Medical Marijuana Shown to Help Patients With Crohn’s Disease

Marijuana May Help with Crohn’s Disease

Crohn’s disease is an inflammatory disease that causes the body’s immune system to attack the healthy portions and cells of a person’s gastrointestinal tract. This causes inflammation, which can lead to a number of symptoms including abdominal pain, fever, rectal bleeding, weight loss, fistulas, diarrhea, and more. Crohn’s is an unfortunate disease that affects many.

Studies Show Cannabis Helps with GI Problems

Fortunately, a new clinical study to come out in Pharmacology and the National Institute of Health shows there may well be a new and effective way of treating Crohn’s disease with the use of medicinal marijuana. The study actually shows that cannabis is effective in helping those who are suffering from the disease. Researchers have found that cannabis is useful in helping to reduce inflammation of the bowel, and it is proving to be helpful with Chron’s and other similar diseases.

Crohn’s disease is a chronic condition, and this means that once someone has it, he or she has it for life. However, the disease can go into remission, and during those periods, the sufferer may not experience any symptoms. They will occasionally have “flare ups” of the disease. Even though there is no surefire cure of the disease, these and other recent studies are showing that not only can cannabis help with the inflammation and pain, it may also help to achieve a full remission of the disease.

Of course, before sufferers become too excited about this news, they must remember that it is still quite early, and many of the reports are anecdotal. Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology published a study that examined the effects that medical marijuana use has on patients with Crohn’s disease. The study features just twenty-one subjects, but it shows that the marijuana was able to treat the symptoms in the majority of the patients, and the others had complete remission.

The study included eleven subjects who were able to take two joints of medical marijuana each day for a period of sixty days. The other ten patients were the placebo group. Out of the eleven patients using marijuana, five had complete remission of their symptoms and were able to improve their sleep as well as improve their appetite. Ten out of the eleven achieved at least some element of positive clinical response from using the drug.

Even though Crohn’s disease does not have a cure – remission is not an actual cure – it shows that there is hope and promise for patients who are suffering from the disease. The addition of cannabis to their medical treatments could well be the way to help them deal with their disease.

Approximately half a million people in the United States suffer from this disease.