Ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, both autoimmune illnesses, are the most frequent manifestations of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), a catchall name for ailments characterised by persistent inflammation of the colon.
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is one type of autoimmune condition in which the body’s immune system destroys healthy tissues and microbes in the digestive system.
Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) have several causes, including genetics, immune system malfunction, and a list of environmental influences, many of which are still being unravelled. Lifestyle factors (such as food, smoking status, and alcohol use) and comorbid conditions (such as diabetes, MTHFR gene mutation, and cardiovascular disease) can have a significant influence on the severity of symptoms. Click here to get more about medical cannabis treatment for cardiovascular disease.
Irritable bowel disease affects 1 in 250 Australians, and its varied symptoms can be challenging to treat. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) symptoms are listed below. The geographical location is the key distinction between the two states: While Crohn’s disease affects mostly the small intestine, ulcerative colitis can strike anywhere in the gastrointestinal tract.
Some people may suffer numerous symptoms to a modest degree, while others may experience fewer symptoms to a severe degree; this is because they are complicated illnesses that can progress to damage other bodily systems if left untreated.
The Problems and the Potential Treatments
Oral steroid medicines, thiopurines (which inhibit the immune system by disrupting T-lymphocyte activities), biologic anti-tumor necrosis factors, and intergen treatments are all used in the treatment of psoriatic arthritis.
In contrast, the latter two biologic therapies inhibit inflammatory pathways by inhibiting proteins and specific white blood cell activities. Unlike oral drugs, these treatments are most effective when given intravenously, and they may not even help certain patients.
Normal medical care has drawbacks that can make you more vulnerable to infections, reduce your bone marrow’s ability to generate new cells, and impair your liver’s ability to operate properly. Imbalances in liver homoeostasis can have far-reaching effects on the body as a whole.
Instead of or in addition to conventional pharmacological therapy, some patients opt for a more holistic approach, which emphasises adjustments to one’s nutrition and way of life. Nonetheless, therapeutic treatment requires very dramatic adjustments to food and lifestyle, which can be challenging for many people to sustain over the long term.
The endocannabinoid system has been the focus of a lot of pre-clinical research.
Several research have suggested the endocannabinoid system (ECS) as a potential treatment for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), based on results linking the ECS to other autoimmune disorders.
A higher number of ECS receptors and anandamide levels have been seen in mouse models of induced inflammatory bowel disease. In this investigation, three therapies were tried out on rats and human colon biopsies. The findings of this study lead to an increase in anandamide as a potential first step in a strategy to reduce colon inflammation in people with inflammatory bowel disease.
Intestinal wound healing is another area where anandamide is demonstrated to have a small but clinically important impact. Patients with Ulcerative Colitis, who have trouble healing intestinal wounds, may find that modulating cannabinoid receptor 1 has a vulnerary effect.
What part does the Entourage Effect play in inflammatory bowel disease?
The results of studies conducted so far on animals reveal that THC and CBD have mixed efficacy in treating IBD. The positive effects shown have been dose-dependent, and it is believed that the entourage effect plays a significant role in this context, with isolated cannabinoids often being less potent than whole plant formulations.
Even though the entourage effect has been shown to be quite useful in animal studies for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), the varying results suggest that there is still a lot of work to be done before the connection between phytocannabinoids, the ECS, and the gut is fully understood.
CBD oil: a potential anti-inflammatory remedy?
Biopsies of human colon tissue from people with remission from Ulcerative colitis and those with the active illness indicated that CBD oil was an efficient anti-inflammatory agent on both tissue samples, suggesting the potential of CBD oil as a therapy and potentially preventative medicinal.
Human studies of medical cannabis have shown encouraging results.
Cannabinoid medicines, such as medicinal cannabis, have demonstrated a good therapeutic response in recent human research. Medical cannabis for Crohn’s disease has only been the subject of one randomised, placebo-controlled research thus far, which took place in Israel in 2013. Ten out of eleven patients had a favourable clinical response, and five of those patients went into full remission.
While this study had some limitations due to its small sample size and unconventional methods of administering medical cannabis, it did find some encouraging results, such as a decrease in subjects’ reliance on steroid medication (in three of the people studied) and widespread reports of enhanced appetite and sleep.
While complete remission has not been reached in all of these trials, favourable outcomes in patients’ quality of life and intensity of symptoms support demands for more medical cannabis research with varying titrations of cannabinoids like THC or CBD and various delivery modalities.
Medical Cannabis in Australia for Inflammatory Bowel Disease Treatment
Recent surveys on inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and medical cannabis were released by the Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics at the University of Sydney. They feature discussions between patients and gastroenterologists about the benefits of medicinal cannabis for inflammatory bowel disease.
Ninety-seven percent of former and current medical marijuana users said that marijuana aids in the control of their symptoms, most commonly those associated with the digestive system (abdominal discomfort, stress, insomnia, cramping, and anxiety). Although there are legal options for obtaining medicinal cannabis in Australia, only 3% of patients said they did so; the remainder said they obtained it illegally (from a recreational dealer, a family member, or a friend).
Over a third of doctors are aware that patients are taking medicinal cannabis as part of their treatment regimen, as shown by the poll of gastroenterological experts. Only a few of these doctors were in favour of prescribing medicinal cannabis for IBD (21%), and even fewer said they would do so (28%). This looked to boil down to insufficient familiarity with available avenues of access, which is in line with patients’ reliance on primarily illegal drugs, and to doubts about the reliability of available evidence, which is in line with the scarcity of data from human studies.
However, it is encouraging that more than half of the questioned doctors would urge their patients to join in future clinical studies of medicinal cannabis for IBD, especially given that Australian medical authorities anticipate an increase in patient demand for medical cannabis.
To know more about where to buy medical cannabis in Australia and other medical marijuana resources, you should book a consultation session with a professional from Chronic Therapy today.