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Natural Substance Noscapine Found Effective Against Advanced Prostate Cancer

Dec 30, 2008 by TacticularCancer.com

Have you heard of noscapine? I have not.

It is said to be a naturally-occurring substance, a non-addictive derivative of opium, which had been successfully and safely used as a cough suppressant for more than half a century. And recent research carried out on mice has found the natural substance to be effective against advanced prostate cancer. Read on for the full article by Sherry Baker.

New Study Shows Natural Treatment Effective for Advanced Prostate Cancer

by Sherry Baker

(NaturalNews) Could a natural substance effectively treat advanced prostate cancer? And could clinical trials of that potential cure be thwarted because drug companies know they can’t make money out of a treatment that can’t be patented? The answer to both those questions is “yes”.

A study just published in the December issue of the European medical journal Anticancer Research demonstrates for the first time a naturally-occurring substance used as a cough suppressant for over fifty years may be useful in treating advanced prostate cancer. Researchers from the Prostate Cancer Research and Educational Foundation, the MedInsight Research Institute, and the University of California in San Diego found that noscapine, a non-addictive derivative of opium, reduced tumor growth in mice by 60%. What’s more, it halted the spread of tumors by 65% and caused no harmful side effects.

Although noscapine is only approved for use in many countries as a cough suppressant, physicians can and do sometimes prescribe it for other uses — this is a common practice known as “off-label” prescription. Increasingly, in fact, noscapine has been tried off-label to treat several forms of cancer. Dr. Israel Barken, founder and medical director of the Prostate Cancer Research and Educational Foundation in San Diego, used noscapine to successfully treat several prostate cancer patients before he retired from clinical practice. He was so encouraged by the results that his prostate cancer foundation funded the study reported in Anticancer Research .

Moshe Rogosnitzky, director of research at MedInsight Research Institute in San Diego and one of the study’s co-investigators, explained in a statement to the media that noscapine appears to have several advantages as a treatment for prostate cancer. “Noscapine is effective without the unpleasant side effects associated with other common prostate cancer treatments. Because noscapine has been used as a cough-suppressant for nearly half a century, it already has an extensive safety record. This pre-clinical study shows that the dose used to effectively treat prostate cancer in the animal model was also safe,” he stated.

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