breathing during exercise (Hillard 2000, Calignano 2000).

Conclusion

As noted above, I wrote this simply to highlight the potential involvement of the endocannabinoid system in manual therapy, and its seemingly strong involvement on the mental and physical effects induced by exercise.

In so doing, I hope to spark the interest of those in my field so that continued efforts are made through research to further understand how the ECS mediates the effects of manual care and exercise, as well as to potentially learn how to better manipulate this system to benefit our patients/clients.

I am personally very interested in knowing if it is possible to activate the endocannabinoid system prior to exercise, or if it is possible to increase the responsiveness of the receptors. For example, could meditative practice do it? Those who achieve meditative states also describe incredibly similar experiences.

Perhaps meditation also acts on the ECS? I am also interested in the mechanism it plays in teaching movement tasks to my training clients. Further, as a manual therapist, I am interested to know more about how this system is involved in tissue healing and remolding, pain modulation, and neural rehabilitation.

At the moment, research on this topic is still in its infancy because of the difficulties involved in conducting studies including governmental regulations, as well as fear on the part of the researchers of being deemed ‘fringe.’

As social beliefs continue to change for the better, I hope that manual therapists and exercise specialists follow in the footsteps of oncologists and spend time learning about and understanding this often forgotten physiological system.

“True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.”

– Karl Popper

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