THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF CBD PRODUCTS

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WholeHemp - Hemp Flower Cystals - Episode 60

PEOPLE ARE REALLY STARTING TO PAY ATTENTION TO HEMP AND CANNABIS PLANTS

FEB. 2022

Dave Marcus, founder of Natural Emphasis, Abide and WholeHemp CBD products recently spoke with Allison Tannis of the Natural Health Influencer podcast about navigating CBD products, full spectrum products vs isolates, and recent scientific findings related to CBDA. Here is an edited transcript of some of the highlights of the discussion:

NHI: Dave Marcus is here today from ABIDE Inc., he’s been in the industry for 25 years and his brand WholeHemp is changing the way we are looking at the whole hemp plant, the compounds that are in it, the cannabinoids, the terpenes, the acids, and how it is that those are available to us either topically, in a capsule, or in oil. He is also going to help us answer the question why is it so challenging in Canada to gain easy access to an understandable version of what is CBD, what is hemp and how do I use it?

DM: Nice to be here! The challenge isn’t finding information about hemp and CBD products generally because there’s lots of information on the internet about everything, the challenge is finding reliable information. One aspect of the cannabis regulations is that what we can say as an industry and what I can say as part of a company involved in this industry, is severely curtailed.



SHOPPING FOR CBD PRODUCTS

NHI: People are really starting to pay attention and get curious about what we're finding inside of hemp or cannabis plants and their abilities to elicit, or to offer us some sort of health benefit. Where can you go for more information?

DM: The best resource I’ve found for the lay reader is ProjectCBD.org. It’s been around for more than a decade, there are good overviews and discussion on all aspects of CBD and they reference primary documents. So as a single source of information that’s where I would point people to.

NHI: Now, if someone was thinking about taking CBD - there are different types of CBD oils and CBD products - how do we navigate that? How do you know if you are going for the right product? There is a lot on the market, how do you know which one to start with?

DM: The first thing to do is to look for a legal form of CBD. That seems to be a ridiculous statement now that we are more than three years into legalization, but there are a lot of CBD products available in convenience stores, even health food stores, that are not legal. The only place to get legal CBD, in Ontario for example, is either directly from the OCS (the Ontario Cannabis Store, essentially the LCBO of cannabis) or through one of their authorized retailers, of which there are now over 1300 so there is no lack of legal access. The advantage of buying a legal product is that the regulations, though challenging for a licenced producer like ourselves, are really, really good from a quality of product standpoint. They ensure there is no pesticide contamination, no heavy metal contamination, no microbiological contamination. It really ensures you are getting a high quality product and you know specifically what cannabinoid dosage you are getting.



WholeHemp - WholeHemp CBD Flower Bud
WholeHemp - WholeHemp CBD Premium Full Spectrum Flower

FULL SPECTRUM VS ISOLATE

DM: The next thing I would say is you want to look for a CBD product that is a full spectrum product as opposed to made from an isolate. There is some amazing research on the efficacy of a whole plant product as opposed to an isolate based product. This is generally referred to as the entourage effect and it is attributed to the fact that although CBD is the major cannabinoid in these products, the lesser cannabinoids including THC as well as terpenes all together impart a synergistic benefit that is greater than CBD on its own. This is why we called our brand WholeHemp – to focus on the fact that we are producing whole plant, full spectrum CBD products made from hemp.

NHI: There was a really great point Dave, that there are so many different cool plant-based compounds you can find in the hemp plant that we can extract down and we can take them on their own and see that they have these awesome health benefits but just like so many other plants, when you eat things in their whole plant form you get this beautiful synergistic effect on the body that can have greater health benefits. I’m not surprised that we are seeing that using it all together it in its whole form is really beneficial, so I’m excited that WholeHemp is offering those types of products.



WholeHemp - Harvesting WholeHemp CBD Flower
WholeHemp - WholeHemp CBDA Capsules

UNDERSTANDING CBDA AND ITS ANTIVIRAL PROPERTIES

NHI: One of the headlines lately has been that compounds in the hemp plant may have anti-viral effects – do you want to geek out a little about that and tell us is there some true science behind that?

DM: So, again, the [cannabis] regulations restrict what I can say (unlike you as a journalist who can say anything you want!). [What I can say is that] the very interesting is that it is actually the acid form of CBD, and the less common cannabinoid CBG, that have been found to have these therapeutic benefits. The acid form of CBD [CBDA] or even the acid form of THC [THCA] is what exists in the plant. If we go back to THC, it is THCA in the plant when you roll it and it is the act of smoking that is decarboxylating it and transforming the THCA into THC and it's the THC that gets you high.

DM: Historically, there's been this idea that the acid forms weren't as therapeutically beneficial. It was the decarboxylated non-acid forms that were the therapeutically beneficial products. When people talk about CBD, they're almost always talking about decarboxylated CBD, not CBDA. Well as it turns out, in the studies you are referring to it's actually the CBDA that is more therapeutically beneficial. As a coincidence, WholeHemp just launched CBDA capsules because we looked at the market and recognized in the research that were a lot of other really interesting benefits to CBDA and nobody is doing CBDA. [This is] mostly because the kind of processing that most people do, most of the companies out there do, in the process of processing and isolating or otherwise extracting CBD, there is a decarboxylation that's happening. So the products are by definition CBD. Because of our approach, we take more of a craft approach, we're able to come up with a product that still holds the plant in that original form and it's fascinating to me and it just shows how every different aspect of this plant has innumerable benefits.

NHI: Early on in 2022, Oregon State University did some research if in fact cannabinoids, particularly these acids, could help with viral transmission. The theory is here is there might be some benefit because it appears that this type of acid, CBDA, appears to bind to the spikes on the proteins of the SARS COVID virus which was interesting. Now, this is just one preliminary study, so we don't know if this actually works or not, it isn’t any proof and certainly isn't a treatment or prevention, but this does become an interesting new potential way. Does this actually have anti-viral benefits for us if we start looking at these acids in cannabis?


If you’re interested, please check out the full episode 60 of the Natural Health Influencer Podcast.

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