Cannabis can significantly ease the pain of rheumatoid arthritis, a medical trial has shown.
Taking the Class C drug as a mouth spray makes moving and resting less painful, improves sleep quality and eases inflammation, researchers said.
And the scientists who carried out the research insist that the "high" created by the drug is an essential part of the treatment.
They are now calling for a larger trial to back up their findings and help the 600,000 rheumatoid arthritis sufferers in the UK.
David Blake, Professor of Bone and Joint Medicine at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases, Bath, and the University of Bath, led the research.
He gave 31 patients a cannabis-based medicine (CBM) called Sativex and another 27 people received a placebo.
The CBM produced "statistically significant" results, according to the research, published in the medical journal Rheumatology.
On a scale of 0-10 for pain on movement, with 0 equalling no pain, those sufferers taking the CBM reduced their pain from seven to 4.8.
Those on the placebo cut their pain from 6.7 to 5.3.
Dr Ronald Jubb, consultant rheumatologist at the University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, said: "The results from the first controlled study of CBM are encouraging.
"There are overall improvements in pain on movement and at rest, improvement in the quality of sleep and improvement in the overall conditions of the patient's arthritis.
"Whilst the differences are small and variable across the patient group, they represent benefits of clinical relevance and indicate the need for more detailed investigation through larger trials to see exactly where CBM could be best used with minimum side-effects."
Taking the Class C drug as a mouth spray makes moving and resting less painful, improves sleep quality and eases inflammation, researchers said.
And the scientists who carried out the research insist that the "high" created by the drug is an essential part of the treatment.
They are now calling for a larger trial to back up their findings and help the 600,000 rheumatoid arthritis sufferers in the UK.
David Blake, Professor of Bone and Joint Medicine at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases, Bath, and the University of Bath, led the research.
He gave 31 patients a cannabis-based medicine (CBM) called Sativex and another 27 people received a placebo.
The CBM produced "statistically significant" results, according to the research, published in the medical journal Rheumatology.
On a scale of 0-10 for pain on movement, with 0 equalling no pain, those sufferers taking the CBM reduced their pain from seven to 4.8.
Those on the placebo cut their pain from 6.7 to 5.3.
Dr Ronald Jubb, consultant rheumatologist at the University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, said: "The results from the first controlled study of CBM are encouraging.
"There are overall improvements in pain on movement and at rest, improvement in the quality of sleep and improvement in the overall conditions of the patient's arthritis.
"Whilst the differences are small and variable across the patient group, they represent benefits of clinical relevance and indicate the need for more detailed investigation through larger trials to see exactly where CBM could be best used with minimum side-effects."
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