Medical cannabis could help improve ageing menopausal symptoms in women

As women advance in age, they go through a chunk of symptoms that might make the day bad and unbearable like anxiety, night sweats, irritability, brain fog, sleeplessness, vaginal dryness, and reduced libido. All these symptoms characterize menopause which is the cessation of the menstrual cycle from the normal aging process. Born with a limited number of the oocytes that deplete systematically post conception, women can experience hormonal fluctuations. These fluctuations can wreak havoc over wellness and health during the midlife.

However, there are chances that medical cannabis might change this for the better. Cannabis has played a vital role for years in the relief and treatment of multiple conditions related to women’s health. Although modern medications have denied the effect it has over the body, it has been notably famous as popular analgesia, appetite stimulant, or nerve tonic.

In the United States, Cannabis actually wasn’t mentioned as a substance that was illegal for use until the advent of the 1940s. However, in 2013, AHP or the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia went on to publish a series of two parts that detail the therapeutic use for cannabis while classifying it in the category of “Botanical Medicine”. Cannabis is effective in helping out with uncomfortable and unpleasant symptoms of the menopause with its direct interaction that occurs with the ECS or Endocannabinoid System of the woman’s body. This ECS term came into light in the year 1992 when Raphael Mechoulam, the Israeli researcher along with his associates named Dr. William Devane and Dr. Lumir Hanus discovered the endocannabinoid named as “anandamide”. The name has been derived from Sanskrit word named “Ananda” which means “Bliss”. Researchers studied and found that anandamide, when deficient in women as well as men, tend to induce stress-related irritability and anxiety.

The two critical factions of ECS include G protein-based receptors termed CB1 & CB2. Both of these tend to respond in a positive way to cannabis. GPCRs tend to act as the gatekeepers for molecular signals. These GPCRs take the stimuli from outside the body while converting them into receivable signals inside the cells to ultimately be received by the brain. GPCRs occur in almost every critical body function that is physiological in nature starting from the immunity of the body to regulating the metabolism and the way we smell and taste food.

Cannabis targets the CB1 & CB2 receptors such as the GCPRs and has been known to induce fewer side effects as compared to typical pharmaceuticals.