While there has been a conflicting view on the pandemic and how it has/was handled, most of us can agree that the health scares of this plague are real and vast. Doctors and scientists have worked themselves extensively and tirelessly to find a reason and solution to this generation's plague. Many have brought cannabis and its said healing properties under the microscope and has found themselves an interesting little pocket of hope: CBD and the cytokine storm.
One of the main issues a patient with COVID might experience is severe acute respiratory distress and at which point they might encounter a "cytokine storm". A cytokine storm is best described as the body experiences an extreme increase in pro-inflammatory cytokines. These cytokines in particular are a category of proteins that only inflame the body. So, how does CBD help weather the cytokine storm?
CBD has been found to help reduce these inflammatory cytokine storms along with another type of cannabis, C.Sativa. The properties of CBD and C.Sativa were found in a cytokine storm study to reduce multiple cytokines and pathways related to inflammation and fibrosis. It was also found that two of the cytokines that C.Sativa reduced were TNFa and IL-6, which have been presented to be the main targets when trying to block a COVID-induced cytokine storm.
This is no small discovery. COVID-19 has shown no signs of slowing down as we deal with the uprising of the new Delta variation and all of the nastiness it brings. Science and medicine have and are still fighting the good fight, discovering new treatments and methods to deal with this plague. CBD being a hole in this cloud is something we can definitely appreciate and take advantage of in the best kind of way; if you know a storm is coming, be sure to bring an umbrella.