That is the title of a FASCINATING article by CNN’s senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, about an experiment involving a few very sick dogs and a compound–also a drug–called rapamycin, discovered in the dirt of Easter Island (it’s a bacterial by-product…yum yum!) and mainly intended for humans with cancer and transplant patients. The article is so full of twists and turns that I am not even going to try writing a synopsis…Here is the link: goo.gl/Tdsis8

But I do have a few comments, as always. Ah yes, rapamycin is being studied in myeloma treatment, too…A number of clinical trials testing rapamycin, and its analogs, such as temsirolimus, on MM patients are going on right now, in fact.

It’s a strong immune suppressor, and it’s also a mTOR inhibitor (like quercetin, I would like to add). I mentioned rapamycin years ago in my quercetin post, which you can find by using the blog’s Search box on the upper right. In fact, if you type mTOR into the above-mentioned Search box, you will also come upon my mTOR-rhubarb post. Hey, I’d forgotten about rhubarb…!!!

At this point you might be wondering what mTOR is. Well, quoting from my 2007 quercetin post, it’s “a really nasty pathway involved with myeloma disease progression. When mTOR is activated, you see, MM cell lines resist being killed.” Bad, bad, bad.

I haven’t done any followup research on this topic, but you can bet your basket of ripe bananas that I am going to have another look at PubMed. And a look at those MM patient trials, too. Very interesting…

Sorry if I sound a bit hurried, if not a bit on the rambling side!!!, but it’s getting late over here, and I must go feed the cats and get dinner started. I’m suddenly STARVING! So…off I go! Ciao! Oh, MANY thanks to Stan for letting me know about this article, btw! 🙂