A Research Reveals Marijuana Destroys Cancer Cells

April 4th, 2009

In 2006, researchers at Barts and the London, Queen Mary’s School of Medicine and Dentistry had investigated the relationship between marijuana and cancer therapy. The team leader of the researchers, Dr. Wai Man Liu had stated that marijuana has the potential of destroying leukemia cells. The report was published in the Letters in Drug Design & Discovery. The researchers had followed up on the results of their study in 2005 on marijuana and cancer therapy, which presented that tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, the main ingredient in marijuana, has the potential of destroying some forms of cancer.

Since the end of their study in 2005, Dr. Liu had moved to the Institute of Cancer in Sutton to continue his work on investigating new anti-cancer agents with potential therapeutic effect.

In previous studies, researchers have acknowledged that marijuana-based medicines produce advantages in treatment of patients with cancer. These medicines serve as appetite stimulant, nausea reduction, and painkiller; recently however, evidence has been establishing marijuana potentially as an anti-tumor agent. On the other hand, this evidence has complicated the capacity of marijuana to be an anti-tumor agent because of its consequent legal status as well as its widely reported psychoactive side effects. Nevertheless, reports and studies have not yet established exactly how use of marijuana and cancer treatment are related although the main psychoactive ingredient of marijuana and related compounds have been demonstrated to destroy cancer cells through interference in significant growth-processing pathways.

Dr. Liu and his group have begun to discover further existing crucial processes in which THC can be able to destroy cancer cells and possible stimulate survival. The researchers were able to arrive at such discovery through using highly sophisticated microarray technology that allowed them to detect changes in over 25,000 genes in cells treated simultaneously with THC. Dr. Liu, in addition to this report, had also found that the mechanism of marijuana may be self-determining from the presence of receptors including proteins located on the cells’ surface through which the binding of other signaling molecules occur. Such binding of molecules to receptors draws out a response in the cell whether it grows or dies. The result that demonstrates marijuana action may not necessitate the presence of receptors initiates the possibility that use of marijuana and cancer treatment is positively linked. The finding opens the door that the drug may be used more extensively as dependence of cancer cells on the marijuana receptor is taken out.

In addition, Dr. Liu had stated that it is substantial to emphasize that marijuana-like substances are far removed from the marijuana that is smoked. Novel compounds are particularly designed in order to be free of the psychoactive features simultaneous with maintaining anti-cancer action. At the end of the day, the key to effectively link marijuana and cancer is to understand the basic mechanisms of the compounds of marijuana, which will provide insights into developing new marijuana-based medicines for cancer treatment.