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Should we cycle Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN)?
A patient is asking if it is good to cycle Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN): I’ve been taking 4.5 milligrams to help with remission (I’m assuming that's from cancer) and should I take a break periodically? Also, is a sublingual version better assimilated? Thank you.
I guess there might be a bit of confusion here about breaks in LDN. There was a conference a number of years ago where one of the oncologists spoke about pulsing dosing between LDN and cannabinoids, and that caused a bit of confusion, because we all thought oh, we need to stop LDN for a week to take cannabinoids. But in the conference that that happened. the year after, professor Dalgleish clarified in the studies that they looked at cancer cell growth. LDN was already pulsed because it was such a period of the day where you were not being exposed to naltrexone because it was cleared from the body, so the pulsing was really more to do about taking cannabinoids in a pulsed manner, rather than the LDN. You're already cycling on and off of LDN every day.
And regarding the sublingual version better assimilated: generally, in most people not, but if you have leaky gut or absorption problems, or you're unable to swallow tablets properly, then a sublingual version is probably as well, if not better absorbed, than the other forms. And from an empirical point of view, or from a patient perspective, it is inferior because it bypasses first-pass metabolism. It may help with drug interactions or problems they're having with stomach cramps, or some of the side effects people have in the vitals. That's how you do that.
Answered by Stephen Dickson, BSC (hons), MRPharmS
LDN Specialist