Cannabidiol has been buzzing around the wellness blog due to its unique features and potential benefits for several health-related areas. One of the most common ones is aiding several dietary regimes, supporting nutrition, relaxation, and even weight loss.
Now, the keto (ketogenic) diet has also become fairly popular due to its incredible benefits but also how restricting it can be. Users have started looking at this compound and the diet together, but is CBD Keto friendly? Well, throughout this guide, we’ll explore if they can work in synergy and which kind of products you could use in this type of diet.
Key takeaways
- CBD oil, also known as tinctures, is a product that has a carrier oil and Cannabidiol-based extract.
- The ketogenic diet is a regime that limits carbohydrate intake and instead uses fat as an energy resource, keeping the body in a state called ketosis.
- Cannabidiol-based products can be keto-friendly in general as long as they do not contain sugar or other additives that might break the ketosis state.
- Ketosis and CBD can work together as this cannabinoid can help with sleep, managing pain, regulating mood, and even helping with weight loss.
What is CBD oil?
Before diving into CBD and keto, let’s take a look at CBD oil by breaking it down into two parts. First, let’s have a quick review of CBD. Cannabidiol, shortened simply as CBD, is a naturally occurring cannabinoid found in hemp, like THC. This compound is non-psychoactive, but it can still interact with our nervous system and potentially help with certain symptoms and aches.
Now, what is CBD oil? Brands extract Cannabidiol from hemp and add it to carrier oil. You’ll find most producers use vegetable or coconut oil to carry their extract. There are three types of formulas commonly used with CBD oil: broad and full spectrum, and isolate formulas.
Broad spectrum means that CBD oil contains other cannabinoids except for THC. While generally speaking, products under the federal ruling of the 2018 Farm Bill can only have less than 0.3% of THC per dry weight, some formulas have traces due to the extraction process or to help with cannabinoid synergy.
If the oil has traces of THC and other cannabinoids, this formula is called Full Spectrum. However, if there’s only CBD and no other terpenes, flavonoids, or cannabinoids, the formula is called an isolate. The latter might be a little pricier than other products, so make sure to take this into account when looking for the right CBD for keto.
Swiss Relief CBD Tincture Oil Oral Spray Keto Blast - Caramel Mint 120mg
What is the Keto diet?
Keto has been buzzing for a while due to its high popularity as a dietary regime. So first, let’s talk about this diet. The general grasp of this diet is having a low-carbohydrate, high-protein, and fat intake, which aims to put the body in a specific metabolic state.
Usually, keto diets are supervised by a healthcare expert or nutritionist, as the amount of protein and fat needed to regulate the ketosis state depends on each individual’s own metabolism.
This dietary regime, in general, can have serious potential benefits, like aiding weight loss and reducing inflammation, insulin, and even blood sugar levels. That said, this diet is very restricting, and it can have a few side things that can bother you in the process, like mood or losing sleep. We’ll talk more about this later in the article, as this is one of the ways that CBD could be keto-friendly.
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What is ketosis and how does it affect the body?
But what is ketosis? Well, without getting too medical, ketosis is a state in which your body will use fat instead of glucose to burn energy. By eating less than 50 grams of carbohydrates per day, the insulin levels will decrease as fatty acids are then processed in the liver and turned into ketones.
This elevates the level of ketones in the system, which eventually leads the body to a state where it will use all energy reserves from fat and not sugars. Since this usually shakes up your natural function, ketosis is generally used only for short-term nutrition goals and it should always be supervised by a nutritionist.
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Can you take CBD on keto?
Cannabidiol could be pretty helpful to people who start the ketogenic diet by supporting the general biological mechanisms of how this regime works. While we’ll discuss more the potential CBD oil benefits later on, Cannabidiol boasts a few perks, like aiding with appetite and mood regulation, which are all beneficial for all types of dietary regimes.
That said, you can take CBD products during keto as long as they don’t contain carbohydrates. Remember how we talked about the restriction of glucose will get you into Ketosis? Well, some products might have added sugar or carbohydrates, which will break you out of this state.
To prevent this, whenever you look at products, try to look for CBD keto gummies, which are usually sugar-free or have sweeteners that won’t elevate your blood sugar levels. You can also try CBD Oil, just make sure it does not have any extra sugar or sweetener that might tip you off balance.
Does CBD oil have carbs and sugars?
In general Cannabidiol-based oil is very low in carbohydrates and sugars. This means that, in theory, you could use this tincture in most diets, specifically in the keto diet, as it won’t raise your blood sugar level and also help by adding healthy fats to your daily intake.
However, you still need to ensure that the product is keto-friendly. This can be done by reading the ingredient list on the back and making sure the tincture does not include any additives or sweeteners that could affect the keto diet.
Another feature of CBD Oil is that it is naturally vegan due to its hemp origin. Just make sure to check with your healthcare professional or nutritionist if CBD oil is a good choice to add to your daily dietary regime, and you are good to go.
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Potential CBD oil benefits
Before we tackle the question “Is CBD Keto friendly?”, there are a few general potential benefits of using CBD oil. From aiding as pain relief to aiding with general homeostasis in our system, this cannabinoid has been widely investigated and boasts a few potential effects that could help your wellness goals. Let’s explore some of them shortly.
Neuroprotective properties
CBD can help protect the degeneration and inflammation affecting some parts of our neuronal network. This study found a correlation and benefit against neuroinflammatory responses and reduction of this thanks to orally-ingested Cannabidiol doses, which could be helpful for syndromes and diagnoses like Parkinson’s.
Relieves Pain
Cannabidiol has been used for pain management for a while as part of ancient cultures, and this study found that cannabinoids could relieve other types of central pain, aiding with general pain regulation in treatments for diagnoses such as spinal cord injury. This could prove helpful for pain management in general, but more clinical research is needed for a full treatment.
Affects Homeostasis In The Body
Cannabidiol can promote the body’s natural balance as it can help the natural production of endocannabinoids. These play a key role in hormonal and metabolic changes, which can help with general well-being, including energy spending and regulation.
Offsets Anxiety And Depression
This cannabinoid can be helpful to aid certain anxiety symptoms, like chronic stress and fatigue. However, a study has also shown that CBD could induce anti-depressant effects in animal testing and aid as a pharmacological treatment of major depression. While further clinical tests are needed, this shows CBD has the potential to treat this kind of diagnosis besides aiding with the symptoms.
Treat Select Epilepsy Syndromes
Without getting too sciency about it, CBD and other cannabinoids hold the potential as antiepileptic agents. This study found that thanks to the anticonvulsant nature of Cannabidiol, it could help with symptoms of three different select syndromes: grand mal, cortical focal, and complex partial seizures.
Inhibit Arthritis Symptoms
While Cannabidiol can help with the general quality of life aspects of Arthritis, like stress, pain, and inflammation, this specific study suggested that CBD could be helpful in treating chronic symptoms and generally aid as a therapeutic agent of a specific type of arthritis. While more research is still needed, it could prove to help certain diagnoses in the long run by aiding with sleep and other symptoms as well.
Reduce Ptsd Symptoms
We’ve talked about stress and depression, but CBD could hold the potential for helping complex diagnoses that might have a mix of several symptoms like PTSD. Researchers have concluded that in clinical research, 91% of the patients experienced a decrease in symptom severity, and it was generally well tolerated to help this neuropsychiatric condition.
Promotes Better Sleep
Getting a night of better sleep can be troubling in a keto diet due to energy spending during the day. According to this scientific review, CBD holds several potential benefits for sleep, from aiding with stress and relaxation to its actual sedative properties that can aid with some insomnia symptoms.
How to use CBD Oil On A Keto Diet
Now that we’ve tackled if CBD is keto-friendly, you’ll probably want to use this tincture as part of your daily routine. This is generally easy, as it takes some steps that you might already do for your current Keto Diet habits: triple-checking the ingredient list for additives and sugar.
It is also important to ensure the CBD products you take have third-party lab testing to ensure the CBD quality. There are two other factors to consider when taking Cannabidiol with keto diets, firstly that MCT oil-based products could be proven helpful with ketogenic dietary regimes, and to avoid CBD edibles with sugar. Let’s explore these a little further.
MCT oil based CBD works in synergy with the keto diet
MCT oil is a pretty common ingredient in several CBD-based tinctures, which makes it great if you are starting a ketogenic dietary regime. An older study showed that MCT oil could be helpful in general to reduce body weight and general circumference, but the potential benefit is the way how our system can convert MCT into ketones.
Basically, this study found that MCT could be turned into this source of energy that is needed for the keto diet to help you stay in this gat-burning stage. This makes products like tincture very helpful as they can potentially boost your metabolism and create synergy with keto diets.
Avoid CBD gummies with sugar
While CBD tinctures are generally sugar-free, some edibles can have added sugar to provide flavor. Because of this, to make sure that your keto CBD gummies do not have extra additives, try sticking with sugar-free products or options with low-sugar sweeteners like Monk Fruit or Stevia.
You can also change edibles for gel caps too, which usually just have a carrier oil and the CBD extract. These are also specially useful for people who prefer discretion or want to take Cannabidiol-based products before bed.
CBD Oil & Keto For Weight Loss
Generally speaking, CBD could work in synergy in keto diets to help with “fat browning”. This process is associated with how fat is stored and processed in our bodies and basically turns white fat in our body storage into “brown” fat.
This 2016 study explained how CBD could actually partake in this process and accelerate the browning process of regular white fat cells. Researchers also noted how CBD could be helpful in regulating lipid metabolism and as a potentially promising therapeutic agent to prevent obesity.
That is further supported by another study, which said that it could help with appetite suppression. This could further improve certain diagnoses related to metabolic and eating disorders associated with obesity, but clinical research is still needed as this way, a massive scientific review of the literature of 11 trials.
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CBD & Keto For Inflammation
Generally speaking, Cannabidiol has been used by users to treat local inflammation through creams and balms due to the interaction of CBD with our endocannabinoid system. That said, there’s evidence that this compound can help with actual inflammation by helping to reduce the cytokines.
These protein cells are the responsible ones for inflammatory responses in our body, and both CBD and keto have been helpful in reducing this by regulating food intake and aiding with chronic inflammation.
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Best sugar free CBD products for keto
We have tackled in which ways is CBD Keto friendly, but now it’s time to take a look at some of our favorite products that are either low sugar or are naturally sugar-free. Most of these tinctures also use MCT oil, which can be helpful and work in synergy, as we explored before in this article. For now, let’s take a quick look at some of the best sugar-free CBD products for keto.
Fab CBD – CBD Oil
Let’s start with a tincture that has high-quality ingredients and is highly customizable. Fab CBD CBD Oil’s formula is all organically sourced and can be bought in a 30ml dropper bottle presentation. What we love from this full-spectrum tincture are its 5 different flavors with natural, berry, mint, vanilla, and citrus.
You can also adjust the strength depending on your needs, starting at 300, 600, 1200, and 2400mg of CBD per bottle. This formula has no added sugar no additives, and all the flavors come from Fab CBD’s proprietary terpene blend.
Dragon Hemp – Relief Tincture
If you are into wellness and herbology, you’ll love the next product. Dragon Hemp mixes ancient knowledge from Chinese apothecaries with current studies to create the Relief Tincture. This proprietary blend of herbs and CBD can potentially aid with pain management and blood reduction.
The Relief Tincture comes with 1,200mg of cold-extracted CBD with a really high-quality extraction process. This formula, besides being a full spectrum, also comes with herbs and other ancient herbs like myrrh, turmeric, and corydalis.
EVN CBD – CBD Oil
EVN consistently creates high-quality, straightforward products, and its CBD oil collection shows that as well. Their CBD oil comes in two different strengths at 500mg and 1000mg per 30ml dropper bottle and two delicious terpene-based flavors with natural and mint.
This tincture is fairly simple but effective, it’s vegan, broad-spectrum (no THC), and made from organically sourced hemp. We also love EVN’s lab certification, which ensures no added sugars that might break your ketosis cycle.
Joy Organics – Organic CBD Gummies
If you want an organic, gummy alternative to tinctures, you’ll love the Organic CBD Gummies by the folks at Joy Organics. The brand focuses on straightforward-yet-accessible hemp products that you can take in your daily life with clean ingredients.
The dummies can be taken in three different varieties in 30-piece packs each. You can try the Strawberry Lemonade flavor and choose between two strengths: 10mg or 25mg of broad-spectrum CBD. There’s also the delicious Green Apple flavor in 10mg doses too.
Green Roads – CBD Oil
Lastly, meet Green Roads, a brand that’s focused on simple and customizable hemp products and experiences. This CBD oil has different formulas and strengths to choose from, all vegan and gluten-free, with no artificial flavors or colors.
You can try it in both broad or full spectrum and choose between 750mg, 1500mg, and up to 3000mg of CBD in each 20ml dropper bottle. This formula has a 6-ingredient-only, pharmacist-formulated blend that’s independently tested for quality, so you won’t have to worry a thing about breaking your keto diet.
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Conclusion
CBD has proved its way to the wellness side of products for many, and in this article, we tackled the question “is CBD Keto friendly” and how compatible this cannabinoid is with the ketogenic diet. We reviewed what the diet is and how it avoids carbohydrates, and in general, how CBD products can be helpful with this regime.
We showed you some potential benefits of CBD oil alone, like aiding with sleep, neuroprotective properties, aiding with inflammation, to actually supporting weight loss through appetite suppression and fat browning.
Remember to always check with your healthcare provider or nutritionist about specific products and triple-checking their ingredient list. Low-sugar and sugar-free options are preferred, and try to stick with naturally-flavored products like CBD oils that use terpenes for flavor instead of additives.
Looking for more CBD content like this? Check out Does CBD Make You Hungry, and our comparison of CBD Tincture vs. Capsules.
[…] Now that we’ve been through CBD and keto and answering if CBD is keto-friendly, you might want to try a few products. The following products are all good to use while on this diet, with no added sugar or ingredients that might affect your current diet and help you try CBD and keto. […]
[…] Related Article: Is CBD Keto Friendly? […]