The endocannabinoid system is known to regulate multiple bodily functions that are vital for good health and wellbeing. This system plays a major role in keeping you healthy and is the main system upon which cannabis acts to provide therapeutic benefits.
The Endocannabinoid System (ECS) is made up of three parts:

• Endocannabinoids
• Receptors in the nervous system and around your body that endocannabinoids and cannabinoids bond with
• Enzymes that help break down endocannabinoids and cannabinoids

Not only is the ECS a natural part of our bodies, but it’s also a crucial one. You may have heard a lot of claims about the medicinal properties of marijuana in general or of the cannabinoids THC and CBD. With so many seemingly unrelated effects, you might wonder whether it’s just a lot of hype from people who want the drug legalized; however, medical science backs up many of these claims, and the reason for the far-reaching effects have to do with the size and scope of the endocannabinoid system itself.

The Endocannabinoid System: Crucial for Homeostasis

To understand the ECS, it first helps to understand what homeostasis is.

Basically, homeostasis is your body’s efforts to keep everything in the right zone. When something is operating outside of the proper range, your body activates the ECS to help correct it. So when you’re really hot and begin to sweat, your ECS is working to cool you down.

The ECS does this via cannabinoid receptors found in select tissues. We have (at least) two types of cannabinoid receptors:

• CB1 which is in the central nervous system (brain and nerves of the spinal cord)
• CB2 which is in the peripheral nervous system (nerves in your extremities), the digestive system, and specialized cells in the immune system

Cannabinoid receptors are believed to be among the most plentiful in our central nervous system, and some researchers hypothesize that we could have a third, undiscovered one, as well.
Through those receptors, the ECS helps regulate a lot of important functions, such as:

• Appetite
• Digestion
• Immune function
• Inflammation, including neuroinflammation
• Mood
• Sleep
• Reproduction/fertility
• Motor control
• Temperature regulation
• Memory
• Pain
• Pleasure/reward

Your body activates the ECS with precision so that it impacts only what it needs to. For example, if your reproductive hormones are out of whack, it will work to regulate them without altering your digestion or immune system.

Then, once the endocannabinoids have done their job and brought things into balance, certain enzymes come along to break them down and prevent them from going too far and upsetting the balance in the opposite direction. It’s a precise response.

That’s different from what happens if someone smokes marijuana and floods their system with cannabinoids. Then the drug has wide-ranging impacts on physiology, some of which may be beneficial while others may be harmful.
Homeostasis is essential to our health and survival, so when the ECS isn’t working properly, it can cause a lot of problems for you.

Because cannabis products can stimulate activity of the ECS, they’re obvious targets for potential treatments, and a ton of research is going on around the world. We also have medications made from synthetic (lab-created) cannabinoids, such as the drug nabilone.

We’re already seeing a lot of research on cannabinoid-based treatments and we’re likely to see more as we gain a better understanding of the system and the substances. Changes in legal status have also driven research.

The Role of Receptors and Enzymes

When someone smokes marijuana, a cannabinoid from the plant attaches to the CB1 receptor in the brain and creates a high. This cannabinoid is called THC, which is short for delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol. One of your own endocannabinoids that attaches to the same receptor is called anandamide.

While THC and anandamide are similar, anandamide doesn’t get you high like THC. Anandamide does have a calming effect, though. In fact, it gets its name from ananda, the Sanskrit word for bliss.

The reason anandamide doesn’t get us high and THC does lies with something called the FAAH enzyme. FAAH’s job is to break down anandamide and other endocannabinoids. It works quickly on the ones your body creates, but it can’t break down THC. That means THC sticks around for a lot longer and therefore has a much greater effect.
In the brain, cannabinoids, and endocannabinoids work as neurotransmitters (chemical messengers that deliver information from one cell to the next.) Neurotransmitters all interact with a lot of different receptors and thus have a lot of different effects.

A plant-based cannabinoid that’s gotten a lot of attention from researchers is cannabidiol or CBD. It doesn’t have any psychoactive properties, so its benefits come without the high of THC. One known function of CBD in the brain is to stop the FAAH enzyme from breaking down anandamide, so the anandamide can have more of an impact. That’s believed to be why CBD can help treat anxiety disorders.