Cancer Harnesses Anti-Aging Polyamines to Accelerate Growth, Study Finds

A Tokyo University of Science study shows polyamines like spermidine—long touted for anti-aging potential—can promote cancer cell growth by boosting the translation factor eIF5A2 and shifting cells to aerobic glycolysis; removing polyamines or eIF5A2 slows cancer cell growth in lab cultures, while spermidine can reactivate it. While the findings highlight potential new cancer drug targets, they are based on cell cultures and do not claim that polyamines cause cancer—only that cancer cells can hijack these pathways to proliferate.