DOES MARIJUANA TREAT ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION? SHORT-TERM RELIEF VS. LONG-TERM EFFECTS, NEW RESEARCH
Marijuana is reputed for its ability to relieve pain and alleviate moods, so it would seem the ideal treatment for those suffering from depression or anxiety. However, new research suggests this may not be the case, after finding that in the long-term, heavy chronic marijuana use tends to worsen the symptoms of depression and anxiety, not reverse them.
Marijuana
is reputed for its ability to relieve pain and alleviate moods, so it
would seem the ideal treatment for those suffering from depression or
anxiety. However, new research suggests this may not be the case, after
finding that in the long-term, heavy chronic marijuana use tends to
worsen the symptoms of depression and anxiety, not reverse them.
The
study found that individuals with subclinical depression who used
marijuana to self-treat their depressive symptoms reported feeling more
depressed than anxious. On the other hand, self-reported anxiety
sufferers who used marijuana to treat their symptoms reported that they
felt more anxious than they did depressed.
“If they [respondents]
were using cannabis for self-medication, it wasn’t doing what they
thought it was doing,” explained co-author Jacob Braunwalder, in a
recent statement.
Marijuana does not seem to be a one-size-fits-all treatment for depression and anxiety.Photo Courtesy
The
researchers note that the main caveat to their study is that the
responses are self-reported and based off their own personal
self-medication experiences. Still, the researchers urge that these
results suggests it’s time to dedicate more research into how marijuana
affects the brains of those with mental health conditions such as
depression and anxiety.
“There is a common perception that
cannabis relieves anxiety,” said study co-author Jeremy Andrzejewski in a
recent statement, adding that the results of his research suggest the
exact opposite.
At the moment, the team hypothesizes that
marijuana may treat depression and anxiety in the beginning, but at some
point begins to stop work and perhaps even worsen the condition
symptoms. Much more research will be necessary in order to completely
understand the effect of marijuana on mental health conditions.
This
is not the first time researchers have suggested that marijuana
exacerbated depression and anxiety treatments, and it may be that
marijuana affects different patients differently. A 2015 animal study
found that marijuana did help to reverse the effects to too much stress,
the main cause of depression, in the brains of mice. However, the
results were not strong enough to suggest the same could be true in
humans. What’s more, depression and anxiety treatments are tailored to
an individual’s needs and personal biology, so it would make sense that
marijuana was not a “one-size-fits-all” fix to these complex medical
conditions.
Source: Troup LJ, Andrzejewski JA, Braunwalder JT,
Torrence RD. The relationship between cannabis use and measures of
anxiety and depression in a sample of college campus cannabis users and
non-users post state legalization in Colorado. Peer J. 2016
0 comments:
Post a Comment