“…The COVID-19 pandemic has made everyday life difficult and vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 has only just begun (and its final success is still unknown). New mutations of SARS-CoV-2 are appearing [187], so new promising therapies against COVID-19 are constantly being suggested. These include natural products, for example, CBD, a nonintoxicating phytocannabinoid from the cannabis plant with valuable pharmacological properties including strong anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antiemetic, anticonvulsant, antipsychotic and anxiolytic properties.…”
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection may lead to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) which, in turn, may be associated with multiple organ dysfunction. In this review, we present advantages and disadvantages of cannabidiol (CBD), a non-intoxicating phytocannabinoid from the cannabis plant, as a potential agent for the treatment of COVID-19. CBD has been shown to downregulate proteins responsible for viral entry and to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 replication. Preclinical studies have demonstrated its effectiveness against diseases of the respiratory system as well as its cardioprotective, nephroprotective, hepatoprotective, neuroprotective and anti-convulsant properties, that is, effects that may be beneficial for COVID-19. Only the latter two properties have been demonstrated in clinical studies, which also revealed anxiolytic and antinociceptive effects of CBD (given alone or together with Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol), which may be important for an adjuvant treatment to improve the quality of life in patients with COVID-19 and to limit post-traumatic stress symptoms. However, one should be aware of side effects of CBD (which are rarely serious), drug interactions (also extending to drugs acting against COVID-19) and the proper route of its administration (vaping may be dangerous). Clearly, further clinical studies are necessary to prove the suitability of CBD for the treatment of COVID-19.
“…RNA viruses have much higher mutation rate than DNA viruses due to the error-prone nature of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase [ 34 ]. SARS-CoV-2 has accumulated a considerable amount of mutations in spike protein during the spread of COVID-19 [ [35] , [36] , [37] , [38] ]. The great majority of those mutations are either ineffective or detrimental to virus function and then removed by natural selection [ 39 ].…”
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