Cannabis helps heal broken bones

By Guest Column Israel21c —— Bio and Archives August 12, 2015

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Add another page to the constantly growing body of evidence supporting the use of medical marijuana to treat pain and a variety of other conditions including diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, cancer and multiple sclerosis.

A study recently published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research by scientists from Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem explains that one of marijuana’s non-psychotropic component cannabinoids, cannabidiol (CBD), significantly enhanced the healing process of lab rats with mid-femoral (thighbone) fractures. The research was led jointly by Dr. Yankel Gabet of the Bone Research Laboratory at TAU’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the late Prof. Itai Bab of Hebrew University’s Bone Laboratory. Participants included researchers from the Institute for Biomechanics in Zürich and from Lund University in Sweden. The same team, in earlier research, discovered that cannabinoid receptors within our bodies stimulated bone formation and inhibited bone loss. This paves the way for the future use of cannabinoid drugs to combat osteoporosis and other bone-related diseases. More...