Everyone’s heard the phrase made famous by Marilyn Monroe, “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” With new medical studies being performed, diamonds could become a true best friend to people in need. It turns out that diamonds are capable of more than just sparkle and shine; they have characteristics which can aid in healing cancer patients. One typically does not think of diamonds when they think of cancer treatment, but new research shows that diamonds can help create a more targeted treatment with fewer side effects.Cancer is an awful beast that attacks people in every stage of life in many different forms. Twenty-somethings can fall victim to breast cancer. Liver cancer can strike a wife and mother of several young children. Cancer does not single out older people but can bring devastation to men and women of every age category from child leukemia to colon cancer in an eighty year old man. Cancer is a terrible way to die, but can also be a terrible and painful way to live when conventional treatments are used.
Traditional treatments include chemotherapy and radiation. These techniques are designed to kill the bad cancer cells without killing healthy cells. They can be damaging to the good cells, as well, however, and leave patients with side effects. The side effects of chemotherapy include, but are not limited to pain, seizures, headaches, heartburn, dizziness and unbearable fatigue. Chemotherapy is an incredibly difficult and painful treatment to endure. The side effects make it hard for patients to endure the healing process. It takes a great deal of mental toughness just to get through treatment successfully. Chemotherapy is a wonderful gift, and provides a way for cancer victims to go on living healthy lives free of cancer. The treatment is extremely difficult for most people to bear. With cancer at such high rates, it is a terrible thing that so much pain needs to be endured for a patient to come out on the other side.
So, what do diamonds have to do with cancer? Diamonds are rare and beautiful gems. It takes a great deal of effort, however, to cut them and polish them from their raw state into the sparkling gems which are seen in jewelry stores. If there is anything more valuable than a diamond, it is a human life. Just like diamonds, people must endure the trials of cutting and polishing to become what they are meant to become. Diamonds are a lot like people in this respect. The trials of cancer treatment are trying and difficult, but what comes out of the other side is a beautiful person who has been healed.
Now, diamonds can finally help with the healing. A new drug patch is now being studied which may help cancer patients to get chemotherapy benefits only in the areas which require the treatment. The patch is studded with nanodiamonds, or fragments of diamond dust, and it works to treat localized areas of remaining cancer after a tumor has been removed. The diamond patch releases chemotherapy drugs slowly over time, and only to the cancer infected area. Because the patch is placed over the affected area, the chemotherapy does not harm other areas of the body, thus greatly reducing the side effects. The patch would be very economical, as nanodiamonds are mass produced already for use in car parts and electronics.
Why do diamonds have the ability to treat cancer? These tiny diamond fragments have proven to be compatible with tissues in the body. This allows the chemotherapy drugs to be slowly released into the body without causing inflammation of the cells.
Once the research is completed, the question then becomes when this treatment will become available and in what capacity. Researchers believe that these diamond patches will be able to be used in conjunction with traditional injected chemotherapy shortly. Why use both. The nanodiamond patches can compliment the injected chemotherapy. This means that, although tradition treatment will still be required, less quantities of it will be needed for successful treatment of the cancer. Less of the injected drug means fewer side effects and more cost efficiency. This would be a huge advancement in the field of cancer treatment if less chemotherapy was needed with fewer side effects, less healthy cell damage and less money.
The long term relationship between diamonds and cancer treatment is yet to be determined. The future looks bright, and more healing properties of this incredible stone, are surely to be discovered in time. Perhaps eventually, diamond patches could be created to take the place of surgery and injected drugs all together. Wouldn’t that be a blessing for cancer patients? One is diagnosed with cancer, so they go to the doctor and have a patch placed over the affected area. The patch then slowly releases all of the treatment which is required to kill the cancer for good. Who knows? This kind of miracle healing might not be so unheard of in the future.
