What is the Difference Between CBG Oil & CBD Oil from the Cannabis Plant?
It’s only been a few years since the famous CBD market started up and took off almost immediately. That being said, there are many reasons why it did, as the health benefits of using CBD oil without all of the THC that “gets you high” and can cause you to fail drug tests, have far outweighed the very minimal side effects that you have when using it. Not only that, it isn’t addictive (some users of marijuana believe that THC is not addictive, but it’s been proven otherwise, as anything in excess can have addictive qualities and side effects).
Now after a few years, one of the newest types of products have hit the market, and it’s another cannabinoid that they’ve found to be beneficial aside from just cannabidiol, and that is cannabigerol, or CBG for short. In this post though, we’re going to see how the two can pit against each other and maybe we can figure out which is better.
The Truth About Cannabinoids
There’s no wonder why such a remarkable product would have too much success. For something that can cause almost no bodily harm, but react to the already existing cannabinoid receptors in our body, CBD and cannabinoids as a whole have been proven to alleviate some very serious health problems, from treating pain, to getting rid of seizures (or minimizing them), as well as even helping to reduce things like tremors in Parkinson’s disease. How they work is that they utilize our endocannabinoid system in our bodies (which have the receptors), and therefore affect many of the physiological aspects that we deal with, like pain management, mood enhancement, sleeping, and even digestion.
When CBD binds to these receptors, they interact with your body to give you numerous benefits. CBD is often taken for pain, and CBG also binds itself to these receptors. Most hemp plants that contain full-spectrum oil also has CBG in it, but they’ve discovered a way to extract just the CBG alone in higher amounts when they use various different hemp strains. They normally get the cannabinoids from younger hemp plants, since they start to break down as the plant gets more mature past a certain stage.
Is CBD Better than CBG?
While there are positive benefits to CBD, it often can come with possible side effects. Used in conjunction with CBG however, it can help to better produce that “entourage effect” as mentioned before but without all of the other cannabinoids and THC to drive it. However, from what science is proving, there may be applications where CBG will be beneficial over CBD, and there will be certain ailments that are easier to treat with CBD. Not only that, but CBG isn’t as highly researched or documented, so other than being in animal trials, there isn’t any actual evidence like there was when the CBD industry boomed. Therefore, people may steer more towards CBD instead.
In the biological sense though, there have been significant things defined between the two, with the above paragraph being in mind. For example, in cases where lab mouse studies had colon cancer (stage 3 is what was rumored for them to have), using CBD relieved pressure and swelling, but CBG actually helped to remove the tumors that the mice had. They also concluded that from the evidence that was shown, it also helped to prevent the tumors from coming back.
Therefore, this could mean it would have serious advancements in medicine and prove to be a healthy way to cure cancer other than the harsh methods we use today (chemotherapy, radiation, etc.). At the same time, research has also shown that doing so was possible without the use of THC, and that the receptors reacted much like CBD does to help regulate pain and minimize it, plus it has more anti-inflammatory features that CBD alone doesn’t have.
What Benefits do CBG and CBD Offer?
When it comes to both being cannabinoids, they are completely non-psychoactive like THC so you won’t get high. At the same time, they offer great benefits together or apart from one another. CBG reacts to our cannabinoid receptors and can actually have some more benefits than CBD, like relieving pressure associated with glaucoma, protecting your body against colon cancer (as mentioned above), and can even be used to treat IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). Not only that, but it also like THC helps to increase appetite as well as have high anti-inflammatory and antibacterial qualities.
While some of these are very similar to CBD, but there are some things that it doesn’t do. For example, they go hand in hand when it comes to things like “full-spectrum CBD” products and have been known to simply because what scientists call the “entourage effect” when just these two are mixed together since they’re extremely similar. There haven’t been actual studies done on combining the two of these yet, however.
Antibacterial Cannabinoid?
While the studies are still being researched, there have been many benefits that research has shown with CBG as being an antibacterial ingredient as well. As a matter of fact, it’s one of the only antibacterial agents that can successfully cure and contain (at 100 percent) MRSA, which is a very serious form of staph infection that many antibacterial products (both home and industrial strength) can often not eliminate. MRSA itself is a staph infection that is highly contagious and causes severe rashes, bumps, lumps, and sores on the infected person’s body. Once a person has it, there is no way to get rid of it, that was… until now.
The Possibilities Are Endless
CBG has been studied for numerous pharmacological properties, and there have been some studies in labs which have been proven to show that the effects of CBG are almost completely similar to CBD. They’re still assessing which is actually better, but they’re finding out that this specific cannabinoid has the same properties (and may have more as studies progress) than CBD itself. Not only that, but aside from the entourage effect, they’re working on doing studies to see how the two are different and how they are combined, and see if that there are other things they can treat when it comes to using it with CBD products.
Not only that, but unlike CBD which can sometimes cause nausea in some people sensitive to it or in high doses, CBG actually doesn’t inhibit appetite, but can increase it. This means there may be a viable use for the treatment of other ailments out there that inhibit a person’s appetite, as well as have all of the benefits of CBD that go hand in hand with it.
Users who have tried CBG actually often like the effects of it more than just using (or not using) CBD and have switched to it, but because of the skepticism involved, it’s unsure of as to what all of the benefits of CBG are compared to CBD. Not only that, but CBG is a little more expensive, and this can greatly benefit the economy, but also hurt the market when it comes to getting the right treatment for your pain.
At the same time, many people are worried that the FDA is doing research, and will be able to find out and classify CBG as a drug, which could then end up being marketed by pharmaceutical companies everywhere. Right now, the CBD industry (other than full-spectrum CBD because it has THC) is so high because of the extensive research done, and that the drug CBD itself isn’t regulated to this extreme.
Conclusion – CBG vs CBD Oil
We’ve made our decision, and now it’s time to make yours. By proving that CBG and CBD are practically two different cannabinoids that are almost identical when it comes to the things they can alleviate, we’ve deducted it’s just another strain of cannabinoid that may end up being on the market soon. It’s unsure as to whether it’s going to be more cost-effective or less, but nevertheless, it’s out there. There is CBG in many products that contain “full-spectrum” CBD oils because they’re made with the whole plant, but because these often have some small amounts of THC, this can cause a lot of concern (especially when it comes to things like random drug screening at workplaces, etc.). Therefore, by getting more research, we may find a way to use everything except THC by mixing more than one type of cannabinoid together to produce the same entourage-like effect.
If you’re wanting some of the same great benefits from CBD, but from a different source that has been showing some amazing signs of even less side effects, you may want to go ahead and wait it out until they finally release CBG on the market in its standalone form. Otherwise, you can just get full-spectrum CBD if your state allows it, or continue to use straight CBD in the meantime no matter what your reasons, whether it be for pain relief, sleep problems like insomnia, or more importantly serious ailments like epilepsy, and so much more.
