Does cat poop parasite play a role in curing cancer?
When it comes to curing cancer, the medical community leaves no stone unturned in search of treatment. Evidence of this dedication can be found in…
Cat poop could contain the cure for cancer. (Shutterstock)
When it comes to curing cancer, the medical community leaves no stone unturned in search of treatment. Evidence of this dedication can be found in the most recent discovery of a potential therapy in–you guessed it–cat poop.
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According to researchers from the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College, the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, commonly found in cat poop, may be an important ingredient for an eventual cancer vaccination. T.gondii can live in the intestines of any warm-blooded animal, but it prefers the body of a feline as its host.
A number of people are infected with this parasite and never know it, but for cancer patients it could be the difference between life and death.
Researchers explain that it is not T.gondii itself that fights cancer, rather the immune cells the parasite illicits from an individual’s body. When T.gondii enters the body, cytotoxic T cells are produced in response?cells known to be the most effective at fighting off cancer. Not only could this help people fighting off cancer, it could potentially reactivate a patient’s immune system if it shuts down during treatment.
Cat poop parasite shows promise in treating cancer. (Shutterstock)
The only downside is that researchers aren’t able to use standard T.gondii strains in the body. As a parasite, it would replicate once inside and start to do damage. Instead, a potential cancer vaccine would be comprised of a modified version researchers call “cps;” a version that is unable to replicate.
“Aggressive cancers too often seem like fast moving train wrecks. Cps is the microscopic, but super strong, hero that catches the wayward trains, halts their progression and shrinks them until they disappear,” the researchers wrote. In preliminary rodent studies, cps worked extremely well on mice with aggressive melanoma and ovarian cancer. The strain of T.gondii worked so well, in fact, that experts stated it was “amazingly effective immunotherapy against cancers, superior to anything seen before.”
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Eventually, the researchers plan on creating carrier cells for cps that would seek out and target cancer cells by way of a vaccine. Ultimately, experts feel such a medical advancement would not only help eradicate cancer, but would also help provide life-long immunity for individuals against any future cancer recurrence.
Thankfully, all this actually have very little to do with cat poop itself. While T.gondii is found in cat feces and is the culprit behind toxoplasmosis, researchers aren’t actually using cat poop in their vaccination protocol. The research does go to show, however, that sometimes answers can be found in the most interesting places.
