Fish oils could provide a treatment for some kinds of skin and mouth cancer, researchers reported yesterday.
Laboratory tests in London, UK, have shown that the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish such as salmon and trout can kill cancer cells at doses low enough to protect healthy cells.
The success has come against squamous cells, which cause a kind of skin cancer but are also involved in hard to treat mouth cancers.
Researchers said that fish oil might be used to help prevent cancer as well as treating it.
The findings have been reported in the journal Carcinogenesis.
Researcher Dr Zacharoula Nikolakopoulou, of Queen Mary, University of London, said: "As the doses needed to kill the cancer cells do not affect normal cells, especially with one particular fatty acid we used called eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), there is potential for using omega-3 fatty acids in the prevention and treatment of skin and oral cancers.
"It may be that those at an increased risk of such cancers – or their recurrence – could benefit from increased omega-3 fatty acids.
"Moreover, as the skin and oral cancers are often easily accessible, there is the potential to deliver targeted doses locally via aerosols or gels."
Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids selectively inhibit growth in neoplastic oral keratinocytes by differentially activating ERK1/2. Carcinogenesis. July 2013; doi:10.1093/carcin/bgt257 [abstract]
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