Cannabinoids: potential anticancer agents.

Cannabinoids: potential anticancer agents. [Nat Rev Cancer. 2003] - PubMed Result

Key studies suggesting that active ingredients in some varieties of hemp may successfully inhibit the growth of cancerous growths has been universally ignored and buried by the media.

It's claimed hemp does this by modulating key cell-signalling pathways, thereby inducing direct growth arrest and death of tumor cells, as well as by inhibiting the growth of blood vessels that supply the tumor.

The Guzman study is very important according to Dr. Ethan Russo , a neurologist and world authority on medical cannabis:"Cancer occurs because cells become immortalized; they fail to heed normal signals to turn off growth. A normal function of remodelling in the body requires that cells die on cue. This is called apoptosis, or programmed cell death.

That process fails to work in tumors. THC promotes its reappearance so that gliomas, leukemias, melanomas and other cell types will in fact heed the signals, stop dividing, and die."

"But, that is not all," explains Dr. Russo: "The other way that tumors grow is by ensuring that they are nourished: they send out signals to promote angiogenesis, the growth of new blood vessels. Cannabinoids turn off these signals as well. It is truly incredible, and elegant."

The potential of Hemp as a treatment for cancer was proven in research dating back to 1974. Researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institutes of Health to find evidence that marijuana damages the immune system, found instead that THC slowed the growth of three kinds of cancer - lung and breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia.

A large scale human study by the Natural Health Industry is called for to investigate these findings

Comments

Anonymous said…
is hemp a vegetable? i only ever here of it in the news.