"The use of Medical Cannabis for Treating Cancer Related Symptoms in Oncology Patients"

Many comorbidities are associated with oncology diseases. In cancer, the associated symptoms include pain, anxiety, depression, insomnia, decreased in quality of life, increased disability and negative effects on sexuality.

These symptoms are some of the most fundamental causes of suffering and disability for oncology patients while undergoing therapies, and some may even lead to worse prognosis.

Traditionally, cancer-related pain is mainly treated by opioid analgesics but a promising substitute for opioid-based medication is Medical Cannabis (MC) and Cannabinoid treatment for cancer-related pain is generally recognized as safe!

Despite the fact that there is a knowledge gap in the study of Cannabis, especially for treating cancer-related pain, a 2020 study showed that most cancer patients requested MC treatment from their oncologist.

The Adverse Effects (AEs) from cannabinoids for cancer treatment are generally well tolerated by the patients and categorized as mild to moderate and the most frequent AEs are memory impairment, drowsiness, nausea, vomiting and xerostomia (dry mouth).

The Study...

This long-term study was conducted between January 2019 and September 2021 in Israel and pulished in Frontiers in Pain Research on 20 May 2022.

The institutional Ethics Committee of Haemek Medical Center and Galil Medical Center also approved the study.

Researchers conducted a multi-center, prospective, 6-month longitudinal study that followed up on the effectiveness and safety parameters of MC treatment for cancer-associated symptoms.

"Study Concluded That CBD Can Help With The Reduction of Breast Cancer Cell Proliferation, Invasion and Metastasis"

The process of metastasis to other tissues of the body is the final and fatal step during cancer progression and is the least understood genetically. 

Despite all currently available treatments, breast cancer is most often incurable once clinically apparent metastases develop.

There is a general consensus in the field of cancer research that targeting multiple pathways that control tumor progression is the best strategy for the eradication of aggressive cancers

It is well known that CBD can modulate specific functions of the immune system and the immune system has an important role in the inhibition of cancer progression.

It was essential to determine whether CBD demonstrates antitumor activity and since CBD has a low toxicity, it would be an ideal candidate for use in combination treatments with additional drugs already used in the clinic. 

"Cannabis and Breast Cancer"

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Every October, people all over the world show their support for everyone affected by breast cancer.Worldwide, breast cancer is the leading type of cancer in women, accounting for 25% of all cases. It is more common in developed countries and is more than 100 times, more common in women than in men.

Breast cancer is cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, fluid coming from the nipple, a newly inverted nipple, or a red or scaly patch of skin. In those with distant spread of the disease, there may be bone pain, swollen lymph nodes, shortness of breath, or yellow skin.

Patient surveys have provided important insights about how people use medical cannabis. About 42% of people diagnosed with breast cancer who completed a survey for breastcancer.org said that they used medical cannabis products to manage breast cancer symptoms or treatment side effects. People who used medical cannabis ranged in age, cancer stage, and treatment phase, and most of them they found it to be “very” or “extremely” helpful.(75%)

Can Medical Marijuana’s Chemicals May Protect Cells???

As more countries legalize Cannabis treatment, scientists are learning how the plant's chemicals may help conditions ranging from brain injuries to cancer.

They might protect the brain from the effects of trauma, ease the spasms of multiple sclerosis and reduce epileptic seizures. 




Further preliminary work indicates that the chemicals may slow the growth of tumors and reduce brain damage in Alzheimer's disease.

-After inducing human breast cancer tumors in mice, researchers in the U.K. found they could shrink the tumors by administering THC. The chemical may disrupt cancer cell growth as it binds to CB2 receptors, which are much more abundant on cancer cells than on healthy ones. 

-Taken together, CBD & THC are promising agents for inhibiting breast cancer progression.By influencing the tumor microenvironment and the immune system,they are able to reduce inflammation, inhibit tumor cell growth, induce apoptosis, and cause autophagy

-At the University of South Carolina, a team discovered that THC could reduce the inflammation associated with autoimmune diseases by suppressing the activity of certain genes involved in the immune response.

-And at the University of South Florida, researchers working with cells in a lab showed that extremely low concentrations of THC could reduce production of beta amyloid, the protein that forms the plaque abundant in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. 

(This article was originally published with the title "Marijuana's Medical Future" in Scientific American 312, 2, 32-34 (February 2015)

doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0215-32)

Sources: https://www.scientificamerican.com
             https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

"Study Discover The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids"

In March 2016, the Health and Medicine Division of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (the National Academies) was asked to convene a committee of experts to conduct a comprehensive review of the literature regarding the health effects of using cannabis and/or its constituents that had appeared since the publication of the 1999 IOM report Marijuana and Medicine. 

-The resulting Committee on the Health Effects of Marijuana consisted of 16 experts in the areas of marijuana, addiction, oncology, cardiology, neurodevelopment, respiratory disease, pediatric and adolescent health, immunology, toxicology, preclinical research, epidemiology, systematic review, and public health.


Given the large scientific literature on cannabis, the breadth of the statement of task, and the time constraints of the study, the committee developed an approach that resulted in giving primacy to recently published systematic reviews (since 2011) and high-quality primary research for 11 groups of health endpoints. For each health endpoint, systematic reviews were identified and assessed for quality using published criteria. Only fair- and good-quality reviews were considered by the committee. 

"CBD Stops Breast Cancer From Achieving Metastasis"

A new therapy that utilizes CBD has shown promising results in turning back the clock on invasiveness of late-stage breast cancer.

In a study funded by National Institutes of Health and published in 2007 at the California Pacific Medical Center performed tests on human breast cancer cells that reveal how CBD could slow down and even halt the progression of the disease, even at its more virulent late-stage existence.

For breast cancer sufferers, this is huge news. Despite the overwhelming public support of breast cancer patients and sky-high donations to specifically focused charities like the Susan G. Komen Foundation, breast cancer remains an insidious killer. One reason it’s so deadly is that breast cancer is often incurable once it metastasizes and moves beyond the breast tissue into other parts of the body. That’s because the final stage of the cancer’s life is least medically understood, and therefore nearly untreatable. 

The new CBD findings

Years ago, medical researchers discovered that a specific protein called Id-1 was responsible for much of the progressive and invasive behavior of breast cancer in its later stages. Using experiments on mice, researchers discovered that by downregulating this protein, the cancer become far less aggressive. In other words, blocking Id-1 from functioning could prevent breast cancer from metastasizing.