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Low-dose naltrexone is a small dose of an old addiction medicine, prescribed off-label and promoted online as a cheap cancer treatment. It has some small trials in fibromyalgia and Crohn's disease, but the claims for cancer have never been tested in a clinical trial.
Naltrexone is an opioid antagonist approved in the 1980s for opioid and alcohol dependence. At doses far below the licensed one it is prescribed off-label for many conditions. Memorial Sloan Kettering's About Herbs summary reports small placebo-controlled trials suggesting benefit in fibromyalgia, pilot randomised trials in Crohn's disease, a comparison in diabetic neuropathy, and equivocal results in multiple sclerosis; it states plainly that anecdotal claims of efficacy for cancer have not been examined in clinical trials. Low-dose naltrexone is generally well tolerated in small studies, with diarrhoea, nausea, headache and altered mood reported. The practical hazard for people with cancer is opioids: naltrexone blocks opioid receptors, and the contraindications MSK lists for standard-dose naltrexone include anyone receiving opioid painkillers, whose effect it opposes. MSK also notes preclinical data that naltrexone interacts with several liver enzymes involved in chemotherapy metabolism, of unknown clinical relevance. Anyone considering it should tell both the oncology and palliative care teams.
Brief opioid-receptor blockade is proposed to cause a rebound rise in endorphins and to modulate immune cells through opioid growth factor signalling; neither mechanism has been tested as a cancer treatment in people.
Query for this technology: (TITLE:"Low-dose naltrexone" OR ABSTRACT:"Low-dose naltrexone" OR TITLE:"Low dose naltrexone" OR ABSTRACT:"Low dose naltrexone") AND (cancer OR tumor OR tumour OR oncology OR carcinoma OR lymphoma OR leukemia OR leukaemia OR myeloma OR sarcoma OR melanoma OR glioma). Results are unfiltered search hits about Low-dose naltrexone, not a curated reading list.
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Shares Unproven diet claims (alkaline, juice, 'anti-cancer' diets), Evidence-based integrative oncology, Misinformation and unproven therapies and the tags complementary, supportive-care.
Shares Unproven diet claims (alkaline, juice, 'anti-cancer' diets), Evidence-based integrative oncology, Misinformation and unproven therapies and the tags complementary, supportive-care.
Shares Unproven diet claims (alkaline, juice, 'anti-cancer' diets), Evidence-based integrative oncology, Misinformation and unproven therapies and the tags complementary, supportive-care.
Shares Unproven diet claims (alkaline, juice, 'anti-cancer' diets), Evidence-based integrative oncology, Misinformation and unproven therapies and the tags complementary, supportive-care.
Shares Unproven diet claims (alkaline, juice, 'anti-cancer' diets), Evidence-based integrative oncology, Misinformation and unproven therapies and the tags complementary, supportive-care.
Shares Unproven diet claims (alkaline, juice, 'anti-cancer' diets), Evidence-based integrative oncology, Misinformation and unproven therapies and the tags complementary, supportive-care.
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