Meta-Analysis Looks at Thousands Cannabis Studies on Cancer
Treating and managing cancer symptoms is one of the top medical uses of cannabis. Cannabis medicines are given to patients who undergo chemotherapy to offer relief from pain and nausea. One of the biggest studies ever to look at cancer-related medicinal uses of cannabis is now out and it gives us interesting insights.
Tommy Chong swore it was cannabis that helped him cure his prostate cancer. Late and beloved Olivia Newton-John, who’s fought breast cancer for decades, called it the “magical miracle plant.” Around the world, millions of people embed medical cannabis as part of their cancer therapy.
American researchers with the Whole Health Oncology Institute and Chopra Foundation conducted a meta-analysis of thousands of studies on cannabis. Their goal? To find out more about the therapeutic effect of cannabis, its safety profile, and pin down its role in cancer treatment. Over 10,000 peer-reviewed science papers were subject of this effort, which also included sentiment analysis and machine learning.
The study was recently published in the journal Frontiers in Oncology, and is pertinent to public health research and clinical practice, as well as to discussions regarding the legality and availability of medicinal cannabis.
There’s Growing Consensus Among Scientists About Cancer and Cannabis
The study sumps up almost 40,000 data units, showing “a significant consensus” in favor of medical cannabis about various health metrics relevant to cancer. Scientists tracked a consistency of positive sentiments across a wider range of studies, saying that cannabis should be re-evaluated within the medical community as a treatment option.
“The aggregated correlation strength of cannabis across all cancer topics indicates that support for medical cannabis is 31.38× stronger than opposition to it,” wrote the researchers. “The analysis highlighted the anti-inflammatory potential of cannabis, its use in managing cancer-related symptoms such as pain, nausea, and appetite loss, and explored the consensus on its use as an anticarcinogenic agent.”
Oncological Palliative Care and Pain Relief
The meta-analysis underlines that cannabis has most frequent use during palliative care of cancer patients, when it’s given to combat the side effects of chemotherapy. The analgesic properties of medicinal marijuana have been extensively studied, showing high efficacy in regulating pain among cancer patients. As it is well known, the healing effects are achieved through engagement of the major cannabinoids (THC and CBD) with the body’s cannabinoid receptors (CB1 and CB2).
Efficacy of Treatment
Clinical evidence supports the efficacy of cannabinoids in addressing chemotherapy-caused nausea and improving appetite in cancer patients. Scanning patient-reported outcome metrics indicates that 70%-90% of patients who used cannabis to directly treat cancer symptoms such as pain, nausea and cachexia, reported improvements. Less than 5% reported adverse reactions.
Anticarcinogenic Agent
Preclinical studies have shown that cannabinoids can induce apoptosis (cancer cells’ death) as well as inhibit growth of various types of tumors.
Other Conclusions
Scientists describe cancer as not being “a monolithic disease but a collection of highly heterogeneous malignancies.” Each type of cancer has unique genetic, molecular and histopathological characteristics that affect its progression and response to treatment.
Vice versa, different cannabis-based preparations would generate different outcomes in cancer patients. Most studies encompassed in the meta-analysis primarily focus on CBD, largely due to regulatory restrictions on THC. CBD in isolation has been shown to produce anti-inflammatory, pro-apoptotic (causing cell death) and antiproliferative (inhibiting cancer cells’ growth) effect in preclinical cancer models. Full-extract cannabis, which contains THC and other bioactive compounds, may act as even more powerful anti-cancer agent.
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Stephen Andrews
