How To Heal Your Gut with Cannabis

If you suffer from digestive issues, then you know that eating for gut health can be a tricky bit. Even if you think that your digestion doesn’t need improvement, you may still want to consider taking steps to heal your gut. Why, you ask?

For starters, your gut influences many other important areas of health, including your brain, immune response, and weight. So, if you’re dealing with things like depression, skin issues, and losing that pesky spare tire, then read on to learn how cannabis can help heal your gut and improve overall health.

Why is Gut Health Important?

Your digestive system is one of the most overlooked aspects of health. In fact, good gut health is so critical for overall health that some research indicates that ALL diseases begin in the gut, even ones that you don’t associate with digestion, like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.

This is because your digestive system does so much more than digest your food. It houses the majority of your immune system, influences the inflammatory response, and even “talks” to your brain to influence mood and cognition.

Perhaps the gut’s most influential effect on the rest of your body is its role in regulating the inflammatory response. Research shows that chronic inflammation is responsible for most human diseases, including cancer, autoimmune disorders, and infectious diseases.

Chronic inflammation occurs when we lead an unhealthy lifestyle, such as eating lots of processed foods, lack of exercise and sleep, and overexposure to stress. All of these factors can harm your microbiome, which is a term used to describe the genomic makeup of all living organisms in the body.

These microbes are located all over your body, but they primarily exist in your gut. Healing this part of your body can help reduce a host of unwanted symptoms and reduce the risk of numerous diseases. Specifically, healing chronic inflammation in the gut may:

• Improve mood and concentration abilities

• Help control weight and insulin levels

• Reduce digestive symptoms, such as bloating, abdominal pain, gas, diarrhea, and constipation

• Heal skin disorders and reduce chronic pain, such as headaches and joint pain

• Restore balance to hormone levels

• Reduce inflammation and help put autoimmune conditions in remission

• Support a robust immune response to reduce the risk of severe illnesses

• Increase blood flow and support a healthy cardiovascular system

• Increase recovery after a hard workout

• Help you sleep better

• And much more!

How Does Cannabis Improve Gut Health?

Cannabis contains powerful anti-inflammatory properties that help regulate the immune response and boost gut health.

Research shows that cannabis may also have gastroprotective properties, meaning that it can protect against damage due to inflammatory conditions, such as excessive alcohol use.

According to one study, cannabidiol (CBD) - the non-psychoactive cannabinoid in cannabis - may help protect the immune system and brain mechanisms against alcohol use disorder by preventing disruptions to the microbiota-gut-brain axis. It may also prevent disturbances in gut microbiome species and intestinal permeability or leaky gut syndrome.

Intestinal permeability refers to the lining of your digestive tract and its ability to prevent toxins from leaking through your gut to your bloodstream. Maintaining this barrier is important for overall health, and cannabis can help keep your digestive walls strong - so to speak.

Another study found that cannabis can help prevent alterations in the gut microbiome, chronic inflammation pathways, and gut-brain axis signalling associated with HIV. Specifically, the endocannabinoid system helps several organ systems maintain homeostasis.

Dysregulation of the gut-brain axis due to HIV leads to chronic inflammation, such as brain inflammation. However, cannabis contains antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that can help control inflammation and restore gut health as well as the quality of life in patients with HIV, including reducing sleep disorders, pain, depression, anxiety, and nausea.

You might even notice that using cannabis reduces other conditions in your body that you didn’t associate with gut health, such as dry skin, hormone levels, weight control, bad breath, joint pain and headaches, and more. Many people with IBD find that cannabis also helps reduce anxiety associated with their disease, making it easier to regain control of their symptoms.

Tips For Using Cannabis to Boost Gut Health

CBD works best on your gut health when combined with other forms of holistic medicine that reduce inflammation, such as eating an anti-inflammatory diet and improving your daily habits.

Make sure to cut refined sugars, processed grains, gluten, and dairy from your diet if you are having digestive issues. Instead, focus on incorporating healing nutrients from fruits and vegetables into your diet, such as vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and fiber.

You can take CBD supplements orally in capsule, oil, or tincture form. This is an easy way to ensure that the beneficial compounds in cannabis reach your gut where they can strengthen your immune system, reduce leaky gut, and properly regulate the immune response.

Most people with IBD find that taking CBD as a supplement helps them reduce their intestinal pain, too. You can drink CBD-infused tea after meals or before bed to help with the digestion process and reduce unwanted symptoms, such as nausea, pain, gas, and bloating.

Final Thoughts

Gut health does more than impact your digestion. It also regulates your mood and can contribute  to weight management, insulin and hormone control, and even skin health.

The key to healing the gut is to reduce inflammation. Taking CBD is a great way to target inflammation in the gut, which helps regulate the immune response and fight disease.

Look for a high-quality source of CBD as these contain the highest concentration of anti-inflammatory properties - such as the ones sold here!