Study Suggests Depression Can Be Cured With CBD
[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]P[/dropcap]atients suffering from depression may have another option for treatment that is quicker-acting and longer-lasting than conventional medications.
A Brazilian and Danish collaborative study published in Molecular Neurobiology shows that cannabidiol (CBD) has benefits as an antidepressant, but the results occur much more rapidly than traditional antidepressants. This new finding may possibly open the door for depression treatment for the 16.2 million Americans suffering from depression.
“Depression is a serious mental illness, which [affects] more than 300 million people worldwide, being considered the first cause of disability in many developed and undeveloped countries,” said study author Samia Joca of Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies and University of São Paulo in an interview with Psy Post. “The treatments that are currently available, although effective, suffer from partial and lacking response even after weeks of continuous treatment. These issues raise the need for better understanding of depression neurobiology, as well as developing novel and more effective treatment strategies.”
The study used rodents that had been bred to develop depression-like symptoms and were given a swim test. The rats who were treated with CBD were able to swim longer, replicating results when antidepressants were used, but only after one hour. The results of one dose lasted for a week.
Many pharmaceutical antidepressants currently available take weeks to fully work, and some of them are difficult to wean patients off. “Since CBD’s effect is blocked when BDNF signaling is blocked in the brain, our results suggest that CBD promotes fast neurochemical and neuroplastic effects in limbic brain regions, which might favor stress coping strategies and resilience to depression development,” said Joca.
The study complements earlier research by Joca, which suggests CBD enhances the effectiveness of antidepressants that used the neurotransmitter serotonin. “The results could provide new insights on depression neurobiology and treatment, with easy translation to the clinical scenario, since CBD is used in humans for the treatment of neurological disorders, such as epilepsy,” she said.
