Endocannabinoid system modulators for abdominal pain in irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease: A systematic review of efficacy and safety.

What To Know

This preprint is a systematic review of randomized controlled trials testing endocannabinoid system (ECS) modulators—cannabis, cannabinoids, and related compounds—for visceral abdominal pain in IBS and IBD.

The authors included 14 trials (796 participants) and found mixed, heterogeneous evidence: some ECS agents (palmitoylethanolamide + polydatin; THC/CBD preparations) showed benefits on pain, symptom severity, and quality of life in some trials, but certainty ranged from very low to moderate and pooled meta-analysis could not be performed.

Adverse events were mostly mild-to-moderate, though severe neurologic events were reported with a CBD-dominant botanical extract in at least one study. Risk of bias varied across trials. The review concludes that current evidence is limited and larger, well-designed RCTs using clinically relevant pain outcomes are needed.

The report is based on the source abstract (preprint) and summarizes what the authors present without implying full peer-reviewed publication or endorsing treatments.