There is a drug for everything and thanks to scientific progress the life expectancy of the population has increased incredibly. Convalescence periods have been shortened and, certainly, the suffering of surgical patients and those suffering from chronic or neuro-degenerative diseases has been reduced.
Medicine now works almost miracles, but not all that glitters is gold. The gap between use and abuse of drugs has become very short, with disastrous consequences. The myth of well-being and the right not to suffer have led people to purchase the easiest and fastest remedy to free themselves from pain.
It is often ignored that there are alternative remedies to combat it, which are no less effective and often less invasive than traditional drugs.
An example? The cannabis plant , which - thanks to its active ingredients - can act effectively against pain and against many of the symptoms that lead to taking unnecessary drugs.
What are the most abused drugs?
In Italy and Western countries, benzodiazepines are among the most consumed drugs , especially due to the increase in stress and maladjustment pathologies such as insomnia, psychosomatic syndromes, neurotic and depressive syndromes.
Other categories of drugs for which there is increasing abuse are gastric protectors , which should instead be used for a limited period of time, and NSAIDs , which fall into the category of non-steroidal anti-inflammatories.
And then of course there are antibiotics , the abuse of which can lead to so-called “antibiotic resistance”.
Painkillers, in particular, can cause enormous damage to the body if they are not used correctly. Ibuprofen is the active ingredient in many over-the-counter products used to combat headaches, toothaches, menstrual or muscle pain.
A study just published in the journal Pnas - Proceedings of the American Academy of Science hypothesizes that in men it can lead to compensated hypogonadism, a typical condition of old age in which the balance of male hormones alters and the function of the testicles declines.
The problem of NSAID abuse is also widespread in the world of sport.
Doing physical activity at an intense pace leads to tissue inflammation , a natural reaction of the body to muscular stress, but not therefore pleasant.
However, having to regain their functionality as soon as possible, athletes often use drugs to limit this process and limit the risk of worsening, ignoring the disastrous side effects on the functionality of the kidneys and stomach.
Cannabis: a real remedy for pain
Using drugs against acute pain is necessary, but often these treatments are intense but limited in time. However, cannabis could be an excellent ally in the treatment of chronic pain, which in the long run affects the quality of life and mood.
Among other things, scientific studies that have measured the effects of isolated CBD in the treatment of acute pain have not reported beneficial effects, contrary to what has been found in the treatment of chronic pain. In this case, in fact, CBD has shown a powerful analgesic action , even in association with other cannabinoids.
CBG (Cannabigerol), for example, is a minor cannabinoid with analgesic properties against inflammatory pain ; It works by increasing the endocannabinoid tone, allowing anandamide to act over a longer range and to synergistically increase the pain-relieving effects of THC. The same can also be said for Cannabichromene (CBC), which enhances the pain-relieving effects of THC.
Two studies on the effects of CBD against pain from Canada and Israel
According to a Canadian study, three puffs of cannabis a day can relieve neuropathic pain , constant discomfort that presents itself in the form of burning, tingling, and more or less intense pain.
A team of researchers from Montreal decided to start a study on the effects of cannabis in pain therapy , after discovering that a small percentage of patients used Cannabis in addition to traditional medications and experienced an improvement in symptoms.
To start the study , 45 patients were selected who were randomly administered a placebo and a dose of Cannabis, with variable concentrations of THC (2.5% - 6% - 9.4%). Each patient took one sample at a time, 3 times a day, for five days.
According to the patients, the pain level went to 6.1 - on a scale of 1 to 10, after administration of the placebo, and to 5.4 after administration of the strains with higher THC concentrations.
The researchers concluded that Cannabis actually has analgesic properties , especially in combination with traditional pain-relieving drugs.In Israel, however, a group of researchers from Ben-Gurion University selected 2000 patients, with and without cancer, who used to use Cannabis to relieve their pain and interviewed them for two years .
The majority (99.6%) of participants had decided to try cannabis for therapeutic purposes because they were disappointed by traditional medicines. The researchers concluded that cannabis not only reduced the participants' pain, but also improved their overall mental state, as well as alleviating many other symptoms. During this study, only 10% of participants decided to discontinue cannabis therapy.
Cannabis and cancer symptoms
Medical cannabis can also be prescribed to soothe some side effects of chemotherapy or radiotherapy , such as nausea and vomiting. A useful approach for many cancer patients, but not yet fully known and accepted, especially in Italy.
“Drugs based on the therapeutic use of cannabis have been prescribable for about twenty years and represent an additional weapon for the complementary treatment of various symptoms in cancer patients or those affected by other chronic pathologies for which conventional symptomatic treatments are not suitable. all decisive" .
In the treatment of cancer patients, cannabis is very important because it allows to reduce the symptoms of chemotherapy, especially nausea and vomiting. It would be a huge achievement, but unfortunately to date only 20-40% of patients use cannabis-based medicines.
In March 2019, the case of an eighty-one-year-old Englishman suffering from lung endocarcinoma, who refused treatment and chose to only take CBD, was made known .
The case report, published in the scientific journal Case Open, reports that "CBD may have played a role in the extraordinary response in the patient (...) , following self-administration of CBD oil for a month and in the absence of any other identifiable change in lifestyle, medications taken or change in diet.” Obviously the researchers were very cautious but confident, stating that further studies are needed to better evaluate the various mechanisms of action of CBD on malignant cells and its potential application in the treatment of malignant tumors.
According to Massimo Nabissi , a researcher at the University of Camerino who has been working on this topic for some time, their anti-carcinogenic properties of cannabinoids are a reality. On the case of the English patient, Nabissi underlines that it is essential to share case reports of that kind of cases, because it remains the best way to strengthen studies on cannabinoids, hoping for a larger clinical study.
Nabissi explains that "on lung adenocarcinoma there are around thirty works with studies on animal models with interesting results, which show how CBD is responsible for the migration of tumor cells or reduces the tumor mass, and the same thing happened in brain or breast tumors."
