CBGa Ingested is Trending, But How Does it Help our Gut?

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There’s a new kid on the block when it comes to major cannabinoids, many are finding out there’s more to the plant than THC and CBD. Without cannabigerolic acid (CBGa), these star cannabinoids would not exist because the cannabis plant uses CBGa as a precursor to create them. Due to this, CBGa has earned the title ‘the major mother’ in my own research and is called the ‘mother of all cannabinoids’ by many others. While it does get referred to as a stem cell quite often, truly CBGa is a precursor molecule which is a tad different.

It’s always interesting to talk to patients who have just started ingesting CBGa – almost always they’re excited and are chatting away about how they’re doing things they had lost interest in. My own experiences with this cannabinoid are very alike as I found myself living a life I never thought I could again after I started taking it in the morning with coffee instead of dabbing or smoking it. But, it all started in a withdrawal from opioids when THC became overwhelming to my system and no matter what I did I couldn’t get my stomach to settle down.

Jay from Maine, who has been ingesting this cannabinoid over the past two months, reached out to tell me how his severe issues with irritable bowel syndrome had ceased along with other stomach issues, and he quit taking the pharmaceuticals for both problems. CBGa and CBG have been the target of multiple studies and even a clinical trial regarding GI issues and even cancers. The fact this patient had severe gains in his recovery journey was significant to hear as that’s why he started with this cannabinoid – he’s quitting a 7-year opioid and benzodiazepine addiction that’s made his life out of control. Before I started working with him both he and his wife had overdosed on Oxycodone, she’s currently in a treatment facility.

“This whole time I’ve been looking for something to make me feel better, you know, I’ve tried so many different drugs and even got hooked on Heroin trying to stop the pain” he shared with me. “I’m not proud of the things I’ve done but will do just about anything necessary now to change things if I can, watching my wife being brought back to life made me come to a decision I must change the way I live and think. I gotta be there for my kids and quitting these drugs has given me that chance to be the Dad I need to be. It could be a year before my wife is out and in society again because of the courts.” Jay and his wife both almost lost their lives, and for the last 2 months, his parents have had their kids due to a court order.

“My mother never believed it was my stomach aches that caused me to steal, I had bad habits before my kids were born and took a lot of things to pay for them. The whole time I fought addictions I also had these problems with indigestion, it’s like a fire with cramping that would go down my intestines and make me sweat from the pain. No doctor could treat it and even the drugs I used just numbed me until that vision of her laying there, it’s been over 2 decades of drugs, and nothing has scared me like seeing the mother of my kids white in the face like that.”

“Often I look back on the last dozen years and I can’t believe I’m alive or that a stomach ache is what started this all. The drugs made it all worse, I thought I had pain relief but in the end, I felt like listening to Kurt Cobain all the time because at least he knew my pain before he died” Jay explained. “I took it the first few days because you told me to but then I felt the difference, I started getting happy again and joy came back to life, you know. I had a burrito and on accident put hot sauce on it, I hadn’t done that since I was a little kid. I keep eating different things hoping I’ll be okay and I am, I don’t know how but the stuff is changing my life.”

Jay has reported such a drastic change in his condition, but why? In an often-cited 2013 study, researchers induced colitis in mice and then examined the effect of CBG on extracted intestinal cells from the affected mice.

The results showed that CBG had beneficial effects on colitis in that it reduced nitric oxide production, mitigated the severity of colitis, and also reduced the ongoing creation of oxidizing agents in the small intestines which led researchers to recommend CBG for clinical experimentation in human IBD patients.

One of the most pervasive forms of cancer is colorectal cancer. In 2018 research published in Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research suggests that CBGa may have a therapeutic role in targeting colon cancer cells. The researchers discovered that CBGa-rich cannabis extracts were involved in the cytotoxic activity on colon cancer cells by inducing apoptosis (programmed cell death) of colon cancer cells.

These extracts were seen to be active on these adenomatous polyps which if untreated can progress into carcinomas. Research is revealing that cannabis extracts including CBGa are potential candidates as chemopreventive agents to either prevent or suppress the progression of neoplastic polyps.

CBGA is exciting due to its status as a natural inhibitor and its potential to expedite early cell death. The promising research concludes CBG’s heavy impact on colon cancer cells and prevention in the lab of further cancer cell growth. CBGA also has many antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and analgesic properties. This major precursor cannabinoid also works with the endocannabinoid system to positively impact mood and appetite by causing a balance that allows for endocannabinoids to exert at higher levels than our bodies are used to.

There are multiple reasons that Jay is feeling better, including the cessation of both pharmaceutical and street-derived opioids, but without a doubt, his overall better quality of life has much to do with his choice to use nature as medicine.

There’s have been many reports outside of research studies about how CBGa has the ability to do many things other cannabinoids can’t – we do know that THC calms the stomach and helps cancer patients but reports like Jay’s are increasing quickly. Acectodal accounts of individuals gaining a high level of relief from stomach and other GI issues from ingesting the raw acidic cannabinoid are part of my everyday life in the world of cannabis consulting.

To answer the question the article headline asks, CBGa exerts abilities that many of us are studying in preparation to develop some type of new medicine for the masses. As a researcher I find it to be one of the most interesting constituents of the Cannabis plant alongside its other precursor molecule CBGVa.

As a patient, I’ve found CBGa to be a life jacket I’m unwilling to take off in a world that’s so easy to drown in.

-Mike Robinson, Cannabis Patient and Founder, Global Cannabinoid Research Center. But, most of all, Genevieve’s Daddy