Many people struggle with their sleep, and there’s no shortage of treatments out there that can purportedly help us regain some dozing time. Unfortunately for the many people who reach for cannabis to fight insomnia, a comprehensive review published this week found little solid evidence that it helps.
In a new Cochrane Library review, scientists conducted a sweeping analysis of randomized clinical trials looking at medical-grade cannabis for insomnia. There was insufficient evidence supporting the idea that cannabis could reliably relieve insomnia, they concluded. Though it’s still possible the drug can be a useful sleep aid, better studies are needed to know for sure, the researchers say.
“I would not interpret these findings as proof that medical cannabis does not work. Rather, they show that the available research is too limited and uncertain to give patients and clinicians a clear answer,” lead author Lucia Varela, a neurologist and fellow at the University of Manitoba in Canada, told Gizmodo.
Cochrane is a well-respected organization that regularly publishes reviews from independent research teams analyzing the clinical trial literature on important health topics, insomnia included. Scientists with The Cochrane Associate Center at the Universidad Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires in Argentina and the University of Manitoba in Canada led this particular review, which was published Monday.
Varela and her team looked at nine studies that collectively involved 537 people between the ages of 18 and 76 being treated for insomnia. Most people in these studies were treated for primary insomnia, meaning insomnia not linked to another health condition.
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