In 1987, it was Professor Allyn Howlett of Saint-Louis University in Missouri (USA) who was able to show for the first time that cannabinoids act through the body's own receptors. The human body has several receptors that react to cannabinoids. The best known are the cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1) and the cannabinoid receptor 2 (CB2). The CB1 receptor is predominantly found in the central nervous system and in the intestinal nervous system. CB2 is found on cells of the human immune system and on cells that regulate bone metabolism. These two receptors are part of the so-called endocannabinoid system, which regulates body processes.
The ECS essentially consists of
"The endocannabinoid system will change medicine and we discovered ECS about 30 years ago and we really didn't understand the importance of its discovery. We have found that this is a chemical communication, similar to the hormone systems with which humans are familiar and your body makes these cannabinoids. They are endogenous, so they are endocannabinoids and they perform some wonderful functions in the body and we are just learning the meaning of these functions. Basically, the endocannabinoid system is responsible for homeostasis. This is the body's ability to sustain itself and function in the right environment, so it is crucial that doctors understand this control mechanism in the future. We have found that manipulating this endocannabinoid system will control diabetes, it controls cancer, it controls whether you can survive a heart attack or stroke, and therefore this is crucial for doctors to understand this new science, and discovering the endocannabinoid system is the most important medical scientific discovery of all time and will save more lives than discovering and applying sterile surgical techniques, and I am a heart surgeon and I say this. More people will be saved by manipulating the endocannabinoid system than are currently saved by surgery.
"Modulation of the activity of the endocannabinoid system has been shown to be therapeutically promising in a variety of different diseases and pathological conditions, mood and anxiety disorders, movement disorders such as Parkinson's and Huntington's, neuropathic pain, multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injury, cancer, atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction, stroke, hypertension, glaucoma, obesity/metabolic syndrome and osteoporosis, to name a few."
"The endogenous cannabinoid system, named after the plant that led to its discovery, is perhaps the most important physiological system involved in the development and maintenance of human health. I was surprised in my clinical practice to discover that even the lowest doses of cannabinoids can be beneficial to health and relieve symptoms".