This is a sponsored guest post.
In the last few years CBD has grown to become a major health movement for the senior community and while part of its attraction had to do with pain relief, there are many other advantages worth mentioning. This article looks at some of the most important health reasons for seniors using cannabidiol in America today.
Based on current research, CBD can provide relief for multiple ailments – and of course age isn’t a factor – however, there are quite a number of benefits that might be useful for seniors today. Let’s take a look:
- CBD oil helps you mitigate pain
This is first on our list because of the sheer number of seniors living with chronic pain. Close to half of the senior population in the U.S. lives with some type of arthritis, and of these, 80% have chronic pain. CBD has been found to minimize pain and inflammation in hundreds of studies such as this one. The mechanism of how this happens is a bit complicated to get into, but experts believe it has to do with the way cannabidiol interacts with other cannabinoids present in the human body through the ECS.
As an alternative to prescription pills, cannabidiol offers better results in the long-term without the risk of addiction, liver damage, or other loss of functioning. Clinical trials such as this one have shown that using CBD to manage pain reduces adverse side effects significantly compared to other types of pain medication. That being said, CBD is still considered an experimental medication until the FDA assigns a different classification for the compound.
- CBD might help you overcome a pre-existing addiction
When people are diagnosed with addiction, the conventional treatment is to offer prescription drugs to counter the effect of other drugs in the system; however, simple observation will tell you that success rates are low. Most of the time people get over addiction through mental will and personal triumph than taking numbing pills. But this is where CBD comes in. By taking standard dosages of cannabidiol every day, you can reduce dependency to other medication through the complex neurological and hormonal balance that comes from having perfect harmony in the endocannabinoid system and the endocrine system.
Far too often people learn when it’s too late that they have created another dependency by treating addiction with strong antidepressants, and the problem this is that it leaves you weak even after battling one demon. Anybody who’s had an addiction for years will want to overcome it entirely without leaving any chance for a relapse. These findings from a recent study showed how CBD helped people overcome addiction, and how after several days of taking CBD, these people no longer displayed any “addictive tendencies”. CBD prevented a relapse for the majority of participants in the study.
- CBD can help soothe seizures
Researchers believe that CBD’s ability to work with the endocannabinoid system and the nervous system make it possible to treat neurological disorders including some forms of neurological damage that lead to epilepsy and seizures. As a matter of fact, one of the areas being studied with regard to CBD is neurogenesis, and particularly the way cannabidiol boosts cell renewal in specific parts of the brain such as the hippocampus. Cell renewal might be the key to eliminating some of the most adverse neurological conditions today.
Results have been very promising and companies have funded products like Sativex, an oral spray for people with Multiple Sclerosis, based on this kind of research. A different study found that using cannabidiol reduced instances of seizures among the participants by about 36%. CBD oil is also believed to reduce seizure activity in children with Dravet syndrome, which is a complex form of epilepsy; however treatment involving children required close observation and should not be attempted without professional medical assistance.
- Cardiac dysfunction is made manageable with CBD
Heart disease is the single biggest killer for seniors in the country according to the American College of Cardiology. More than 50% of seniors have high blood pressure, and this has been a major contributor. Based on recent studies, cannabidiol may be an effective treatment against high blood pressure because of its ability to reduce resting blood pressure to a normal level. In this study, researchers administered stress to the participants to read the changes to their blood pressure and found that CBD reduced stress response significantly.
In addition to normalizing blood pressure, CBD also contains antioxidant properties that minimize or prevent inflammation, making it extremely important in managing cardiac inflammation and general heart health.
- CBD will provide you with restful sleep
Sleeping disorders affect millions of Americans but perhaps the age group that is most severely afflicted in seniors. Sleeping problems are caused by different things as we grow, and experts believe that a gradual shift in sleeping patterns along with chemical imbalances are the main reasons older people can’t sleep through the night. Pre-existing medical conditions are also contributing factors; as well as conditions such as anxiety, which affects so many people today.
Because sleep is when the body cleans out toxins and restores itself, failing to get quality sleep always causes damage to our health. CBD can help seniors deal with sleeping problems much easier by addressing some of the underlying problems such as stress, anxiety, and hormonal imbalance. The best part is, you won’t have to take any more sleeping pills – because they create other problems as well. Again, as mentioned earlier, CBD does not disrupt the system, rather it works through the body’s own cannabinoids and the ECS, and therefore, it provides lasting effects without causing damage or dependency.
