CBD for Parkinson’s Disease: Can it Help?

CBD for Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson's is a currently incurable neurogenerative disease of the central nervous system that affects one million American's every year. Although this condition is heavily researched and well-known, the treatments available now do not offer any risk-free relief.

Over the years, there has been a lot of research into CBD, and it's potential benefits for people living with Parkinson's. But can CBD be used as a viable treatment for Parkinson's?

Parkinson's causes a range of motor and non-motor symptoms, including weakness, stiffness, tremors, anxiety, dizziness, and sleeplessness, each of which affect daily life. CDB products have the potential to help relieve these symptoms by reducing inflammation, improving sleep, and much more.

This could help some of the 60,000 people diagnosed with Parkinson's every year in the United States.

Does CBD Help With Parkinson's?

CBD can help to alleviate several of the motor and non-motor symptoms associated with Parkinson's including:

Anxiety:

Parkinson's disease affects the brain's natural ability to produce dopamine, the hormone that stabilizes our moods. Research has discovered that CBD can act as an 'inverse agonist' on the brains CPR6 receptors, which are found in the part of the brain that connects the brainstem and the cerebral cortex. 

This part of the brain drives bodily functions such as learning, movement, and emotion. CBD potentially responds within these receptors to provide therapeutic effects against Parkinson's symptoms. 

CBD Lowers Anxiety and Depression

The increase in dopamine that this could produce would counteract dopaminergic neurons found in people with Parkinson's Disease. This can also help to reduce the tremors in many Parkinson's patients worldwide.

Improved Endocannabinoid System:

Many of the underlying issues of Parkinson's come from the bodies endocannabinoid system or ECS. The ECS plays a massive role in maintaining a healthy and balanced body. Our ECS system is supposed to regulate the lifespan of cells, which if damaged, can increase the chances of the onset of Parkinson's.

The ECS has a lot of control over our bodies central nervous system; if this system becomes damaged, brain cell loss can occur.

Luckily, CBD has strong antioxidant and neuroprotectant abilities, as it works to remove free radicals that can lead to oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is one of the main precursors to the development of Parkinson's disease.

Improved Sleep:

With impaired sleep being a significant problem associated with Parkinson's disease, recent studies show that CBD is an effective treatment for several sleeping disorders.

Doses ranging from 75mg to 300mg taken daily helped patients to improve their sleep cycle, and enhance their overall quality of life.

CBD Promotes Good Sleep

Anti-Inflammatory Properties:

CBD can be used to treat brain inflammations when the brain is less inflamed; dopamine levels naturally start to increase, this has been shown to slow down the progression of several neurological diseases, including Parkinson's.

Decreased Levels of Psychosis:

As Parkinson's disease progresses, patients can experience hallucinations. Small doses of CBD have been proven to reduce the occurrence of such hallucinations. This offers patients more control and helps them to manage the disease. CBD has been shown to actively assist in resetting brain functions in people that are living with types of psychosis.

CBD Administration and Dosage for Treating Parkinson's Symptoms:

CBD products are available in a variety of different forms; here at CBD Oil Geek, we recommend a range of excellent CBD oils and edibles. However, you may wish to consume CBD as a vape, isolate, pill, or capsule form. Keep your eye on the number of milligrams of CBD when you are dosing with any CBD product so that you can discover the dosage that works for you.

Due to regulations set by the FDA, we can't give specific advice on CBD dosage for treating a particular condition like Parkinson's. However, we can tell you the process of finding an effective dosage for any condition. This is known as the Stepwise Dosing procedure.

Stepwise Dosing is effective if you first establish a baseline dosage, then increase it incrementally over a few days until you find the perfect dose. Because everybody responds differently to CBD, this is a useful way of finding the correct dosage for any individual.

Start at a low dose and increase slowly. We recommend starting at around 2.5mg three times a day as a baseline.

Take this dosage for seven days and make notes of how CBD interacts with your body during this initial week.

After seven days, if you are not experiencing any benefits from CBD products, increase the dosage by 1-2mg every three days until you find a dosage that works well for you.

Once you have discovered your minimum effective dose, you may decrease your dosage slightly to see if you can maintain the benefits while taking less CBD.

Which CBD Oil is Best for Parkinson's Disease?

Both CBD Isolate and CBD full spectrum oils can be useful in alleviating the symptoms of Parkinson's Disease.

Full spectrum CBD is a form of extract that contains all the compounds found that naturally occur in the cannabis plant, including terpenes, cannabinoids, and essential oils. These ingredients work together to magnify the benefits of every single cannabinoid. This is commonly referred to as 'the entourage effect' in CBD literature.

In some cases, test subjects that were administered with full spectrum CBD products found higher levels of relief than those treated with full-spectrum products.

CBD Isolate is created when all other compounds found in the plant are removed, leaving behind the purest form of CBD. Isolates are typically extracted from hemp, due to the low to non-existent THC-content in this organic material.

Both full spectrum CBD and CBD isolate products can be effectively used to combat symptoms associated with Parkinson's, make sure you use the Stepwise Dosing method to find the most effective amount of CBD to help you as an individual.

To conclude, although Parkinson's is itself incurable at present, taking CBD products could help to improve several of the symptoms associated with the disease.

People living with Parkinson's could improve their quality of sleep, reduce tremors, decrease anxiety levels, reduce forms of psychosis, and increase their natural dopamine levels by taking daily doses of CBD products.

CBD may prevent the onset and progression of Parkinson's disease if taken regularly. Those wishing to find a perfect dose of CBD should experiment by taking low doses and steadily increasing until they find a level that is right for them, and isolate or full-spectrum products can both be used effectively for the treatment of Parkinson's associated symptoms.

Will is the editor here at CBD Oil Geek. He is passionate about CBD and other natural alternatives to dangerous prescription medicines. He lives with his wife in Brooklyn, New York.