Studies Released Claim Cannabis Helps People With Arthritis and Use Among the Elderly Increasing

Studies Released Claim Cannabis Helps People With Arthritis and Use Among the Elderly UpPhoto byBudding .onUnsplash

In a new study around cannabis and arthritis just released it suggests that the use of medical marijuana among people with rheumatic conditions such as arthritis that more than 6 in 10 patients who used medical cannabis reported substituting it for other medications, including NSAIDs, opioids, sleep aids and muscle relaxants. Most patients further said that the use of marijuana allowed them to reduce or stop using those medications entirely.

“The primary reasons for substitution were fewer adverse effects, better symptom management, and concerns about withdrawal symptoms,” says the study, published this month by the American College of Rheumatology. “Substitution was associated with THC use and significantly higher symptom improvements (including pain, sleep, anxiety, and joint stiffness) than nonsubstitution.”

The findings, say authors at the University of Michigan Medical School, McGill University and the University of Buffalo, “suggest that an appreciable number of people with rheumatic diseases substitute medications with [medical cannabis] for symptom management.”

Data for the study came from an online, anonymous survey of adult residents of the United States and Canada, which was advertised on social media and through email contact lists of the Arthritis Foundation and Arthritis Society Canada. Of 1,727 completed surveys, 763 respondents said they currently used cannabis, while 655 said they’d never used marijuana and 268 said they’d used but since discontinued. Researchers analyzed responses of only those who said they were current cannabis users.

“Among 763 participants, 62.5% reported substituting MC products for medications, including nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (54.7%), opioids (48.6%), sleep aids (29.6%), and muscle relaxants (25.2%),” the report says.

Meanwhile in a separate report commissioned by the AARP shows that marijuana use by older people in the U.S. has nearly doubled in the last three years—with most saying they use cannabis to relieve pain, help with sleep, improve mental health and achieve other benefits.

More than 1 in 5 Americans aged 50 and older now say they’ve used marijuana at least once in the past year, according to the survey conducted by the University of Michigan, while more than 1 in 10 consumed cannabis at least monthly. Researchers say they expect use rates among older adults to continue to increase as more states legalize.

Among respondents who did use cannabis within the past year, 81 percent said it was to relax, 68 percent reported using the drug as a sleep aid and 64 percent said it was simply to enjoy marijuana’s effects and feel good. Another 63 percent said they used cannabis for pain relief, while 53 percent said they used it to promote mental health.

AARP, which supported the study, noted that the 21 percent of Americans over 50 who now report using marijuana in the past year represents an increase in use among older adults nationally—nearly double the 12 percent who said in the prior edition of the poll in 2021 that they consumed cannabis in the past 12 months.

In the latest survey, 12 percent said they used cannabis at least once a month and 9 percent of people nationally said they consumed marijuana on a weekly basis, while 5 percent said they were daily users.

The new findings come after a separate study earlier this year concluded that cannabis-based products may provide multiple therapeutic benefits for older adults, including for health, well-being, sleep and mood.

Authors of that study, published in the journal Drugs and Aging, also observed “sizable reductions in pain severity and pain interference among older aged patients [reporting] chronic pain as their primary condition.”