Since hitting the market, cannabidiol (CBD) has been creating a lot of attention in the medical community for the benefits it may bring. You have probably seen CBD for sale almost everywhere you go now. But does it actually work? Through clinical research, CBD has been shown it may help with many diseases and chronic conditions to reduce the symptoms brought along with those diseases and conditions. One chronic condition that CBD has been showing significant promise with is epilepsy and seizures. Laboratory studies on CBD over a number of years suggests that CBD may help control when an individual with epilepsy gets a seizure. However some research on CBD has been hard to do and has taken much time mainly because of federal regulations. Recently, a number of studies have been pointing to significant benefits for epilepsy patients who have not responded to traditional therapies, but have been taking CBD.
How May CBD Help With Seizures?
Most of this scientific data has been collected on preclinical trials on mice and rats. However, CBD has shown to have protective activity in pilocarpine models of temporal lobe seizures. CBD has also shown the same protective activity in the penicillin and cobalt models of focal seizures. CBD increases the afterdischarge threshold while decreasing the afterdischarge amplitude and duration in seizures for rats. It is also found that CBD prevents epileptiform potentials influenced by a Mg2+-free medium and 4-amino-pyridine in hippocampal brain slices. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) re-evaluated the anticonvulsant profile of CBD using a refocused screening protocol. In this new evaluation, CBD created a dose-dependent protection against seizures in mice and rats created by electroshock. The molecular actions involved in CBD and preventing seizure activity in mice and rats did not appear to be brought about by the direct effect of cannabinoid receptors, but in various other studies, CBD has shown that it may help significantly with conditions such as anxiety, mood disorders, addiction, inflammatory diseases, PTSD, and much more.
Supporting Studies on CBD and Epilepsy
- The Epidiolex Study: This study is the most famous one supporting that CBD may help reduce the symptoms of epilepsy. In April 2018, the British firm, GW Pharmaceuticals, conducted a clinical trial testing how CBD worked on patients. Epidiolex was the CBD extract created by GW Pharmaceuticals and was produced by Greenwich BioSciences, which is GW Pharmaceuticals’ United States company. In this clinical trial, researchers used a control group given a placebo and other groups were given different CBD dosages. The researchers did not know who was part of the control group and other groups taking CBD. Lead researcher, Dr. Orrin Devinsky, said patients taking 10mg of CBD (Epidiolex) a day had nearly the same effects as patients taking 20mg of CBD a day. He also is the director of New York University Langone’s Comprehensive Epilepsy Center in New York City. In total, 225 patients that had Lennox-Gastaut syndrome were tested in the three groups: placebo, 10mg of CBD a day, and 20mg of CBD a day. For the group taking 20mg of CBD daily, they had on average 42% less seizures. The group taking 10mg of CBD daily experienced 37% fewer seizures on average. The placebo group had 17% less seizures than normal. This study showed that CBD (Epidiolex) was a safe treatment with minimal side effects.
- Billy Caldwell: Billy was 12 years old when he first started CBD oil in 2016. Billy has epilepsy and uses CBD oil to control his seizures. While taking CBD oil, Billy went 250 days seizure free until his CBD oil was taken away from him being confiscated at Heathrow Airport coming from Canada to the United Kingdom (where CBD oil was illegal at the time). Later on, the Home Office then released his CBD oil and now still uses it as it may help with controlling his seizures from epilepsy.
- Alfie Dingle: This case is similar to Billy’s case where Alfie suffers from severe epilepsy and is using CBD oil to control his seizures. Alfie was 6 years old in the Netherlands when he first started using CBD oil and had up to 30 seizures a day. His family described Alfie’s experience from “a death sentence” to “a normal life with school, friends, and fun”. Since CBD oil was illegal at the time when Alfie first started taking it, his family took him to the Netherlands to take cannabis-based medication prescribed by a neurologist. They recorded that his seizures reduced in number, duration, and severity.
Summary
Much of the scientific data that was collected pointing towards CBD helping to control seizures was formed from preclinical trials on mice and rats. Human research is still limited, but there have been case studies like Billy Caldwell and Alfie Dingle’s situations that have been showing CBD may help control their seizures and live a normal life. Epidiolex is currently the only FDA approved CBD product that has shown through clinical research that it may help reduce the symptoms and seizures brought on by epilepsy. However since these studies, CBD for sale online has become widely more available and more users have been experiencing positive benefits using CBD in their daily routines.
