“University of South Carolina researchers say that marijuana can reduce inflammation and could be effective in treating autoimmune diseases such as arthritis, lupus and colitis.
Marijuana is not an FDA-approved medication. The main ingredient in the drug – tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) – is approved to lower nausea and vomiting in people exposed to chemotherapy. The compound is also used to fight wasting syndrome in people with AIDS.”
“Building the case for the most widely used illicit drug in developed countries, researchers from the University of South Carolina have discovered marijuana’s potential to treat autoimmune diseases in which chronic inflammation plays a pivotal role.
These include arthritis, lupus, colitis and multiple sclerosis.
Published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, the findings say marijuana’s potential key role in fighting these diseases lies in its capacity to suppress certain immune functions, notably inflammation.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/06/04/marijuana-autoimmune-disease_n_5445171.html
“Certain marijuana components may suppress the tumors of highly invasive cancers, a new study finds.
In laboratory tests, cannabinoids, the active components in marijuana, were found to slow the spread of lung and cervical cancer tumors, according to researchers Robert Ramer and Burkhard Hinz of the University of Rostock in Germany.
Proponents of medical marijuana believe that cannabinoids reduce the side effects of cancer treatment, such as pain, weight loss and vomiting.
The study, published in the Jan. 2 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, finds that the compounds may also have an anticancer effect;
In addition to suppressing tumor cell invasion, cannabinoids also stimulated the expression of TIMP-1, an inhibitor of a group of enzymes involved in tumor cell invasion.
“To our knowledge, this is the first report of TIMP-1-dependent anti-invasive effects of cannabinoids,” the authors wrote. “This signaling pathway may play an important role in the antimetastatic action of cannabinoids, whose potential therapeutic benefit in the treatment of highly invasive cancers should be addressed in clinical trials.””
https://www.foxnews.com/story/study-marijuana-appears-to-slow-cancer-growth-in-laboratory-setting
“Inhibition of Cancer Cell Invasion by Cannabinoids via Increased Expression of Tissue Inhibitor of Matrix Metalloproteinases-1. Cannabinoids may therefore offer a therapeutic option in the treatment of highly invasive cancers.” https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/100/1/59/2567700
“Cannabidiol (CBD) has been on the receiving end of a lot of attention from the scientific community for several decades now.
However, it is only now that we are really starting to begin to get a grasp on how wonderful this cannabinoid truly is.
A study from 2011 states that cannabidiol is considered an antineoplastic agent on the basis of its in vitro and in vivo activity against tumor cells. However, the exact molecular mechanism through which CBD works in this capacity is yet to be understood. The study, titled “Cannabidiol Induces Programmed Cell Death in Breast Cancer Cells by Coordinating the Cross-talk between Apoptosis and Autophagy,” focuses on how CBD can kill breast cancer cells. Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death in women in the United States.
What the scientists found was that CBD influences apoptosis by interacting with a key protein, called beclin-1, found within the cancerous cell. Beclin-1 is also known to play a key role in autophagy, or cellular self-degradation of non-vital components, which may lead to programmed cell death. This causes a distortion of the electrical signals between the outer mitochondrial membrane and the rest of the cell, disrupting the transfer to the cell interior of certain molecules that are necessary for metabolism. What this means is that the cell cannot transfer energy, and the cell starves to death, and in doing so activates the self-destruction process of apoptosis.
The study concludes by stating, “In summary, we showed that CBD, a plant-derived cannabinoid, preferentially kills breast cancer cells by inducing ER stress, inhibiting mTOR signaling, enhancing ROS generation, and mediating a complex balance between autophagy and mitochondria-mediated apoptosis in MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells. These findings support the continued exploration of CBD as an alternative agent for breast cancer treatment.””
“The active ingredient in marijuana that produces changes in brain messages appears to fight atherosclerosis — a hardening of the arteries.
It takes a very specific amount of THC — marijuana’s key chemical — to help the arteries. That dose is too low to produce mood-altering effects in the brain, according to the new study.
“It would be difficult to achieve such specific concentrations in the blood by smoking marijuana,” Roth explains in a Nature editorial.”
http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20050406/marijuana-chemical-fights-hardened-arteries
http://www.thctotalhealthcare.com/category/atherosclerosis-2/
“In 2008, over one million individuals were diagnosed with colon cancer, also known as colorectal cancer or bowel cancer and it caused over 600,000 deaths globally. The results of a study published in the journal Phytomedicine in October 2013 suggest that a botanical extract made from high-CBD (cannabidiol) cannabis can selectively target colon cancer cells, while leaving healthy cells unharmed.
Researchers were able to reduce tumor growth and pre-cancerous lesions in mice with colon cancer using the pot molecule CBD as part of a “botanical drug substance”. The authors believe that CBD’s benefits as demonstrated by the results of the study could have clinical relevance for the use of cannabis-based medicines in cancer patients.
Current colon cancer treatments are not only very toxic but also fail to prevent the progression of the disease in some patients. Disease incidence and mortality have not reduced using screening strategies for colon cancer.
Researchers have made progress in investigating cannabis as a treatment for breast and brain cancers considering its antiproliferative CB1 and CB2-mediated effects in colorectal cancer cells and action in experimental models of colon cancer. The study was partially funded through grants from GW Pharmaceuticals and lead by researchers from Italy and the UK.”
“Shona Banda was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease… She underwent several surgeries and was put on several pharmaceuticals, but her condition worsened progressively until she was considered terminal. She was bedridden… wasting away… She was waiting to die.
She managed to see Rick Simpson’s Run from the Cure…”
“Although she had been smoking marijuana to ease pain and help her sleep and eat, she had no way of making the oil, which required a pound of marijuana to produce the two ounces of cannabis oil she would need to heal.
Shona was in a funk about the lack of enough hemp to make her own oil when her husband noticed specks of oil residue in the inside of the vaporizer’s glass globe cover.
So she took the inhalation tube out of the vaporizer and sealed it, then simply collected those little blobs of oil from the inside of the glass globe with a spatula.
She did this three times a day, putting the collected oil residue into a capsule and taking it. After a very few days, Shona could walk without a cane. Soon she began eating and sleeping better and putting on weight. It wasn’t long before she was completely weened off all her pharmaceuticals.
She started a journal as she began getting better. The journal has become a book called Live Free or Die. The title is a reference to health freedom. Now she is very healthy and active.”
http://www.naturalnews.com/043718_chrons_disease_cannabis_shona_banda.html
“Ben Swann Radio: Shona Banda Explains Her Remarkable Story On How Cannabis Oil Saved Her Life. After being diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in 2002, Shona Banda went through the struggles that many suffer with when battling the autoimmune disease. On the Ben Swann Radio Show, Ben and Shona discussed her tribulations while suffering from the disease and her immediate experiences after finding the cure to her disease.”
http://benswann.com/ben-swann-radio-shona-banda-explains-her-remarkable-story-on-how-cannabis-oil-saved-her-life/#ixzz32d6WqrPM
https://www.facebook.com/shona.banda
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Shona-Bandas-Live-Free-or-Die/146496222049591
http://www.thctotalhealthcare.com/category/crohns-disease/
“Scientists are looking at the potential use of cannabis to treat and potentially cure severe forms of epilepsy.
The medical benefits of medical marijuana for neurological conditions like epilepsy are highly debated.
Examining the potential use of the drug, a series of articles in the journal Epilepsia, a journal of the International League Against Epilepsy, looks at its potential use for treating the syndrome.
Edward Maa, from the Comprehensive Epilepsy Program at Denver Health in Denver, Colorado, looks at a case study of a child with Dravet syndrome – a very severe form of epilepsy.
In the case, a mother provided her child with a strain of medical marijuana high in Cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) known as Charlotte’s Web.
When used with the child’s normal drug regime, seizures dropped from 50 convulsions per day to just two or three per month.”
http://www.thctotalhealthcare.com/category/dravet-syndome/
“Two-year-old Kyla Williams hasn’t learned to walk or talk, her development has stopped as she suffered as many as 200 seizures daily and no medication helped. Now the girl’s family says she hasn’t had a seizure in a week, ever since they began giving her cannabis oil extracted from hemp.
The oil being used by the toddler has high amounts of cannabidiol, known as CBD, the main ingredient in medical marijuana, and almost no psychoactive ingredients.”
http://www.thctotalhealthcare.com/category/epilepsy-2/
“Medicinal uses of marijuana have been a matter for heated debate for quite some time now. A review by American Academy of neurology collated all available information on marijuana use for brain disease treatment and concluded that except for treating symptoms of multiple sclerosis, there is no hard evidence in favor of medical usage of marijuana.
But now some articles have been published in the journal Epilepsia that contradicts the earlier review. One of these articles is a case study of a family living in Denver, CO. The child in the family suffers from a severe form of epilepsy known as Dravet Syndrome and used to have frequent seizures, as many as 50 convulsions a day. But the child was given “Charlotte’s Web”- a marijuana strain with high levels of cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Reportedly, the seizures decreased considerably and now the child suffers from only 2 or 3 seizures each month.
According to the author of the article, Dr. Edward Maa, “As medical professionals it is important that we further the evidence of whether CBD in cannabis is an effective antiepileptic therapy.””
http://www.newsonwellness.com/2014/05/marijuana-effectively-reduces-seizures-epilepsy-patients/