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Yet Another Medical Use For Cannabis!
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Just when you think you’ve heard it all: That cannabis can stop seizures, cancer, and brain tumors, along comes another terrific medical use for marijuana. It can help to heal broken bones.
In a new study, researchers from Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University found that one compound in pot that has nothing to do with getting high, called cannabidiol, improved the healing process in rats that had broken legs. The findings of this study were published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research.
The lead researcher in this study, Yankel Gabet, stated that this element in marijuana influences the bones, making them much stronger during the healing process, and could even prevent future breaks. This happens because cannabidiol, or CBD, improves the maturation of collagen. Collagen is the protein in connective tissue that holds things together.
This study provides yet another glimpse into the powerful health benefits of cannabis. Medical marijuana is already used regularly to reduce the unwanted effects of chemotherapy, as well as for treating post-traumatic stress disorder. The findings in this study show that compounds in cannabis can also help to treat osteoporosis and other types of bone related diseases. The body’s natural cannabinoid receptors stimulate the formation of bone and even inhibit bone loss.
Although researchers admit there is still a great deal of work to be done in order to develop proper therapies, there is no denying that there are valuable clinical therapies that should not be ignored simply because cannabis also has psychoactivity.
In this study, researchers have caused mild leg fractures on rats, and then made injections with CBD to these subjects, other with CBD plus THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, the chemical in pot that gets you high). They observed these rats and compared their healing process with that in the rats that had broken legs but were unfortunate enough to not get any cannabis.
The study has revealed that the rats injected with CBD showed exactly the same result as the ones that were injected with both THC and CBD. CBD alone was sufficient in and of itself to improve the overall fracture healing.
The same research team carried another study previously and had exactly the same findings. Our bodies contain receptors, and these receptors were found to respond to cannabinoid compounds, and these are not merely confined to the brain. In the study done previously, researchers found that the skeleton contains cannabinoid receptors that not only stimulated bone formation but inhibited bone loss.
RELATED: Understanding the Problems Behind Using Cannabis to Fight Cancer
This study adds to innumerate research about the medical benefits of cannabis. The journal Neuropsychopharmacology published a 2013 study which found that CBD was just as effective as commonly prescribed drugs in the treatment of paranoia and schizophrenia and had no side effects. Although technically, under current US federal law, marijuana remains illegal, however it is under the law to research on CBD in 17 states. It is legal to use marijuana legally in a total of 23 states as of this writing.
However, it will be difficult to continue to enforce these laws. Not much time ago, CBD extracts were approved by the FDA as an “experimental” means of treating Dravet Syndrome – one of the rarest forms of childhood epilepsy. How much longer can the federal government hide the fact that CBD heals?
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