Marijuana May Prevent Memory Loss In The Elderly

Despite what the federal government would have you believe, marijuana is an effective treatment for many medical ailments -- a treatment with no bad side-effects.

Now it looks like there's another condition that marijuana could help with -- memory loss due to aging, and possibly even delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease. That's the conclusion that German researchers have received after performing experiments with mice.

Here is what they found (from the Daily Mail):

Cannabis could help prevent memory loss in the elderly, a new study has found.

Researchers in Germany, who are set to begin human trials later this year, say the drug may even help delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease by slowing the brain's natural ageing process.

The mental power of older mice improved dramatically after they were given THC, the psychoactive part of marijuana that makes users 'high'.

In fact, their brain connections in the hippocampus - which controls learning, memory and emotions - were firing as well as those of young adults.

It's hoped the same may apply to humans, with trials expected to begin this year.

Psychologist Professor Andreas Zimmer of Bonn University in Germany said the findings are essential in the movement to understand cannabis as a form of medicine. . . .

His team whose findings are published in Nature Medicine say it's too early to say if their remarkable results could be achieved in patients.

But they offer hope that drugs based on cannabis or THC could be given to middle or old aged people. . . .

In the latest experiments three groups of mice that were 18 (old), 12 (mature) and two months (young) were regularly injected with low doses of THC for 28 days.

The equivalent ages in human years would be 64, 58 and 20, respectively.

Both before and after the treatment they were challenged with a series of tasks that tested their learning and memory skills.

These included negotiating their way around a water maze, locating objects and recognising other mice.

In young mice THC impaired their performance. But the same therapy actually improved learning and memory in both of the older sets of animals.

Prior to receiving THC they did poorly. But afterwards they were as efficient as the young mice had been before being given the compound that, interestingly, reduced their mental skills.

Prof Zimmer, a psychiatrist at Bonn University, said THC boosted genes that control neurons in the hippocampus - restoring them to the same patterns observed in young animals. . . .

The study was published in Nature Medicine.