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Considering all the proven health benefits of cannabis, many researchers worldwide explore the possibility of weed being a treatment to COVID-19 and how cannabis may affect your lung health. Studies show that there is a significant interaction between cannabis and COVID.
With the global pandemic the world is currently facing, many health researchers and scientists are searching for a possible vaccine or treatment to COVID-19. Many of them look into cannabis’ potential as an antiviral medicine to reduce the deadly COVID lung inflammation. In research prepared by Canadian scientists, they claimed to have found strong strains of cannabis that may aid in preventing or treating the novel coronavirus. This results in a more in-depth study on how cannabis may affect your lung health and the probable relationship between COVID-19 and cannabis-derived cannabidiol (CBD), in the hopes of having a coronavirus breakthrough. Discover the interaction between cannabis and COVID.
How Covid Affects The Body
Once a coronavirus can infect our body, it latches its spiky surface proteins on healthy cells while multiplying and making copies of itself throughout our body. The coronavirus typically affects our respiratory system, causing common symptoms such as fever, dry cough and tiredness, and more severe symptoms such as difficulty in breathing or shortness of breath, chest pain or pressure, and loss of speech or movement.
In most cases, the symptoms end with a fever and a cough. However, in some people, the infection gets more severe. If this is the case, people are advised to seek immediate medical attention. However, not everyone needs medical care, especially if they are only showing mild symptoms, which are very much manageable at home.
COVID-19 affects different people in different ways. Although the coronavirus typically affects our body’s respiratory tract, doctors have said that it also damages the liver, kidneys, brain and nervous system, heart, skin, and gastrointestinal tract. During autopsies on COVID-19 patients, pathologists found blood clots in almost every organ, showing how the coronavirus affects the entire body.
Cannabis And Covid: Lung Inflammation?
Contrary to those who argue that marijuana is harmful, a study shows that cannabis smokers performed better on lung function tests compared to cigarette smokers and nonsmokers. This research just shows the positive interaction between cannabis and COVID. Cannabis helps lung health, especially those who have COVID.
About the longest study ever conducted on how cannabis may affect your lung health published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, marijuana does not impair lung function as long as the dosage of intake is kept at low or at a moderate level.
According to Dr. Mark J. Pletcher, professor of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California and one of the authors of the study, their research shows that cannabis smoke had unexpected and positive effects. In contrast, tobacco smokers showed the expected drop in lung capacity over time. He even added that cannabis smoking is a lot like performing a pulmonary function test, thereby expanding one’s lung capacity, which is then responsible for the unusual results of the study. However, Pletcher noted that the long-term use of cannabis at the extreme moat dosage might damage the lungs.
Recent Studies of the Effects of Cannabis and COVID
With the still-increasing COVID-19 cases, many scientists continue their research to find a cure to the coronavirus disease possibly. Some researchers from Canada, the United States, and Israel even turn their focus on the role that cannabis plays as a potential therapy and treatment to COVID-19 patients.
In fighting against COVID-19, many scientists look on ways to reduce lung inflammation, and this is where marijuana comes in. Considering how cannabis may affect your lung health, researchers from the University of Nebraska and Texas Biomedical Research Institute recommend more profound research on how the non-psychotropic cannabidiol (CBD) found in some types of marijuana can be beneficial in treating the lung inflammation caused by the coronavirus.
In an article published under Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV2 shows that its “acute infection is associated with a cytokine superstorm which contributes to the symptoms of fever, cough muscle pain and in severe cases bilateral interstitial pneumonia.” In a study, Tocilizumab treatment, which blocks IL-6 receptors, improved the respiratory function, and calmed the inflammatory storm resulting in the recovery of 90% of the 21 treated patients. However, it is to be noted that Tocilizumab has adverse effects such as pancreatitis and hypertriglycemia. This fact forced researchers to look for effective alternative anti-inflammatory strategies, specifically CBD found in cannabis plants.
CBD has been proven in previous studies to show serious anti-inflammatory properties approved by the FDA as safe for children with intractable epilepsy. In comparison to THC, the most well-studied cannabinoid, CBD has a high margin of safety even after treatments of up to 1500 mg/day for two weeks. CBD also shows the possibility of being an alternative therapy for anxiety disorders experienced by COVID-19 patients as it is used to improve their mental and somatic health.
Bottomline
In conclusion, it is no doubt that cannabis offers many health benefits to its users, and one of them shows how cannabis may positively affect your lung health during these pandemic times. However, it is to be duly noted that the current research on marijuana as a possible treatment to COVID-19 is still in its early stages. Researchers and scientists still need to study the matter more deeply.
With the COVID-19 situation still rapidly changing, a lot of research about cannabis and COVID-19 and its effects and possible symptom relief is still ongoing. Different researchers from all over the world are doing their best to utilize the anti-inflammatory powers of CBD found in cannabis in alleviating the current situation caused by the coronavirus.
While cannabis may prove to be useful in aiding COVID lung inflammation and reducing anxiety to its patients, it does not mean that cannabis should be considered a cure or treatment to COVID-19. This topic still requires more research and studies, and until then, we have to wait for more proven and tested facts and well-supported theory.
References:
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/10/health/coronavirus-entire-body-effects-columbia/index.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilyearlenbaugh/2020/07/06/cannabis-may-reduce-deadly-covid-19-lung-inflammation-researchers-explain-why/
https://acslabcannabis.com/blog/education/cannabis-covid-19-research-on-cures-effects-and-possible-symptom-relief/
https://www.cannamd.com/marijuana-covid-19-new-study-preview/
https://nypost.com/2020/05/21/scientists-believe-cannabis-could-help-prevent-treat-coronavirus/
