A few years ago, it was difficult to find CBD (Cannabidiol) products on commercially available markets. Where were you supposed to even find CBD oil for sale? Now gas stations and grocery stores have CBD bath bombs, vapes, infused honey, and equine formulations. What goes on inside those mysterious packages? How do you know if the product you’re buying is a high caliber? A quality CBD product starts way before the bottle and begins before the hemp plant is grown.
Good Genes
Before a hemp plant even has leaves, the genetics which makes up the individual strain begin to determine the quality level of the final product. Just like champion show dogs aren’t born from family pets, strains of industrial hemp are cultivated over generations to produce high proportions of cannabidiol and synergistic terpenes. Indicators of quality can be strain type and potency of the plants that came before.
It’s all in the Farm-ily
Once you have a strong strain with a pedigree of well-producing plants, farming techniques nurture the seeds as they grow. This is the step where Panacea Life Sciences likes to let nature take charge. Panacea Life Science grow our hemp organically. The federal government regulates this claim, making sure there are no synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides used on Panacea Life Science farms and that there haven’t been for a period of at least three years! Furthermore, Panacea Life Sciences’ products are minimally processed, contain no artificial ingredients and are tested to show purity.
Panacea Life Sciences is also registered as a manufacturing facility with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is a GMP facility, meaning we use Good Manufacturing Practices to ensure all products exceeds dietary supplement standards. This includes establishing reliable quality management systems, obtaining appropriate quality raw materials, establishing robust operating procedures, detecting and investigating product quality deviations, and maintaining reputable testing laboratories to prevent contamination, mix-ups, variations, and mistakes. Products through this process are extensively tested to ensure each and every Panacea Life Science’s product meet potency and purity standards.
Vertically Integrated
A vertically integrated company means that from seed to delivery, the product never leaves Panacea’s care. We control the entire process and ensure a strict chain of custody for our raw materials. No conflicting standards of quality or care. Just high-quality CBD cultivation from start to finish. It’s easier to control the process when we keep it in house.
Seeds, Leaves, and Synergistic Components
Some companies like to use hemp seeds as a way to produce less expensive CBD oil. Although hemp-seed oil has good antioxidant properties, these oils contain no cannabinoids. All of Panacea Life Science’s products are extracted from leaves and flowers which contain high proportions of trichomes. Trichomes are the small, resin-like crystals or hairs that give the plant its stickiness that contain a high concentration of terpenes and cannabinoids. Our extraction techniques allow us to remove the CBD from the other plant matter, like chlorophyll, which can make for a bitter-tasting final product.
Extraction & Distillation
The extraction process can be intimidating to understand. After all, how does a leaf become an oil anyways? First, the raw plant matter is broken down and decarboxylated, which is a fancy word for lightly cooked in order to make the cannabinoids increase activity in the body. Then, solvents are applied to create crude oil. There is ongoing discussions in CBD circles about which solvent and distillation processes are most efficient. At Panacea Life Sciences, we use carbon dioxide (CO2) and ethanol extraction. Both methods allow us to remove plant lipids and fats. Then, by using a distillation that separates the oil components by using heat organic precipitation in a laboratory setting, we further refine the CBD oil into a distillate.
Full and Broad Spectrum and Isolates
There are three different varieties of oil available to consumers. Panacea Life Sciences provides all three. Full-spectrum oil contains all 114 known phytocannabinoids, including CBD, plus all synergistic terpenes and flavonoids. Other cannabinoids are present in full spectrum distillate such as CBG or Cannabigerol, which is known to suppress appetite and moderate inflammation and CBN or Cannabinol, which helps to relieve pain and assists with sleep. Cannabinoids exert their biological activity through a number of your body’s receptors and enzymes, including the brain, peripheral nervous system, connective tissues, skin, glands, and immune cells. These receptors help to control a variety of physiological and cognitive processes like appetite, sleep, mood, and memory.
Terpenes and flavonoids are the parts of the plant which produce Cannabis’ aromatic and taste profiles, respectively. Terpenes are an essential component of other nice-smelling products on the market: essential oils. You might be familiar with some of the terpenes popularized by herbs and botanicals. Linalool is one of the major terpenes responsible for the lavender plant’s unique fragrance, and it binds with receptors in the human body to inhibit the reuptake of the neurotransmitters which produce a feeling of calm and relaxation. All this is to say that there are lots of molecules beyond CBD in the hemp plant which may play a helpful role in assisting CBD to do its job, depending on your desired effect. Those compounds are preserved in a full-spectrum oil.
In a broad-spectrum oil, all those same compounds are included, except for one rather infamous molecule called Tetrahydrocannabinol, more commonly known as THC. THC is the compound tested for in Cannabis drug tests and which gives marijuana its well documented psychotropic effects. The amount of THC in hemp is already capped at a legal maximum of .03% by dry weight. That’s not enough to get a person or even most pets “high.” Some people prefer full-spectrum oil with its minor amount of THC. They believe that even a little is enough to jump-start pain relief. Other people prefer the effects of a broad-spectrum oil with all THC removed. There’s no right answer beyond personal experience.
The last option is a CBD isolate. Isolates remove all the synergistic terpenes and flavonoids to pack a punch that’s full of pure, 100% CBD. Some people find that pure CBD allows them to dose at much higher levels to control discomfort without getting sleepy or hungry. Isolates are another THC-free option.
Administration
Once you’ve chosen the concentration that’s right for you, think about your preferred application method and explore all of our proprietary formulations. If you’re looking for quick relief of discomfort, Panacea’s FAST Tablets might be the way to go. If you’re averse to strong flavors, maybe a Soft Gel that can be swallowed is a better option. If the issue is linked to skin health, the Soothe Salve, with its combination of shea butter, jojoba oil, and argan oil, may be the right way to target the affected area. If the problem leads to insomnia plaguing your nights, the PM Soft Gels include a serving of melatonin to assist with sleep health! Explore all the options Panacea has available and see what works for you.
Dose-Si-Do
For some health concerns, as-needed applications will be enough, and for others, a daily regimen will be the more effective approach. In general, for best results, the more chronic a problem is, the more consistent consumers should try to be with usage. CBD has a very low rate of adverse side effects and is “generally recognized as safe” by the Center for Disease Control. Do consult with your healthcare professional to make sure that CBD won’t interact with other medication regimens, particularly those involving steroids or antihistamines. CBD does not require a prescription, and in general, the risk of developing adverse side effects is minimal. Most CBD users experience no side effects, but the ones to watch out for are changes in appetite, diarrhea, dizziness, drowsiness, dry mouth, and nausea.
This is a Test
You’d think by the time our CBD makes it to the bottle, we’d be done. But the work doesn’t stop there. To ensure customer satisfaction and a consistent level of quality, we test every batch of CBD in-house. Once we know everything is up to snuff on our end, we have it checked by a third-party lab as a redundancy. Those third-party Certificates of Analysis are directly available to customers by scanning the QR code found on our products. They review the available cannabinoid profile in exact dosages and confirm that there aren’t any residual solvents, pesticide residue, or microbial contaminants in the final product. Traceability and transparency are key components of our process. After all, when you make a product that’s quality from seed to bottle, you want to show it off a little bit!
Getting a Deal
Once you’ve found the right concentration, application, and dose, get a monthly subscription to your favorite product to ease the strain on your pocketbook. The discount of a monthly subscription will be more cost-effective in the long-term than irregularly buying an inferior product. Quality wins every time! And here at Panacea Life Sciences, we’re proud to produce superior products with transparency and reliability to help our customers with their wellness needs.
Links
https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2012/03/22/organic-101-what-usda-organic-label-means
