SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN: A rigorous study validates a cannabis-derived treatment for a rare, drug-resistant childhood epilepsy
Medical researchers have confirmed what some desperate parents have been claiming for years—that a nonpsychoactive component of marijuana known as cannabidiol (CBD) can reduce epileptic seizures in some children.
Published in The New England Journal of Medicine, the findings stem from a double-blind, placebo-controlled study—the most scientifically rigorous type of investigation possible. “This study clearly establishes cannabidiol as an effective anti-seizure drug for this disorder and this age group," says principal investigator Orrin Devinsky, director of the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at New York University Langone Medical Center. “It certainly deserves to be studied in other types of epilepsy.”
A total of 120 children and teenagers with Dravet syndrome—a rare disorder marked by drug-resistant seizures that can be nearly continuous in some cases—were part of the study. They were divided into an experimental group, which received the test drug, and a placebo group, which was given a medically inactive compound. Over the course of 14 weeks the youngsters receiving CBD experienced a median number of 5.9 convulsive seizures per month (down from 12.4) compared with 14.1 convulsions per month (down from 14.9) for the placebo group. The new findings are consistent with previous, less-stringent studies of the same drug, a compound called Epidiolex, made by U.K.–based GW Pharmaceuticals. (GW funded the new study.)
As the current paper points out, “interest in cannabidiol for the treatment of epilepsy was generated by media reports of efficacy in children with Dravet syndrome.” The star of many of those reports was Charlotte Figi, now 10, of Colorado, who was having hundreds of seizures a month by age three when her parents decided to treat her with cannabidiol. Unlike the better-known marijuana component tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabidiol does not make users high. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for medical use, and the conditions approved for treatment can vary from state to state. Sixteen states have laws that specifically allow the use of CBD to treat seizures.
The Figis treated their daughter with a specially prepared CBD-containing oil, now known as Charlotte’s Web, which is derived from hemp, a type of cannabis containing less than 0.3 percent THC by weight. They reported dramatic improvement. As word spread, more families tried CBD and the positive anecdotes piled up. “That’s certainly one of the motivations for this research,” Devinsky says. He notes there is also plenty of animal model data as well as anecdotes from the late 1800s about Indian hemp, another type of cannabis, that was used to treat epilepsy. And there are even mentions of the approach in Sumerian tablets going back 3,800 years. “The parents added fuel to the fire,” he says, “but that anecdotal evidence was there for millennia.”
All of the patients in the new trial fit the criteria for severe, drug-resistant epilepsy and were taking other seizure medications. Whereas there was a statistically and clinically significant median reduction in convulsive seizures of 39 percent in the treated group, only three of the 52 patients receiving cannabidiol became completely seizure-free. And 93 percent of those patients reported troublesome side effects—including sleepiness (the most common symptom), vomiting, fatigue, decreased appetite, diarrhea and elevated levels of liver enzymes. Eight of the cannabidiol patients stopped participating in the study as a result of the more severe side effects. The study authors indicate some of those issues could have been caused by interactions with other epilepsy drugs. Also, there was no significant reduction in nonconvulsive seizures, which are essentially brief staring spells in which a person is unaware of his or her surroundings for several seconds. The study notes this could be because cannabidiol only affects convulsive seizures or because nonconvulsive seizures “cannot be reliably counted by parents in developmentally delayed children.”
Nevertheless, 62 percent of caregivers in the cannabidiol group said their child’s overall condition improved during the trial, compared with 34 percent in the placebo group. After the trial caregivers of participants in both the placebo and experimental groups were given the option of continuing treatment with cannabidiol in what is called an open-label extension of the study. More than 100 families from both groups took researchers up on the offer...snip
...Going forward, GW Pharmaceuticals plans to seek U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of Epidiolex in the next few months as a treatment for Dravet syndrome and Lennox–Gastaut syndrome, another seizure disorder...SNIP
MORE: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/marijuana-treatment-reduces-severe-epileptic-seizures/
Ohhhh Please Mr. FDA can't we PLEASE have your "approval"?? What a load of rubbish.
Reminder: The US DHHS HOLDS A PATENT ON THE USE OF CANNABINOIDS
US PATENT #6630507
Poster Comment:
ENOUGH OF THE NONSENSE THAT CANNABIS IS NOT MEDICINE!
It is, and Scientific American - AND THE US DHHS, agrees. End of debate.
#1: Operation 40 To: misterwhite, gatlin (#0)
Operation 40 posted on 2017-06-05 15:56:07 Reply Private Reply
#2: misterwhite To: Operation 40 (#1)
What if there was a chemical compound in gasoline that had medicinal properties? Would you tell people to drink gasoline?
Gasoline is not medicine. Neither is cannabis.
misterwhite posted on 2017-06-05 16:06:21 Reply Private Reply
#3: Tooconservative To: misterwhite (#2)
You should try to convince parents watching their kid suffering dozens of seizures per hour.
Surely you know the outcome.
Tooconservative posted on 2017-06-05 20:02:38 Reply Private Reply
#4: A K A Stone To: misterwhite (#2)
A K A Stone posted on 2017-06-06 06:55:01 Reply Private Reply
#5: misterwhite To: Tooconservative (#3)
13 states have statutes recognizing cannabidiol (CBD) for medical use. If parents want to treat their children with CBD they get off the street, that's their choice. If that CBD is effective for their children, good for them.
What I object to are the parents, and their supporters, who say that since CBD is effective for their children then it should be legal nationwide for all children. The second thing I object to are those who say that since CBD if effective, then marijuana (which contains CBD) is equally effective (I refer you to the headline).
How about we do some studies first? Some trials? Peer-reviewed papers? Perhaps FDA approval? Then we would know dosage and frequency, CBD concentration and purity, drug interactions, and drug side efects.
That's what we do for every other drug. Why an exception for marijuana? Marijuana cures nothing. Everything marijuana does there are 10 other FDA-approved drugs that do the same thing.
This whole "medical marijuana" hype is a bigger scam than global warming. Dopers are using the sick and dying as pawns in their ultimate quest to legalize marijuana for recreational use.
misterwhite posted on 2017-06-06 09:16:16 Reply Private Reply
#6: Tooconservative To: misterwhite (#5)
Patients suffering a particular disease are very often advocates for others facing the same situation. They try to play the media and get sympathy from the public. As you no doubt know.
Actually, the safety wall at the FDA fell over 20 years ago when they fasttracked the early AIDS drugs. With the revolving door between Big Pharma and the FDA that has only grown over the last three decades, it has accelerated.
So is allowing an AIDS patient early access to a drug that has not passed FDA testing any more compelling than a parent crying over their twitching child suffering constant seizures? Put it on TV and see who the public finds more sympathetic.
Even you might soften up if it was your kid or grandkid that was twitching away and unable to have any kind of a normal life.
You are perversely suggesting that parents want to use unproven CBD against these supposedly effective Big Pharma products. The parents claim they don't help, don't help enough, or have bad side effects.
None of this is news, or at least it shouldn't be. Surely you've read these about these cases before.
For all practical purposes, weed is already legal.
Tooconservative posted on 2017-06-06 11:39:33 Reply Private Reply
#7: misterwhite To: Tooconservative (#6)
At the time, the federal government was accused of dragging their feet since this initially looked like it was restricted to homosexuals and drug users -- two groups we can do without. Then the government stepped it up when heterosexuals became infected at increasing rates.
"So is allowing an AIDS patient early access to a drug that has not passed FDA testing any more compelling than a parent crying over their twitching child suffering constant seizures?"
AIDS affected many more people and was deadly. The two cannot be compared. Plus, there are other seizure drugs.
"Even you might soften up if it was your kid or grandkid that was twitching away and unable to have any kind of a normal life."
What a parent does for their child is not the issue. These "hash oil" advocates want these products legalized nationwide based on anecdotal stories. That's not the way it's done.
"You are perversely suggesting that parents want to use unproven CBD against these supposedly effective Big Pharma products."
No. These parents are perversely suggesting that what seems to work for their child will work for every child and, therefore, the government should legalize the product.
misterwhite posted on 2017-06-06 12:04:04 Reply Private Reply
#8: Tooconservative To: misterwhite (#7)
They want something they believe is helping their child to be legal for them and for other families in the same situation.
There isn't a dirty subversive hippie hiding around every corner in suburban America.
Tooconservative posted on 2017-06-06 14:07:35 Reply Private Reply
#9: misterwhite To: Tooconservative (#8)
Ah! Two sets of laws. I thought our Founders were trying to escape that type of legal system. But you want to bring it back?
misterwhite posted on 2017-06-06 15:00:57 Reply Private Reply
#10: nolu chan To: Operation 40 (#0)
Medicine is the active ingredient.
Medical quality pure CBD may be approved as medicine. It is currently a Schedule I substance.
THC may be defined as a component of the unlawful substance, marijuana.
THC is included on the schedule of the Convention on Psychotropic Substances. CBD is not.
THC gets one high. CBD does not, but it has recognized medical properties.
Cannibis is NOT medicine. Marijuana is not medicine. Nothing involving the inhalation of smoke is likely to be approved as medicine.
CBD is not Cannibis. CBD is not marijuana.
CBD, a component of marijuana or hemp, is being tested for approval as a medicine. Marijuana and THC are not.
nolu chan posted on 2017-06-06 18:12:27 Reply Private Reply
#11: Deckard To: hondo68, Gatlin (#0)
Deckard posted on 2018-01-19 21:34:05 Reply Private Reply