Some exciting new cancer research is taking place at Dalhousie University that could change our understanding of the disease.
According to researchers at the university, there could be a link between allergies, antihistamines and the spread of cancer tumours.
“It brings together information that we have from epidemiology that we’ve always been curious about, you know, why some people are protected with allergic disease are protected from certain types of cancer,” says researcher Jean Marshall.
The researchers say they are examining whether the levels of histamine released in our body during an allergic reaction, or the medications we take to fight the reaction, affect the growth or spread of tumours.
“We’ll have two years to sort of explore these hypotheses, and hopefully come to some level findings,” says researched Sharon Oldford.
Oldford and Marshall are the co-authors of the project. They say they will be using commercially-available antihistamine medications in their research.
“Many people take these medications. Cancer patients often take them as well, to alleviate the side effects of the disease,” says Oldford.
“So, it will be informative, whether we actually determine there is a cause and effect, or show that there is no effect, it will still be very informative.”
The Canadian Cancer Society’s innovation grant is a new funding program, with the idea to support unconventional concepts that, if they pan out, could have an impact on a large number of people.
“It could be that they discover some better way to treat, a better way for doctors to manage cancer,” says Barbara Stead-Coyle, the CEO of the Canadian Cancer Society in Nova Scotia.
“What we’ve discovered because of the way the Canadian Cancer Society funds research, and that we fund all cancers, that a breakthrough in one area many times ponies on and becomes a breakthrough in many areas.”
Researchers are cautious as the project is in its early stages, but they hope their work will help them sort out if there is a relationship between cancer growth, allergic activation and medication.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Jacqueline Foster
