Marijuana Ingredient Kills Cancer Cells

I have a very close friend whose doctors are saying he has brain cancer and I feel they and most doctors do not stray far from the AMA recommendation...dare I say orders prevent them from treating with more than surgery, chemo or radiation related methods. Luckily outside the Unites States people are actively trying NON-TOXIC methods. Face it, while chemo and radiation may help some patients the truth is the American Cancer Society never says a person is cured but only in remission. The other truth is that if you are exposed to radiation or chemotherapy without cancer you will likely develope some form of it.

Therefore, I believe every alternative should be give the highest priority by the so called protector of our health the AMA and FDA. The pharmaceutical lobby is NOT the cancer patients friend. If a drug is good for you why would it need a lobby?

The balance of this post is from an email I received about the study. If you have brain cancer or know someone who does, please forward this blog posting on to them.

A new study from Spain as reported in the April issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation/ reports new
research out of Spain that suggests THC, the active ingredient in cannabis, appears to prompt the death of brain cancer cells.

Researchers worked with mice and analyzed THC's impact on tumor cells extracted from two patients who were diagnosed with a highly aggressive form of brain cancer, finding that THC introduced into the brain triggered a cellular self-digestion process known as "autophagy," Guillermo Velasco, from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the School of Biology at Complutense University in Madrid, who co-authored the study, said that his team had investigated and isolated the specific pathway by which this process unfolds, and noted that THC appears "to kill cancer cells, while it does not affect normal cells."

The Spanish researchers analyzed brain tissue in the two cancer patients, taken both before and after a 26- to 30-day THC treatment regimen, and found that THC eliminated cancer cells while it left healthy cells intact. They also identified and tracked the signaling route by which the process was activated, and the findings were then replicated in mice.

"These results may help to design new cancer therapies based on the use of medicines containing the active principle of marijuana and/or in the activation of autophagy," Velasco said.

Dr. John S. Yu, co-director of the Comprehensive Brain Tumor Program in the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, called the findings "not surprising," and noted that this study is just the most recent of a number of previous studies which indicated that THC has an anti-cancer effect.

Dr. Yu said that the study does not suggest that one should expect smoking cannabis to cure their cancer, but rather that THC is a significance source of further study in anti-cancer therapy and treatment.