Can CBD help with your immunity? An immunologist weighs in

As more people try to build their long-term wellness habits from home, finding the right immune booster is likely on the top of their minds. A swarm of companies are trying to find their way into daily wellness routines by adding CBD to mixtures of vitamins, herbs, and other supplements, but sometimes the ways that they are coming up with their new formulas isn’t clear.

Dr. Matthew Halpert, a research faculty member at Baylor College of Medicine, frequently collaborates with science-backed CBD brand Medterra, which just released an immune boost tincture.

Halpert tests Medterra’s in-house developments and is wary of the danger in the unregulated supplement market with or without CBD. He grew to trust Medterra over several months of working together—and, conversely, Medterra started using his laboratory to test a variety of formulations.

Scientific collaboration with an immunity expert

A couple of years ago, Dr. Halpert was taking a look at CBD as part of his wider immunology research. While he had tested the efficacy of other companies’ CBD products in his lab before, he didn’t necessarily feel as if they were well-made. Along the way, he was introduced to Medterra CEO and co-founder Jay Hartenbach, and this time he got a good feeling.

“What started as just one or two experiments led to a research agreement between Medterra and Baylor,” explains Dr. Halpert. “The agreement has me taking on more and more of an active role in Medterra. Making sure they’re up to date on the CBD science, as well as making sure that all the products they want to come out with make scientific sense. There’s real science here.”

Expanding the body of CBD knowledge

Testing for efficacy and purity is one thing—but the real benefit of collaborating with a medical researcher is the ability to conduct medical trials for a deeper understanding of what makes CBD work. Baylor officially announced its research partnership with Medterra in 2019.

“I ran a double-blind placebo-controlled trial with their pet CBD products and arthritic dogs that went very well,” says Dr. Halpert. The study was recently published in the highly regarded Journal of Pain.

Dr. Halpert and Medterra have learned a lot about how human bodies interact with CBD, too, including how it interacts with the body and its immunity.

“Part of the issue with CBD is that it is not very bioavailable,” notes Dr. Halpert—so they’ve been working on a product that skips liver metabolism to enhance absorption, helping users get more out of a smaller dose.

What Medterra has learned about CBD and immunity

Dr. Halpert is quick to note that he’s not the one actually developing the products. He explains, “it’s just my job to make sure that there’s a fundamental reason for everything.”

Working with an immunologist has clearly rubbed off on Medterra, though. The company’s latest launch is CBD Immune Boost, formulated with the Halpert’s help. Along with studying the bioavailability of CBD, he also studied how different ingredients in the product are absorbed by the body. His solution was to include a highly concentrated (5x) botanical infusion that delivers meaningful and effective doses of each specially selected herb and plant in the blend.

The trick to building an immune booster, says Dr. Halpert, by looking at the actual data—not just anecdotal accounts.

“What we were looking for when we started working on this was not to misrepresent CBD, not to pretend that it is suddenly now the magical immune boosting agent,” he explains. “But how can you consume CBD while strengthening your immune system at the same time?”

Medterra’s immunity tincture adds CBD isolate to a combination of Elderberry, Echinacea, Vitamin C, Ginger Root, Ashwagandha, Reishi Mushroom and Lemon Balm. And like all of Medterra’s products, it’s US Hemp Authority certified.

With antioxidants, anti-inflammatory properties, and natural immune-boosting ingredients blended with high-quality CBD, the product won’t give you a magic dose of immunity, but it will help your body stay in fighting form.

It’s one of many medically advised immunity products coming down the pipeline from Medterra. According to Dr. Halpert, “I am excited to see the different formulas in the works to make sure Medterra can help consumers build a strong baseline for their health and wellness.”