CBD Scientific Research with Dr. Mallory Loflin

Dr. Mallory Loflin is an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. Her research focuses on understanding cannabis as a plant containing multiple potential therapeutic agents, as well as being a substance of abuse. She is the primary investigator for a phase II clinical trial testing the efficacy of CBD as an adjunctive to psychotherapy in the treatment of PTSD in veterans.

In today's episode, we dive into what the research is telling us about CBD. Dr. Loflin shares how her current study is going, as well as her past work. She tells us what the science is saying about various applications of CBD to treat conditions such as epilepsy, anxiety, and depression.

With her own research focusing on PTSD, Dr. Loflin is trying to answer some very intriguing questions. From determining if commercially available CBD products are appropriately labeled to studying how it affects people's fear response as well as their mood in general. Dr. Loflin continues to explain how she is working to determine how CBD works in different dosages and how that can help patients in a number of fascinating ways.

In this episode:

• The encouraging results of trials into the efficacy of CBD for treating PTSD symptoms
• Some of the ways CBD has been used to treat various conditions and illnesses in recent years
• What many of the recent and ongoing studies into CBD are looking at
• The different types of CBD and why it's important to know the difference
• Figuring out the right dose for CBD and how it compares to THC treatments
• Just how habit-forming using cannabis, and CBD in particular, is on a regular basis

Quotes

"When you looked at the preclinical data, there had been some early work suggesting that potentially some cannabinoids could be helpful for the treatment of PTSD." [5:00]

"People are already experimenting with different kinds of CBD, so we have to both see what people are using and if it's safe, if it's potentially showing effects, differences in what people are using and then we also need to study it from an actual traditional drug development pathway." [11:10]

"Usually when you get [people with PTSD] on a route of change, you don't start to really see big impacts in functioning until further down the road because you're changing the trajectory of their life." [25:39]

Links

Dr. Loflin's CBD and PTSD study (currently enrolling)

VA Center of Excellence, Stress, and Mental Health

Santa Cruz Veterans Alliance

Octagon Biolabs