While we are still dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, the vaccines against the virus have become pretty much the primary defense in addition to other measures such as social distancing, wearing protective masks and practicing some basic hygiene.
However, according to some new studies, there seems to finally be another preventative on the horizon that is believed to be quite efficient – cannabis!
That’s right! Some brand new research suggests that certain cannabis extracts might be able to stop COVID from entering and infecting human cells as per CBS2’s Dr. Max Gomez.
For scientists, it hasn’t been a secret that marijuana and the hemp plant feature many biologically active compounds, a majority of which aren’t psychoactive or controlled like THC.
That being said, it turns out that two of these compounds, namely CBGA and CBDA, could play a significant role in preventing the spread of COVID.
One study from Oregon State University and Oregon Health and Sciences University has been published in the Journal of Natural Products and the findings might be revolutionary!
About this, Oregon State’s Dr. Richard Van Breemen stated that “CBDA and CBGA bind to specific locations on the virus spike protein, and these locations are necessary for the spike protein to interact and infect human cells. And if we can block that interaction by putting a barrier between the spike protein and the human cell, that can stop the spread of COVID.”
Those compounds could be administered in pill form and they have actually been safely used in a number of other nutritional supplements before as well as ayurvedic medicines from India.
Van Breeman went on to mention that “Because of the experience that we have already with the human consumption of products containing cannabinoids, I think we can move fairly quickly towards clinical studies of efficacy.”
Finally, it’s important to mention that these compounds are really small so they can easily penetrate the blood-brain barrier and other organs where the COVID-19 virus is usually able to hide.
What this means is that they could make for some really efficient treatment for long COVID too!
