10 WDDTY | ISSUE 01 | AUG/SEP 2019 FACEBOOK.COM/WDDTYAUNZ
UPFRONTMARIJUANA
BLOCKS COLON
CANCER
SPREADING
Medical marijuana—including
active components like CBD
(cannabidiol) and THC—doesn’t
just relieve pain and lower anxiety.It could also
slow the
spread of
colon cancer,
new research suggests.
It stops the rapid cell division that
is characteristic of colorectal cancer,
and which allows it to spread,
say researchers from Penn State
College of Medicine.
“Every time a cell divides there’s
the chance that it will mutate and
keep dividing when it shouldn’t,which is how cancers
start. So if we can
block that signal that’s
telling cancer cells to continue to
divide, then that could be a way to
stop that cancer,” said researcher
Kent Vrana.
Rapid cell division is also
characteristic of skin cancer, so
there’s a possibility that marijuana
compounds could be effective
against that cancer as well.
The researchers tested different
compounds in marijuana—cannabinoid compounds in all—on
lines of colorectal cancer cells.
Although the most common—
THC and CBD—didn’t have any
anti-cancer properties, 10 other
compounds were found to be
cancer fighters.
Colorectal cancer is one of the
most common cancers, with more
than 140,000 new cases diagnosed
annually in the US; around 50,
Americans die from the cancer
every year.
Cannabis Cannabinoid Res, 2018; 3: 272GETTING HIGH
AND WELL: IT’S
THE THC THAT
MATTERS
Despite what the medical
establishment may be saying,
it’s the part of the cannabis plant
that makes you high that has
the greatest therapeutic value,according to the findings of a new
large-scale study.
The plant’s main
psychoactive ingredient, THC
(tetrahydrocannabinol), is very
effective against a range of
conditions, from epilepsy to pain
relief and depression.In fact, it had
a far more dramatic effect than
the ‘acceptable’ part of the plant,
CBD (cannabidiol), which had little
therapeutic value on its own.
People using the whole dried
flower wereseeing an immediate improvement
in their symptoms of at least 30
percent, say researchers from the
University of New Mexico.
They monitored therapeutic
effects in real time by accessing
a phone app, ReleafApp, which
is used by millions of people who
take cannabis products.
The researchers tracked around
20,000 user sessions to discover
that THC was the more effective
therapeutic agent. “Despite the
conventional wisdom, both
in the popular press andmuch of the scientific community,
that only CBD has medical benefits
while THC merely makes you high,
our results suggest that THC may
be more important than CBD in
generating therapeutic benefits,”
said Jacob Vigil, one of the authors
of the study.
Although many people use the
whole plant for their therapy, the
researchers stress it can be addictive
and cause short-term problems in
cognition and behavior.
Sci Rep, 2019; 9: 2712