Cannabinoids might unlock the secrets to treating Alzheimer’s disease

Some 35 million people worldwide and 5.5 million in the United States have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, equating to about 5 percent of people between the ages of 65 and 74 and nearly 50 percent of people over 85. You may also recall that the numbers appear to be increasing, and that an estimated 10 to 11 million Americans will have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease by 2050.

The cause of the disease is not known. It has been postulated that a combination of genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors may be responsible for the changes in the brain that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Early in its course the disease causes difficulty remembering recent events or recently acquired facts, and mild confusion. These symptoms usually worsen over time, with additional symptoms of word-finding difficulty, disorientation, anger, aggression, agitation, loss of appetite and weight loss, depression, or withdrawal becoming increasingly likely.

Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by the loss of nerve cells, or neurons, and the connections between them, called synapses, which ultimately leads to atrophy of several areas of the brain. There are no effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, and although several prescription medications are now available that may reduce the severity of some of the symptoms, they do not alter the ultimate outcome. However, results of a ground-breaking study published in the July 7, 1998 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Dr. A. J. Hampson et. al. from the National Institute of Mental Health showed that the chemical compounds in cannabis, THC and cannabidiol, protected rat neuron cells from damage by glutamate, a neurotransmitter that can injure nerve cells at elevated levels. The authors also found that those substances were more potent antioxidants than vitamin C or vitamin E, and concluded that “The antioxidative properties of cannabinoids suggest a therapeutic use as neuroprotective agents . . .”

A number of subsequent studies supported their conclusions, and on October 7, 2003 patent number 6630507 was issued to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under the title “Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants.”

In the abstract of the patent the authors state that the “cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and HIV dementia.”

What are the implications of these findings? As President Obama has said, it is urgent that new and innovative treatments be found for Alzheimer’s disease because the costs of caring for the millions of patients with Alzheimer’s disease will be astronomical and threaten to overwhelm the healthcare systems of not only the U.S., but other countries around the world.

If substances found in cannabis could slow or stop the progression of the disease or even prevent it, it would completely change the complexion of the science of disease prevention. Unfortunately, as many of you know, it is extremely difficult to conduct the kinds of studies that would be necessary to find out if cannabis could be beneficial and to develop cannabis-derived medications because the agencies that approve clinical studies on Schedule 1 substances routinely refuse to grant permission to study cannabis.

Alan Shackelford, M.D., graduated from the University of Heidelberg School of Medicine and trained at major teaching hospitals of Harvard Medical School in internal medicine, nutritional medicine and hyperalimentation and behavioral medicine.