Currently, there are no approved treatments for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus gripping the globe.
That leaves a wide open market for firms and research groups to delve into the attributes of the virus and how it impacts the human body in an effort to be the first to find a vaccine or other treatment possibilities. Now, an Israeli firm has launched an investigation into CBD’s effectiveness in treating COVID-19.
Stero Biotechs announced the new small-scale study on April 20. The CBD company is collaborating with the Rabin Medical Center Golda HaSharon Campus to conduct the research.
According to High Times, Stero Biotechs has spent the last three years since its founding researching CBD in clinical settings to better understand its medical and wellness benefits.
In the context of COVID-19, speed and agility are of the essence for researchers, and this new clinical trial starts immediately on 10 patients at the Tel Aviv campus.
“Hospitalized COVID-19 patients are mostly being treated with steroids and our study is planned to demonstrate the benefit of a combined solution with Steroid treatments,” Stero CEO David Bassa told High Times. “We are hopeful that this study will lead to faster benefit for the growing number of COVID-19 patients in Israel and around the world.” [1]
Despite being conducted overseas, the research on the COVID-19 patients will follow U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines for lab safety standards. Stero hopes to increase the population of patients studied from 10 to 40.
That expansion will happen over the course of research cycles, each of which will last a few weeks, the company said in a press release.
It’s important to note that while we should all be excited to see positive results from this study and others like it, this new research is only to find out whether CBD has promise as a treatment supplement.
Currently, no studies are being done to find whether CBD alone can treat, cure or prevent COVID-19.
A second Israeli study is being pursued by InnoCan Pharma and Tel Aviv University, according to Benzinga. [2]
That study is emphasizing CBD and exosomes, “small cell structures created when cells multiply,” to target damaged cells in the lungs or elsewhere as a result of COVID-19. One of the main problems for those recovering from the illness is that even when they survive, their lungs can be scarred and damaged.
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