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Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, and
AstraZeneca have been making $2 billion a year selling useless
pills to Alzheimer's patients (including almost a million Medicare
"beneficiaries"). This is the bottom line of a study
published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine that
evaluated the effectiveness of Seroquel, Risperdal and Zyprexa,
drugs known as "atypical antipsychotics," which are
routinely prescribed to Alzheimer's patients. A group led by
Lon Schneider, MD, at the University of Southern California School
of Medicine found that 80% of Alzheimer's patients they studied
stopped taking the drugs before the trial ended due to ineffectiveness
and side-effects.
The study was funded by the
National Institute of Mental Health, whose director, Thomas R.
Insel, commented "We need to come up with better medications."
Indeed -more than 4.5 million Americans have been diagnosed with
Alzheimer's. Its environmental causes remain unknown (the fake
food must factor in) and it is occurring with increasing frequency.
The rage associated with Alzheimer's
is one of the conditions for which Oregon doctors can authorize
cannabis use. Perhaps Dr. Insel should fund a study of its efficacy
there -it's just a matter of collecting the data.
Paul Armentano of NORML has
summarized the recent scientific literature on cannabinoid therapy
for Alzheimer's patients. It looks promising:
Writing in the February 2005
issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, investigators at Madrid's
Complutense University and the Cajal Institute in Spain reported
that administration of the synthetic cannabinoid WIN 55,212-2
directly to the brain prevented cognitive impairment and decreased
neurotoxicity in rats injected with amyloid-beta peptide (a protein
believed to induce Alzheimer's). Other cannabinoids were also
found to reduce the inflammation associated with Alzheimer's
disease in human brain tissue in culture. "Our results
indicate that ... cannabinoids succeed in preventing the neurodegenerative
process occurring in the disease," investigators concluded.
Investigators at The Scripps
Research Institute in California have reported that THC inhibits
the enzyme responsible for the aggregation of amyloid plaque
-the primary marker for Alzheimer's disease- in a manner "considerably
superior" to approved drugs such as donepezil and tacrine.
"Our results provide a
mechanism whereby the THC molecule can directly impact Alzheimer's
disease pathology," researchers concluded. "THC and
its analogues may provide an improved therapeutic [option] for
Alzheimer's disease [by]... simultaneously treating both the
symptoms and the progression of [the] disease." Previous
preclinical studies have demonstrated that cannabinoids can prevent
cell death by anti-oxidation. Some experts believe that cannabinoids'
neuroprotective properties could also play a role in moderating
Alzhemier's.
Clinical trials also indicate
that cannabinoid therapy can reduce agitation and stimulate weight
gain Alzheimer's patients. Investigators at Berlin 's Charite
Universitatmedizin, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy
have reported that the daily administration of 2.5 mg of synthetic
THC over a two-week period reduced nocturnal motor activity and
agitation in Alzheimer's patients in an open-label pilot study.
Clinical data presented at
the 2003 annual meeting of the International Psychogeriatric
Association previously reported that the oral administration
of up to 10 mg of synthetic THC reduced agitation and stimulated
weight gain in late-stage Alzheimer's patients in an open-label
clinical trial. Weight gain and a decrease in negative feelings
among Alzheimer's patients administered cannabinoids had been
reported by investigators in the International Journal of Geriatric
Psychiatry in 1997.
The U.S. now has a two-tier
system of medical expertise; there are doctors who have educated
themselves about the endocannabinoid system and the drugs that
affect it, and doctors who have not. Unfortunately, the head
of the National Institute of Mental Health is in the lower tier.
A soon-to-be published survey of California doctors who have
approved cannabis use by more than 100,000 patients asked, among
other things, "What drugs has cannabis enabled your patients
to discontinue or use less of?" All the respondents mentioned
atypical antipsychotics. No wonder the pharmaceutical companies
-and the corporations they interconnect with, i.e. petrochemicals,
agribiz, banks- are committed to Prohibition.
Fred Gardner is the editor of O'Shaughnessy's
Journal of the California Cannabis Research Medical Group. He
can be reached at: fred@plebesite.com
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