Cannabis for Autism – How The Wonder Plant Turns The Tables In The Medical Arena?

ASD, often called autism, affects around one out of every 54 children in the USA. The number of cases is constantly proliferating to an alarming extent. Autism can significantly affect several potential abilities of the children, keeping them from giving their best in different areas of daily life activities.

Research unleashes that gender can greatly affect the chances of falling prey to autism. Apparently, boys are three to four times more commonly affected by autism.

Natural remedies like cannabis extracts may reduce the severity of the symptoms of autism in the patients. Although there is no clear evidence regarding the ability of cannabis to treat autism, anecdotal evidence suggests that using Cannabis for Autism may help reduce the intensity and frequency of most symptoms.

What is Autism?

Autism refers to a whole umbrella that includes a group of neurodevelopmental disorders that can substantially affect patients’ behavior and communication abilities.

It can significantly affect the ability of children to function normally on a daily basis. Autism can affect all patients differently depending upon different factors. Children are generally diagnosed within two years of their birth.

The causes of autism are explained as both genetic and environmental factors. However, genetic factors are considered to be potential stronger ones. Genetic disorders are the most common cause of autism.

Stick around to learn more about the symptoms, causes, risk factors, and types of autism.

Symptoms of Autism:

Autism can have apparent symptoms even in the early phase of childhood. It is not always easy to recognize symptoms in time, and that’s why it remains undiagnosed for a long time after symptoms start occurring. The symptoms are generally persistent and can throw a spanner in the works of daily routine.

Symptoms of autism make a whole set of physical and mental conditions that can keep the patients in trouble persistently. The extent to which a patient is affected is assessed by analyzing the condition to bring forth autism symptom severity, represented through a scale. The three major types of symptoms of autism are as follows:

1. Sensory issues

Autism might make you over-sensitive and, in some cases, under-sensitive to light, taste, touch, pain, smell, and other stimuli.

2.Communication challenges

Patients with autism generally find it too difficult to carry out verbal and non-verbal communication in daily life. Some major issues are as follows:

• One-third of the patients with autism are non-verbal. Even the rest of them find it hard to use spoken language
• It’s hard to make appropriate gestures
• Keeping eye contact seems difficult
• Abnormality in facial expressions
• Pitch and tone of voice get problematic
• Patients have a hard time recognizing intentions and emotional gestures in the people surrounding them.
• Appropriate Expression of emotions is a daunting task.
• Often feel overwhelmed by the feeling of having to take turns during group conversations.
• You’ll notice these patients gauging personal space while moving in public.
• Restricted and repetitive behaviors

Restricted and repetitive behaviors are commonly observed in autism patients. If you’re wondering what these kinds of behaviors refer to, here’s all you need to know:

• Motions like running back and forth, rocking, spinning, and flapping.
• Repetitively moving objects such as shaking sticks, spinning the wheels, or flipping levers.
• Especially children which autism tend to show great attention to lights and spinning objects. You’ll always find them staring at them.
• You can observe a ritualistic pattern in everything people with autism do.
• Patients are quite resistant to any sort of change in the normal routine.
• Narrowing down of interests in certain topics.

Causes of Autism:

Well, there’s no cut-short cause of autism known by medical science. When trying to pinpoint the causes of autism, experts generally consider several factors. Things like the complexity and severity of symptoms help a lot in figuring out the causes of autism. Environmental and genetic factors play a significant role in the development of the said condition.

Genetic factors:

Genetic factors directly affect your chances of developing the condition. Genetic mutations can cause autism in children.

• Rett syndrome: Autism may be associated with Rett syndrome, a genetic disorder affecting children.
• Some cases of autism involve mutation or genetic changes. Some genetic mutations are inherited, while others are spontaneous. These mutations might as well affect brain cells that can determine the severity of symptoms.

Environmental Factors

The experts are still exploring the environmental factors to come up with facts that can explain the extent to which they can cause autism and affect the severity of symptoms. The following environmental factors can cause autism:

• Complicated pregnancy
• Air pollutants
• Medications
• Viral infections

Can Childhood Vaccinations Cause Autism?

Vaccinations are thought to be a potential cause of autism. However, no relevant study has shown a link between vaccinations and autism. The said point of view has been exposed to extensive research. Thus, parents should never avoid vaccination as it might expose the kids to the threat of serious diseases.

What are the risk factors for autism?

The number of cases of autism is rising to an alarming extent. Every day several hundreds of cases are reported. Now experts aren’t quite sure whether this is due to better health facilities equipped with advanced detection systems or a genuine increase in the number of cases. Whatever the case, you need to get well-acquainted with all the factors contributing to your vulnerability to developing autism. Children of all nationalities and races can have autism, but are there any factors that can make you more vulnerable? Let’s find out.

• Gender: Medical science clearly shows that gender can be a potential risk factor as male children are exposed to an almost four times greater risk of having autism as compared to females. This explains the importance of considering the gender of your child.
• Family history: Like most other medical conditions, family history can play a role in the development of autism. If your child has autism, probably any of your other children will also have it or will develop it in the future.
• Extremely preterm babies: Babies born before 26 weeks of gestation are exposed to greater risk.

Types of Autism:

There are three broad classes of autism that are as follows:

• Autistic disorder: Also known as classic autism, it’s the most commonly occurring type of autism. It is generally characterized by unusual behaviors and communication challenges.
• Asperger Syndrome: Symptoms associated with this type of autism are generally milder than the rest.
• Pervasive Developmental Disorder: This is also known as typical autism and involves some symptoms of any of the two other types of autism, but not all of them.

How Does Cannabis Work For Autism?

Medical Cannabis is constantly taking over several areas of medical science today, but can we use medical cannabis for autism? Let’s find out.

Keeping in view all the symptoms of autism, the experts have constantly been striving to evaluate various aspects of medical cannabis and autism. This brought forth several revolutionary facts in the world of autistic treatments.

The Cannabis plant has a robust chemical makeup and possesses several wonder cannabinoids that can closely interact with the endocannabinoid system and the nervous system of human beings. This may ultimately help the said plant reduce the intensity of symptoms experienced by autism patients. Using cannabis for autism can help relieve the following symptoms:

• The Cannabinoids such as CBD and other terpenes may together work to relieve symptoms like anxiety in autism patients.
  1. Hyperactivity is a common symptom that may be coped with cannabis extracts. CBD, CBN, and a few other cannabinoids are widely known for calming patients.
  2. Autism patients commonly experience sleeping problems. Cannabis is found to have the potential abilities to help you sleep better by binding with the adenosine receptors.
  3. Cannabis may help relieve aggressiveness, hypersensitivity, and communication challenges.

Using Cannabis for Autism: Research findings

The following studies suggest that cannabis can do wonders to help patients with autism:

• A recent study from 2021 brings forth that using cannabis for autism may help the patients cope with anger, attacks of self-mutilation, restlessness, and other symptoms. [1]
• Another study from Minnesota State University unleashes surprisingly curative effects of cannabis extracts for autism. It can help the patients deal with rage attacks, social communication, and other symptoms. [2]
• Another clinical analysis showed that cannabis extracts could successfully relieve symptoms in 70% of the autism patients that participated in the clinical trial. [3]

Final Thoughts:

The aforementioned aspects of using cannabis for autism clearly explain how cannabis can help the patients deal with several symptoms, including hyperactivity, aggressiveness, anxiety, depression, sleeplessness, hypersensitivity, and communication challenges.

References:

1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34043900/

2.https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2107&context=etds

3. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30687090/