Depending on whom you ask, CBD seems to be the cure for what ails you, no matter what’s wrong. Trouble sleeping? Take CBD. Got inflammation? CBD! Now science can add bacterial infections to that growing list, and there’s even evidence to back it up.
In a presentation on Sunday at the 2019 meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, Mark Blaskovich, Ph.D., presented evidence that CBD can kill several types of bacteria. Blaskovich, a senior research chemist at the University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience, demonstrated that CBD could even kill some strains of bacteria that are resistant to conventional antibiotics.
The research has not yet been published. That means the scientific community has not yet had a chance to comment and try to replicate those results, but we’re certain that will happen. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are a growing concern in healthcare.
The World Health Organization called a “global health crisis” as far back as 2015. And recent research has suggested that antibiotic-resistant bacteria hang out in lots of dark corners of hospitals, including privacy curtains, so any tool that could aid in fighting infections without contributing to the resistance problem would be a huge deal for public health.
Blaskovich treated a range of microbes with CBD, including Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and Enterococcus faecalis — all of which can produce diseases, infections, or both. He reports that CBD killed all of these bacterial species.
That makes it potentially useful, but not very different from alternative bactericides. The fact that it even killed several strains that were resistant to conventional antibiotics, including the dreaded MRSA (methicillin-resistant S. aureus), a common source of serious hospital-acquired infections could be an impressive medical breakthrough.
Furthermore, the results showed that CBD didn’t seem to induce antibiotic resistance in the bacteria tested. This particular finding will need to be confirmed with further research, of course, but for now, these early results are promising sign