Buzz
A doctor on a popular daytime show suggests trying shark cartilage. The logic is that since sharks don’t get cancer, taking these pills might help prevent it in humans as well.
The pills are claimed to work because shark cartilage is said to have anti-angiogenic properties—meaning it can slow or halt blood vessel growth. Since tumors need blood vessels to grow and survive, cutting off this supply is believed to shrink or destroy them. Proponents point to this as evidence that shark cartilage works, as seen in 1990s best-sellers like Sharks Don’t Get Cancer: How Shark Cartilage Could Save Your Life and Sharks Still Don’t Get Cancer.
However, there are two significant issues with this. First, while certain anti-angiogenesis treatments are effective and FDA-approved for cancer, shark cartilage pills aren’t one of them. The pills fall short of the claims made about them. They are based on limited research, including a 2005 study in the journal Cancer that found only a ‘modest ability’ to slow blood vessel growth in lab cultures and animals, and inconsistent results in human trials with poor methodology. Another study suggested some cancer patients went into remission thanks to cartilage treatment, but the results were not peer-reviewed, and the National Cancer Institute later dismissed them as “incomplete and unimpressive.”
Most peer-reviewed research strongly contradicts the claim that shark cartilage has cancer-fighting properties. In multiple trials conducted with both humans and mice, studies have shown that shark cartilage does not provide any cancer benefits. As a result, both the FDA and FTC have removed shark cartilage products from the market and penalized manufacturers for making unsupported claims about their anti-cancer effects.
But... Do sharks actually get cancer?
The second major issue is that the very basis of the cartilage pill remedy—the claim that sharks are immune to cancer—is false.
Sharks do indeed develop cancer. This was already known before the myth spread that they didn’t, which was then used to promote cartilage pills. The first tumor identified in a cartilaginous fish was discovered on a skate in 1853, and the first one in a shark was found in 1908. Since then, over 40 instances of cancer have been reported across at least 24 shark species. These tumors have been located in different parts of the body, including the cartilage and on the face of a great white shark.
So yes, sharks can get cancer, and taking their cartilage in pill form won’t provide any benefit to you.
