POT MAY EASE PARKINSON'S SYMPTOMS-CZECH STUDY

Nearly half of Parkinson's disease patients who have tried marijuana
say the drug helped relieve their symptoms, according to a survey of
patients with the degenerative neurological disorder.

Dr. Evzin Ruzicka, an attending neurologist at Charles University in
Prague in the Czech Republic, reported the findings here at the
Movement Disorders Society's Seventh International Congress of
Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders. Ruzicka is also a
consultant at the Prague Movement Disorders Center.

"It's difficult to directly study the medical effects of cannabis in
the Czech Republic, where we conducted our research, because of its
illegal status," Ruzicka told Reuters Health. "Therefore, we had to
conduct anonymous surveys. To our knowledge, this is the first study to
assess the effect of cannabis on Parkinson's disease, and our findings
suggest it may alleviate some symptoms."

Ruzicka and his colleagues chose to investigate marijuana's effects on
Parkinson's disease after hearing from several patients that they had
tried the drug and it had helped them.

The investigators asked all patients who were treated for Parkinson's
disease at their center to complete a questionnaire that asked about
cannabis use and about several Parkinson's disease symptoms, including
overall symptoms; tremor while at rest; bradykinesia, or slow movement;
muscle rigidity; and dyskinesias, or involuntary movements. Dyskinesias
are caused by levodopa, the mainstay medication in Parkinson's
treatment.

Among the 630 patients to whom the investigators sent questionnaires,
339 (54%) returned them. The responders' average age was about 66, and
they had had Parkinson's disease for an average of roughly 9 years.
Among the responders, 25% reported that they had used cannabis. Most
had used it orally, either as fresh or dried leaves.

Within this group, 39 patients (46%) reported that their Parkinson's
disease symptoms in general were relieved after they started using
cannabis. In terms of specific symptoms, 26 (31%) reported an
improvement in tremor while at rest, and 38 (45%) experienced a relief
of bradykinesia. Relief of muscle rigidity was reported by 32 (38%),
and 12 (14%) said they had an improvement in levodopa-induced
dyskinesias.

The respondents reported that the improvement in symptoms occurred an
average of 1.7 months after they had started using cannabis. Patients
who used it for at least three months were more likely to experience
symptom relief than those with shorter experience, the investigators
reported.

This delay between the beginning of cannabis use and the relief of
symptoms made it unlikely that the respondents were having a placebo
effect, Ruzicka said. A placebo effect can occur when the individual
taking a treatment experiences a benefit even if the "treatment," such
as a sugar pill, contains no active ingredients.

They found no relationship between the length of cannabis use and the
effect on involuntary movements. However, daily marijuana users
reported more improvement in their dyskinesias than those using it less
often.

The investigators speculated that the effect of cannabis on Parkinson's
disease symptoms may be due to interaction among cannabis, certain
brain receptors that respond to cannabis and endogenous cannabinoids or
cannabis-like substances within the body.

He and colleagues plan to investigate a relationship between cannabis
use and relief of Parkinson's disease symptoms by collaborating in
further studies with investigators in the United Kingdom, Ruzicka told
Reuters Health.

Source: Reuters Health
Author: Paula Moyer
Published: November 13, 2002
Copyright: 2002 Reuters
Website: http://www.reutershealth.com