“Accumulating evidence suggests involvement of the endocannabinoid system in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia, which signifies a potential application for this system in the treatment of this disorder.
…similarities in brain function between intoxicated healthy volunteers and schizophrenia patients provide an argument for a role of the endocannabinoid system in symptoms of schizophrenia, and further emphasise this system as a potential novel target for treatment of these symptoms.”
“Cannabis (or marijuana) has been used in traditional medicine to treat intestinal inflammation. A survey by Ravikoff Allegretti et al. at a specialized IBD clinic shows that, in the USA, marijuana is used by a substantial number of patients with IBD to alleviate their symptoms.”
http://www.nature.com/nrgastro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nrgastro.2013.245.html
“Designing drugs with a specific multi-target profile is a promising approach against multifactorial illnesses as Alzheimer’s disease. In this work, new indazole ethers that possess dual activity as both cannabinoid agonists CB2 and inhibitors of BuChE have been designed by computational methods…
The results of pharmacological tests have revealed that three of these derivatives behave as CB2 cannabinoid agonists and simultaneously show BuChE inhibition. In particular, compounds 3 and 24 have emerged as promising candidates as novel cannabinoids that inhibit BuChE by a non-competitive or mixed mechanism, respectively. On the other hand, both molecules show antioxidant properties.”
“Soon after the discovery of cannabis by western societies, its psychotropic effects overshadowed its medical benefits. However, investigation into the molecular action of the main constituents of cannabis has led to the discovery of an intercellular signalling system, called the endocannabinoid system (ECS).
The ECS comprises a set of molecular components, including enzymes, signalling lipids and G-protein coupled receptors, which has an outstanding role in modulating eating behaviour and energy homeostasis. Interestingly, evidence has shown that the ECS is present at the central and peripheral nervous system, modulating the function of the hypothalamus, the brain reward system and the brainstem, and coordinating the crosstalk between these brain structures and peripheral organs.
Indeed, the ECS is present and functional in metabolically relevant peripheral tissues, directly modulating their physiology. In the context of a global obesity pandemic, these discoveries are highly suggestive in order to design novel pharmaceutical tools to fight obesity and related morbidities.
In fact, a cannabinoid-based first generation of drugs was developed and marketed. Their failure, due to central side-effects, is leading to a second generation of these drugs unable to cross the blood-brain barrier, as well as other ECS-focused strategies that are still in the pipeline. In the next few years we will hopefully know whether such an important player in energy homeostasis can be successfully targeted without significantly affecting other vital processes related to mood and sense of well-being.”
“G protein-coupled receptor 55 (GPR55) is a putative cannabinoid receptor that is expressed in several tissues involved in regulating energy homeostasis, including the hypothalamus, gastrointestinal tract, pancreas, liver, white adipose and skeletal muscle.
GPR55 has been shown to have a role in cancer and gastrointestinal inflammation, as well as in obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).
Despite this, the (patho)physiological role of GPR55 in cell dysfunction is still poorly understood, largely because of the limited identification of downstream signalling targets.
Nonetheless, research has suggested that GPR55 modulation would be a useful pharmacological target in metabolically active tissues to improve treatment of diseases such as obesity and T2DM.
Further research is essential to gain a better understanding of the role that this receptor might have in these and other pathophysiological conditions.”
“After 4 millennia of more or less documented history of cannabis use, the identification of cannabinoids, and of Δ(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol in particular, occurred only during the early 1960s, and the cloning of cannabinoid CB1 and CB2 receptors, as well as the discovery of endocannabinoids and their metabolic enzymes, in the 1990s.
Despite this initial relatively slow progress of cannabinoid research, the turn of the century marked an incredible acceleration in discoveries on the “endocannabinoid signaling system,” its role in physiological and pathological conditions, and pain in particular, its pharmacological targeting with selective agonists, antagonists, and inhibitors of metabolism, and its previously unsuspected complexity.
The way researchers look at this system has thus rapidly evolved towards the idea of the “endocannabinoidome,” that is, a complex system including also several endocannabinoid-like mediators and their often redundant metabolic enzymes and “promiscuous” molecular targets.
These peculiar complications of endocannabinoid signaling have not discouraged efforts aiming at its pharmacological manipulation, which, nevertheless, now seems to require the development of multitarget drugs, or the re-visitation of naturally occurring compounds with more than one mechanism of action.
In fact, these molecules, as compared to “magic bullets,” seem to offer the advantage of modulating the “endocannabinoidome” in a safer and more therapeutically efficacious way.
This approach has provided so far promising preclinical results potentially useful for the future efficacious and safe treatment of chronic pain and inflammation.”
“Colon cancer is a major public health problem. Cannabis-based medicines are useful adjunctive treatments in cancer patients. Here, we have investigated the effect of a standardized Cannabis sativa extract with high content of cannabidiol (CBD), here named CBD BDS, i.e. CBD botanical drug substance, on colorectal cancer cell proliferation and in experimental models of colon cancer in vivo.
CBD BDS and CBD reduced cell proliferation in tumoral, but not in healthy, cells… In vivo, CBD BDS reduced AOM-induced preneoplastic lesions and polyps as well as tumour growth in the xenograft model of colon cancer.
CBD BDS attenuates colon carcinogenesis and inhibits colorectal cancer cell proliferation via CB1 and CB2 receptor activation. The results may have some clinical relevance for the use of Cannabis-based medicines in cancer patients.”