The Leaf THE LEAF Jan-Feb 2019 | Page 29

Without new vessels, the tumour couldn’t expand. Thus one of the best ways to combat cancer growth is by limiting the ability of the body to generate new blood vessels. That’s anti-angiogenesis. And cannabis happens to be particularly effective at that. New blood vessel growth is regulated in part by the body’s endocannabinoid system, so when cannabinoids enter the body and react with that system, it interferes with cancer’s ability to force new blood vessel growth. By taking up room in the protein receptors, cannabinoids prevent cancer from commandeering and directing the body’s new growth functionality — at least to a point. In this study, tumour growth was significantly slowed, although not completely stopped. And, amazingly, this happens to work against cancer cells, but not against normal new blood vessel growth. Cannabis Stops Metastasis for All Tumour Types As tumours grow, some cancer cells acquire the ability to escape the primary mass and proceed to invade surrounding tissues or migrate to distant sites, where they found new colonies. This is known as metastasis. It’s what responsible for most human deaths from cancer. These rogue cells invade healthy tissue, grow new tumours, and limit the body’s organs form fulfilling their life-preserving duties. So the best way to prolong cancer patients’ lives are to ensure that these cells don’t escape tumour masses and find new cancer sites. That’s where CBD comes in. Cannabinoids play a key role in cell migration, invasion and metastasis. Specifically, CBD has proven anti- proliferative effects on glioma cancer cells by inducing something called apoptosis. From the Greek for “falling off,” apoptosis can be best be understood as a cell’s self- destruct sequence. It’s how the body rids itself of bad or non-performing cells. Cancer can fool the body into thinking that tumorous cells aren’t bad and shouldn’t undergo apoptosis, but CBD has been found to mess with that ability and allow the body to kill the cancerous cells. CBD Can Lead to Tumour Shrinkage Studies have also shown that CBD aids tumour regression. One found that cancer in mice was reduced by 70 percent in 18 days after they were treated with CBD. Again, this was glioma (a particularly nasty type of cancer that starts in the brain and spine), but the researchers suggest that the anti-tumour activity associated with CBD could be carried over into other cancers. The way scientific research works means that cancer treatments will be approached whack- a-mole style — one at a time. For example, cannabis has to be proven to treat lung cancer and brain cancer individually. So the only way we’ll know if cannabis is the panacea against cancer that we all hope it to be, is to find that out one disease at a time. urhealthinfo.com/2018/12/01/cannabis-kills- all-types-of-cancer- cells-that-science-has- tested-so-far/