Some great medical research for the week.
The first is Medical cannabis for treatment-resistant combat PTSD coming out of Israel. The study followed 14 treatment-resistant combat veterans with PTSD who remained symptomatic despite numerous lines of conventional treatment. After using medical marijuana patients “…show that total sleep score, subjective sleep quality, and sleep duration significantly improved.”
Anyone who is in the medical marijuana field or is remotely interested in it might read the study’s title and say “of course.” But there are a couple of important things to touch on. In the introduction, the paper cites the 20-30% remission rate of PTSD using stand lines of care. Think about that; 70-80% of our combat veterans afflicted with PTSD have to live with it because of the lack of first-line options (besides, of course, medical marijuana).
Additionally, the patients in question were mature adults (median age of 49.5) and suffering from trauma for 27.6 years. The patients were in treatment for an average of almost 8 years before being treated with medical marijuana. 80% of the patients also noted a reduction in other PTSD symptoms after using medical marijuana. A proper treatment has been there the whole time, but it’s only rarely used. It’s bordering on criminal how we treat veterans in this country, but I digress.
The next study has us excited but for other reasons. Inhalant cannabidiol impedes tumor growth was published in the Human Cell journal just last week. (Cannabidiol is more commonly known as CBD).
The paper looks at the effects that CBD has on lung cancer, which remains the most chronic form of cancer and the leading cause of cancer mortality in the world. Despite improvement in the treatment of lung cancer, current therapies are only partially effective, but CBD shows significant promise.
Anti-angiogenic agents are a common cancer treatment, but there are significant side-effects. I know that sounds like a mouthful, but in essence as a tumor grows, it needs a blood supply. Angiogenesis is the growth of new blood vessels – so an anti-angiogenic agent would be a method to slow growth of blood supply and try to hamper tumor growth. The side-effects of anti-angiogenesis treatment can be pretty nasty: hemorrhage, stroke, heart attack.
The author’s previous findings showed that CBD could impede tumor growth in mouse models of melanoma and glioblastoma. Their new findings show that CBD decreased tumor growth rate by reducing new blood vessel growth in the tumors. These results suggest, for the first time, that CBD can impede lung cancer growth.
