What Are The Benefits of CBD Oil For Heart Disease?

There are many different forms of heart disease — some are serious and life-threatening; others are more benign.

CBD may be a useful supplement for alleviating common side-effects of heart disease, and in some cases, can help mitigate the underlying causes of the condition.

CBD could be especially beneficial to people suffering from atrial fibrillation (or other arrhythmias) associated with anxiety and inflammatory causes, including atherosclerosis. Future studies should be done to directly investigate the relationship between taking CBD and cardiac health outcomes in humans.

Most patients with heart disease use CBD to alleviate comorbidities such as anxiety, inflammation, insomnia, and depression.

Potential Benefits of CBD for Heart Disease:

1. Stabilizes blood sugar levels [1]
2. Promotes weight loss [1]
3. Decreases inflammation [3]
4. Lowers blood pressure in the face of acute stress [2]
5. Protects the arteries from oxidative stress [4]

How to Use CBD Oil for Heart Disease

Heart disease is a serious condition that requires the oversight of an experienced medical professional.

Always consult your doctor before taking any supplements — including CBD.

It is important to know that CBD will not stop chest pain or a heart attack in progress. If you have symptoms like squeezing or crushing chest/arm/jaw pain, nausea, with excess sweating – you should call emergency medical services or go to your nearest emergency room right away.

After calling for help in such a situation, chewing one adult-dose aspirin (325 mg), or up to 4 baby aspirins (81 mg each x 4 = 324 mg) at once, with water has been shown to reduce mortality in heart attack patients.

Be sure not to just swallow without chewing, and avoid enteric-coated aspirin — the idea is to ingest aspirin as fast as possible after calling for help.

Do not take aspirin if you are allergic to it, and do not give it to a child unless directed by a physician. Even if you take aspirin daily, you should take another one at the onset of heart attack symptoms.

Don’t start or stop taking aspirin daily unless your doctor has told you so.

It’s also important to note that CBD may interact with medications, including sensitive heart medications such as cardiac glycosides and blood thinners. While CBD has been proven safe in both animal and human trials, it may be necessary to decrease your dose of CBD if you are on one of these common heart medications.

To get the most out of your CBD supplementation, look for companies that use certified organic hemp and avoid those that don’t list their third-party lab results publicly on their website. Any contaminants in low-quality oils could make underlying causes for heart disease even worse, so it’s critical to ensure you only use high-quality products.

We also recommend using full-spectrum oils over CBD isolates because they contain other cannabinoids in the cannabis plant that offer their own set of benefits toward inflammation, blood sugar regulation, and anxiety — all of which are critically important in the underlying causes and sustaining factors of heart disease.

What Form of CBD Should I Use?

Choosing what type of CBD to use out of all the options can seem intimidating at first — there’s capsules, oils, tinctures, suppositories, edibles, gummies, vape oils, coffee, and numerous other forms depending on the company.

The truth is that most of these will work just fine. In all forms except topical CBD, the result is the absorption of CBD into the bloodstream.

With that said, CBD oils, tinctures, and capsules offer distinct advantages over the other options when it comes to heart disease.

The benefit of CBD oils and tinctures is that the dose can be individually measured more easily than most other forms. Once you’ve determined the amount of CBD contained in each milliliter or drop of fluid, it’s easy to tweak the dose according to how it affects you individually.

CBD capsules are also an excellent option and are considered by many to be the most convenient form of dosing CBD.

Tips for Optimizing CBD Supplementation

1. Use a full-spectrum extract
2. Use CBD over the long term for the best results
3. Make dietary and lifestyle changes 
4. Discuss CBD use with your doctor to avoid drug interactions
5. Use oral CBD only
6. Avoid cigarette smoking and other tobacco product use at all costs

What’s the Dose of CBD?

The required dose of CBD can vary from one person to the next. This is because the compound affects everyone differently depending on the health of the liver, your prescriptions, digestive tract, and genetic variability in the endocannabinoid function throughout the body.

For this reason, most people need to do some trial and error when trying CBD for the first time.

The best way to do this is to start with the lowest dose on our chart below according to your weight and build up gradually each day by adding 2 mg or 3 mg of CBD. Once you find relief from your symptoms, you’ve found the correct dose for you.

It’s important to note that some people end up at a dose far higher than those listed on the chart below. In general, the maximum dose of CBD should be around 100 mg, but this can vary from person to person, and CBD is considered highly safe even at large doses.

General Dosage Guidelines for Cardiovascular Conditions

CBD Dosage Calculator

Heart Disease 101

The term “heart disease” is often used synonymously with cardiovascular disease — an umbrella term for all medical conditions affecting the heart and blood vessels around the body. Others prefer to use the term to describe the medical conditions only affecting the heart, or even just the singular diagnosis of coronary artery disease (atherosclerosis) [6].

In this article, we’re going to use this secondary meaning — referring to problems with the heart muscle itself rather than the rest of the cardiovascular system.

The heart’s job is to pump blood throughout the body rhythmically and efficiently. The movement of blood delivers necessary nutrients to cells and eliminates toxic byproducts at the same time.

If there are any issues with the function of the heart, it can affect the function of every other organ in the body. If the heart stops, even for just a few minutes, we can sustain permanent, debilitating damage to our body’s tissues, especially the brain and heart itself.

1. Angina (Coronary Artery Disease)

Angina is a symptom of coronary artery disease (CAD). The condition involves a blockage in one or more of the arteries feeding the heart. As the artery becomes more and more blocked, or the heart demands more blood flow than can pass through the occluded area, it causes symptoms resembling a heart attack including chest, left arm, or jaw discomfort/pain and nausea.

It causes pain and tightness in the chest — usually lasting a few minutes before clearing up on its own. However, there may not be any symptoms until the artery is at least 70% occluded, making primary prevention very important.

This condition is a sign of serious heart disease and dramatically increases the risk of having a stroke or heart attack. Consulting with a cardiologist is essential to maximize survival.

2. Atrial Fibrillation

Atrial fibrillation involves an irregular heartbeat — often referred to commonly as heart palpitations. It can feel as though your heart missed a beat or is fitting extra beats in.

Atrial fibrillations are caused by disturbances in the electrical activity of the heart.

Although most forms atrial fibrillation isn’t directly life-threatening, it can increase your risk of a stroke or heart attack later in life. Roughly 33% of strokes in people over the age of 60 are a result of atrial fibrillation, according to The Heart and Stroke Foundation.

This condition can be caused by damage to heart tissue after a heart attack, menopause, old-age, anxiety, or congenital defects.

3. Cardiomyopathy

Cardiomyopathy is a condition affecting the function of the heart muscle — negatively impacting its ability to contract and force blood through the system. There are a few different types of cardiomyopathies depending on the cause — but all of them will result in a reduction in the heart’s ability to oxygenate the body.

4. Congenital Heart Disease

The word congenital refers to conditions that are present at birth. This condition is caused by problems during fetal development.

It can result in varying levels of dysfunction throughout life depending on the severity of the defect, which may require surgical treatment.

5. Congestive Heart Failure

Heart failure develops after the heart has been injured either after a heart attack or years of pumping against stiff arteries under high blood pressure. It’s a condition that involves an inability to pump the blood around the body effectively. Side-effects will vary depending on which side of the heart is affected.

If the right side of the heart is damaged, blood will begin to pool in the lungs, causing pulmonary edema, coughing, and shortness of breath.

If the left side of the heart is affected, blood will begin to pool in the rest of the body, primarily the arms and legs.

6. Heart Attack (Myocardial Infarction)

A heart attack occurs when the flow of blood feeding the heart becomes blocked by a dislodged atherosclerotic plaque. The heart muscle is extremely powerful and demands a constant supply of oxygen and nutrients to beat properly. If the flow of oxygen and nutrients is cut off, even for just a few minutes, it can cause the specialized heart cells to die off.

If blood flow isn’t restored within one to two hours, the condition can be fatal. It can even be fatal in the weeks following the attack, depending on the extent of the heart tissue damage.

Even in cases where blood flow was restored, too much damage can leave those affected with permanent damage and reduced quality of life.

Heart attacks often lead to congestive heart failure and arrythmias.

What’s The Cause of Heart Disease?

• Excessive alcohol consumption
• Atherosclerosis
• Autoimmune disease
• Bacterial infections
• Diabetes
• High blood pressure
• Diet high in sodium
• Diet high in refined carbohydrates
• Diet high in trans-fats
• Metabolic syndrome
• Recreational drug use
• Sedentary lifestyle
• Side-effects of certain medications
• Smoking
• Stress
• Viral infections

Conventional Treatment Options For Heart Disease

• Dietary changes
• Lifestyle changes
• Medications
• Stress-reduction techniques

Will CBD Interact With Heart Medications?

CBD may interact negatively with some heart medications. While CBD itself is generally regarded as safe, and unlikely to result in any major side effects, it could increase the chances of side effects from other, more dose-dependent medications.

If you’re taking any prescription medications you should speak to your doctor about using CBD first.

Some potential negative drug interactions with CBD and heart medications include:

• Statin Drugs (such as Artorvastatin & Lovastatin)
• ACE Inhibitors (such as Captopril & Ramipril)
• Alpha Blockers (such as Carvedilol & Doxazosin)
• Beta-Blockers (such as Acebutolol & Metoprolol)
• Calcium Channel Blockers (such as Bepridil & Nisoldipine)
• Central Agonists (such as Guanfacine)
• Diuretics (such as Chlorothiazide & Furosemide)
• Peripheral Adrenergic Inhibitors (such as Guanadrel)
• Blood Thinners (such as Warfarin & Heparins)

Final Verdict: CBD for Heart Disease

CBD is promisingly beneficial to many of the underlying causes of heart disease, including diabetes, anxiety, high stress, inflammation, atherosclerosis, and metabolic syndrome according to early research.

Heart disease often has no cure and often requires complicated specialist management— CBD is generally used purely to reduce the risk of developing the condition, manage comorbidities, and slow the progression of certain types of heart disease.

Whenever taking CBD for heart disease, it’s essential that you first consult with your doctor to make sure your prescription medications won’t interact negatively with the CBD or other cannabinoids. Negative drug interactions are more common with products containing THC as a primary cannabinoid. If you have active heart disease, avoid smoking tobacco or THC-containing cannabis, as that may also be a rare trigger for heart attacks and other negative cardiovascular outcomes like stroke due to its effect on raising heart rate and increasing demand on a pumping heart [7, 8].

In conclusion, we recommend having a look through our reviews before settling on a specific product to make sure it is contaminant-free and contains the cannabinoid profile as advertised on the packaging.

References Cited in This Article

1. Matias, I., & Di Marzo, V. (2007). Endocannabinoids and the control of energy balance. Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism, 18(1), 27-37.
2. Stanley, C. P., Hind, W. H., & O’sullivan, S. E. (2013). Is the cardiovascular system a therapeutic target for cannabidiol?. British journal of clinical pharmacology, 75(2), 313-322.
3. Klein, T. W., Newton, C., Larsen, K., Lu, L., Perkins, I., Nong, L., & Friedman, H. (2003). The cannabinoid system and immune modulation. Journal of leukocyte biology, 74(4), 486-496.
4. Booz, G. W. (2011). Cannabidiol as an emergent therapeutic strategy for lessening the impact of inflammation on oxidative stress. Free Radical Biology and Medicine, 51(5), 1054-1061.
5. McGill Jr, H. C., McMahan, C. A., & Gidding, S. S. (2008). Preventing heart disease in the 21st century: implications of the Pathobiological Determinants of Atherosclerosis in Youth (PDAY) study. Circulation, 117(9), 1216-1227.
6. Heart Health Information: About Heart Disease. (2019). Centers for Disease Control. Retrieved November 20, 2019, from https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/about.htm.
7. Mittleman, M. A., Lewis, R. A., Maclure, M., Sherwood, J. B., From, J. B. S., & Muller, J. E. (2001). Triggering Myocardial Infarction by Marijuana. Retrieved from https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/01.cir.103.23.2805?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub=pubmed.
8. Kalla, A., Krishnamoorthy, P., Gopalakrishnan, A., & Figueredo, V. (2018). Cannabis use predicts risks of heart failure and cerebrovascular accidents: results from the National Inpatient Sample. Retrieved from https://insights.ovid.com/pubmed?pmid=29879084.