Researchers identify hormone that drives fatigue after cancer radiation therapy (Naloxone stops it)

Medical Xpress / Massachusetts General Hospital / Science Advances ^ | Dec. 20, 2022 | Andrea L. Hermann et al

[ConservativeMind]

Fatigue is a common and potentially debilitating side effect of cancer radiation therapy.

Scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) recently found that the skin produces the hormone β-endorphin in response to radiation therapy, and that elevated β-endorphin levels contribute to fatigue after treatment. The research suggests that inhibiting this hormone might benefit patients.

Several years ago, David E. Fisher, MD, Ph.D. and his colleagues showed that ultraviolet radiation exposure causes the skin to release β-endorphin—a "feel-good" hormone—to foster opiate-like behaviors and addiction to sun exposure.

The likely evolutionary explanation for this response was subsequently seen to involve ultraviolet-mediated maintenance of vitamin D levels. It is also known that opiate drugs can cause sedation, a common symptom associated with fatigue.

These insights prompted Fisher to wonder whether ultraviolet radiation-induced increases in β-endorphin might apply to other forms of radiation, such as ionizing radiation, which is often employed in cancer treatment.

Exposure of skin during therapeutic radiation treatment is common, leading to the question of whether skin-derived b-endorphin may help to explain the fatigue that is associated with radiation therapy.

To test this, the investigators irradiated the tails of rats to model radiation therapy treatments.

Over the course of six weeks of radiation in rats, blood levels of β-endorphin increased, and the animals exhibited characteristics associated with opiate use (such as elevated pain thresholds) and demonstrated fatigue-like behavior. These effects were absent in rodents genetically altered to lack β-endorphin.

Furthermore, both the generalized opiate effects as well as the fatigue-like symptoms were reversed by treatment with the opiate antagonist drug naloxone.

The findings implicate skin-derived β-endorphin in radiation therapy's systemic effects, including those contributing to fatigue. "Radiation fatigue may, based on these results, be treatable or preventable using safe and readily available opiate antagonist drugs," says Fisher.

[ConservativeMind]

This is a fortunate discovery.

I doubt cancer patients think they are high on opiates when feeling fatigued, but this appears to be at least some of the reason, and it’s easily reversible.

[ConservativeMind]

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[Blueflag]

I never felt high during my treatments, but the fatigue was really prominent.

This cause and treatment is news to me.

Cancer-free for three years now.

[imardmd1]

I had CyberKnife X-ray treatment for a (benign) meningioma, a cranial tumor about an inch in diameter, back in September 2021. This involved radiation exposure of four successive low-dose but cumulative X-rays focused from different directions on the tumor.

Since then I have had almost overwhelming fatigue that has kept me from finishing active repair/restoration work on a residential property that I wanted to get on the market while it was hot.

I am going to ask my family doctor about this article, and if there is some kind of dietary adjustment or food supplement that could knock down a beta-endorphin-caused fatiguing. NOT naloxone, I wouldn't want that, I guess.

Does anybody here have any idea of such a substance or food that could alleviate radiation-caused fatigue?