In a new study from the University of Waterloo, researchers found synthetic cannabidiol, a non-psychoactive compound also found in the cannabis plant, may prime the innate immune system of cells.
This potentially offers protection against pathogens such as the COVID-19 virus.
They found that synthetic cannabidiol (CBD) augments the anti-viral response of cells to three key proteins produced by the SARS-CoV-2 genome.
The finding is in line with evidence from users of a high-dose pharmaceutical CBD licensed in the United States for the treatment of rare types of epilepsy.
In that study, patients taking prescription high-dose synthetic CBD had around a 10-fold lower risk of testing positive for COVID-19.
In the current study, the team examined these proteins in human kidney cells, both alone and in combination with CBD, as well as the effects of CBD in healthy control cells.
When cells in the lungs or the digestive tract are infected with a virus, they have an ability to sense and respond, even before the immune system notices a virus is present.
They do this by activating innate responses inside of cells, which form the first line of defense. In the case of COVID-19, however, this response isn’t very good, which has contributed to high infection rates.
What was potentially even more exciting, however, was that in cells that had not been exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 proteins, CBD in therapeutic amounts seemed to prime the innate anti-viral system of cells, increasing their readiness to respond to viral infection—and that this happened without activating apoptosis in healthy cells.
This suggests CBD at the right dose could help cells be in a better state of readiness to respond to a virus, but it doesn’t cause a response unless there is a need.
The team points out that CBD does not cause a high, the way THC does, making it more widely useful.
If you care about Covid, please read studies about common arthritis drug that could help reduce COVID-19 death, and drug that could prevent respiratory and heart damage in COVID-19.
For more information about health, please see recent studies about physical inactivity linked to severe COVID-19 and death, and results showing that vitamin D can be cheap treatments for COVID-19.
The study is published published on BioRxiv.org. One author of the study is Robin Duncan.
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