Medically Reviewed by Dr. Saira Zulfiqar, PharmD
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Recent years have seen a surge in CBD’s popularity, largely due to the promising scientific evidence and the growing movement towards cannabis legalization. As a result, more and more people are exploring the beneficial potential of this cannabinoid in managing a range of health conditions such as poor sleep and chronic pain etc. However, they are clueless about the accurate dosage.
Are you wondering about the appropriate CBD gummy dosage to meet your specific requirements?
Let us help you.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- CBD Potency Matters: CBD gummies come in different potencies, directly affecting their impact. Some contain as low as 5mg of CBD per gummy while others may contain upto 25mg of CBD per gummy. Depending on the CBD concentration in the gummy, you might need to eat multiple low-potency ones or just half of a high-potency gummy to achieve your desired effects.
- Find the Best CBD Gummies Dosage: CBD dosing isn’t one-size-fits-all. Factors like your prior experience with CBD, body weight, and the specific type of CBD in the gummy play a role. For newcomers to taking CBD gummies, it’s advised to start with a smaller dose, say 20-40 mg, and gradually increase until you find the right balance.
- Eat CBD Gummies Judiciously: Not all CBD gummies have the same composition. Some might be sweeter, while others might pack a more potent CBD punch. If you are health-conscious, consider gummies with a higher CBD dosage and adjust your intake to manage sugar content.
- Understanding CBD Types for Effective Dosing: The type of CBD in your gummies can affect how you dose. Whether it’s CBD isolate, broad-spectrum, or full spectrum CBD, each has unique characteristics. For instance, full-spectrum CBD might offer more potent effects due to its comprehensive cannabinoid profile, but it also contains trace amounts of THC.
If you want CBD edibles for recreation or health benefits, you need to know the correct CBD dosage. This guide will cover everything from dosing basics to the different types of CBD.
Factors Determining the Right CBD Gummies Dosage
As discussed earlier, CBD gummies come in different dosages. Finding the correct dose can be tricky, but there are some best practices for dosing CBD. Here’s a general guideline for finding the correct dose.
- Your history and experience with CBD, THC, and other cannabinoids
- Your overall size and body weight
- Type of effect you want to achieve
- Metabolism and bioavailability
- Type of CBD, including CBD isolate, broad-spectrum CBD, or full-spectrum CBD
- Aversion to side effects
Keep reading to learn just about everything there is to know about dosing CBD.
Tips for Correctly Dosing Your CBD Gummies
CBD is not currently regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which means there are no official recommendations on a single universal dosage. Measuring the accurate dose can therefore be confusing.
This makes people turn to the internet which, luckily, is full of advice for CBD gummy dose. These four tips cut right to the core of the matter and can help you get the right dose today.
CBD Gummy Dosage by Body Weight
Your body weight will also have a substantial impact on how you dose CBD. Even though the effects couldn’t be further apart, you can think about this like you think about dosing alcohol.
A typically large and bulky person consume and tolerate more alcohol than a person with a small stature.. The same is true for CBD. You can consider scaling up or down your dose accordingly to match your height and overall size.
CBD Dosage for Treatment
The proper CBD dosage will also depend on the condition you’re using it for. Formal research into the correct CBD dosage for treating certain conditions is still ongoing. Still, there are informal guidelines that emerge from the community of people who use CBD to manageeverything from anxiety to sleeplessness.
Here are a few standard breakpoints for using CBD dosages for certain common conditions.
- CBD dosage for anxiety — People reported benefits from doses as small as 15 mg and as high as 300 mg in one controlled trial.
- CBD for sleep — Sleeplessness is a common condition that CBD can effectively manage. The dose depends on the individual, but higher doses, ranging between 25mg – 50mg, help people fall asleep.
- CBD for Physical Pain — A dose as low as 5 mg might be enough to control minor physical pain, while one study reports patients undergoing cancer treatment benefitting from doses ranging between50 mg to 600 mg of THC.
- General use — You don’t need a specific condition to benefit from CBD. General doses tend to be much smaller and range between 5 mg and 20 mg per day.
Unique Body Chemistry and CBD
Your body chemistry, i.e., all processes occuring in your body that keep you alive, also determines how much CBD you need or can take. Two important factors, called bioavailability and metabolism, determine how your body will handle the CBD dose.
Bioavailability refers to the proportion of food or medicine entering the blood circulation after ingestion or intake. Food or medicine becomes active or begins to produce an affect only after entering the circulation.
In this context, CBD has a good bioavailability profile. It’s more bioavailable when you inhale it through a vaporize than when you eat it in the form of a gummy or chocolate. Compared to other forms of CBD, edibles have the lowest bioavailability.
However,this doesn’t mean that edibles are ineffective.wrong. This simply means that you’ll absorb CBD slower and in smaller quantities from edibles than when vaping or using a tincture. This could even be beneficial for individuals looking for lower doses and lighter effects.
Your metabolism also shapes the correct CBD dose. Metabolism is the process by which your body converts food into energy. Individuals with a strong metabolism will metabolize CBD more quickly than those with a slower metabolism. Here are two things you can do to harness CBD effect:
- If your metabolism is fast, lower the dose.
- If your metabolism is slow, increase the dose.
Journal Your CBD Use
This is a useful, albeit the most overlooked, tip when it comes to finding the correct CBD dose. People casually increase and lower their dose until they get close to something that feels right for them, but this can leave out a lot of important information that can help you reach the ideal CBD dose much quicker.
Journaling your CBD usage can help find the correct dose faster, and it can help you avoid CBD side effects. Here’s how journaling works.
- Each time you take CBD, journal the time of day and the dosage of CBD. You should also quickly write down some other important factors like whether you’re on a full stomach or an empty stomach, your general physical condition, and make sure to jot down the dose’s effects on your physical and mental condition.
Over time, you can use this journal to understand how CBD affects your system.
How Many CBD Gummies Should You Eat?
We finally come down to the original question of how many CBD gummies you should eat.
Your CBD gummy dosage will determine how many CBD gummies you eat and how often you eat them. Knowing how many to eat in one day is an essential part of figuring out the proper CBD dosage for your needs. It all comes down to what you’re looking for and the type of gummies you have.
People tend to take somewhere between ½ and 5 CBD edibles per day. It’s essential to remember that this depends on your edibles’ strength. A CBD edible with 40 mg of CBD might need to be cut in half, while you would need to take four 5 mg gummies to get the same effect.
This means a dose of 20 mg is a good start. If you need a bit higher effect, stay between 20 mg – 40 mg per day.
Figuring out how many CBD edibles to take also helps you understand some cool hacks you can do with gummies of different dosages.
CBD Gummies Can Have Different Potencies
Not all CBD gummies are made equal, and this is important when you’re trying to calculate the correct dose. There are some exciting hacks you can do because CBD gummies come in different doses.
CBD gummies contain sugar, artificial dyes, and flavorings that most health-conscious people tend to and should avoid. Most. To stay healthy and enjoy CBD at the same time, you can purchase CBD gummies with a higher dose and cut them into fourths.
Quartering your CBD gummies allows you to cut the dose back while limiting your sugar intake. Remember, most CBD gummies are a type of candy, that needs to be considered when balancing your overall health.
You can also use different doses of CBD gummies to dial in the proper dosage. We always recommend starting with a minimal dose, i.e., 20-40 mg and working your way up until you find a dosage that gives you the effects you’re looking for. You can purchase CBD gummies that come in different dosages and slowly increase your dose as you find the amount of CBD that helps you.
The Different Types of CBD
The type of CBD can also determine the right CBD dosage in the edibles that you’re using. This can surprise people who are new to CBD, but there are three different types of CBDs that you can keep an eye out for.
Each of these different CBD types will affect your body differently. They contain different compounds, and this can affect the proper dosing for you. We will break down these different types of CBD so you know what to expect when shopping for CBD edibles.
One thing to keep in mind before we start is that a reputable brand of CBD products will always list the type of CBD used in their edibles. If it doesn’t say what type of CBD the product uses on the label, consider trying a different option or getting in touch with the manufacturer so that you know what kind of CBD you are taking.
CBD Isolate
CBD isolate is the purest type of CBD. This is 100% pure CBD with no other compounds from the cannabis or hemp plant. Remember, a cannabis plant has over 60 cannabinoids, terpenes, flavoinoids and other compounds. CBD isolate has some surprising effects when it comes to trying to calculate the dosage.
CBD isolate is very easy to dose on its own. This is a crystaline powder of pure CBD, which means dosing it self comes down to simply weighing the product. However, things get slightly complicated when we see how CBD isolate reacts with the body.Research suggests that full and broad-spectrum CBD has more potent effects because these types contain more cannabinoids than pure CBD. This means you may need to use a higher dose with edibles that use CBD isolate than you do with full or broad-spectrum CBD edibles. This seems counter-intuitive, but the pure CBD has a milder effect than a full-spectrum variety.
Broad Spectrum CBD
Broad-spectrum CBD is one of the less common varieties of CBD. This is somewhere between CBD isolate and full-spectrum CBD.
Broad-spectrum CBD contains CBD as well as terpenes and other cannabinoids. However, it does contain any amount of THC, the psychoactive cannabinoid that gives you a high. This means that broad-spectrum CBD can give individuals the added effect from other cannabinoids like CBG, CBN, and many others.
Broad-spectrum CBD can have a more complex effect on the body and brain than pure CBD. This is because of the interaction between these cannabinoids and other compounds.
Full Spectrum CBD
Full-spectrum CBD contains everything you’ll find in broad-spectrum CBD but it also contains THC.
Full-spectrum CBD has some unique distinctions from other types of CBD. This all comes down to adding a minimal amount of THC (<0.3%). That small amount of THC is enough to trigger what is commonly known as the “entourage effect.”
The entourage effect is the theoretical interaction of THC, CBD, terpenes, and other cannabinoids in the body. It’s theorized that these compounds can interact, creating more complex experiences and accounting for the overall sensation and the benefits that the cannabis plant offers. Full-spectrum CBD has a reputation for producing a more pronounced effect than broad-spectrum or CBD isolate.
However, there is one crucial thing to keep in mind with full-spectrum CBD. This type of CBD can show up on a drug test because it contains trace amounts of THC, If you have drug screening test scheduled, consider shifting from full-spectrum to broad-spectrum or isolate.
Are CBD Gummies Safe?
CBD edibles are very safe. While it isn’t possible to say that they are 100% safe because of their unique physiology, medical conditions, and other attributes, it’s safe to say that CBD has very low risk. There are three essential things to keep in mind about CBD safety.
First, you should know that it’s virtually impossible to overdose on CBD edibles. Research has been conducted to find CBD’s toxic dose, but these dose are incredibly high. According to current research, you must consume several bottles of CBD edibles and tincture in a single sitting to hit the toxic dose. Even this toxic dose might not even be lethal.
The next thing to consider is that CBD might interact with medications. Research into CBD, as well as other cannabinoids, is relatively new. This means that plenty of medications haven’t been tested with CBD, and there could be interactions.
The last thing we need to consider is the side effects of CBD. These side effects might pop up even under small doses for newbies.
It’s worth taking a closer look at the side effects of CBD gummies.
What Are the Side Effects of CBD Gummies?
Side effects of CBD get more noticeable as the CBD gummies dosage increases. These side effects range from dry mouth to nausea. They are mostly not very severe but should still be looked out for.
Most of the side effects of CBD gummies will be pretty familiar to anyone who enjoys products that contain THC. You can expect some familiar effects such as:
- Dry mouth
- Appetite increase, and
- Irritability, if the dose is too high.
CBD gummies also have a few side effects that are unique to this product. The gummies themselves can cause nausea, diarrhea, and even allergic reactions depending on how individuals react to the ingredients in these products. If you are sensitive to gelatin, sugar, or common food allergies, you can check with the manufacturer about allergy and food sensitivity concerns.
These are the most common CBD side effects:
- Dry Mouth
- Dizziness
- Irritability
- Mood Changes
- Increased Appetite
- Nausea
- Diarrhea
- Allergic Reactions to Ingredients in the Gummies
How Long Does CBD Last
CBD remains in your system for 6 and 24 hours. You can expect the benefits to set in around 30 minutes after taking your edibles and peak a few hours afterward. The effects of CBD will then slowly trail off over the next several hours.
This is also true for the side effects of CBD. They essentially follow the same trajectory. However, the side effects are transient and go away in just a few hours.
The length that CBD remains active in your body depends on factors like weight, metabolism, and the dosage of edibles. Your tolerance to CBD will also change how this substance lasts in your body.
Summary—CBD Edibles and Dosage Guide
CBD gummies are relatively easy to dose and discreet, making them ideal for people searching for a lowkey way to enjoy the benefits of this cannabinoid. However, this also causes problems when it comes to CBD gummies dosage.
How many CBD gummies should I eat? Does not have a one-size-fits-all answer. The proper CBD gummy dosage is going to depend on a variety of factors that we discussed above.
The potency of CBD edibles, your physical condition, and the desired effect will shape your CBD dose. Remember, start low and work up slowly for the best experience with CBD or any cannabinoid. Full-spectrum and broad-spectrum CBD also offer more potent effects than CBD isolate.This will give you everything you need to know to find the correct CBD dose. Take it easy and experiment,, and you’ll figure out the the correct dose in no time.