If you have Crohn’s or colitis, I bet you have encountered someone either in person or on the internet who claims to be able to control his or her disease with the use of cannabis. Or maybe you are using medical marijuana already. This may seem appealing as an alternative to medications that can have a frightening side effect profile. The regulatory climate in the US makes marijuana difficult to study so we don’t have good, high quality information about it regarding its effect on IBD. The Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation commissioned a white paper on the topic.
Dr. Arun Swaminath is the first author on this publication.
He is the director of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Program at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York also associate professor at Hofstra/Northwell.
His twitter page is located here: https://twitter.com/Swaminath_IBD
I hope we address any and all questions you may have about cannabis and IBD, both from the patient and clinician's perspective.
As a disclaimer, this podcast is not medical advice and I am not endorsing the use of cannabis for IBD as it has not been FDA approved for this purpose.