Tag Archives: medicine

The Use of Marijuana or Synthetic Cannabinoids for the Treatment of Headache – MedScape

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“Pharmacological preparations of cannabinoid compounds have a variety of therapeutic uses in medicine, including different pain syndromes, but have not been previously reported as beneficial for cluster headache.We present a patient with cluster headache who was refractory to multiple acute and preventive medications but successfully aborted his attacks with recreational marijuana use; subsequent use of dronabinol provided equally effective pain relief. The beneficial effect may be related to the high concentration of cannabinoid receptors in the hypothalamus, which has been implicated as a site of dysfunction in neuroimaging studies of patients with cluster headache.

The plant Cannabis sativa has a long history of medical use in the treatment of pain and spasms, the promotion of sleep, and the suppression of nausea and vomiting. However, in the early 1970s cannabis was classified in the Narcotic Acts in countries all over the world as having no therapeutic benefit; therefore, it cannot be prescribed by physicians or dispensed by pharmacists. In the light of this contradictory situation, an increasing number of patients practice a self-prescription with cannabis products for relieving a variety of symptoms.

  The majority of patients used natural cannabis products such as marihuana, hashish, and an alcoholic tincture; in just 5 cases dronabinol (Marinol) was taken by prescription…

 …this survey demonstrates a successful use of cannabis products for the treatment of a multitude of various illnesses and symptoms. This use was usually accompanied only by slight and in general acceptable side effects…”

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/738529

Cannabis based spray approved for MS

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“Sativex licensed for spasticity in multiple sclerosis. MS charity calls it a ‘milestone’
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“The cannabis-based mouth spray, Sativex, has been approved by the UK medicines regulator, MHRA, as a prescription only treatment for MS related spasticity.

Sativex is designed as an add-on treatment for moderate to severe MS spasms and cramping in people who receive inadequate relief from the standard oral anti-spasticity medicines or have experienced unbearable side effects whilst taking these medicines.

Sativex contains two cannabinoids or active ingredients – THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (cannabidiol).  It is the first cannabinoid medicine derived from whole plant extracts from the cannabis sativa plant…”

More: http://www.webmd.boots.com/news/20100621/cannabis-based-spray-approved-for-ms

Foot Pain Associated With HIV Reduced By Smoked Cannabis In Placebo Trial

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“In a randomized placebo-controlled trial, patients smoking cannabis experienced a 34 percent reduction in intense foot pain associated with HIV- twice the rate experienced by patients who smoked placebo.

“This placebo-controlled clinical trial showed that people with HIV who smoked cannabis had substantially greater pain reduction than those who did not smoke the cannabis,” said study lead author Donald I. Abrams, MD, UCSF professor of clinical medicine.

 “These results provide evidence that there is a measurable medical benefit to smoking cannabis for these patients.”

The results of this first study indicate that cannabis may indeed be useful in the amelioration of a very distressing, disabling, and difficult to treat complication of HIV…”

More: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/62917.php

Marijuana Smoking Not Linked To Cancer or Lung Damage, Researchers Say

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 “Donald Tashkin’s is a tale cannabis pushers like to repeat. The physician and professor at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine set out to prove — via a study funded by the National Institutes on Drug Abuse — that marijuana is bad for you. Instead, a long-term study found no solid link between marijuana use and lung cancer, in sharp contrast to tobacco terrible effects on health.” 

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“Similar findings were repeated all over the world. In a collection and review of studies on marijuana’s effect on the lungs, published in the June issue of the Annals of the American Thoracic Society, Tashkin concludes that compared to tobacco smoking, heavy marijuana use has “relatively small and far lower” risks.

This despite an average joint marijuana having four times the tar of a typical American Spirit. How can this be?

It’s worth remembering that this is not a new development — Tashkin’s long-term study was published in 2006. And well before that — as in the 19th Century, when cannabis tinctures and other marijuana medicines were sold in pharmacies — doctors were prescribing marijuana as a treatment for asthma patients.”

More: http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2013/06/marijuana_cancer_annals_of_the_american_thoracic_society.php

Breathe Easy: A Marijuana Study Finds No Lung Cancer Links

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“Donald Tashkin‘s is a tale cannabis pushers like to repeat. The physician and professor at UCLA‘s David Geffen School of Medicine set out to prove — via a study funded by the National Institutes on Drug Abuse — that marijuana is bad for you. Instead, a long-term study found no solid link between marijuana use and lung cancer.

Similar findings were repeated all over the world. In a review of studies on marijuana’s effect on the lungs, published in the June issue of the Annals of the American Thoracic Society, Tashkin concludes that compared to tobacco smoking, heavy marijuana use has “relatively small and far lower” risks.”

More: http://www.sfweekly.com/2013-06-19/news/ucla-medical-marijuana-cancer/full/

Marijuana Rivals Mainstream Drugs For HIV/AIDS Symptoms – MedicalNewsToday

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“Those in the United States living with HIV/AIDS are more likely to use marijuana than those in Kenya, South Africa or Puerto Rica to alleviate their symptoms, according to a new study published in Clinical Nursing Research, published by SAGE. Those who did use marijuana rate it as effective as prescribed or over the counter (OTC) medicines for the majority of common symptoms, once again raising the issue that therapeutic marijuana use merits further study and consideration among policy makers.”

More: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/151972.php

Human Immunodeficiency Virus In Late-Stage AIDS Inhibited By Marijuana-Like Chemicals – MedicalNewsToday

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“Mount Sinai School of Medicine researchers have discovered that marijuana-like chemicals trigger receptors on human immune cells that can directly inhibit a type of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) found in late-stage AIDS, according to new findings published online in the journal PLoS ONE.

Medical marijuana is prescribed to treat pain, debilitating weight loss and appetite suppression, side effects that are common in advanced AIDS. This is the first study to reveal how the marijuana receptors found on immune cells – called cannabinoid receptors CB1 and CB2 – can influence the spread of the virus. Understanding the effect of these receptors on the virus could help scientists develop new drugs to slow the progression of AIDS.

“We knew that cannabinoid drugs like marijuana can have a therapeutic effect in AIDS patients, but did not understand how they influence the spread of the virus itself,” said study author Cristina Costantino, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. “We wanted to explore cannabinoid receptors as a target for pharmaceutical interventions that treat the symptoms of late-stage AIDS and prevent further progression of the disease without the undesirable side effects of medical marijuana.”

HIV infects active immune cells that carry the viral receptor CD4, which makes these cells unable to fight off the infection. In order to spread, the virus requires that “resting” immune cells be activated. In advanced AIDS, HIV mutates so it can infect these resting cells, gaining entry into the cell by using a signaling receptor called CXCR4. By treating the cells with a cannabinoid agonist that triggers CB2, Dr. Costantino and the Mount Sinai team found that CB2 blocked the signaling process, and suppressed infection in resting immune cells.

Triggering CB1 causes the drug high associated with marijuana, making it undesirable for physicians to prescribe. The researchers wanted to explore therapies that would target CB2 only. The Mount Sinai team infected healthy immune cells with HIV, then treated them with a chemical that triggers CB2 called an agonist. They found that the drug reduced the infection of the remaining cells.

“Developing a drug that triggers only CB2 as an adjunctive treatment to standard antiviral medication may help alleviate the symptoms of late-stage AIDS and prevent the virus from spreading,” said Dr. Costantino. Because HIV does not use CXCR4 to enhance immune cell infection in the early stages of infection, CB2 agonists appear to be an effective antiviral drug only in late-stage disease.

As a result of this discovery, the research team led by Benjamin Chen, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Infectious Diseases, and Lakshmi Devi, PhD, Professor of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, plans to develop a mouse model of late-stage AIDS in order to test the efficacy of a drug that triggers CB2 in vivo. In 2009 Dr. Chen was part of a team that captured on video for the first time the transfer of HIV from infected T-cells to uninfected T-cells.”

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/243183.php

Synthetic derivatives of THC may weaken HIV-1 infection to enhance antiviral therapies – MedicalXpress

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“A new use for compounds related in composition to the active ingredient in marijuana may be on the horizon: a new research report published in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology shows that compounds that stimulate the cannabinoid type 2 (CB2) receptor in white blood cells, specifically macrophages, appear to weaken HIV-1 infection. The CB2 receptor is the molecular link through which the pharmaceutical properties of cannabis are manifested. Diminishing HIV-1 infection in this manner might make current anti-viral therapies more effective and provide some protection against certain HIV-1 complications.

“The synthetic compounds we used in our study may show promise in helping the body fight HIV-1 infection,'” said Yuri Persidsky, M.D., Ph.D., a researcher involved in the work from the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia, PA. “As compounds like these are improved further and made widely available, we will continue to explore their potential to fight other viral diseases that are notoriously difficult to treat.”

To make this discovery, scientists used a cell culture model to infect human macrophages with HIV-1 and added synthetic compounds similar to the active ingredient in marijuana to activate the CB2 receptor. At different times during the infection, samples from the culture were taken to see if the replication of the HIV virus was decreased. The researchers observed diminished HIV growth and a possible protective effect from some HIV-1 complications.

“HIV/AIDS has posed one of the most significant health challenges in modern medicine,” said John Wherry, Ph.D., Deputy Editor of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology. “Recent high profile vaccine failures mean that all options need to be on the table to prevent or treat this devastating infection. Research on the role of cannabinoid type 2 receptors and viral infection may one day allow targeting these receptors to be part of combination therapies that use exploit multiple weaknesses of the virus simultaneously.””

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-synthetic-derivatives-thc-weaken-hiv-.html

Forbidden Medicine – WebMD

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“Laws and medicine clash over medicinal marijuana use. If it weren’t for his few daily tokes from marijuana cigarettes, Kiyoshi Kuromiya believes he would no longer be alive.The Philadelphia AIDS patient and activist had lost 40 pounds over a four-month period and spent most days nauseated before he began smoking pot in 1995 to boost an appetite suppressed by his disease.”Marijuana saved my life,” says Kuromiya, 57, who was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988. “It’s a great irony to me that I can buy cigarettes, which will kill me, anywhere. But marijuana, which has kept me breathing, is illegal.”Kuromiya and others with debilitating ailments have long argued that marijuana should be legally available when standard medical treatment can’t relieve a patient’s suffering and pain.”

More: http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/features/forbidden-medicine

‘Milestone’ epilepsy drug based on cannabis

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A collaboration between a UK research team and international medicine manufacturers may lead to a ‘milestone’ treatment for epilepsy. This treatment appears more bearable than current epilepsy medicines – and is based on cannabis.

A research team at the University of Reading performed the research, which was recently published in The British Journal of Pharmacology. Their research explored the use of cannibidivarin – a natural chemical called a ‘cannabinoid’ from the cannabis plant.

Cannibidivarin does not have psychoactive properties (anyone taking a drug based on this chemical will not feel ‘high’ as a result). It appears to reduce seizure frequency in laboratory animals with epilepsy and has fewer side-effects than traditional epilepsy medicines. The new drug can also be safely combined with regular medications.

Lead study author, Dr Ben Whalley, said: “This is an enormously exciting milestone in our investigations into non-psychoactive elements of cannabis as treatments for epilepsy. Our work has highlighted the potential for a solution based on cannabinoid science. It has shown that cannabidivarin is the most effective and best tolerated anticonvulsant plant cannabinoid investigated to date.””

More: http://www.epilepsy.org.uk/news/news/%E2%80%98milestone%E2%80%99-epilepsy-drug-based-cannabis