Can Pot Help Reduce Dementia Symptoms?

Though it was well tolerated, treatment with low-dose oral tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)—the active hallucinogenic chemical in cannabis—did not reduce dementia-related neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) in patients, according to a recent study.

In order to determine the efficacy and safety of the low-dose THC pill, researchers conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study in which 24 participants with dementia were randomly assigned 1.5 mg of THC and 26 received a matched placebo 3 times a day for 3 weeks. 
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The study showed that at 21 days, the difference in reduction of symptoms between THC and placebo was insignificant, but that both groups had a similar number of reported adverse events: 16 with THC and 14 with placebo.

“Oral THC of 4.5 mg daily showed no benefit in NPS, but was well-tolerated, which adds valuable knowledge to the scarce evidence on THC in dementia,” explained the study’s authors.

“The benign adverse event profile of this dosage allows study of whether higher doses are efficacious and equally well-tolerated,” they said.

The complete study is published in the May issue of Neurology.

-Michelle Canales Butcher

Reference: 

van den Elsen GAH, Ahmed AIA, Verkes RJ, et al. Tetrahydrocannabinol for neuropsychiatric symptoms in dementia. Neurology. 2015 May [epub ahead of print] doi: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000001675.