Some seizure free
The prescription CBD group experienced a 39% reduction in seizures. “Some of these kids had up to hundreds of seizures a day and went down to tens, and some kids became seizure free,” said Dr. Cohen.
Because the study was “looking back in time,” the investigators couldn’t determine whether age, type of epilepsy, or other factors affected seizure control in the two groups, said Dr. Cohen. “One of the limitations of a retrospective study is that we’re not able to control for those factors,” he said.
Eleven patients—all in the prescription CBD group—reported adverse effects, including somnolence, emesis, diarrhea, and diminished appetite; six discontinued CBD because of side effects.
Dr. Cohen said he’s not aware of any study that has compared artisanal products “head to head” with pharmaceutical grade CBD. “The whole point of this study was to ask the question, Is there a difference between the groups?, and these new data would suggest that there may be.”
The results appear to support giving encouragement to patients to transition from artisanal to pharmaceutical CBD if appropriate. “Anytime you’re giving your child a medication that has not been produced under the stringent guidelines that all pharmaceutical FDA-approved medications undergo, you don’t know exactly what’s in the product, and not knowing is a potential issue,” said Dr. Cohen.
The findings need to be studied in a more controlled setting “to make sure they’re valid,” said Dr. Cohen. Because this is “a very hot topic,” he’s keen to see what further research his colleagues would be interested in pursuing.
Commenting on the research, Joseph Sirven, MD, a neurologist in Scottsdale, Arizona, said this is an important study.
“It highlights one of the most common questions that I receive almost on a daily basis in my neurology practice,” he said.
Most people think that dispensary-based CBD is the same as prescription-based CBD, said Dr. Sirven. “Technically and theoretically, they certainly could be; however, what this study highlights is that in practice, they are not the same.”
He stressed that prescription CBD has to meet certain quality standards. “That means that whatever the ingredient list states about the concentration of CBD in the product has to be within the product, which is why the FDA approved it. It is, in essence, a quality control issue.”
A dispensary-based product does not need to meet such stringent standards and so “is subject to whatever the manufacturer chooses to put in the product,” said Dr. Sirven.
The study received no outside funding. Drs. Cohen and Sirven reported no relevant financial relationships.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.
