Over 280,000 Texans are currently suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. This is a particularly vicious disease, and at the present time, there are no drugs to effectively cure or control the disease. That may be changing.
The Scripps Research Institute has done a study on the effectiveness of THC in the treatment of Alzheimers. THC is the active ingredient in marijuana - tetrahydrocannabinol. The study shows that THC prevents the formation of amyloid plaque, which is found in all Alzheimers patients and is believed to be a cause of the disease. In fact, they found that not only does THC prevent the formation of amyloid plaque, but it does it more effectively than any drug currently in the market.
Of course, our federal government told us long ago that marijuana has absolutely no medical use. They lied. This one study should be enough reason to legalize marijuana, and conduct some serious medical experiments to determine the truth. If marijuana really can help Alzheimers patients, then it is a vicious crime for the government to deny Texans access to effective treatment of their disease.
Thanks for the study link, it's much more focused than many of the superficial studies on the benefits of coffee or alcohol. In those two cases studies often do very little to separate correlation from causation. They fail to identify, for example, that wine drinkers may have healthier hearts because of other factors in their lifestyles. Likewise perpetual coffee drinkers may simply enjoy having an active and stimulating day, and other studies have shown that even simple mental activity (e.g. a daily crossword) does a great deal to ward off dementia late in life.
ReplyDeleteThis study focuses on the neurochemical effects of THC in a much more controlled environment. But since it was released one day before another breakthrough was announced I wonder if it requires significant more research? Here's a relevant quote:
"That was a key finding, Dillin said: Until recently, scientists thought amyloid clumps, or plaques, were the bigger problem. His research supports more recent findings that smaller amyloid tendrils inside cells are the really poisonous form."
If I recall correctly, the effects of many neurochemicals are most prominent between cells, not within them, so the benefits (and risks) of THC may require much more study. But given this administration's opposition to medical advances that have any sort of controversy attached to them, I have little faith that this area will gain much more attention or funding in the near future.
-TexasHippie
(posting as Anonymous due to Blogger Beta account migration)