By David Liu PHD

Thursday July 19, 2012 (foodconsumer.org) -- Researchers in Spain published a review early this month in the journal Cancer Treatment Review suggesting that cannabinoids may be used as an therapeutic agent to treat most type of breast cancer.

M.M. Caffarel of Complutense University-CIBERNED-IRYCIS in Madrid, Spain and colleagues say that experimental evidence has emerged in the past decade to suggest that cannabinoids, active components of Cannabis sativa and their derivatives, possess anticancer activity against a range of malignancies including breast cancer.

Breast cancer is expected to be diagnosed in nearly 14 percent of women in their lifetime in the United States. In the U.S. alone, 210,000 women are diagnosed each year with this disease which kills about 50,000 in the country annually.

The authors said cannabinoids exert anti-proliferative, pro-apoptotic, anti-migratory and anti-invasive effects against a wide spectrum of cultured cancer cells.

In xenograft-based and genetically-engineered mouse models of cancer, these cannabinoids suppress tumor growth, angiogenesis and metastasis, which in a word means that they can help stop progression of the disease.

In this review, the authors summarize the current evidence on the anti-cancer potential of cannabinoids in breast cancer, which suggests that cannabinoid-based medicines may be helpful in treating most breast tumor subtypes.

Breast cancer in many cases are preventable and a healthy lifestyle including a healthy diet may be helpful, according to previous studies.