Did you know that your brain recognizes cannabis?
It's true, there are endocannabinoid receptors in your brain. According to a report from the Laboratory of Physiologic Studies, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, cannabis may soon be used to treat many different disorders such as;
Anorexia
Pain
Inflammation
Stroke
Multiple Sclerosis
Spinal Cord Injury
Huntington's
Parkinson's
Tourette's
Dystonia (involuntary muscle contractions)
Tardive Diskinesia (tics and uncontrolled movement)
Lou Gehrig's Disease
Alzheimer's
Epilepsy
Schizophrenia
Anxiety
Depression
Insomnia
Nausea and Vomiting
Treatment for withdrawal from opiates, nicotine, cocaine,
psychostimulants, and alcohol
Hypertension (high blood pressure)
Shock
Atherosclerosis (plaque in arteries)
Asthma
Glaucoma and Retinopathy
Cancer
Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Hepatitis and Cirrhosis of the Liver
Arthritis
Osteoporosis
The review states that:
"In the past decade, the endocannabinoid system has been implicated in a growing number of physiological functions, both in the central and peripheral nervous systems and in peripheral organs. More importantly, modulating the activity of the endocannabinoid system turned out to hold therapeutic promise in a wide range of disparate diseases and pathological conditions, ranging from mood and anxiety disorders, movement disorders such as Parkinson's and Huntington's disease, neuropathic pain, multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injury, to cancer, atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction, stroke, hypertension, glaucoma, obesity/metabolic syndrome, and osteoporosis, to name just a few. The growing number of preclinical studies and clinical trials with compounds that modulate the endocannabinoid system will probably result in novel therapeutic approaches in a number of diseases for which current treatments do not fully address the patients' need."
Hooray! That's great news!
Here's the article. It's much too long to reprint here...
Pacher, P., Batkai, S., Kunos, G. The endocannabinoid system as an emerging target of pharmacotherapy. Pharmacological Review. 2006 Sep;58(3):389-462.
