Michael Landon, Luciano Pavarotti, Sally Ride, Jack Benny, Patrick Swayze. Those are familiar names of people who have died from pancreatic cancer. You probably know someone who has succumbed to it as well, given that it is the fourth-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the US.

Pancreatic cancer moves fast—many of its victims die within months of being diagnosed, and the five-year survival rate is dismal, not even reaching 5%. That’s why any good news about pancreatic cancer is most welcome. So it’s heartening to learn that a traditional Asian remedy made from mushrooms may hold the key to winning the battle against this dreaded disease, according to a new laboratory study.

MAGIC MUSHROOMS?

Poria cocos is a type of mushroom that grows on pine trees. Among practitioners of traditional Asian medicine, the mushroom has been used for many years as a sedative, diuretic and stomach settler. Recent studies suggested that bioactive compounds in mushrooms might protect against breast and skin cancer…so researchers set out to discover whether they also might hold promise against pancreatic cancer, for which there is no known cure.

For the new study, normal pancreatic cells and pancreatic cancer cells were laid out in culture trays in a laboratory, then treated with extracts from the Poria cocos mushroom to see how the cells would react.

Exciting: Within just one day, the mushroom extract inhibited several different mechanisms by which pancreatic cancer proliferates—so that the cancer cells acted less aggressively and didn’t multiply as rapidly as they usually would. For instance, the mushroom extract seemed to silence one particular gene, MMP-7, that is overactive in pancreatic cancer cells. Importantly, the mushroom extract had minimal effect on the normal pancreatic cells.

Of course, these findings do not mean that pancreatic cancer patients can be cured by eating pine tree mushrooms. But scientists are already working on the next phase of research to determine exactly how the mushroom extract turns down the MMP-7 gene…and whether the extract has the same effects in real life as it does in the lab.

Cause for hope: The potent drugs morphine, penicillin and paclitaxel (Taxol, which is used to treat lung, breast and ovarian cancers) were derived from poppy plants, mold and Pacific yew tree bark, respectively. So it’s not at all far-fetched that a mushroom might eventually prove to play a pivotal role in curing deadly pancreatic cancer. Daily Health News will continue to stay abreast of developments in this area…and we’ll keep you informed as additional advances are made.