Overall, these results suggest that CBD has an antipsychotic effect in schizophrenia when administered as a complementary treatment. However, this effect appears to be very modest and is limited to positive psychotic symptoms only. It's also possible that people with schizophrenia who use cannabis or have a CUD respond differently to CBD than those who don't have CUD, but no study has carefully examined the effect of CBD on patients with schizophrenia and CUD. Although, in general, no information on substance use was provided during the study, the authors reported that one patient from the CBD group was dependent on cannabis at the start of the study and did not change their consumption pattern during the study, and another from the CBD group was dependent on alcohol at the start of treatment, but not at the end of treatment.
In addition, the doses and administration of CBD were different between studies and most of the studies reviewed did not describe the source of CBD (i.e., there is some human research on CBD and schizophrenia, but there is not enough evidence to conclude that CBD should be used for schizophrenia). PlusCBD is a CBD company that offers a wide range of CBD products and potencies, including gummies, topical products, oils and more. More research should be done on THC and CBD in schizophrenia with or without comorbid ECU and consider the role of CBD in mitigating the exacerbation of symptoms caused by THC. Considering the efficacy of CBD in both psychotic disorders and SUD, it can be speculated that CBD should also be effective in treating comorbidity.
Therefore, the beneficial effects of CBD are in addition to those of existing treatment, suggesting that CBD may be a useful complementary treatment to current antipsychotic medications. The improvement was greater in the placebo and 300 mg CBD groups, compared to patients who received 600 mg of CBD. After quitting smoking overnight, CBD reduced the attention bias towards cigarette cues and the pleasure of smoking cues, which could suggest that CBD has a potential effect on the motivational aspects of addiction. In addition, since over-the-counter CBD products are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ensure their safety, a CBD product may contain more THC than advertised.
In addition, serum anandamide levels increased more among people treated with CBD than with amisulpride, and the degree of increase was associated with an improvement in the total PANSS score in the CBD group, but not in the amisulpride group. Since there is a lack of double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized, placebo-controlled trials with pure CBD, the evidence for the effectiveness of products containing a combination of CBD and THC in treating cannabis dependence is more convincing. In addition, while the placebo and 300 mg CBD groups improved performance in the second session compared to the first session, the 600 mg CBD group did not. The four small placebo-controlled studies on the increase of CBD in schizophrenia in a mixed and limited way support the ability of CBD added to an antipsychotic to further reduce symptoms of psychosis and improve cognitive impairments.
Serum levels of CBD were positive in all participants in the CBD group at the end of the study, suggesting adequate adherence.
