Got a joint? Stroke it, don't smoke it..

[Justforfun000]

On the face that is..

This is amusing. Soon we'll see marijuana masks and pot potions in a face cream.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/113812.php

Substances Similar To The Body's Own 'Cannabis (Marijuana) Are Necessary For Healthy Skin And May Lead To New Skin Disease Treatments
03 Jul 2008

Scientists from Hungary, Germany and the U.K. have discovered that our own body not only makes chemical compounds similar to the active ingredient in marijuana (THC), but these play an important part in maintaining healthy skin. This finding on "endocannabinoids" just published online in, and scheduled for the October 2008 print issue of, The FASEB Journal could lead to new drugs that treat skin conditions ranging from acne to dry skin, and even skin-related tumors.

"Our preclinical data encourage one to explore whether endocannabinoid system-acting agents can be exploited in the management of common skin disorders," said Tamás Biró, MD, PhD, a senior scientist involved in the research. "It is also suggested that these agents can be efficiently applied locally to the skin in the form of a cream."

Biró and colleagues came to this conclusion by treating cell cultures from human sebaceous glands (the glands that make the oil on our skin) with various concentrations of endocannabinoids (substances produced by the body that are similar to the active ingredient in marijuana). Then they measured the production of lipids (fat cells, such as those in skin oil), cell survival and death, and changes in gene expression and compared these outcomes to those in an untreated control group.

"This research shows that we may have something in common with the marijuana plant," said Gerald Weissmann, MD. "Just as THC is believed to protect the marijuana plants from pathogens, our own cannabinoids may be necessary for us to maintain healthy skin and to protect us from pathogens ."

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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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This article is scheduled for final publication in the November 2008 issue of The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org/), which is published by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) and is the most cited biology journal worldwide according to the Institute for Scientific Information. FASEB comprises 21 nonprofit societies with more than 80,000 members, making it the largest coalition of biomedical research associations in the United States. FASEB advances biological science through collaborative advocacy for research policies that promote scientific progress and education and lead to improvements in human health.

Source: Cody Mooneyhan
Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology

Article URL: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/113812.php

Main News Category: Dermatology

[sketerpot]

Endocannabinoids are a lot more important than this article implies. They're messenger molecules used for, among other things, retrograde signalling in neurons -- sending signals across a synapse in reverse. They can penetrate cell membranes but they can't go far in water, so they're used for local signalling, like a local version of hormones. They're involved in almost every major physiological process in the body.

Endocannabinoids have an important regulatory role in memory and neural growth. This may be why people have short-term memory lapses when they're high. Endocannabinoids are also one of the big regulators of appetite. Humans using marijuana get the munchies, and mice with cannabinoid receptors partially blocked become thinner and less hungry than normal mice. Understanding the way that endocannabinoids affect appetite could help us eventually make diet pills with fewer side effects -- and considering how bad obesity is for health, such diet pills could easily be worth it for a lot of people.

So, yeah, the fact that endocannabinoids are also important to the skin isn't really surprising. I'd be more surprised if they weren't. We really need more research on these amazing chemicals.