Arthritis



ARTHRITIS


Arthritis appears to be one of the earliest illnesses for which cannabis was employed as a treatment. Studies have shown that THC in cannabis can reduce arthritis pain. Separately and together, THC and CBD reduce the cytokine activity that is believed to be responsible for the deterioration of joint tissues in arthritis.



Historical Uses


Cannabis has been used for the treatment of arthritis and rheumatoid diseases since around 2500 BCE, when it was first recommended in Shen-Nung’s classic Chinese pharmacopeia. The herbalist and author Vivian Crawford notes in her history of medicinal cannabis use in England that Pedanius Dioscorides recommended cannabis for restoring “the softness of joints” in his De Materia Medica (50 and 70 CE), which was later cited by William Turner in his noted herbal of 1551. However, the cannabis type used for this sixteenth-century medicine was likely a fiber variety of hemp, rather than a drug variety, since there is no mention at all of psychoactivity. While hemp varieties have no THC, they often contain significant amounts of CBD, which is an effective anti-inflammatory. Crawford also notes that cannabis was featured in the famous Culpeper herbal of 1653 as a treatment for “the hard humors of knots in the joints.”8


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Jun 24, 2016 | Posted by in PHARMACY | Comments Off on Arthritis

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