Using Marijuana for Suppressing Immune Functions

Suppressing Immune
Functions with Marijuana

A novel pathway through
which marijuana can suppress the body’s immune functions has been discovered by
a team of University of South Carolina researchers led by Mitzi Nagarkatti,
Prakash Nagarkatti, and Xiaoming Yang. 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 drug, the researchers say.

Marijuana 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: 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.

source: msf

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