CBD in the Treatment of PTSD, Alzheimers, Addiction and Mood Disorders

I'd like to welcome everybody to this presentation on CBD or cannabidiol in the treatment of ptsd, Alzheimer's, addiction and mood disorders. Cannabidiol for neurodegenerative disorders. Let's just start there. Since we finished in the last presentation talking about neurodegenerative disorders, CBD or cannabidiol, and I'm call it CBD from here on out, just because it's easier to say it can be very neuroprotective based on its combination of anti inflammatory, antioxidant properties. Now remember that inflammation is one of our big bugaboos that contributes to problems in our nervous system and problems in our immune system. When we have inflammation, that is our immune system sending out inflammatory cytokines throughout our body. So our immune system's in overdrive and that causes a whole bunch of other, can cause a whole bunch of other issues. So anti inflammatory is important. We know inflammation is associated with nds as well as mood disorders and even some other, you know, psychiatric disorders. Antioxidant, now oxidative stress, you know, and some people, most people have already put these together, but I will just string it together because we've got the time. Free radicals are caused by your system being in overdrive and or inflammation. When you've got too much, too many free radicals in your system, you know, leftover byproducts from bodily processes, your body can't clear it out enough, it creates inflammation. And they call that oxidative, oxidative stress. Antioxidants are actually things that assist the body in removing those free radicals. They're removing that oxidative stress. So CBD actually has the ability to remove some of that oxidative stress. CBD is presently under investigation in numerous neurodegenerative disorder conditions, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease. Previous clinical studies using CBD concentrated on symptom relief only in Huntington's disease, and it looked at symptom relief instead of disease progression. Well, in terms of symptom relief, CBD did not seem to show much effect, much benefit for people with Huntington's disease. However, they believe that it may have have been somewhat effective in slowing disease progression by reducing some of the inflammation in the system. Now that a lot of that is anecdotal at this point regarding Parkinson's disease. Activation of CB1 receptors, which is the cannabinoid receptor that's activated by THC, enhances motor disability instead of improving it. So THC, which is the psychoactive component of Cannabis actually has been shown to make Parkinson, a lot of Parkinson's symptoms worse. So we want to note that. But cbd interestingly enough, acts independently of the cannabinoid receptors. Even though it's a cannabinoid, it actually acts independently. It doesn't actually target the receptors. It prevents the breakdown of endogenous opioid. And I'm sorry, I always do that in endogenous cannabinoids like anandamide. So CBD actually doesn't target the receptors as much directly, it targets them indirectly. And I made this hand gesture because a lot of times we talk about targeting receptors as turning a. A lock, turning a key in a lock. So I just have that automatic hand movement if you're wondering what I was doing. Anyhow, major efforts are being directed at finding cannabinoid molecules that provide neuroprotection through their antioxidant properties and activate C. CB2, but not CB1 receptors. And you may be going, well, what's the difference? CB2 receptors are found primarily in the immune system, so activating those receptors can help down regulate inflammation without having the psychoactive effects that we see more with CB1 activation. Now, remember CBD oil, cannabidiol, whether it's taken in a prescription pill which has been approved for epilepsy. There is one, one drug that is straight CBD that's been approved for epilepsy, but it does. And even CBD oils that people get over the counter do not contain thc. Now, the over the counter ones may contain a little because there isn't nearly the strenuous regulation on testing and purity and all that stuff. So if you want to learn more about CBD itself, I have other presentations on the YouTube channel you can watch. But, you know, suffice it to say, because people start hearing cannabis, cannabinoids and cannabidiol, and they think cannabis, and then they think thc and then they think, oh, that's bad stuff. Okay. CBD actually doesn't have psychoactive effects. It actually doesn't even target directly. Still doing it with my hands. It actually doesn't directly turn on the cannabinoid receptors. It prevents the degradation of anandamide. CBD attenuates brain damage associated with neurodegenerative or ischemic conditions because it is neuroprotective. It actually, when the brain upregulates and starts releasing the glutamate and the cortisol and all that stuff, CBD goes in there and shields Again, huge oversimplification, but you know, Enough for this class. It shields the neurons, it helps protect them, coat them from the excitatory neurochemicals. So think of it like a fire blanket in the middle of a forest fire. CBD has positive effects of attenuating psychotic anxiety and depressive like behaviors. Scientists are still learning about the cannabinoid system, the endocannabinoid system. We don't totally understand how, how it's involved, but they've started recognizing that the endocannabinoid system is intertwined with the serotonergic and dopaminergic systems, with the HPA axis, with the HPG axis. It's got its little fingers in with everybody and it has a regulatory effect, it helps, helps with the self regulation of some of those symptoms systems and it has been found to have positive effects on a variety of psychiatric conditions. They're not sure if by virtue of, for example, preventing the degradation of anandamide that that creates an effect that increases serotonin and dopamine or, or whether just the increase in things like anandamide actually have positive psychiatric effects. But they do know CBD tends to, tends to have positive effects. CBD also affects synaptic plasticity and facilitates neurogenesis. So when people are administered CBD and when animals are administered cbd, the connections in their brains tend to be more flexible. So after a stroke, for example, we want people's brains to have more synaptic plasticity so it can figure out a workaround around any of the areas of the brain that are permanently damaged. But it also facilitates neurogenesis, it increases the, the redevelopment of neurons, it increases generation of new neurons. That's always, well, probably always a good thing. So it does have benefits. CBD indirectly acts as an endogenous cannabinoid receptor agonist. So just like I said earlier, it indirectly targets and activates the cannabinoid receptors by making the endogenous cannabinoids. Excuse me. More available. Welcome to the all CEU's education channel where you will find long form counselor education training videos as well as shorter overview videos geared toward the general public. We have over 900 videos, so using the search function that is underneath the subscribe button on our homepage can help you find the videos that you really want to watch. You can also find an alphabetized set of some of my most popular playlists@allce.com YouTube playlists. I absolutely love hearing from you, so keep those comments coming. We actually do read all of them and try to respond within a few days. Have a fabulous day. And don't forget to click subscribe and the bell if you haven't already, so you can be notified when I release new videos. CBD also prevents certain effects caused by the beta amyloid plaques in Alzheimer's disease. The article did not really talk in depth about how this might be happening, but they do seem to see some benefit, cognitive benefit in people with Alzheimer's disease who are given cbd. Excuse me, A note about CBD and I was going to avoid the soapbox, but hey, whatever CBD that is sold over the counter, not by prescription, is not highly regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. Now it's not supposed to have more than a certain amount of THC and I want to say 3%, but you don't know from bottle to bottle, even from the same manufacturer, the proportion or the amount of CBD you're getting in each serving. So it's important to recognize that because of the sort of loosey goosey standards, that there can be a lot of variability in what people are getting even from the same manufacturer. And that's important to recognize. CBD also interacts with or causes interactions with most medications. So if your patients are on any other medication and they say, oh yeah, I heard about this great stuff cbd, I'm starting to take it, it's really advisable to strongly encourage them to make sure their doctor is aware because their other medications may need to be adjusted in vivo Evidence for the therapeutic properties of CBD for Alzheimer's disease. Studies demonstrate the ability of CBD to reduce neuroinflammation and promote neurogenesis through activation of those CB2 receptors, those receptors that are in mainly in your immune system. So that's obviously very interesting. And since it can reduce neuroinflammation, I would wonder, can it also reduce inflammation? Inflammation, Therefore how effective is it in autoimmune disorders? And there's a lot of anecdotal evidence that cannabidiol or CBD oil is helpful for inflammation, for pain, for arthritis and for those sorts of things. The info the research in PubMed is relatively scant right now on on straight up CBD. A lot of the research has either been done on cannabis, which has obviously has THC in it, or on what they call nabix mals, which is a combination of a one to one ratio of CBD and thc. And the reason they do this is because CBD counteracts a lot of the psychoactive properties of thc. But together they seem to have some very unique. Effects and they Cause it, call it the entourage effect because the effect of CBD and the beneficial effects of CBT are not only there, but, but they're, they actually enhance each other, mutually intensify each other when they're presented together. Which is why a lot of studies are using Nabix Malls. However, for people who have a history of addiction, for people who are worried about it, don't want to take anything that has the risk of a psychoactive component, CBD hopefully will become much more readily available in a standardized fashion anyhow. So a lot of the research you look at is using the nabixmols or the cannabis. And we can't draw conclusions about what had the effect, whether it was the CBD or the thc. Combination therapies of CBD and THC show that CBD can antagonize the psychoactive effects associated with THC and mediate greater therapeutic effects. Okay, this was another interesting thing I learned preparing this class. CBD acts on more than 65 key targets in the body. So wow, that is a lot. Including the serotonin 1A receptor, which is the one we typically think of when we think about depression, and the cannabinoid related receptors, adenosine receptors and mu and deltoid opioid receptors. Wow. Okay, so let's just go through those. Serotonin. We just finished talking about how serotonin is involved in, or problems in this serotonergic system are involved in neurodegenerative disorders as well as mood disorders. Serotonin is involved in pain perception, mood, circadian rhythms, just about every bodily function, but not necessarily serotonin 1A. So it's. So it's interesting that CBD specifically acts on serotonin 1A. The cannabinoid related receptors we know are involved in to a certain extent in helping regulate the self feedback mechanisms of a lot of different systems. And there is also involved in anti inflammation. Now your mu and deltoid. Oh, deltoid delta opioid receptors are the receptors that are generally targeted by your endogenous opioids, your internal painkillers, your natural painkillers. But CBD can actually potentially help activate them. Now it's not activating them and giving people a high, but it can help with pain, help the body modulate its own pain. CBD has anti inflammatory, antioxidant and as a result antidepressant, antipsychotic and anxiolytic properties. It sounds like a, you know, miracle drug. It's a matter of figuring out, you know, is it as good as we think it is? And how do we get it standardized so people can, you know, get a reasonable dose? And how can we make sure that it's safe since it does interact with everything? Not everything, but most. Most drugs. A large retrospective study with patients with anxiety and poor sleep suggested that the administration of CBD decreased anxiety rapidly and in a sustained manner and improved sleep. So instead of something like your typical benzos that may rapidly reduce anxiety, but then it rapidly goes back up again, it seems that CBD decreases it and sort of holds it down as the person dozes off to sleep and maybe even while they're sleeping. So their. Their sleep quality was improved. Now, I would be curious about the impact of CBD on the different phases of sleep. How does it affect REM sleep versus deep sleep? CBD may also reduce depressive symptoms by stimulating hippocampal neurogenesis. This is fabulous. Hippocampal reduction is one of the things that we see as a result of ACEs and trauma. And the hippocampus. Hippocampal reduction is one of the things that we see as a result of ACEs and trauma. Um, and the hippocampus is one of those parts of your brain that is involved in emotion processing. So if CBD is able to stimulate the regeneration of neurons in the hippocampus, that means we might be able to build back up this area of the brain that got damaged or gets damaged from psychological trauma. Oral cbd, in addition to routine psychiatric care, was associated with PTSD symptom reduction. In adults, CBD also appeared to offer relief from frequent nightmares as a symptom of ptsd.