People Use Cannabidiol for a Variety of Medical Conditions

Use of cannabidiol (CBD) in the U.S. has exploded in the last few years, even though it is FDA-approved only for two rare forms of childhood epilepsy. To better understand the reasons for CBD use, investigators examined 376 testimonials posted to the social media site, Reddit, from 2014 to 2019. (Testimonials were identified from more than 100,000 posts about CBD, of which 3000 were selected randomly for analysis.)

Conditions most often mentioned were psychiatric (64%; e.g., attention deficit disorder, mood disorders, symptoms of psychosis), musculoskeletal (26%; e.g., arthritis, herniated disc, sciatica), sleep-related (15%; e.g., insomnia, nightmares), and neurological (7%; e.g., dizziness, headaches, Ménière disease). About 30% of posts d…