"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%)

"New compound from CBDA could be substitute for opioids & steroids"

Israeli researcher Raphael Mechoulam has announced the development of a process to modify and stabilize cannabidiolic acids (CBDA) that appear early in the cannabis plant’s growth, rendering compounds that have the potential for large-scale use.

The result is a semi-synthetic, fully stable, acid-based compound that could be useful in suppressing nausea from chemotherapy, and be a treatment for such afflictions as Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and Psoriasis. 

Researchers say such compounds, which are more potent than CBD or THC – and which so far have shown no negative side effects – could replace steroids and opioids.

Politically correct for pharma

Mechoulam worked with American biotech startup EPM to develop the solution to stabilizing the acids through esterification, a simple chemical process. That could prove interesting to the pharmaceutical industry as the process turns out the acids in a consistent form that is patentable. Also, EPM CEO Reshef Swisa said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has told the company the compound would not be treated as cannabis but as any other drug in development, thereby avoiding the stigma and legal limitations associated with marijuana.

"The Antimicrobial Activities of Phytocannabinoids"

Novel antimicrobial drugs are urgently needed to counteract the increasing occurrence of bacterial resistance. 

Extracts of Cannabis sativa have been used for the treatment of several diseases since ancient times. 

It has been demonstrated that several cannabinoids show potent antimicrobial activity against primarily Gram-positive bacteria including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). As first in vivo efficacy has been demonstrated recently, it is time to discuss whether cannabinoids are promising antimicrobial drug candidates or overhyped intoxicants with benefits.

The worldwide spread of bacterial resistance against market antibiotics has been identified as one of the major threats to public health by scientists and healthcare authorities. Thus, new antibacterial strategies and antibacterial compounds are urgently needed to counteract the increasing occurrence of antibiotic-resistant and, especially, multidrug-resistant (MDR) pathogens, to keep the live-saving advantages toward bacterial pathogens. 

In 2017, the World Health Organization (WHO) emphasized the crucial need for antimicrobial drug development against a group of 13 different genii, families, and specific species of pathogenic bacteria.The real problem is that the vast majority of these prioritized bacterial pathogens are drug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria.

However, antimicrobial resistances are also increasing in Gram-positive bacteria and, among the high priority pathogens, the Gram-positive pathogen Staphylococcus aureus is the leading cause of both healthcare and community-associated infections worldwide, and a major cause for morbidity as well as mortality.

"CBDA for Psoriasis, Arthritis and Anxiety...???"

Cannabis research pioneer hopes latest discovery is not overlooked again...

Raphael Mechoulam, an Israeli organic chemist and professor of medicinal chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, remembers the letdown after his groundbreaking discoveries surrounding the structure of the cannabis compounds CBD and THC in 1963 and 1964, followed by clinical tests with CBD published in 1980.




In a 2018 British Journal of Pharmacology study, Mechoulam and his co-authors wrote that their synthetic compound, cannabidiolic acid (CBDA) methyl ester (HU-580) could be more effective than existing CBD remedies, making it “a potential medicine for treating some nausea and anxiety disorders.” Those initial clinical tests found the acids have yielded results on par, and even exceeding, existing treatments, without the side effects.

The naturally occurring but unstable CBD acid (CBDA) is a thousand times more potent than CBD in binding to a particular serotonin receptor thought to be responsible for alleviating nausea and anxiety.

“It’s an interesting molecule that potentially doesn’t have side effects,” said Dan Peer, managing director of the Center for Translational Medicine and head of the Cancer Biology Research Center at Tel Aviv University.