Curcumin

The other day I had somebody come to the office and said ,vow it is that office that treats u as a whole person and not just prescriptions.I said, that was just right as I right prescriptions judiciously and use foods and nutrition to help body heal.

Our first aim is "do no harm".The Latin is Primum non nocere.

I want to share some information on Curcumin.

Curcumin is the active ingredient extracted out of turmeric,the yellow spice used in Indian cooking.

I have been used to cooking vegetables and lentils and even rice with turmeric for a long time since isaw my mom and my grandmothers and my aunts all cook foods using turmeric.

In fact they knew antiinflammatoryeffects of turmeric.

If we came with sore throat or cough we all were supposed to drnk a cup of warm milk to which is added 1 tsf of turmeric,1/4 tsf of salt and a tsf of clarefied butter or ghee.

Most of the times we got better with these dimple measures.

I remember my grandmother make a poultice of turmeric powder and some leaves of some cactuses and use over inflamed osteoarthritic joints.

Recently scientists came up with research that adding black pepper to Curcumin increases bioavailability of Curcumin by 20 fold.

I also learnt that adding black pepper to tahini which is ground up white sesame seeds increases absorption of tahini 6 fold minimum.

In the past 20 years, there have been around 26,700 articles mentioning curcumin and cancer (18,600 in the past 5 years, 12,900 in the last year). Most research has been benchtop or animal studies, but there have been at least 66 clinical trials, 21 involving cancer. Some phytopharmaceutical companies participate with enhanced bioavailability formulations like Meriva. As you might imagine, researchers from India are well represented, most notably Bharat Aggarwal of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Instutute in Houston.

 • Back in 2001, in a last ditch attempt to save the lives of 15 patients with advanced colorectal cancer that didn't respond to any of the standard chemotherapy agents or radiation, they started them on a turmeric extract. It appeared to help stall the disease in a third of the patients, 5 out of 15, suggesting turmeric extract may cause clinical benefit in at least some patients with advanced refractory colorectal cancer.

To see if they could prevent colon cancer, five years later, researchers at Cleveland Clinic and Hopkins tested two phytochemicals, curcumin (from turmeric) and quercitin, (found in red onions and red wine) in people with familial adenomatous polyposis. Colon cancer forms from polyps, and there's this disease that runs in families in which you develop hundreds of polyps, which will eventually turn into cancer unless you have your colon prophylactically removed. So they took five such patients who already had their colons removed, but still either had their rectum, or a little intestinal pouch, which were still packed with polyps. This is where they started out, between 5 and 45 polyps each, and this is where they ended up after six months of curcumin and quercitin supplements. On average, they ended up with fewer than half the polyps, and the ones they had left, shrunk in half. Here's a representative endoscopic photograph before-and-after. Now you see them now you don't. But what about patient one? Got rid of all their polyps by month three, but then they seemed to come back. So they asked them what's what, and it turned out the patient stopped taking the supplements. Darn it. So they put 'em back on the phytonutrient supplements for another three months, and the polyps, came back down, all with virtually no adverse events and no blood test abnormalities.

By studying people at high risk for colon cancer there were able to show noticeable effects within just months. But polyposis is a rare disease; they were only able to recruit five people for the study. Thankfully smokers are a dime a dozen. Another five years later, researchers put 44 smokers on turmeric curcumin supplements alone, for a month and measured changes in their colorectal aberrant crypt foci, which may act like the precursors to polyps, which are the precursors to cancer. And we can see just one month there was a significant drop in the number of these abnormal crypt foci in the high dose supplement group but no change in the low dose group, with no dose-limiting side effects, although the stools in the participants did turn yellow.thanks to my mentor Dr.Mike Greger whom I follow regularly about his videos " nutrition facts.org".