Tetrahydrocannabinol, otherwise known as THC, has been known to have a link to the development of psychosis, but according to a study, its cananbidiol, or CBD, that has the opposite effect.
In the very first placebo-controlled trial of using CBD to treat patients with psychosis, CBD was found to significantly reduce psychotic symptoms.
The study’s results were published this month in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
88 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia in the study were divided into two groups with one group being treated with 1,000 milligrams of CBD, and the control group receiving a placebo drug.
In the six week trial, all patients also took whatever antipsychotic medication they had already been on.
Researchers who were led by Philip McGuire, Ph.D., a professor of psychiatry at King’s College London, concluded at the end of the trial that the CBD group were more likely to be rated with an improvement by their psychiatrists compared to the other group.
McGuire wrote in an article in Conversation, “While it is still unclear exactly how CBD works, we know that it acts in a different way to antipsychotic medication, so it could represent a new class of treatment. The absence of side effects is also potentially important, as a key problem in caring for patients with psychosis is that they are often reluctant to take antipsychotic drugs because of concerns about side effects.”
