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Arsenic can help women treat breast cancer
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
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Arsenic is a fairly strong poison that has been known to mankind for a long time, but recent research by scientists has shown that it can also be a medicine. As it turns out, arsenic can help reduce the number of deaths from breast cancer. Researchers at one of the Californian universities conducted a study in which they recorded a twofold decrease in cancer mortality due to the use of arsenic.
The work of the specialists was carried out in Chile, where the natural level of arsenic is increased. As a result of the research, the scientists found that the poison helps to cope with breast cancer in a group of women under 60 years of age (in this category, mortality decreased by 70%).
In the late 1950s, a city in Chile switched to a geothermal source in the Andes to provide its residents with drinking water. Tests showed that 1 liter of such water contained more than 800 micrograms of a dangerous poison, which is 80 times higher than the minimum recommended dosage.
In the 1970s, after symptoms of arsenic poisoning appeared in some residents, the authorities decided to build a treatment plant. However, until then, arsenic had brought significant health benefits to some people who drank poison-saturated water.
The Stanford Cancer Institute has found that arsenic kills cancer cells, but healthy cells are not protected from it, which also leads to their death.
In the early 21st century, the United States approved the use of arsenic trioxide to treat a rare form of leukemia. It is likely that arsenic will soon become an adjuvant in the treatment of breast cancer in women.
Currently, specialists are preparing clinical trials in which patients with advanced breast cancer should take part.
Cancer is currently the most common disease, which takes thousands of lives every year. Specialists are trying to develop new effective methods of cancer treatment and prevention. For example, in 2015, trials of a drug against skin cancer may begin.
Ascend has developed a vaccine that will help the patient's immune system fight the disease on its own.
For example, in the case of basal cell carcinoma, the vaccine must be injected into the tumor. The drug is based on a genetically modified virus that blocks the supply of nutrients to the tumor cells, causing them to die.
A vaccine against breast cancer will help patients at an early stage of the disease who have undergone surgery. The drug will allow the immune system to independently build protection against the spread of metastases and relapse of the disease.
As the first tests of the new drug have shown, ten years after a successful operation, relapses are observed in only 6% of cases. Experts are confident that vaccination is an excellent alternative to hormone replacement therapy, which is currently used and shows effectiveness only within a year after the operation.
According to experts, it is during this period that the oncological process can be monitored and vaccinations can be carried out.
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