Posted on 08/13/2005 12:00:36 PM PDT by traumer
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Derivatives of the active compound in cannabis -- cannabinoids -- may have the potential for treating inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, UK researchers report.
"The system that responds to cannabis in the brain is present and functioning in the lining of the gut," lead researcher Dr. Karen Wright, of the University of Bath, explained to Reuters Health. "There is an increased presence of one component of this system during inflammatory bowel diseases," she explained.
Wright and her colleagues established the location of cannabinoid receptors CB1 and CB2 in human colon tissue, and used human colon cell lines to investigate the binding of cannabinoid compounds and in wound-healing experiments. They report their findings in the journal Gastroenterology
The team found that CB2 was increased in colonic tissue characteristic of inflammatory bowel disease. Cannabinoids enhanced surface wound closure via CB1-related mechanisms.
"Cannabinoids, which we make ourselves, as well as synthetic cannabinoids, can promote wound healing in the gut, which is extremely interesting given that inflammatory bowel disease involves damaged gut linings," Wright said.
Although results are available yet, she added, relevant studies of the use of cannabinoids are taking place in the UK and a clinical trial is being conducted in Germany.
With your luck it'll be a suppository, without THC ~ a very large suppository too!
Well, I'm conservative, anti-islam.. Anti-libertarian. I'm not christian. Or Jewish. Though I respect Jews the most, and lean towards that area as the earliest source.
A lot of people on here say if you're against legal drugs, you're a liberal. Well, liberals and DU is incredibly pro-drugs. George Soros is a major backer of pot.
All these libertarian pro-pot people are actually just unwitting tools of the Soros side.
Ah, I get it. A person couldn't possibly love liberty for its own sake, eh? That's absurd on the face of it, yet some people persist in believing it.
I don't smoke pot. That's not required for one to know that larger government is a bad thing. I don't own a gun, either, but not owning a gun doesn't make me any less pro-Second Amendment.
Tell me something, friend: do you only support Liberty as far as the limits of your own personal interests?
I see the drug business as being competitive with the idea of free governance among a free people. You really can't have part of your population free and part of it un-free and expect to have liberty.
So we should ban alcohol and tobacco because addictions to those drugs leave addicts un-free?
So since Soros wears pants, conservatives should stop wearing pants?
Nonsense. According to research cited by the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine, of all those who have ever used marijuana only 9% ever became dependent (the corresponding figure for alcohol is 15% ).
So should both be legal and regulated, or should both be illegal?
They may be regulated in different manners. Dopers should live in fear. Beer should be for sale in the Safeway neighbor!
P. S. All of this "marijuana cures everything" talk is nothing more than simple misdirection. I don't know of marijuana "curing" anything...well, perhaps with the possible exception of intractable hiccups
On day eight the patient, who had not smoked marijuana before, smoked marijuana, and his hiccups stopped. They recurred on day nine and on day ten the patient again smoked marijuana; hiccups stopped immediately and did not recur.
They may be regulated in different manners. Dopers should live in fear. Beer should be for sale in the Safeway neighbor!
But why? What do you mean by "may?" Do you mean "can be regulated," or do you mean "should be regulated"? I can address either obligation.
Let's say you meant "should be regulated". If your position is really that we can't legalize pot because pot addicts can't truly be free, and alcohol is far more addictive by any measure, why should we allow beer to be sold at the Safeway?
Now let's look at "can be regulated". Do you mean it's easier to control dope growers and sellers than booze brewers and sellers? Beer may be made at home, just as dope may be grown in one's garden. So it's no more possible to control illegal booze than it is illegal dope.
So never mind, it obviously doesn't really matter what you meant - your argument is weak either way.
I do not currently smoke pot. It's not something I'd do, but frankly the government puts out a whole lot of false information about it, as do the anti drug groups. It's just not the problem they want us to believe it is, nor is it as dangerous as they want us to believe it is. Personally, if we are going to fight drugs, meth is a much more important issue with which to be concerned.
The only problem is that pot isn't a dangerous drug any more than alcohol is a dangerous drug. Overindulgence of alcohol causes more problems than any pot smoking that is going on.
You have my sympathy for your disease. Shortly after we were married my (now) ex-husband developed ulcerative colitis. He's been on prednisone since 92 along with lomotil and other drugs to control the uncontrolled explosive diarrhea that's one of his symptoms.
Like you, he has the moon face and has a weight problem. He also takes periodic doses of fosomax (sp?) for osteoporosis. He also was diagnosed in 96 with chronic lymphocytic leukemia so has a suppressed immune system too. He's never had to have surgery for the colitis but has had several due to the leukemia. (tonsilectomy, gall bladder, sinus, surgical implantation of drains to treat staph infections, to name a few)
Currently everything is managable with the varied medications/chemo regime he undergoes. If marijuana could be found to be an effective treatment for his UC, then more power to it.
My condolences to you and your family. I've been living with Crohns for more than 20 years now, and I've always considered myself very lucky. I've only needed emergency surgery once, and the only other time it was life threatening was when it involved my esophogus, and I was unable to eat or drink anything for almost 3 weeks, but huge doses of prednisone brought it under control.
People don't seem to realize just how serious inflammatory bowel diseases are, and most don't realize that there are people who die from them.
And unfortunately, many seem to be "drug warriors" who will deride any research that might possibly involve something that they don't approve of.
Again, I'm terribly sorry for your loss.
Mark
Funny, I don't recall ever having "to try." I didn't experiment with pot. I had a fully funded research project going! lol
I was a stoner in highschool, in fact we used to go out during the break during the night drivers education classes, between the classroom lecture and the movies they'd show, and get stoned. We'd occasionally get stoned during the day as well. Heck, the guy I used to buy pot from would accept personal checks from me! But that was 30 years ago.
I decided that smoking pot and drinking was keeping me from doing things that I wanted to do, so I simply stopped using pot. I didn't have "to try." I just stopped. I never felt the need to start using it again, either. And I had lots of offers over the next few years.
Mark
Why illegal? Because your freedom ends where another man's nose begins(no pun intended). People who think, that doing drugs and drinking drugs, don't effect other people are crazy. When you screw your mind up to that degree, you will do damage to people around you. Maybe only in the form of neglect, if not anything else.
You can look at the medical side of this. If in fact any drug can help a medical illness or injury of some sort, I say, go ahead and use it. And by the way, I think the way doctors prescribe legal drugs often times is downright dangerous and unhealthy for the patient. But either way you look at it, drugs should be handled with much more caution than many people are willing to use.
It makes you wonder.
BS
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