Caffeine-Based Gold Compounds May Fight Cancer

It has been known for some time that caffeine can kill cancer cells.  In fact, the therapeutic power of caffeine has been documented for potentially treating brain cancer, head and neck cancer, breast cancer, uterine cancer, liver cancer, skin cancer, oral/pharyngeal cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, and even lung cancer.  Now, researchers report in the American Chemical Society journal Inorganic Chemistry that a combination of a caffeine-based compound with a small amount of gold could someday be used as an anticancer agent. Cancer researchers Angela Casini and Michel Picquet and their colleagues note that even though caffeine may serve as a possible anticancer treatment, drinking gallons of coffee, sodas and energy drinks is not practicable.  The reason is that the amount of caffeine in these drinks might start to have harmful effects on healthy cells, too, at the levels necessary to kill cancerous ones.  However, because gold can wipe out cancer cells also, and, like caffeine, it can harm healthy cells, the research team put the two together to see whether the new caffeine-based gold compounds could selectively stop cancer cells from growing without hurting other cells. Researchers made a series of seven new compounds, called caffeine-based gold (I) N-heterocyclic carbenes, in the laboratory and studied them. They found that, at certain concentrations, one of the compounds of the series selectively killed human ovarian cancer cells without harming healthy cells. Breakthroughs like this one support the tremendous value of CHAT, Inc. (Caffeine Health and Therapeutics, Inc.), an organization that is currently being founded as a non-profit corporation to encourage and promote research into and the development of pharmacological derivatives of caffeine that offer improvements over caffeine’s numerous established therapeutic and health benefits.  For information about CHAT, Inc., write to CHAT@WorldofCaffeine.com.