The use of medical marijuana is associated with “significant improvements” in quality of life for people with conditions like chronic pain and insomnia—and those effects are “largely sustained” over time—according to a new study published by the American Medical Association (AMA).
Researchers carried out a retrospective case series analysis that involved 3,148 people in Australia who were prescribed medical cannabis for the treatment of certain eligible conditions.
For all eight wellbeing indicators that were tested, marijuana appeared to help, with adverse side effects that were “rarely serious,” according to the study, published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Health Policy.
Patients were asked to rate their wellness in eight categories on a scale of 0-100 at different stages of treatment. Those categories were general health, bodily pain, physical functioning, physical role limitations, mental health, emotional role limitations, social functioning and vitality.
After administering the survey to the patients about once every 45 days, for a total of 15 follow ups, the study found that participants who were consuming cannabis reported average improvements of 6.6-18.31 points on that 100-point scale, depending on the category.
“These findings suggest that medical cannabis treatment may be associated with improvements in health-related quality of life among patients with a range of health conditions,” the researchers from the Swinburne University of Technology, University of Western Australia and Austin Hospital wrote. ...
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