Are you one of those people who have given up on CBD? Have you tried it and it didn’t work for you? So you’re really over the hype now. Done that, bought the T-shirt type of thing. I get you, but before you give up on CBD completely, consider this: there are several reasons why CBD might not be working for you:
- Your body, in particular your endocannabinoid system, is responding to the CBD in a unique way
- You are not allowing enough time for it to work
- You bought an unreliable product with no way to know how much CBD it contains
- You need to take CBD in a different form
- You didn’t take the bioavailability of CBD into account
So what is bioavailability? The bioavailability of a product simply means the amount of the product that will be available for use by your body after you ingested it. Your body can only use it and benefit from it, if it lands in your bloodstream. Once there, it can travel to the rest of your body where various cells and tissues can use it. A product’s bioavailability is good if a lot of it lands in your bloodstream after intake.
Here is the bad news: CBD has very low bioavailability – according to science, the absolute bioavailability of CBD when taken orally is a shocking 6%. This dismal figure improves somewhat when you take the CBD oil with a high-fat meal.
This means that most of the CBD you take in through CBD oil, capsules, food, or drink simply gets lost in the digestive process and never reaches your bloodstream, no wonder many people say it doesn’t work for them.
You can see why this is important, right? If the product you take has a high bioavailability, more of it will be absorbed and available for use by your body, and products with poor bioavailability will require larger amounts to make an impact.
CBD delivery and absorption
How you take CBD will affect how well it is absorbed. You can take CBD sublingually (through a tincture under your tongue), through the skin, orally, rectally and by inhaling it. Each method provides a different degree of bioavailability, affecting how much of a product will be absorbed and how long it takes to be absorbed.
Compared to eating CBD in something like a muffin or a chocolate brownie, inhaling it using a vaporizer is much more effective – you get more bang for your buck. The most efficient method for CBD absorption is to inhale the vapor using a vaporizer, which can deliver up to 56% of each measure to your bloodstream. This is a significant improvement compared to the 4-20% that is absorbed when you eat CBD.
Bioavailability of different delivery systems
1. CBD beverages and edibles
Most edibles are and drinks come in 5, 10, and 20 milligram portions, so eating or drinking CBD is really pointless. Unless you eat or drink enough every day for it accumulate in your blood, you’ll get no benefits from the CBD you ingest through drinking or eating.
Anything that you swallow, will have to go through your digestive system, which includes filtration by the liver, before it can be absorbed into the bloodstream
2. Taking a tincture under your tongue
Homeopaths and naturopaths have always used this method to administer botanical extracts. It’s a very effective way to take a medication as there are many blood vessels under the tongue that can take the substance directly to the bloodstream.
Through this delivery, more CBD reaches the bloodstream and the effects are also felt relatively fast – within in 15-30 minutes. For this reason, CBD oil Canada is sold in tinctures.
Tinctures allow users to experiment with their CBD dosage drop by drop, which is just as well since scientists and doctors are not yet clear on precise dosages. Anyone wanting to try CBD is advised to start slow and go slow and keep a record of how their body reacts to the cannabinoid. Tinctures is a great way to discover the minimum dose that will be effective for your condition.
3. Vaporized or inhaled into your lungs
Inhaling CBD is a very effective way of using the product as it’s easily absorbed into the bloodstream through the lung’s mucus membrane, which has a very large surface area. You can smoke cannabis flowers in a joint, or use a vape pen to inhale CBD. Vaping and smoking carries the CBD directly into the bloodstream, so the effects are noticeable within ten minutes. What’s more, much more is absorbed into the bloodstream: between 34 and 56%.
There are two distinct disadvantages that you must take note of, though. The market is awash with a confusing range of vaping pens and CBD products for them. In the US, the industry is not regulated and anybody and put anything in their CBD mixture. Hundreds of cases of lung injuries have been reported as well as some cases of death.
In Canada, vaping products containing cannabis are regulated under the Cannabis Act, which protects the safety of users. However, not everybody is convinced that that is enough. In 2019, Health Canada warned against the health risks associated with vaping.
4. Transdermal application to the skin
Transdermal products are more effective than topical creams, which don’t penetrate the dermis. Transdermal products use penetration enhancers to carry CBD, terpenes and other compounds into the dermis (second layer of skin), which has blood vessels that can carry the CBD to the bloodstream. This action increases the bioavailability of the cannabinoid to 40% or more.
5. CBD suppositories
CBD suppositories may not be very popular, but they are a very effective way to get CBD to your bloodstream. CBD suppositories have a bioavailability of 50%. The reason for this is the many blood vessels close to the surface in the rectum.
Final words
When you decide to use CBD oil Canada, it’s useful to keep in mind that the way you consume it will have an impact on the efficacy of the product. Taking CBD oil under the tongue is better than eating or drinking something with CBD in it. Vaping will give you rapid relief, but it carries possible long-term risks. Also, remember that topical creams don’t penetrate deep and will only bring relief to the area where you applied it. If you suffer from arthritis pain, a transdermal product will give better results.
