A new study has shown that a compound in cannabis 'destroys' cancerous tumours in leukaemia.
Researchers at St George's, University of London, found that if you combine chemotherapy treatments with cannabinoids, there are better results than through chemo alone.
This means that a lower dose of chemo can be used on sufferers, which would lower the amount of side effects from the treatment. They also found that if you use chemotherapy and follow this up with cannabinoids (rather than the other way around) it results in a greater death of the blood cancer cells, reports the Mail.
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Dr Wai Liu, lead author of the study, said: "We have shown for the first time that the order in which cannabinoids and chemotherapy are used is crucial in determining the overall effectiveness of this treatment."
The report, published in the International Journal of Oncology, explains that the team of researchers paired different types of cannabinoids during their study, and tested them by combining them with common leukemia chemotherapy drugs, cytarabine and vincristine.
They found that by using certain cannabinoids with chemo treatment (in the order of chemo first then cannabinoids) there was greater induction of apoptosis - or 'death of the cancer cells', to you and me.
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However, if it was done the other way around, the opposite was true.
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Dr Wai Liu continued: "Studies such as ours serve to establish the best ways that they should be used to maximise a therapeutic effect."
However, the team were very keen to emphasise that more trials should be undertaken to back up their findings.
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Anna Perman, senior science information manager at Cancer Research UK, agreed that more trials are needed, telling the paper: "This research in cells doesn't provide evidence that cannabinoids are safe or effective for patients.
"Researchers have been studying potential cancer-fighting chemicals found in cannabis for a while - but like any new treatment, these should only be used to treat patients once there's evidence that they improve outcomes.
"This is not to say that cannabinoids have no future role in cancer treatment, and Cancer Research UK supports clinical trials to treat cancer with cannabinoid drugs.
"But as it stands, we still need proper trials to know if they are effective, for what types of cancer, and at what dose."
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Dr Wai Liu also added that smoking cannabis would not have the same effect as their trials: "These extracts are highly concentrated and purified, so smoking marijuana will not have a similar effect."
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