Although cannabinoids have shown promise for epilepsy in general, Epidiolex is only approved for two kinds of childhood epilepsy. But this may be more a reflection of the FDA’s drug approval process than of the conditions for which CBD helps.
Although cannabinoids have shown promise for epilepsy in general, Epidiolex is only approved for two kinds of childhood epilepsy. But this may be more a reflection of the FDA’s drug approval process than of the conditions for which CBD helps. (It is much quicker and cheaper to get approval for an untreated disease.) CBD appears to work well for many kinds of epilepsy. A study from the University of Alabama’s CBD program looked at the use of CBD for seizures in patients with brain tumors. The report described three male patients, between 17 and 40 years old, who developed seizures due to brain tumors. One patient’s seizures were reduced by over 50%, though he was taking an extremely high dose of 50 mg/kg/day CBD. A second patient, taking 20 mg/kg CBD per day was seizure-free for a month, a major decrease from 5 seizures every two weeks at the start of the study. This patient died during the study, seemingly unrelated to CBD. A third patient had a slight increase in the number of seizures, and he stopped CBD treatment due to side effects. Despite the increase in the total number of seizures, the researchers reported that the severity of his seizures were reduced during CBD treatment.
Read study: The use of cannabidiol for seizure management in patients with brain tumor-related epilepsy
Adrian Devitt-Lee is a research scientist and longtime Project CBD contributor. © Copyright, Project CBD. May not be reprinted without permission.
