Tag Archives: medical

Cannabidiol in vivo blunts beta-amyloid induced neuroinflammation by suppressing IL-1beta and iNOS expression.

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“Pharmacological inhibition of beta-amyloid (Aβ) induced reactive gliosis may represent a novel rationale to develop drugs able to blunt neuronal damage and slow the course of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Cannabidiol (CBD), the main non-psychotropic natural cannabinoid, exerts in vitro a combination of neuroprotective effects in different models of Aβ neurotoxicity. The present study, performed in a mouse model of AD-related neuroinflammation, was aimed at confirming in vivo the previously reported antiinflammatory properties of CBD.

Cannabidiol (CBD), the main non-psychotropic component of the glandular hairs of Cannabis sativa, exhibits a plethora of actions including anti-convulsive, sedative, hypnotic, anti-psychotic, anti-nausea, anti-inflammatory and anti-hyperalgesic properties. CBD has been proved to exert in vitro a combination of neuroprotective effects in Aβ-induced neurotoxicity, including anti-oxidant and anti-apoptotic effects, tau protein hyperphosphorylation inhibition through the Wnt pathway, and marked decrease of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) protein expression and nitrite production in Aβ-challenged differentiated rat neuronal cells.

In spite of the large amount of data describing the significant neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory properties of CBD in vitro, to date no evidence has been provided showing similar effects in vivo. To achieve this, the present study investigated the potential anti-inflammatory effect of CBD in a mouse model of AD-related neuroinflammation induced by the intrahippocampal injection of the human Aβ (1–42) fragment.

The results of the present study confirm in vivo anti-inflammatory actions of CBD, emphasizing the importance of this compound as a novel promising pharmacological tool capable of attenuating Aβ evoked neuroinflammatory responses.

 …on the basis of the present results, CBD, a drug well tolerated in humans, may be regarded as an attractive medical alternative for the treatment of AD, because of its lack of psychoactive and cognitive effects.”

Read more: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2189818/

 

Marijuana May Slow Alzheimer’s Memory Loss

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“New evidence from animal models suggests marijuana may contain compounds that slow the memory loss associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Older rats treated with a synthetic chemical similar to marijuana significantly improved their ability to navigate a maze. Researchers believe the strong anti-inflammatory effects of marijuana slow Alzheimer’s progression.”

marijuanaleaves

“The link between chronic inflammation and the progression of Alzheimer’s is compelling, said Gary Wenk, a study co-author and a professor of psychology at Ohio State University.

“Inflammation in the brain is part of aging,” Wenk said. “It happens to almost all of us as we age. But in some cases, this inflammation gets out of hand and causes serious damage.”

Treatment with a synthetic compound similar to marijuana reduced inflammation in older rats in addition to making the animals “smarter,” said Wenk, who is also a professor of neuroscience and molecular virology, immunology and medical genetics.

“The compound substantially improved the memories of the older rats,” he said. “These animals were able to hold on to key details of a specific task. Untreated older rats, on the other hand, were not.”

The researchers presented their findings at the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting.

Evidence suggests that people who regularly smoked marijuana in the 1960s and 1970s rarely develop Alzheimer’s disease, said Wenk, adding that researchers are eager to develop a drug with the anti-inflammatory properties of marijuana, but without the drug’s psychoactive effects.”

Read more: http://psychcentral.com/news/2006/10/23/marijuana-may-slow-alzheimers-memory-loss/350.html

Medical Cannabis Helps ALS Patient Outlive her Own Doctors

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“In April, Cathy Jordan sat on a panel at the Cannabis Therapeutics Conference in Arizona. Before taking the stage, she discussed the medical use of cannabis for ALS with Jahan Marcu, the Philadelphia Medical Marijuana Examiner.

Cathy Jordan first noticed something was wrong in summer of 1985 when she couldn’t pick things up. Her muscles weren’t responding. In 1986, she was diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis). ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is characterized by the death of motor neurons leading to loss of limb control, breathing, swallowing, speech and widespread cellular dysfunction. Most cases of ALS are sporadic; it is not a viral or autoimmune disease.

Most people start using a feeding tube because they are afraid of choking to death”, says Cathy.

In 1986, she was given 3 – 5 years to live according to her neurologist. Nearly 3 decades later, she is still alive and living with ALS.

“All my docs are retiring or dead. I’ve outlived 5 support groups and 4 neurologists,” said Cathy. This actually posed a problem for Cathy who lost her social security benefits because she lived passed her expiration date. The state of Florida said her ID and regular documentation wasn’t good enough to prove she was alive and to continue to receive benefits. She had to ask her neurologist to fill out paperwork to prove she was still alive.

Mrs. Jordan began using Cannabis from a Florida grower to treat her ALS in the late 80’s. “Donny Clark provided my medicine, grown in the Myakka River Valley…he was busted and sentenced to life in prison, and that strain of Cannabis was lost.”

“You know, they say the fountain of youth is in Florida. Maybe it was something in the soil that made this plant helps me…and I don’t understand why doctors wouldn’t study me. But I still would like to know why this is helping me.”

At first, doctors wouldn’t accept that marijuana could be responsible for Cathy’s extended life span. Other doctors thought that smoking anything would impair her lung function and even threatened to have this paralyzed women committed, simply based on the fact that she thought Cannabis was actually helping her.

“I visited a neurologist at Duke University. When I told him that I was smoking Cannabis, he didn’t know what to do with me. He was afraid. He wouldn’t even take my blood pressure because I was using an illegal drug.”

Cathy adds:

“I asked my docs if they would take a drug if it was neuroprotective, an antioxidant and an anti-inflammatory. They say ‘yes’ and ask me if I know of one. Cannabis, I tell them.”

Nearly three decades later, the science has caught up with this miracle patient. Scientists created a mouse with ALS, which was very exciting for Cathy. Research has shown that THC and other cannabinoids can benefit mice with ALS. The mounting evidence of cannabinoids halting the progression of ALS has started to change the attitudes of doctors and prominent researchers have recently called for ALS clinical trials with Cannabis or cannabinoids.

“They all agree today that I should smoke Cannabis,” says Cathy. “Twenty six years later, my original neurologist fought [successfully] to make sure Cannabis is legal for patients in Delaware.”

Researchers think Cannabis may help ALS patients relieving pain, spasticity, drooling, appetite loss and has minimal drug-drug interactions and toxicity.

“There are ALS patients associations that fight for the right of patients to die with dignity. But what about my right to life?” asks Cathy. “Keeping my medicine illegal removes my right to life.””

By:

http://www.examiner.com/article/medical-cannabis-helps-als-patient-outlive-her-own-doctors

Cathy Jordan’s Story

 

Survey of cannabis use in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

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Abstract

“Cannabis (marijuana) has been proposed as treatment for a widening spectrum of medical conditions and has many properties that may be applicable to the management of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). This study is the first, anonymous survey of persons with ALS regarding the use of cannabis. There were 131 respondents, 13 of whom reported using cannabis in the last 12 months. Although the small number of people with ALS that reported using cannabis limits the interpretation of the survey findings, the results indicate that cannabis may be moderately effective at reducing symptoms of appetite loss, depression, pain, spasticity, and drooling. Cannabis was reported ineffective in reducing difficulties with speech and swallowing, and sexual dysfunction. The longest relief was reported for depression (approximately two to three hours).”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15055508

More evidence cannabis can help in neuropathic pain.

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“It’s good to see the trial of smoked cannabis in neuropathic pain reported by Ware and colleagues because smoking is the most common way in which patients try this drug. The authors should be congratulated for tackling the question of whether cannabis helps in neuropathic pain, particularly given that the regulatory hurdles for their trial must have been a nightmare. The question is worth investigating because of the ongoing publicity — which patients see, hear and read — that suggests an analgesic activity of cannabis in neuropathic pain, and because of the paucity of robust evidence for such an analgesic effect. If patients are not achieving a good response with conventional treatment of their pain, then they may, reasonably, wish to try cannabis. If medical cannabis is not available where a patient lives, then obtaining it will take the patient outside of the law, often for the first time in his or her life. Good evidence would at least buttress that decision.”

“This trial adds to the three previous studies of smoked cannabis in neuropathic pain that I could find using PubMed and reference lists…”

“Putting together the four trials of smoked cannabis, the provisional conclusions are that an analgesic effect is evident, that this effect, though not great, may be of use to some patients, and that it often carries with it some adverse effects on the central nervous system (though not obviously so in this trial). These conclusions make biological sense, given that cannabinoids taken orally have shown the same sorts of effects. Interestingly, the “moderate” analgesic effect shown here for neuropathic pain seems to hold true for nociceptive pain.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2950178/

Cannabis blunts prostate cancer threat: study – ABC News

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“Chemicals in cannabis have been found to stop prostate cancer cells from growing in the laboratory, suggesting marijuana-based medicines could one day help fight the disease, scientists said.

After working initially with human cancer cell lines, Ines Diaz-Laviada and colleagues from the University of Alcala in Madrid also tested one compound on mice and discovered it produced a significant reduction in tumour growth.

Their research, published in the British Journal of Cancer, underlines the growing interest in the medical use of active chemicals called cannabinoids, which are found in marijuana.”

Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-08-19/cannabis-blunts-prostate-cancer-threat-study/1396346

The therapeutic potential of the cannabinoids in neuroprotection.

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Abstract

“After thousands of years of interest the last few decades have seen a huge increase in our knowledge of the cannabinoids and their mode of action. Their potential as medical therapeutics has long been known. However, very real concerns over their safety and efficacy have lead to caution and suspicion when applying the legislature of modern medicine to these compounds. The ability of this diverse family of compounds to modulate neurotransmission and act as anti-inflammatory and antioxidative agents has prompted researchers to investigate their potential as neuroprotective agents. Indeed, various cannabinoids rescue dying neurones in experimental forms of acute neuronal injury, such as cerebral ischaemia and traumatic brain injury. Cannabinoids also provide symptomatic relief in experimental models of chronic neurodegenerative diseases, such as multiple sclerosis and Huntington’s disease. This preclinical evidence has provided the impetus for the launch of a number of clinical trials in various conditions of neurodegeneration and neuronal injury using compounds derived from the cannabis plant. Our understanding of cannabinoid neurobiology, however, must improve if we are to effectively exploit this system and take advantage of the numerous characteristics that make this group of compounds potential neuroprotective agents.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12387700

Cannabis Science And The Unconventional Foundation For Autism (UF4A) Partner To Advance Successful Cannabis-Based Autism Treatments

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  “Cannabis Science, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: CBIS), a pioneering US biotech company developing pharmaceutical cannabis products, is pleased to announce the partnership with The Unconventional Foundation for Autism (UF4A) to build on the Foundation’s success with its proprietary cannabinoid formulations for Autism treatment. The partnership will focus on advancing the medical cannabis treatments for Autism in conjunction with the successful cannabis treatments of Joey and 10 other families that are now being documented by The University of California Irvine Medical Center (UCI) for the Foundation.

These successful Autism treatments and pioneering efforts of Joey’s Mom, Mieko Hester Perez, can be fully reviewed here.

Mieko and the successful treatment of her son has garnered wide-spread media interest including television appearances and interviews with KABC 7 – Los Angeles & San Francisco, 20/20 ABC, Good Morning America, Fox Morning News, Fox News Rhode Island, CBS Early Show, KCAL 9 & CBS 2 Los Angeles, The Doctor’s TV Show, KABC 790 w/ Peter Tilden, Montel Williams, The Tom Joyner Show, The Kim Frasier Show w/ Dr. Lester Grinspoon, The Bill Press Show, NORML’s Podcast w/ Russ Belville, Thomasina Tafur radio show. Featured interviews: Autism Spectrum Magazine, Treating yourself Magazine, Huffington Post, Autism Spot, Celebstoner, disability scoop, Autism Support Network, Kush Magazine August 2010 Issue Cover, High Times Medical Marijuana Magazine Winter 2011 Issue, Treating yourself Magazine (Joey’s sibling interviewed Issue #23, Weed World UK Issue #89, Now Magazine UK Publications, Medical Cannabis Journal Issue, LA JEMM – Ethical Use of Medical Marijuana in the Treatment of Children with Autism, Orange County Register, California, The Revolution – Argentina publication. 2010 Recognized by the National Organization to Reform Marijauna Laws Woman’s Alliance as one of the woman making history in the medical marijuana movement.

Mieko Hester Perez, Founder and Executive Director of The Unconventional Foundation for Autism (UF4A) stated, “We believe that this new partnership with Cannabis Science will give us additional push and resources required to advance our Autism research. To date, we have already partnered with the University of California Irvine Medical Center to oversee our cannabis-based Autism research. Included in this group of advisors is the Dean of Medicine at UCI, and child psychiatrist Dr. Rebecca Hedrick M.D. Dr. Melamede of Cannabis Science will be an outstanding addition to the Board of the Foundation. His extensive knowledge of cannabinoid science should prove invaluable in our mission.”

As part of the new partnership, Dr. Robert Melamede, CEO of Cannabis Science, will be joining the board of UF4A as a scientific advisor. Dr. Melamede will work with UF4A to further assist in documenting the case studies and oversee the deployment of the Company’s proprietary cannabinoid treatments on Autism patients alongside UF4A and medical professionals. He will also work with UF4A’s legal advisors to progress the legalization of medical marijuana initiatives.

Dr. Robert Melamede Ph.D., Cannabis Science Inc., President & CEO, stated, “Cannabis Science’s partnership with UF4A is another instrumental step in reaching our long-term goal of FDA approval of the Company’s products. The successful results from the Autism patients treated as documented by UF4A are very encouraging and we’re excited to tap into UF4A’s proven track record; providing our scientific expertise to help develop more refined treatment plans with Cannabis Science’s formulations and extracts to achieve scientifically accepted patient outcomes. I’m also extremely excited to be working with the medical professionals at the University of California Irvine. This is a win-win for both our organizations in breaking new ground for medical cannabis treatments. Our partnership will enable both our Company and UF4A to expound upon studies and anecdotal evidence obtained by UF4A in order to catalogue verified case studies and solid science behind the treatment plans. This evidentiary step will help the UF4A and Cannabis Science partnership to move towards formal FDA testing to officially approve UF4A’s successful treatments of Autism using medical cannabinoid extracts and formulations under the direction of physicians. ”

UF4A Case Studies

Mieko Hester-Perez and her son “Joey” have inspired many additional parents with autistic children to step forward. Studies are underway with these children with oversight from Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist Dr. Rebecca M. Hedrick, M.D.

Dr. Hedrick is a child and adolescent emergency attending physician and covers the consult liaison service at UCI Medical. She runs a child and adolescent outpatient psychotherapy and medication management program. She also works with the Regional Center of Orange County in the treatment of individuals with developmental disabilities.”

 http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/219569.php

Variations in the human cannabinoid receptor (CNR1) gene modulate striatal responses to happy faces.

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Abstract

“Happy facial expressions are innate social rewards and evoke a response in the striatum, a region known for its role in reward processing in rats, primates and humans. The cannabinoid receptor 1 (CNR1) is the best-characterized molecule of the endocannabinoid system, involved in processing rewards. We hypothesized that genetic variation in human CNR1 gene would predict differences in the striatal response to happy faces. In a 3T functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning study on 19 Caucasian volunteers, we report that four single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the CNR1 locus modulate differential striatal response to happy but not to disgust faces. This suggests a role for the variations of the CNR1 gene in underlying social reward responsivity. Future studies should aim to replicate this finding with a balanced design in a larger sample, but these preliminary results suggest neural responsivity to emotional and socially rewarding stimuli varies as a function of CNR1 genotype. This has implications for medical conditions involving hypo-responsivity to emotional and social stimuli, such as autism.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16623851

[Cannabinoids in the control of pain].

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Abstract

“Hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) has been used since remotes ages as a herbal remedy. Only recently the medical community highlighted the pharmacological scientific bases of its effects. The most important active principle, Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, was identified in the second half of the last century, and subsequently two receptors were identified and cloned: CB1 that is primarily present in the central nervous system, and CB2 that is present on the cells of the immune system. Endogenous ligands, called endocannabinoids, were characterized. The anandamide was the first one to be discovered. The effectiveness of the cannabinoids in the treatment of nausea and vomit due to anti-neoplastic chemotherapy and in the wasting-syndrome during AIDS is recognized. Moreover, the cannabinoids are analgesic, and their activity is comparable to the weak opioids. Furthermore, parallels exist between opioid and cannabinoid receptors, and evidence is accumulating that the two systems sometimes may operate synergistically. The interest of the pharmaceutical companies led to the production of various drugs, whether synthetic or natural derived. The good ratio between the polyunsatured fatty acids omega-3 and omega-6 of the oil of Cannabis seeds led to reduction of the phlogosis and an improvement of the pain symptoms in patients with chronic musculo-skeletal inflammation.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19388223