With hundreds of products meant to reduce anxiety and stress, alleviate pain, regulate sleep or boost energy, it seems like everywhere you look, cannabidiol (CBD) is being touted as a cure for anything that might ail you. 

Today, the use of CBD products as a medical treatment is gaining traction in the health and wellness industry. There also have already been promising evidence in scientific studies confirming that CBD oil can help to treat various diseases. Let's shed light on the four medical conditions that CBD can help to treat. 

The proper term for autism is an autism spectrum disorder. It hampers people's communication skills, possibly so much as to make them unable to speak. It might cause them to partake of behaviour that is restrictive, repetitive or both, and this can be harmful. Sufferers might even be violent. There is no known cure. It generally first appears when folk are aged two or three and lasts for life. It affects 1% of people.

The side effects of prescription drugs that treat autism include constipation, development of breasts in males (properly known as gynecomastia), problems with the heart, nausea, retching and putting on weight. CBD can also treat it, but, with it being illegal in almost every country, nobody has collected data that supports this proposition. So we have to make do with countless anecdotes. Dr Daniele Piomelli ranks among the best neuroscientists in the world, and she remarked, "Anecdotes should not be dismissed": they are "a pointer … something that suggests something has to be either proven or disproven."

One child in Puerto Rico changed from being uncommunicative to possessing language skills that were significant in the space of three weeks when they received hemp oil two times a day. Hemp is abundant with CBD.

Mieko Hester-Perez, who lives in the United States, comes from a family that's conservative and includes many members who work in law enforcement. She gave birth to Joey, who was autistic. She gave him cannabis-infused edibles, and, shortly after, Joey made eye contact more consistently: this is something autistic children almost always struggle with. Mieko went on to establish the Unconventional Foundation for Autism.

In Israel, Benjamin, aged four, was autistic. He would repeatedly bang his head upon the wall, rotate crazily and screech at full volume; sometimes, he would take his trousers down and defecate on the floor. His mother tried every conventional medication available to no avail, leaving her desperate. She gave Benjamin cannabis oil, and what followed was "like a miracle." Benjamin no longer had to attend a special needs school. The consensus is that it is the CBD rather than THC that helps.

Migraines are the third most common diseases in the world, with around a million people afflicted. Bouts can be anything from four to 72 hours long. Conventional medications can temporarily lighten the symptoms, but these have severe side effects.

Cannabis has been successfully used to treat headaches throughout history. CBD is certainly promising: it is a potent analgesic, relieving pain; it is an antiemetic, preventing nausea and vomiting; and it is powerfully anti-inflammatory. Pinja Leimuranta of the University of Eastern Finland led one study. Her team declared that CBD oil could "absolutely help relieve some symptoms related to migraines."

According to the US National Library of Medicine, one-third of people suffer from motion sickness, rising to two thirds if conditions are severe. Those affected by it will experience nausea and dizziness if they take a long car journey or ride an intense roller coaster. Vomiting might follow. There are no long-term problems arising from motion sickness, but it can make your life a misery if you travel a lot.

Antihistamine drugs, like promethazine, can treat motion sickness, but they have such a profound effect that you cannot take them if you drive or operate heavy machinery. This also rules out THC.

A study that took place at Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany, in 2010 examined blood samples taken from individuals before, during and after parabolic flight manoeuvres. These effect weightlessness by having an aeroplane undertake a nose dive for about 30 seconds and then sharply pull up for another 30. This results in 2G (twice normal gravity) of stress; weightlessness follows. The first astronauts called it "the vomit comet." The people who were the sickest had less endocannabinoids in their bodies; these are akin to regular cannabinoids. Those who were least sick had more endocannabinoids. Taking the cannabinoid CBD will help against motion sickness.

It is known that motion sickness occurs when what your eyes see is not what your inner ears feel – these sense balance. You might feel but not see motion if you were in a part of a ship that had no windows. You could see but not feel motion if you were watching movement on a screen, as with a video game. The film The Blair Witch Project was infamous for leading to motion sickness in many people, often making use, as it did, of a handheld camcorder. CBD is good for motion sickness because it retards the sympathetic nervous system. This responds to stress by preparing us to either fight something or run away – "fight or flight."

More than 100.000 people in the United Kingdom suffer from multiple sclerosis (MS). There is no cure at the moment; muscle relaxants, steroids and tranquillisers reduce its progress, but all have side effects. When it is at its worst, a person can be unable to speak or walk. The disease is believed to be genetic in origin, but environmental factors might play a part.

Multiple sclerosis has a number of common symptoms. One is numbness in the limbs and trunk. Another is a loss of vision. Lack of coordination of body movement is another, resulting in a strange gait and tremors. There might be a tingling sensation or actual pain in different parts of the body. A person may be unable to speak clearly. There can be persistent fatigue. Incontinence is one more common problem.

MS is deemed to be an immune-mediated disease in which the body's immune system attacks healthy tissue in the central nervous system. CBD can affect your brain by attaching to specific receptors in the central nervous system., which change the way these receptors react to stimulation and might ease inflammation and help with immune responses. More research is needed, but the intake of CBD oil is thought to help improve MS symptoms such as pain, inflammation, depression, fatigue, muscle stiffness and problems with mobility.