If you know anything about the world of legal Cannabis products, you have probably at least heard of CBG. It’s a relatively new product, although it’s been present in the Cannabis plant all along. CBG presents some interesting possibilities for the future, and may even come to be respected for its medical benefits (as CBD has). Anyway, let’s talk a little bit about CBG and its benefits.
What Is CBG?
CBG is short for Cannabigerol, and it is one of many unique compounds found in the Cannabis plant. However, the plant will normally contain no more than 1-2% CBG. Because of this, it wasn’t practical in the past to produce CBG as a standalone product. It would have required so much plant material to make even a small amount of pure Mr. Hemp Flower CBG that it would never have been cost-effective. The only way to make it cost-effective would be to charge a ridiculously high price that virtually no one is willing to pay.
Things have changed now, as some new strains have been developed for maximum CBG content. Over successive generations of selective breeding, some growers have been able to raise the CBG content by as much as 20%! The use of younger plants (which naturally have more CBG) has also made things easier.
Cannabigerol: The Stem Cell Of The Cannabinoid Family
CBG is unique in the fact that it can become most of the other Cannabinoids. Juvenile Cannabis plants will contain larger amounts of CBG, but most of that is converted to other Cannabinoids as the plant matures. Incidentally, this is why CBG was never specifically banned by name. It wasn’t considered to be a viable product because (at that time) it was not.
This presents some exciting possibilities because most Cannabinoids have been shown to have specific medical benefits. Because CBG is kind of like the parent substance for all these other Cannabinoids, it may contain the potential of each one. If true, this would make it the single best choice for medical users. That being said, more research is definitely needed.
Known Benefits Of CBG
Although there hasn’t been enough research on CBG as of yet, there is more than most people would have you believe. We see many articles on the internet in which CBG is basically treated as an unknown. However, we had no problem finding documented scientific evidence regarding the benefits of CBG. We wish there were more, but make no mistake: There are a decent number of studies that have been conducted on CBG. Those who say otherwise are mostly just lazy writers who don’t want to do any research.
Treatment Of Inflammation
For a start, let’s look at this study. These researchers were trying to determine if CBG might be used to treat inflammatory bowel disease (IBS). They found that CBG was indeed effective in reducing these sorts of inflammations in short order.
You see, IBS is caused by an excessive amount of nitric acid in the body. The body will naturally produce small amounts, but too much will inflame the walls of the intestines and stomach. By measuring the product of this reaction (nitric oxide), they determined that CBG decreases nitric acid levels in the body. This is interesting because Inflammation is one of the conditions that is most commonly treated with Cannabinoid medicines.
Let’s go a step further and look at a more serious kind of inflammation. Neuroinflammation is an inflammation of the brain and/or nervous system, and it can obviously be quite serious. While IBS can lead to a lot of pain, neuroinflammation can result in madness and death. Thankfully, our little buddy CBG has also proven to be quite helpful in this department.
A study found that a Cannabigerol-Quinone compound was very effective in reducing the symptoms of multiple sclerosis. MS is a disorder of the brain and nervous system, so this data indicated that CBG may turn out to be a very powerful treatment for other neurological disorders as well.
Anti-Cancer Properties
People often joke that “everything gives you cancer.” Thankfully, CBG is not one of those things! In fact, it has been proven to have noticeable anti-carcinogenic properties. That’s a fancy way of saying that CBG inhibits the growth of cancer.
These researchers tested the idea by using CBG on colon cancer cells. CBG isn’t a cure for cancer, but it definitely helps to prevent cancer cells from growing. Thus, it may not be a cure, but it’s one of the best anti-cancer treatments out there (particularly for its lack of known side effects, something we cannot say about traditional chemotherapy).
Glaucoma And Ocular Pressure Treatment
You’ve probably heard that Cannabis can be used to treat glaucoma. Glaucoma is a disorder of the eyes that results from a damaged optic nerve. It is often accompanied by an increase in ocular pressure, which is not very pleasant at all. Just as whole Cannabis has been proven to reduce this pressure, pure CBG has proven to be equally effective.
Conclusion
As you can see, CBG has a little more research behind it than most would think. There is no doubt that a lot more study needs to be done, but we do have a pretty good start. Our data thus far supports the hypothesis that CBG contains the benefits of all the Cannabinoids in a single package. As such, we see a lot of potential for the future here. Thank you for reading our work, and we hope you will return soon.
Photo by Roberto Valdivia on Unsplash