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| Marijuana Ingredient Kills Rat Brain Tumors |
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Posted by FoM on February 28, 2000 at 21:12:07 PT Not known whether approach would work in people Source: MSNBC 
Marijuana-like drugs eradicated some brain cancers in rats and helped other animals live longer, possibly hinting at a new approach for treating the disease, researchers say. But brain cancer experts said they aren’t impressed. The study dealt with gliomas, the most common category of cancer arising in the brain. Gliomas are highly lethal in people despite treatment with drugs, surgery and radiation. Research To Begin on ‘Pot Patch’ http://www.msnbc.com/news/359970.asp Post your views on MSNBC's Health Bulletin Board
Marijuana, or cannabis, is best known for its ability to give people a “high,” but the plant also has medicinal properties, such as relieving pain and nausea. The researchers injected glioma cells into the brains of rats to produce tumors. Untreated rats died within 18 days. Other rats were treated with drug infusions for seven days through a tube leading to the tumor. Fifteen rats got infusions of THC, the main active component in marijuana. Tumors disappeared in three animals, and nine other rats outlived the untreated ones, surviving up to 35 days. When researchers used a different but similar drug, five of 15 rats became tumor-free and four others outlived untreated animals, the researchers said. The scientists said they did not know if the cancer treatment was appropriate for humans, but they planned further studies. Cancer treatments that work in animals may be too toxic or not effective in humans. The chemicals activated two receptors, or chemical doorways to cells, which prompted an increase in a lipid known as ceramide. The researchers theorized that ceramide in turn activated a chain of protein reactions that killed the cancerous cells. One of the researchers, Dr. Manuel Guzman, said in an interview he hoped to start human tests in about a year. “We are quite happy with (the findings), and we believe we can at least try and see what happens in humans,” Guzman said. Patients usually receive surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, but median survival is 40 to 50 weeks. “Although incomplete, these findings must be seriously considered,” Piomelli wrote. But Dr. Philip Gutin, chief of neurosurgery at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said other experimental therapies work better in rats. And the paper doesn’t demonstrate that the effect came from the drugs rather than simply the infusion of liquid into the brain, he said. Dr. Rolf Barth, who studies brain tumors at Ohio State University, called the work interesting. But he said the type of glioma cells used to create the tumors does not provide a very good mimic of the human disease. Published: February 28, 2000
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| Comment #4 posted by CongressmanSuet on February 29, 2000 at 23:39:05 PT |
| Comment #3 posted by ReggaeLover on February 29, 2000 at 15:19:30 PT |
http://pan.afrikan.net/marley.html
http://www.bobmarley.com/life/jamaicanpolitics/confrontation
| Comment #2 posted by CongressmanSuet on February 29, 2000 at 14:29:44 PT |
| Comment #1 posted by ReggaeLover on February 29, 2000 at 13:14:19 PT |
Ha! Sugar Minot was right after all !
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