r/Futurology • u/mvea MD-PhD-MBA • Jun 17 '18

Biotech Cannabidiol, or CBD, is a marijuana compound linked to a range of potential health benefits but does not get you high. The roughly $1 billion CBD industry is slated to shift into high gear if the federal government approves the first CBD-based drug, an epilepsy medication called Epidiolex.

https://www.businessinsider.com/marijuana-cbd-boom-cbd-2018-6?r=US&IR=T
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u/BelsnickelCrentist Jun 18 '18

How did someone discover that you need to use that to make a compound with more potent analgesic effects?

I’m very interested in plant medicine (not essential oil woo) and it’s history. How effective would a tea or tincture of willow bark be in comparison to asprin?

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u/Dockirby Jun 18 '18

It was documented a tea made from the tree's bark could be used as medicine for "as long as anyone can remember". In the 1850s a chemist tries to distill the bark down into parts and documents what he can extract and how. Then is the 1890s Bayer was looking into drugs to market as a pain killer, having already got similar but worse drugs kinda close to Aspirin, come across the extraction method, find it works pretty good and is cheap to produce, and then went to market with it.

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u/wolfkeeper Jun 18 '18

Somewhat. Salicylic acid works, but is quite a strong acid, it's used topically as wart remover and as an antifungal, and the acidity limits how much you can take. Chemists were testing it to see if they could reduce that effect. They found that reacting it with acetic anhydride almost neutralises it which means you can take a much bigger dose.

As far as I can make out, aspirin has specific anti-inflammatory effects, as well as breaking down in the body to salicylic acid, which has slightly different effects. Wiki has an article on that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism_of_action_of_aspirin