Have you ever known a pothead who had colon cancer?

[baghdad_bush]

Cannabis compound clue to colon cancer

06 August 2008
NewScientist.com news service

SMOKING hash or marijuana may not be the healthiest way to do it, but taking substances similar to those found in cannabis might one day help to treat colon cancer.

Raymond DuBois and colleagues at the University of Texas, Houston, discovered that a key receptor for cannabinoids - compounds similar to the active ingredient of cannabis - is turned off in most types of human colon cancer cells. Similarly, mice genetically engineered to develop colon tumours developed more of them if the receptor, called CB1, was knocked out (Cancer Research, DOI: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-08-0896). What's more, tumours shrank when the genetically engineered mice were injected with a cannabinoid.

One suggestion is that lack of CB1 encourages tumour growth because the receptor normally interacts with cannabinoids made by the body to prompt cells to die. This opens up a possible two-step treatment for colon cancer. First, switch CB1 back on using decitibine, a drug already approved for use in humans which DuBois and his team showed stops blockage of the receptor in human colon cancer cells. Then give the patient cannabinoids to activate CB1.

The research also casts a shadow on the weight-loss drug rimonabant. The drug suppresses appetite by blocking CB1, which is involved in hunger as well as tumour growth. DuBois suggests that anyone on the drug be screened for colon cancer.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19926685.000

[avaistheone1]

1. Wow.

I guess Tony Snow must not have inhaled.

[JuniperLea]

3. Do you know why Republicans don't smoke pot?

It's an antidote to Kool Aid;)

That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it!

[JuniperLea]

2. No! No, I never have now that you mention it!

I'm all for better living through organic chemistry.

[baghdad_bush]

4. Willie Nelson will never have to worry

[nosmokes]

5. two, as a matter of fact.you can smoke all the bud you want but if you eat

a diet high in fat and sugar and low in fiber it ain't gonna help.there ain't no magic bullet.

[grytpype]

6. Finally science is good for something!