Liz Carmouche can’t say for certain that CBD has had a positive effect on her brain, but she sure has a hunch.
Liz Carmouche swapped pharmaceuticals for CBD and her brain health is up. Coincidence or not?
The former UFC women’s bantamweight title challenger recently joined Bloody Elbow’s Pull No Punches podcast with Kajan Johnson and Shakiel Mahjouri. There, Carmouche revealed she is part of the Cleveland Brain Study. “They test NFL players for brain trauma. They track them for the life of their career and even outside of their career. So I’ve done all the MRIs and testing with them.”
Now, Carmouche is not prepared to “necessarily attest” to this, but “comparatively [to] my [previous] numbers, this year [they] have all gone up. They asked me, ‘What is different? What did you do differently?’
“I’m still fighting,” she explained. “I still spar everyday. The only thing I do differently is, now I take CBD. And I don’t take all that over-the-counter trash anymore. They said, ‘Whatever it is you’re doing keep doing it because everything has improved. Your memory retention, the trauma in your brain, everything is better.’”
Carmouche, 35, also opened up about her resistance to using sex appeal to get ahead in MMA. “There is always that thought in my head of ‘Should I give in?’ I was offered an opportunity to do the Sports Illustrated cover when they did the skin cover with Miesha Tate and Ronda Rousey. That to me was compromising my integrity of who I was and everything that I stand for.
“I had to wonder if I lost out on fight opportunities and sponsorships,” she continued. “But at the end of the day, I’m the one who has to go home at the end of the day and be okay with myself. I have a son. I have to answer to my son.
“To the people who do it, if they’re comfortable and they’re okay with themselves,” she added, “power to you! I just know that is not who I am.”
Carmouche fights Lucie Pudilova at UFC Prague on Feb. 23. The event is headlined by light-heavyweight contenders Jan Blachowicz and Thiago Santos.