Cannabis chemicals may help fight prostate cancer

[seemslikeadream]

Cannabis chemicals may help fight prostate cancer
Wed Aug 19, 2009
By Ben Hirschler

LONDON (Reuters) - Chemicals in cannabis have been found to stop prostate cancer cells from growing in the laboratory, suggesting that cannabis-based medicines could one day help fight the disease, scientists said Wednesday.

After working initially with human cancer cell lines, Ines Diaz-Laviada and colleagues from the University of Alcala in Madrid also tested one compound on mice and discovered it produced a significant reduction in tumor growth.

Their research, published in the British Journal of Cancer, underlines the growing interest in the medical use of active chemicals called cannabinoids, which are found in marijuana.

Experts, however, stressed that the research was still exploratory and many more years of testing would be needed to work out how to apply the findings to the treatment of cancer in humans.

"This is interesting research which opens a new avenue to explore potential drug targets but it is at a very early stage," said Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at Cancer Research UK, which owns the journal.

"It absolutely isn't the case that men might be able to fight prostate cancer by smoking cannabis," she added

The cannabinoids tested by the Spanish team are thought to work against prostate cancer because they block a receptor, or molecular doorway, on the surface of tumour cells. This stops them from dividing.

In effect, the cancer cell receptors can recognize and "talk to" chemicals found in cannabis, said Diaz-Laviada.

"These chemicals can stop the division and growth of prostate cancer cells and could become a target for new research into potential drugs to treat prostate cancer," she said.

Her team's work with two cannabinoids -- called methanandamide and JWH-015 -- is the first demonstration that such cannabis chemicals prevent cancer cells from multiplying.

Some drug companies are already exploring the possibilities of cannabinoids in cancer, including British-based cannabis medicine specialist GW Pharmaceuticals.

It is collaborating with Japan's Otsuka on early-stage research into using cannabis extracts to tackle prostate cancer -- the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men -- as well as breast and brain cancer.

GW has already developed an under-the-tongue spray called Sativex for the relief of some of the symptoms of multiple sclerosis, which it plans to market in Europe with Bayer and Almirall.

Other attempts to exploit the cannibinoid system have met with mixed success. Sanofi-Aventis was forced to withdraw its weight-loss drug Acomplia from the market last year because of links to mental disorders.

[Penguin]

Cannabis can also be a) eaten dissolved in fat b) vaporized so there is no smoke. For medical use those are the ways that should be used, not smoking. Also, topical lotions / salves for use externally, ie.. bacterial infections, MRSA etc.

GWs Sativex is already on the market at least in Canada, since 2005, for cancer and MS patients.

http://rigorousintuition.ca/board/viewtopic.php?t=23504

Regarding Acomplia, rimonabant - that was a CB1 receptor blocker, ie. it blocked the bodys endocannabinoid system from working on that receptor, leading to decreased appetite - and mental problems. So it was not a natural cannabinoid, but a synthesized substance unlike the natural or endocannabinoids.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rimonabant

Rimonabant blocks the psychoactive and some of the cardiovascular effects of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in humans without affecting the pharmacokinetics.[15]

Side-effects

Shortly after market introduction, press reports and independent studies suggest that side-effects occur stronger and more commonly than shown by the manufacturer in their clinical studies. Reports of severe depression are frequent. This is deemed to result from the drug's being active in the central nervous system, an area of human physiology so complex that the effects of a drug are extremely difficult to predict or anticipate.[8]

Because the drug has the opposite effects of cannabinoid receptor agonists such as tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, one of the substances found in marijuana), which is neuroprotective against excitotoxicity,[9] it can be theorized that rimonabant promotes the development of neurodegenerative diseases of the central nervous system such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson's disease, and Huntington's disease in persons that are susceptible.[10] The reported development of previously clinically-silent multiple sclerosis in one patient taking rimonabant suggests that any patients with an underlying neurological condition should not take rimonabant, given the neuroprotective role of the endocannabinoid system in many experimental paradigms of neurological disease.

On June 15, 2007, BBC News reported [11] that a committee advising the U.S. FDA had voted not to recommend the drug's approval because of concerns over suicidality, depression, and other related side-effects associated with use of the drug.

Nice shit.

[OP ED]

Cannabis can also be a) eaten dissolved in fat b) vaporized so there is no smoke. For medical use those are the ways that should be used, not smoking. Also, topical lotions / salves for use externally, ie.. bacterial infections, MRSA etc.

eww. i think i'll just continue to smoke it whether i have cancer or not.

more ammunition tho, so thanks, for the war on the war on drugs.

[drugs will win]

[wordspeak2]

Actually, OP ED, the whole vaporizer thing is really awesome. My sister got a really expensive one called a Volcano vaporizer, and the high is really clear, it conserves your weed really well, and you're not messing with your lungs at all. Not that I have one yet. puff puff puff But, really, I recommend vaporizers to all cannabis consumers.

But as far as "Sativex", this new branded medical marijuana... it's better than the previous ones because it's not synthetic. It's an oral spray made from chemicals isolated from the plant. But it's *not* the whole plant. I don't think you want that sh**. Holistic whole plant medicine is the real deal. Or am I wrong?

Cheers to the California model that lets people sit around in safe places and consume the healing herb in their own chosen modality. The ganja food out there is amazing, but don't eat too much of it or you're in trouble....

[Joe Hillshoist]

We made some cookies once, years ago. My friend ate 5 in the half an hour it took the first one to come on.

We used him as a foot stool for 3 days.

[OP ED]

Actually, OP ED, the whole vaporizer thing is really awesome. My sister got a really expensive one called a Volcano vaporizer, and the high is really clear, it conserves your weed really well, and you're not messing with your lungs at all. Not that I have one yet. puff puff puff But, really, I recommend vaporizers to all cannabis consumers.

vaporizers are okay. but i'm olde schoole.

my eww was mostly wrt:

topical lotions / salves for use externally, ie.. bacterial infections,

there is even an o.s. part of me that will hopefully someday wax mistfully about how legalization took a lot of the fun out of it...

But as far as "Sativex", this new branded medical marijuana... it's better than the previous ones because it's not synthetic. It's an oral spray made from chemicals isolated from the plant. But it's *not* the whole plant. I don't think you want that sh**. Holistic whole plant medicine is the real deal. Or am I wrong?

no, and the AMA largely agrees, however, they've been as of yet unable to convince the DEA of this.

Cheers to the California model that lets people sit around in safe places and consume the healing herb in their own chosen modality. The ganja food out there is amazing, but don't eat too much of it or you're in trouble....

of course.

We made some cookies once, years ago. My friend ate 5 in the half an hour it took the first one to come on.

We used him as a foot stool for 3 days.

been there. a footstool that is. my problem is that i smoke while i'm baking the cookies, and they're so good...

always make extra nonspecial [relatively] cookies to compensate for munchinesses.

[seemslikeadream]

Actually, OP ED, the whole vaporizer thing is really awesome. My sister got a really expensive one called a Volcano vaporizer, and the high is really clear, it conserves your weed really well, and you're not messing with your lungs at all. Not that I have one yet. puff puff puff But, really, I recommend vaporizers to all cannabis consumers.

vaporizers are okay. but i'm olde schoole.

my eww was mostly wrt:

topical lotions / salves for use externally, ie.. bacterial infections,

there is even an o.s. part of me that will hopefully someday wax mistfully about how legalization took a lot of the fun out of it...

But as far as "Sativex", this new branded medical marijuana... it's better than the previous ones because it's not synthetic. It's an oral spray made from chemicals isolated from the plant. But it's *not* the whole plant. I don't think you want that sh**. Holistic whole plant medicine is the real deal. Or am I wrong?

no, and the AMA largely agrees, however, they've been as of yet unable to convince the DEA of this.

Cheers to the California model that lets people sit around in safe places and consume the healing herb in their own chosen modality. The ganja food out there is amazing, but don't eat too much of it or you're in trouble....

of course.

We made some cookies once, years ago. My friend ate 5 in the half an hour it took the first one to come on.

We used him as a foot stool for 3 days.

been there. a footstool that is. my problem is that i smoke while i'm baking the cookies, and they're so good...

always make extra nonspecial [relatively] cookies to compensate for munchinesses.

I think we are dying

[Penguin]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/healt ... .html?_r=1

A growing body of evidence suggests that doctors at some of the nation’s top medical schools have been attaching their names and lending their reputations to scientific papers that were drafted by ghostwriters working for drug companies — articles that were carefully calibrated to help the manufacturers sell more products.

Oh, that explains a lot...Like that rimonabant.

The full scope of the ghostwriting problem is still unclear, but recent revelations suggest that the practice is widespread. Dozens of medical education companies across the country draft scientific papers at the behest of drug makers. And placing such papers in medical journals has become a fundamental marketing practice for most of the large pharmaceutical companies.

No shit.

('round here, medical companies pay for seminars and seminar trips for doctors - and advertising prescription medicine to people is banned, but medical journals are chock full of ads with treatment recommendations with the latest and greatest new products, and studies have found that, surprise, the docs tend to prescribe the products they see in the journals and favor the companies that have got them on nice "seminar trips".)