CBD is considered benign, but there are a lot of drug interactions to be avoided with prescription drugs
CBD is all the rage, this non-toxic cannabinoid has a ton of medical benefits. People of all ages use CBD to treat serious medical conditions like epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, as well as mental health issues like anxiety, depression, and substance abuse. But it's important to learn how it can interact with other prescription drugs.
Can CBD Interfere With Medication?
The short answer is yes. CBD can interfere with and interact with other medications, including (and especially) prescription and over-the-counter medications. Just as cannabis would with much of the Antidepressants.
Dr. Jordan Tishler, MD and President of theInhaleMD, Cannabis Specialists in Massachusetts, states:
"In practical terms, CBD in therapeutic doses (10 to 20 mg per kilogram) can have harmful interactions with a range of conventional drugs such as epileptics, heart drugs, anticoagulants and others."
So, how do you know if your medications potentially interact with CBD? According to the book, Healing with CBD : How Cannabidiol Cannabidiol Cannabidiol Cannabidiol Cannabidiol Cannabidiol Transform Your Health Without the High by Eileen Konieczny, RN, and Lauren Wilson; there is an easy way to determine if CBD interacts with your medications. The authors explain:
“CBD interacts with drugs in the same way as grapefruit. But CBD has much more powerful effects. So if the answer is yes, you will know that interaction could be a problem for you. "
Role of cytochrome P450
All of this is related to how CBD, grapefruit and more than half of the pharmaceutical drugs in the world are metabolized by the liver.
Enzymes known as the cytochrome P450 system are responsible for breaking down toxins that pass in the urine. They also metabolize 60% of our pharmaceutical drugs.
The problem is, when more than one drug uses the cytochrome 450 pathway, they start to interact with each other ...
In fact, one can inhibit or exacerbate the metabolism of the other. This means that a drug, like CBD, could be preventing your drug from working effectively.
Also, the more drugs you add to the equation, the more complex the interactions become… And many drugs compete to be metabolized by the same enzymatic system.
CBD has been shown to be a potent inhibitor of other drugs using the cytochrome P450 pathway. When taken with competing drugs, CBD will first struggle to be metabolized.
This generally reduces the effectiveness of other drugs, such as grapefruit ... In short, CBD can also prevent drugs using the cytochrome 450 pathway from metabolizing.
The effective dose
However, it is important to remember that medical science has studied these drug interactions for a long time, because it is important for a patient to receive a " effective dose To treat his condition.
One of the main jobs of your doctor is to pay close attention to the way the drugs interact with each other. Then, they can make sure their patients are treated correctly, taking into account possible drug interactions, and adjusting the dose accordingly.
List of drug interactions with CBD and
prescription drugs
The book Healing with CBD has devoted an entire section to this question. The authors list the types of drugs that also use the cytochrome P450 enzyme system and therefore could interact with CBD. These include:
- Steroids
- HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors
- Calcium channel blockers
- antihistamines
- prokinetic
- Anti-HIV antivirals
- Immune modulators
- antiarrhythmics
- anesthetics
- antiepileptic
- Beta-blockers
- Proton Pump Inhibitors (PPIs)
- Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)
- Angiotensin II antagonists
- Oral hypoglycemic agents
- Sulfonylureas (antidiabetics)
Can CBD interfere with antibiotics?
Unfortunately, we don't have a clear answer to this question. Antibiotics also use the cytochrome P450 enzyme, so there could be a potential interaction.
On the other hand, Dr Tishler says he has no "concerns about antibiotics".
We also know that CBD (and cannabis) is a good candidate for replace antibiotics become resistant to super-bacteria.
In any case, it cannot be said that cannabidiol is not recommended in combination with antibiotics.
In short
But for most patients, CBD is relatively safe, well tolerated, and carries less risk of unwanted drug interactions than many other commonly prescribed drugs.
However, given its therapeutic versatility, one of the strongest arguments in favor of CBD (and cannabis) is that it can reduce the need for multiple drug combinations.
In conclusion, Dr. Donald Abrams, Head of the Hematology-Oncology Department at San Francisco General Hospital and Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, reminds us:
“Why should I write six different prescriptions, all of which can interact with each other, when I can only recommend one drug? "
