A compound derived from marijuana plants, cannabidiol oil, is showing promise for treating intractable seizures.
Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham are presenting preliminary results from their research. So far, 51 subjects have participated in the trials. Approximately half had significantly fewer seizures over the span of six months. Two patients had no seizures while taking cannabidiol oil, but nine people dropped out of the study because of side effects.
Is Cannabidiol Safe Enough to Use as Medicine?
One of the goals for this early research was to determine if cannabidiol was safe enough to use therapeutically, and the results on that score are encouraging. Cannabidiol is not a psychoactive substance, so research volunteers do not get high after taking it. It is also not a cure for epilepsy.
Nevertheless, these preliminary finding suggest that cannabidiol oil may have a therapeutic role in some cases of hard-to-treat epilepsy. The research findings were presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Neurology.
Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, March 3, 2016
The topic of marijuana and whether the plant or its constituents have medicinal value is complicated. To learn more, you may wish to listen to our one-hour interview with Dr. David Casarett, author of Stoned: A Doctor’s Case for Medical Marijuana.
