A common drug that is used everyday by millions of people to combat indigestion has now been found to possess anti-cancer properties which researchers are claiming could help in the fight against cancer.

Which one?

The drug in question is a drug called Cimetidine, and is at present used as a treatment for indigestion and other gastric related conditions such as gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and gastric ulcers.

Could it fight cancer?

In a recent study done by Dr Pan Pantziarka for the Re-purposing Drugs in Oncology (ReDO) project he found that Cimetidine may be able to block histamine receptors in any cancerous cells that may be found, and in turn would be able to assist the immune system’s fight against the cancerous cells.

Studies have shown a drastic impact for patients who had gastric cancer, melanoma and renal cell carcinoma who were given Cimetidine as a supplement to the other standard drugs that are used in the battle against cancer.

Why aren’t we already using it?

When Cimetidine was first produced and tested, it’s primary purpose was to help fight gastric conditions, but due to the long process that is required to create, test and market a new drug, the ReDO project was created to check existing drugs to see if they had properties that could be used to fight other conditions than their primary target.

Although ReDO have found that Cimetidine can help in the fight against cancer,  due to all the red tape there is in the medical world, it is not easy for them to get it back into the testing lab and get it properly tested in clinical trials

So… What do you think?

Do you think that we should be getting this drug retested to try and help in the fight against cancer?

Let us know what you think below…