CBD For Flu: How Cannabis Can Treat Your Flu & Common Cold

Preventative treatment is the key to remaining healthy, the more powerful your immune system, the greater your chances of preventing diseases. Everything from the quantity of sleep you get to the foods you consume may help you avoid becoming sick with the flu or a cold. As a result, one potential preventative medication has arisen in recent years called CBD for flu and cold.

Additionally, CBD, which is derived from the cannabis plant, may act as a natural immune system stimulant due to its anti-inflammatory characteristics and capacity to maintain balance in the body.

So, let’s discover how CBD for flu and the common cold may work and assist you throughout your sufferings. 

What Is Flu versus the Common Cold?

The flu is an infectious respiratory disease caused by influenza viruses that infiltrate the throat, nose, and lungs. While the common cold, on the other hand, is developed after the person inhaled the virus particles. These viruses often enter your lung after being close to someone, sneezing, coughing, or just breathing. 

The flu and common cold may attack at any time, the youngest and oldest individuals are most vulnerable to severe cases, and you are more likely to be at risk if you smoke often, have a weak immune system, and if you touch dirty surfaces, directly to your nose and mouth without washing your hands. And also, rates of infection rise in the fall and winter. The absence of humidity during several months leads to dryness of nasal passages, which contributes to the infection. 

Indeed, ancient folk’ stories blamed cold temperatures, but numerous different microorganisms may potentially cause the disease.

Symptoms Of Flu vs Cold 

Both the flu and common cold are respiratory diseases caused by various microorganisms. Since these two diseases have common symptoms, distinguishing them may be challenging based only on symptoms. Generally, flu symptoms are more severe than those of a common cold. Colds seldom cause severe health issues such as bacterial infections, and pneumonia while the flu can cause life-threatening consequences.

Their symptoms include:

• Stuffy or runny nose
• Raspy voice
• Coughing
• Ear infections
• Moderate fever
• Sneezing
• Exhaustion 

How Flu And Common Cold Affects Our Bodies

Flu virus strains may produce symptoms all over the body, unlike in the common cold. The flu virus mainly affects your respiratory system, including your throat, nose, and the passages that connect to your lungs. They may be very frightening when you have them, and here’s what happens to your body.

The virus typically enters your body via your mouth, mainly through your hand. However, symptoms may not appear for many days. Once the virus is in your body, it seeks out your respiratory system, and it bonds to the cells in line with it. Then the virus takes over those cells’ inherent replication processes and utilizes them to produce more influenza viruses in your body.

Among several other things, your muscles, your head, and your appetite suffer. Surprisingly, most of these symptoms are caused by your immunological reaction to the infection rather than the virus itself. And this activity may inflict some damage to your respiratory system.

Can CBD For Flu And Common Cold Assist In The Relief Of Their Symptoms?

There is no cure for the common cold and flu, but you may constantly deal with the discomfort through treatments and natural remedies till your body eliminates the virus. Standard treatments, such as pain relievers and nasal sprays, are intended to alleviate symptoms. And alternative medicines such as vitamin C, zinc, and herbs seem to be beneficial as well.

According to scientific research, many phytochemicals found in cannabis have medicinal qualities. It also has been said that there is no evidence that herbal cannabis can be used to treat the common cold and flu. And there have been no human experiments to determine whether the herb aids or harms the body as it works to fight the viruses.

Specific chemicals found in the Cannabinoids, on the other hand, have the potential to alleviate some of the symptoms. And it may have pain-relieving, anti-inflammatory, and sleep-inducing qualities. Also, cannabis may help in reducing body aches, help alleviate inflammation in the airways, and boost comfort to put you to sleep. Furthermore, in terms of flu symptoms, cannabis has fever-reducing characteristics because of its capacity to repress the immune system.

Body Pain

CBD may aid in the flu and common cold-related pain, and it may be more effective for pain relief when combined with THC. In the 2007 study, CBD was discovered to be an effective therapeutic agent for severe neuropathic pain in mice. So when these two cannabinoids were given to mice, they found that CBD prolonged and enhanced the pain-relieving effects. And none of the studies explains how these treatment options will work in humans.

Inflammation

Cannabis happens to generate molecules with anti-inflammatory properties. Symptoms of common cold and flu are all caused by inflammation, and the body initiates an inflammatory reaction to facilitate white blood cells passing through body tissue to the infection site.

CBD was evaluated for its impacts on airway inflammation in mice with asthma in a study published in the European Journal of Pharmacology in 2019. They discovered that CBD not only reduced inflammation symptoms but also improved airway procedures.

CBD was also found to improve the lung functional ability and inflammation in mice in previous research published in 2015. Another study states that CBD and THC have the effects of cytokine production in human immune cells. Cytokines are signaling molecules that are involved in the activation of inflammatory responses. Luckily, both THC and CBD have been shown to reduce cytokine production significantly.

Poor Quality Sleep

Sleep deprivation harms immune system function. Sleep-deprived individuals are more likely to become ill after being exposed to a common cold and flu virus. As a result, getting enough sleep while sick can affect how quickly your body recovers.

Research suggests that CBD may assist individuals in being asleep. And Myrcene, a mixture found in many cannabis strains, is also prevalent. It is a molecule that has sleep-inducing properties that improve relaxation and raises sleep time in mice.