According to findings which appear in the bi-monthly journal ACS’ Molecular Pharmaceutics, one particular soft drink may actually help cancer patients.
The research claims that Sprite may enhance the effectiveness of a common cancer-fighting drug.
A team of scientists experimented with an artificial stomach and found that the lemon-lime soda may help cancer patients absorb more of the unidentified drug when the two were taken together. The Sprite had to be flat, or without carbonation.
“It doesn’t surprise me that the material you ingest alongside an oral medication will affect how that medication is absorbed,” Dr Neal Meropol, chief of the division of hematology and oncology at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, told AOL Health. “Factors such as the acid level in the stomach or the presence of other solid food can affect how much of the medication gets into the blood.”
The study’s lead author Faraj Atassi, a researcher at drug company Eli Lilly and Co, and his colleagues combined the oral cancer drug, which they referred to as “Compound X,” with Captisol, a compound that helps improve drugs’ solubility.
Using the artificial stomach, a device made of glass and plastic that scientists use to examine how foods and medications are processed in the GI tract, the researchers added Sprite to the mix.
They found that the soft drink regulated the acidity in the stomach so as to allow the body to absorb more of the cancer drug.
But Meropol, a specialist in cancer drugs, said it’s a stretch to think a soda can improve how well a medicine will work. “I think it’s a leap of faith that this will make cancer therapy more effective,” he said. “You could also say if more gets into the blood, it will make the drug more toxic.”
The researchers said there are vast differences in how patients absorb the oral medication because of different levels of stomach acidity and other biological variations.
Some of those factors can lower the efficacy of oral anticancer drugs, which may interfere with current efforts to develop more medications that cancer patients can take by mouth.
“The major take-home message is that with oral drugs, there is more variability from patient to patient in terms of their exposure,” Meropol said. “This isn’t a good thing. … Insofar as we could reduce variation by giving oral medicines along with a certain beverage, that could improve patient care.”
Atassi and his colleagues suggest future clinical trials in which some patients take the cancer drug in question with flat Sprite and others take it without the drink to confirm what they found using the artificial stomach.
Source: Catherine Donaldson-Evans | Aol Health
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