Study Suggests CBD Benefits Schizophrenia Patients
A newly released study has discovered the benefits of cannabis for those who suffer from schizophrenia as an adjunct therapy.
The study, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, states that patients with schizophrenia may find benefits from using cannabidiol (CBD). Many other patients who suffer from a range of other conditions, from glaucoma to insomnia and even HIV/AIDS, use CBD as a form of treatment.
In the double-blind study, patients were either given 1,000mg of CBD alongside their medication regimen or a placebo. “Participants were assessed before and after treatment using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS), the Global Assessment of Functioning scale (GAF), and the improvement and severity scales of the Clinical Global Impressions Scale (CGI-I and CGI-S),” the study notes.
After six weeks, the study states that patients who received the CBD had lower levels of positive psychotic symptoms, “ . . . and were more likely to have been rated as improved and as not severely unwell by the treating clinician. Patients who received CBD also showed greater improvements that fell short of statistical significance in cognitive performance and in overall functioning.”
Antipsychotic medications work for patients with schizophrenia by blocking dopamine receptors. CBD has been found, in other studies, to be a possible treatment for acute schizophrenia, showing less side effects. Another benefit for patients is that CBD consumption led to an increase in serum anandamide levels, which is associated with clinical improvement.
The study states, “These findings suggest that CBD has beneficial effects in patients with schizophrenia. As CBD’s effects do not appear to depend on dopamine receptor antagonism, this agent may represent a new class of treatment for the disorder.”
Studies are coming out in defense and in opposition regarding cannabis consumption and schizophrenia. One study, for instance, claims that THC can aggravate schizophrenia symptoms because THC releases dopamine in the brain. Harvard Research School found that the those who consume cannabis are more prone to affective disorders by looking at family histories of 282 subjects, totaling over 4,000 relatives. The new study, however, contradicts some of these claims.
