Anxiety & PTSD: Cannabis improved anxiety, depression, fatigue, and social abilities

This study's goal was to evaluate the effectiveness of cannabis-based medicine on anxiety disorders and PTSD. It  was published in the Journal of Pharmacy Technology in June 2023.

198 participants diagnosed with an anxiety disorder were treated with medical cannabis. The average age was 48 and 53% were female. The median observational period was just over 154 days. About 71% had an unspecified anxiety disorder while about 29% had PTSD.

Patients took either an oral liquid or capsules and were divided into 5 groups based on the formulation:

  1. CBD only (median daily dose = 100mg)
  2. THC only (median daily dose = 38mg)
  3. CBD-dominant (median daily dose = 25mg CBD + 6.3mg THC)
  4. THC-dominant (median daily dose = 6mg CBD + 33.8mg THC)
  5. Balanced formulations (median daily dose = 20mg CBD + 20mg THC)

 

The study used the PROMIS-29 (v2.0) survey to assess treatment effectiveness. It asks patients to rate pain intensity and seven health domains (physical function, fatigue, pain interference, depressive symptoms, anxiety, ability to participate in social roles and activities, and sleep disturbance). 

Results and conclusions from the authors: 

Participants taking the CBD-only and balanced formulations reported improved levels of anxiety, depression, fatigue, and ability to participate in social activity in both the full participant sample and the unspecified anxiety subset.

In the PTSD participant subset, the CBD-only formulation group at a median (IQR) dose of 95 (117.6) mg/day was the only group that reported significant improvements in the same 4 participant outcomes.

Participants who took a THC-dominant formulation reported a significant decrease in their anxiety levels.

The only formulation type to improve all 4 of these participant outcomes in the total participant sample and subsets of unspecified anxiety and PTSD was CBD-only. 

Formulations of cannabis significantly improved anxiety, depression, fatigue, and the ability to participate in social activities in participants with anxiety disorders.

 

The full text article is here at Sage Journals.

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