Scientists create chewing gum that could protect high-risk people from mouth and throat cancer

Chew on this news.Scientists may have developed an easy way to stop one of the most aggressive and common forms of head and neck cancer that often starts in the mouth and throat.And all it would take is popping a piece of bioengineered bean gum.Accounting for 90% of all head and neck cancers, squamous cell carcinoma is the second most common type of skin cancer in the US.However, many current treatments have shown limited effectiveness, prompting researchers at the School of Dental Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania to create a better therapy.The result, published in Scientific Reports, was a bioengineered gum made from lablab beans — a species of bean also known as hyacinth beans — that sharply reduced one virus and two types of bacteria linked to the disease.Building on previous work creating a chewing gum made from bean gum and containing a naturally antiviral protein FRIL, researchers tested oral samples of patients for three microbes associated with cancer.These included human papillomavirus (HPV) and two bacterial species, Porphyromonas gingivalis (Pg) and Fusobacterium nucleatum (Fn.)The increase in mouth and throat cancer has been strongly linked to HPV infection, accounting for 60 to 75% of cases.High-risk HPV types like HPV 16, HPV 18 and HPV 59 are the most likely to result in squamous carcinoma.“And Pg and Fn infections worsen survival rates of untreated recurrent or metastatic oral cancer, even after surgery and risk-adjusted adjuvant, or supplemental, therapies,” lead researcher Henry Daniell said in a press release.The bean gum extracts reduced HPV by 93% in saliva samples and 80% in oral rinse samples.When protegrin, an antimicrobial peptide that kills harmful bacteria, was added to the gum, a single dose reduced Pg and Fn levels to nearly zero.Notably, the addition of protegrin also didn’t affect beneficial bacteria found in the mouth, contrasting with radiation therapy, which reduces good bacteria and increases disease-caus...