Curry spice 'kills cancer cells'

[babsbunny]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8328377.stm

An extract found in the bright yellow curry spice turmeric can kill off cancer cells, scientists have shown.

The chemical - curcumin - has long been thought to have healing powers and is already being tested as a treatment for arthritis and even dementia.

Now tests by a team at the Cork Cancer Research Centre show it can destroy gullet cancer cells in the lab.

[Enrique]

1. which one is she?

:shrug:

[JuniperLea]

4. LOL!

The one with the lovely dark eyes, beautiful long shiny black hair, wearing a saree, perhaps:)

[JuniperLea]

2. Herbs and spices are wonderful things...

Early medicine came from them exclusively.

I'll be caving to my craving for curry more often;)

[harvey007]

31. I love curry

Think I'll make Indian food tonight.

Glad to see more scientific tests on natural remedies.

[Taverner]

3. Phineas and Ferb were wrong: "It's not INHERENTLY Evil..."

Actually, it is good. Very good.

[tridim]

5. Sounds like it's worth the fire-ass.

:)

[Dreamer Tatum]

6. That's the cancer cells exiting your body nt

[polichick]

7. There are so many "medicines" in nature - which is why Big Pharma...

...scoops so many up, messes with them in their labs and files for patents.

[kimmerspixelated]

9. Bingo!

[Blue_In_AK]

8. I do a lot of Indian cooking here.

It must be why we're so healthy. Tastes good and good for you, too. :)

[tabatha]

10. Here is a post with a recipe that includes turmeric.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=222x74540

Someone objected to the 1/8tsp in a cup - so maybe just a tiny shake.

[Dover]

12. Let them object...

I don't know where that objection to 1/8 tsp. came from, but it's laughable.

Apparently the fear mongers are working their 'charms' on people. But please think about
it (or have them present the info supporting that claim). Most people use MUCH more than
1/8 tsp. in regular cooking and perhaps several times that in daily supplements - there
are no known toxicity problems at 'normal' recommended dosages. No need to be timid with this
herb. But don't take my word for it. Just do a search on turmeric 'toxicity' and contra-indications.

There may be a few situations where it is inadvisable if used in combination with certain medicines or treatments and so if you are on medications or have any concerns you should ask a KNOWLEDGEABLE doctor. Unfortunately knowledgeable doctors are still few and far between. Western doctors are not usually trained in herbal/alternative medicines and pharmaceutical companies do not have incentives to test them unless they can be patented. They did try to patent Turmeric but failed. I'll bet that far more people become ill or die from use and misuse of 'approved' medicines than from the use of herbs.

Thank goodness there is a movement toward medical institutions that promote integrative medicine that is inclusive of alternatives and will do the research.

Re: toxicity, one article says:

The volatile oil fraction of turmeric has demonstrated significant anti-inflammatory activity in a variety of experimental models. Even more potent than its volatile oil is the yellow or orange pigment of turmeric, which is called curcumin. Curcumin is thought to be the primary pharmacological agent in turmeric. In numerous studies, curcumin's anti-inflammatory effects have been shown to be comparable to the potent drugs hydrocortisone and phenylbutazone as well as over-the-counter anti-inflammatory agents such as Motrin. Unlike the drugs, which are associated with significant toxic effects (ulcer formation, decreased white blood cell count, intestinal bleeding), curcumin produces no toxicity.

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=78

[beam me up scottie]

16. Are you a "KNOWLEDGEABLE doctor"? What makes you qualified to dispense medical advice?

there are no known toxicity problems at 'normal' recommended dosages. No need to be timid with this
herb. But don't take my word for it. Just do a search on turmeric 'toxicity' and contra-indications.

Can you prove that?

There may be a few situations where it is inadvisable if used in combination with certain medicines or treatments and so if you are on medications or have any concerns you should ask a KNOWLEDGEABLE doctor.

Why are you posting medical advice without advising posters of possible side effects and adverse reactions?

Why are you ignoring a nurse's advice about this chemical?:

If someone is taking coumadin, the blood thinner, beware of too much turmeric
It can interact with coumadin, leading to a greater chance of increased bleeding/decreased blood clotting. If you are on coumadin after a surgery like joint replacement, or some other health condition, please beware, and check with your health care provider.

As with pharmaceuticals, more natural medicines and treatments can also have interactions.

Do you really think that telling them "Just do a search on turmeric 'toxicity' and contra-indications." is responsible?

How would you react if a real doctor did the same thing in this forum?

[tabatha]

19. If you are on a blood thinner, then you should not only avoid

turmeric, but you should avoid Vitamin E (nuts) and aspirin and many other foods.

Here is list:
http://www.ctds.info/natthinners.html

Therefore, anyone on blood thinners should do extensive research to know what foods to avoid.

And possibly, they should just eat foods with blood thinning activity and avoid medicines altogether.

[laughingliberal]

36. If a doctor prescribed Coumadin for a patient it is inherent on the doctor to advise...

the patient of foods, medications which will potentiate the action of the Coumadin. They should also be letting their patients know that many of the dark green vegetables can decrease the effectiveness of Coumadin. Now, would you jump on someone who stated dark green vegetables contain healthy substances?

[tabatha]

20. Well said.

[beam me up scottie]

27. Ok, I just bought a 50 lb sack of this stuff, tell me how it "helps the female reproductive organs"

Can you hurry up and get back to me? I fired my ob/gyn since I can get medical advice on DU for free.

[Euromutt]

11. Killing cancer cells in a petri dish is one thing

There's no shortage of chemicals that will kill cancer cells in a lab environment if you pour on enough of the stuff. The trick is getting it into a cancer patient in a sufficient concentration to kill the cancer cells without killing the patient in the process.

[Celebration]

13. actually there are TONS of en vivo studies

Mostly in mice of course.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18794115?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=2

Furthermore, treatment of HCT-116 colon tumor-bearing ICR SCID mice with curcumin resulted in decreased tumor growth, associated with proteasome inhibition, proliferation suppression, and apoptosis induction in tumor tissues. Our study shows that proteasome inhibition could be one of the mechanisms for the chemopreventive and/or therapeutic roles of curcumin in human colon cancer. Based on its ability to inhibit the proteasome and induce apoptosis in both HCT-116 and metastatic SW480 colon cancer cell lines, our study suggests that curcumin could potentially be used for treatment of both early-stage and late-stage/refractory colon cancer.

[trotsky]

14. But again, this comes down to isolating the active chemical.

Threads like this are all the same. Some natural substance is shown to have some effect on something under some conditions. The immediate reaction is generally, "Oh, I love that stuff, I cook with (or drink or season or whatever) it all the time, guess I should use more! Oh and those stupid big pharma shills sure are stupid, there are cures for everything in nature!"

But these studies almost never indicate that eating/drinking X will cure Y. They indicate that chemical Z found in X can have an effect on the symptoms/cause of Y. Generally left unproven is whether chemical Z can be delivered to our systems effectively, and how.

Lots and lots of drugs came from natural sources. The pharmaceutical process comes in by identifying and isolating the chemicals actually responsible, figuring out how to mass produce them, and then deliver them most effectively to our bodies. Sometimes it can be done orally. Sometimes it has to be intravenously. Sometimes there's no safe way to put it into our bodies.

There is a real lack of scientific and logical thinking, both in the United States in general and at DU in particular. It leads to unwarranted and unsupported conclusions, and false hope. These threads really make it obvious.

[beam me up scottie]

15. Our resident wannabe "healers" prove that a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

If every one of their miracle cures worked as advertised none of them would have any medical problems at all.

Nice to see the Wooen haven't forgotten how to spam the Health and other main forums with quackery that belongs in their group.

[trotsky]

18. If they only took risks with their own health, that's one thing.

But promoting ridiculous, uninformed claims in a public forum is just plain reckless and irresponsible.

[beam me up scottie]

22. Didn't it used to be against the rules to give medical advice on DU?

My memory must be going.

[uppityperson]

23. Used to be. Now only if

too many people cuss back, apparently. And then only because too many people are cussing.

[beam me up scottie]

24. It's not like it's difficult to tell the difference between posting a recipe & giving medical advice

I like this _____ and thought I'd pass it on.

vs.

I like this _____ because it cures _____, makes _____ feel better and is not harmful in any way.

[Celebration]

25. you asked for en vivo studies

And there are a ton of them, on mice. Curcumin is the active ingredient--not anything secret or exotic that needs lots of effort to extract and isolate. It is used in Indian food all the time. There just isn't any need for a pharmaceutical company to come between a person and their supper.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11606625

The curry spice curcumin reduces oxidative damage and amyloid pathology in an Alzheimer transgenic mouse.
Lim GP, Chu T, Yang F, Beech W, Frautschy SA, Cole GM.

Departments of Medicine and Neurology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.

Inflammation in Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients is characterized by increased cytokines and activated microglia. Epidemiological studies suggest reduced AD risk associates with long-term use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Whereas chronic ibuprofen suppressed inflammation and plaque-related pathology in an Alzheimer transgenic APPSw mouse model (Tg2576), excessive use of NSAIDs targeting cyclooxygenase I can cause gastrointestinal, liver, and renal toxicity. One alternative NSAID is curcumin, derived from the curry spice turmeric. Curcumin has an extensive history as a food additive and herbal medicine in India and is also a potent polyphenolic antioxidant. To evaluate whether it could affect Alzheimer-like pathology in the APPSw mice, we tested a low (160 ppm) and a high dose of dietary curcumin (5000 ppm) on inflammation, oxidative damage, and plaque pathology. Low and high doses of curcumin significantly lowered oxidized proteins and interleukin-1beta, a proinflammatory cytokine elevated in the brains of these mice. With low-dose but not high-dose curcumin treatment, the astrocytic marker GFAP was reduced, and insoluble beta-amyloid (Abeta), soluble Abeta, and plaque burden were significantly decreased by 43-50%. However, levels of amyloid precursor (APP) in the membrane fraction were not reduced. Microgliosis was also suppressed in neuronal layers but not adjacent to plaques. In view of its efficacy and apparent low toxicity, this Indian spice component shows promise for the prevention of Alzheimer's disease.

[trotsky]

29. I'm sorry that you completely missed the point

Enjoy your turmeric. Make sure to eat plenty - more than Indians - since they get many cancers at a higher rate than the rest of the world.

[tabatha]

30. Can you prove that turmeric is the cause?

How about the GMO crops forced on them?
How about Bhopal?
How about a large population with many of them starving and living in terrible conditions?
Why did Mother Theresa work in that part of the world?

How about the high level of antibiotics in their water ways, thanks to western pharmaceuticals.
"Levels of antibiotics measured in streams, lakes and well water near pharmaceutical factories in India are 100,000 to 1,000,000 times higher than levels measured in waters that receive sewage effluent in the US or China."

For someone who is supposedly "scientific", there are hundreds of causes of cancer, and one can never tell until studies have been done, what causes their cancer? And even if turmeric was helpful in cancer, it cannot overcome chronic conditions such as starvation, filthy water, filthy air, etc. I doubt that even chemo would help, since it does not help a large number of cancer patients anyway.

[trotsky]

32. Yeah, that pretty much illustrates my point about ignorance of science.

Thanks very much.

[Euromutt]

34. I'm seeing a common thread to these studies you're citing

The first is that they're all for different afflictions: oesophagal cancer, colon cancer, Alzheimer's.

The second is that they all use phrases like "shows promise" and "could potentially be used." We're talking early stages of exploration here, and we're a long way from anything even approaching conclusive evidence. Sure, maybe something useful can be done with curcumin, but it's going to take a lot more research to establish what, whether and how. And the sad truth is that the overwhelming majority of hypotheses upon which studies published in medical journals are based don't pan out.

Curcumin is the active ingredient--not anything secret or exotic that needs lots of effort to extract and isolate. It is used in Indian food all the time. There just isn't any need for a pharmaceutical company to come between a person and their supper.

Well, actually, what's used in Indian cuisine--and for that matter, yellow mustard--is turmeric, of which curcumin is one component (specifically, the pigment). So there would have to be some measure of extraction and isolation, and if you want to achieve analytically pure amounts, you're in the territory of the pharmaceutical industry. To compare, it doesn't take industrial-age technology to create remedies from willow bark; people have doing that since 3000 BCE. But it wasn't until the early 19th century--using the nascent scientific method--that salicyn was identified as the active ingredient in these pre-industrial remedies, and even then, several decades followed in which the usefulness of salicyn, and its derivatives salicylic acid and sodium salicylate, was limited by the gastric upset that effective doses of these compounds tended to cause. It wasn't until the 1890s that researchers at Bayer, basing themselves on earlier forays by others into acetylating salicylic acid, created aspirin.

There's actually a valid parallel to be drawn between willow bark and opium poppies in this regard, in that various remedies have been made from opium poppies since before the Sumerians, but it wasn't until the 19th century that morphine and codeine were identified as the active substances, and refined and semi-synthesized into drugs like heroin, oxycodone, etc.

It's thanks to modern medical science that we understand--only comparatively recently--what the active compounds of such things as willow bark and opium poppies are, exactly what physiological effects they have and how they achieve them, how they interact with other substances, etc. Without medical science and, yes, the pharmaceutical industry, we probably wouldn't even be able to identify what we call curcumin as a distinct component of turmeric. How would the researchers in the study cited above have been able to be so specific with regard to parts per million of curcumin if not for pharmaceutical techniques? If you throw a dash of turmeric into your curry, do you have any idea what dosage of curcumin you're ingesting as a result?

[beam me up scottie]

17. Warning: turmeric can lead to a greater chance of increased bleeding/decreased blood clotting

If someone is taking coumadin, the blood thinner, beware of too much turmeric
It can interact with coumadin, leading to a greater chance of increased bleeding/decreased blood clotting. If you are on coumadin after a surgery like joint replacement, or some other health condition, please beware, and check with your health care provider.

As with pharmaceuticals, more natural medicines and treatments can also have interactions.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=222&topic_id=41476&mesg_id=74621

[tabatha]

21. Warning: all of these foods can cause increased bleeding:

http://www.ctds.info/natthinners.html

[Celebration]

26. uh oh

I'm in BIG TROUBLE--this is my weekly diet!

[beam me up scottie]

28. Maybe you can tell me how turmeric will help my female reproductive organs.

You guys are the experts, so explain.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

33. From your article.... from mine.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8328377.stm


Each year around 7,800 people are diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in the UK. It is the sixth most common cause of cancer death and accounts for around five percent of all UK cancer deaths.

http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2007/03/30/102717/UK-soils-are-deficient-in-Selenium.htm

>>A survey in 2000 by Rothamsted Research revealed that many UK soils are deficient in Selenium, and thus producing grass that is unable to supply grazing animals with enough Selenium for optimal health. Whether this is sheep, beef, or dairy cows health effects will be seen with selenium deficient diets.

This soil survey was supported by a forage survey conducted in 2003 by Yara UK, which revealed further evidence of deficiency, with 74% of samples falling below 0.1 mg/kg DM.<<

Selenium-based enzyme that is important in detoxifying the harmful by products of normal metabolism.

Addressing this problem has been the centre of research worldwide, with the majority focusing on feed supplementation in the form of inorganic selenate added to the ration, or free access mineral licks in the grazed pasture.

Yara UK has looked at another approach – through grass fertilization. This work has demonstrated that applications of Selenium-enriched fertilizer (Top Stock) through the grazing season increased Se levels in the forage above the 0.1mg/kgDM level, subsequently raising the Se Blood levels in all cases.

Unfortunately, this true of the human population in the U.K. as well.

[Name removed]

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