Some Women Use Cannabis to Relieve Hot Flashes And Sleep Problems to Manage Menopause

(CTN News) – A new study has found that some women experiencing hot flashes, sleep problems, and a low libido during menopause seek relief with cannabis, usually in the form of a joint or an edible.

The study examined how women use cannabis to treat symptoms of menopause, either in perimenopause or postmenopause.

Menopause: The Journal of the North American Menopause Society published the analysis in August with responses from 258 women, over 80 percent of whom had used cannabis regularly.

The survey wasn’t a representative sample, but it gives you an idea of how some women use cannabis for menopause symptoms.

Sleep problems, mood disturbances or anxiety, and low libido were the top three symptoms participants said cannabis alleviated.

Respondents also used it for hot flashes, night sweats, body pain, vaginal dryness and pain, and increased pleasure during sex.

There are some women who take medical cannabis and others who use recreational cannabis.

They said that smoking and eating edibles were the most common ways to self-medicate for menopausal symptoms.

Staci Gruber, director of the Marijuana Investigations for Neuroscientific Discovery program at McLean Hospital and associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, said, “These are salient targets for future clinical trials.

How can the data help us optimize treatment options for people with these symptoms?

The study didn’t look at frequency, dose, or whether women had tried other treatments. The results might not apply to women who have never used cannabis since most participants have already used the drug.

Cannabis could work for these women because it mimics a chemical compound produced by the ovaries, anandamide, whose production drops during menopause.

Anandamide is an endocannabinoid, which is a molecule the body makes that’s similar to cannabinoids. The endocannabinoid system controls things like mood, sleep, and temperature.

Also affects female reproductive systems. It’s been shown that anandamide levels correlate with estrogen levels, which decrease during perimenopause.

In Hospitals, patients use cannabis to manage menopause symptoms, Says Dr. Javier Mejia-Gomez, a gynecological oncologist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto.

Dr. Javier Mejia-Gomez, a gynecological oncologist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, has seen more patients using cannabis to manage symptoms.

He looked for published research on the topic but couldn’t find much. He reviewed 564 studies mentioning menopause and cannabis, but only three cut his systematic review.

Other studies were either animal studies of poor quality or didn’t directly study the effects of cannabis on menopause.

“The lack of research and evidence-based medicine makes it hard for us to give accurate advice to our patients about cannabis and menopause,” Mejia-Gomez said.

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