CBD For The Symptoms of Schizophrenia and Related Disorders

Cannabis has been used medicinally for at least 5,000 years. Although it is generally used for mentally and neurologically based conditions such as anxiety, depression, epilepsy and similar ones, there has been some study about its use for schizophrenia. It is becoming an important topic. One study found that both CBD and an antipsychotic medication had similar effects. The significant difference was that CBD had fewer side effects. It is generally recognized that CBD can be used as an adjunct treatment to traditional antipsychotic medications, and patients were assessed at the baseline, or beginning, of the trial, to the treatment\”s end.

The symptoms which occur in patients with schizophrenia are divided into positive and negative symptoms. This is accomplished by using the PANSS, Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, and SANS, or Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms. Positive signs are those which are the more overt symptoms, such as hallucinations, delusions and possibly aggressive behavior, while the negative symptoms are when the patient experiences affective flattening, or lack of mood and being withdrawn. Certain physical factors were also considered, such as participants\’ body weight, waist, BMI, or body mass index and cholesterol levels, for determining how well the CBD utilized in the clinical trial was tolerated. 58% of the patients were male and we\’re about 41 years old, on average. They had either schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, delusional disorder or schizophreniform. The outcome was that there were slight improvements in the positive symptoms, and clinicians were more likely to say they were improved. Overall, CBD was well tolerated by the participants and there were no significant changes in weight or cholesterol levels, in either the placebo or treatment groups. There were improvements in the impact of the illness on their everyday lives and on their cognitive abilities as well.