Marijuana and CBD have been the conversation ever since marijuana was made legal in 16 states and medical marijuana legal in 36 others. New York was the first state to legalize marijuana on March 31, 2014, and other states followed suit. What was once a Schedule 1 drug is now lauded for its myriad of health benefits and is also a treasure trove for businesses countrywide. In today’s post, we’ll be looking at the benefits of medical marijuana that could tickle your fancy.
Contrary to popular thought, marijuana is more than just a euphoria-inducing drug for hippies and errant teenagers. There are many benefits of marijuana that particularly touch on mental and physical health. Read on to find out the plethora of marijuana benefits and how it can help address certain medical conditions.
Table of Contents
1. Improves Lung Capacity
Who’d have thought that inhaling marijuana could help improve your lung health? Well, it’s true.
Unlike cigarettes, the effects of marijuana on the lungs lean on the positive. Instead of harming your lungs, marijuana helps increase lung capacity.
Lung capacity is the volume of air your lungs can hold in at any moment. The more your lung capacity, the more oxygen you can get into your body. In fact, lung capacity is a crucial predictor of respiratory mortality, which researchers link to health and longevity.
2. Controls and Prevent Diabetes
According to the CDC, approximately 34.2 million Americans have diabetes; that’s about one in every ten individuals. Marijuana helps regulate and prevent diabetes by decreasing insulin resistance. Researchers found that avid marijuana users have lower insulin levels when compared to non-users.
This means marijuana can be an excellent complement to standard diabetes medication and accelerate recovery. Marijuana also helps lower blood pressure and improve blood circulation to mitigate diabetes symptoms.
3. Reduces Pain and Inflammation
Chronic pain is a symptom of most of the major illnesses, including cancer and arthritis. Marijuana has pain-alleviating properties making it useful in mitigating the symptoms of the above conditions. Marijuana topicals have proved beneficial for people with arthritis because it helps ease the pain.
What’s more, you can get marijuana for pain specifically. Marijuana strains like Sour Diesel and ACDC have excellent pain-relieving properties. If regular pain medication doesn’t cut it, you should give the said strains a whirl.
4. Promotes the Healing of Broken Bones
Studies show that Cannabidiol or CBD, a compound in marijuana, helps promote the healing of broken bones. What’s more, not only does marijuana mend broken bones, it also strengthens them in the process. The next time you have a fractured leg, light one up and let the herb work its magic.
5. Helps Control Anxiety
There’s a little confusion when it comes to marijuana and treating anxiety. Marijuana in controlled amounts helps treat anxiety, but too much marijuana does the opposite. Taking too much marijuana increases paranoia and anxiety, which makes for a very unpleasant experience.
If you want to ease anxiety with marijuana, you should consider getting hemp. Hemp is best for PTSD because it has a low THC percentage; THC is the psychoactive compound in marijuana that increases anxiety. Low-THC marijuana helps decrease anxiety and not the opposite.
6. Mitigates and Prevents Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer’s is a cognitive degenerative disease that mostly affects the elderly. The disease is characterized by inflammation of the brain or neuroinflammation. Marijuana helps decrease brain inflammation, thus mitigates the symptoms of Alzheimer’s.
Marijuana doesn’t only mitigate Alzheimer’s; it can also help prevent the disease. That means ingesting marijuana consistently can keep Alzheimer’s disease at bay.
7. Helps People With PTSD
PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder is a mental condition that affects post-trauma victims, particularly army veterans. Chronic PTSD can dramatically reduce life quality and hamper proper interaction with family and friends.
Marijuana helps control the flight and flight hormone release to decrease erratic reactions common in people with PTSD. It’s an excellent complement and substitute to other PTSD medication.
8. Helps Treat Glaucoma
Excess pressure build-up in the back of the eye leads to glaucoma. Glaucoma is a painful condition that can potentially damage nerves in the eye and lead to vision loss. Symptoms include blurred vision and seeing rainbow-colored circles around light sources.
Cannabis helps reduce the pressure behind the eyeball and hence mitigates the symptoms of glaucoma. Doing so will also improve your vision and protect nerves in the eye from damage.
9. Helps Cure Alcoholism
Alcoholics have made significant progress with marijuana in their battle against alcoholism. Marijuana helps address the alcohol craving and is a great substitute for alcohol. Although marijuana is also a drug, it doesn’t have most of the harmful effects associated with alcohol.
Admittedly, cannabis isn’t completely without risk, but it’s much better than alcohol. If you’re struggling with alcohol, you should try substituting it with marijuana.
10. Helps Cure Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Inflammatory bowel disease doesn’t sound like a delightful disease, and it’s true. Inflammatory bowel disease is a broad term for two diseases, namely Khron’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Both are very painful conditions.
Compounds in marijuana help elicit immune responses in the body to keep inflammatory bowel disease at bay. They also interact with cells in the digestive system to promote better functioning of the gut. Marijuana will help relieve some symptoms of inflammatory bowel syndrome.
11. Helps Reduce Seizure in Epileptics
Studies show that CBD helps regulate seizures in individuals with epilepsy. In fact, CBD is a key component in the manufacture of epidolex. Epidolex is an FDA-approved drug for reducing seizures in children.
Using weed pipes for ingesting marijuana is an excellent way of taking marijuana and increasing lung capacity. It’s also way better than smoking a roll.
Benefits of Marijuana in a Nutshell
It’s hard to understate the benefits of marijuana when there are so many. Maybe it’s time to consider taking marijuana to experience this range of benefits. If you don’t want the psychoactive effects of marijuana, you can settle for CBD instead.
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