Crack !!!
Ouch! Car accident, falling on a bike, sport, games, even a simple carpet. The opportunities to break a bone are legion. And we are not all equal in the face of this risk. Some projections suggest that the number of people at high risk of osteoporotic fracture could double worldwide by 2040. Let's find out together what the main causes of fractures are and how they are treated.
What is a fracture?
A fracture is a partial or total rupture of a bone. It even happens that a bone is broken in several places. The breakage can be due to a fall, a shock, a fatigue fracture, osteoporosis, etc. The fracture can be closed, or open (with skin tearing), with bone displacement or not, with bone fragments or not. There is a fracture specific to children: the greenstick fracture. In these small patients, the bone is not yet as hard as in an adult. It is rather soft, and breaks like a branch of green wood. Thus, the child's bone will not break, but more precisely it will bend with bone tears.
Diagnosis
When a bone fracture occurs, the diagnosis is usually made by an emergency doctor. He will ask all necessary questions to the patient (circumstances, time of injury, location of pain, etc.), and conduct a clinical examination. After the examination, an X-ray will confirm the diagnosis, pinpoint the exact location of the bone fracture, and possibly find other important information (is the bone broken in several places, are other bones affected?).
Treatment
Once the diagnosis is well established, doctors will return the fractured bone to its normal anatomical position, either manually or surgically. Then the injured part is immobilized, to allow for proper bone healing. Analgesics may be prescribed to reduce pain. Once the injury is well consolidated, a period of rehabilitation (physiotherapy) allows for a return to proper mobility.
CBD and bone healing
CBD is a molecule belonging to the cannabinoid family. It is extracted from industrial hemp (Sativa Cannabis). Unlike THC-rich (illegal) recreational cannabis, Sativa Cannabis contains almost no THC, less than 0.3%, which is why CBD is not classified as a narcotic in France. Its possible anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties are being studied. Here are the results of research, carried out on animals, on the effects of CBD on fracture healing.
- Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem reported in a study published in 2015 that CBD improved the biomechanical properties of fracture healing in rats.
- Another study also suggests that CBD could stimulate the enzymes responsible for the cross-linking of collagen, a protein that is very important in the construction of connective tissue.
These results, obtained in animals, open a lead for research on the biomechanical properties of calluses in bone fractures; they do not show any effect in humans. CBD is not a medicine: a fracture must be managed by a doctor.
