It’s an understatement to say CBD has made a lot of headway this year in both its popularity and credibility. It’s taken far too long, but we are now finally seeing clinical veterinarian trials that look into how CBD affects the health of our dogs.
And the results show CBD is already living up to its claims. So far in largest clinical trial undertaken, Colorado State University found that CBD helped reduce seizures in 89% of dogs. This study puts the stamp on all the anecdotal testimonies and preclinical trials that told us CBD could be fantastic for treating epilepsy even when it’s a form resistant to conventional drugs. .
So now that we have confirmation CBD can help dogs with epilepsy, let’s look at other popularly medical issues CBD is touted with helping. It’s likely that next clinical studies on CBD and dogs will look into this conditions.
CBD for People vs. Dogs
Both humans and dogs can benefit from taking CBD, in fact, all mammals can along with birds, reptiles, and fish. As a result, you’ll come across different versions of CBD with several different terms and labels: pure CBD, raw CBD, paws CBD for dogs, CBD isolate for dogs, etc. This can cause a lot of confusion for first-time buyers.
So, when this article is over and if you’ve decided to give CBD a shot, here’s what your label needs to have and not have if buying it for your dog.
- You want full spectrum or whole plant CBD not CBD isolate
- You want active or pure CBD, not raw CBD
- Hemp CBD with less than 0.3 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)
- Look for a Certificate of Analysis (COA) — it should be easy to find on a company’s website
Does CBD Cure Cancer?
This has to be one of the most asked questions about CBD, and there is good news and not so good news.
First, do not use CBD as a sole treatment for cancer. While it is true that cannabinoids like CBD have startling anticancer effects on tumor cells when in a petri dish, we don’t know the extent they do when inside the body.
As well, THC — the psychoactive molecule that gives marijuana plants their euphoric high — likely has the most significant anticancer properties out of the cannabinoids. There is at most 0.3% THC in CBD oil, and this isn’t enough to cause a high let alone have a direct effect on killing cancer cells. As well, high doses of THC is considerably more dangerous to dogs than it is to humans.
But not all this lost! There is room for monumental gain when using CBD in tandem with conventional cancer treatments.
Conventional methods like chemotherapy are our current best options, but these treatments kill regular cells in the process of killing cancer cells. This causes a lot of side effects and fighting cancer is hard enough alone. CBD oil has received an abundance of attention due to its ability to help treat these nasty side effects.
Whether your pup is nauseous and not eating, or in pain due to muscle inflammation, CBD can help remarkably well regardless if it’s cancer or the cancer treatment causes the issues. This can bring their energy back and take them out of living in a constant state of misery.
So while it’s difficult to say whether CBD directly or indirectly fights cancer, it isn’t difficult to say that there is a lot to gain by using CBD in tandem with conventional cancer treatments.
Can You Use CBD For Pain?
Pain is both a complex disease and biological function. Like anxiety, we all experience pain as a warning sign that something is hurting or threatening the body. It’s a good thing we experience pain, however, it’s not uncommon for an organism’s perception of pain to go askew.
Physical sickness, mental health, age, injuries, stress, etc. can all exacerbate the perception of pain. It appears that the brain will physically change the longer an organism experiences pain — the brain comes to expect it and will incorrectly perceive harmless signals as pain. So let’s not have that happen to our pups and we can do that with CBD.
CBD targets pain on multiple fronts:
- It’s stabilizes and regulates mood and mental health
- It will help revert corrupted pain signals before they reach the brain
- CBD reduces bad inflammation — a hallmark of pain and many other diseases
CBD’s tangible effects feel very much like taking a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen. Pain will disparate without hindering normal functions or causing a high.
How CBD Helps Anxiety
It wouldn’t be remiss to say CBD is perhaps that first over-the-counter drug for anxiety. Gosh, sometimes it’s hard to tell who is more anxious, people or dogs? But who cares because CBD is great for anxiety — both for you and your fluffy wiggle butt.
Like you saw with pain, CBD targets issues at the source. This is because it’s mimicking endocannabinoids that many organisms produce to regulate health and maintain homeostasis.
Homeostasis is a process that maintains and balances internal functions to support health. It’s vital to staying alive as it optimizes an organism to its environment. All environments place immense stress on an organism through temperature changes, airborne diseases, predators, stress, etc.
Endocannabinoids play a significant role in how we correctly perceive what is and isn’t stress — just like they do with pain.
You know how you can feel anxious even after you’ve thoroughly explained to yourself there is no threat? Many people report that CBD helps them connect their thoughts to their feelings and better rationalize and overcome their anxiety. CBD stops the tsunami of anxiety that’s wrecking the brain. Can you imagine how this must feel to your dog, who can’t conceptualize anxiety as we can?
Studies show CBD can help with all forms of anxiety whether you’re using it for yourself or using it to treat your dog’s anxiety:
- Separation anxiety
- Anxiety due to loud noises
- Stressful neighbors (four legged or not)
- Workplace stress
- Social anxiety
- Public speaking
Can CBD Help Rheumatoid Arthritis?
CBD oil targets many regulatory receptors in the body that when activated help modulate optimal health by stabilizing biological functions. But, the research appears to show that CBD focuses most of its attention CB2 receptors. While these receptors are found in all parts of the body, they are most concentrated in the immune system. This is great to see as rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease due to inflammation. Studies show CBD can with all forms of arthritis, however.
Studies show CBD can help regulate the inflammatory process. Like you saw with pain and anxiety, inflammation is a natural biological function and is one of the first line of defenses to protect health. However, like the other stress factors, the environment we live in can burden these self-defense systems to the point where they hurt health.
Final Thoughts On CBD Benefits
Fortunately, mammals have several regulatory processes that help correct an overburdened system that results in chronic pain, anxiety, inflammation, and cancer. Unfortunately, when these systems go down, there is nothing to fix them, and as a result, a world of health issues blossom seemingly from nowhere.
However, what if there was something that you could take or give that would help repair regulatory functions? That would be incredible, wouldn’t it? It’s likely we’d see that thing’s popularity blow up overnight even if was derived from something that has been criminalized and demonized for over half a century.
You know where I’m going with this, but now you can see the reason CBD is held in high regard by many. What’s nice is we don’t have to rely on anecdotal reports telling us CBD is great, because now there is a world of science backing it.
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