If you do a lot of reading on CBD, one of the things that you've probably come across is the bioavailability of CBD. What this means, very simply, is the amount of CBD that ones body can use.
Should I Take My CBD With or Without Food?
When someone ingests CBD, in its purest form, less than 10% gets into their blood stream. This is one of the primary reasons that high fat content oils are used to formulate CBD products. The fat content in the oil, actually helps the body to absorb CBD. A recent study from pharmacologists at the University of Minnesota examined how eating a meal affects the absorption of CBD. Normally researchers have people fast and take CBD in the morning before eating — this reduces variability, but it also changes how well your body can absorb the CBD. On a full stomach, CBD will stay in the gut for longer and have more time to be up-taken. If the meal is particularly fatty, the body will try to collect the oils, and CBD might get caught up along with them. This is exactly what the researchers found!
Don't get us wrong, we're not saying to go eat a double cheeseburger every day before taking your CBD, but when taking CBD half an hour after a fatty meal (good, healthy fats), people were exposed to nearly 5x more CBD. The peak plasma concentration of CBD was 14x higher when participants ate first. This suggests that eating before taking CBD might reduce the required dose
People shouldn’t be too caught up with bioavailability. It's our recommendation and a best practice that when starting with CBD, you should micro-dose. Very simply, start with a low dose and take multiple times throughout the day and or night rather than a single large dose.
Pay attention to how you are feeling throughout the day after taking your initial dose and top-up using your choice of consumption methods when you feel the effects wearing off. Something to note here is that different consumption methods work in different ways. Here’s a rough idea of how long you can expect it to take;
- Vaping CBD: will usually take effect within a couple of minutes
- Sublingual oils (Tinctures) usually take around 20 minutes to take effect
- Capsules & Edibles can take up to two hours to take effect
- Topicals will vary depending on the additional ingredients and can take anywhere from minutes to hours to take effect.
Some people find that certain methods help them more. Combining different CBD products is a completely safe thing to do as long as you pay attention to your body, watch out for side-effects and control your dosage.
If you’re looking to add more CBD products to your regimen and have questions, never hesitate to reach out to us with questions.