Marijuana May Stop The Spread Of HIV, Study Finds

The Huffington Post  | by  Carly Schwartz

Posted: 02/11/2014 12:11 pm EST Updated: 02/11/2014 5:00 pm EST

Marijuana has long been used to effectively treat symptoms associated with HIV, such as chronic pain and weight loss. But a growing body of research suggests the plant may be able to stop the spread of the disease itself.

Adding to these findings is a Louisiana State University study published last week in the journal AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses. For 17 months, scientists administered a daily dose of THC, an active ingredient in cannabis, to monkeys infected with an animal form of the virus. Over the course of that period, scientists found that damage to immune tissue in the primates' stomachs, one of the most common areas in the body for HIV infection to spread, decreased.

"These findings reveal novel mechanisms that may potentially contribute to cannabinoid-mediated disease modulation," Dr. Patricia Molina, the study's lead author, wrote. The report goes on to explain that while HIV spreads by infecting and killing off immune cells, the monkeys that received the daily THC treatments maintained higher levels of healthy cells.

Similar research spearheaded by Molina in 2011 found that infected monkeys treated with THC had a better chance of surviving. And a report published in 2012 pointed to evidence that marijuana-like compounds can fight HIV in late-stage AIDS patients.

Last year, an oncologist from the United Kingdom found that marijuana compounds can kill cancer cells in leukemia patients, and scientists at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco have conducted research that suggests those compounds can also effectively combat other forms of aggressive cancer.

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Studies: Marijuana May Help Hepatitis C Sufferers

Posted on August 30, 2013 at 9:14 am by David Downs in Health

Hepatitis C is an often-fatal viral disease of the liver afflicting about four million Americans. Chronic hepatitis C infection causes fatigue, depression, joint pain and liver impairment, including cirrhosis and liver cancer. There is no cure.

Interestingly, patients diagnosed with hepatitis C often report using cannabis to treat both symptoms of the disease and the nausea associated with antiviral therapy, and there’s some science to back it up.

“An observational study by investigators at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) found that hepatitis C patients who used cannabis were significantly more likely to adhere to their treatment regimen than patients who didn’t use it,” writes TheAnswerPage.com today. TheAnswerPage.com is co-sponsored by The Massachusetts Medical Society, publisher of the New England Journal of Medicine, as part of their continuing medical education of physicians.

“Preclinical data indicate that the endocannabinoid system may moderate aspects of chronic liver disease and that cannabinoids [– the active ingredients in pot -] may reduce inflammation in experimental models of hepatitis,” TheAnswerPage.com writes.

“Cannabis use improves retention and virological outcomes in patients treated for hepatitis C,” one study concludes.

“Writing in the October 2006 issue of the European Journal of Gastroenterology, investigators from Canada and Germany concluded that cannabis”potential benefits of a higher likelihood of treatment success [for hepatitis c patients] appear to outweigh [its] risks.’

“Nevertheless, no clinical trials assessing the use of cannabinoids for this indication are available in the scientific literature,” TheAnswerPage writes, and “some experts discourage the use of cannabis in patients with chronic hepatitis, until further studies are performed.”

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Marijuana May Not Exacerbate Liver Disease in At-Risk Patients

Reuters Health Information

Jul 25, 2013

By Rob Goodier

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Jul 25 - Marijuana smoking doesn't appear to accelerate liver disease progression in HIV patients with hepatitis C coinfection, a new prospective study from Canada has found.

"Based on previous studies, physicians have counseled patients that marijuana is harmful to their livers," Dr. Marina Klein, of McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, told Reuters Health by email.

"The results of our study suggest that physicians can reassure their patients that marijuana use, while it may have other deleterious effects, likely will not make their liver disease progress more rapidly," said Dr. Klein, who led the study, published online June 28 in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Patients in Canada can apply for permission to use marijuana for medicinal purposes. The United States has conflicting marijuana laws. The federal government outlaws it, but 18 states allow for medicinal use, including two, Colorado and Washington, that also allow for recreational use.

The researchers followed up with 690 patients at 17 Canadian HIV clinics for an average of 2.7 years. The patients had HIV-hepatitis C coinfection at baseline, but did not have significant liver fibrosis (aspartate aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio (APRI) < 1.5).

At baseline, more than half of the patients said they had smoked marijuana in the past six months (median, seven joints per week) and 40% of those did so daily. A similar proportion said they used the drug for symptom relief.

In the course of the study, 19% of the patients reached an APRI score of 1.5, and 15% percent progressed to a score of 2. Eight patients, representing 1.2% of the study group, developed cirrhosis and 11, or 1.6%, developed end-stage liver disease (ESLD).

On multivariate analysis, there was no link between marijuana smoking and progression to liver disease based on the APRI score.

The researchers did find an association between marijuana use and progression to a clinical diagnosis of cirrhosis, with a hazard ratio of 1.33 per 10 additional joints per week. But when they reevaluated the findings using a lagged model of marijuana exposure, the association became statistically insignificant.

The lagged model measured marijuana use six to 12 months before the period during which liver disease developed, while the main model measured marijuana use during the same time that liver disease was diagnosed.

"The idea, really, was to make sure that smoking started before the participants got a liver problem and using the exposure and outcome at the same interval doesn't allow that (e.g. patients may have simply increased their use because they had symptoms of a disease that was already present). When we did this, it no longer looks as though marijuana is associated with any of the outcomes we investigated," Dr. Klein said.

That bias may explain some of the associations found between marijuana use and liver disease in past studies, she added.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/12LdD5o

Clin Infect Dis 2013.

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Marijuana not associated with liver disease progression in HIV/HCV coinfection

Provided by Healio

Brunet L. Clin Infect Dis. 2013;doi:10.1093/cid/cit378.

July 10, 2013

Smoking marijuana did not lead to liver disease progression among people coinfected with HIV and hepatitis C, researchers from McGill University have found.

“The literature regarding the effects of cannabis on liver diseases is conflicting,” the researchers wrote in Clinical Infectious Diseases. “Cell culture and animal model studies support that cannabinoids could have a therapeutic effect on liver injury and fibrosis progression. However, three cross-sectional studies in patients with chronic HCV suggest that daily cannabis use is associated with fibrosis and steatosis.”

The study included 690 patients who were positive for HCV but did not have significant fibrosis or end-stage liver disease (ESLD). The patients were part of the Canadian Coinfection Cohort and visited their providers every 6 months, contributing to 1,875.3 person-years of follow-up, with a median follow-up time of 2.7 years. At each visit, they reported their marijuana use, including how often they smoked and the amount they consumed.

At baseline, 53% of the patients reported smoking marijuana in the past 6 months. The median consumption was seven joints per week, and 40% of the patients smoked daily. Among the patients, 19.1% developed liver fibrosis and 14.8% developed cirrhosis, according to APRI score. Eleven patients developed ESLD and eight patients developed clinical cirrhosis.

Multivariate analysis showed that marijuana use was not associated with fibrosis or cirrhosis as measured by APRI score. Smoking marijuana did accelerate progression to clinical cirrhosis (HR=1.33 per 10 joints/week; 95% CI, 1.09-1.62). Marijuana smoking was also associated with an increased risk of clinical cirrhosis and ESLD combined (HR=1.13; 95% CI, 1.01-1.28). However, if the exposure lagged 6 to 12 months before diagnosis, they were no longer associated (HR=1.10; 95% CI, .95-1.26).

“A causal association is unlikely: hazard ratios were weak and most importantly were attenuated when accounting for temporality in the exposure-disease relationship and there was no dose-response relationship,” the researchers wrote. “It is likely that previous studies have been biased by reverse causality as patients use more marijuana to relieve symptoms as liver disease progresses.”

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.

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Marijuana Smoking Does Not Accelerate Progression of Liver Disease in HIV–Hepatitis C Coinfection: A Longitudinal Cohort Analysis

Clin Infect Dis. (2013) doi: 10.1093/cid/cit378 First published online: June 28, 2013

Laurence Brunet1, Erica E. M. Moodie1, Kathleen Rollet2, Curtis Cooper3, Sharon Walmsley4, Martin Potter2, Marina B. Klein2, for the Canadian Co-infection Cohort Investigators

+ Author Affiliations

Abstract

Background. Marijuana smoking is common and believed to relieve many symptoms, but daily use has been associated with liver fibrosis in cross-sectional studies. We aimed to estimate the effect of marijuana smoking on liver disease progression in a Canadian prospective multicenter cohort of human immunodeficiency virus/hepatitis C virus (HIV/HCV) coinfected persons.

Methods. Data were analyzed for 690 HCV polymerase chain reaction positive (PCR-positive) individuals without significant fibrosis or end-stage liver disease (ESLD) at baseline. Time-updated Cox Proportional Hazards models were used to assess the association between the average number of joints smoked/week and progression to significant liver fibrosis (APRI ≥ 1.5), cirrhosis (APRI ≥ 2) or ESLD.

Results. At baseline, 53% had smoked marijuana in the past 6 months, consuming a median of 7 joints/week (IQR, 1–21); 40% smoked daily. There was no evidence that marijuana smoking accelerates progression to significant liver fibrosis (APRI ≥ 1.5) or cirrhosis (APRI ≥ 2; hazard ratio [HR]: 1.02 [0.93–1.12] and 0.99 [0.88–1.12], respectively). Each 10 additional joints/week smoked slightly increased the risk of progression to a clinical diagnosis of cirrhosis and ESLD combined (HR, 1.13 [1.01–1.28]). However, when exposure was lagged to 6–12 months before the diagnosis, marijuana was no longer associated with clinical disease progression (HR, 1.10 [0.95–1.26]).

Conclusions. In this prospective analysis we found no evidence for an association between marijuana smoking and significant liver fibrosis progression in HIV/HCV coinfection. A slight increase in the hazard of cirrhosis and ESLD with higher intensity of marijuana smoking was attenuated after lagging marijuana exposure, suggesting that reverse causation due to self-medication could explain previous results.

Key words HIV, HCV, cannabis, liver disease, cohort study

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