In 2011, an eight-month-old baby was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. For the family, it sounded like a death sentence: traditional cancer treatments like chemotherapy or radiotherapy weren’t suitable for babies, and surgery offered too little of a chance.
Parents began to look for alternative treatments, and contacted Dr. William Courtney * engaged in the medical use and treatment of cannabis products. Even though this was not something “serious” and finally proven, but there is a chance, and the father seized on it.
After examinations and tests, Dr. Courtney prescribed a course of treatment with freshly squeezed hemp oil. The oil was dripped onto the baby’s nipple twice a day, gradually increasing the dose.
For two months of such non-traditional therapy, the tumor decreased so much that the pediatric oncologist, who observed the little patient, himself suggested continuing this course of treatment without resorting to traditional “chemistry”.
Dr. Courtney says that the success of cannabinoid therapy means that due to the excellent response to treatment, the child did not suffer a long-term blow to the body – the side effects of chemotherapy or radiation. Success with the “wonder baby” means that later on, cannabis can replace expensive and too dangerous methods for babies.
How is this different from the usual methods of using cannabis – and what is the novelty of Dr. W. Courtney’s method?
For thousands of years, hemp has been used in rituals and folk medicine for its psychoactive properties. The plant mass was heated or set on fire, turning the “harmless” THC acid into pure tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive effect of which is known to many. The maximum amount of THC that the body can take without serious side effects is small – only 10 mg, so the effect of large doses of other, non-psychological components of cannabis was simply not noticed.
But without psychoactive components, the dose of the same cannabidiol (CBD, the main phytocannabinoid of cannabis) can easily be a hundred to two hundred times higher – and this allows us to study the impact of cannabinoids on health from a new perspective.
The fact that the result of cold extraction of cannabis in large doses is remarkably accepted by the body was the main result of the research of Dr. William Courtney. Further, he and his research center undertook to study the interaction of cannabinoids with body cells and the possibility of therapy.
One of the main properties of cannabidiol for oncology is its interaction with signal lipids, molecules involved in complex cellular processes that determine the functionality of cells, their division and destruction (apoptosis). Cannabidiol exposure has been shown to turn off the genes responsible for metastasis in cells of many aggressive forms of cancer. And, what is important both for treatment and for obtaining approvals for such treatment, cannabidiol is not psychoactive.
In addition, cannabinoids can reduce the likelihood of heart attacks by almost two-thirds, and significantly improve the course of insulin-dependent diabetes.
Dr. Courtney advises taking 100-200 grams of juice from the leaves and flowers of hemp a day, preparing a salad from sprouted seeds, or taking oil prepared by pharmacists. In this way, it is possible to achieve the intake of cannabinoids in quantities sufficient for antioxidant and neuroprotective activity.
Of course, you can just chew the leaves and flowers, but the plant fiber in them makes using cannabis as a “health salad supplement” not very effective: after all, humans are not herbivores.
*Dr. William L. Courtney received a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from the University of Michigan; PhD from Wayne State University and worked in the Department of Psychiatry at the California Medical Center, and then received a doctorate in forensics and forensic medicine.
He is currently a member of the American Academy of Cannabinoid Medicine, the International Society for Cannabinoid Research, the International Medical Cannabis Association, and the Clinical Cannabis Society.
Dr. Courtney is Vice President of the Luxembourg Prevention Missions Association, an outpatient facility in Luxembourg using dietary raw cannabis. He works with clinics that use fresh cannabis juice in the treatment of seriously ill patients.
