“The active ingredient in marijuana may stall decline from Alzheimer’s disease, research suggests.”
“Scientists showed a synthetic version of the compound may reduce inflammation associated with Alzheimer’s and thus help to prevent mental decline. They hope the cannabinoid may be used to develop new drug therapies.” |
“Biological activity of cannabinoids is caused by binding to two cannabinoid receptors CB1 and CB2. Psychoactive is not only tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) but also: cannabidiol, cannabigerol or cannabichromen.
Formerly, the usefulness of hemp was assessed in the relation to temporary appeasement of the symptoms of some ailments as nausea or vomiting.
Present discoveries indicates that cannabis-based drugs has shown ability to alleviate of autoimmunological disorders such as: Multiple sclerosis (MS), Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) or inflammatory bowel disease.
Another studies indicates that cannabinoids play role in treatment of neurological disorders like Alzheimer disease or Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or even can reduce spreading of tumor cells.
Cannabinoids stand out high safety profile considering acute toxicity, it is low possibility of deadly overdosing and side-effects are comprise in range of tolerated side-effects of other medications.
In some countries marinol and nabilone are used as anti vomiting and nausea drug. First cannabis-based drug containg naturally occurring cannabinoids is Sativex. Sativex is delivered in an mucosal spray for patients suffering from spasticity in MS, pain relevant with cancer and neuropathic pain of various origin.
Cannabis side-effects varies and depend from several factors like administrated dose, rout of administration and present state of mind. After sudden break from long-lasting use, withdrawal symptoms can appear, although they entirely disappear after a week or two.”
“The cannabinoid receptor type 2 (CB2), is a class A GPCR that was cloned in 1993 while looking for an alternate receptor that could explain the pharmacological properties of 9- tetrahydrocannabinol. CB2 was identified among cDNAs based on its similarity in amino-acid sequence to the CB1 receptor and helped provide an explanation for the established effects of cannabinoids on the immune system.
In addition to the immune system, CB2 has widespread tissue expression and has been found in brain, PNS and GI tract. Several “mixed” cannabinoid agonists are currently in clinical use primarily for controlling pain and it is believed that selective CB2 agonism may afford a superior analgesic agent devoid of the centrally mediated CB1 effects.
Thus, selective CB2 receptor agonists represent high value putative therapeutics for treating pain and other disease states. In this perspective, we seek to provide a concise update of progress in the field.”
“Drugs that modulate the endocannabinoid system and endocannabinoids typically play an anticonvulsant role although some proconvulsant effects have been reported both in humans and animal models.
This study aims to characterize the role of cannabinoids in specific areas of the cortico-thalamic network involved in oscillations that underlie seizures in a genetic animal model of absence epilepsy, the WAG/Rij rat.
These results, together with previous reports, support therapeutic potential for endocannabinoid system modulators in absence epilepsy and highlight that attenuated endocannabinergic function may contribute to the generation and maintenance of seizures. Furthermore, the entire cortico-thalamic network responds to cannabinoid treatment, indicating that in all areas considered, CB receptor activation inhibits the pathological synchronization that subserves absence seizures.
In conclusion, our result might be useful for the identification of future drug therapies in absence epilepsy.”
“Cannabinoids from cannabis (Cannabis sativa) are anti-inflammatory and have inhibitory effects on the proliferation of a number of tumorigenic cell lines, some of which are mediated via cannabinoid receptors.
Cannabinoid (CB) receptors are present in human skin and anandamide, an endogenous CB receptor ligand, inhibits epidermal keratinocyte differentiation.
Psoriasis is an inflammatory disease also characterised in part by epidermal keratinocyte hyper-proliferation.
We investigated the plant cannabinoids Delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, cannabidiol, cannabinol and cannabigerol for their ability to inhibit the proliferation of a hyper-proliferating human keratinocyte cell line and for any involvement of cannabinoid receptors.
The results indicate that while CB receptors may have a circumstantial role in keratinocyte proliferation, they do not contribute significantly to this process.
Our results show that cannabinoids inhibit keratinocyte proliferation, and therefore support a potential role for cannabinoids in the treatment of psoriasis.”
“Obesity is one of the highest preventable causes of morbidity and mortality in the developed world. It has been well known for a long time that exposure to cannabis produces an increase of appetite (a phenomenon referred to as the ‘munchies’). This phenomenon led to an exploration of the role of the endocannabinoid system in the regulation of obesity and associated metabolic syndrome.
This effort subsequently led to the development of a successful therapeutic approach for obesity that consisted of blocking the cannabinoid CB1 receptors using ligands such as Rimonabant in order to produce weight loss and improve metabolic profile. Despite being efficacious, Rimonabant was associated with increased rates of depression and anxiety and therefore removed from the market.
We recently discovered that the prevalence of obesity is paradoxically much lower in cannabis users as compared to non-users and that this difference is not accounted for by tobacco smoking status and is still present after adjusting for variables such as sex and age.
Here, we propose that this effect is directly related to exposure to the Δ(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) present in cannabis smoke.
We therefore propose the seemingly paradoxical hypothesis that THC or a THC/cannabidiol combination drug may produce weight loss and may be a useful therapeutic for the treatment of obesity and its complications.”
“Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is characterized by amyloid-β deposition in amyloid plaques, neurofibrillary tangles, inflammation, neuronal loss, and cognitive deficits. Cannabinoids display neuromodulatory and neuroprotective effects and affect memory acquisition. Here, we studied the impact of cannabinoid receptor type 1 (CB1) deficiency on the development of AD pathology…
…the findings indicate that CB1 deficiency can worsen AD-related cognitive deficits and support a potential role of CB1 as a pharmacologic target.”
“The transient receptor potential vanilloid type 1 channel (TRPV1) and nerve growth factor (NGF) are important mediators of inflammatory pain…
Cannabinoids, by activating CB1 G protein-coupled receptors, produce analgesia in a variety of pain models, though the exact mechanisms are not known. We tested the hypothesis that activation of the CB1 receptor by cannabinoids attenuates NGF-induced TRPV1 sensitization….
These results support the hypothesis that cannabinoids, acting through CB1 receptors, may produce analgesia in part by preventing NGF-induced sensitization of TRPV1 in afferent nociceptor nerve endings.”
“The endocannabinoid system is crucially involved in the regulation of brain activity and inflammation… we show that the endocannabinoid system assembles a comprehensive machinery to defend the brain against the devastating consequences of cerebral ischemia.
In summary, this study underlines the therapeutic potential of CB1 and/or CB2 receptor agonists against neurodegenerative diseases or injuries involving acute or chronic imbalances of cerebral blood flow and energy consumption.”
“This study examines the role of the cannabinoid CB2 receptor (CB2 r) on the vulnerability to ethanol consumption… These results suggest that deletion of the CB2 r gene increased preference for and vulnerability to ethanol consumption…
Future studies will determine the role of CB2 r as a target for the treatment of problems related with alcohol consumption.”