Today’s article seeks to answer a simple query. Does CBD oil work for Gastritis? In order to successfully answer this query and determine the effectiveness of CBD oil and cannabis-based treatment, we first need to understand what Gastritis is.

PODCAST

What Is Gastritis?

Gastritis is a general term used to describe a group of conditions with one thing in common. This is the inflammation of the protective lining of your stomach. Gastritis is not only described as inflammation but also the irritation or erosion of your protective stomach lining.

Gastritis appears in 3 forms. They are acute, chronic, and erosive Gastritis. Acute Gastritis is described as sudden and severe inflammation. Chronic Gastritis is described as gradual long-term inflammation that can last for many years if left untreated. Erosive Gastritis is described as minimal inflammation compared to acute and chronic gastritis but can lead to bleeding and ulcers in your stomach lining.

What Causes Gastritis?

Gastritis is caused by any condition that weakens or injures the mucus-lined barrier that protects your stomach wall. This allows your digestive juices to damage and inflame your stomach lining. A number of conditions can increase your risk of gastritis. These include diseases like Crohn’s and Sarcoidosis. Crohn’s disease is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that affects the lining of your digestive tract. Sarcoidosis is the growth of tiny collections of inflammatory cells in different parts of your body including your stomach lining.

Gastritis is also caused by excessive use of alcohol, cocaine, tobacco, stress, chronic vomiting, and regular use of painkillers and NSAID drugs such as aspirin and ibuprofen. An infection by a bacteria that lives in the mucous lining of your stomach called Helicobacter Pylori is known to cause gastritis. A process known as Bile Reflux where a backflow of bile is pushed into your stomach from your bile tract also causes gastritis.

Gastritis is also known to be caused by your immune system attacking healthy cells that make up your stomach lining. This type of gastritis is called Autoimmune Gastritis. This negative reaction wears away at your stomach’s protective barrier and is associated with vitamin B-12 deficiency. Autoimmune Gastritis is common among people with other autoimmune disorders such as Type-1 Diabetes or Hashimoto’s disease.

If left untreated, gastritis can lead to the development of stomach ulcers, severe blood loss, and an increased risk of developing stomach cancer.

What Are The Symptoms of Gastritis?

Gastritis doesn’t always come with noticeable signs or symptoms. However, when you do get symptoms, they vary greatly from person to person. The most common symptoms include:

• Nausea
• Vomiting blood or coffee ground-like material
• Recurrent upset stomach
• Abdominal bloating, abdominal pain
• Indigestion
• Burning (or gnawing) feeling in your stomach between meals at night
• Hiccups
• Loss of appetite
• Black-tarry stools

What Are The Treatment Options For Gastritis?

For most people, Gastritis isn’t serious and improves quickly with treatment. Treatment will depend on the cause of your condition. If you have gastritis caused by painkillers, NSAIDs, alcohol, or other drugs, then avoiding these substances may be enough treatment to relieve symptoms. Avoiding irritating foods such as hot and spicy cuisines, lactose from dairy, and gluten from wheat can help relieve symptoms.

If your gastritis is caused by the H.Pylori bacteria, then your doctor may treat you with antibiotics that kill this bacteria. Probiotics have been shown to help replenish digestive flora and heal gastric ulcers. However, there are no medical guidelines that support the use of probiotics for ulcer management. And, there’s no evidence that demonstrates that probiotics have an impact on acid secretion. Your doctor may recommend antacids for fast pain relief. Antacids neutralize the acid in your stomach, however, they may also cause diarrhea or constipation.

Your doctor may also recommend medication known as proton pump inhibitors. They work by blocking cells that create stomach acid. However, long-term use especially at high doses can lead to an increased risk of spine, hip, and wrist fractures. They can also lead to an increased risk of renal failure, dementia, and nutrient deficiencies. Complications with existing medication have led people to seek alternative solutions outside the medical system. One of those solutions is cannabis-based treatment. This leads us to the question of the day…

Does CBD Oil Work For Gastritis?

Yes, CBD oil does work for treating Gastritis. More specifically, CBD oil will help treat any inflammatory and pain symptoms associated with Gastritis. Cannabis-based treatment has also been demonstrated in a scientific setting to reduce gastric acid secretion and increase gastric mucosal protective effects in your stomach.

How Effective Is CBD Oil For Treating Pain In Gastritis?

To answer this question, we need to look at the results of a 2016 systematic review journal and a 2014 inflammatory bowel disease study. The results from these studies will help you understand how effective cannabis-based treatment is for providing pain relief in Gastritis.

The focus of the journal was to review and discuss the medical use of cannabis for gastroenterological diseases. The gastroenterological diseases up for review and discussion were inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and chronic pancreatitis. The researchers reviewed randomized controlled trials (RCT) that investigated the use of either herbal cannabis or pharmaceutical cannabinoids with a study duration of 4 weeks or more. The clinical outcomes being reviewed were the effectiveness of medical cannabis on pain, nausea, appetite and/or weight, diarrhea, health-related quality of life, and remission rates for IBD. The researchers also reviewed the tolerability and safety of medical cannabis treatment.

The review found one clinical trial where herbal cannabis was used to treat 21 patients with Crohn’s disease. Crohn’s disease is an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that causes abdominal pain and cramps, diarrhea, bloody stool, fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, weight loss, and other symptoms. The clinical trial demonstrated that the patients treated with herbal cannabis experienced less abdominal pain and an improved appetite.

The researchers concluded the journal by stating that cannabis may be a useful form of treatment for providing symptom relief from Crohn’s disease. The symptoms highlighted that cannabis provided relief for were pain, nausea, and loss of appetite. The researchers stated that the use of THC to alleviate symptoms of Crohn’s disease should be considered after the failure of pre-existing medical therapies. Thus, if herbal cannabis is good enough to treat pain symptoms associated with Crohn’s disease, then it surely is suitable enough to treat pain associated with Gastritis.

In 2014, a group of researchers set out to investigate the beneficial and adverse effects of self-treating with cannabis in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). 313 patients seen between July 2008 and March 2009 completed a questionnaire detailing their motives, the pattern of use, and the beneficial, and adverse effects of self-treating with cannabis for IBD. Responses from patients’ self-treating with cannabis were compared with patients who had not used cannabis as treatment.

Results from the study yielded the following patient-reporting data:

• 83.9% reported cannabis improved pain
• 76.8% reported cannabis improved abdominal cramping
• 48.2% reported cannabis improved joint pain
• 28.6% reported cannabis improved diarrhea
• 96.4% reported they self-administered cannabis via inhalation

The study concluded that self-treating with cannabis was common practice for IBD treatment. And, according to the patient’s reporting, cannabis improved pain-related symptoms and diarrhea. Thus, if cannabis can provide pain relief in treating IBD symptoms, then it’s surely able to do the same for Gastritis.

How Effective Is CBD Oil For Treating Inflammation In Gastritis?

This question was indirectly answered in the studies mentioned prior. Both studies dealt with inflammatory bowel disease, where the results showed a reduction in pain due to a reduction in inflammation. However, it does not hurt to provide more support to drive the point home. Thus, to answer this question, we need to look at the results of a 2015 rodent model study and a 2018 alcoholic gastritis patient study. The results from these studies will help you understand how effective cannabis-based treatment is for providing anti-inflammatory effects in Gastritis.

In 2015, researchers set out to investigate the effect of cannabis on gastric acid secretion, gastric ulcers, oxidative stress, and inflammatory markers in the gastric mucosa of pylorus-ligated rats. Pylorus ligation is the surgical procedure of tying the pylorus tightly. A pylorus is a valve between the stomach and small intestine that opens and closes during digestion. Cannabis was administered daily for 4 weeks to the rats prior to pylorus ligation in divisions of 5, 10, and 20 mg/kg.

The study found that when cannabis is administered a month before pylorus ligation in a dose dependant manner produced the following results:

• Decreased development of gastric mucosal damage
• Reduced gastric acid output
• Reduced gastric mucosal oxidative stress and inflammation

These results suggested to the researchers that:

… cannabis administered systemically exerts gastric mucosal protective effects against mucosal damage evoked by stimulation of gastric acid secretion, acidified aspirin or ethanol. These effects of cannabis are likely to involve inhibition of gastric acid and pepsin secretion, increased mucus, decreased oxidative stress and inflammation in gastric mucosa.

In 2018, researchers set out to investigate the impact of cannabis use on alcoholic gastritis among individuals with abusive alcohol use. The researchers were aware of the results of the previous rodent study where cannabis hampered gastritis and reduced gastric acidity.

The researchers extracted hospital records from the 2014 Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) of adults 18 years and older who were diagnosed with abusive alcohol use. They used a tendency-based matching algorithm to match 30,738 groups of abusive cannabis users to an equal number of non-users. Using regression models and equations, the researchers measured the relative risk of alcoholic gastritis with cannabis use, and then with increasing levels of cannabis use.

The results from the study revealed that cannabis co-use with alcohol decreased the occurrence of alcoholic gastritis when compared to non-users of cannabis. The researchers found that there’s a 25% decreased probability of alcoholic gastritis in cannabis co-users. They also found that there’s a lower occurrence of alcoholic gastritis in cannabis-dependent users compared to both non-dependent cannabis users and non-cannabis users.

The researchers conclude the publication by stating that their…

…results demonstrate that when abusive alcohol users co-use cannabis, they were less likely to develop alcohol-associated gastritis. With the rising popularity of cannabis use and cannabis-infused alcoholic beverages, more studies might reveal the optimal composition of the cannabinoid contents of these beverages, to provide maximal protection from alcoholic gastritis.

In Closing…

CBD oil and cannabis-based medicines are effective and useful for the treatment of Gastritis. Specifically in regards to providing effective pain relief, anti-inflammatory effects, and gastric mucosal protective effects in your stomach. The studies and journals highlighted in today’s article clearly show how effective cannabis-based treatment is for treating the major symptoms of Gastritis.

Moving forward, there should NOT be a doubt in your mind that you will be able to achieve effective treatment results from CBD oil use for inflammation, pain, and stomach lining protection. However, please keep in mind that you will need to pay attention to what you put in your body. Just because cannabis demonstrates positive scientific results relating to gastritis does not mean you can be careless with alcohol consumption, for example.

Your challenge now lies in finding a suitable CBD oil solution that will assist you in getting positive results. Regarding inflammation, CBD alone has been scientifically proven to provide anti-inflammatory effects. However, regarding pain, the best scientifically proven solution is CBD and THC in a 1:1 ratio. This will be challenging to find commercially as current regulation limits the amount of THC availability to either 0.3% or 0.2% in a given CBD oil product based on your location.

However, some researchers have stated that high enough doses of CBD-dominant solutions can provide pain relief effects. Yet, what those dose levels look like is unknown at the moment. Hence, it is best to work with a pro-cannabis medical professional to guide you through the process of finding your optimal dosage levels so you can achieve your desired results.

If a pro-cannabis medical professional is inaccessible to you in your area, then you may need to consider micro-dosing as your next option. As an example, micro-dosing marijuana is the practice of taking small amounts in order to reap the medical benefits of THC while avoiding its psychoactive effects. However, instead of micro-dosing marijuana, you may look into micro-dosing CBD oil to find your optimal dosage that produces the desired effects.

You would need to keep an active journal on hand to take note of a few variants such as:

• The type of cannabis product purchased (oil, vape, flower, edibles, etc)
• The CBD and/or THC concentration levels (number of mg’s per bottle)
• The date of treatment commencement (start date)
• The times of treatment administration (times of day, AM and PM)
• The frequency of treatment administration per day (number of times per day)
• The dosage amounts per administration (number of milligrams or drops per dose)
• The noticeable effects after administration (positive, negative, or neutral)

Citations

• Volz MS, Siegmund B, Häuser W. Wirksamkeit, Verträglichkeit und Sicherheit von Cannabinoiden in der Gastroenterologie : Eine systematische Übersichtsarbeit [Efficacy, tolerability, and safety of cannabinoids in gastroenterology: A systematic review]. Schmerz. 2016 Feb;30(1):37-46. German. doi: 10.1007/s00482-015-0087-0. PMID: 26809974.
• Storr M, Devlin S, Kaplan GG, Panaccione R, Andrews CN. Cannabis use provides symptom relief in patients with inflammatory bowel disease but is associated with worse disease prognosis in patients with Crohn’s disease. Inflamm Bowel Dis. 2014 Mar;20(3):472-80. doi: 10.1097/01.MIB.0000440982.79036.d6. PMID: 24407485.
• Abdel-Salam, O.M.E., Salama, R.A.A., El-Denshary, E. et al. Effect of Cannabis sativa extract on gastric acid secretion, oxidative stress and gastric mucosal integrity in rats. Comp Clin Pathol 24, 1417–1434 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00580-015-2090-3
• Adejumo, Adeyinka MD, MS1; Akanbi, Olalekan MD, MPH2; Bukong, Terence PhD3 Concomitant Cannabis Use Decreases the Risk of Alcoholic Gastritis Among Alcohol Abusers, American Journal of Gastroenterology: October 2018 – Volume 113 – Issue – p S1595 doi: 10.1038/ajg.2018.333