Cannabis extract cure's acute terminal leukemia in 14 y/o girl (?)

It's written well - but only 1 patient and no apparent control for external factors make it at least "sub optimal" as I understand these things.

however it should be noted that this is a case report, not a study ....and as the conclusion stastes this is evidence that might support a study:

However, the numerous research studies and this particular clinical case are powerful enough to warrant implementing clinical trials to determine dose ranges, cannabinoid profiles and ratios, the methods of administration that produce the most efficacious therapeutic responses and the reproducibility of the results. It is tempting to speculate that, with integration of this care in a setting of full medical and laboratory support, a better outcome may indeed be achieved in the future.
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I did like this bit:

After day 15, the original Chronic Strain had been consumed and administration of a new strain (referred to as Hemp Oil #2) was started. This was obtained by the family from an outside source.
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the family obtained various strains of hemp oil "from an outside source" through the "trial":D
 
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Not often is there an opportunity to study such a thing, this may be the beginning of something big?
Still to me it is compelling enough to personally opt for a cannabis extract treatment over chemo - but as you guys know I'm easily compelled lol
 
Not often is there an opportunity to study such a thing, this may be the beginning of something big?
Still to me it is compelling enough to personally opt for a cannabis extract treatment over chemo - but as you guys know I'm easily compelled lol
It's an interesting read but the sample size is one and the patient died during treatment so there is no way to determine the long term efficacy or that it is an actual cure. I think the author best sums it up:
It is acknowledged that significant research needs to be conducted to reproduce these results and that in vitro studies cannot always be reproduced in clinical trials and the human physiological microenvironment.
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Don't modern medicine yet, the paper's author of the certainly hasn't.
 
with this properly documented example in mind, how do you feel about considering the rumors that surround the treatment's efficacy? I'm talking about "rick simpson oil" and it's purported success in causing tumor remission?
 
At best, I would treat this as a reason to investigate further into the possible treatments. I wouldn't call it the strongest reason by any means, though. The patient received many treatments for her leukemia. The author claims that it can't be due to other treatments but there is no reason to certainly rule out, as the hemp oil treatment was started less than a month after cancer treatments were suspended. The fact that it is only one patient also makes it extremely weak as far as evidence goes. No way I would ever draw any conclusions from this, absolutely not. The curve, however, could signify a response.
Also, most studies I can find only point out a cytotoxic effect that cannabinoids have in-vitro on leukemia cell lines (or other cancer cell lines). That doesn't tell us what it does in the human body, and there are indeed studies that perform cytotoxic assays using cannabinoids on normal cells and the effect shows cytotoxicity. These show cytotoxic/suppressive effects on immunological and neuronal cells.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24184660
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23494106
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7523319
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21042286
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18552868

In fact, we normally use HL-60 cells (a leukemia cell line) when we want to test what effect a new drug might have on normal body cells because HL-60's are finicky and relatively fragile. This means that if a drug does not effect HL-60's it's not likely to damage human cells but the inverse is also true. So yes, much more research would be needed before saying that cannabinoids should be used as a cancer treatment.
 
with this properly documented example in mind, how do you feel about considering the rumors that surround the treatment's efficacy? I'm talking about "rick simpson oil" and it's purported success in causing tumor remission?
First of all you have to understand that cancer is not one disease but a family of diseases with different causes and symptoms. Keeping that in mind let's see what is claimed for Rick Simpson Oil. This is excerpted from High Times.
http://www.hightimes.com/read/rick-simpsons-hemp-oil-medicine
At around 10pm that night, while still at work, Simpson’s head began ringing. The ringing got louder and louder. By 3am, he was back in the emergency room seeking treatment. When the nurse checked his blood pressure, she was so alarmed that she immediately gave him a pill and called a doctor. The ringing never went away. ...Within a year, Simpson was having trouble remembering anything because he was taking 1,000 milligrams of Tegretol a day. ...A few months later, the doctor informed him that they had tried every possible treatment and nothing had worked, so Simpson was now on his own. He decided to stop taking pharmaceuticals and start eating cannabis oil exclusively. ...The ringing was still there, but now I could live with it. Within a few months, people saw the difference. The oil controlled the pain, my blood pressure, and it allowed me to sleep. I lost weight and looked 20 years younger.
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He admits that the ringing is still present so the cannabis did not solve his problem. He credits his improvement to cannabis oil but completely ignores the idea that Tegretol may not have been the best medicine for him and that his improvements may have come from not from starting the cannabis but stopping the Tegretol.
Possible side effects from Tegretol include:

  • pale skin, feeling light-headed, rapid heart rate, trouble concentrating;
  • fever, chills, sore throat, mouth and throat ulcers;
  • easy bruising or bleeding, severe tingling, numbness, pain, muscle weakness;
  • confusion, agitation, vision problems, hallucinations;
  • feeling short of breath, swelling of your ankles or feet;
  • urinating less than usual;
  • jaundice (yellowing of the skin or eyes); or
  • severe skin reaction -- fever, sore throat, swelling in your face or tongue, burning in your eyes, skin pain, followed by a red or purple skin rash that spreads (especially in the face or upper body) and causes blistering and peeling.
Less serious side effects may include:
  • feeling dizzy, drowsy, or unsteady;
  • nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, stomach pain;
  • headache, ringing in your ears;
  • dry mouth, swollen tongue; or
  • joint or muscle pain, leg cramps.
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http://www.rxlist.com/tegretol-drug/patient-images-side-effects.htm#sideeffects

For many years, Simpson had lived with three suspicious spots on his skin -- two on his face and one on his chest. “Yes, this looks like skin cancer,” his doctor said upon examining them. In January 2003, the doctor surgically removed the spot near Simpson’s eye and sent it in for a biopsy. A week later, Simpson was sitting at home when he recalled the 1974 news report about THC and cancer. “I knew I was supposed to go back and get the other two spots removed,” Simpson says. “When I removed the bandage from the spot they had removed, I noticed it looked red and infected, and there was pus coming out of it. That’s when the news report from 30 years earlier kicked in. I looked at the oil and I thought, ‘Well, this is full of THC, and I’ve probably got skin cancer.’ I put a little oil on two band-aids and covered the two little bumps. Four days later, I took the band-aids off and both bumps had disappeared.”

Within a few weeks, the cancer that had been surgically removed reappeared. So Simpson tried the same treatment and got the same results: Four days after treating himself with the cannabis oil, the red bump was gone and the skin had completely healed.
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This section has cannabis oil curing two separate conditions with different pathologies: cancer and infection
Simpson soon made a visit to his mother’s house. For years, she had suffered from weeping psoriasis. He applied the oil to her infected skin, and within a few weeks the sores were healed and the scales had disappeared.
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We now have a third unrelated disease. This one is an autoimmune disease.
“In the first year, I treated 50 to 60 people for various skin conditions.
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No claim of a cure here. He just says he treated various skin conditions. What were they? What was the outcome? It is left to you to assume that these people were successfully treated without explicitly making the claim.
....that’s when he mentioned to me he had glaucoma. I said, ‘Well, hemp is the best treatment for glaucoma.’ He was the first one to start eating the oil other than me. At that time, he also had arthritis and had to sleep with a pillow between his knees. About two weeks after taking the oil, he stopped sleeping with a pillow, and his ocular pressure was already way down
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We are up to four specific unrelated diseases. Smoking marijuana has been known to reduce ocular pressure in glaucoma patients for some time now. I don't know if any studies have been done related to ingested marijuana but I wouldn't be surprised to find similar effects.
Simpson became increasingly confident of the oil’s healing properties after it was successfully used by several people with internal cancers. Even patients with Stage 4 terminal cancer -- people who had been given only weeks to live -- were miraculously brought back to health...Simpson estimates that his success rate with terminal-cancer patients is about 70%.
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We now have claims for nonspecific cancers. Given the number of different cancers and the diversity of their causes it is hard to evaluate this claim. There is no real information to use in making a judgement.
Not only did the oil heal diabetic ulcers with a topical application, it also cured diabetes and allowed some patients to stop using insulin
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Two new claims here for two different new pathologies.

I am stopping here. It has now been claimed that cannabis oil cures: Skin cancer, Non-specific internal cancers even in the terminal stages, Infection, Psoriasis, Glaucoma, Diabetic Ulcers (external skin ulcers), and Diabetes. All of these claims are strictly anecdotal and there is no mention of any studies supporting these results.
This is just my opinion but anytime someone tells me they have a miracle drug that cures myriad diseases with with multiple unrelated causes and symptoms and they have nothing but anecdotal evidence to support their claims alarm bells start going off in my head and I'm reminded of the adage that starts "if something seems to good to be true".
 
the pubmed articles linked look at THC specifically and synthetic cannabidol - there are hundreds of fatty acids produced by the plant in question that are yet to be cataloged, and, what functions they might play in the body we don't yet know. when we administer the wide variety of fatty acids contained in concentrated hemp oil we see remission concerning cancer cells (is what is generally claimed) and concerning specifically leukemia cells in the case study first linked.

""if something seems to good to be true" - you must keep an open mind, Bill.

I'm glad we all agree that further investigation is warranted. The next decade or so will be interesting IMO
 
the pubmed articles linked look at THC specifically and synthetic cannabidol - there are hundreds of fatty acids produced by the plant in question that are yet to be cataloged, and, what functions they might play in the body we don't yet know. when we administer the wide variety of fatty acids contained in concentrated hemp oil we see remission concerning cancer cells (is what is generally claimed) and concerning specifically leukemia cells in the case study first linked.

""if something seems to good to be true" - you must keep an open mind, Bill.

I'm glad we all agree that further investigation is warranted. The next decade or so will be interesting IMO
I do keep an open mind but claims are being made for more than cancer. If you look at the first case study you posted the doctor noted positive results and said:
It is acknowledged that significant research needs to be conducted to reproduce these results and that in vitro studies cannot always be reproduced in clinical trials and the human physiological microenvironment.
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Contrast that with the claims from Rick Simpson who has conducted no scientific studies. According to the linked article "Rick Simpson Oil":
1) Cures not only melanoma (topical application) but a variety of internal cancers (ingested) and on top of that has a 70 percent success rate in curing stage 4 terminal cancers. Cancer is a family of diseases where the body's cells divide uncontrollably causing tumors and invading other parts of the body.
2) Cures infections - the invasion of the body by disease causing organisms. From this it can be assumed it acts as an antibiotic.
3) Cures Psoriasis - An autoimmune disorder. It is treated topically (the way it is described by Simpson) with a number of different compounds.
4) Treats Glaucoma - Relieves pressure in the eye.
5) Cures Diabetes allowing people to stop using insulin - This would mean that his oil regulates sugar levels and insulin production.
6) Cures diabetic ulcers - To do this it would have to promote blood flow and cell growth to the treated area (this is the exact opposite of what it would have to due to treat melanoma when applied topically).
http://www.hightimes.com/read/rick-simpsons-hemp-oil-medicine
It is one thing to keep an open mind and still question the claims made by a miracle cure. It is another thing to accept these claims without proof and have a mind that is so open you keep getting distracted by the sound of the wind whistling through your ears.

Remember pointing out that someone is making outlandish, unsupported claims for a product they are trying to sell is not the same as a blanket dismissal. It could be that studies will prove that cannabis oil is the one miracle cure that the world is waiting for and Rick Simpson is on his way to Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Medicine but right now we have no studies to back up his claims and a lot of marketing designed to promote an untested, unregulated product.
 
the pubmed articles linked look at THC specifically and synthetic cannabidol - there are hundreds of fatty acids produced by the plant in question that are yet to be cataloged

THC can and usually does make it into hemp oil in relatively small amounts and synthetic cannabinoids are no different from organic ones.
The case study we are talking about references cannabinoids interacting the CB receptors as a mechanism. Some of the articles I posted investigate the same interaction. I wouldn't say hundreds, we already know the composition of hemp oil fatty acids. It's also not the fatty acids that are the active ingredient in hemp oil, it's the cannabinoids. Those cannabinoids have not been demonstrated to cure cancer safely in the human body but they have not been rigorously studied enough to say whether or not they are useful in treatment.
I keep an open mind about it but I don't think we will likely see cannabis cancer treatments in the future. As for the case study, what may be happening is the oil is carrying out immunosuppressive acts and is indiscriminately effecting the growth of all immune cells (cancerous or not). Another possibility is that the previous cancer treatments actually worked, which is quite common in these stories.

http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk...cure-for-brain-cancer-headline-is-misleading/
 
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