3

Can CBD Cause Liver Damage?

In an April 2019 publication, American scientists are critical of the explosive growth of the CBD market. With the increasing demand for CBD, the call for more knowledge is also increasing. In particular, the possible connection between CBD and liver damage deserves attention. With the question “how to handle this dietary supplement safely” as a starting point, researchers conducted tests with mice, as is often the case at universities. Curious how this went? Find out more in our blog .

Looking For The Safe Dosage

As a starting point for this research, the scientists took an American medicine with CBD, which is prescribed to people with epilepsy. To prevent seizures, patients take 20 mg/kg of CBD every day. The ideal dose is determined in accordance with someone’s bodyweight. Someone who weighs 50 kilo, has to take 1000 milligrams of CBD per day. Because you have to take 20 milligrams per kilo.

Determine The Ideal Dose Of CBD

As is common with a study like this, the mice received different doses of CBD. They take the standard dose from practice, in this case the standard 20 milligrams per kilo. Then they make different groups of mice, one group receives the standard dose, one group receives 3 times as much and the last group gets 10 times as much. After the dosing they wait to see how the mice react. Aftwerwards their organs are being examined, and in the end all the participating mice sacrifice themselves for our health.

CBD And Liver Damage At High Doses

In the mice who received the dose of 200 mg/kilo, acute problems occurred, caused by liver damage. They became lethargic, ate less and became thinner. In the group that received 60 mg/kilo, two mice also showed these symptoms, even though to a lesser extent. They concluded that CBD is toxic to the liver when used in a high dosage. That means CBD can damage the liver. A lot of substances are toxic to the liver, for example alcohol and paracetamol.

No Problems With The Standard Dose Of CBD

In the mice who received the standard dose of 20 mg/kilo, those problems didn’t occur. With the even lower doses, there were no direct effects found. What they did discover was that CBD impacts the liver in a lot of different ways. And this is not the first research that warns for that.

CBD And Liver Damage From Other Medicines

In another blog we wrote about the fact that CBD can delay the breakdown of certain medicines. This study also addresses a risk in combining CBD tablets and medicines. It seems to have something to do with the complex effects of CBD on our liver. This is why we would again like to point out that it’s important to consult your doctor when you are using CBD in combination with other medicines.

So What Is A Safe Dose?

To clearly explain this, we are going to use the same example as before: someone with the body weight of 50 kilo. The high, risky dose from the study was 200 mg/kilo. In our example that would be 50 x 200 mg = 10.000 mg. That’s the equivalent of almost 14 packs of SupMedi orodispersible tablets of 24 mg per day! Everyone will understand that this is a very high dosage.

Source:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31052254