While many might be focused on marijuana studies only terms of recreational use or in controversial medical use among adults these very same studies are also revealing that children can benefit from medical cannabis; more specifically from the cannabidiol extracts.
For one, in children who have epilepsy administration of forms of medical marijuana appears to be associated with remarkable reduction in seizures.
Dr. Scott Stevens is an attending neurologist at the North Shore-LIJ Health System Comprehensive Epilepsy Care Center, located in Great Neck, New York. While he was not involved with this particular set of studies, he recommends that although the results are good, we are not quite ready to start prescribing it to all children with epilepsy.
“The studies that have come out thus far are very small studies,” he cautions, reminding that they are “open-label” studies. This means that both researchers and patients know who is receiving the medication, which can sometimes skew results.
This recent study on lab mice is among the very few to indicate how CBD might interact with other anti-epileptic drugs, too, says Stevens. So while that is certainly promising it is also important to remember, he continues, that it was performed on a small animal in a controlled setting and not on humans in a real-world setting.
“Once again, we do need a lot more information, and that’s what we hope a large randomized, controlled trial would show, and future studies of what happens in humans, in patients with epilepsy,” he advises.
Still, the promise of a life without epilepsy—and in a treatment from a natural, replenishing, and potentially-safe source—is worth continued study. Epilepsy is among the most difficult conditions to treat so were CBD found to provide conclusive remedy it could be a landmark win for the medical industry.
