Methadone – the agent used against opioid addiction – has been found by German researchers to have surprising killing powers against treatment-resistant forms of leukemia cells.
Methadone, developed in Germany in the 1930s, is a low cost agent that acts on opioid receptors, and thus is used as an opioid substitute to treat addiction. Scientists have found that opioid receptors also exist on the surface of some cancer cells for reasons that are not understood. One research group tested the agent in human lung cancer cell lines and found that it can induce cell death.
Thus suggesting that methadone has the potential …read more

You’ve probably already noticed that I also blog outside of the B5media network. Today I would like to share with you the following interesting posts that are cancer-related.
Milk for Breast Cancer
Inherited Gene Mutation for Leukemia Identified
Food-derived B Vitamins Can Decrease Risk of Pancreatic Cancer in Lean People
Have a great read and I hope your day is a lot better than mine. Mondays do get me down!

These are some of the important and interesting  stuff on cancer that I missed while I was enjoying the beach:

Anthocyanidins May Help Treat Leukemia
Mushrooms to Prevent Breast Cancer
Pomegranate Juice May Help Fight Lung Cancer
Risk of Head and Neck Cancer Reduced with Fruits and Veggies

Do check them out.
Now you know that I am not only in the summer vacation mode but also in the “pig out mode”.
(Where I am is summer, sorry to confuse our readers of the west!)

A new mechanism by which arsenite (a form of arsenic) acts in the treatment of a rare cancer called acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) have been identified by researchers at Dartmouth Medical School (DMS).
APL is caused by the swapping of chromosomes 15 and 17, which forms a fusion protein. This fusion protein prevents certain blood cells from maturing and leads to an accumulation of immature leukemia cells.
Researchers found that arsenite causes rapid destabilization of the lysosome in cells, and that breaks the lysosome apart, releasing enzymes that destroy these particular kinds of leukemia cells.
This study has been published in the January …read more