Cannabinoids Block Cellular Entry of SARS-CoV-2 and the Emerging Variants

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35007072/

by pella • 5 years ago

110 20 5 years ago

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

pella• 5 years ago

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajherrington/2022/01/11/study-f...

Looks like another early but promising line of research to add to the list of potential medical uses. About time to deschedule it yes?

Worth noting the previous HN discussion on similar research:

CBD Inhibits SARS-CoV-2 Replication and Promotes the Host Innate Immune Response

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28122090

dtx12• 5 years ago

So what you are saying is smoking weed is like getting vaccinated? I'm in!

ivvs2• 5 years ago

Unfortunately, no.

Quick primer on cannabinoids. The plants don't produce THC, CBD, etc... they produce THCA, CBDA, etc. This -A form, called the acid form, has a carboxyl group attached to it which changes how the cannabinoids interact with your body.

Heat, even temperatures as low as 250F / 120C can de-carboxylate the cannabinoid, yielding THC from THCA, and CBD from CBDA. When you smoke weed, the act of smoking is decarboxylating the weed as you consume it. Same as when you make pot brownies - the cooking of the brownie "activates" the THC.

This research, however, shows that it is precisely the acid forms that block cellular entry. So THCA and CBDA are good, but THC and CBD have not been shown to be as effective.

Long comment short: don't smoke weed, instead make a room-temp tincture with it. It won't get you stoned, but it might help stop covid.

dtx12• 5 years ago

I love this community sometimes and thank you for that serious reply to my less than serious joke.

BTW: Has anyone got a good, working recipee for pot brownies that a) don't taste terrible and b) don't require lab equipment? I haven't had much sucess in the past

totetsu• 5 years ago

What about CBD oil?

kyruzic• 5 years ago

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5549534/

Read the final section.

It doesn't all undergo decarboxylation. You are still inhaling THCA and CBDA

LargoLasskhyfv• 5 years ago

In this case I'd opt for making a salad :-)

pfisherman• 5 years ago

Can’t access the article, but a few things make me skeptical.

They say micromolar (uM) affinity. That is usually not good enough. 10 uM is about the cutoff of what you would want in a lead compound - something to be further improved by a medicinal chemist. I suspect they were above 10 uM because if you have low uM affinity you should definitely call it out.

They used a pseudo virus but do not say which. They do not tell you which cell line or cell type they used for their disease model. This info should have gone in the abstract. It would not have taken more than a few characters.

Basically the quality of the abstract makes me doubt the quality of the research.

Also please keep in mind that this is a pseudo virus in a cell model. The graveyard of drugs is filled with filled with compounds that looked good in disease models, but did not work. Generally, the further away you are from a live virus in a live human, the less predictive the model.

refurb• 5 years ago

Yup. uM activity is crap. We’d discard anything that wasn’t in the nM range. And even then try and optimize.

You’d never get those kinds of concentrations in a human (well not never, but you’d be gulping down grams of the stuff if your Vd was good, tens of grams if it wasnt).

gpcr1949• 5 years ago

I think >1 μM activity can be ok depending on what kind of target and what kind of IC50 assay is done. Of course, as you know, comparing IC50s is famously something that cannot/should not be done, because they are assay and condition dependent, even for the same target, which is another reason why a μM cutoff is not set in stone for me. A value like that can be OK when trying to find a (clean, well behaved, synthesizable) early hit for later optimization into an actually useful probe or drug. However, in this case the IC50 are high double digits so I agree you will never get these kind of concentrations in humans without causing problems due to off-target activity.

DantesKite• 5 years ago

In vitro, not in vivo, so its relevance to humans still has to be determined.

Cannabinoids Block Cellular Entry of SARS-CoV-2 and the Emerging Variants

Related Stories