The relaxation that you dribble under your tongue: That’s how those who celebrate CBD oil as a miracle cure classify it. Business with legal hemp preparation is booming. The health effects are now being studied more and more – a new study by Harvard Medical School, for example, shows an improvement in anxiety. How (un)smart is it to take cannabidiol on your own?

Copy Link

The effect allegedly sets in after half an hour. A wave of relaxation is then said to flow through the body. “Subtle, subliminal,” one user describes the feeling to FITBOOK. “Loose without being high.” For the mid-20-year-old, the golden drops are just the thing to start a stressful day at work. So does Tina, in her mid-30s, who compares the effect of CBD oil to that of valerian: “It relaxes me, I feel more balanced.”

Word-of-mouth like this has enabled CBD to spread like wildfire around the globe. In parallel, scientists are working on studies and publishing new findings surrounding the cannabidiol ingredient. FITBOOK provides you with an overview.

Why is CBD oil so popular?

Cannabidiol (this is what the abbreviation CBD stands for) is the non-high-making active ingredient of the hemp plant. Because of its low THC content, CBD products are theoretically legal – making them the darling of the food industry: In recent years, manufacturers have launched more than 100 food supplements containing CBD in Germany alone.

The idea of natural relaxation markets extremely well. Brownies and coffee are infused with CBD, as are creams, shampoos, and chewing gum. It is especially popular in the form of oil: CBD extracts mixed with hemp seed oil that you drizzle under your tongue.

The small vials are available with 2.5/5/10 or 15 percent active ingredients. Depending on the extraction process, CBD oil has a dark brown to golden color reminiscent of olive oil. Consumers describe the taste as “earthy, tart to mild.”

Where is CBD oil sold?

You can buy CBD oils in pharmacies, numerous online stores, and hemp stores. Already in 2019, the drugstore chains dm and Rossmann had also carried the hemp extracts, but then initially removed them from the range again due to legal concerns. Background: the EU is still unsure whether products containing CBD should continue to be considered food supplements or whether they should be approved for the pharmaceutical market. The Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) also does not want to go out on a limb with a final answer so far. At the moment, producers must first submit an application for review, as can be read on the website of the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL).1

Dm has meanwhile again oils with 5 and 10 percent active ingredients in the offer, also there are CBD oils for animals (no indication of the contained amount of active ingredient). In Rossmann’s online store, CBD extracts could not be found on December 7, 2022 – but a whole range of lifestyle products also contain cannabidiol. These include ointments, capsules, facial serums, or muscle gel. It is not clear from the descriptions in what quantities the active ingredient is contained – cannabidiol is only listed as an ingredient.

The effect of cannabinoids on the body

Our bodies produce substances that also dock onto binding sites for plant cannabinoids according to Seriable. These so-called endocannabinoids, i.e. cannabinoids produced in the body, are found in almost all tissues of the body and influence mental abilities (e.g. learning), emotional processing, perception, and pain sensation. If this substance is now replaced from the outside, the body begins to switch: The binding sites respond less well to cannabinoids.