Dog food preservative may thwart pain and damage of peripheral neuropathy

Working with cells in test tubes and in mice, researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered that a chemical commonly used as a dog food preservative may prevent the kind of painful nerve damage found in the hands and feet of four out of five cancer patients taking the chemotherapy drug Taxol. The Food and Drug Administration-approved preservative, an antioxidant called ethoxyquin, was shown in experiments to bind to certain cell proteins in a way that limits their exposure to the damaging effects of Taxol, the researchers say...