Phytocannabinoids for the Treatment of Neuropathic Pain: A Scoping Review of Randomised Controlled Trials Published Between 2012 and 2023.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Neuropathic pain (NP) remains a challenge to treat, with 50% of patients experiencing limited efficacy from current treatments. Medicinal cannabis, which contains tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabidiol (CBD) and other minor cannabinoids, is garnering attention as an alternative treatment for NP. This paper reviews the clinical evidence for phytocannabinoid treatment of NP. RECENT FINDINGS: Seventeen randomised controlled trials (RCT) were identified for inclusion in this review. Of these, ten studies using phytocannabinoid preparations containing THC alone had the most evidence for pain relief. Four studies investigating THC/CBD combinations showed some reductions in pain scores, although not all findings were statistically significant, whereas studies investigating CBD (two studies) or cannabidivarin (one study) showed no analgesic effect over placebo. However, CBD studies were of small sample size when compared to other studies in the review and short duration. Results for treatment of diabetic peripheral neuropathy patients with THC showed better improvements over those for NP induced by chemotherapy and multiple sclerosis, with these trials using vaporised whole plant cannabis. This formulation may have trace amounts of other minor cannabinoids, compared with synthetic cannabinoids such as dronabinol or nabilone that were investigated in other studies. This review provides an overview of RCTs that have investigated phytocannabinoid use for the treatment of NP. There appears to be evidence to necessitate further high quality RCTs into novel formulations of phytocannabinoids for the treatment of NP.

Combination of marine bioactive compounds and extracts for the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases.

Background: In recent years, marine-based functional foods and combination therapy are receiving greater recognition for their roles in healthy lifestyle applications and are being investigated as viable and effective strategies for disease treatment or prevention. Aim of the review: This review article presents and discusses the relevant scientific publications that have studied the synergistic and additive effects of natural marine bioactive compounds and extract combinations with anti-obesity, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and chemopreventive activities in the last two decades. The paper presents the mechanism of action and health benefits of developed combinations and discusses the limitation of the studies. Furthermore, it recommends alternatives and directions for future studies. Finally, it highlights the factors for developing novel combinations of marine bioactive compounds. Key scientific concepts of review: Combination of marine bioactive compounds or extracts affords synergistic or additive effects by multiple means, such as multi-target effects, enhancing the bioavailability, boosting the bioactivity, and neutralizing adverse effects of compounds in the mixture. For the development of marine-based combinations, there are key points for consideration and issues to address: knowledge of the mechanism of action of individual compounds and their combinations, optimum ratio and dosing of compounds, and experimental models must all be taken into account. Strategies to increase the number and diversity of marine combinations, and further development of marine-based functional foods, are available. However, only a small number of natural marine bioactive combinations have been assessed, and most research has been focused on fish oil and carotenoid synergy. Therefore, more research and resources should be spent on developing novel marine bioactive combinations as functional foods and nutraceuticals.

Phosphate recovery from hydrothermally treated sewage sludge using struvite precipitation.

New technologies are needed to recover phosphate from organic wastes, such as sewage sludge. Sewage sludge can be hydrothermally treated to make it safe but this process is expensive. Recovering a valuable by-product, such as phosphate, could improve the economics of hydrothermal treatment. Therefore, the technical and preliminary differential cost analysis of combining hydrothermal treatment with phosphate recovery (by precipitation of magnesium ammonium phosphate (struvite)) was investigated. The effects of pH, magnesium ion dose, and either wet oxidation or thermal hydrolysis hydrothermal treatment were examined. Phosphate recovery was more sensitive to pH than magnesium ion concentration, with diminishing rates of recovery at high levels of both. Also, more struvite was recovered following wet oxidation treatment than thermal hydrolysis. Preliminary differential cost analysis showed that wet oxidation combined with precipitation at an optimal pH and magnesium ion dose could generate revenue.

A packed bed membrane reactor for production of biodiesel using activated carbon supported catalyst.

In this study, a novel continuous reactor has been developed to produce high quality methyl esters (biodiesel) from palm oil. A microporous TiO2/Al2O3 membrane was packed with potassium hydroxide catalyst supported on palm shell activated carbon. The central composite design (CCD) of response surface methodology (RSM) was employed to investigate the effects of reaction temperature, catalyst amount and cross flow circulation velocity on the production of biodiesel in the packed bed membrane reactor. The highest conversion of palm oil to biodiesel in the reactor was obtained at 70 °C employing 157.04 g catalyst per unit volume of the reactor and 0.21 cm/s cross flow circulation velocity. The physical and chemical properties of the produced biodiesel were determined and compared with the standard specifications. High quality palm oil biodiesel was produced by combination of heterogeneous alkali transesterification and separation processes in the packed bed membrane reactor.