Research on Cannabinoids and COVID
Headlines are all over the news about a recent study conducted by Oregon State University.
Here at Share Hemp, we couldn’t be more excited about the breaking news regarding cannabinoids and COVID. We certainly are not surprised though! Hemp never ceases to amaze us with all of its properties and now it could even help the world during a pandemic!
Previous studies at the University of Chicago (1) have shown that taking Cannabinoids has lowered the risk of being infected with Covid but now, new studies (2) are revealing specific cannabinoids that target the virus directly.
Analysis of over 93,000 patients tested for SARS-CoV-2 at the University of Chicago Medical Center showed that 10.0% tested positive overall, but only 5.7% of the ~400 who had any cannabinoid in their medical record tested positive. (1)
The study out of Oregon State University (2) finds that specific cannabis compounds prevented the virus that causes COVID-19 from penetrating healthy human cells. In this new laboratory study published in the Journal of Natural Products (3), two compounds commonly found in hemp, called cannabigerolic acid, or CBGA, and cannabidiolic acid, or CBDA were identified during a chemical screening. CBGA and CBDA having the potential to combat coronavirus. Researchers from Oregon State University explained in their findings that the Cannabis compounds bound to spike proteins found on the virus and then blocked a step the pathogen uses to infect people of that virus.
The cannabis compounds can be taken orally and have a long history of safe use in humans, as explained by Richard Van Breemen from Oregon State’s Global Hemp Innovation Center. “They have the potential to prevent as well as treat infection by SARS-CoV-2,” he said in a statement.
References
1.Nguyen LC, Yang D, Nicolaescu V, Best TJ, Ohtsuki T, Chen S-N, et al. Cannabidiol inhibits SARS-CoV-2 replication and promotes the host innate immune response. bioRxivorg [Internet]. 2021; Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2021.03.10.432967
2.Oregon State research shows hemp compounds prevent coronavirus from entering human cells [Internet]. Life at OSU. 2022 [cited 2022 Jan 14]. Available from: https://today.oregonstate.edu/news/oregon-state-research-shows-hemp-compounds-prevent-coronavirus-entering-human-cells
3.van Breemen RB, Muchiri RN, Bates TA, Weinstein JB, Leier HC, Farley S, et al. Cannabinoids block cellular entry of SARS-CoV-2 and the emerging variants. J Nat Prod [Internet]. 2022 [cited 2022 Jan 14];(acs.jnatprod.1c00946). Available from: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35007072/
Find the PDF full article here.