Cannabinoids in inflammatory bowel disease

Cannabinoids as a group of chemicals seem to have many potentially useful effects. There is exciting research on its use in multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer's disease and now in inflammatory bowel disease (primarily, Crohn's diseaes and ulcerative colitis).

Annecdotally there are reports of people using cannabis in treating a whole host of illnesses, and unfortunately, I think this illicit use has help back research into cannabinoids.

From: BBC News

Bowel study backs cannabis drugs (excerpt)

...The Bath University team found people with the gut disorder had an abundant number of a type of cannabinoid receptors in their body.

They believe this is part of the body's attempt to dampen down the inflammation and that giving a drug that binds to these receptors could boost this...

...When people have Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis - collectively known as inflammatory bowel disease or IBD - their immune system goes into overdrive, producing inflammation in different areas of the digestive tract...

...Dr Karen Wright and colleagues examined gut samples from healthy people and IBD patients and looked for the presence of two receptors known to react to natural cannabis-like compounds produced by the body.

Both the patients and the healthy people had similar numbers of CB1 receptors in their gut. However, the IBD patients had far greater numbers of CB2 receptors.

The normal job of CB1 and CB2 receptors is to switch immune responses on or off. CB1 receptors also help to promote wound healing in the lining of the gut...

...Dr Wright said: "This gives us the first evidence that very selective cannabis-derived treatments may be useful as future therapeutic strategies in the treatment of Crohn's and ulcerative colitis.

"This is because some extracts from cannabis, known as cannabinoids, closely resemble molecules that occur naturally in our body, and by developing treatments that target this system, we can help the body recover from some of the effects of these diseases."

She said that the psychoactive effects and the legal implications associated with herbal cannabis use made it unsuitable as a treatment.

However, it might be possible to make a synthetic cannabis-like drug that has all of the therapeutic benefits and none of the other actions of cannabis.

"Targeting drug development to components of the in-built cannabinoid system could be the way forward," she said...