The benefits of medical marijuana have been widely known for some time now. Some of them include helping with decreasing intraocular pressure in glaucoma, decreasing nausea, increasing appetite, and controlling epileptic seizures. Did you know that medical marijuana also helps prevent cancer from spreading?
Medical Cannabis and Cancer Cells
Researchers at California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute in San Francisco have determined that a compound found in cannabis has the ability to decrease cancer cells.
It was previously discovered to slow down the growth of breast cancer cells, and now it has been shown to stop aggressive brain cancer cells from spreading as well. The active ingredient in cannabis, known as cannabidiol(CBD), is the active ingredient in medical marijuana that is responsible for this behavior.
How Does CBD Prevent Metastasis
Cancer cells make more copies of a gene called Id-1, which help cancer to spread throughout the body. CBD works by inhibiting the Id-1 gene, which prevents cancer cells from spreading.
Researchers treated breast cancer cells in the lab that had high levels of Id-1 with CBD and found that after treatment, the cells decreased the expression of the Id-1 gene, thus reducing the spread of cancer cells
Medical research is still ongoing for the medicinal uses of cannabis. As more work is being done, we will continue to see the positive effects that cannabis has on treating disease.
