Going back to at least 1990, lower back pain has been the leading cause of years lived by people with disability worldwide. According to the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017, roughly 7.5% of the planet’s population experiences some level of lower back pain, ranging from mild to severe.

Lower back pain is defined by researchers as “pain in the area on the posterior aspect of the body from the lower margin of the twelfth ribs to the lower gluteal folds with or without pain referred into one or both lower limbs that lasts for at least one day.”

The development of lower back pain can be due to various factors, including work-related injuries. For some suffering patients, lower back pain comes and goes. However, for many others, the lower back pain is chronic in nature and continues for weeks or months on end. In severe cases, the pain never goes away at all.

A team of health researchers affiliated with the University of Colorado Boulder conducted a study focused on the use of THC/CBD-infused edibles and their potential use as a treatment for lower back pain. The study’s findings were published in the journal Biomedicines.

“Despite growing accessibility throughout the U.S., it is still unclear if the naturalistic use of recreational cannabis edible products is associated with decreases in pain intensity on days of use or longitudinally, and if these associations are dependent on the doses of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) being consumed.” the researchers wrote.

For the study, participants suffering from chronic low-back pain chose an adult-use cannabis edible product to use exclusively for 14 days, with labeled THC and CBD potency “used to determine product group: CBD-dominant (n = 97), THC + CBD (n = 112), or THC-dominant (n = 34).” The study’s subjects completed daily surveys reporting current pain intensity, whether they used the product on a given day, and what the individual cannabinoid dosage was.

“Increasing doses of THC (b = −0.02, 95% CI [−0.04, −0.01]), not CBD (b = 0.003, 95% CI [−0.03, 0.01]), were associated with significantly lower pain intensity on days following product use, with increasing doses of CBD diminishing the impact of THC dose (b = 0.02, 95% CI [0.01, 0.04]).” the researchers found.

“These findings indicate a complex relationship between THC, CBD, and pain intensity associated with the naturalistic use of recreational cannabis edible products. Lower daily pain intensity was associated with the use of products containing THC; however, dose models indicate that this association may be attenuated at higher doses of CBD. Additionally, only products containing relatively equal amounts of THC and CBD were associated with lower pain intensity after 14 days of observation.” the researchers concluded.