CBD Effective for Killing Treatment-Resistant Lung Cancer Stem Cells

Published in November 2021 in the journal Pharmaceuticals, this was an in-vitro study of the effect of CBD on lung cancer stem cells. The presence of these stem cells may explain why conventional treatments have been underwhelming in their effectiveness.

The study used spheres enriched with lung cancer stem sells and adherent lung cancer cells. They measured several important variables related to the the inhibition or growth of cancer stem cells, including effector caspases 3/7, pro-apoptopic proteins, reactive oxygen species, mitochondrial membrane potential, and self-renewal. CBD was effective in improving each of these these metrics.

"We found that CBD decreased viability and induced cell death in both cell populations. We also found that CBD decreased self-renewal, a hallmark of cancer stem cells. Overall, our results suggest that CBD is effective against the otherwise treatment-resistant cancer stem cells and joins a growing list of compounds effective against cancer stem cells."

The paper abstract is available from PubMed.gov here.