Recommended ‘CBD’ dose slashed over long term health risks

The booming Cannabidiol, or “CBD”, market was yesterday brought down to earth when Britain’s food safety watchdog slashed the recommended safety limits for the cannabis-derived food additive.

CBD has been classed as a “novel food” additive since January 2019 and is now used in a vast array of products ranging from infused gummy bears and flavoured oils, to face creams and sparkling soft drinks.

Originally the Food Safety Agency (FSA) suggested a limit of 70mg as maximum daily dose but now – on the advice of its expert panel on toxicology – it has reduced that to just 10mg a day for a 70kg adult over worries it could cause long term liver damage among other harms.

The change means that instead of a safe limit of 28 drops of concentrated 5% CBD oil per day, consumers should use no more than 4-5 drops per day – a more than five fold decrease.

“The more CBD you consume over your lifetime, the more likely you are to develop long-term adverse effects, like liver damage or thyroid issues,” said professor Robin May, the FSA’s chief scientific advisor.

May advised consumers to check the labels of the products they use and then make an informed decision on their overall daily intake. “The level of risk is related to how much you take, in the same way it is with some other potentially harmful products such as alcoholic drinks.”

The move could have a major impact on the CBD industry as there are existing products currently for sale that contain more than the advisory 10mg of CBD per serving. However, the regulators have not requested that any products are taken off shelves.

Marika Graham-Woods, executive director of the Cannabis Trades Association, which has 200 members, has criticised the decision and said that it will have a damaging effect on the industry.

“All this does is frighten consumers and retailers and it stops the industry going forward again. I don’t see any benefit in what they have done.”

The expert committee said vulnerable groups, including pregnant women and those with poor immunity, should avoid CBD products altogether until further data was gathered.

“Chronic daily lifetime use of Pure Form CBD in foods has yet to be fully assessed in a rigorous and scientific way”, said a joint report by the government’s Committee on Toxicity (COT) and the Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes (ACNFP). 

The experts looked at three studies to try and understand the risks CBD foods might pose to long term health.

Applying the “precautionary principle”, they added a 100 fold safety margin and then calculated an Advised Daily Intake (ADI) for each study – the suggested ADIs came in at 17 mg, 12 mg and 5.6 mg per person, respectively.

The experts settled on 10 mg limit per day for a 70kg adult as a “provisional” average, calculated from the available data.

However, it warned there was not yet enough evidence to set a safe limit for pregnant and breastfeeding women and the immuno-suppressed, advising them to avoid use of CBD food products altogether.

“There are significant data gaps surrounding immunosuppression in children, where potential subtle changes in vaccination responses would be a cause for concern”, the report warns.

As novel foods, edible CBD products need to be authorised  by the FSA before they can be legally sold.

The industry claims – albeit with a distinct lack of high quality scientific evidence – that the cannabis extract can help relieve a wide array of common ailments including chronic pain, anxiety and depression, even alleviating the symptoms of some cancers.

However, the new report suggests that those suffering with these symptoms could be most at risk.

The FSA’s chief executive, Emily Miles,said it had always told the public to “think carefully” about taking edible CBD products and said it would continue to review its advice based on the evidence gathered from the industry.

“We understand that this change to our advice will have implications for products

currently on the market that contain more than 10mg of CBD per serving,” she said.

“We will be working closely with industry to minimise the risk that consumers are not exposed to potentially harmful levels of CBD.”

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