Is CBD The Answer to Autoimmune Diseases?

Autoimmune diseases can range from being common to rare, but unfortunately many of them do not have effective treatments or cures. Can CBD oil be the answer for all those suffering with these diseases?

What Are Autoimmune Diseases?

It is thought that over 14 million Americans are diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. So, what are these diseases?

Autoimmune diseases are certain diseases that result from a dysfunction in the immune system. These occur when the immune system starts attacking the body’s own cells, instead of attacking foreign cells that are causing harm to the body like it usually does. When the body starts attacking itself, it can break down organs and cause various problems, depending on the organ.

Some of the most common autoimmune disorders include lupus, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis (RA), inflammatory bowel disease (IBS), and type 1 diabetes (T1DM). Other examples include multiple sclerosis (MS) and myasthenia gravis (MG). These diseases can have different signs and symptoms based on the organs that are affected. For example, psoriasis affects the skin and deals with skin-related problems, while another type of disease like IBS affects the intestines and has digestive tract related problems.

How Are Autoimmune Diseases Diagnosed?

Diagnosing autoimmune diseases can be a difficult task since they often present as other non-autoimmune diseases. However, most start with fatigue and a low-grade fever. Along with that, one of the classic signs of autoimmune diseases is inflammation. Inflammation can present as redness, swelling, pain, soreness, or heat. Depending on the type of disease, the other signs and symptoms vary.

There are some blood tests that physicians can run to help them narrow down the options. These include tests such as the Antinuclear Antibody Test (ANA) or autoantibodies test. Another way to check is to look for markers of inflammation such as C-reactive protein (CRP) and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR). If any of these are abnormal, it can help guide the physician in their diagnosis.

What Causes Autoimmune Disease?

As you can see, autoimmune diseases can take place in a variety of forms. But is there a common mechanism behind all of them?

Even though autoimmune diseases are becoming more prevalent, the causes of them are still mostly unknown. The most widely believed opinion is that they are caused by a mixture of genetics and the environment. This means that if your family members have an autoimmune disease, you are more likely to have one as well. It also means that certain environmental factors, such as being exposed to certain chemicals or minerals, can increase your risk of developing the disease. Interestingly enough, gender may also play a role as more women are diagnosed with autoimmune disorders than men.

Once the autoimmune disease develops, the proposed theory is that the body’s immune system creates autoantibodies that set out to destroy the healthy cells in the body. Normally, antibodies attack foreign cells that are causing an infection or damage to the body. As these autoantibodies start to injure tissues and organs, the autoimmune disease becomes more present and the signs and symptoms start to become noticeable.

What Role Does Inflammation Play?

Inflammation plays a key role when the immune system starts attacking cells. Inflammation can cause the blood vessels to widen and lets more blood rush to the area of attack, which leads to the heat and redness that are signs of inflammation. The blood carries certain mediators, like bradykinin and histamine, which help destroy the harmful agents that the immune system sets out to attack. They also assist with healing the body. These mediators can sometimes cause irritation – which sends pain signals to the brain. This is why we sometimes feel pain or soreness when a part of the body is inflamed. However, the mediators also allow the blood vessels to become more permeable (i.e. things can flow in and out of the vessels easier), which permits more defense mediators to come and help fight. Often times, they bring fluid along with them which causes the swelling associated with inflammation.

In autoimmune diseases, this inflammation is usually a chronic inflammation instead of temporary, as it is with infections. Short term inflammation is actually good for the body since it helps fight off infections. Chronic inflammation, however, can damage DNA and even cause internal scarring. Many people link chronic inflammation to other health issues such as heart disease, cancer, and even Alzheimer’s disease.

How Can CBD Help?

Since many people contribute the problems associated with autoimmune disorders to inflammation, the idea is that CBD can help with these diseases due to its anti-inflammatory properties. In the 90’s, a study proposed that CBD is more potent, in terms of antioxidant properties, than other antioxidants such as vitamin E or vitamin C. Antioxidants help reduce inflammation because they decrease the number of free radicals that cause damage to the body.

Another study in mice showed that CBD can reduce TNFα, which is a protein that stimulates inflammation in the body. TNFα is commonly used as a marker for measuring inflammation. So, if TNFα is decreased, inflammation is decreased as well.

It is thought that CBD does not produce its anti-inflammatory effects through the same mechanism as traditional anti-inflammatory drugs such as NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs). Typical NSAIDs are ibuprofen (Advil) and naproxen (Aleve). This means that CBD may be able to produce similar effects but without the side effects associated with long-term use of NSAIDs, like gastrointestinal (GI) ulcers and bleeding.

So, how does CBD produce its anti-inflammatory effects?

The exact mechanism is still being researched. One theory involves the A2A receptor, which is an adenosine receptor. Adenosine promotes anti-inflammatory actions in the body. CBD is thought to increase the effects of adenosine, which decreases inflammation. Another theory involves glycine receptors. Glycine receptors deal with pain in the spine and relates to pain and inflammation of the nerves. Nerve pain is usually described as tingling, burning, or shooting pain. Many think that inflammation around the nerves causes nerve pain. Therefore, CBD may suppress inflammation (and nerve pain) through acting on the glycine receptors.

What Does the Research Say?

Due to the wide variety of autoimmune disease, this article only focuses three specific autoimmune diseases: psoriasis, lupus, and MS. The next section goes into more detail about the studies that were researched for these diseases. However, the inflammation research described in the section above applies to all autoimmune diseases.

Psoriasis

Psoriasis is a type of autoimmune disease that affects the skin. It is thought to be caused by inflammation as well as hyper-proliferation (aka rapid buildup) of skin cells. Basically, the production of skin cells is sped up in people with psoriasis, and the cells do not fall off the skin in a normal fashion. Therefore, extra skin cells accumulate on top of the skin. This buildup of skin cells leads to scaling of the skin that present as dry, red patches. These patches typically develop on the joints, such as the knees or elbows.

Most current research for psoriasis and CBD has only been in cell culture and not in humans. However, the research in cell culture is promising because it shows that CBD helps psoriasis by two mechanisms: decreasing inflammation and decreasing new skin cell growth, therefore decreasing buildup of skin cells. Additionally, the American Academy of Dermatology Association (AAD) released a statement in early 2018 mentioning that because of the anti-inflammatory properties of cannabis, “there may be potential for topical cannabis to improve conditions such as acne, psoriasis and eczema by reducing the inflammation associated with these diseases”. They also stated that more research on topical use of cannabis products needs to be performed since the popularity of topical products has grown.

SOURCE: https://popularcbdbrands.com/is-cbd-the-answer-to-autoimmune-diseases/