Here’s how cannabidiol relieves pain

A new study led by researchers at Syracuse University sheds light on the ability of CBD to reduce pain, as well as the effect of the so-called placebo effect on pain outcomes.

This study was published in the journal Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology. It is welcomed as a mysterious drug and certainly produces a mysterious benefit. According to some estimates, the cannabidiol (or CBD) market could be worth $ 20 billion by 2024. Users have advertised its effectiveness in analgesia, but so far, human studies on the actual efficacy of drugs have been limited.

However, a new study led by researchers at Syracuse University sheds light on the ability of CBD to reduce pain, as well as the effect of the so-called placebo effect on pain outcomes.

Martin de Vita, a researcher in the Department of Psychology at Syracuse University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said: ..

“It’s a fair question because we know that just telling someone that a substance has the ability to relieve pain can actually cause a strong change in pain sensitivity. Is called the expected effect. “De Vita, along with Stephen Maisto, Professor of Honorary Psychology of Syracuse, was uniquely prepared to answer that exact question.

The pair, along with fellow lab colleagues and PhD candidate Dezarie Moskal, previously conducted the first systematic review and meta-analysis of studies investigating the effects of cannabinoid drugs on pain.

As the first pain test to examine CBD, their study produced consistent and remarkable results. In other findings, the data showed that CBD and expectations for receiving CBD do not appear to reduce the intensity of pain, but do not make the pain less unpleasant.

De Vita and Maisto have made it possible to measure how the recipient’s nervous system reacts and responds to it using advanced equipment that safely induces heat pain. “Next, we administer drugs such as pure CBD and placebo and reassess the pain response to see how it changes based on the substance administered,” said De Vita. .. The researchers then went one step further by manipulating the information provided to the participants about the substances they received.

In some cases, participants were told to take CBD when they actually received the placebo, or to take the placebo when they actually took the CBD. “This allowed us to analyze whether it was the medicine that relieved the pain or the expectation that we received the pain-relieving medicine,” De Vita said.

“We assumed that we mainly detect expected-induced placebo analgesia (pain relief). After measuring the results of several different pains, we found that they were actually just a few of both. That is, the pharmacological effects of CBD and the psychological effects of expecting them to obtain CBD. It was quite noticeable and surprising. “

“The data are exciting, but quite complex in that different pain measurements respond differently to drug efficacy, expectations, or both drugs and expectations. Therefore, behind the differential data of different data. I’m trying to figure out what’s in it. Some kind of pain control. ” “The next step is to study the underlying mechanisms of these discoveries and understand why giving instructions or CBD itself evokes a particular response to painful stimuli.”

Most people think of pain as an on / off switch. You either have it or you don’t. However, as De Vita explains, pain is a complex phenomenon and has several aspects that are affected by psychological and biological factors. For example, pain intensity reflects the “sensory” dimension of pain, while discomfort represents the “emotional” or emotional aspect of pain.

“If you think of pain as harmful noise from the radio, the volume can represent the intensity of the pain and the station can represent the quality,” says DeVita. The results of his previous study showed that cannabinoid drugs did not reduce the amount of pain, but “changed channels to reduce some discomfort.”

According to De Vita, “Sunlight and rainbows are uncomfortable, but a little annoying. We reproduced that in this study, and CBD and expectations did not significantly reduce the amount of pain, but reduced discomfort. I found that I did–I didn’t really care. ” As part of their research, De Vita and Maisto have developed an advanced pain measurement protocol to “open the hood and begin investigating some of these other mechanical pain processes.”

“It’s not just pain, yes or no, but it’s interesting to see which of these other aspects of pain are being targeted. The pharmacological effects of CBD make some of them It turns out that it can be lowered, but the expectations were sometimes they both did it Sometimes it was just an expectation and so we were mainly of the pain caused by the expectations I started thinking that I was going to detect mitigation. “

One of the important things to consider is the source of CBD. “We used pure CBD separation oil in our study,” DeVita said. “Commercial CBD products differ in their content and purity, so results may vary from CBD product to CBD product, depending on what other compounds are included.” (ANI)