Alzheimer’s Disease & CBD Research
Almost 1 out of every 9 Americans over the age of 65 is suffering from mild to severe Alzheimer’s disease. The hopeful follow up is that ongoing research is identifying new ways to slow the onset of this disease, with the ultimate goals of prevention and finding a cure. One of the most noteworthy findings in recent years is the therapeutic role cannabis — specifically CBD — may play in treating Alzheimer’s. Before getting into the specifics of how CBD may help, it’s worth taking a short trip back into the the discovery of the disease and the evolution of current treatment options.
Understanding Alzheimer’s Disease
Speaking to a Congress of Psychiatrists in 1906, German physician Alois Alzheimer described the post-mortem examination of a patient suffering from memory loss, disorientation, and hallucinations. He determined that the subject’s cortex was thinner than normal, that brain cells were covered in protein plaque and that the cortex was riddled with neurofibrillary tangles. Subsequent generations of research confirmed that these plaques and tangles were key symptoms of the disease named after Dr. Alzheimer.
The 1970s saw the development of drugs known as cholinesterase inhibitors. These drugs boost the body’s expression of acetylcholine, which is a neurotransmitter involved in memory and learning. Resulting medications such as donepezil, galantamine, and rivastigmine can provide minimal to moderate slowing of disease progression, but are known to cause discomfort and other undesirable side effects in a significant number of users.
In the early 1980s, new discoveries provided potential explanations for Alzheimer’s damaging cerebral plague and nerve tangles. Elevated levels of beta-amyloid proteins were identified as the cause plaque buildup, while over-expression of tau protein was implicated in the formation of neural tangles.
A recent post from the University of North Carolina Greensboro describes these phenomena:
Beta-amyloid is a protein found in the fatty membrane surrounding nerve cells. In a healthy brain, beta-amyloid is cleared away regularly, but in Alzheimer’s disease, it accumulates and forms sticky plaques. These plaques build up between nerve cells in the brain and disrupt communication between cells.
Adding:
Tau is a protein found in the brain that helps transport nutrients along pathways within brain cells. In a healthy brain, tau helps keep the pathways straight, but in Alzheimer’s disease, tau clumps into twisted strands, forming tangles. These tangles cause nutrients to no longer move through the pathway which leads to cell death and disintegrating pathways.
These understandings led to the development of drugs that targeted beta-amyloid and tau protein accumulation. Currently, the two most frequently prescribed of these medications are donanemab and lecanemab. The latest studies show that these drugs may slow the progression of Alzheimer’s symptoms by 20 to 30 percent, but do not represent a cure.
The late 1990s also saw interest into possible genetic causes of Alzheimer’s, leading to a search for a vaccine that would trigger an immune response to beta-amyloid accumulation in the brain. Mouse-based studies in the early 2000s showed promise, as did the initial stages of a human trial involving two novel vaccines known as CAD106 and CNP520. However, this trial, involving two novel vaccines, was ultimately terminated based on a lack of demonstrative benefit and a significant level of negative side effects.
The quest for an effective Alzheimer’s vaccine is ongoing, but in recent years it has been eclipsed by a new wave of research devoted to the role inflammation may play in the disease.
Alzheimer’s & Inflammation
Beginning in the early 2000s, Alzheimer’s research entered a new phase as evidence emerged that chronic inflammation might play a significant role in the development of the disease. Discoveries from numerous studies in subsequent years were summed up in a 2018 review of literature that identified:
Inflammation as a central mechanism in Alzheimer’s disease.
The authors wrote that the onset of Alzheimer’s could not be explained solely by beta-amyloid plaques and and tau protein neurofibrillary tangles, as both were sometimes found in brain tissue more than a decade before the first symptoms of the disease appeared. They suggested that chronic inflammation was a third component of the disease, and that there was a cause-effect response in which beta-amyloid accumulation eventually triggered inflammation, which in turn worsened the growth of neurological tangles. The science gets complicated beyond this point, but the key takeaway is that therapies aimed at reducing the inflammation of brain tissues became a key focus of Alzheimer’s research.
New research also indicates that the problem goes beyond the brain. In addition to neuroinflammation, there are indications that chronic inflammation of the peripheral nervous system may contribute to the onset of Alzheimer’s. This understanding underscores the importance of identifying treatments that both suppress brain inflammation and reduce chronic inflammation throughout the body. And that brings us back to cannabis.
Cannabis Combats Inflammation
An ever-growing body of research confirms that cannabis provides anti-inflammatory effects, and that these effects may promote brain health. CannaMD has reported that the activation of the human body’s endocannabionoid system can protect against the brain plaque associated with Alzheimer’s.
We have also also reported on research from the University of Colorado showing that, as compared to non-users of the same age, older cannabis users had stronger neural connections between several key areas of the brain that play a role in memory. More information can be found in our post on Marijuana, Dementia & the Aging Brain.
CBD & Alzheimer’s
As the anti-inflammatory properties of cannabis became a major focus of Alzheimer’s research, CBD emerged as a promising therapeutic agent for healthy aging. A 2021 study from the University of Georgia suggested that CBD’s antioxidant and anti-inflammatory potential might provide alternative therapies for treating age-related diseases.
The conclusions included the statement that:
Inflammaging may be modulated by CBD function, promoting a healthy successful aging.
“Inflammaging” is a relatively new term describing a field of research pioneered by Dr. Claudio Franceschi that focuses on the negative effects of chronic low-grade inflammation on healthy aging.
2021 also saw the publication of a study in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease in which mice with Alzheimer symptoms were treated with CBD. The treatments significantly reduced the symptoms of mental decline and improved cognitive functions. The authors suggested that this was a result of CBD’s ability to boost two key proteins that regulate inflammation and immune responses involved in human aging.
A study from the Chez Republic released in 2023 described the memory-enhancing, anti-inflammatory, and anti-aging potential of CBD. The authors concluded:
According to all the results of the available clinical studies, CBD has shown clear therapeutic efficacy in the elderly human population.
A comprehensive review of CBD’s therapeutic potential published the same year included evidence that CBD improved two important measures of memory in Alzheimer-afflicted mice, while also suppressing levels of two cytokine proteins that are often elevated in Alzheimer patients. The authors stated:
These properties hold the potential to delay the onset and advancement of the condition.
The most recent study on CBD’s potential role in slowing Alzheimer’s progression includes some potentially good news for medical cannabis patients who prefer inhaled methods of consumption. It comes from the University of Georgia and, like all current clinical research on the subject, results were based on mouse studies. But unlike previous studies that administered injected forms of CBD, the University of Georgia team provided their subjects with inhaled CBD.
The study’s lead author Babak Baban explains:
Our group has been studying the therapeutic potential of CBD for several years and has shown that inhaled CBD offers superior efficacy compared to oral or injected forms in conditions such as epilepsy, glioblastoma, and migraine. Given these findings, we were motivated to examine whether CBD could also help reduce neuroinflammation in Alzheimer’s disease.
Mice in the study received a 10 mg dose of vaporized CBD. Subsequent post-mortem comparisons to untreated mice showed that CBD calmed inflammatory activity of the central nervous system and boosted the body’s natural immune responses to inflammatory injuries. Baban states:
This finding is important because it shows that CBD can calm two major immune ‘alarm’ pathways which are increasingly recognized as central drivers of neuroinflammation.
And adds:
We now understand that Alzheimer’s is not driven by a single mechanism, but by multiple, interacting biological processes, including chronic inflammation. Exploring new therapeutic pathways is essential because it opens possibilities beyond traditional amyloid- or tau-centered strategies and moves us closer to addressing the disease’s root causes.
CannaMD will continue to monitor new research on the role medical cannabis and CBD may play in the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer’s.
Integrating Medical Cannabis Into Alzheimer’s Treatment
If you have questions about medical marijuana, we can help. CannaMD has a team of certified medical marijuana doctors who are prepared to answer any questions you might have! You can reach us at (855) 420-9170. You can also find out if you qualify for medical marijuana with our quick online application.
