Consistent cannabis use could drastically kick major migraine ass, study finds

The debilitating migraine headache may have finally met its match, thanks to some researchers in Isreal who found success in reducing frequency of migraines through prolonged cannabis treatment.

Published earlier this month, the cross-sectional study took 145 patients who suffer from frequent migraine headaches — all of whom had been using medicinal cannabis, and are licensed to do so — for a group average of three years. Of the subjects, all between the ages of 34 and 54, 67% of were women, as women reportedly suffer from migraines three times as often as men. According to the Migraine Research Foundation, migraines affect 39 million people in the U.S. and 1 billion people worldwide.

Well, here's where cannabis comes in to slay the migraine. More than half of the subjects, or 61%, saw major success in the reduction of migraines per month. Those 89 subjects experienced at least a 50% reduction in monthly migraines battles. If that wasn't canna-bad-ass enough, a sub-group, referred to as “responders,” said that the migraines they did get were less debilitating than normal.

Oh yeah, responders also said they slept better and reduced their use of opioids and triptans (migraine medication that “quiets down overactive pain nerves” and works a bit like serotonin).

Non-responders, however, reported that cannabis treatment reduced the frequency of migraines by less than 50%.

“These findings indicate that MC [medical cannabis] results in long-term reduction of migraine frequency in [more than] 60% of treated patients and is associated with less disability and lower antimigraine medication intake,” researchers wrote.

As High Times notes, there have been numerous studies on the link between migraine relief and cannabis and it's not the first time ganja has been found to reduce attacks. The University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences reported similar reduction findings in 2016 and in 2017, European scientists found that cannabis use did not come with a laundry list of side effects like those tied to traditional chronic pain and migraine medications.

So, when can we ditch our prescription migraine drugs? Well, Israeli researchers say that through the research supports medical cannabis as being a viable migraine therapy, “more research is required to demonstrate the efficacy parameters of MC treatment for migraine,” as well as “the complexity” of the cannabis plant and how to more specifically design treatment from it.

According to recent data published by Globenewswire.com, the global migraine drugs market was valued at $1.29 billion in 2018 and could reach $3.51 billion by 2026.

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