With CBD becoming more prevalent, we're hearing all kinds of ailments that CBD can treat,
but no one's talking just about general health.
No one's talking about how CBD can play a big role in just living a healthier, longer
life and just overall having that better well-being.
Well, first of all, before we can talk about general health, we have to have a clear understanding
of what's going on with CBD within our body, but also what CBD is not.
You see, CBD is a natural stimulator of the body's natural endocannabinoid system.
What that means is that CBD, unlike THC, directly allows our body to produce more of the endocannabinoids
that allow us to feel good and treat some issues, but also help modulate anxiety and
maybe even help us sleep.
You see, when you look at THC, it's a whole different world.
If you look at cannabis, cannabis is going to make it so that your endocannabinoid system
is directly stimulated, meaning you have an exogenous ligand.
What that means is you have an exogenous force coming in and stimulating something, just
like a drug, whereas CBD promotes the natural production of something.
You're not changing anything.
You're not blocking anything.
You're just allowing the body to produce more of what it likes.
Now, the endocannabinoid system is a really cool thing.
It really gives us bliss.
It gives us relief.
It gives us calmness.
We have endocannabinoid receptors throughout the entirety of our body, not just in our
brain.
When we look at how CBD works, CBD comes into the body and then it suppresses something
known as fatty acid amide hydroxylase.
This FAAH is required to normally metabolize THC or to metabolize cannabis down to something
else.
But when we look at CBD, because it suppresses this FAAH, it allows the body to essentially
produce more of what is called anandamide.
Now, there are a lot of different endocannabinoids, but the one we want to focus on the most is
anandamide.
You see, the reason we want to focus on it is because there's a lot of research surrounding
anandamide.
Anandamide is a really cool endocannabinoid.
Basically it comes from a Sanskrit word anada, which literally means bliss.
Now, When we look at anandamide, it has some really powerful effects on what is known as
tumor necrosis factor one alpha.
Complicated name, but TNF1a is simply a very powerful inflammatory marker.
When TNF1a is high within the body, inflammation is usually systemically high.
Now, I don't want to go down a rabbit hole talking about inflammation too much, but when
we look at pretty much every single chronic disease state within the body, inflammation
is at its root.
CBD directly has an ability to produce more anandamide within the body, which therefore
suppresses tumor necrosis factor one alpha, something that's very, very important when
it comes down to modulating inflammation.
Now, another thing that it does is it reduces mitogen induced T and B cell proliferation.
Okay?
This is all about your immune system, right?
When we have an overactive immune system, we have a lot of T and B cells that are activated.
That could mean that our immune system is attacking itself for no reason, like in the
case of autoimmune conditions.
Now, the way that CBD affects this is again, the anandamide affects that mitogen induced
process by promoting what's called cell apoptosis.
Again, I know I'm over complicating things a little bit, but the simplest way that I
can explain this is it allows a cell to die when it's supposed to die.
If we have an immune cell that is old and shouldn't be there and it's programmed to
die, literally cells have pre-programmed cell death called apoptosis, and it's living longer
than it should, then it's going to cause the body to heighten up the immune system war,
which means we're going to be sick.
It's going to feel like we have the flu all the time because our body is just constantly
fighting itself.
We don't want that.
Now lastly, what anandamide can do is it blocks what is called a lipopolysaccharide induced
activation of nuclear factor-kappa B. Okay.
That sounds like a whole lot.
Nuclear factor- kappa B is another master inflammatory signal within the body.
Now, a lipopolysaccharide is something that comes from an unhealthy digestive system.
Basically it's unhealthy gut bacteria that triggers the release of something into the
bloodstream, a lipopolysaccharide.
These lipopolysaccharide trigger inflammation.
Basically what CBD can do is it allows anandamide to block a lipopolysaccharide.
That means even if you are somewhat unhealthy, CBD could help you get healthier by blocking
these bad bacteria from really causing this issue within your body.
Now let's transfer over to anxiety a little bit.
We know that anxiety is the reason that people will take CBD, but do we really know why?
Well, it has a powerful ability to activate what's called adenosine.
You see, coffee blocks adenosine, whereas CBD activates it.
Think of it as sort of the opposite effect of coffee as far as anxiety goes.
Now, we're not talking about energy here.
We're talking about anxiety.
If you have too much coffee, you feel anxious, right?
Well, believe it or not, CBD can have the opposite effect because it allows less glutamate
to get into the brain and more GABA to be releasing to the brain.
Essentially, we're always in a delicate balance of GABA and glutamate.
Lastly, it activates something known as 5-HT1A receptors.
Now, this is just a direct precursor to serotonin, so essentially we have an indirect way of
helping you feel good.
Last but not least, I do want to make a quick mention of something known as GPR55.
If you're concerned about cancer or you're concerned about cancer growth, GPR55 is something
that you need to block.
It's been shown in studies that by blocking GPR55 we can decrease cancer cell proliferation.
It's not saying that it's a cure for cancer.
It's not saying it's to prevent you from getting cancer, but studies have shown that if you
block GPR55, cancers don't grow as fast, and CBD has been shown to block some of the GPR55.
When it comes down to just living a long, healthy life, you just want to make sure you're
choosing the right CBD and that you're going down the right path because we all want to
live healthy.
We all want to live happy.
We all want to live for a long time.
We have to stop trying to treat each individual symptom and just treat life as a whole.
As always, make sure you're keeping it locked in here with Octagon Biolabs.
I'll see you soon.