Dimethyl sulfoxide (or sulphoxide), DMSO, a colourless liquid, is a chemical solvent that has been around for years. It is a natural product from trees and can be used to treat muscle and joint pain and bladder inflammation. It can be used topically to relieve pain and arthritis.
Dimethyl sulfoxide was accidentally discovered in 1866 as a by product of pulp and paper manufacturing. DMSO is an anti-inflammatory compound and a powerful free radical scavenger (4). It is known to have pain-relieving and collagen-softening benefits. It can protect healthy cells from freezing damage and it’s a cryopreservative. It can also reduce radiation damage. The DMSO anti-inflammation benefits are supported by the FDA. It has ’approved use of DMSO for interstitial cystitis, a type of bladder inflammation’. It may interact with some medications and so you should tell your doctor or oncologist if you are thinking of using it.
The FDA rejected DMSO even after positive clinical trials after a study in 1965 found that giving high levels to dogs, rabbits and pigs may have caused small, insignificant changes in the animals’ eye lens. No such evidence of cataracts or any similar problems has ever been found in tests with humans, or since with animals. Despite all this, it is actually used for animals, and for muscle and joint pain in humans today. It is available in liquid, gel or roll-on form at animal feed stores.
Some alternative cancer centers use it, with claimed success. There is little evidence that DMSO can cause cancerous cells to become benign although that is often a claim. However, there is research that it may stop or slow the development of cancers, such as breast, ovarian, bladder and colorectal cancers (1). It seems to be able to protect healthy cells from chemotherapy. It is also promoted as an immune system booster.
2013 research (2) when acting as a chemotherapy ’solvent’ showed that it could cross the blood brain barrier and it was suggested as a contrast agent for glioma detection.
In 2015 it appeared, when used as a contrast agent in research, to neutralize MAOB, a compound important to glioma mitochondria in xenografts in vitro. Monoamine oxidase B levels are highly expressed in human gliomas (Brain cancer) (3)
DMSO used with chemotherapy
This ability to act as a solvent and transport chemotherapy into cancer cells has certainly excited some people:
DMSO Potentiation Therapy (DPT) uses DMSO to carry one tenth of the normal drug dose into cancer cells. Thus the argument is that it helps target the cancer cell better leaving less hazard to healthy cells. DPT is used by some cancer centers to protect healthy cells from chemotherapy and to decrease side-effects from the drugs. Clinics have been shut down for using it in America.
Some alternative clinics use it with Intravenous vitamin C (IVC) protocols.
DMSO and radiation damage
A 2018 study (4) showed that it was a powerful free-radical scavenger and could reverse double strand breaks in DNA induced by Radiation damage. A Japanese study further concluded that DMSO was the single most effective treatment for their patients in the 2011 nuclear plant leak in Fukushima (5) as it can repair double strand breaks.
Go to: MSM
*****
Alternative quackery?
So if it gets inside cancer cells and can carry drugs in, what else can it carry?
First up - A chap called Jim Humble claims that chlorine dioxide used in this way cures everything from AIDS to cancer. Presumably he’s a trillionaire. Chlorine Dioxide apparently involves stabilized oxygen. It is in his ’Miracle Mineral Supplement’. Apparently you mustn’t use Protocell, vitamin C, herbs, immune boosters or anything else sensible at the same time.
Next up - Sodium Bicarbonate. We have covered sodium bicarbonate on this website injected straight into a mouse tumour, and/or mice drinking excess. Inside the tumour it temporarily neutralizes the acid environment - but not for long; where the mice drank excess amounts it supposedly reached the bloodstream. Since acidity is required for metastases to occur the number of circulating cancers cells fell and this was the mechanism concluded. Not seen any hard research for DMSO carrying this into cancer cells.
Next up - Colloidal silver. Apparently you take MSM and colloidal silver in the morning to kill off the microbes that cancer cells make. In the evening you use DMSO with colloidal silver and another ’special silver’. When the microbes are killed, the cancer cells revert to normal cells.
Worse, this makes the treatment much more effective than many other alternative therapies. I can only guess.
I can’t go on with this mind numbing ’alternative’ stuff - it is really junk science - it’s all on Cancer Tutor, if you really can be bothered.
References:
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22814967
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352396415301067
- Monoamine oxidase B levels are highly expressed in human gliomas - Oncotarget; 2016 Jan 19;7(3):3379-93.
- Dimethyl Sulfoxide Prevents Radiation-Induced Oral Mucositis Through Facilitating DNA Double-Strand Break Repair in Epithelial Stem Cells - Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys; 2018 Dec 1;102(5):1577-1589.
- An alternative mechanism for radioprotection by dimethyl sulfoxide; Radiat Res; 2010;51(6):733-40