Alright, so Dihexa is this synthetic peptide that’s been getting a lot of attention for possibly helping with neurodegenerative diseases—think Alzheimer’s and things like that. But here’s the catch: when it comes to cancer, things get a little fuzzy.
Here’s how Dihexa works: it binds to something called hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and makes it more effective at connecting with this receptor called c-Met. Now, this HGF/c-Met pathway is pretty important in the body because it helps cells grow, survive, and move around. But here’s the tricky part: this same pathway is super active in a lot of cancers, like bladder, breast, colorectal, lung, and prostate cancers. So, when you start boosting it, some people worry it could raise the risk of cancer.
The studies we have so far are mostly short-term, and they don’t show Dihexa causing any cancer or toxicity, even with c-Met’s reputation as a potential cancer trigger. Most scientists agree that developing cancer usually needs more than just one overactive gene or pathway. You’d typically need a mix of genetic changes, like activating some “bad” genes and losing others that protect against cancer.
That said, almost all the research on Dihexa has been in animals or in cells in a lab—there’s barely any human data. Some research even suggests that HGF-based treatments (or blockers) could actually help treat certain cancers. But Dihexa hasn’t been directly studied in that way yet, so it’s still unclear.
Bottom line: because Dihexa affects this HGF/c-Met pathway—which has a known connection to cancer—it’s definitely worth looking at with a bit of caution. There’s no hard evidence that it causes cancer, but we’re still missing a lot of data.
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