The Cure to Cancer Could Be Cat Poop?

The big "C."  Nothing has struck more fear into our minds or caused more pain than that single letter.  Just the thought of cancer leaves most of us quaking in our shoes.  Researchers have spent countless billions trying to cure this horrific, ugly disease and all the while, the cure might be right there in your cat's litter box.

Researchers at Dartmouth College have recently discovered that a certain parasite in cat poop will shrink cancerous tumors in mice and works are in progress to try and harness the parasite's cancer-killing abilities for human usage.

From what scientists have learned, the parasite, called toxoplasma gondii, lives in cats' intestines.  It can also infect people, but our immune system usually fights it off.

What they've found is that it stimulates the same immune responses that help fight off cancer.  In mice, they used a genetically modified version to shrink tumors from melanoma and ovarian cancer, and increased their rate of survival.

The researchers think it works because it's evolved to keep its host healthy, by manipulating the immune system and preventing things like inflammation.  They are also in hopes that they'll soon have the ability to create a synthetic form of the parasite as a cancer fighting agent for humans.

Read more on the research at LiveScience.com