International researchers estimate that as many as 350 million people around the globe suffer from some form of arthritis. Arthritis is defined as painful inflammation and stiffness of the joints.
Symptoms of arthritis include pain, stiffness, and swelling, as well as the affected joint(s) being a different color than usual. The affected joint(s) may also not be able to move or stretch as much as it used to.
Researchers in the United Kingdom recently conducted a study examining cannabis use by suffering arthritis patients. Below is more information about the results of the study via a news release from NORML:
London, United Kingdom: Patients with inflammatory arthritis report reduced pain and sustained improvements in their health-related quality of life following their use of medical cannabis preparations, according to observational data published in the journal International Clinical Psychopharmacology.
British researchers assessed the use of cannabis-based medicinal products (CBMPs) consisting of either flower or oil extracts in 82 patients enrolled in the UK Medical Cannabis Registry. (Since 2018, British specialists have been permitted to prescribe cannabis-based medicinal products to patients unresponsive to conventional medications.) Researchers assessed changes in patient-reported outcomes measures at one, three, six, and 12 months.
Patients consistently reported improvements in anxiety, pain, and sleep during the length of the study
The study’s authors concluded: “This study demonstrates an associated improvement in pain severity and other relevant outcomes in individuals prescribed CBMPs for inflammatory arthritis-associated chronic pain. In addition, CBMPs were largely well tolerated by the majority of patients. … [T]hese results provide further support for continued evaluation of CBMPs in this setting.”
Other observational studies assessing the use of cannabis products in patients enrolled in the UK Cannabis Registry have reported them to be effective for those suffering from chronic pain, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, depression, migraine, multiple sclerosis, osteoarthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, and other afflictions.
Full text of the study, “Assessment of clinical outcomes in patients with inflammatory arthritis: Analysis from the UK Medical Cannabis Registry,” appears in the International Clinical Psychopharmacology. Additional information on cannabis and arthritis is available from NORML’s publication, Clinical Applications for Cannabis & Cannabinoids.
This article first appeared on Internationalcbc.com and is syndicated here with special permission.
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash
