There’s a question on the minds of millions of people right now…and at first glance, it doesn’t have much to do with cannabis.
The question? People across the world are wondering if it’s possible to boost their immune systems naturally. And thankfully more than a few different supplements and plant-based products are up for the task. There are the usual suspects like vitamin C, D, and zinc, for starters.
Compared to those substances, cannabis’s potential effects on the immune system are more subtle. But that doesn’t mean the cannabis plant should be discounted. Far from it, actually, because cannabis may be hugely valuable to one’s immunity in certain scenarios.
- What Is the Immune System?
- What Is the Endocannabinoid System?
- What Does Cannabis Do?
- Does Cannabis Suppress Immunity? It’s Complicated…
- How Cannabis Could Protect Your Immune System
What Is the Immune System?
Before getting into exactly how cannabis may help one’s immune system, it’s important to take a look at what the immune system actually is! Here’s some context.
The human body has 11 major organ systems. These systems are pretty important — they include the heart that keeps your blood pumping and the digestive tract that keeps you energized. But in charge of all this are several less tangible systems designed to keep everything else in control. One of them is the nervous system…the other is the immune system.
Your immune system is responsible for maintaining awareness of any inputs (think unknown bacteria) that enter your body. Your immune system literally keeps you alive when you come into contact with bacteria and viruses. Though the system usually functions so well that you might be tempted to take it for granted…without it none of us would last long.
To accomplish its missions, the immune system had to get pretty advanced. It contains several different layers of defence and several different kinds of cells. The immune system can be found in the skin, within the bloodstream and bone marrow, and throughout the mucose membranes. Its weapon of choice? The white blood cell.
And there are actually two parts to the immune system: an innate part that’s present at birth and an adaptive part that learns all it can from that moment on. Both elements are crucial for maintaining good overall health.
What Is the Endocannabinoid System?
To recap, our body’s 11 organ systems are overseen by the nervous system, endocrine system, and immune system. But do you know what oversees <i>them</i>?
Don’t feel too pressured to respond — up until the early ’90s, no one did. But since that time scientists have discovered a type of “master regulation” system that helps everything else stay in balance. It’s called the endocannabinoid system…and its functions directly affect the state of your immune system.
How? Scientists have found that the immune system and endocannabinoid system actually talk to each other. Studies affirm that “[cannabinoid] receptors are highly expressed in white blood cells.” In other words, the single most important part of the immune system, its white blood cells, can receive messages from cannabinoids.
The endocannabinoid system may promote immune balance in other ways, too. Research has revealed that endocannabinoid activity actually rises and falls according to the body’s demand. If the immune system is especially active in a certain area (the gut lining, for example), then the endocannabinoid system increases its activity there, too, all in hopes of getting things balanced out.
At the heart of the endocannabinoid system’s inner workings is something called retrograde signalling. This special type of signalling refers to how endocannabinoids travel against the flow of most other neurotransmitters en route to delivering their messages. Retrograde signalling allows cannabinoids to complete feedback loops that help the body maintain full awareness of itself…and this phenomenon means good things for those who want to keep their immune health in balance.
But enough of the technical stuff. Long story short, the biological system that keeps us well and the biological system that processes cannabis are intertwined.
Let’s now bring theory to practice and look at what cannabis might actually do for you!
What Does Cannabis Do?
The research is crystal clear: cannabis feeds the endocannabinoid system.
Indeed, those who use cannabis consistently may experience a variety of health benefits, ranging from better sleep to improved mobility to smaller waist circumference (yes, really). Cannabis has even been correlated with a reduced risk of premature death.
And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. According to Dr. David Allen, “more people will be saved by the manipulation of the endocannabinoid system than are currently saved by surgery.” Cannabis, of course, easily ‘manipulates’ the endocannabinoid system, which is why it has such a diverse set of potential health benefits.
Does Cannabis Suppress Immunity?
Cannabis’s impact on the immune system may be less studied than some of the stuff we linked to earlier…but it’s no less promising.
While it was suspected up until recently that cannabis just suppressed (i.e, lowered) one’s immune system, new research has shown this couldn’t be further from the truth. In reality, cannabis has an immunomodulatory effect on the immune system, almost like a thermostat.
It does suppress immunity in some instances, but only when such suppression is needed, like in times of autoimmunity. Cannabis use may help quiet the immune system down when its white blood cells get too zealous in their quest to disarm viruses and kill cancer.
One study explained it this way: “endocannabinoids such as 2-AG are critical regulators of [the] immune response […] exogenous 2-AG treatment decreases T- and B-cell-dependent immune response in hypersensitivity and autoimmunity models.” Research is affirming that both endocannabinoids and phytocannabinoids are selective, not immunosuppressive.
How Cannabis Could Protect Your Immune System
Cannabis may help your immune system in several ways. For one, many of the cannabinoids it contains are anti-viral and anti-microbial. That’s especially true of CBG, the so-called “mother cannabinoid.”
“CBG proved to be marvellous at tackling pathogenic bacteria,” Eric Brown, the lead researcher of an important study done earlier this year, reported. Brown went on to theorize that cannabinoids might have “real therapeutic potential” as antibiotics.
Dr. David Allen echoes Brown’s statements. Cannabis “may offer control of the immune system and in turn, provide protection from viral infections,” he claimed in a fascinating article about cannabis and hepatitis C.
Granted, some of these concepts are still in the theoretical stage. But we already have enough research to be confident that cannabis is very unlikely to hurt the immune system — and quite likely to balance it out.
How can you experience cannabis’s pro-immunity benefits for yourself? Well, both CBD and THC appear to be effective immune regulators, and the cannabis tincture appears to be the best delivery method for this particular task. Microdosing with cannabis may also be a good way to subtly improve immune function over time.
And as always, the key to making the most of your cannabis experience is consistency.
By receiving consistent nourishment from cannabinoids, you may be doing your part to keep your immune system healthy and strong.