Belmont, MA: Patients diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) exhibit symptomatic and cognitive improvements following the daily use of full-spectrum CBD-dominant extracts, according to clinical trial data published in the journal Biomedicines.
Investigators affiliated with Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital in Boston assessed the daily use of 30mg of plant-derived CBD in 12 patients with GAD. Researchers evaluated changes in participants’ clinical and cognitive performance over six weeks of treatment.
Patients experienced “dramatic reductions” in anxiety during the first week of the trial, and they exhibited “significant improvements” on assessments of mood, sleep, and quality of life throughout the duration of the study. Participants also “demonstrated significantly improved performance on measures of executive function relative to baseline, evidenced by faster response time[s] … as well as higher accuracy” on neurocognitive assessments.
No participants experienced any serious adverse events during the trial.
“Results from this open-label clinical trial provide evidence that a hemp-derived, full-spectrum, high-CBD product similar to those currently available in the marketplace may be both safe and efficacious for the treatment of anxiety,” the study’s authors concluded. “Given the potential benefits observed in this trial, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies of hemp-derived high-CBD products are warranted to obtain robust data regarding the safety and efficacy of CBD-containing products for anxiety.”
Clinical data published in July in the Journal of Affective Disorders reported that the consumption of THC-dominant cannabis products is also associated with sustained reductions in anxiety.
Data published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that the adoption of statewide marijuana legalization laws is associated with significant declines in the dispensing of prescription anxiolytic drugs like benzodiazepines.
Full text of the study, “Clinical and cognitive improvement following treatment with a hemp-derived, full-spectrum, high-cannabidiol product in patients with anxiety: An open-label pilot study,” appears in Biomedicines.