Patients use medical cannabis to help treat a number of symptoms of cancer. However, the methods cultivators use to create extracts affects cannabis’s use against cancer. A recent study from the Journal of the Association of Basic Medical Sciences has shown that medical cannabis can potentially help to even take on the creation of cancer cells. The study shows it can specifically help to prevent the creation of tumors. In fact, the idea of cannabis treating cancer cells has been studied in a few ways already.
Study
The study examined the interactions between cannabinoids and the different CB receptors found throughout the human body. The researchers focused mainly on plant-derived and synthetic cannabinoids. Additionally, they looked at how these cannabinoids modulated the growth of tumors in different cancer models. Another study focusing on cannabis extracts examined their effects on the viability of cancer cells.
Results
The researchers found that the cannabinoids were able to affect tumor growth in the cancer models. However, according to the study, the effects were dependent on the type of cancer it was up against and the drug dose used. What this means is that certain types of cancer will be less affected by the use of cannabis than others.
Additionally, the second study found that doctors could use properly prepared extracts to significantly decrease cancer cell viability. At the same time, cannabis protects healthy cells from cytotoxic effects. For clarification, these effects are anything that causes toxicity to cells, like those of chemotherapy. However, researchers found a limitation in the post-processing of extracts, namely in having difficulties in predicting therapeutic responses, or how it will help the patient, based on the extract.
Discussion
As the use of cannabis is further studied, the medicinal benefits need to be further examined to be definitively proven. However, as shown in the studies, the activation of CB1 and CB2 receptors can limit human cancer cell growth. At this time, it has been found in both of the studies that it helps to combat the symptoms of cancer. Hopefully, as people study them more, they will see how much help that it can offer, even in the idea of cannabis treating cancer cells.
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