>Cancer - Joe Tippens Story
Here is their conversation with Joe, as he relayed it to me: "We've known for decades that the anthelmintic class of drugs could have possible efficacy against cancer. In fact in the 1980s and 1990s there was an anthelmintic drug called Levamisole that was used on colon cancer."
Joe said, "Doc, if you have known for decades, why hasn't more research been done on it?" He replied, "Probably because of money. All of these drugs are far off patent and nobody is going to spend a gazillion dollars to repurpose them for cancer, only to have generic competition the next day."
Fenbendazole belongs to a family of drugs called benzimidazoles, which have been safely utilized as anthelmintics for roughly six decades. Anthelmintics are compounds used for the treatment of gastrointestinal parasites like giardia, roundworms, hookworms, whipworms, and pinworms.
Merck & Co. commenced the use of selective anthelmintics around 1961. They were initially given only to animals, but human use soon followed. Fenbendazole is the anthelmintic typically found in animal products. A sister product to fenbendazole, mebendazole, is typically found in deworming products for humans.
Fenbendazole is administered orally in both large and small animals including dogs, pigs, cats, cattle, horses, rabbits, and fish. When given as directed, it is considered extremely safe.
Although fenbendazole has traditionally been considered an animal anthelmintic, when taken orally it has also been shown to be very well tolerated and safe in humans. While observations in humans are limited, based on the data, a single oral dose up to 2,000 mg per person, or 500 mg per person for 10 consecutive days, wasn't problematic. There's even one case where a 67 year old patient with a very rare and severe parasitic infection of the liver took around 3,000 mg per day of mebendazole continuously for 13 years without toxicity issues. (J Hepatol 1998 Dec;29(6):994-8)
In a clinical trial conducted at Johns Hopkins, no reports of toxicity or other problems were seen in patients taking 200 mg of fenbendazole per day.
Over the years, there has been a lot of research that explains exactly how fenbendazole works at destroying parasitic worms as well as cancer cells. So far, there appears to be four different modes of action.
First, around the nucleus of all living cells, there exists a proteinstructured microtubule network. These microtubules are involved in cell division, the cell being able to adapt its shape to a changing environment, and the movement of compounds within the cell.
Fenbendazole binds to tublin, a structural protein of these microtubules. This creates a blockage in the tiny tubes and prevents the removal of waste products and the intake of nutrients. The uptake of glucose, the sole energy source of the parasitic worms, is shut down. Without an energy supply, the worms are either paralyzed and die, or they are expelled from the body.
Cancer cells also require glucose as an energy source. By blocking the microtubular network of cancer cells, fenbendazole helps to shut down their energy supply and destroys them.
Second, fenbendazole further reduces the glucose uptake of cancer cells by downregulating what are called GLUT transporters. These are proteins that deliver glucose molecules one by one across cell membranes.
Third, fenbendazole increases the activity of the body's natural killer cells in the presence of P53 tumor suppressor genes.
Fourth, fenbendazole acts as a kinase inhibitor, which helps block the formation of new blood vessels necessary for tumors to survive.
These anticancer properties are not new. They were documented years ago. I was able to find one of the earliest studies, published in 2002, which detailed these effects. (Clin Cancer Res 2002 Sep;8(9):2963-9)
In 2002, while working at MD Anderson, Dr. Tapas Mukhopadhyay and his colleagues reported that mebendazole elicited a potent antitumor effect on human cancer cell lines both in vitro and in vivo.
In simple terms, mebendazole (for all practical purposes the same drug as fenbendazole) strongly and profoundly inhibited the growth of lung, breast, ovary, colon, and bone cancer cells in both tissue samples and in live animals. At the same time, it had no negative effect on normal cell growth.