Do You Know Your Body?
Contributed by Alexander Harmon
Everyone knows the main 11 systems in our bodies, right? The Integumentary System, Skeletal System, Muscular System, Nervous System, Endocrine System, Cardiovascular System, Lymphatic System, Respiratory System, Digestive System, Urinary System, and the Reproductive System. Within all of these systems there lives a robust network of cells called the Endocannabinoid system.
What is the Endocannabinoid system or ECS? The ECS comprises a vast network of chemical signals and cellular receptors that are densely packed throughout our brains and bodies. The "cannabinoid" receptors in the brain — the CB1 receptors — outnumber many of the other receptor types on the brain. They act like traffic cops to control the levels and activity of most of the other neurotransmitters. This is how they regulate things: by immediate feedback, turning up or down the activity of whichever system needs to be adjusted, whether that is hunger, temperature, or alertness.
To stimulate these receptors, our bodies produce molecules called endocannabinoids, which have a structural similarity to molecules in the cannabis plant. The first endocannabinoid that was discovered was named anandamide after the Sanskrit word ananda for bliss. All of us have tiny cannabis-like molecules floating around in our brains. The cannabis plant, which humans have been using for about 5,000 years, essentially works its effect by hijacking this ancient cellular machinery.
A second type of cannabinoid receptor, the CB2 receptor, exists mostly in our immune tissues and is critical to helping control our immune functioning, and it plays a role in modulating intestinal inflammation, contraction, and pain in inflammatory bowel conditions. CB2 receptors are particularly exciting targets of drug development because they don't cause the high associated with cannabis that stimulating the CB1 receptors does (which is often an unwanted side effect).
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-endocannabinoid-system-essential-and-mysteri ous-202108112569–.
Hempire-Co in Wasilla is a great place to get educated on the workings of the ECS and will direct you in what products will help assist your system best.