In today’s society, there are many people who still have a negative connotation surrounding hemp. It is a lot of times associated with a marijuana plant, however although they are similar, they are different varieties of plants from one another.
They actually have opposite effects on the brain when consumed. The type of hemp that is consumed by humans has been bred to contain very little of the active ingredient in marijuana and more essential nutrients. When marijuana is consumed it has a negative impact on brain development, where hemp consumption is correlated with positive development.
This is largely in part due to hemp containing essential fatty acids, also known as EFAs. The discovery of the health benefits of EFAs is one of the most important nutritional breakthroughs in recent history. Specifically, researchers have noted that omega-3 fatty acids found in hemp are one of the most important nutrients in optimizing brain function and your overall health.
One of the main ways that this occurs is through omega-3s making cell membranes more fluid. This in turn helps improve communication between brain cells, which induces brain development. A positive development that comes from fluidity is a boost in memory. The less omega-3s in a person’s brain, the less fluid all your memories are, making it harder to recollect specific things. As you ingest omega-3s, your memories become more fluid and flexible to remember certain times.
The amount of omega-3s are also highly correlated with intelligence and cognitive performance in infants and young children. As the person begins to grow older, omega-3’s are slowly lost from the brain affecting the person’s memory. Scientists suspect that because EFAs are lost as a person grows older and that it could be correlated with cognitive disorders like aggression, depression, anxiety and more serious diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. This makes it that much more important for a person to make sure they are ingesting the proper amount of omega-3s, in order to keep the brain’s productivity at a high level.
Since hemp provides the perfect ratio of Omega- 6 to Omega-3 then the EFA’s found in hemp seeds are easily digestible. Due to this, our brains can fully benefit from a daily intake of hemp-based products.