Study Says CBD is Beneficial for Treating Breast Cancer

Study Says CBD is Beneficial for Treating Breast Cancer

Study Says CBD is Beneficial for Treating Breast Cancer from CannabisNet on Vimeo.

Patients with breast cancer can now confidently turn to cannabidiol (CBD) strains and products to aid in the treatment of their condition.

A new study published in the journal, The Breast, revealed that CBD is beneficial for different breast cancer subtypes. “Studies have emphasized an antineoplastic effect of the non-psychoactive, phyto-cannabinoid, cannabidiol (CBD),” says the study’s abstract. “However, the molecular mechanism underlying its antitumor activity is not fully elucidated. Herein, we have examined the effect of CBD on two different human breast cancer cell lines.”

The researchers from Egypt’s Alexandria University saw that in both cell lines, “CBD inhibited cell survival and induced apoptosis in a dose dependent manner as observed by MTT assay, morphological changes, DNA fragmentation, and ELISA apoptosis assay.”

The study’s findings “suggest that CBD treatment induces an interplay among PPARy, mTOR and cyclin D1 in favor of apoptosis induction in both ER-positive and triple negative breast cancer cells, proposing CBD as a useful treatment for different breast cancer subtypes.”

The findings give hope to breast cancer patients who prefer a natural cure, one without side effects nor the psychoactive effects of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

Older Studies

A 2015 study supports these findings. The research, which was published by the American Association for Cancer Research, confirmed that CBD does inflict apoptosis or programmed cell death in breast cancer patients.

The study’s authors write: “Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death in women in the United States. Conventional treatment options are often limited by toxicity or acquired resistance, and novel agents are needed. We analyzed the effects of the Cannabis sativa constituent, cannabidiol (CBD), a potent, natural compound with reported activity in breast cancer cell lines, and elucidated its effects on key neoplastic pathways.”

The researchers believe that if CBD continues to reveal promising results in the library as more research is conducted, it has the potential to replace various conventional cancer treatments such as chemotherapy, which can damage and kill health cells, and its side effects are well known.

The researchers add: “We found that CBD inhibited the survival of both estrogen receptor-positive and estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer cell lines and induced apoptosis in a concentration-dependent manner. Moreover, at these concentrations, CBD had little effect on MCF-10A cells, nontumorigenic, mammary cells. These data enhance the desirability of CBD as an anticancer agent, because they suggest that CBD preferentially kills breast cancer cells, while minimizing damage to normal breast tissue.”

The Role of CBD in Apoptosis

In both of these studies, the ability of cannabis to induce apoptosis is credited as the most important benefit of CBD in treating breast cancer. However, it works with dozens of other forms of cancer as well.

Apoptosis is a normal process that occurs in all healthy cells. All cells, like living beings, go through a life cycle wherein they are born, live their lives, and then they die.

Healthy cells can die in one of two ways: necrosis, wherein external forces such as poison, injury, or infection damages the cell; and apoptosis, which is thought of as the cleanest form of cell death because it leads to cell regeneration and morphogenesis, which is the elimination of harmful cells while maintaining healthy tissue. Each day, around 50 to 70 billion cells in the human body die because of apoptosis, and this is a positive thing.

On the other hand, when it comes to cancer cells, apoptosis works differently because this function has been turned off. This is why malignant cancer cells don’t die and instead they spread and multiply. But the compounds in cannabis have been shown to be effective in inducing apoptosis through many ways, including reinforcement from the endocannabinoid system, treating inflammation, and strengthening the immune system.

Aside from cannabis, there are also other natural compounds that have been known to induce apoptosis in cancer cells. These include the curcumin content of turmeric, oleocanthal in olive oil, and the sulphoraphane in broccoli sprouts.

We are only starting to learn about the precise mechanisms at work in order to find out exactly how CBD causes cancer cell death. In other studies, CBD has been observed to elevate “reactive oxygen species”, or high levels of oxygen, in the body. When this happens, cancer cells can’t survive and will need to stay in anaerobic environments to do so. But CBD’s ability to elevate these reactive oxygen species is one way that it works to hasten cancer cell death.

Study Says CBD is Beneficial for Treating Breast Cancer from CannabisNet on Vimeo.