Talcum Powder Against Growth of Lung Tumors?

If you thought that talcum powder is only for soothing babies’ diaper rash and for freshening women’s faces…think again!

University of Florida researchers found out that this very common household product also has the ability to prevent cancer growth by cutting the blood flow to metastatic lung tumors.

According to Veena Antony, M.D., a professor of pulmonary medicine and chief of pulmonary and critical care medicine at UF’s College of Medicine:

“We found, to our surprise, that talc causes tumor growth to slow down and actually decreases the tumor bulk.

Talc is able to prevent the formation of blood vessels, thereby killing the tumor and choking off its growth. The tumors appeared to grow much slower and in some cases completely disappeared.”

And how was this administered (in the said study at least), you wonder? Making cancer patients eat talc? No. The findings were the effects of a procedure called medical thoracoscopy with talc pleurodesis.

In 2003, the US FDA approved talc for use in medical thoracoscopy but UF is one of just a handful of U.S. institutions that perform the outpatient procedure on a routine basis.

The study’s findings have been published in the April issue of the European Respiratory Journal – revealing that that talc stimulates healthy cells to produce endostatin (a hormone considered the magic bullet for treating metastatic lung cancer) and making talc an exciting new therapeutic agent for a cancer largely considered incurable.

Find more details from the full report.