Reducing Inflammation

Aging gracefully isn't just about good genes—it's about maintaining homeostasis. At Mt. Folly Farm, we believe in three fundamental pillars that support a long, vibrant life: Reducing Inflammation, Getting Some Sleep, and Protecting Your Brain.

Inflammation

Inflammation is a major problem in aging because a helpful short-term defense (swelling and redness when you cut your finger; a fever when you have the flu) breaks bad.

Why?

Because our internal control systems fail, and low-grade inflammation becomes continuous. This simmering furnace raises the risk of almost every major age-related disease.

The list is long and depressing: heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, dementia, frailty, osteoporosis, several cancers. Indeed, you may have read about this already, with the trendy term "inflammaging." You may know someone with an autoimmune disease.

So what can we do?

Decrease our exposure to environmental pollutants.

My contribution to this at Mt. Folly was first to raise cattle with no antibiotics or growth hormones, the result of a trip to an enormous cattle feedlot in 1983. (Read the story here.)

Next, I stopped using deadly ag chemicals. My “aha” moment was in the late ‘80s, when I had contracted our corn crop to a neighbor, and found him spraying atrazine in a field which had a big cave system underneath it. I knew atrazine was an endocrine disruptor, affecting sperm counts, hormone function, and is associated with low-birth weight offspring. And without a doubt hundreds of pounds of atrazine were going into the cave system, then Lower Howards Creek, onto the Kentucky River, flowing to the Ohio River.

I was 30 years old and aghast. How could something so deadly be legal and common? So I fired the guy, and stopped.

At our main farm, Home Farm, the south end of which is over the cave system, the whole farm is chemical free.

I own several other farms as well: The Judy Lane farm in its entirety is organic, and recently purchased land at the Dry Ridge Settlement is as well. The last farm, at Schollsville, is a mixture of organic and non-gmo, and will transition as soon as my grandson is working here full-time, as organic farms require more labor.

All of the hemp we raise or sell is organic, as you would expect.

So how, then, does hemp, the mother plant of hundreds of cannabinoids, help with inflammation?

The inflammation-related benefits of full-spectrum hemp

Mt. Folly Full-spectrum hemp CBD affects the CB1 and CB2 cellular receptors, which are involved in pain and immune response. CBD reduces the number of pro-inflammatory cytokines.

CBD also modulates the interferon-beta pathway that cells use to sense viruses, responding by switching on hundreds of genes with immunomodulatory function, helpful when there is an invader, not helpful when the danger has passed. When this pathway remains “on” chronic inflammation is the result. CBD helps turn it off.

It is very important that hemp is “full spectrum,” as Mt. Folly’s is. This is because the “entourage effect” is a real thing, not science-sounding marketing. It means that the extract contains a full range of cannabinoids, terpenes, and flavonoids. Animal and pre-clinical data show full-spectrum extracts can produce stronger and more sustained anti-inflammatory effect than CBD isolate.

In addition to inflammation, but related, this explains why CBD helps with aches and pains.

Stay tuned for Part 2, where we will explore the Keystone of Restorative Sleep.

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Disclaimer: These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.