[Canniseur: This story isn’t about how cannabis matches to the endocannabinoid system. It’s about the system itself and how it may play a more critical role in our health than previous scientific studies had revealed. A deficiency in one’s endocannabinoid system (ECS) might cause several diseases, if not more. There’s far more we don’t know than what we do know about the human body and our systems helping to keep our health and well being stable. It’s starting to appear that the endocannabinoid system is an important system. Too bad we couldn’t have found it sooner.]
The discovery of the endocannabinoid system in the mid-1980s was a major breakthrough in modern medicine. Yet, if you looked at the curriculum for most medical schools, you might not know it. The finding would not have been possible without the help of the cannabis plant, which remains illicit in most countries around the world. After wide-spread legalization of medical cannabis and over three decades of research, knowledge about the endocannabinoid system and its associated pathologies, like clinical endocannabinoid deficiency, remain sorely overlooked.
The Endocannabinoid System: The Find of the Century?
Two decades before the discovery of the endocannabinoid system, a team of scientists led by Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, a professor of medical chemistry a the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, had finally isolated the primary psychoactive constituent of the cannabis plant—tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). After the discovery, researchers around the globe began the quest to figure out exactly how the compound worked. A group led by Dr. Allyn Howlett, a neuroscientist then with St. Louis University, finally cracked the mystery: THC produced its psychoactive effects through engagement with specialized cell receptors….
The rest of this post The Endocannabinoid System and Clinical Endocannabinoid Deficiency is on Cannabis Now.
