cannabisnews.com: Marijuana Ingredient Helps Mice Overcome Arthritis





Marijuana Ingredient Helps Mice Overcome Arthritis
Posted by FoM on July 31, 2000 at 18:55:28 PT
By Richard Saltus, The Boston Globe 
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
An extract of marijuana that does not make users ``high'' blunted the attack of rheumatoid arthritis in mice, scientists are reporting, suggesting a possible new weapon against the crippling disease that affects more than 2 million Americans.The substance is called cannabidiol, one of about 80 ingredients of marijuana. But it doesn't have any mind-altering properties, making it potentially easier to develop as a drug in today's legal environment, the researchers said.
The compound apparently works much like Enbel and Remicade, new drugs for rheumatoid arthritis, but unlike them can be taken orally, said Dr. Marc Feldmann, a prominent arthritis researcher in London and senior author of the report.The mouse experiments are described in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.Scientists gave laboratory mice injections of collagen, a connective-tissue protein that sparked an abnormal immune system attack on the mice's tissues and joints.Rheumatoid arthritis is characterized by such mistaken attacks by the body's own defense system, which leads to swelling, pain, inflammation, and destruction of joints. Osteoarthritis, the other major type, is caused by wear and tear and is not usually as disabling.The cannabidiol, purified from hashish, was injected into some rats and given orally to others, while control animals received a placebo.Researchers evaluated the drug's effect by measuring swelling, inflammation, and joint stiffness in the animals. Some of the rodents' hind feet were removed so they could be studied for physical damage by the renegade immune system attack.Animals who got the drug had significantly fewer symptoms, and more of them escaped damage to their feet. Only a certain dose was effective, though, the scientists reported: a little higher or lower dose didn't work.``We think the way forward now is to do a clinical trial'' in human patients, said Feldmann, who is a division chief at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in London, which he said is the largest institution in the world studying rheumatic diseases.Feldmann and a colleague recently received a $500,000 prize from the Swedish Academy of Scientists for their work over a decade in showing that a particular immune system signaler, tumor necrosis factor, or TNF, is a major culprit in rheumatoid arthritis. Blocking TNF, they found, also squelched the activity of other molecules involved in the immune system's mistaken attack on the body's own tissues.This paved the way for drugs like Enbrel and Remicade, which are TNF-blockers that entered wide use in the past year and a half.Feldmann said he was interested in testing the marijuana compound because of findings over many years by Dr. Raffi Mechoulem in Israel, who he called the ``guru of cannabinoid chemistry.'' He said Mechoulem has made it his life's work to understand the medicinal properties of the many ingredients in the marijuana plant.Dr. John Klippel, the medical director of the Arthritis Foundation in Atlanta, called the work ``interesting'' and said that because Feldmann is such an influential arthritis researcher it gives the marijuana findings credibility.Klippel said that Enbrel and Remicade have brought dramatic relief to many rheumatoid arthritis sufferers. ``There's now unequivocal evidence that they slow down or even halt joint damage,'' he said.The drawbacks are that the drugs have to be injected by the patient or someone else twice a week, and that they are expensive. A year's treatment costs about $10,000, he said.In a commentary accompaying the report, Dr. Stephen E. Straus of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine noted that previous research has indicated that marijuana and its ingredients can block inflammation.It's possible, he said, that the compounds in marijuana ``could alleviate arthritis as implied in the present report, yet remain well tolerated.''Straus highlighted the puzzling finding that the cannabidiol compound was only effective at a narrow range of doses, and said for that reason ``it might be difficult to develop (the substance) into a useful anti-inflammatory or immunosuppressive drug.''Web Posted: July 31, 2000© 2000 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, postnet.com CannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archives: http://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on August 02, 2000 at 22:21:53 PT:
Joints for Your Joints
Web Posted: August 1, 2000By Adam MarcusHealthSCOUT Reporterhttp://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/hl/hsn/?uCopyright © 2000 Healthscout.com Monday, July 31 (HealthSCOUT) -- A punchless part of pot could offer arthritis patients a reprieve from their inflamed and painful joints. British and Israeli researchers say arthritic mice treated with a nonintoxicating component of marijuana showed significant improvement in several key signs of their disease. The notion that marijuana helps arthritis is far from novel. Indeed, the Chinese recorded the drug's healing properties for rheumatism some 4,000 years ago. Marijuana contains roughly 80 active chemicals called cannabinoids. Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC for short, has mind-altering properties that give users their high. Other components, however, appear to have therapeutic powers -- from soothing pain and nausea to calming spastic muscles -- but produce no brain changes. Although recreational use of pot is illegal in the United States, several states -- including California, Hawaii, Alaska and Oregon -- have laws that permit medical uses of the drug. The federal government, however, staunchly has maintained its opposition to such policies. Between penal codes and pro-pot advocates lies a cloudy field of science. A 1999 report from the National Academies Institute of Medicine found that cannabinoid drugs, and primarily THC, the active compound in marijuana, may be good for pain relief, control of nausea and vomiting and appetite stimulation. Other researchers, however, have focused on the drug's downside, which includes the potential to cause head and neck tumors, to damage cells in the lung lining and even to trigger heart attacks. The latest study, by scientists at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in London, tested both injections and oral doses of the cannabinoid CBD in mice with collagen-induced arthritis, a joint disease that mimics human rheumatoid arthritis. The drug, a precursor of THC, had a Goldilocks effect: Neither small nor large amounts of either form were effective, but a middle dose shielded joints from damage, the researchers say. A report on their findings appears in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Tests of the animals' lymph fluid showed that the marijuana compound suppressed activity of immune cells and molecules, the researchers say. It also reduced inflammation in joint tissue, particularly by quelling the production of tumor necrosis factor, a potent chemical involved in swelling. The researchers repeated their study in mice with homologous CIA, a form of recurring arthritis that more closely resembles what humans contract. And again, the marijuana compound showed significant joint protection. The study suggests that CBD could help arthritis patients "and may be valuable in the treatment of other chronic inflammatory diseases as well," the scientists say. Dr. John Morgan, a professor of pharmacology at City University of New York Medical School in Manhattan, and an expert in the medical uses of marijuana, says the latest research is neither surprising nor new. "Both [CBD and THC] have anti-inflammatory properties in some animal systems," he says. But Morgan also cautions that animal studies, including the Israeli work, typically rely on doses far greater than most people take. Dale Gieringer, coordinator of the California chapter of NORML, a national pro-pot group, says between 10,000 and 20,000 Californians use marijuana medicinally, most for chronic pain linked to cancer, AIDS and arthritis. http://www.canorml.org/Yet the true therapeutic potential of marijuana won't be clear until it is studied in a rigorous, scientific manner, Gieringer says. And those studies, at least in the United States, aren't on the horizon. "We're not really a free country when it comes to drug research," Gieringer says. Steven Gust, special assistant to the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funds marijuana research, says the idea that the government is squashing pot studies is misguided. "The fact is that we're not getting requests and we're not getting proposals," Gust says. The National Institutes of Health is sponsoring three trials to test the clinical benefits of the drug, including one in California involving AIDS patients, Gust says. Morgan, however, says basic marijuana research in this country almost exclusively involves animals, not people. As a result, he says, the best hope for good trials of the therapeutic potential of the drug lies in Europe and Australia, where the scientific climate is more tolerant of the drug. What To Do: The only government-approved synthetic marijuana compound is dronabinol, or Marinol, which eases the nausea and pain of cancer treatments. To read more about the potential medical uses of marijuana, visit the Institute of Medicine, or check out information provided by Harvard University. http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/marimed/http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/evidence99/marijuana/Health_Concerns.html
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Comment #6 posted by FoM on August 02, 2000 at 10:22:08 PT
My Feelings
Hi Guys! Try to think of it this way too. There are over 400 components in Cannabis that I remember reading. What if one of them might cure cancer? That's how I look at research like this.Peae, FoM!
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Comment #5 posted by dddd on August 02, 2000 at 03:29:28 PT
progress
Well it's nice to see that they are finally figuring out how to get the good stuff out of marijuana,without the side effect of having to experience that annoying stoned feeling.
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Comment #4 posted by freedom fighter on August 01, 2000 at 16:15:14 PT
Will Foster 
suffered this same kind of diease and was growing approx. 50 clones when he got busted.I agree with both of you! Althou, I much rather smoke than use a needle. Maybe the world has this "Mr.Hyde and Dr.Jerkyll Complex".Think about that for a moment, it seemed that the world think that if you feel good today, you gotta feel bad tomorrow??Imagine this, Barry McCaffery drank his 3 martinis and got hungover when he said,"Marj. is just a cheech chong drug!"It is time to free the prisoners and liberate this plant!
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Comment #3 posted by Dan B on July 31, 2000 at 22:14:45 PT:
Part II
--"Straus highlighted the puzzling finding that the cannabidiol compound was only effective at a narrow range of doses, and said for that reason `it might be difficult to develop (the substance) into a useful anti-inflammatory or immunosuppressive drug.'"Evidence that the best way to administer marijuana for the purpose of alleviating arthritis pain is to smoke it. Smoking offers the most effective means of regulating effective dosage levels. So, you're right, MikeEEEEE (of course). Smoking the herb whole seems like the most logical method of using marijuana to combat arthritis.
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Comment #2 posted by Dan B on July 31, 2000 at 22:07:45 PT:
Well, yes, but . . . 
I'm all for using certain chemicals found in marijuana to ease peoples' suffering, I just don't see why scientists and pols are so keyed up about feeling good after using an effective medicine. Can anyone tell me what is inherently wrong about feeling good? Is there some negative side to euphoria that I am missing?Aside from that, I hope this derivative drug does bring an end to people's suffering. If they aren't allowed to use cannabis in its most natural form, perhaps they'll at least ease some pain with this derivative.Of course, the next thing we will learn is that cannabidiol is non-carcinogenic (like the other cannabinoids that have been tested, most notably delta-9 THC) and is thus safe for use by people with arthritis. And they will soon prove that all the other elements of cannabis are not carcinogenic, as well. Eventually, they will have to admit that they have absolutely no grounds for making this drug illegal. Let 'em keep isolating elements of cannabis and proving them effective, yet non-carcinogenic. Soon, they'll prove beyond any shadow of a doubt what we've known all along: this plant, even (perhaps especially) in its most raw form, is not only not harmful, but beneficial--the safest therapeutically-effective substance known to humanity!Keep on studying, scientists!
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Comment #1 posted by MikeEEEEE on July 31, 2000 at 19:28:18 PT
Playing with nature
This plant was made to be used one way, the whole plant.
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