Previous studies on medical cannabis for Alzheimer's disease have primarily focused on the compounds tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol in clinical applications. Now researchers have recently been able to show howtherapeutic effect of CBDwhich can protect nerve cells from oxidative damage. Additionally, the results suggest that cannabidiol has the potential to treat age-related neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's.
The potential effect of cannabis against Alzheimer's disease
According to the study authors, the new discovery could one day contribute to the development of new therapeutics against neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease. Derived from the cannabis plant, CBD is molecularly similar to THC, but is not psychoactive. Previous research has suggested that cannabidiol has neuroprotective properties, but it was not clear exactly how the active ingredient works. Now, this new study explains the mechanism by which CBD protects brain cells from damage and death. The research team investigated the process of oxytosis, also known as ferroptosis. This is known to occur in the aging brain. Accordingly, increasing evidence suggests that oxytosis may be a cause of Alzheimer's disease. This can be triggered by the gradual loss of an antioxidant called glutathione, leading to nerve cell damage and death from lipid oxidation. In the study, scientists treated nerve cells with cannabidiol from cannabis for Alzheimer's disease and then introduced an active ingredient to stimulate oxidative damage.
Treating cells with CBD prevented mitochondria from curling up and kept them functioning well. The scientists were thus able to directly show that maintaining mitochondrial function is specifically required for the protective effect of the compound. In another important finding, researchers showed that CBD did not activate cannabinoid receptors, which are necessary for cannabinoids to produce a psychoactive response. Thus, potential therapeutics would work without causing the person to get high. In addition to the effect of cannabis against Alzheimer's, the results havethis studyits effects on other neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's have been shown. As a next step, the team is working on reproducing the results in a preclinical mouse model.
