CBD for Crohn's Disease

Pharmaceutical medications can help in treating the symptoms of Crohn’s disease, but for some people these can have negative side effects.

This is why scientists started looking cannabinoids as a less harmful way to treat Crohn’s disease.

In their observational study, researchers in Israel monitored and assessed the effects of cannabis use on patients with Inflammatory Bowel Diseases such as Crohn's.

127 licensed medicinal cannabis patients took part in the study, and after they underwent treatment for 44 months the researchers used a Crohn's disease activity index to evaluate the effects of medicinal cannabis use on these patients' outcomes.

On average the patients' scores decreased from 11 to 5 (a lower score is indicative of an improvement in symptoms), and their average daily bowel movements decreased from 7 to an average of 3.4. Patients also reported g a significant reduction in pain.

Encouragingly, 78% of participating patients reported that they experienced no harmful side effects from the treatment. And if they did have any - such as dry mouth or memory loss - they stated that the improvement in their symptoms outweighed these side effects.

Reserachers who carried out the study concluded that cannabis use can induce clinical improvement in patients with IBD and that it is associated with reduced medication use and weight gain.