One of the worst things you can hear from your doctor is “You have cancer”. Cancer ravages the bodies of those afflicted by it, as the disease destroys healthy cells in your body, eventually spreading to various organs before it eventually claims your life. Treatment for cancer is hardly conclusive either, as there is no set way to treat the disease that’s 100% effective.
In recent years researchers have begun exploring how cannabis can be used to treat cancer, more specifically cannabinoids. This substance is the other major element in marijuana, oftentimes taking a backseat to THC, which is the substance that makes users feel high. Unlike THC, cannabinoids (or CBD) don’t make you feel high and has a huge number of health benefits to users. Researchers taking a look at the medicine have found that CBD oil is an extremely efficient way to treat cancer.
How Does CBD Oil Treat Cancer?
- Increase's ceramide synthesis which drives cell death
- Pushes cytochrome C out of the cell mitochondria, killing the energy source for the cancer cell
- Causes genotoxic stress in the cancer cell nucleus generating protein p53
- Relieves pain associated with modern cancer treatments
There are many questions as to how CBD can work to alleviate the symptoms of cancer. Does it fight it directly? Does it counteract the side-effects of the disease? Can it help cancer patients deal with pain? The answer to all of these questions is an emphatic yes, at lease when you ask many of the people using CBD oil to fight their cancers.
There hasn’t been a ton of direct research on CBD by formal medical researchers in the United States. This mainly stems from the fact that marijuana is considered to be illegal on a federal level, and the government has been extremely reluctant to okay full medical trials on the plant. In countries like the United Kingdom, there has been other research into CBD’s role in fighting cancer, and the results have been promising.
It appears the chemical makeup in cannabinoids can fight the cancer cells themselves, breaking them up and causing them to die before they can attack other healthy cells in the body. Other studies believe that CBD oil can actually help slow and stop the advancement of the cells.
How Can CBD Oil Help Manage Cancer Side-Effects
While many of the studies above are still in progress or don’t have conclusive data, users have raved about cannabinoids and how they fight cancer for years. Thousands of cancer patients around the world use CBD oil to treat their cancer and claim that the substance is effective in fighting some of the side effects they experience with the disease.
Side effects of cancer treatment medications are some of the toughest things to deal with for cancer patients. Chemotherapy and radiation make your hair fall out, cause you to lose weight, lose your appetite, and become weak. There are also other side effects like fatigue, depression, sleep issues, nausea, and many more.
Fortunately for users CBD oil has been found to treat nearly all of the above symptoms (save for hair loss). Users claim that many of their cancer-related ailments are either completely healed or have the effects diminished to the point where they’re manageable.
How to Use CBD Oil to Treat Cancer
If you want to use CBD oil to treat your cancer there are multiple ways you can use the substance. Some of these ways include:
- Topical use- You can directly apply oil infused with cannabinoids directly to the area of your body causing discomfort. This is effective for joints and other areas that are aching, but the medicine does take a while to kick in, so don’t expect immediate relief.
- Oral use- While CBD oil doesn’t necessarily taste great, you can ingest it for fast treatment of symptoms. The best way to do this is to drop it underneath your tongue for as long as possible as it absorbs faster into your system. It only takes a few drops to have a full dose, and you will start to feel relief in just a minute or so.
- Vaping- There are certain CBD oils and compounds that are safe for vaporizing in both handheld and tabletop machines. Using the substance in this way is similar to smoking a plant, albeit with no odor or much flavor whatsoever. A lot of oil here will go a long way, and is a viable way to make yourself feel better.
Conclusion
CBD Oil is gaining a reputation among both researchers and users as a way to fight cancer and the side effects of the medicine needed to beat it. There’s a lot of research left to be done before things are conclusive, but the future certainly appears to be bright for the substance to be seen as a mainstream treatment.
