Scientists have discovered a surprising new use for cannabis in the sternnotes that its main non-psychoactive component, ssynthetic cannabidiol – better known as CBD – can kill bacteria responsible for GONORRHEA, meningitis and legionnaires’ disease.
The research, which was a collaboration between the IMB Center for Superbug Solutions and Botanix Pharmaceuticals Limited, could lead to the first new class of antibiotics for resistant bacteria in 60 years.
Dr. Mark Blaskovich, Director of the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, said that CBD can penetrate and destroy a wide range of bacteria included Neisseria gonorrhoeae, what causes GONORRHEA.
Blaskovich said: “This is the first time that CBD has been shown to kill some types of Gram-negative bacteria. These bacteria have an additional outer membrane, an additional line of defense which makes antibiotics harder to penetrate. “
The news could be especially great for the people of Australia, where GONORRHEA it is the second most common sexually transmitted infection.
According to the IMB, it has become so common that it does not exist more than one reliable antibiotic to treat it, because bacteria are especially good at developing resistance.
Research – that was recently published in the journal Communications Biology – also suggested that cannabidiol is effective in killing superbug MRSA found in Staphylococcus aureus bacteria and can be used to treat diabetic ulcers and wounds.
10 days ago“Cannabidiol showed a low tendency to cause resistance to bacteria even when we accelerated potential growth by increasing antibiotic concentrations during ‘treatment,'” Blaskovich added.
“We believe that cannabidiol kills bacteria by breaking the outer cell membranes, but we still don’t know exactly how it does that and we need to do more research.”
Vince Ippolito, president and chief executive of Botanix, said the investigationhe showed huge potential for the development of effective treatments for approach the growing global threat of antibiotic resistance.
Hippolytus said: “Congratulations to Dr. Blaskovich and his team for producing this significant body of research – published data clearly establish the potential of synthetic cannabinoids as antimicrobials. “
Other studies with CBD formulations are currently underway, Blaskovich told us Courier: “We believe that we can conceive of a different version of CBD, which may have some systemic activity.
“We want something that doesn’t break down in the body as quickly as CBD. There’s certainly potential in which CBD could be a prototype representative of a new class of antibiotics.”