The club drug ecstasy could be used to help fight cancers of the blood like leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma, according to a new study published in the journal Investigational New Drugs.
Six years ago, studies found that blood cancers responded to psychotropic drugs like ecstasy, anti-depressants and weight-loss pills. Researchers at the University of Birmingham are now working on adapting ecstasy – or MDMA as it is known by its clinical name – to target these cancers.
With regular ecstasy, the dose needed to combat tumors was fatal, so the researchers have been working on increasing the drug’s potency by isolating its cancer-fighting properties, making it 100 times more deadly to cancerous cells than the normal street drug.
Further studies are now ongoing to help improve MDMA’s ability to fight the cancer cells by allowing it to permeate the cell walls more easily.
A criminalized substance, ecstasy is popular within the dance club scene for the sense of euphoria, hyperactivity and diminished anxiety it provides.
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