Study identifies how marijuana may aid cancer cure

You don’t have to look far to find a new and impressive study on the potential benefits of marijuana. As state marijuana prohibition laws fall like dominos, activists, scientists, and government officials alike are interested in verifying the possible medical applications of this powerful and demonized plant. One of the latest studies on cannabis benefits indicates just how one of the active components in marijuana could work to reduce tumor growth and facilitate cancer cell death.

The research comes from Complutense University in Spain and the University of Anglia in the UK. Researchers on the project claim that they’ve found signaling platforms that allow tetrahydrocannabinol to delay the growth and even shrink tumors.

THC is one of the active components in marijuana. It is called a cannabinoid, and unlike the other main medically-relevant cannabinoid known as CBD or cannabidiol, THC is the component with psychoactive effects: it’s the cannabinoid that makes you “high.”

In this particular study, tumors were induced in mice using human breast cancer cells. Then, the tumors were targeted with direct doses of THC. The researchers discovered two different cell receptors, known as cannabinoid receptors, were associated with stopping and even reversing tumor cell growth.

“We show that these effects are mediated via the joint interaction of CB2 and GPR55 – two members of the cannabinoid receptor family,” explained Dr. Peter McCormick. “Our findings help explain some of the well-known but still poorly understood effects of THC at low and high doses on tumor growth.”

The study was published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry and marks just the latest in ongoing research from Complutense University.

In 2009, according to MedicalNewsToday, the research team found THC induced autophagy, or cell death, in brain tumor cells. That study documented autophagy in two human patients affected with glioblastoma multiforme (aggressive brain cancer).

This latest study took that research one step further.

“By identifying the receptors involved we have provided an important step toward the future development of therapeutics that can take advantage of the interactions we have discovered to reduce tumor growth,” says Dr. McCormick.

This is far from the only research on the potential medical benefits of cannabis. And these studies are doubly important because the federal government has the plant classified as a Schedule I substance, or one which has no demonstrated medical benefits. This is precisely how the feds are able to enforce marijuana prohibition in states where medical marijuana programs or recreational pot have been welcomed with open arms by voters.

According to the National Cancer Institute, coincidentally part of the National Institutes of Health (an arm of the federal government), numerous studies have demonstrated anti-cancer and other benefits of cannabis.

Several have found cannabinoids to effectively kill cancer cells while protecting healthy cells; the same can’t normally be said for conventional cancer treatments. Further, researchers have found the plant and its derivatives to stimulate appetite in cancer patients, provide pain relief, aid in anxiety and sleep disorders, calming muscle spasms, providing anti-inflammatory benefits and more.

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Study identifies how marijuana may aid cancer cure