CBD has shown great promise in the areas of pain management, anti-inflammation, anxiety management, and even in reducing the effects of Alzheimer’s Disease, but where it truly shines is as an anticonvulsant.

Seizures affect thousands of people each year and can be brought on by specific conditions, fevers, head trauma, and more. Treating them involves anti-seizure medications, but some folks just aren’t ready to get on medication.

CBD is a naturally-occurring compound that is effective at both reducing the severity of and frequency of seizures in epileptic patients and those with rare seizure-inducing conditions. Let’s look closer at how it works.

What Is CBD?

First, let’s talk about what CBD is. CBD stands for Cannabidiol, which is one of 113 Cannabinoids found in the Cannabis Sativa plant. Cannabis can produce several strains, one of which is hemp, where CBD is extracted from.

Hemp must contain less than 0.3% THC (another cannabinoid that has psychoactive effects) to be considered legal in the eyes of the federal government.

While THC and CBD are both present in Cannabis, CBD won’t produce the classic “high” that comes from using marijuana. In fact, CBD has been known to counteract the effects of THC, so no worries there. Many people often mistake the two, or purposely demonize CBD because of its relationship to Cannabis, but it’s not the same as THC.

So, how is CBD extracted? CBD can be extracted in a variety of ways, but the most popular method, and the method that yields the purest extract, is the CO2 method. This uses pressurized Carbon Dioxide to pull phytochemicals from hemp, including CBD.

There are other methods as well, including a slower, less clean method of using olive oil to extract the CBD, but CO2 seems to be the most effective.

How Does CBD Work?

So we know what CBD is, but how exactly does it work with the body? CBD comes in many varieties, from 200-600mg CBD oil to 10-30mg gummies, and even lotions you can apply directly to the skin; but CBD works the same way with the body no matter how you take it.

To truly explain how CBD works in-depth with the body would take another article entirely, so we’ll keep it short and sweet for the sake of brevity. CBD binds to specific neurotransmitters in the nervous system and interacts with specific ion channels to produce anti-anxiety effects, pain relief, anti-inflammatory effects, and even mood-boosting effects.

If you’d like a more in-depth explanation of how cannabinoids interact with the nervous system, go here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780124186798000137.