Top 20 diseases in the prevention and treatment of which hemp is an important medicine! (Part 1)
Marijuana, which was under the underground a couple of decades ago, is slowly but surely returning to human life today. The voice of the plant legalization supporters sounds over Europe louder and more confidently, calling for reconsidering the dogmas that have become long obsolete and covered with moss of conventionality. This voice more and more often finds a response in the acts of the legal system achieved through suffering: each year marijuana is subjected to partial or full legalization in a country. Belgium, Great Britain, Germany, Czech Republic – today there is no question “Should it be?”. Nowadays there is the question – “Who is next?”
What could have happened in the world lately, that marijuana is increasingly being met with a ceremonial salvo of parade guns instead of rusty bayonets of public indignation? By various studies that proved the positive effect of cannabis medicines on many diseases, including and those considered incurable, scientists have saved the plant’s reputation badly damaged by the political populists of the beginning of the last century.
Despite the fact that legalization supporters often exaggerate the public and individual benefits of cannabis, scientific studies confirm that the use of cannabis in medicine is justified and requires further, more detailed study. Moreover, the US National Cancer Institute has officially recognized that cannabinoids can inhibit the growth of a cancerous tumor causing the affected cells death.
Marijuana contains at least two active ingredients suitable for medical purpose. These are cannabidiol (CBD) impacting the brain and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) having an analgesic effect. Besides CBD and THC, hemp also contains about 400 chemical compounds, and more than 60 of them are cannabinoids. Many of them are used in medicine, but this needs yet to be studied. We would like to provide you with 20 important and already studied properties of marijuana in the treatment of diseases in this article.
- 1. Glaucoma
Glaucoma is a disease in which intraocular pressure rises, causing damage to the optic nerve and loss of vision. From 1978 to 1984, the USA National Eye Institute made research on the cannabinoids effect when treating the disease. They proved that some derivatives of marijuana contribute to the reduction of intraocular pressure.
- 2. Epilepsy.
A number of studies show that CBD is effective in the epilepsy prevention and treatment. Moreover, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officially recognized the positive effects of cannobinoids in treating this disease.
- 3. Dravet syndrome (Severe Infancy Myoclonic Epilepsy).
Dravet syndrome holds a special place Among the various manifestations of epilepsia nutans, and is perhaps the most difficult and dangerous pathology for a child’s life. This syndrome manifests itself already in the first year of a baby’s life and often leads to a serious impairment of his psychomotor development, and in some cases to a fatal outcome. There were officially documented cases when the use of medical cannabis in the treatment allowed to reduce the number of attacks from 300 per week to one. In 2018, cannabidiol was officially recommended for the syndrome treatment in the USA.
- 4. Cancer.
In August 2015, the US National Cancer Institute (NCI), having referred numerous studies, officially recognized that cannabinoids could inhibit tumor growth, causing cell death, blocking cell growth and the blood vessels development necessary for tumor growth. By these days, there are about a thousand scientific papers showing the medical cannabis efficiency for various forms of cancer
- 5. Alzheimer’s disease
In 2014, the “Alzheimer’s Disease” magazine published a preclinical study that analyzed the “potential therapeutic effects of THC” on the disease. Researchers have found that THC would slowed down the amyloid plaques formation by blocking an enzyme that produces them in the brain. These plaques destroy brain cells and cause Alzheimer’s disease. “These sets of data strongly suggest that THC could be a potential therapeutic treatment option for Alzheimer’s disease”.
- 6. Concussions of the brain and cerebral contusion.
According to scientists from the Institute of Biomedical Research in Los Angeles, THC plays a key role in protecting the brain from the various injuries effects.
The study, which covered 446 patients with traumatic brain injury, showed that mortality among patients whose blood contained THC was more than 4 times lower than among the rest patients. To be more precise, it was 2.4 percent in the first case versus 11.5 in the second case.
- 7. Arthritis.
Marijuana relieves pain, reduces inflammation and promotes sleep, which helps patients with rheumatoid arthritis. The first controlled study of the cannabis-based drugs use for the arthritis treatment took place in 2006. The researchers concluded that the cannabis-based medicine reduced inflammation and pain after five weeks of use.
Studies in 2008 also showed that CBD reduced pain and improved sleep without any adverse effects.
In 2016, another study was conducted, using CBD gel in rats. And again, the new conclusions were exactly the same as previous ones.
- 8. Heppatitis C.
Marijuana alone does not cure hepatitis C infection, neither it cures its complications that lead to the liver cirrhosis. Instead, THC-based medication can be especially effective in fighting against adverse effects of drugs that fight the virus.
The adverse effects of treating hepatitis C are extremely unpleasant: fatigue, nausea, muscle pain, loss of appetite and depression. They can last for months, and it’s the reason why many people interrupt their treatment. According to a study published in 2006 in the European Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, 86% of patients were completely treated after using marijuana (against 29% of non-smokers).
Besides, marijuana increases the treatment effectiveness: viral load decreased in 54% of patients from the first group and only in 8% from the second group.
- 9. Multiple sclerosis.
According to a report published by the Canadian Medical Association, cannabis relieves pain in multiple sclerosis patients. Scientists observed 30 patients with MS who had experienced pain from spasticity. Although other medicine did not help them, smoking marijuana for several days led to a decrease in pain because THC had affected the nerves and muscles receptors, and thus had relieved pain.
- 10. Crohn’s disease and Ulcerative Colitis
According to available data, marijuana can alleviate the patients suffering with such varieties of irritable bowel as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
A team of scientists from the University of Nottingham published a study in 2010 in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapy.
Chemical compounds are synthesized in the human body, and they cause the intestinal walls to become permeable to bacteria and toxins. Cannabinoids block these compounds, making the intestinal cells closer together, the permeability decreases and the bacteria and toxins cannot cross the intestinal barrier.
A similar study in Israel showed that smoking significantly reduced the symptoms of Crohn’s disease in 10 out of 11 patients compared with placebo, and without adverse effects.
As we can see from the presented (and far from complete) list above, it is difficult to overestimate the medical importance of cannabis in the treatment, prevention, or reduction of symptoms of diseases of various types and nature. Unfortunately, medical research on cannabis started in the world relatively recently, and is still prohibited or limited in many countries of the world, which makes many studies incomplete, and their number often does not exceed the number of fingers of the miller neglecting the safety technique whaen working on the machine. However, nowadays a wall of dogmas established in respect of cannabis is disassembled slowly but surely, a brick by brick, and nobody knows what antidotes could be useful in fighting against other diseases.