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http://constancetherapeutics.com/knowledge-center/cannabis-and-cancer-1.html
Cannabis and Cancer, Pt. 1: Can Cannabis Kill Cancer?
As Dr. Donald Abrams, Chief of Oncology and Hematology for San Francisco General Hospital stated in an interview, “I can sit there and write [cancer patients] a prescription to cover each one of those symptoms, or I can recommend they try one medicine, and that’s cannabis.”
Though the medical establishment will require much needed clinical trials in order to be convinced, evidence has been mounting that the cannabinoids in cannabis – THC and CBD – are not just good for palliative care but also have a direct anti-tumor effect.
And the Research Says…
Martin A. Lee of Project CBD, an organization that promotes research into the medical benefits of CBD,wrote in the Daily Beast about some of the past research that shows how cannabis slows down and inhibits cancer growth.
However, to see for yourself how THC selectively kills human cancer cells, please watch this time-lapse video taken by Dr. McAllister and his colleague Dr. Garret Yount with the SETH Group.
Current Thinking on Cannabis and Cancer
Most recently in 2014, a paper published in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics revealed that a combination of THC and CBD used with radiation treatment was able to effectively shrink high-grade glioma masses in mice.
These published results reflect a growing understanding in the cannabis research community that the most effective form of treatment is one that combines THC and CBD with conventional cancer therapy. This combination is thought to have a synergistic effect on cancer reduction.
Cancer and cannabis part 2
http://constancetherapeutics.com/knowledge-center/cannabis-and-cancer-2.html
Cannabis and Cancer, Pt. 2: The Triple Threat of THC, CBD, and Conventional Treatment on Cancer
In our previous article “Can Cannabis Kill Cancer?”, we highlighted research that establishes evidence of the anti-cancer properties of THC and CBD (the most active compounds) or cannabinoids naturally occurring in cannabis.
Where much of the research of the past decade has focused on the success of individual cannabinoids to reduce and inhibit tumor growth, the most recent investigation has found a far greater effect through a combination of THC and CBD in concert with radiation treatment.
THC & CBD with Radiation Therapy – the One-Two Punch on Glioma
In a 2014 study published in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, researchers from St. George’s University of London uncovered “dramatic reductions” in high-grade glioma masses – a deadly form of brain cancer – when THC and CBD were used in conjunction with radiation treatment, or radiotherapy, on mice. This study was the first to document the effects of cannabinoids on cancer when used with radiotherapy.
Dr. Wai Liu, one of the study’s lead authors, wrote about the significance of this groundbreaking research for the Washington Post. He and his team made several important findings:
Given the very low long-term survival rates for glioma patients – only 10% survive the first five years – Dr. Liu is optimistic about the results. He writes, “… it could provide a way of breaking through glioma and saving more lives.”
Dr. Liu also told HuffPost, “The results showed that the final effect was superior to the sum of the parts.”
The Synergy of Cannabis with Cancer Treatments
Jahan Marcu, Ph.D., Director of Research and Development of Green Standard Diagnostics, a lab that tests safe uses of medical marijuana, calls this effect synergy.
In his article as science editor of Freedom Leaf, the magazine of an organization by the same name that supports the marijuana legalization movement, Dr. Marcu writes, “combining CBD and THC with conventional treatments may be the best synergy for cancer sufferers.”
In addition to the St. George’s University study, Dr. Marcu cites several other studies that have achieved success in experimental models with combining cannabinoids and conventional cancer treatments.
The synergistic effects on cancer that Dr. Marcu and other cannabis researchers note function in two ways.
First, there is the synergy between THC and CBD documented in past research. CBD has been observed to enhance THC’s medicinal benefits while reducing its anxiety-producing and intoxicating effects. At the same time, CBD, having anti-cancer properties in its own right, complements THC by acting on different pathways.
Second, the interaction of THC and CBD with radiation or chemotherapy treatments produces its own synergy. Dr. Liu found that exposure to cannabinoids primed or sensitized cancer cells to the effects of irradiation. For Dr. Marcu, it is the other way around – chemotherapy and radiotherapy make cancer cells much more sensitive to THC and CBD.
Either way, Dr. Marcu concludes that because of the way cancer cells adapt, change, and mutate to extremes, making them resistant to treatment through both conventional therapies and cannabis when taken alone, “the best bet is combining cannabis-based preparation with conventional treatment for cancer.”
Cancer and cannabis part 3
http://constancetherapeutics.com/knowledge-center/cannabis-and-cancer-3.html
Cannabis and Cancer, Pt. 3: How THC and CBD Work on Cancer Cells
More than a decade of research has shown that specific compounds in the cannabis plant – usually (though not exclusively) THC and CBD – exhibit marked anti-tumor properties. When used together, these compounds, or cannabinoids, exert a synergistic effect on reducing and inhibiting tumor growth, especially in concert with conventional cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation.
Scientists are delving deeper into understanding how exactly THC, CBD, and other cannabinoids act on cancer cells.
Cannabinoids Target Cancer Cells
The most remarkable feature of these cannabinoids is that they specifically target cancer cells while being harmless to normal healthy cells. This fact is dramatically demonstrated by a time-lapse video of THC killing human cancer cells while leaving normal cells alone.
The SETH Group, an interdisciplinary team of scientists focused on testing promising new therapies that can be integrated with conventional cancer treatment, created the time-lapse video as well as another video to explain the action of cannabinoids on cancer:
“THC interacts with specific cell surface receptors. It is analogous to a key entering a lock. This triggers a reaction inside the cell. Unexpectedly, this reaction in normal cells is significantly different compared to the reaction in cancer cells. In cancer cells, these reactions lead to cell death. In normal cells, it doesn’t. This surprising difference is likely due to two things: a greater number of receptors on the outside of the cancer cells and a different type of reaction inside the cancer cells as compared to the normal cells.”
According to Dr. Cristina Sanchez, a cancer researcher from Spain who first stumbled upon the anti-cancer effects of THC and wrote about it in 1998, this ability to target only cancer cells is one of the advantages of cannabinoids or cannabis-based medicine. The selective cell-killing action of cannabinoids is in contrast to chemotherapy, which is less discriminating.
Another advantage of cannabinoids, says Dr. Sanchez, is the “clean” way in which tumor cells die – through committing suicide. This is known as programmed cell death, or apoptosis.
Other Cancer Fighting Qualities of Cannabis
Inducing cell death is just one of many ways that THC and CBD have been observed to fight cancer. Other mechanisms of action include inhibiting cell growth and inhibiting the growth of new blood vessels (angiogenesis) that feed tumors and spread cancer (metastasis), according to a summary of anti-tumor effects reported by the National Cancer Institute.
As Dr. Wai Liu, an oncologist from St. George’s University of London, told the Huffington Post, “Cannabinoids have a complex action: it hits a number of important processes that cancers need to survive. For that reason, it has really good potential over other drugs that only have one function.”
In a 2013 study of six different cannabinoids and their effects on leukemia cells, Dr. Liu watched them “target and switch off” pathways that allow cancers to grow.
Here are two more recent reports about the actions of cannabinoids on cancer cells:
Cannabis and Cancer, Pt. 1: Can Cannabis Kill Cancer?
Cannabis and Cancer
It has long been accepted that cannabis is very useful in helping cancer patients to manage their symptoms – pain, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, insomnia and others. For several decades, a synthetic version of THC, the active component of cannabis, has been available in the prescription drug, Marinol. Though now marketed as an appetite stimulant for AIDS patients, Marinol has also been used to treat cancer patients with nausea and vomiting.As Dr. Donald Abrams, Chief of Oncology and Hematology for San Francisco General Hospital stated in an interview, “I can sit there and write [cancer patients] a prescription to cover each one of those symptoms, or I can recommend they try one medicine, and that’s cannabis.”
Though the medical establishment will require much needed clinical trials in order to be convinced, evidence has been mounting that the cannabinoids in cannabis – THC and CBD – are not just good for palliative care but also have a direct anti-tumor effect.
And the Research Says…
Martin A. Lee of Project CBD, an organization that promotes research into the medical benefits of CBD,wrote in the Daily Beast about some of the past research that shows how cannabis slows down and inhibits cancer growth.
- In 1998, a researcher in Spain published a study in a European biochemistry journal on how THC induces aptosis (cell death) in C6 glioma cells, an aggressive form of brain cancer. The researcher, Cristina Sanchez, stumbled upon the anti-cancer properties of THC while studying cell metabolism in brain cells. She noticed that the cancer cells died each time they were exposed to THC.
- In 2006, a pilot clinical trial to assess THC’s anti-tumor effects on humans was conducted by a team of Spanish scientists led by Manuel Guzman. The scientists found significantly reduced tumor cell proliferation in every one of the nine hospitalized patients with glioblastoma who had failed to respond to standard brain-cancer therapies.
- Bloomberg reported in 2007 about a Harvard University research study with mice that suggests cannabis shrank their lung tumors by half and slowed down the disease. This research is the first to show that THC may block a known cancer-related protein—high levels of which make lung cancer cells very aggressive and resistant to treatment.
- Sean McAllister of California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco discovered that CBD may inhibit the spread of breast cancer. In a 2007 study published in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, Dr. McAllister introduced CBD as a novel inhibitor of Id-1 gene expression in aggressive breast cancer cells. CBD switches off the Id-1 gene, a protein that appears to play a major role as a cancer cell conductor. As no other agent is known to do this, Dr. McAllister postulates that CBD could be a breakthrough anti-cancer medication.
However, to see for yourself how THC selectively kills human cancer cells, please watch this time-lapse video taken by Dr. McAllister and his colleague Dr. Garret Yount with the SETH Group.
Current Thinking on Cannabis and Cancer
Most recently in 2014, a paper published in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics revealed that a combination of THC and CBD used with radiation treatment was able to effectively shrink high-grade glioma masses in mice.
These published results reflect a growing understanding in the cannabis research community that the most effective form of treatment is one that combines THC and CBD with conventional cancer therapy. This combination is thought to have a synergistic effect on cancer reduction.
Cancer and cannabis part 2
http://constancetherapeutics.com/knowledge-center/cannabis-and-cancer-2.html
Cannabis and Cancer, Pt. 2: The Triple Threat of THC, CBD, and Conventional Treatment on Cancer
In our previous article “Can Cannabis Kill Cancer?”, we highlighted research that establishes evidence of the anti-cancer properties of THC and CBD (the most active compounds) or cannabinoids naturally occurring in cannabis.
Where much of the research of the past decade has focused on the success of individual cannabinoids to reduce and inhibit tumor growth, the most recent investigation has found a far greater effect through a combination of THC and CBD in concert with radiation treatment.
THC & CBD with Radiation Therapy – the One-Two Punch on Glioma
In a 2014 study published in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, researchers from St. George’s University of London uncovered “dramatic reductions” in high-grade glioma masses – a deadly form of brain cancer – when THC and CBD were used in conjunction with radiation treatment, or radiotherapy, on mice. This study was the first to document the effects of cannabinoids on cancer when used with radiotherapy.
Dr. Wai Liu, one of the study’s lead authors, wrote about the significance of this groundbreaking research for the Washington Post. He and his team made several important findings:
- A low dose of THC and CBD together was just as effective as a high dose of either compound in killing cancer cells and had the best overall effect, especially because it reduced the unwanted side effects of over exposure to THC.
- Irradiation as the sole treatment had little effect on tumor growth. THC and CBD administered together marginally reduced it. The combination of both cannabinoids with irradiation had the greatest effect and stopped tumor growth during the course of treatment.
- Just as in a one-two punch, it is thought that because THC and CBD work on different pathways in the body, using them together “primes” tumor cells and makes them “more sensitive to the ‘cell killing’ effects of radiation,” Dr. Liu told Medical Daily.
Given the very low long-term survival rates for glioma patients – only 10% survive the first five years – Dr. Liu is optimistic about the results. He writes, “… it could provide a way of breaking through glioma and saving more lives.”
Dr. Liu also told HuffPost, “The results showed that the final effect was superior to the sum of the parts.”
The Synergy of Cannabis with Cancer Treatments
Jahan Marcu, Ph.D., Director of Research and Development of Green Standard Diagnostics, a lab that tests safe uses of medical marijuana, calls this effect synergy.
In his article as science editor of Freedom Leaf, the magazine of an organization by the same name that supports the marijuana legalization movement, Dr. Marcu writes, “combining CBD and THC with conventional treatments may be the best synergy for cancer sufferers.”
In addition to the St. George’s University study, Dr. Marcu cites several other studies that have achieved success in experimental models with combining cannabinoids and conventional cancer treatments.
The synergistic effects on cancer that Dr. Marcu and other cannabis researchers note function in two ways.
First, there is the synergy between THC and CBD documented in past research. CBD has been observed to enhance THC’s medicinal benefits while reducing its anxiety-producing and intoxicating effects. At the same time, CBD, having anti-cancer properties in its own right, complements THC by acting on different pathways.
Second, the interaction of THC and CBD with radiation or chemotherapy treatments produces its own synergy. Dr. Liu found that exposure to cannabinoids primed or sensitized cancer cells to the effects of irradiation. For Dr. Marcu, it is the other way around – chemotherapy and radiotherapy make cancer cells much more sensitive to THC and CBD.
Either way, Dr. Marcu concludes that because of the way cancer cells adapt, change, and mutate to extremes, making them resistant to treatment through both conventional therapies and cannabis when taken alone, “the best bet is combining cannabis-based preparation with conventional treatment for cancer.”
Cancer and cannabis part 3
http://constancetherapeutics.com/knowledge-center/cannabis-and-cancer-3.html
Cannabis and Cancer, Pt. 3: How THC and CBD Work on Cancer Cells
More than a decade of research has shown that specific compounds in the cannabis plant – usually (though not exclusively) THC and CBD – exhibit marked anti-tumor properties. When used together, these compounds, or cannabinoids, exert a synergistic effect on reducing and inhibiting tumor growth, especially in concert with conventional cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation.
Scientists are delving deeper into understanding how exactly THC, CBD, and other cannabinoids act on cancer cells.
Cannabinoids Target Cancer Cells
The most remarkable feature of these cannabinoids is that they specifically target cancer cells while being harmless to normal healthy cells. This fact is dramatically demonstrated by a time-lapse video of THC killing human cancer cells while leaving normal cells alone.
The SETH Group, an interdisciplinary team of scientists focused on testing promising new therapies that can be integrated with conventional cancer treatment, created the time-lapse video as well as another video to explain the action of cannabinoids on cancer:
“THC interacts with specific cell surface receptors. It is analogous to a key entering a lock. This triggers a reaction inside the cell. Unexpectedly, this reaction in normal cells is significantly different compared to the reaction in cancer cells. In cancer cells, these reactions lead to cell death. In normal cells, it doesn’t. This surprising difference is likely due to two things: a greater number of receptors on the outside of the cancer cells and a different type of reaction inside the cancer cells as compared to the normal cells.”
According to Dr. Cristina Sanchez, a cancer researcher from Spain who first stumbled upon the anti-cancer effects of THC and wrote about it in 1998, this ability to target only cancer cells is one of the advantages of cannabinoids or cannabis-based medicine. The selective cell-killing action of cannabinoids is in contrast to chemotherapy, which is less discriminating.
Another advantage of cannabinoids, says Dr. Sanchez, is the “clean” way in which tumor cells die – through committing suicide. This is known as programmed cell death, or apoptosis.
Other Cancer Fighting Qualities of Cannabis
Inducing cell death is just one of many ways that THC and CBD have been observed to fight cancer. Other mechanisms of action include inhibiting cell growth and inhibiting the growth of new blood vessels (angiogenesis) that feed tumors and spread cancer (metastasis), according to a summary of anti-tumor effects reported by the National Cancer Institute.
As Dr. Wai Liu, an oncologist from St. George’s University of London, told the Huffington Post, “Cannabinoids have a complex action: it hits a number of important processes that cancers need to survive. For that reason, it has really good potential over other drugs that only have one function.”
In a 2013 study of six different cannabinoids and their effects on leukemia cells, Dr. Liu watched them “target and switch off” pathways that allow cancers to grow.
Here are two more recent reports about the actions of cannabinoids on cancer cells:
- A 2014 study in Biochemical Pharmacology showed that CBD enhanced the susceptibility of tumor cells to stick to killer white blood cells called lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) cells, leading to cell destruction (lysis). This was accomplished through a sticky protein called intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM-1), which increased with CBD. The ICAM-1 molecules on lung cancer cells were already known to decrease their invasiveness and ability to metastasize.
- A 2014 study in the Journal of Biological Chemistry revealed that two cannabinoid cell receptors – CB2 and GPR55 – are responsible for the anti-tumor effects of THC.
