Canabis for Nausea and Vomiting

Medical Cannabis and products derived from this plant have been used for centuries for various therapeutic applications. The commonly known application includes the relief in nausea and vomiting.

The suppressing effect produced by cannabinoids present in Cannabis helps to alleviate nausea. Whereas a primary non-psychoactive compound in Cannabis called cannabidiol (CBD) also suppresses nausea and vomiting within a limited dose range.

On the other hand, a cannabinoid called THC also has a paradoxical effect and acts as an antiemetic (preventing nausea) agent in the human body.

Nausea or emesis can be triggered by conditions like medicine side-effects, dizziness, motion sickness, stress, food poisoning, and migraine, etc.

However, Cannabis has been studied to relieve anticipatory nausea in chemotherapy patients.

The patients undergoing chemotherapy fears the onslaught that occurs after 24 hours in the form of cyclic vomiting. This is not regular emesis (nausea). This is, in fact, CINV (chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting).

Although CINV is treated with conventional pharmaceuticals like Dexamethasone etc., for worst cases when these traditional medicines would not alleviate the symptoms, medical Cannabis was administered.

Two medicines, nabilone and dronabinol, were successfully tested on chemo patients to counter nausea and vomiting symptoms post-chemotherapy. However, these medicines are generally prescribed to patients who do not respond to other pharmaceuticals.

Synthetic cannabinoids dronabinol and nabilone were both approved in 1985 by FDA for the treatment of CINV (chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting). Since then, clinical trials were conducted one after another to prove the efficacy and relief signs of synthetic cannabinoids in CINV.

But this was not enough, so scientists also started their in-depth research on its combination reaction with other regular medicines.

Synthetic cannabinoids dronabinol and nabilone relieve symptoms of vomiting and nausea by blocking the binding of dopamine and serotonin, both of which are associated with CINV, at receptor sites.

Some of the body’s endocannabinoid receptors are present in emetic reflex pathways in the human body. Cannabinoids, once entered into the human body, target these pathways and relieve the emetic symptoms.

Talking about the efficacy of CBD, one must also explore the administration methods for the fastest relief. Medical practitioners have disliked the idea of smoking cannabis as it comes with serious side-effects from burning substances. However, other administration methods like pills, capsules, gummies, tinctures, gels, and transdermal patches are recommended. These methods offer varying bioavailabilities – the absorption ratio of an administered drug in a human’s body.