Every year, more than 200,000 Americans are diagnosed with Parkinson\u2019s disease, a neurological disorder that causes stiffness, tremors, and affects both a person\u2019s ability to speak and to walk.<\/p>\n
Specifically,\u00a0Parkinson\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0is a degeneration of dopamine neurons in the brain. It\u2019s a debilitating disease for which there is no one known cause (it could be genetic, it could be environmental) and for which there is no known cure, only treatment to manage symptoms.<\/p>\n Since this is a chronic disease we\u2019re talking about and since this is 2019 \u2014 and since it appears that medical cannabis may have potential to treat other neurological diseases including Alzheimer\u2019s<\/a> \u2014\u00a0the natural question is, \u201cDoes cannabis do anything for Parkinson\u2019s?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n And since this is 2019, when it remains exceedingly difficult to research cannabis\u2019s efficacy in treating almost anything thanks to federal marijuana policy, the answer from researchers is a resounding, \u201cWe don\u2019t know, but maybe!\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s enough of a chance for 80 percent of Parkinson\u2019s patients to report<\/a>\u00a0trying cannabis to soothe symptoms (including with official approval from some states\u2019 medical marijuana laws) which means there\u2019s enough of an interest to draw attention from the Parkinson\u2019s Foundation.<\/p>\n As Denver-based alt-weekly Westword reported,<\/a>\u00a0the 62-year old research foundation will host its first-ever medical marijuana conference in Denver on March 6 and 7.<\/p>\n In a way, this is a search for a new answer to a very old question. As cannabis researcher Ethan Russo\u00a0noted in a recent literature review<\/a>, researchers as earlier as 1888 observed possible benefits for Parkinson\u2019s patients using cannabis \u2014 or, then, \u201cIndian hemp.\u201d Things haven\u2019t advanced much since then.<\/p>\n \u201cTo date, there is more hype than actual data to provide meaningful clinical information to patients with PD,\u201d said Dr. Benzi Kluger, an associate professor at University of Colorado Hospital medical school and a co-chair of the event, according to the newspaper. \u201cThere is a critical need to analyze existing data on medical marijuana and to set priorities for future research.\u201d<\/p>\n But what data is out there? Here\u2019s a brief review of published research on the topic.<\/p>\n According to results of a study\u00a0published in the journal\u00a0Clinical Neuropharmacology<\/i>\u00a0in 2014<\/a>, 22 patients with Parkinson\u2019s reported \u201csignificant improvement of sleep and pain scores\u201d after smoking marijuana. More notably, \u201c[n]o significant adverse effects of the drug were observed,\u201d according to the researchers \u2014 who called for a larger study to verify the results.<\/p>\n But that study\u2019s participants were observed back in 2011-2012. That wasn\u2019t so long ago, but it was well before the public at large (and even most marijuana users) had the fluency around cannabinoid contents and terpenes that they do today. What about CBD-only treatments \u2014 or what kind of CBD-THC ratio?<\/p>\n A 2004 study found \u201cno significant benefits\u201d on 17 patients trying a THC:CBD oral extract. Yet two other studies found that CBD helped five Parkinson\u2019s patients with psychosis and 21 more patients with general symptoms.<\/p>\n Possibly the largest recent study in recent years was a 339-person research effort in the Czech Republic, where patients received oral cannabis leaves. Here, the best results came in patients who took the treatment for \u201cthree or more months,\u201d Russo wrote in his review.<\/p>\n Keep in mind that current treatments of Parkinson\u2019s have adverse side effects\u00a0including dyskinesia<\/a>.<\/p>\n As with most medical questions involving cannabis there are currently more questions than answers on what Parkinson\u2019s can do. More important than the potential there\u2019s the fact that Parkinson\u2019s patients are trying marijuana on their own.<\/p>\n As usual, medicine is waiting to catch up as soon as the law will let it start to try.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/b>, have you tried cannabis to treat a medical condition?<\/p>\n The post Does Marijuana Work for Parkinson\u2019s Disease?<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Every year, more than 200,000 Americans are diagnosed with Parkinson\u2019s disease, a neurological disorder that causes stiffness, tremors, and affects both a person\u2019s ability to speak and to walk. Specifically,\u00a0Parkinson\u2019s\u00a0is a degeneration of dopamine neurons in the brain. It\u2019s a debilitating disease for which there is no one known causeContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,136,8631,476,53,139,8734,4329,420],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33307"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33308,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33307\/revisions\/33308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Does Marijuana Work for Parkinson\u2019s Disease?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"