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| Dope Hope for Brain Tumour |
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Posted by CN Staff on August 28, 2004 at 08:09:21 PT By John Von Radowitz Source: Birmingham Post UK 
Until the invention of tranquillisers and modern analgesics such as aspirin, 'Indian hemp' was a popular sedative and pain killer. Even Queen Victoria took it to ease her period pains. Cannabis was also used in the 19th century to treat muscle spasms, rheumatism, and the symptoms of tetanus. At the time, the only other available drugs for numbing pain were morphine derivatives, which had unwanted side effects such as suppressing appetite and reducing breathing. Marijuana medicines were introduced in the West in about 1840 after doctors observed the way cannabis was used in India and Egypt. Between 1840 and 1900 more than 100 articles were published recommending cannabis for different disorders. Both in Europe and America, cannabis was a first choice medicine for physicians. Then came a fall from grace, as the drug began to be associated with dropouts, alternative lifestyles, and rebellion. Between 1915 and 1927 there were moves to outlaw the recreational use of cannabis in the United States, and in 1928 it became a controlled substance in Britain. In 1998, 76 per cent of people arrested for drug offences in the UK were charged with possession of cannabis. Now, however, there are signs of history repeating itself. The medicinal benefits of cannabis are once again taking centrestage, and the drug has been downgraded to Class C status in Britain. Cannabis, or the active chemicals it contains, has been suggested as a potential treatment for a plethora of ills. Besides pain relief, the list includes anorexia, arthritis, epilepsy, insomnia, herpes, asthma, migraine, nausea, depression and multiple sclerosis. The latest discovery, highlighted this week, is that chemicals in cannabis might combat brain tumours by cutting off their blood supply. An eminent America expert, Professor Lester Grinspoon from Harvard Medical School, believes cannabis 'is likely to be seen as a wonder drug of the 21st century'. In Britain, GW Pharmaceuticals has been granted a Government licence to carry out tests on cannabis compounds with a view to turning them into mainstream medicines. The company has been conducting trials with multiple sclerosis patients, using a product that is sprayed into the mouth rather than smoked. The studies have shown that cannabis compounds can reduce pain, spasticity and sleep disturbances more effectively than conventional treatments. GW Pharmaceuticals, which cultivates some 40,000 cannabis plants each year at a secret location in the home counties, has been talking to a number of drug companies interested in distributing the medicines. Many MS patients have been taking cannabis illegally for years for their symptoms. About 85,000 people suffer from the disease in Britain. They suffer a host of symptoms, including balance problems, muscle weakness and spasms, incontinence, pain and tremors. Cannabis is said to alleviate spasms, pain, tremor and loss of bladder control. Tests performed by the Multiple Sclerosis Society showed that most patients responded positively to the drug. Furthermore, a postal survey of patients in Britain and America who selfmedicated with cannabis showed that more than 90 per cent reported beneficial effects. Doctors have for years been allowed to prescribe capsules containing a synthetic version of THC, the main active ingredient in cannabis. The drug, nabilone, was licensed in 1982 for prescription use against nausea caused by chemotherapy. The new research looking at the effect of cannabis on brain tumours was led by Professor Manuel Guzman, from Complutense University in Madrid. His team showed that cannabinoids - the active chemicals responsible for the drug's 'high' - hold back the growth of blood vessels which feed brain tumours. They appear to block genes making a protein called VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) that stimulates the sprouting of blood vessels. Cutting off tumours' blood supply is one of the latest anti- cancer strategies being explored by scientists. Prof Guzman found that cannabinoids significantly reduced the activity of VEGF in laboratory mice. They also lowered VEGF levels in tumour tissue samples taken from twopatients with glioblastoma multiforme, the most lethal type of brain tumour. About 4,400 new cases of brain tumour are diagnosed in the UK each year. A small percentage of these are grade four gliomas, the most aggressive and dangerous brain tumours, also known as glioblastoma multiforme. Only about six per cent of people diagnosed with these high grade cancers live for more than three years. In the Spanish-led study, cannabinoids were injected into mice with gliomas. DNA analysis was then carried out on 267 genes associated with the growth of tumour blood vessels. It showed that cannabis compounds reduced the activity of several genes involved in VEGF production. The scientists went on to take tumour biopsy samples from two patients with gioblastoma multiforme who had not responded to standard therapy. The samples were analysed before and after receiving a cannabinoid injection. 'In both patients, VEGF levels in tumour extracts were lower after cannabis inoculation,' said Prof Guzman. Writing in the journal Cancer Research, his team said cannabinoids may offer a potential new way to treat incurable brain tumours. Health: Dope Hope for Brain Tumour ; Long Before the First Joint Was Rolled in a Student Bar, Cannabis Was Widely Used in Britain As a Medicine. John Von Radowitz Asks Whether It Will Realistically Be Used As a Cure Again. Copyright: 2004 Medical World Communications, Inc. Source: Birmingham Post (UK) Related Articles & Web Sites: GW Pharmaceuticals Marijuana: The Forbidden Medicine Unlocking a Cure for Cancer – With Pot Cannabis Hope for Brain Cancer Marijuana Ingredient Inhibits VEGF Pathway Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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| Comment #9 posted by Hope on August 29, 2004 at 04:22:43 PT |
| Your site is very interesting. I would think with the extraordinarily powerful plastics we have today and the small powerful motors, some of, if not all, your ideas could be a reality fairly easily. It's a matter of getting the capable entity interested. I can't imagine why they wouldn't be interested. We all treasure our independence. All the more when so much of is taken from us by accident or disease. The lift and the arm are two especially wonderful ideas. I understand your need for nature, too. [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #8 posted by Alias on August 29, 2004 at 03:39:26 PT:
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| If cannabis will help prevent or slow down brain diseases [neuroprotection] and cancers. Then some people at risk may be drawn to cannabis because subconsciously they realize it is good for them. Then cannabis use may rise along with the environmental factors that contribute to those diseases. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #7 posted by Virgil on August 28, 2004 at 19:04:09 PT |
| I probably will be calling the pill companies "pill pimps" occassionally as they have their whoring Congress and whoring doctors and the whoring FDA to see that the money rolls in. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #6 posted by Virgil on August 28, 2004 at 18:57:50 PT |
| The whole medical establishment is about treatment instead of cure. This is something about diabetes in the forums at CureZone that is all but shocking about the medical community and the attack on natural cures- http://www.curezone.com/forums/m.asp?f=30&i=266 There is an interesting piece on cinammon for diabetes and talk of future research. The two respnses under this link are really more informative than http://www.curezone.com/forums/m.asp?f=288&i=83 Then there is Xango juice - http://www.curezone.com/forums/m.asp?f=30&i=283 There are forums on different diseases and subjects at CureZone.com and Shilajit (Asphaltum) is also talked about under diabetes- Shilajit (Asphaltum) Enough about diabetes. The link in the first paragraph is what important here. Also, I just got through reading at CureZone and under Ulcerative Colitus there was someone that put up something about eating crap out of a baby diaper to introduce good bacteria to his colon as he had read that UC was caused by bad bacteria outnumbering good bacteria in the colon. On of the "soldiers" on the site said that "it is clear" that the AMA has a disinformation campaign on the Internet to discredit all the talk of people looking for herbal treatment that will actually cure diseases. I agree with you that there is a disinformation campaign for herbal remedies that is obvious with cannabis. People that study home remedies as CureZone say the same thing. The cannabis fraud is vast, but there is such a huge campaign to discredit herbal remedies that it lacks a word to describe how huge the effort really is. I still wonder how the pill companies can put mercury in pills to preserve their concoctions. Now, there is a conspiracy to keep all that quiet. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #5 posted by Max Flowers on August 28, 2004 at 12:14:18 PT |
| Here's a great illustration of how the pharmaceutical establishment smears a good thing and keeps it from the American people to protect its own market. Both my parents have Type II diabetes, so I figure I need to anticipate and head off that condition in myself. In my early 40s, I'm a prime target. My research revealed a tropical plant (amother "miracleplant") that has known anti-diabetic properties, Lagerstroemia speciosa, otherwise known in Tagalog as Banaba. Its active constituent is corosolic acid. Easy (if not cheap) to get and to use, it has evidently impressed Japanese researchers enough to hail it as a major weapon against diabetes. The Japanese studies corroborated long tem generational indigenous use of it for the same purpose (blood sugar management) So I go to look up what other info I can find on it, and here is what other (American) sources say about it: (from http://www.gettingwell.com/drug_info/nmdrugprofiles/nutsupdrugs/col_0081.shtml ) Colosolic acid has been reported to activate glucose transport in cell cultures and to lower glucose in diabetic mice. There are a few reports that colosolic acid lowers blood glucose levels in type 2 diabetic subjects. However, none of these reports has appeared in peer-reviewed scientific literature. (and even more negatively:) It is claimed that colosolic acid lowers blood glucose in type 2 diabetics, burns fat, lowers elevated blood pressure and boosts energy, among other things. Currently, there is no credible evidence to support any claim for the use of this substance in humans. I am beginning to see how these people operate. From my own reading I already know that the "few reports" that they dismissively mention are actually part of major Japanese research that is just as credible as American research. And what they ignore as not being "credible evidence" is generations of use in Asia with positive effects. The only reason these claims ever occurred is because people noticed these effects. Here though, if it's not "peer-reviewed" by American doctors and the AMA and FDA, it's not worth mentioning... that seems to be their mindset. But they're all in an incestuous fiduciary relationship together, which destroys all objectivity. In other words, the system is corrupted. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #4 posted by Virgil on August 28, 2004 at 10:27:07 PT |
| I was going to do a search today for macular degeneration and cannabis. There was a big story in our local newspaper this Monday and a running buddy has an 80 year-old mother with macular degeration. I have given him the spill on cannabis and the corruption of government that tramples the founding fathers called unalienable rights that now are in need of a new word since the treason that rules the country have exorcized them. He is somewhat skeptical and I tell him I do not have time to fill in all of his ignorance as onsies and twosies is not worth a personal effort. Doctor Melemede said the retina was replete with cannabinoid receptors- http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19302.shtml- but macular degeneration was not mention. Cannabis for macular degeneration would recruit a new army of reformers if it did help. Steven King has macular degeneration and is going blind and lives in Maine that has decent MMJ laws. He could probably buy an island in Canada if he thought he could get MMJ and it would save his eyesight. I read today where cannabis was used to treat tetanus, but really have never heard macular degeneration mentioned even though the nerve protection thing should apply. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #3 posted by Virgil on August 28, 2004 at 10:03:28 PT |
| This website has some graphics of the cannabinoid receptors in the brain- http://abdellab.sunderland.ac.uk/lectures/addiction/THC.html It also has the following information on NabiloneDronabinol (a synthetic version of d9 THC) is an appropriate drug for a patient suffering from one of the above mentioned ailments. Known in Canada as Cesamet, nabilone is a synthetic derivative of d9 THC with a slightly modified structure(hexa hydro cannabinol). It is used mostly as an antiemetic in the treatment of cancer and AIDS sufferers. Marinol, like Nabilone, is a synthetic derivative of d9 THC (dronabinol), although the molecular structure is not at all modified from the natural drug. The subject raises the question concerning the synthetic THC recognition and the non-recognition of natural THC that the French isolated seven score ago. You would think it a no-brainer that GW Pharmaceuticals would be allowed to market an extracted THC almost automatically because it could easily extract THC from its miraculous nutraceutical. Now how is it that GW cannot sell THC in the UK? [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #2 posted by FoM on August 28, 2004 at 09:38:06 PT |
| What you described is what my Rottweiler was diagnosed with but I don't know if it was called that. Blood vessels grow into the eye from the whites of his eye. He is almost 4 years old ( going slowly blind in his one eye ) and I must put medicine in his eye everyday. I wonder if it could be a help for veterinary medicine too. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #1 posted by E_Johnson on August 28, 2004 at 08:58:44 PT |
| "They appear to block genes making a protein called VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) that stimulates the sprouting of blood vessels." The FDA is in the process of approving an expensive drug to treat macular degeneration (with lots of side effects) that blocks VEGF. This drug has to be injected into the eye every six weeks. I hope GW or someone will do research on whether smoking marijuana prevents macular degeeration in the elderly. This disease happens when too many blood vessels start growing behind the eye. Blocking VEGF can theoretically stop their process. THC blocks VEGF in tumors, does it block VEGF everywhere in the body or does it have to be delivered on site? [ Post Comment ] |
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