“Tetrahydrocannabinol:cannabidiol (THC:CBD) oromucosal spray (Sativex®) is an add-on therapy for moderate-to-severe multiple sclerosis (MS)-related drug-resistant spasticity (MSS).
In everyday clinical practice, THC:CBD oromucosal spray provided symptomatic relief of MSS and related troublesome symptoms.”
“Evidence suggests that the non-psychotropic cannabis-derived compound, cannabidiol (CBD), has anti-neoplastic activity in multiple types of cancers, including glioblastoma multiforme (GBM).
DNA-damaging agents remain the main standard of care treatment available for patients diagnosed with GBM.
Here we studied the anti-proliferative and cell-killing activity of CBD alone and in combination with DNA-damaging agents (temozolomide, carmustine or cisplatin) in several human GBM cell lines and in mouse primary GBM cells in cultures.
This activity was also studied in mouse neural progenitor cells (NPCs) in culture to assess for potential central nervous system (CNS) toxicity.
We found that CBD induced a dose-dependent reduction of both proliferation and viability of all cells with similar potencies, suggesting no preferential activity for cancer cells.
Hill plot analysis indicates an allosteric mechanism of action triggered by CBD in all cells.
Co-treatment regiments combining CBD and DNA-damaging agents produced synergistic anti-proliferating and cell-killing responses over a limited range of concentrations in all human GBM cell lines and mouse GBM cells as well as in mouse NPCs.
Remarkably, antagonistic responses occurred at low concentrations in select human GBM cell lines and in mouse GBM cells.
Our study suggests limited synergistic activity when combining CBD and DNA-damaging agents in treating GBM cells, along with little-to-no therapeutic window when considering NPCs.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27821713
“Definition of antineoplastic: inhibiting or preventing the growth and spread of tumors or malignant cells” http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antineoplastic
“Prevalence of psychiatric disorders continues to rise globally, yet remission rates and patient outcome remain less than ideal. As a result, novel treatment approaches for these disorders are necessary to decrease societal economic burden, as well as increase individual functioning.
The recent discovery of the endocannabinoid system has provided an outlet for further research into its role in psychiatric disorders, because efficacy of targeted treatments have been demonstrated in medical illnesses, including cancers, neuropathic pain, and multiple sclerosis.
The present review will investigate the role of the endocannabinoid system in psychiatric disorders, specifically schizophrenia, depressive, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorders, as well as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Controversy remains in prescribing medicinal cannabinoid treatments due to the fear of adverse effects. However, one must consider all potential limitations when determining the safety and tolerability of cannabinoid products, specifically cannabinoid content (ie, Δ-tetrahydrocannabinol vs cannabidiol) as well as study design.
The potential efficacy of cannabinoid treatments in the psychiatric population is an emerging topic of interest that provides potential value going forward in medicine.”
“Enteric glial cells (EGC) actively mediate acute and chronic inflammation in the gut; EGC proliferate and release neurotrophins, growth factors, and pro-inflammatory cytokines which, in turn, may amplify the immune response, representing a very important link between the nervous and immune systems in the intestine.
Cannabidiol (CBD) is an interesting compound because of its ability to control reactive gliosis in the CNS, without any unwanted psychotropic effects.
Therefore the rationale of our study was to investigate the effect of CBD on intestinal biopsies from patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) and from intestinal segments of mice with LPS-induced intestinal inflammation.
Our results therefore indicate that CBD indeed unravels a new therapeutic strategy to treat inflammatory bowel diseases.
The results of the present study correlate and expand the findings suggesting CBD as a potent compound that is able to modulate experimental gut inflammation.
In this study we demonstrate that during intestinal inflammation, CBD is able to control the inflammatory scenario and the subsequent intestinal apoptosis through the restoration of the altered glia-immune homeostasis.
CBD is therefore regarded as a promising therapeutic agent that modulates the neuro-immune axis, which can be recognised as a new target in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disorders.”
“Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol (THC:CBD) oromucosal spray (Sativex®) has been recently approved for the management of treatment-resistant multiple sclerosis (MS) spasticity.
Although the symptomatic relief of Sativex® on MS-spasticity has been consistently demonstrated, the pathogenetic implications remain unclear and the few electrophysiological studies performed to address this topic yielded controversial results.
We therefore aimed to investigate the mechanisms underpinning the modulation of spastic hypertonia by Sativex®, at both central and spinal levels, through an extensive neurophysiological battery in patients with MS.
Our results confirm the clinical benefit of Sativex® on spastic hypertonia and demonstrate that it might modulate both cortical and spinal circuits, arguably in terms of both excitation and inhibition.
We suggest that the clinical benefit was likely related to a net increase of inhibition at cortical level that, in turn, might have influenced spinal excitability.”
“Anxiety and sleep disorders are often the result of posttraumatic stress disorder and can contribute to an impaired ability to focus and to demonstration of oppositional behaviors.
These symptoms were present in our patient, a ten-year-old girl who was sexually abused and had minimal parental supervision as a young child under the age of five. Pharmaceutical medications provided partial relief, but results were not long-lasting, and there were major side effects. A trial of cannabidiol oil resulted in a maintained decrease in anxiety and a steady improvement in the quality and quantity of the patient’s sleep.
Cannabidiol oil, an increasingly popular treatment of anxiety and sleep issues, has been documented as being an effective alternative to pharmaceutical medications. This case study provides clinical data that support the use of cannabidiol oil as a safe treatment for reducing anxiety and improving sleep in a young girl with posttraumatic stress disorder.”
“Destruction of the insulin-producing beta cells in type 1 diabetes (T1D) is induced by invasion of immune cells causing pancreatic inflammation.
Cannabidiol (CBD), a phytocannabinoid, derived from the plant, Cannabis sativa, was shown to lower the incidence of diabetes in non-obese diabetic (NOD) mice, an animal model of spontaneous T1D development.
Experimental CBD treatment reduced markers of inflammation in the microcirculation of the pancreas studied by intravital microscopy.”
“Multiple myeloma (MM) is a plasma cell (PC) malignancy characterised by the accumulation of a monoclonal PC population in the bone marrow (BM).
Cannabidiol (CBD) is a non-psychoactive cannabinoid with antitumoural activities, and the transient receptor potential vanilloid type-2 (TRPV2) channel has been reported as a potential CBD receptor.
TRPV2 activation by CBD decreases proliferation and increases susceptibility to drug-induced cell death in human cancer cells.
However, no functional role has been ascribed to CBD and TRPV2 in MM. In this study, we identified the presence of heterogeneous CD138+TRPV2+ and CD138+TRPV2- PC populations in MM patients, whereas only the CD138+ TRPV2- population was present in RPMI8226 and U266 MM cell lines.
Because bortezomib (BORT) is commonly used in MM treatment, we investigated the effects of CBD and BORT in CD138+TRPV2- MM cells and in MM cell lines transfected with TRPV2 (CD138+TRPV2+).
These results showed that CBD by itself or in synergy with BORT strongly inhibited growth, arrested cell cycle progression and induced MM cells death by regulating the ERK, AKT and NF-κB pathways with major effects in TRPV2+ cells.
These data provide a rationale for using CBD to increase the activity of proteasome inhibitors in MM.”
“Several studies showed a potential anti-tumor role for cannabinoids, by modulating cell signaling pathways involved in cancer cell proliferation, chemo-resistance and migration.
Cannabidiol (CBD) was previously noted in multiple myeloma (MM), both alone and in synergy with the proteasome inhibitor bortezomib, to induce cell death.
In other type of human cancers, the combination of CBD with Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) was found to act synergistically with other chemotherapeutic drugs suggesting their use in combination therapy.
In the current study, we evaluated the effects of THC alone and in combination with CBD in MM cell lines.
We found that CBD and THC, mainly in combination, were able to reduce cell viability by inducing autophagic-dependent necrosis.
Moreover, we showed that the CBD-THC combination was able to reduce MM cells migration by down-regulating expression of the chemokine receptor CXCR4 and of the CD147 plasma membrane glycoprotein.
Furthermore, since the immuno-proteasome is considered a new target in MM and also since carfilzomib (CFZ) is a new promising immuno-proteasome inhibitor that creates irreversible adducts with the β5i subunit of immuno-proteasome, we evaluated the effect of CBD and THC in regulating the expression of the β5i subunit and their effect in combination with CFZ.
Herein, we also found that the CBD and THC combination is able to reduce expression of the β5i subunit as well as to act in synergy with CFZ to increase MM cell death and inhibits cell migration.
In summary, these results proved that this combination exerts strong anti-myeloma activities.”
“Anecdotal and scientific evidence suggests that Cannabis use may be beneficial in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients.
Here, we have investigated the effect of a standardized Cannabis sativa extract with high content of cannabidiol (CBD), here named CBD BDS for “CBD botanical drug substance,” on mucosal inflammation and hypermotility in mouse models of intestinal inflammation.
In conclusion, CBD BDS, given after the inflammatory insult, attenuates injury and motility in intestinal models of inflammation.
These findings sustain the rationale of combining CBD with other minor Cannabis constituents and support the clinical development of CBD BDS for IBD treatment.”