South Africa: Researchers discover rare phenolic compounds in cannabis leaves. 

Researchers at Stellenbosch University in South Africa have discovered that flavoalkaloids are produced in the leaves of the Cannabis Sativa L. plant. These phenolic compounds are rare because they are very difficult to find in nature, and this reveals...m, Once again, the medicinal potential of cannabis leaves, normally considered waste, is being explored.

According to a scientific article published in Science Daily Last September, 79 phenolic compounds were found in three different phenotypes/cultivars, “25 of which had never been recorded in cannabis” and 16 identified as flavoalkaloids. These were mainly found in the leaves of only one of the phenotypes studied. For this purpose, the researchers used mass spectrometry and advanced two-dimensional chromatography. 

"Phenolic compounds, especially flavonoids, are well known and sought after in the pharmaceutical industry for their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anticancer properties," the document states.

The flavoalkaloids These are compounds with a molecular structure that combines a flavonoid and an alkaloid, or, in other words, they are those that contain a flavonoid structure and also have one or more nitrogen atoms. These are primarily studied in tea leaves due to their antioxidant properties, and are already being tested for the treatment of diabetes and Alzheimer's disease.

The author of the current study, Magriet Muller, an analytical chemist at the LC-MS Laboratory of the Central Analytical Facility (CAF) at Stellenbosch University, expressed her surprise:We know that cannabis is extremely complex – containing more than 750 metabolites – but we didn't expect such a large variation in phenolic profiles among just three strains, nor to detect so many compounds for the first time in the species. Especially, the first evidence of flavoalkaloids in cannabis was very exciting.”

Muller further explained that "most plants contain highly complex mixtures of phenolic compounds, and while flavonoids occur widely in the plant kingdom, flavoalkaloids are very rare in nature." In addition, they have enormous pharmacological value.

According to the authors, this is a "surprising discovery" that highlights the complexity of the cannabis plant "and its unexplored biomedical potential beyond cannabinoids, opening new doors for research and medicine."

The conclusions of this study could revolutionize the pharmaceutical industry and the cannabis industry itself – which usually treats the leaves as waste; but interestingly, they also confirm and perhaps explain what many ancient cultures and other scientists throughout history have recorded: that the plant's leaves have medicinal properties beyond the nutritional value of chlorophyll and the (few) cannabinoids they produce.

When science provides answers to what was already known.

The use of cannabis leaves is recorded in several pre-modern Chinese medical texts (called blessing), which discuss the application of various parts of the plant for the treatment of various ailments, especially the flowers and leaves.

As the investigators tell it. And Joseph Brand e Zhongzhen Zhao, School of Chinese Medicine at Hong Kong Baptist University, next scientific article Published in “Frontiers in Pharmacology” in 2017, the Tang Dynasty physician Sun Simiao (581–683 AD) recorded “the use of crushed leaves, from which juice was extracted, which was used to cure the excruciating pain of broken bones (Chen and Huang, 2005)”. And in Compendium of Materia MedicaIn a 16th-century document, the author Li Shizhen stated that the cannabis leaf was indicated for treating malaria, saying that it induced a state of intoxication in patients (Liu et al., 2009). "

Other cultures used them in teas or to make healing poultices, and the leaves are still one of the main ingredients of... bhangIn India, a decoction of spices and cannabis leaves in milk is still served today in temples and festivals dedicated to Shiva, the lord of the earth. ganjaFrom those bygone times to the psychologists and bohemians of the Club des Hashishins (Moreau de Tours, Charles Baudelaire, etc.) and the group of Irish doctors of the 19th century, the cannabis plant and its effects have been studied by one another.

Perhaps the most notable body of study is that of the famous Irish professor, chemist, and toxicologist William Brooke O'Shaughnessy (1809–1889), who recorded his experiments and results with the use of cannabis for the treatment of various diseases such as cholera, delirium tremens, rheumatic conditions or infantile convulsions, obtaining surprising results and leaving an important legacy for pharmaceutical science.

As Professor Ethan Russo points out in this chapter From the book "Cannabis sativa L. – botany and biotechnology," which correlates the discoveries of those 20th-century doctors with those of today, many of the results they obtained more than a century ago are currently being verified by "modern science."

According to Professor André de Villiers, supervisor and lead author of the current study from Stellenbosch University, “our analysis highlights, once again, the medicinal potential of cannabis plant material (...). Cannabis presents a rich and unique non-cannabinoid phenolic profile, which may be relevant from the point of view of biomedical research.”

The discovery of flavoalkaloids in the cannabis plant leaf thus adds another avenue for research with the plant and opens another window of hope for many patients with Alzheimer's, cancer, and other diseases.

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Margarita Cardoso de Meneses

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Margarita has been a regular contributor to CannaReporter since its inception in 2017, having previously worked for other cannabis-focused media outlets such as Cáñamo magazine (Spain), CannaDouro Magazine (Portugal) and Cannapress. She was part of the original team for the Portuguese edition of Cânhamo in the early 2000s and was part of the organisation of the Global Marijuana March in Portugal between 2007 and 2009.

She recently published the book “Canábis - Maldita e Maravilhosa” / "Cannabis - Cursed and Wonderful" (Ed. Oficina do Livro / LeYA, 2024), about the history of the plant, its ancestral relationship with Humans as a raw material, an entheogen and a recreational drug, as well as the infinite potential it holds in medical, industrial and environmental terms.

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