“Marijuana (hereafter “tetrahydrocannabinol [THC]”) use has been associated with liver fibrosis progression in retrospective analyses of patients with chronic hepatitis C (HCV). We studied long-term effects of THC on fibrosis progression in women coinfected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/HCV enrolled in the Women’s Interagency HIV Study (WIHS).
Category Archives: Hepatitis
Marijuana smoking does not accelerate progression of liver disease in HIV-hepatitis C coinfection: a longitudinal cohort analysis.
“Marijuana smoking is common and believed to relieve many symptoms, but daily use has been associated with liver fibrosis in cross-sectional studies. We aimed to estimate the effect of marijuana smoking on liver disease progression in a Canadian prospective multicenter cohort of human immunodeficiency virus/hepatitis C virus (HIV/HCV) coinfected persons. In this prospective analysis we found no evidence for an association between marijuana smoking and significant liver fibrosis progression in HIV/HCV coinfection.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23811492 “To conclude, in this first prospective evaluation of liver disease progression among HIV-HCV infected persons, we could not demonstrate any important effect of marijuana on liver disease outcomes. A causal association is unlikely: hazard ratios were weak and most importantly were attenuated when accounting for temporality in the exposure-disease relationship and there was no dose-response relationship. It is likely that previous studies have been biased by reverse causality as patients use more marijuana to relieve symptoms as liver disease progresses.” https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/57/5/663/312934]]>
Daily cannabis and reduced risk of steatosis in human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis C virus co-infected patients (ANRS CO13-HEPAVIH).
“Liver steatosis is common in Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) – Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) co-infected patients. Some recent studies have found that cannabis use is negatively associated with insulin resistance in the general population and in HIV-HCV co-infected patients.
Given the causal link between insulin resistance and steatosis, we hypothesized that cannabis use has a positive impact on steatosis.
Therefore, we aimed to study whether cannabis use in this population was associated with a reduced risk of steatosis, measured by ultrasound examination.
The ANRS CO13-HEPAVIH cohort is a French nationwide multicenter of HIV-HCV co-infected patients. Medical and socio-behavioral data from clinical follow-up visits and annual self-administered questionnaires were prospectively collected. A cross-sectional analysis was conducted using data from the first visit where both ultrasound examination data for steatosis (positive or negative diagnosis) and data on cannabis use were available. A logistic regression model was used to evaluate the association between cannabis use and steatosis. Among study sample patients (n=838), 40.1% had steatosis. Fourteen percent reported daily cannabis use, 11.7% regular use, and 74.7% no use or occasional use (“never or sometimes”).
Daily cannabisuse was independently associated with a reduced prevalence of steatosis (adjusted odds ratio [95%]=0.64 [0.42;0.99]; p=0.046), after adjusting for body mass index, hazardous alcohol consumption and current or lifetime use of lamivudine/zidovudine. Daily cannabisuse may be a protective factor against steatosis in HIV-HCV co-infected patients. These findings confirm the need for a clinical evaluation of cannabis-based pharmacotherapies in this population.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28984055
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jvh.12797/abstract
Cannabinoid receptor 2-63 RR variant is independently associated with severe necroinflammation in HIV/HCV coinfected patients.
“This is the first study to analyze the impact of the rs35761398 variant of the CNR2 gene leading to the substitution of GLN (Q) of codon 63 of the cannabinoid receptor 2 (CB2) with ARG (R) on the clinical presentation of chronic hepatitis in HIV/HCV coinfected patients.
This study shows interesting interplay between the CB2-RR variant and liver necroinflammation in chronic hepatitis patients with HIV/HCV coinfection, an observation of clinical value that coincides with the interest in the use of the CB2 agonists and antagonists in clinical practice emerging from the literature.”
Hepatic expressions of cannabinoid receptors CB1 and CB2 correlate with the fibrogenesis in patients with chronic hepatitis B.
“The endocannabinoid system is involved in the pathogenesis of liver fibrosis. However, most of the findings come from experiment researches on animal model or clinical trial on chronic hepatitis C. The roles of cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1) and cannabinoid receptor 2 (CB2) in hepatofibrosis on patients with chronic hepatitis B(CHB) have not been studied universally. This study aimed to explore the relationship between liver fibrosis and expressions of CB1 and CB2 on patients with CHB. The hepatic expressions of CB1 and CB2 play important roles during the progression of fibrosis induced by CHB. Endogenous activation of CB1 receptors in patients with CHB enhances fibrogenesis by direct effect on activated HSCs.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28315398]]>
Potential of Cannabidiol for the Treatment of Viral Hepatitis.
“Viral hepatitis B (HBV) and hepatitis C (HCV) pose a major health problem globally and if untreated, both viruses lead to severe liver damage resulting in liver cirrhosis and cancer. While HBV has a vaccine, HCV has none at the moment. The risk of drug resistance, combined with the high cost of current therapies, makes it a necessity for cost-effective therapeutics to be discovered and developed. The recent surge in interest in Medical Cannabis has led to interest in evaluating and validating the therapeutic potentials of Cannabis and its metabolites against various diseases including viruses. Preliminary screening of cannabidiol (CBD) revealed that CBD is active against HCV but not against HBV in vitro. CBD inhibited HCV replication by 86.4% at a single concentration of 10 μM with EC50 of 3.163 μM in a dose-response assay. These findings suggest that CBD could be further developed and used therapeutically against HCV. Cannabidiol exhibited in vitro activity against viral hepatitis C.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28250664 “Cannabidiol (CBD) is a nonpsychoactive cannabinoid found in the Cannabis plants and is credited for several pharmacological properties. It is also known to have beneficial effects against inflammation/pain, neurological conditions, cancer, and other ailments. In general, with regard to antiviral activity, medical Cannabis was reported to be used as an accompanying remedy by HIV/AIDS patients to alleviate neuropathic pain, wasting, nausea, and vomiting. Given the increasing use and application of medical Cannabis along with its nonpsychoactive metabolite (CBD), and in line with our continuous effort to evaluate and validate the potential therapeutic properties of CBD, the major aim of this study was as such to evaluate the anti-HBV and anti-HCV activities of CBD in vitro. We report here for the first time in vitro studies to demonstrate the antiviral activity of CBD against HCV. CBD was shown to have activity against HCV in vitro but not against HBV. A review of the literature seems to suggest that CBD may also have activity in vivo based on its interaction with the CB2 receptor and as such using a host mechanism to indirectly slow the pathogenic process of the HBV virus. Based on these findings, CBD as such has potential to be further developed as a treatment for viral hepatitis, especially as a combination therapy with the currently existing therapies.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5330095/]]>
ENDOCANNABINOID SYSTEM: A multi-facet therapeutic target.
“Cannabis sativa is also popularly known as marijuana. It is being cultivated and used by man for recreational and medicinal purposes from many centuries.
Study of cannabinoids was at bay for very long time and its therapeutic value could not be adequately harnessed due to its legal status as proscribed drug in most of the countries.
The research of drugs acting on endocannabinoid system has seen many ups and down in recent past. Presently, it is known that endocannabinoids has role in pathology of many disorders and they also serve “protective role” in many medical conditions.
Several diseases like emesis, pain, inflammation, multiple sclerosis, anorexia, epilepsy, glaucoma, schizophrenia, cardiovascular disorders, cancer, obesity, metabolic syndrome related diseases, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and Tourette’s syndrome could possibly be treated by drugs modulating endocannabinoid system.
Presently, cannabinoid receptor agonists like nabilone and dronabinol are used for reducing the chemotherapy induced vomiting. Sativex (cannabidiol and THC combination) is approved in the UK, Spain and New Zealand to treat spasticity due to multiple sclerosis. In US it is under investigation for cancer pain, another drug Epidiolex (cannabidiol) is also under investigation in US for childhood seizures. Rimonabant, CB1 receptor antagonist appeared as a promising anti-obesity drug during clinical trials but it also exhibited remarkable psychiatric side effect profile. Due to which the US Food and Drug Administration did not approve Rimonabant in US. It sale was also suspended across the EU in 2008.
Recent discontinuation of clinical trial related to FAAH inhibitor due to occurrence of serious adverse events in the participating subjects could be discouraging for the research fraternity. Despite of some mishaps in clinical trials related to drugs acting on endocannabinoid system, still lot of research is being carried out to explore and establish the therapeutic targets for both cannabinoid receptor agonists and antagonists.
One challenge is to develop drugs that target only cannabinoid receptors in a particular tissue and another is to invent drugs that acts selectively on cannabinoid receptors located outside the blood brain barrier. Besides this, development of the suitable dosage forms with maximum efficacy and minimum adverse effects is also warranted.
Another angle to be introspected for therapeutic abilities of this group of drugs is non-CB1 and non-CB2 receptor targets for cannabinoids.
In order to successfully exploit the therapeutic potential of endocannabinoid system, it is imperative to further characterize the endocannabinoid system in terms of identification of the exact cellular location of cannabinoid receptors and their role as “protective” and “disease inducing substance”, time-dependent changes in the expression of cannabinoid receptors.”
No significant effect of cannabis use on the count and percentage of circulating CD4 T-cells in HIV-HCV co-infected patients (ANRS CO13-HEPAVIH French cohort).
“Despite cannabis use being very common in patients co-infected with HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV), its effect on these patients’ immune systems remains undocumented.
Documenting the potential effect of cannabis use on HIV immunological markers would help caregivers make more targeted health recommendations to co-infected patients.
We performed a longitudinal analysis of the relationship betweencannabis use and peripheral blood CD4 T-cell measures in co-infected patients receiving antiretroviral therapy.
Findings show no evidence for a negative effect of cannabis use on circulating CD4 T-cell counts/percentages in HIV-HCV co-infected patients.”
Exogenous hepatitis B virus envelope proteins induce endoplasmic reticulum stress: involvement of cannabinoid axis in liver cancer cells.
“HBV represents the most common chronic viral infection and major cause of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), although its exact role in liver tumorigenesis is unclear. Massive storage of the small (SHBs), middle (MHBs) and large surface (LHBs) HBV envelope proteins leads to cell stress and sustained inflammatory responses. Cannabinoid (CB) system is involved in the pathogenesis of liver diseases, stimulating acute and chronic inflammation, liver damage and fibrogenesis; it triggers endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress response. The aim of our work was to investigate the activation of ER stress pathway after ectopic HBV envelope proteins expression, in liver cancer cells, and the role exerted by CB receptors. PCR, immunofluorescence and western blotting showed that exogenous LHBs and MHBs induce a clear ER stress response in Huh-7 cells expressing CB1 receptor. Up-regulation of the chaperone BiP/GRP78 (Binding Immunoglobulin Protein/Glucose-Regulated Protein 78) and of the transcription factor CHOP/GADD153 (C/EBP Homologous Protein/Growth Arrest and DNA Damage inducible gene 153), phosphorylation of PERK (PKR-like ER Kinase) and eIF2α (Eukaryotic Initiation Factor 2α) and splicing of XBP1 (X-box binding protein 1) was observed. CB1-/- HepG2 cells did not show any ER stress activation. Inhibition of CB1 receptor counteracted BiP expression in transfected Huh-7 and in HBV+ PLC/PRF/5 cells; whereas no effect was observed in HBV- HLF cells. These results suggest that HBV envelope proteins are able to induce the ER stress pathway. CB1 expression is directly correlated with ER stress function. Further investigations are needed to clarify the involvement of cannabinoid in HCC progression after HBV infection.”
Cannabis Use Can Improve Effectiveness of Hepatitis C Therapy
“Recent research by Diana L. Sylvestre, MD, assistant clinical professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues suggests that the use of cannabis during hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatment may offer symptomatic and virological benefit to some patients by helping them maintain adherence to the challenging and often painful medication regimen.”
https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2006/09/6514/cannabis-use-can-improve-effectiveness-hepatitis-c-therapy