Cannabis, Science, and Health: What the Latest Marijuana Studies of 2020 are Telling Us
With all the news on the global pandemic, let’s not forget that people still need cannabis to help deal with their life-threatening conditions.
Here’s what the latest studies say.
Cannabis Improves Life Maintenance for Patients with Chronic Disease
A new study out of Barcelona, Spain, found that regular consumption of medical cannabis among patients who have chronic conditions greatly improved their life maintenance while slowing down cognitive decline.
The Brazilian and Spanish research team studied cannabis use over 12 months in patients who have chronic conditions including HIV, fibromyalgia, and epilepsy. A majority of these patients self-medicated with cannabis everyday. They used scores to measure quality of life, which was shown to be stable over the 12-month period.
“Mid-term use of medical cannabis seems to show adequate tolerability regarding cognitive and psychopathological abilities, and it may help patients with chronic diseases to maintain an acceptable QoL (quality of life),” write the authors. “It seems that medical cannabis could act as a substitute for other medications that have harmful or unwanted side effects. Further research is necessary, including research that recruits medical cannabis patients before they begin treatment and follows them prospectively in order to establish potential causal relations,” they concluded.
Cannabis Effective in Treating Insomnia, Anxiety, and Chronic Pain
A team of researchers from the University of California at San Francisco studied feedback from adults who consumed cannabis to treat their medical conditions and found that there was a higher chance they use it to address symptoms of insomnia, anxiety, chronic pain, as well as depression.
Among the participants who reported using cannabis for medical purposes, 49% said that they do so for the treatment of anxiety, while 47% said that they use cannabis to treat insomnia. Meanwhile, 39% said that cannabis was helpful in mitigating depression and 42% use it for chronic pain.
Additionally, most patients reported consuming cannabis via inhalation. They also found that women were more frequently using cannabis compared to men to treat post-traumatic stress, anxiety, migraines, and insomnia. Men, on the other hand, used cannabis more to help stabilize their moods.
Cannabis Helpful in Treating Patients with Treatment-Resistant Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
The use of medical cannabis has been linked to a decrease in the symptoms of post-traumatic stress for a 38-year old patient diagnosed with acquired traumatic brain injury (TBI), reveals a case report conducted by University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center researchers.
The said patient did not respond to conventional forms of treatment, yet using cannabis has shown to be “clinically meaningful” in reducing his “depression, agitation, aggression, and anxiety.” Additionally, the patient was able to enjoy more social interactions while decreasing his opiate intake. There were no adverse side effects reported from his treatment with cannabis.
“The improvement of symptoms in this case, which is medically and psychiatrically complex, suggests that MC (medical cannabis) can potentially be effective for neuropsychiatric symptoms in acquired brain injury when other psychotropic treatments have failed… Future studies must be conducted to better meet the needs of survivors of acquired brain injury and to help inform provider and patient decisions in using MC to treat symptoms.”
CBD Intake Reduces Tremors and Anxiety in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease
Brazilian researchers confirm yet again that administering CBD has been effective in reducing both tremors and anxiety among patients with Parkinson’s disease. The researchers studied the efficacy of CBD when given a 300mg dose through a randomized and placebo-controlled model. They found that this dose resulted in a statistically significant decrease in tremors and anxiety.
The study’s purpose is important because most patients with Parkinson’s disease tend to suffer from increased anxiety, one of the biggest non-motor symptoms observed in these patients.
“CBD modulates brain regions related to stress and anxiety,” explains corresponding author Daiene de Morais Fabricio. “A neuroimaging study of healthy subjects showed that CBD reduces the effectiveness of the connection between the anterior cingulate cortex and the amygdala during the processing of stimuli that include fear-expressing facial expressions. These observations suggest that CBD may be an alternative treatment for PD and anxiety patients.”
Additionally, the researchers said that they weren’t surprised to find the link between anxiety and tremors, since even healthy subjects tend to get shaky when exposed to situations that make them anxious. But Parkinson’s patients are more prone to social anxiety, which suggests that these states can make tremors in PD patients even worse. This is why the findings that CBD is helpful in reducing anxiety-induced tremors among Parkinson’s patients even more significant.
“Our study was the first to demonstrate the anxiolytic effects of CBD in PD patients and its ability to attenuate tremor amplitude in anxiogenic situations,” says de Morais Fabricio. “It is important that future studies evaluate the effects of different doses of CBD on signs and symptoms of anxiety in this population.”
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