|
 
Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! Please  login or  register to post messages and view our members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, encrypted messages, file attachments, board customizations, and much more!
|
 veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 6,506
|
 Cannabinoid Treatments May Offer Novel Therapy For Parkinson's Disease
#6394969 - 12/21/06 07:18 PM (1 year, 11 months ago) |
|
|
Cannabinoid Treatments May Offer Novel Therapy For Parkinson's Disease
December 21, 2006 - norml.org
Frankfurt, Germany: Cannabis-based medicines could offer therapeutic relief for symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD) and may also moderate the course of the illness, according to a scientific review published this month in the journal Current Medicinal Chemistry.
"Cannabinoids are antioxidant, inhibit glutamate toxicity, and they also possess anti-inflammatory properties," authors state. "All together, we can conclude that cannabinoid-based medicines could be neuroprotective in the course of the disease, whereas [individual] compounds ... might modulate the behavioral effects of ... PD motor symptoms themselves."
Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder affecting the basal ganglia that results in a loss of motor coordination, organ failure, and death. The disease is characterized by a loss of dopaminergic neurons, typically resulting from brain inflammation, glutamate overproduction, and/or oxidative stress. The illness is estimated to affect approximately 2 percent of the population over age 65.
Survey data indicates that cannabis can provide subjective relief for symptoms of PD, including bradykinsia (extreme slowness of movement and reflexes), muscle rigidity, and tremor. However, a recent clinical trial assessing the short-term use of oral THC on symptoms of PD found the drug to have little immediate effect on patients' movement.
Full text of the study, "An overview of Parkinson's disease and the cannabinoid system and possible benefits of cannabinoid-based treatments," appears in the December issue of Current Medicinal Chemistry.
| |
|
|
|
Previous
Index
Next
Threaded
Edit 
Reply 
Quote 
