Cannabis may help nine of the most common symptoms of cancer and cancer treatments, the most remarkable thing about the herb is its anti-cancer properties.
The ability of cannabis compounds to successfully kill cancer and tumor cells is currently a major area of investigation for biopharmaceutical companies and research institutions.
In laboratory and animal models, both THC and CBD have been found to trigger cell death, halt proliferation, and prevent the spread of cancer cells. They have also been found to block blood vessel formation in tumor cells, essentially starving the growths.
In a 2017 proof of concept study conducted by GW Pharmaceuticals, 21 patients with a severe and aggressive form of brain cancer (recurrent glioblastoma multiforme) were treated with a cannabis-based medicine.
Patients treated with the cannabis-based medicine had an 83 percent chance of surviving at least one year. Those treated with the placebo only had a 53 percent one-year survival rate.
Similarly, those treated with the cannabis-based medicine had a median survival rate of 550 days, while that number was only 369 days for the placebo group.
While this research is preliminary, many medical cannabis patients opt to take high doses of medical cannabis oil in an effort to take advantage of some of the anti-cancer properties of cannabis. Though, there is no high-quality scientific evidence to say whether or not this is a good idea.