Research Reveals CBD’s Potential Benefits for Patients with Glioma

As research into the antitumor properties of cannabis compounds continues to expand, interesting evidence suggests that the activity of certain cannabinoids can help slow or reduce cancer cell growth to improve longevity and treatment effectiveness for patients with glioma. Gliomas are among the most aggressive, difficult-to-treat, and deadly brain tumors. Despite surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, survival rates remain tragically low for these patients. Emerging research into cannabidiol (CBD) suggests that this non-intoxicating compound found in cannabis may offer novel therapeutic benefits in managing gliomas. A 2024 review published in the Journal of Translational Medicine provides an overview of the growing body of evidence suggesting that CBD could play several meaningful roles in managing glioma, as well as aiding established treatment options. 

According to the collected findings, this cannabis compound could potentially improve the lives of cancer patients with glioma by suppressing tumor growth, inflammation, and synergizing with chemo, and also by alleviating symptoms, like seizures and pain, that accompany the condition. 

Generally, CBD, THC, and other cannabinoids may help reduce treatment-related side effects like nausea, poor appetite, and sleep, and protect organs from the potentially toxic side effects of chemo, radiation, and surgery. This article explores these emerging findings and further considers what such results might mean for the future of glioma care and the broader role of cannabis in cancer research and treatments.

What Is Glioma?

Glioma is a type of tumor that originates in special supportive cells found in the brain and spinal cord, called glial cells. These cells support nerve function with various tasks and are essential to the proper functioning of the nervous system. Patients with recurrent glioma face dire prognoses and limited treatment options.

Gliomas make up about 50% of all malignant brain tumors, with the tumor’s most aggressive form, called glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), accounting for nearly half of all primary malignant brain tumors in adults, and 70% of all gliomas. GBM is infamous for its overwhelmingly grave prognosis: the median survival time of patients after diagnosis is just 12–15 months, and the five-year survival rate hovers around 5%.

Standard treatment includes surgery, radiation, and the chemotherapy drug temozolomide (TMZ). However, gliomas are often resistant to therapy due to their rapid growth, ability to evade the immune system, and resistance to drugs and radiation. For example, many patients don’t respond well to TMZ, and the tumor often grows back following remission. 

CBD: An Overview

CBD is a natural chemical compound derived from the cannabis plant. Unlike the more famous cannabinoid, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)—the cannabinoid known for its intoxicating effects—CBD is non-intoxicating, meaning it doesn’t produce a “high.”

CBD nevertheless exerts its therapeutic effects via its unique interactions with the body’s endocannabinoid system (ECS)—a widespread cell-signaling network made up of cannabinoid receptors, internally produced cannabinoids (called endocannabinoids), and the enzymes used to break them down. The ECS plays a vital role in regulating a broad range of physiological functions, including those related to the nervous, cardiovascular, immune, and metabolic systems. 

CBD supports the endocannabinoid system by inhibiting the breakdown of endocannabinoids, thereby increasing their availability in the body. Additionally, CBD has over 65 other important targets in the body beyond the ECS. This extensive activity contributes to potential therapeutic benefits, such as:

• Anti-inflammatory effects
• Pain relief
• Anxiety relief
• Neuroprotection
• Anti-tumor activity

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved CBD in the form of a pharmaceutical drug called Epidiolex® to treat rare pediatric seizures, following extensive studies on its potential therapeutic properties.

Now, scientists are studying the potential benefits of CBD in cancer treatment, particularly for difficult and deadly brain tumors like gliomas.

How CBD Combats Glioma

A comprehensive 2024 review published in the Journal of Translational Medicine presents a number of findings demonstrating a variety of ways CBD shows promise in treating gliomas. By attacking the tumor’s growth mechanisms on multiple fronts, CBD shows substantial promise as an anti-cancer and therapeutic compound that may offer improved outcomes for patients affected by the deadly disease. 

Although researchers have conducted most studies in this field on animals or in vitro in laboratories, the current findings still reveal new opportunities for future approaches to treating these deadly tumors. In this section, we highlight some of the most profound cancer-combating mechanisms researchers have identified using CBD in treating glioma. 

CBD Can Slow Tumor Growth at the Cellular Level

One of the most important benefits CBD offers to glioma treatment is its ability to inhibit tumor growth. Research shows that CBD can trigger oxidative stress inside cancer cells, leading to cell damage and death, which is good when the cells we are targeting are cancer cells. 

CBD also promotes apoptosis, a process known as programmed cell death, in cancerous but not healthy cells. This activity is essential for curtailing the unchecked division and compounding of cancer cells.

Moreover, CBD affects specific receptors, including CB1, CB2, and TRP, that are found at high concentrations in glioma cells. Interactions with these cellular systems affect the cancer cells’ mitochondria to disrupt the tumor’s metabolism and energy production to essentially starve the cancer from within, a process called autophagy. 

CBD May Enhance Other Cancer Therapies

Evidence from a 2018 study in Biochemical Pharmacology provides particularly promising evidence that CBD may be able to enhance the effectiveness of traditional glioma treatments. In these preclinical trials using animals and cells, scientists applied combinations of CBD and THC in various ratios alongside TMZ to treat tumor cells derived from actual glioblastoma patients. 

The study finds that using the cannabinoids alongside TMZ therapy slowed tumor growth and helped the animals live longer than treatment with TMZ alone. Notably, the treatment was even more effective when the cannabinoid-based medicine contained a higher ratio of CBD. The combination also helped overcome drug resistance to TMZ in the animal models. These results suggest that pairing the standard chemotherapy drug TMZ with CBD-based cannabis formulations could offer a promising new strategy for targeting glioma-initiating cells (GICs)—a treatment-resistant cell type believed to drive tumor regrowth in glioblastoma. 

Other preclinical research shows that pre-treating glioma cells with CBD and THC before radiation makes the tumors more sensitive to radiotherapy. This increased sensitivity is linked to changes in cellular stress and death pathways, including boosted autophagy and apoptosis. Similar study results further indicate that CBD and THC may enhance the effectiveness of cancer treatments by complementing the effects of both chemotherapy and radiation in treating glioma.

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CBD Could Help Prevent Glioma from Spreading

Gliomas are highly invasive, meaning they can spread quickly to nearby areas of the brain and body. This makes them especially difficult to treat with surgery or localized therapies. CBD can potentially address this difficulty. 

Studies show that CBD can inhibit the migration of tumor cells and block a process called angiogenesis—the process by which tumors form new blood vessels to support their continued growth. Additionally, CBD suppresses the activity of several cancer-promoting proteins, which play major roles in encouraging tumor invasion and vascular development. These results suggest that CBD can be a promising therapy for slowing down or even stopping the spread of glioma cells throughout the brain.

CBD Supports the Body’s Immune Defense Against Tumors

GBM, one of the most aggressive forms of glioma, is so difficult to treat that it’s often considered an “immunologically cold” tumor. This means the tumors can actively avoid detection by the immune system. Thus, immunotherapy is less effective for treating GBM than other kinds of glioma. 

However, CBD may be used to generate better outcomes for immunotherapy treatments targeting GBM. Research indicates that CBD is effective at stimulating T-cell proliferation, activity, increasing antigen presentation, and even disrupting the ways that GBM tumors hide from immune cells. By changing the tumor microenvironment and making gliomas more vulnerable to immune attack, CBD has the potential to enhance immunotherapy options for treating glioma patients in the future.

CBD Can Prevent Tumor Regrowth

A particularly exciting discovery indicates that CBD can possibly target glioma stem cells (GSCs)—highly resilient cancer cells that are thought to drive tumor recurrence and resistance to conventional treatment. These destructive cells can self-renew, resist chemotherapy, and regenerate tumors even after aggressive treatment.

Current research suggests that CBD may be able to effectively inhibit GSC self-renewal and trigger autophagy, by which the cancer cells break down and recycle their own damaged components. CBD may additionally encourage these dangerous glioma stem cells to differentiate into non-cancerous cells. In simpler terms, CBD has the potential to suppress or even eliminate the very source of glioma relapse and drug resistance by affecting GSCs.

Human Studies on CBD and Glioma

The preclinical data are compelling, but clinical evidence for CBD’s effectiveness at treating cancer in humans is still limited. In one 2021 study, researchers applied the drug nabiximols (Sativex®)—a cannabis-derived spray containing equal parts CBD and THC (1:1)—in combination with TMZ to chemotherapy in patients with recurrent GBM. The trial showed that patients receiving nabiximols presented higher 1-year survival rates (83.3%) than individuals receiving TMZ with placebo (44.4%). However, the sample size was small, and mild to moderate side effects (fatigue, dizziness, nausea, etc.) were more common in the nabiximols therapy group.

Another open-label study involving 119 cancer patients (including 10 glioma patients) finds that CBD oil taken for at least six months led to slowed tumor progression and even extended survival in some glioma patients. But this study involved very few glioma patients specifically, and the procedure also lacked a control group for comparison.

CBD for Symptom Relief in Glioma Patients

Aside from its antitumor effects, CBD can also provide relief for many symptoms glioma patients experience as a result of the disease and its treatments. CBD has been studied for its benefits in treating symptoms related to conditions ranging from epilepsy to sleep disorders, and certain beneficial effects associated with CBD could help patients experiencing complications from glioma and cancer therapies. Possible therapeutic benefits of CBD for glioma patients include:

• Seizure Management: Seizures are a common symptom of glioma, with 70-90% of low-grade glioma patients and up to 62% of GBM patients experiencing seizures. CBD’s profound effects on seizures are well-known, and CBD is currently FDA-approved for use in prescription form for the treatment of rare kinds of epilepsy. As such, CBD is a promising cannabinoid for reducing seizure frequency and severity in glioma-related seizure disorders. 

• • Pain Relief: Glioma patients may experience terrible headaches associated with tumor activity, and many people at the end-of-life stages of care for glioma and other cancers take medications to alleviate pain. Cannabis-based medicines, including CBD, are being studied for their analgesic effects, and there is potential that CBD can contribute to cancer pain management as a complementary or alternative therapy to opioid painkillers. Specifically regarding cancer pain, some patients treated with nabiximols (Sativex) report reductions in physical pain, and there is evidence that cannabis-based medicines can reduce opioid use in cancer patients. While these effects need more extensive study, there is an indication that CBD and other cannabinoids provide medical science with a promising new pathway for research into options for cancer pain management and palliative care.
• Anxiety and Sleep Support: Being diagnosed with a deadly brain cancer is overwhelming, and many people experience high stress and anxiety surrounding their prognosis. Although the evidence is still developing, research currently indicates that CBD might be a helpful treatment to reduce anxiety, lower stress levels, and improve sleep. Thus, with its potential anxiety-reducing properties, medicinal CBD can support glioma patients and other cancer patients through the emotional strain of managing their disease and treatment. 

Ongoing Questions and Controversies

While the results are promising, these findings surrounding CBD’s potential benefits are not without challenges and limitations. For example, the interaction between CBD-induced cell death pathways—apoptosis and autophagy—is complex and not fully understood. At least for now, it appears to synergize with chemotherapy in many reassuring and protective ways. 

There are also concerns about inconsistent interactions between CBD and various glioma subtypes. Namely, in addressing glioma (and other cancers), the therapeutic effects of CBD could vary widely depending on the kind of tumor being treated. 

More human studies are essential to determine the safest and most effective ways to use CBD in glioma therapy. Ongoing clinical trials are examining CBD’s (along with other cannabinoids’) potential effects on glioma tumor growth, disease, and treatment-related symptoms, and quality of life in glioma patients. Results from these studies have the potential to show us new ways to lengthen lifespans and improve life quality for people suffering from glioma in the future with the medicinal application of CBD (and perhaps other cannabis compounds; for example, cannabigerol (CBG)).

READ: Woman’s Tumor Shrank After Daily CBD Oil Consumption Over 2 Years

Final Thoughts

CBD is not a miracle cure for glioma, but there is encouraging evidence that the cannabinoid can provide therapeutic benefits to combat the deadly cancer and its effects. Preclinical studies reveal that CBD not only slows tumor growth, but CBD can also prevent its spread, enhance radiotherapies and chemotherapies, heighten immune response, and target treatment-resistant cancer stem cells. 

Beyond CBD’s potential efficacy at slowing tumor growth, CBD is also known for effects that can help alleviate some of the most overwhelming and prominent symptoms that glioma patients face. However, due to sparse and currently inconclusive evidence, any patients curious about pursuing CBD as a treatment option for glioma should always make sure to consult their physician about whether medical cannabis is safe for a particular care plan. 

While more clinical trials are needed to make use of CBD’s full potential in brain cancer treatment, the emerging science is promising. From reducing tumor growth to improving treatment outcomes and quality of life, CBD’s multi-functional therapeutic potential makes it a compelling option for future glioma therapy.

Note: The content on this page is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be professional medical advice. Do not attempt to self-diagnose or prescribe treatment based on the information provided. Always consult a physician before making any decision on the treatment of a medical condition.