Usually treated with drugs, mainly benzodiazepines or antidepressants, i symptoms of anxiety disorders can improve thanks to cannabis.
In addition to the numerous studies on CBD and anxiety in fact, two new ones have arrived which confirm the therapeutic potential of cannabidiol scientific confirmations which attest to the effectiveness of cannabis for anxiety.
Anxiety disorders: what are the symptoms
Anxiety disorders are the most widespread pathologies in the world, with well 270 million of people who suffer from it, especially women.
I more common they are generalized anxiety disorder (GAD or GAD), panic disorder (DP), hypochondriasis, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
And in DSM-5 (Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) are defined as "feelings of nervousness, tension or panic in response to different situations; frequent worry about the negative effects of past unpleasant experiences and future negative eventualities; feelings of fear and apprehension in situations of uncertainty, anticipating the worst".
Whose symptoms are: palpitations, tremor, sweating, dizziness, insomnia, nausea, chest pain etc.
Cannabis and generalized anxiety disorder: effective for reducing symptoms
Conducted on 302 patients from the UK Medical Cannabis Registry suffering from generalized anxiety disorder, the study, led by researchers at the Imperial College Medical Cannabis Research Group in London and published in Psychopharmacology, concluded that cannabis treatment could improve its symptoms.
After analyzing generalized anxiety disorder-7 (GAD-7) questionnaires filled out by patients at 1, 3 and 6 months, the researchers reported that:
“Improvements have been observed in anxiety, quality of sleep and quality of life at any time point - The mean absolute 6-month reductions of 4.5 points in GAD and the 0.11 increase in quality of life are above levels taken at minimum clinically significant differences, while the mean increase in sleep score of 1.5 is slightly less than the level of 2.6 corresponding to “slightly improved sleep”. Individually at 6 months, 39% of people experience a clinically significant improvement in their anxiety, 50% quality of life e 35% of the sleep score. These findings add weight to a previous analysis (Ergisi et al. 2022), with a larger group of 96 patients followed for 6 months compared to just thirteen previously. This suggests that the improvements observed with CBMPs in this patient group are maintained in multiple domains over 6 months."
The authors conclude by underlining that the prescription of cannabis-based medicines “is associated with clinically significant improvements in anxiety with a acceptable safety profile”.
Does cannabis reduce anxiety? Yes for patients
From the data of 184 patients collected via apps, it was found that inhaling cannabis can reduce anxiety. Results published on Journal of Cannabis Research, investigators at Aurora Cannabis Inc. in Edmonton analyzed the data they include three of the dried flower products most commonly used in anxiety (THC indica (17–19.1% THC: 0.1% CBD), CBD (0.3–2.5% THC: 8–10.3% CBD), and THC sativa (17.5–22.3% THC: 0–0.1% CBD).
The researchers stated that: “Cannabis use resulted in a significant decrease in anxiety scores among both males and females, an average efficacy of 50% similar between the three genetics. - And again - All age groups experienced significant reductions in their anxiety after cannabis use; however, the 40+ age group had significantly lower efficacy than the other groups. The overall optimal dosage for the entire cohort was 9-11 inhalations for males and 5-7 inhalations for females, with some variation in dosage between different cultivars, sexes and age groups."
* Photo by Usman Yousaf on Unsplash
