Edibles: How Fats Help Cannabis Absorption
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Edibles: How Fats Help Cannabis Absorption
It’s well-known in the world of nutrition that food pairings which maximize the health benefits of each individual item are a great way to move your health care plan forward. For instance, salad dressings that contain fats are typically recommended over non-fat alternatives because they help ensure that the vitamins and nutrients found the vegetables, such as lycopene and beta-carotene, are properly absorbed. In much the same way, many of the healthy cannabinoids that are found in the cannabis plant are only soluble in fat. This means that they won’t circulate throughout your brain and body without a fat present to extract them, but will instead break down in your digestive tract and pass outside of your body.
Natural terpenes found in cannabis are also inclined to bond with fats in order to take effect. That’s why cannabis edibles made with butter or oils are considered to have more health-boosting qualities than their non-fat counterparts.
Why are Cannabinoids and Terpenes so Important?
Cannabinoids are chemical substances found naturally in the cannabis plant. They work by bonding with, activating, and deactivating key receptors in your brain and body, known as cannabinoid receptors, in order to provide you with a wealth of health benefits that aid in keeping your Endocannabinoid System in an optimal state of balance. While your body produces its own endocannabinoids to do this job, these can sometimes become depleted or damaged, just as happens when you experience a vitamin depletion. That’s when cannabis compounds can be introduced to help provide a natural therapeutic treatment.
Of the over 550 natural compounds found in cannabis, 113 are known to be cannabinoids. Two of the most well-known cannabinoids are CBD and THC. There are also 120 health-boosting terpenes native to the cannabis plant’s essential oils that help give it its signature aroma. Fats allow you to absorb the full range of these natural compounds, and their benefits actually become multiplied when the entire plant works together, a phenomenon known as the entourage effect.
Some of the many medicinal uses of cannabinoid-terpene chemical interactions include the reduction of inflammation, the treatment of pain, anxiety, depression, and epileptic seizures, and the improvement of circulation and cortical functioning. It also has been shown to help reduce tumour growth in certain kinds of cancers and to help fight antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria.
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