Researchers Find Salt Could Be Used To Treat Cancer

BOSTON (CBS) -- There may be a new weapon to attack cancer cells with less harm to the patient, and it you can probably find it right on your kitchen table. It's salt, which is also called sodium chloride.

Researchers at the University of Georgia used sodium chloride nano-particles as a so-called "Trojan Horse" to deliver cancer-killing sodium and chloride ions into cancer cells. But they say the treatment isn't toxic because when the nano-particles degrade, they just turn into salt.

In fact, when they injected these salt nano-particles into tumors in mice, the sodium chloride nano-particles suppressed tumor growth by 66% with no evidence of harm to the rodents.