Does Fenben Cancer Treatment Really Work?
There is no evidence that fenben can cure cancer, and in fact it may make cancer worse. There are several established treatments for cancer, and they all work differently to kill cancer cells or prevent them from proliferating.
The claims about fenben cancer treatment were made in a series of videos by an unlicensed veterinarian, Andrew Jones, which have been reposted on Facebook and TikTok. He is a former member of the College of Veterinarians of British Columbia and has been reprimanded for promoting alternative medicines.
Despite this, Jones’ videos have attracted thousands of followers and influenced some people to try fenben for their cancers. The videos claim that he used a combination of diet, exercise, and fenbendazole to cure his small-cell lung cancer. The claims have been debunked by Sheila Singh, director of McMaster’s Centre for Discovery in Cancer Research.
Singh and her team tested the effects of fenbendazole on a variety of cell lines and patient-derived cancer organoids. They found that fenbendazole induced cancer cell death via multiple pathways, including disrupting microtubule dynamics and p53 activation. It also inhibited glucose uptake in cancer cells by down-regulating the expression of GLUT transporters and key glycolytic enzymes.
In addition, fenbendazole suppressed tumor growth in mice with EMT6 colon cancer xenografts. The researchers gave the mice either fenbendazole or a placebo, and monitored the volume of their tumors over time. The mice with fenbendazole-treated tumors experienced four-times less tumor growth than the control mice. The researchers also found that fenbendazole reduced the number of colonies formed by cancer cells in vitro.
Furthermore, Singh and her team found that fenbendazole suppressed the proliferation of colorectal cancer cells in a lab dish. They compared the anti-cancer effect of fenbendazole to that of albendazole, another anthelmintic drug from the benzimidazole family that is similar to fenbendazole. The results showed that fenbendazole exhibited more potent anti-cancer activity in 5-fluorouracil-resistant colorectal cancer cells than albendazole did.
The researchers further found that fenbendazole increased the expression of autophagy-related proteins, Beclin-1 and LC3-I, in wild-type and 5-fluorouracil-resistant SNU-C5 colorectal cancer cells. It also enhanced ferroptosis and apoptosis in the cancer cells. In addition, fenbendazole reduced caspase-8 activation in the cancer cells.
In another set of experiments, the researchers investigated whether fenbendazole could affect the survival of 5-fluorouracil-resistant SNU-C5 cells. The cells were treated with different concentrations of fenbendazole for 24 hours, and their viability was assessed by flow cytometry. The results showed that fenbendazole had the most significant effect on the cells’ ability to survive, with the highest concentrations of fenbendazole causing the most severe toxicity. The cells’ resistance to fenbendazole was associated with a decrease in caspase-8 activity and with reduced levels of autophagy and ferroptosis. In contrast, apoptosis was enhanced by fenbendazole in both wild-type and 5-fluorouracil-resistant cancer cells. fenben cancer treatment