Ananda Professional invites enrolment in endometriosis study

USA medical hemp company Ananda Professional is opening enrollment for its study of endometriosis and other forms of pelvic pain.

Endometriosis is a condition where tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows outside it. It can be a painful and at times debilitating condition.

Ananda Professional, one of Australian company Ecofibre’s businesses, has committed $40 million to advance the clinical evidence for hemp extract, including this study – which goes by the curious acronym of FREE HER (Finding Relief from Endometriosis and Exclusion).

The study, which planned to enroll 300 participants, will assist Ananda Professional in gathering information on how medications and other substances can reduce complaints of pelvic pain and related issues.

Each participant will be in the study for about one week and there are no treatments or procedures involved. However, study participants will receive one bottle of a cannabidiol (CBD) based cream; the use of which is entirely voluntary. Participants will also receive a $30 gift card if they complete the questionnaires over the 7-day study.

It appears the number of participants may have been widened:

“In honor of March being Endometriosis Awareness Month, we are opening enrollment to anyone that meets inclusion/exclusion criteria,” says a release from Ananda Professional. It’s not clear in the criteria residents from which countries aside from the USA may be eligible to participate.

According to a previous Ecofibre announcement regarding the study, approximately eighty percent of women experience pelvic pain in their lifetime, and for half of women pelvic pain is a monthly occurrence resulting in more than 90% turning to pain medication to seek relief from their symptoms.

A cynical observation of this initiative’s intent may be that’s it’s purely about issuing free samples of Ananda’s product and gaining media attention in an effort to secure more customers, but there does seem to be a bit more to it than a marketing exercise.

Ananda Professional produces full-spectrum hemp products containing other active cannabinoids aside from just CBD. But its products contain less than 0.3% THC, which is the intoxicating cannabinoid responsible for marijuana’s “high”. At that low level, THC has no intoxicating effect.