Patients most vulnerable to COVID-19 have pre-existing illnesses, including diabetes and heart disease. Two potential treatments in clinical trials for COVID-19 are the anti-malarial drug, hydroxychloroquine, and the antibiotic, azithromycin. These drugs can cause side-effects, including cardiac arrhythmias which can lead to heart failure, that make them inappropriate for the most vulnerable COVID-19 patients. Cardiac […]

Presently, there are almost 100,000 people in Canada with COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS CoV-2 virus, and almost 7000 have died. Although an effective vaccine is the ultimate goal, it is a long way off. To slow the spread and reduce the medical, social, and economic burdens, new treatments are needed. To find […]

Diabetes mellitus, a common metabolic disorder, exhibits neuropathic complications that can eventually lead to disabling pain (Todorovic 2015). This is attributed to hyperglycemia/high glucose resulting in neuronal hyperexcitability (Todorovic 2015). Importantly, diabetes-evoked neuronal hyperexcitability and neurotoxicity can be caused by alterations in voltage-gated sodium channel (VGSC) expression (Hong, Morrow et al. 2004), resulting in changes […]

As one of the first countries to legalize cannabis, Canada is at the forefront of the cannabis research and technology. While there are a number of medical applications for Cannabis that have been used for a number of years, these treatments require patients to either smoke dried cannabis, or use cannabis extracts that can include […]

Cannabinoids are natural products derived from the Cannabis sativa plant (commonly known as marijuana). Cannabidiol (CBD), the main non-psychotropic cannabinoid is reputed to have medicinal benefits and is approved for the treatment of two seizure disorders. Other non-psychotropic cannabinoids, like cannabinol and cannabigerol, are less studied. We previously found that CBD both directly and indirectly […]