Cannabis against Epilepsy
- New Studies Continue to Demonstrate the Effectiveness of Cannabis as an Epilepsy Medicine
- CBD is a Safe Treatment Option for Children Suffering from Resistant Epilepsy Forms
- GW Pharmaceuticals Reports Success with Epidiolex
- Synergistic Effect of THC and CBD Proves Important
Medical cannabis is slowly but surely becoming an increasingly popular alternative treatment. When experiencing headaches or stomach pain, we now reach for a vaporizer rather than ibuprofen. However, epilepsy treatment is not as straightforward. Unlike other conditions, treating epilepsy requires a very specific chemical cocktail that you can't simply pick up at a pharmacy.
For this reason, more and more families caring for loved ones with epilepsy are turning to cannabis - especially the cannabinoid CBD (cannabidiol), which has already proven to be a very promising substance for epilepsy treatment. There have been so many successes with CBD against epilepsy that its potential has been recognized by the federal Food and Drug Administration in the USA, where clinical trials are currently underway.
But why is "marijuana" so effective against epileptic seizures?
Epilepsy - What Is It and What Causes It?
Epilepsy is characterized by recurring seizures of varying intensity. These seizures are in most cases caused by incorrect activity in specific neuronal networks and brain circuits, where "storms" of electrical activity occur.
Epileptic seizures significantly limit quality of life and in certain cases can be fatal. For more information, check out our previous article "Epilepsy".
Cannabis Research and Studies Against Epilepsy
The stories of patients, especially children with epilepsy whose lives were literally saved by cannabis, are a powerful force that helps shed light on the entire cannabis issue through tangible examples of real, healed children and individuals.
Many people have long recognized the enormous therapeutic potential of CBD. However, only recently did the American government agency DEA acknowledge this and allowed its testing on academic grounds. This permission is itself a huge step forward - research into the therapeutic effects and side effects of CBD is now in full swing.
"When we look at preclinical study results, it's hard to resist absolute enthusiasm," says Dr. Francis M. Filloux in the journal "Translational Pediatrics". "However, we must acknowledge that the main reason we can look at these results only now is the long-standing prohibition of these substances and their classification as hard drugs like heroin."
Interestingly, no other medication has ever been used and tested so widely by the community without first being thoroughly tested in clinical human studies and declared safe and valid. Nevertheless, today many patients still have access to various products containing natural, high-quality CBD and are treating themselves even without official "confirmation of effectiveness".
Clinical studies, such as the current research by GW Pharmaceuticals and its product Epidiolex, will offer us a much deeper insight into the entire issue in the future, and we can look forward to a variety of therapeutic products with different CBD/THC ratios and also completely synergistically constructed cannabinoid cocktails specifically targeted at various diseases.
GW Pharmaceuticals is now in the third phase of clinical testing of a 98% CBD extract. According to Dr. Filloux, this is an incomparable leap forward compared to the past:
"Until the last few years, we had minimal data available. Specifically, data from observations on fewer than 70 subjects. Moreover, only a few of them were children. Now, however, the entire matter is moving at a much faster pace."
How Does Cannabis Help Against Epilepsy?
The endogenous cannabinoid system is absolutely ubiquitous in the human body, which is the main reason why medical cannabis is able to help with so many diseases and conditions. (more in the article "Introduction to the Endocannabinoid System").
Considering the constantly increasing number of studies focusing on the effect of cannabis on our endocannabinoid system, we can expect cannabis to help an ever-increasing number of patients. However, when it comes to epilepsy, the future is already here. Catherine Jacobson, head of clinical research at the Canadian institution Tilray, describes the issue of cannabis against epilepsy as follows:
"CBD was the first choice for clinical testing against epilepsy, especially because it shows no psychoactive effects. The only concern in this case was the awareness that no single isolated substance ever works against epilepsy. However, only a fraction of the 200,000 children in the USA suffering from resistant epilepsy forms have access to pure CBD. In most cases, parents of such children are forced to obtain CBD preparations through connections, and most such preparations contain at least a fraction of THC. The results of such attempts must be observed, especially because some children are helped only by pure CBD, while others require a combined preparation with different THC and CBD ratios. If we want to be able to confidently prescribe cannabis against epilepsy in the future, thorough tests of differently mixed cannabis preparations are absolutely necessary."
Doctor Edward Maa, leader of the "Comprehensive Epilepsy Program" in Denver, agrees with statements of this type: "It's quite possible that the best option is to use both THC and CBD simultaneously. Recent studies demonstrate the so-called synergistic effect of phytocannabinoids and terpenes, which appears to be very important for the correct final effect and suppression of seizures."
Epilepsy is surprisingly common, significantly limiting quality of life and potentially fatal. The uncertainty surrounding cannabis as an epilepsy treatment is slowly but surely fading. This still illegal plant in many countries is gaining increasing respect from the scientific community, and doctors like Jacobson and Maa are at the forefront of ongoing research.
Author: Jeremiah Wilhelm
Translation: Filip Maral
Sources: leafly.com amegroups.com leafly.com