CBD allows chemotherapy to kill cancer from inside

Research: CBD allows chemotherapy to kill cancer "From the inside"

Introducing chemotherapeutic drugs directly into cancer cells without harming healthy cells is the latest word in cancer research - but there are chemotherapy drugs that cannot penetrate the cancer cell easily. Combining the chemotherapeutic drug with cannabidiol (CBD) allows it to penetrate and kill the cancer cell from the inside - according to a new Israeli study conducted at the Hebrew University.

A new study from the Hebrew University published last month in the Frontiers in Pharmacology Journal found that combining chemotherapy with cannabidiol (CBD), the major non-drug ingredient in cannabis, allows it to be injected directly into the cancer cells to improve its efficacy and reduce its side effects.

Researchers have developed a new method for injecting chemotherapeutic drugs directly into cancer cells, through small channels that exist in them, called "TRP channels." In their previous studies, they have already been able to inject several different types of drugs directly into the malignant cells by this method.

The benefit of the new method is significant - targeting the drug solely to the cancer cells prevents it from damaging the healthy cells around, significantly reducing the side effects of the treatment and increasing its effectiveness.

In the present study, the researchers tried to use the same method to inject the doxorubicin (Doxorubicin) chemotherapy drug directly into liver cancer cells and actually kill them from the inside. Doxorubicin is a very effective drug for treating various types of cancer, but it also damages the healthy cells in the body and causes serious side effects, and can even cause heart failure.

The researchers hypothesized that introducing doxorubicin directly into the cancer cells through the TRP channels using the method they developed would significantly reduce the side effects of the drug and increase its efficacy. However, doxorubicin is very difficult to penetrate through the TRP channels, and this is where the CBD comes into play.
CBD improves chemotherapy penetration into cancer cells

The researchers found that CBD has the ability to activate a protein called TRPV2, and its activation opens the TRP channels in liver cancer cells, allowing doxorubicin to enter. In other words, CBD allows chemotherapy to be inserted directly into and out of cancer cells, thus preventing damage to the surrounding healthy cells.

CBD is not the only material capable of opening the TRP trenches - it has previously been discovered a substance called 2-APB that does just that. In the present study, the researchers compared the efficacy of doxorubicin treatment with both CBD and 2-APB, and found that the drug with CBD was much more effective and required significantly lower doses.

"We have shown that a combination of CBD or 2-APB, which activates the TRP channels, together with doxorubicin results in significantly higher concentrations of doxorobocin in liver cancer cells compared to cells exposed to doxorubicin alone," the study's findings conclude.

“In addition, we have shown that low doses of doxorubicin in combination with 2-APB or CBD result in a significant decrease in the number of living liver cancer cells and their colonies compared to doxorubicin alone. Finally, we have also shown that combining doxorubicin with CBD kills far more liver cancer cells and their colonies than do doxorubicin with 2-APB. ”

The study was led by Professor Alexander Beinstock of the Faculty of Medicine and the Neuroscience Unit at the Hebrew University, with a team of researchers from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and also from Sha'arei Tzedek Hospital and the School of Medicine in Hanover, Germany.

"Because in the study we used a chemo component that is already in clinical use, once we can complete the concept feasibility in laboratory animals, the transition to the next stage of human experimentation may be shorter," Prof. Binstock replied when asked how long the new method could be used for patients cancer. "It's still early to predict, but we're hopeful we have what can be defined as light at the end of the tunnel."

A study published last year found that the survival time of pancreatic cancer mice is significantly prolonged when CBD is added to their chemotherapy compared to chemotherapy alone.