Most CF patients experience anxiety about their health. Anxiety and depression may be increased by ingestion of many common CF drugs and therapies (1,2). Is it possible that CBD oil could help with anxiety? Cannabidiols (CBD) are reported in the literature(3,4) and on social media to help alleviate anxiety as well as pain and inflammation. A blog post about the use of CBD by CF patients is here: https://www.surterra.com/blog/medicinal/cystic-fibrosis-cannabis-can-help/. The NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has posted a helpful CBD information page entitled “The Biology and Potential Therapeutic Effects of Cannabidiol” found here: https://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/legislative-activities/testimony-to-congress/2015/biology-potential-therapeutic-effects-cannabidiol . Included at this link for your review are references to CBD benefits that have been studied. It is legal to ship CBD oil to all 50 states of the USA, if products contain <0.3% THC and are derived from industrial hemp as opposed to cannabis. CBD oil can also be legally shipped to most countries in the world with few exceptions. If you are curious whether CBD may help you, there are several red flags to avoid. Many products labelled CBD oil are actually hemp ‘seed’ oil instead, and hemp seeds contain no CBD. Only full spectrum CBD oil extracted from whole hemp plants has the beneficial cannabinoids and terpenes. Inspect the Supplement Facts panel for the product to ensure that the ‘milligrams’ reported are in fact milligrams of full spectrum cannabinoids and verify that this amount was independently assayed by a third party. Your CBD oil should also be organic and tested for quality and purity by a qualified third party analysis lab. If you cannot establish that your CBD oil was extracted from organically grown plants, it could contain agricultural pesticides. It is challenging to find high quality full spectrum and organic CBD oil that is fully analyzed by an independent lab and reasonably priced. Our solution was to locate an organic grower/manufacturer to produce superior CBD oil direct for our community. We arrange for, and monitor third party analysis of these products and keep prices low. We offer higher CBD doses than most. We are eager for as much feedback as possible with regard to CBD experiences; we very much want to know whether you feel CBD oil has helped you. We can consider adding CBD oil to the Sharktank Wellness protocol: https://sharktank.org/wellness-protocol/, if there is consensus that it is beneficial. The CBD product we quality control is available here: http://planetarybiosciences.com. REFERENCES 1: Li X, Zhang J, Niu R, Manthari RK, Yang K, Wang J. Effect of fluoride exposure on anxiety- and depression-like behavior in mouse. Chemosphere. 2019 Jan;215:454-460. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2018.10.070. Epub 2018 Oct 13. PubMed PMID: 30336322. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30336322 2: McKinzie CJ, Goralski JL, Noah TL, Retsch-Bogart GZ, Prieur MB. Worsening anxiety and depression after initiation of lumacaftor/ivacaftor combination therapy in adolescent females with cystic fibrosis. J Cyst Fibros. 2017 Jul;16(4):525-527. doi: 10.1016/j.jcf.2017.05.008. Epub 2017 Jun 8. PubMed PMID: 28602538. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28602538 3: Skelley JW, Deas CM, Curren Z, Ennis J. Use of cannabidiol in anxiety and anxiety-related disorders. J Am Pharm Assoc (2003). 2019 Dec 19. pii: S1544-3191(19)30514-X. doi: 10.1016/j.japh.2019.11.008. [Epub ahead of print]Review. PubMed PMID: 31866386. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31866386 4: Linares IM, Zuardi AW, Pereira LC, Queiroz RH, Mechoulam R, Guimarães FS, Crippa JA. Cannabidiol presents an inverted U-shaped dose-response curve in a simulated public speaking test. Braz J Psychiatry. 2019 Jan-Feb;41(1):9-14. doi: 10.1590/1516-4446-2017-0015. Epub 2018 Oct 11. PubMed PMID: 30328956; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6781714. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30328956
