How is cannabis helping so many people recover from COVID-19?

This article originally appeared on Cannabis.net and has been republished with permission.

COVID-19 has taken the lives of countless people around the world, but thanks to the vaccine, many have also survived.

However, surviving COVID-19 is not an easy task. In many cases, the dreaded virus leaves damage in the body that we can feel long after a negative test result. The usual symptoms such as a dry cough, fever, runny nose and shortness of breath appear.

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The duration and severity of symptoms varies from person to person, but there are people who experience symptoms that last for a longer period of time. Depending on the case, you may experience fatigue, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, chest pain, abdominal pain, brain fog, muscle pain, headache, and palpitations, among others.

When symptoms persist up to 12 weeks after infection, it is called long COVID and these conditions are not yet well understood. Doctors and researchers don’t know why it happens, who it will happen to, and how to prevent it. Of course, vaccination helps reduce complications, and a booster shot, even if you’ve contracted COVID, will also help.

There isn’t much you can do to treat it other than rest as much as possible and for as long as possible. In addition, it also helps to see your doctor to check for complications. These can prevent us from returning to a normal, healthy life. But what else can we do?

How cannabis can help in recovery from COVID

The compounds in cannabis, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), have shown promise in previous studies for the prevention and treatment of COVID. There are also hundreds of other compounds in the cannabis plant called cannabinoids that can help, such as: B. faster recovery.

A 2021 study found that CBD, as well as another cannabinoid called cannabivarin (CVN), may help treat long-term COVID. The study researchers found that when taken together, CBD and CVN work to downregulate the proteins known as ACE2, TSP, NRP1, and IL-6 that COVID upregulates or damages during infection.

Another 2021 study conducted by researchers at Rabin Medical Center analyzed the effects of CBD on 11 patients with severe COVID. Eight patients reported improvements in infections. dr But Moshe Yeshurun, who heads the hospital’s bone marrow department, said the results required more research with a larger group of participants.

“After administering the cannabis oil, we saw a decrease in signs of infection, and that’s definitely encouraging and provides a basis to continue the research,” said Dr. Iliya Kagan, who heads the hospital’s intensive care unit. Kagan explains that after giving the CBD oil to patients, it seemed to stop, “although it’s still too early to say for sure that it’s a result of the cannabis.”

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Another study from Austria, where doctors used cannabis to treat COVID patients, found that CBD showed promise as a treatment. “We administered CBD to 50 patients and observed that infection rates cleared more rapidly,” said Dr. Rudolf Likar, who heads the Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine at Klagenfurt Hospital, the only clinic in Austria using CBD to treat COVID-19. 19 patients.

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He and his team began dosing 200mg of CBD to patients in the ICU, and then eventually increased the dosage to 300mg for three weeks. They found that the group of patients who were given CBD were cured of the COVID virus much faster than those who were given other drugs.

They explained that CBD could be helpful in boosting the immune system due to its anti-inflammatory compounds. Her goal with COVID-19 therapy was to prevent other complications and even death.

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“There’s still a lot to study,” he said, saying the early results are promising, “but we need more studies and more data.”

There’s also a more recent study from January 2022 that showed two other cannabinoids could be helpful in recovery. These are cannabigerolic acid (CBGA) and cannabidiolic acid (CBDA).

The Oregon State University researchers used a screening tool to discover those compounds that possessed the sought-after molecular properties that had the potential to block the virus’s spike protein from binding to a human cell.

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The compounds were first tested in a Petri dish containing human cells. They used epithelial cells, which are cells that line the walls of tissues, including the lungs. Both cannabinoids have been found to decrease the protein’s ability to bind to epithelial cells, which works in the same way as monoclonal antibodies found in known COVID-19 treatments.

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“CBDA and CBGA are produced by the hemp plant as precursors to CBD and CBG, which are familiar to many consumers. However, they are distinct from the acids and are not found in hemp products,” said Richard van Breemen, the study’s lead researcher. “These compounds can be taken orally and have a long history of safe use in humans,” he adds. “They have the potential to prevent and treat infection by SARS-CoV-2.”

Conclusion

While there are many studies pointing to the ability of cannabis compounds to aid in recovery from COVID, we must keep in mind that many of them are still in their infancy.

There’s still a lot we don’t know about how COVID mutates and responds, but if you’re interested in using CBD to support your recovery, it can be done under the supervision of your doctor, who can advise you on the right methods of consumption.

This article originally appeared on Cannabis.net and has been republished with permission.