Researchers here have shown that in cell cultures, the stress hormone norepinephrine appears to promote the biochemical signals that stimulate certain tumor cells to grow and spread. The finding, if verified, may suggest a way of slowing the progression and spread of some cancers enough so that conventional chemotherapeutic treatments would have a better chance to work.
The study also showed that stress hormones may play a completely different role in cancer development than researchers had once thought. The results appear in the current issue of the journal Brain, Behavior and Immunity.
“We would not be surprised if we see similar effects of norepinephrine on tumor progression in several different forms of cancer,” explained Eric Yang, first author of the paper and a research scientist with the Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research (IBMR) at Ohio State University.
Release date: November 19, 2007
Source: Ohio State University
Filed Under: Drug Discovery
