Cbd Is Popular For Recovery — But New Study In Women Ra…
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What New Research In Women Reveals About CBD Use & Wellbeing
Author:
April 24, 2026
Registered Dietitian Nutritionist
Registered Dietitian Nutritionist
Molly Knudsen, M.S., RDN is a Registered Dietician Nutritionist with a bachelor’s degree in nutrition from Texas Christian University and a master’s in nutrition interventions, communication, and behavior change from Tufts University. She lives in Newport Beach, California, and enjoys connecting people to the food they eat and how it influences health and wellbeing.
Image by FreshSplash / iStock
April 24, 2026
From recovery balms to sleep gummies and stress tinctures, CBD is still added to a slew of products that claim to optimize how the body feels and performs (often with the impression that there’s little downside).
This messaging has landed especially strong with women, many of whom are trying to balance work, sleep disruptions, and active schedules. But, there’s actually very little research on CBD use and women.
“Most controlled CBD research has been conducted in predominantly male cohorts, despite known sex differences in how the body processes CBD and how the endocannabinoid system interacts with sex hormones,” says Rachele Pojednic PhD, EdM, FACSM. Pojednic recently published a study to help fill in this research gap. Her team looked at recreationally active women who self-reported CBD use1 and compared them to non-users across lifestyle measures and a broad panel of biomarkers.
The goal of the study was to better understand who is using it, and what their overall health patterns actually look . Here’s what you need to know.
About the study
The study, published in Frontiers in Nutrition, included 149 recreationally active women ages 18 to 40, who were grouped based on whether they currently used hemp CBD, had used it in the past, or had never used it.
Participants completed surveys on lifestyle and health factors tied to recovery and wellbeing, including physical activity, sleep, diet quality, mental health, quality of life, and post-exercise pain.
A smaller subgroup also completed fasting blood tests, allowing researchers to analyze 50 biomarkers related to metabolism, hormones, and immune function.
CBD, sleep duration & quality of life
Compared to non-users, women who reported using CBD also reported:
- Lower physical activity levels overall
- Shorter sleep duration
- Worse sleep quality
- Lower quality-of-life scores
- Higher rates of tobacco use
“CBD users reported significantly worse sleep quality and shorter sleep duration than non-users,” says Pojednic. “But we interpret this as reflecting why they’re using CBD in the first place, not as a result of their utilization.” (So it doesn’t indicate that CBD doesn’t cause worse sleep, rather people may be reaching for those products because their sleep is bad.) She also cites a similar interpretation for the lower quality-of-life scores.
“Sleep disturbance appears common in this active female population regardless of CBD use, and those experiencing greater difficulties may be more motivated to try it as a solution, notes Pojednic.
However, the majority of the 50 biomarkers measured via a blood test and the post-exercise pain scores, showed no difference between the groups. “We [still] see this as meaningful because it demonstrates CBD use in this population does not appear to be associated with alarming negative physiologic changes (i.e. no red flags for safety),” affirms Pojednic.
Pojednic also emphasizes that 62.5% of current users were taking 25 milligrams or less CBD per day (a very modest amount) via products from their healthcare providers, online retailers, and even grocery stores. “This reflects how widely accessible CBD is as a wellness tool, often adopted without formal clinical guidance.”
CBD & women’s hormones
This study also detected modest changes in hormonal and immune signals. “We found differences in biomarkers tied to hormonal and immune function, including sex hormone-binding globulin, testosterone, basophils, and thyroid-stimulating hormone, suggesting that the endocrine and immune axes may be differentially associated with CBD use in women in ways that haven’t been explored before,” says Pojednic.
We still don’t fully understand how CBD interacts with female physiology. As research in this area expands, Pojednic is interested in whether these early biomarker differences hold up in larger, controlled studies, and whether they are meaningfully associated with health outcomes in women.
What to know about CBD use
In this study, the patterns observed suggest that CBD use may be more closely tied to existing health or lifestyle challenges than to improved (or worsened) outcomes. “We also want to be clear that we’re not raising alarm bells,” says Pojednic.
At the same time, CBD may not be the panacea that it’s touted to be. “The biggest misconception I want to address is that ‘CBD is a well-supported performance or recovery tool for women’. While compelling from a biologic plausibility standpoint, the evidence simply isn’t there yet,” she says.
The takeaway
So, what should you do if you’re considering (or currently leaning on) CBD products? “The key message is that it is not a substitute for foundational health behaviors quality sleep, good nutrition, and appropriate training, and those experiencing sleep difficulties or mental health challenges deserve direct, evidence-based care, ” says Pojednic. “This is exactly why more rigorous, sex-specific, longitudinal research in this space is so needed.”
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