It has long been known that inorganic arsenic is a human carcinogen, but researchers have recently uncovered an aspect of this that could help explain why it is that arsenic can cause several tumors of different cancer types to form both on the skin and inside the body.
According to a paper by researchers at the National Toxicology Program Laboratory, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (part of the NIH) and published online in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, when normal stem cells are treated with inorganic arsenic, become cancerous and are placed near to-- but out of direct contact with-- healthy normal stem cells, something extraordinary happens: these cancerous cells are able to send molecular signals through membranes that cells themselves can't pass through, and to those normal stem cells, instructing them to become cancerous.
In other words, cancerous stem cells can recruit healthy stem cells without even coming into direct contact with them. The consequence can be massive tumor growth or metastases or both.
Frighteningly, inorganic arsenic can be found in the drinking water of millions of people worldwide.
The question for researchers now is to determine whether this molecular signaling is common to all types of carcinogens or if it's unique to arsenic.
Source: Medical News Today
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