Should your marketing include CBD water soluble products with immediate bioavailability in addition to oil-based?
THERE ARE CURRENTLY MORE THAN 600 CBD OILS available for purchase, and consumers are in need of education. The range in efficacy is startling, as evidenced by a recent report that showed test results of 100 CBD oils.
Twenty-three (23%) of those oils tested had zero CBD. That’s right, zero. While most supporters of CBD are happy it can be sold legally across the country, the downside of having CBD oils sold as a dietary supplement is that many companies do not accurately describe what is in their bottle.
Water vs. oil
What we know for certain is that almost all CBD oil products available have one thing in common: They all use a carrier oil that is mixed with the unlimited variety of cannabidiol products. This creates tremendous confusion for the consumer because many companies do not even identify what kind of carrier oil is being used.
While consumers may be perfectly comfortable consuming an oil that is not identified, we have found that health care professionals are looking for three things: efficacy, easy method of dosing, and good taste. Those criteria can be met with a new type of delivery system that comes with proof of bioavailability.
Bioavailability
It’s critical to understand what bioavailability is and what it means to you if you use CBD.
Bioavailability is the proportion of a drug or other substance which enters the circulation when introduced into the body, and so is able to have an active effect. It is a critical element in supporting both efficacy and cost to the user.
There are a number of really good CBD oils available and information is out there to help people make the right decision. But things get very confusing, very fast. Some companies label their product with what the total liquid volume is. For example, they might offer you 2 oz. of CBD oil without telling you how much CBD is in that 2 oz. If they don’t tell you right away how much actual CBD they are selling in the product, stop and find another product right away. The explosive CBD market is loaded with bad products. It will take a few years to clean these bad companies out, but it will happen. In the meantime, responsible companies will continue to help educate and inform consumers.
On the other hand, when a new delivery system enters the marketplace and they are offering published proof of superior bioavailability, the industry will ultimately gravitate to the superior delivery system. That seems to be the case with the introduction of CBD water soluble products that use purified water instead of a carrier oil.
This is where things start to get very interesting. Any product that uses a carrier oil will need to be processed through the digestive tract when it is swallowed. Any products that use purified water will not be processed through the digestive tract, but rather, when sprayed directly into the mouth, will enter the bloodstream very quickly through the soft tissues in the cheeks called buccal mucosa.
Cost and efficacy
Cost is always an important consideration. When comparing an oil-based product to a product that uses purified water as a delivery system, when both products are of the same efficacy, the results are astounding. The Physician’s Desk Reference shows that a CBD user would need to buy two bottles of oil that contained 200 mg. of CBD to get the same benefit of one 200-mg. tube of CBD that uses purified water to deliver the CBD.
This important development in the CBD marketplace will be gaining a lot of attention as awareness of CBD water soluble products gain traction.
John Thompson is the CEO of myonatural.com, a company dedicated to serving chiropractors and the first company to introduce a CBD spray that uses purified water and zero carrier oils.
