Would treating inflammation post-stroke be helpful?
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http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-06-marijuana-potential-autoimmune-disease.html
A team of University of South Carolina researchers led by Mitzi
Nagarkatti, Prakash Nagarkatti and Xiaoming Yang have discovered a novel
pathway through which marijuana can suppress the body's immune
functions. Their research has been published online in the
Journal of Biological Chemistry.
Marijuana is the most frequently used illicit
drug in the United States, but as more states legalize the drug for
medical and even recreational purposes, research studies like this one
are discovering new and innovative potential health applications for the
federal Schedule I dMarijuana is now regularly and successfully used to alleviate the
nausea and vomiting many cancer patients experience as side effects to
chemotherapy, combat the wasting syndrome that causes some AIDS patients
to lose significant amounts of weight and muscle mass and ease chronic
pain that is unresponsive to opioids, among other applications.
The university study has uncovered yet another potential application for
marijuana, in the suppression of immune response to treat
autoimmune diseases.
The work builds on recent scientific discoveries that the environment
in which humans live can actually trigger changes that occur outside of
human DNA, but nevertheless can cause alterations to the function of
genes controlled by DNA. These outside molecules that have the ability
to alter DNA function are known collectively as the epigenome. In this
study, the investigators wanted to find out if the tetrahydrocannabinol
found in marijuana has the capacity to affect DNA expression through
epigenetic pathways outside of the DNA itself.
The recent findings show that marijuana THC can change critical
molecules of epigenome called histones, leading to suppression of
inflammation. These results suggest that one potential negative impact
of marijuana smoking could be suppression of beneficial inflammation in
the body. But they also suggest that, because of its epigenetic
influence toward inflammation suppression, marijuana use could be
efficacious in the treatment of autoimmune diseases such as arthritis,
lupus, colitis, multiple sclerosis and the like, in which
chronic inflammation plays a central role.
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