Scientists from the University of Minnesota have made an exciting discovery that could improve cancer treatment.
They’ve found a way to boost our body’s natural disease fighters—called natural killer cells—by using a common vitamin: vitamin B3, also known as nicotinamide.
Natural killer cells are part of our immune system. They travel through the body looking for and destroying cells that don’t belong, like viruses or cancer. Doctors have tried using these cells to treat blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma.
But past results weren’t always great. Some patients didn’t get better, especially when other treatments had already failed. So scientists needed to find a way to make these cells stronger and more reliable.
That’s where vitamin B3 comes in. This well-known vitamin does more than just help your body turn food into energy. In the lab, the researchers treated natural killer cells with vitamin B3. The result? These cells became tougher, lasted longer, and were much better at hunting down and killing cancer cells.
The researchers also combined these enhanced natural killer cells with another cancer drug. They tested the combo on 30 patients. The early results were very promising. Of the 19 patients who had a difficult-to-treat kind of lymphoma, 11 saw their cancer disappear completely, and 3 had a partial recovery. And this all happened within just 28 days.
Why vitamin B3? This vitamin has a long history of helping people stay healthy. As far back as 1937, scientists learned that a lack of vitamin B3 could lead to a deadly illness called pellagra, which caused skin problems, diarrhea, and even dementia.
Adding vitamin B3 to foods helped stop the disease. In this new study, vitamin B3 did something more: it protected the natural killer cells from damage and gave them more energy to do their job.
The researchers are hopeful that this new method could offer a better way to treat blood cancers. They plan to test it in larger groups of patients next. If those trials are successful, this vitamin-enhanced immune treatment might become a powerful new tool in fighting hard-to-treat cancers.
If you’re interested in nutrition and health, other studies show that timing your vitamins can help prevent heart disease. Vitamin D supplements may even reduce the risk of dying from cancer. There’s also research on plant nutrients that help lower blood pressure and antioxidants that may lower the risk of dementia.
The study was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
If you care about cancer, please read studies about Research shows a new way to fight deadly prostate cancer and findings of The surprising impact of anxiety drugs on pancreatic cancer survival.
For more about cancer, please read studies about Research shows a major cause of pancreatic cancer and findings of Dangerous chemical exposure linked to cancers in women.
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