A New Finding for Those Suffering With Chemo-related Nausea

There is a recent study out of the Monell Center in Philadelphia (www.monell.org) that may provide some relief to cancer patients suffering from chemotherapy-associated nausea. I thought I'd share since it is a pretty simple concept even for those who are not medically savvy.

There are nerves that pick up signals and transmit information from the receptors in the intestines to the brain. Since rats do not vomit as humans do when nauseated, Monell researchers used the incidence of "pica" in rats that received the powerful chemotherapy drug cisplatin, that has a high correlation with nausea and vomiting. Pica is the eating of non-food substances, such as clay or dirt rats do this when made sick by toxins. Hey, to each his own.

As you would imagine, rats given cisplatin began to eat clay, decreased their food intake, and lost body weight – just as chemotherapy patients do. Now what happened when the researchers cut the "common hepatic branch of the vagus nerve," which originates in the small intestine, is very interesting; cisplatin-associated pica was reduced by 60 percent! Cutting the nerve also lessened the reduction of food intake and loss of body weight. The results strongly suggest that the intestine is a key site for the generation of nausea associated with chemotherapy drugs.

A behavioral neuroscientist and senior author at Monell says "[t]his nerve may be part of a natural detection system that we use to detect toxins in food, and it is possible that we are activating it with these strong medications."

I anticipate many subsequent studies that will stem from this identification of the vagus nerve and chemo-related nausea. What a beautiful day it will be when a doctor is able to explain to a patient that the treatment that will prolong and ultimately save their life – has no debilitating side effects. It would give many newly-diagnosed patients one less thing to worry about.