Hey, what’s up? Health! That’s the kind of painful intro you think of when you need sleep, which is ironically the subject of this week’s main story.
One Penn doctor, Philip Gehrman, recently investigated many of the factors associated with poor sleep in individuals with PTSD. Along with anxiety, depression and suicide risk, poor sleep can reduce the impact of psychotherapy for treatment of the disorder. Luckily, another Penn prof, Marcel Bonn–Miller, has been a part of the budding cannabis research field in collaboration with the Veterans Affairs. He showed that those with PTSD have a higher rate of medical marijuana use specifically for sleep problems. While Bonn–Miller doesn’t explain the science behind how or why it works, the increasing legality of marijuana and interest in research on it should clear up the haze of confusion in due time.
