THC Total Health Care

A comprehensive encyclopedia of THC related medical research articles

Efficacy of Medical Cannabis for Treatment of Refractory Epilepsy in Children and Adolescents with Emphasis on the Israeli Experience.

Posted on May 1, 2017 by David Worrell

“The effectiveness of marijuana in the treatment of epilepsy was originally reported as early as 1800 BC. There is now concrete evidence to suggest the efficacy of cannabis in the treatment of epilepsy, particularly in the refractory group. To summarize, in view of the good outcome in a significant number of patients, which is not significantly worse than other accepted options for patients with refractory epilepsy, it seems that medical cannabis should be considered a viable treatment option.” https://www.ima.org.il/FilesUpload/IMAJ/0/228/114213.pdf https://www.ima.org.il/imaj/ViewArticle.aspx?aId=4041 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28457054]]>

Cannabis Use, Medication Management and Adherence Among Persons Living with HIV.

Posted on May 1, 2017 by David Worrell

“Cannabis is used to relieve nausea, trigger weight gain, and reduce pain among adults living with HIV; however, the relationship between its use and medication adherence and management is unclear. Participants (N = 107) were from an ongoing cohort study of community-dwelling HIV+ adults, stratified by cannabis (CB) use: HIV+/CB+ (n = 41) and HIV+/CB- (n = 66). CB+ participants either tested positive in a urine toxicology screen for THC or had a self-reported history of regular and recent use. HIV-status was provided by physician results and/or biomarker assessment. Adherence was measured via the Morisky scale and medication management was assessed via the Medication Management Test-Revised. After adjusting for gender, we found no association between cannabis use group and adherence nor medication management. The amount of cannabis used was also not associated with measures of adherence and management. Preliminary findings suggest that cannabis use may not adversely influence medication adherence/management among adults living with HIV.”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28456895

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Cannabis Use in Palliative Oncology: A Review of the Evidence for Popular Indications.

Posted on May 1, 2017 by David Worrell

“A flowering plant of variegated ingredients and psychoactive qualities, cannabis has long been used for medicinal and recreational purposes. Currently, cannabis is approved in several countries for indications of symptomatic alleviation. However, limited knowledge on the benefits and risks precludes inclusion of cannabis in standard treatment guidelines. This review provides a summary of the available literature on the use of cannabis and cannabinoid-based medicines in palliative oncology. Favorable outcomes are demonstrated for chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting and cancer-related pain, with evidence of advantageous neurological interactions. Benefit in the treatment of anorexia, insomnia and anxiety is also suggested. Short- and long-term side effects appear to be manageable and to subside after discontinuation of the drug. Finally, cannabinoids have shown anti-neoplastic effects in preclinical studies in a wide range of cancer cells and some animal models. Further research is needed before cannabis can become a part of evidence-based oncology practice.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28457056

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Cannabis use by women during pregnancy does not influence infant DNA methylation of the dopamine receptor DRD4.

Posted on April 28, 2017 by David Worrell

“Associations between cannabis use and offspring DNA methylation have not been investigated; however, maternal tobacco smoking in pregnancy is associated with distinct patterns of DNA methylation at birth and beyond. To determine whether maternal cannabis use is associated with methylation of the dopamine receptor gene DRD4 promoter in infants. There is no strong evidence that maternal cannabis use in pregnancy is associated with offspring DRD4 methylation.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28448718 “There is no strong evidence that maternal cannabis use in pregnancy is associated with offspring DRD4 methylation.” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00952990.2017.1314488?journalCode=iada20

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Marijuana compounds show promise in treatment of cardiac disease

Posted on April 27, 2017 by David Worrell

“A Nevada company is hoping to develop new medicines for heart failure using compounds in marijuana and a novel therapy identified by a University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa researcher. Dr. Alexander Stokes, assistant research professor in the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology at the UH John A. Burns School of Medicine, obtained a U.S. patent for his novel therapy in 2015. The patent claims the cannabinoid receptor TRPV1 can be regulated therapeutically by plant-based cannabinoids.” https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-01-marijuana-compounds-treatment-cardiac-disease.html

“Marijuana compounds show promise in treatment of cardiac disease” http://manoa.hawaii.edu/news/article.php?aId=8355

“Marijuana compounds show promise in treatment of cardiac disease” http://www.hawaii.edu/news/2017/01/12/marijuana-compounds-show-promise-in-treatment-of-cardiac-disease/

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Significant Tic Reduction in An Otherwise Treatment-Resistant Patient with Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome Following Treatment with Nabiximols.

Posted on April 27, 2017 by David Worrell

“Early anecdotal reports and preliminary studies suggested that cannabinoid-based medicines such as delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) are effective in the treatment of Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (TS). We report a single case study of a patient with otherwise treatment-resistant TS successfully treated with nabiximols. Our results provide further evidence that treatment with nabiximols may be effective in the treatment of patients with TS. Given the positive response exhibited by the patient highlighted in this report, further investigation of the effects of nabiximols is proposed on a larger group of patients in a clinical trial setting.”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28445405

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Cannabis use is associated with reduced prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: A cross-sectional study.

Posted on April 26, 2017 by David Worrell

“Cannabis use is associated with reduced prevalence of obesity and diabetes mellitus (DM) in humans and mouse disease models. Obesity and DM are a well-established independent risk factor for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), the most prevalent liver disease globally. The effects of cannabis use on NAFLD prevalence in humans remains ill-defined. Our objective is to determine the relationship between cannabis use and the prevalence of NAFLD in humans. We conducted a population-based case-control study of 5,950,391 patients using the 2014 Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP), Nationwide Inpatient Survey (NIS) discharge records of patients 18 years and older. After identifying patients with NAFLD (1% of all patients), we next identified three exposure groups: non-cannabis users (98.04%), non-dependent cannabis users (1.74%), and dependent cannabis users (0.22%). We adjusted for potential demographics and patient related confounders and used multivariate logistic regression (SAS 9.4) to determine the odds of developing NAFLD with respects to cannabis use. Our findings revealed that cannabis users (dependent and non-dependent) showed significantly lower NAFLD prevalence compared to non-users (AOR: 0.82[0.76-0.88]; p<0.0001). The prevalence of NAFLD was 15% lower in non-dependent users (AOR: 0.85[0.79-0.92]; p<0.0001) and 52% lower in dependent users (AOR: 0.49[0.36-0.65]; p<0.0001). Among cannabis users, dependent patients had 43% significantly lower prevalence of NAFLD compared to non-dependent patients (AOR: 0.57[0.42-0.77]; p<0.0001). Our observations suggest that cannabis use is associated with lower prevalence of NAFLD in patients. These novel findings suggest additional molecular mechanistic studies to explore the potential role of cannabis use in NAFLD development.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28441459

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0176416

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Cannabinoid CB2 receptor ligand profiling reveals biased signalling and off-target activity

Posted on April 25, 2017 by David Worrell

“The cannabinoid CB2 receptor (CB2R) represents a promising therapeutic target for various forms of tissue injury and inflammatory diseases. There is a great interest in the development of selective type-2 cannabinoid receptor (CB₂R) agonists as potential drug candidates for various pathophysiological conditions, which include chronic and inflammatory pain, pruritus, diabetic neuropathy and nephropathy, liver cirrhosis, and protective effects after ischaemic-reperfusion injury.” https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13958

“Pain relief without the high. Researchers at Leiden University led by Mario van der Stelt (Leiden Institute for Chemistry) have set ‘gold standards’ for developing new painkillers based on the medicinal effects of cannabis.” https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/01/170104103916.htm

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Anti-inflammatory effects of the cannabidiol derivative dimethylheptyl-cannabidiol – studies in BV-2 microglia and encephalitogenic T cells

Posted on April 24, 2017 by David Worrell

“Preparations derived from Cannabis sativa (marijuana and hashish) have become widespread since ancient times, both as therapeutic agents and in recreational smoking. Among the more than 60 phytocannabinoids identified in Cannabis extracts, the two most abundant are Δ⁹-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the major psychotropic constituent, and cannabidiol (CBD), the major non-psychoactive component. Cannabinoids were shown to exert a wide range of therapeutic effects, and many of the cannabinoids, especially CBD, were shown to possess potent anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory activities. In addition, it was shown that several cannabinoids have pro-apoptotic, neuroprotective, and antitumor properties Dimethylheptyl-cannabidiol (DMH-CBD), a non-psychoactive, synthetic derivative of the phytocannabinoid cannabidiol (CBD), has been reported to be anti-inflammatory in RAW macrophages. Here, we evaluated the effects of DMH-CBD at the transcriptional level in BV-2 microglial cells as well as on the proliferation of encephalitogenic T cells. The results show that DMH-CBD has similar anti-inflammatory properties to those of CBD. DMH-CBD downregulates the expression of inflammatory cytokines and protects the microglial cells by inducing an adaptive cellular response against inflammatory stimuli and oxidative injury. In addition, DMH-CBD decreases the proliferation of pathogenic activated T_MOG cells. Several CBD derivatives were also shown to have anti-inflammatory and anti-proliferative properties. The results show that DMH-CBD induces similar anti-inflammatory, anti-proliferative, and stress response effects to those previously observed for CBD.” https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jbcpp.2016.27.issue-3/jbcpp-2015-0071/jbcpp-2015-0071.xml]]>

Medical Marijuana Laws May Be Associated With A Decline In The Number Of Prescriptions For Medicaid Enrollees

Posted on April 22, 2017 by David Worrell

“In the past twenty years, twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia have passed some form of medical marijuana law. Using quarterly data on all fee-for-service Medicaid prescriptions in the period 2007–14, we tested the association between those laws and the average number of prescriptions filled by Medicaid beneficiaries. We found that the use of prescription drugs in fee-for-service Medicaid was lower in states with medical marijuana laws than in states without such laws in five of the nine broad clinical areas we studied. If all states had had a medical marijuana law in 2014, we estimated that total savings for fee-for-service Medicaid could have been $1.01 billion. These results are similar to those in a previous study we conducted, regarding the effects of medical marijuana laws on the number of prescriptions within the Medicare population. Together, the studies suggest that in states with such laws, Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries will fill fewer prescriptions.” https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/abs/10.1377/hlthaff.2016.1135?journalCode=hlthaff

“Medical Marijuana Laws Reduce Prescription Medication Use In Medicare Part D” https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/abs/10.1377/hlthaff.2015.1661

“US states that allow medical marijuana see drop in prescriptions for other drugs, study finds. American states that allow patients access to medical marijuana are seeing fewer prescriptions per doctor for pharmaceutical drugs in several disease categories where marijuana is a potential treatment, a study in Health Affairs has found.” http://www.bmj.com/content/354/bmj.i3942.full]]>