Science & Health
Marijuana And CBD Provide ‘Significant Symptom Relief’ For Inflammatory Bowel Disease Patients, Federally Funded Study Finds
A majority of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) said they felt marijuana and CBD were “beneficial” and provided “significant symptom relief” from their disorder, according to a new federally funded survey-based study.
With support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), researchers at Case Western Reserve University conducted a survey of IBD patients, inquiring about different treatment options they feel could effectively address the pain and other symptoms associated with their condition.
More than 50 percent of participants who reported using cannabis said they feel it’s an effective therapeutic option, offering “relief from abdominal pain, other pain, stress, anxiety, depression, and nausea/vomiting.”
“The strong support of cannabis and CBD oil as medical treatments and therapeutic effects highlights the potential for cannabis and CBD oil as treatments in IBD,” the study authors said. “Notably, 19.4 percent of IBD patients reported decreased opioid use, and 14.5 percent reported induced remission with cannabis or CBD oil,” the study says.
“The beliefs on the efficacy of cannabis and CBD oil are comparable to that of prescribed medications (e.g., corticosteroids and biologics/immunosuppressants), suggesting that cannabis may be perceived as equally effective. These results show that there exists a strong belief that these substances could be favorable to various IBD symptom relief, including abdominal pain, diarrhea, anxiety, and inflammation.”
The researchers noted that a significant portion of respondents with IBD self-reported using cannabis (54 percent) or CBD (41 percent) for “medical use, symptom relief, pain management, and mental health support.”
“A large proportion, 63 percent, of IBD participants reported that cannabis had a somewhat, very, or extremely beneficial effect in relieving their IBD symptoms, while 57 percent held this belief about CBD oil,” it says.
“Interestingly, we found that IBD patients were more likely to have used cannabis or CBD oil for short-term symptom relief (37 percent and 26 percent, respectively) compared to long-term symptom relief (23 percent and 18 percent, respectively). Such a pattern indicates that, among IBD patients, these substances are considered to be more effective in the management of acute symptoms rather than in the long-term management of the disease.”
The survey-based cross-sectional study involved 139 participants, including 106 IBD patients and 39 non-IBD controls between the ages of 18 and 69.
The authors concluded that the study demonstrated “increasing interest and positive perceptions by IBD patients toward the use of cannabis and CBD oil as complementary or alternative therapies for symptom management.”
It also “highlights the common perception among IBD patients that cannabis and CBD oil are effective therapeutic agents for symptom management, in spite of the lack of conclusive clinical evidence.”
“The findings indicate that a significant proportion of IBD patients use cannabis, notice symptom relief, and prefer its therapeutic use,” the study says.
The results comport with a scientific review of research on the impacts of marijuana on inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) that was released last year, finding that cannabinoid therapy helped reduce disease activity and improved quality of life in patients with the chronic diseases.
In March of last year, a separate study in the Journal of Health Research and Medical Science found that “cannabinoids show potential in improving disease activity” and quality of life in patients with ulcerative colitis.
