Cannabis: research and patient questions

Researchers studied medical records to compare pain medication use after hand fracture surgery between patients diagnosed with problematic cannabis habits and those without such a diagnosis. They matched patients based on age, sex, overall health, and injury severity to ensure a fair comparison of their recovery periods.

Researchers studied whether patients with digestive system cancers who received prescriptions for Food and Drug Administration-approved cannabis medications during early chemotherapy reduced their reliance on opioid pain medications. They analyzed electronic health records from a large national network of health systems covering more than one hundred forty thousand patients over a multi-year period.

Researchers followed adults living with long-term lower back pain who chose to use edible cannabis products from legal stores over a two-week period. Participants filled out daily questionnaires about their pain levels, whether they consumed their cannabis product, how many times they used it, and the estimated amounts of plant compounds they took. The goal was to see how different mixtures of major cannabis plant compounds related to daily and short-term changes in pain.

This study followed 52 people with long-lasting nerve pain caused by diabetes who had not improved with standard medicines. Each person was given medical cannabis breathed in through a vaporizer or smoked, with the amount adjusted to their pain, and they were checked once a year for five years.

The study looked at individuals at high risk for psychosis and healthy controls to understand the effects of cannabis and tobacco use. Researchers examined how these substances affected psychiatric symptoms and the likelihood of developing psychosis. They found that using both substances together was common and had significant implications for mental health.

This study looked at young men who use cannabis to see how it might affect their hormone levels. Researchers conducted detailed tests to measure various hormones in the body. The goal was to understand if cannabis has an impact on endocrine function, which refers to the system that produces hormones.

Researchers examined hospital records across the United States from 2016 to 2020 to understand how problematic cannabis use affects patients hospitalized with advanced liver damage caused by metabolic dysfunction (a condition involving liver fat accumulation and inflammation). They compared adults with this specific liver disease who had a cannabis use disorder against those who did not, while accounting for age, gender, race, and other health conditions.

Researchers looked at health records of people diagnosed with a problem related to using cannabis, and compared their mental health to people diagnosed with problems related to other drugs. They grouped the results by adults and by young people.

In adults under 50, frequent and daily cannabis use is independently associated with a dose-dependent increase in the odds of early-onset heart disease. Clinicians should incorporate structured cannabis use histories into routine cardiovascular risk assessments for younger patients and counsel them on potential cardiac risks.

Researchers evaluated whether adding plant-derived cannabis drops to standard medical treatment would improve chronic nerve pain and sleep for adult men who suffered severe shoulder and arm nerve trauma. The study used a rigorous design where participants received either cannabis or a dummy substance for two weeks before switching treatments.