But he cautions that the side effects could have been because of an interaction with other medications the children were taking to control the seizures. So far, there hasnt been a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial (the gold standard) on sleep disorders and CBD.

[Stressed-out parents are giving it a shot.]

A recent chart review of 72 psychiatric patients treated with CBD found that anxiety improved, but not sleep. Over all, we did not find that it panned out as a useful treatment for sleep, said Dr. Scott Shannon, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado, Denver and the lead author of the review in The Permanente Journal.

Sleep can be disrupted for many reasons, including depression. Rodents seemed to adapt better to stressful conditions and exhibited less depressive-like behavior after taking CBD, according to a review in Journal of Chemical Neuroanatomy. Surprisingly, CBD seems to act faster than conventional antidepressants, wrote one of the authors of a new review, Smia Joca, a fellow at the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies in Denmark and an associate professor at the University of So Paulo in Brazil, in an email interview. Of course, its difficult to detect depression in animals, but the studies that Ms. Joca and her colleagues reviewed suggested that in models of chronic stress exposure, the mice and rats treated with CBD were more resilient.

But without clinical trials in humans, psychologists say CBDs effect on depression is still a hypothesis, and not an evidence-based treatment.

If you take pure CBD, its pretty safe, said Marcel Bonn-Miller, an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvanias Perelman School of Medicine. Side effects in the Epidiolex trial included diarrhea, sleepiness, fatigue, weakness, rash, decreased appetite and elevated liver enzymes. Also, the safe amount to consume in a day, or at all during pregnancy, is still not known.

Excerpt from:
What Are the Benefits of CBD? - The New York Times