Turmeric is not just a tasty spice, it could help you beat cancer and more!

In 2013 Nagpal wrote an overview of some of the benefits of consuming curcumin.  This is the compound in turmeric that seems to have the most beneficial effects on health.  In particular, Nagpal focussed on oral health.  Curcumin is antimicrobial and antiseptic.  It can be used as a pit and fissure sealant in teeth, and a mouth wash.  It is very useful in dentistry as a subgingival irrigant, and helps prevent infection.

Curcumin not only has antiseptic, antimicrobial and anti fungal properties.  It is a fantastic antioxidant.  Antioxidants help counteract the very damaging effects of free radicals in our bodies, and help protect us against many diseases and conditions.  It is becoming common knowledge that a diet high in antioxidants can help us stay healthy, deal with disease better and protect ourselves against serious, potentially fatal, illnesses.  Generally fruits and vegetables are deemed ‘antioxidant super foods’ but research has shown that turmeric, likely because of the curcumin it contains, has significant antioxidant properties.

Kolodziejczyk (2011) found that curcumin protects platelets against oxidative stress.  Oxidative stress is an indicator that there are too many dangerous free radicals present.  Levels of oxidative stress measured were reduced by up to 35% in vitro.  This implies there may be a role for curcumin in helping protect us against heart disease or stroke; more research is definitely needed on the topic.

Such antioxidant activity can also benefit your eyes.  Macular degeneration is an age-related process affecting the retina, that often results in a total loss of vision.  Chang conducted a study this year to ascertain the efficacy of several compounds, including curcumin, on prevention of macular degeneration.  Curcumin was found to cause the most significant reduction in reactive oxygen species (a measure of oxidative stress and therefore curcumin’s antioxidant power).  Chang said that ‘curcumin represents an ideal drug’ in restoring full eye-function in those suffering dry macular degeneration.

Not only an antioxidant, curcumin can also help in inflammatory conditions.  367 patients suffering from osteoarthritis in their knee were given either 1200 mg ibuprofen a day, or a curcumin supplement (1500 mg) each day, for four weeks.  The study, conducted this year by Kuptniratsaikul, showed that curcumin was as effective at reducing pain and improving function as ibuprofen.  96% of people taking the curcumin treatment were happy with it and two-thirds rated the severity of their osteoarthritis as improved.  Importantly, those taking curcumin found significantly fewer side-effects, primarily abdominal pain, suggesting curcumin might be a safer treatment option for many.

The potential power of such antioxidant and anti-inflammatory supplements is wide-reaching. Benefits in the fight against cancer were demonstrated by Dhillon in 2008.  In a clinical trial, 25 patients with advanced pancreatic cancer orally ingested 8 grams of curcumin daily.  One patient experienced a marked tumour regression of 73%, two other patients showed a clinical improvement, and another patient had disease stability for more than 18 months.

Even more success has been found when using curcumin in conjunction with existing drugs in the treatment of cancer.  Everett’s in vitro study (2007) showed that curcumin helped induce apoptosis  (cell death) in leukemic cells from 14 patients when administered with a variety of drugs.  Howells showed, also in 2007, that curcumin prevented proliferation of two types of colorectal cancer cells.  Treatment with curcumin was beneficial alone, but most effective when treatment was combined with current anti-cancer drugs.  There are many studies showing curcumin has this enhancing effect on the efficacy of cancer drugs in a wide range of cancers, including prostate cancer (An, 2014), ovarian cancer and breast cancer (Chirnomas 2006), lung cancer (Chanvorachote 2009) and bladder cancer (Kamat 2007).  There is also growing evidence that curcumin prevents the growth and spread of various cancers (Gupta, 2010).

It’s not only heart disease and cancer that we might use curcumin to fight. Alzheimer’s disease occurs when a protein fragment called amyloid-B accumulates in brain cells.  This produces oxidative stress and inflammation, and forms large plaques between nerve cells in the brain that interrupts brain function.  Normally the amyloid-B fragments would be engulfed by macrophages (immune cells) and cleared away.  Alzheimer’s patients experience suppressed macrophage activity though.  Studies have shown that curcumin not only reduces oxidative stress and inflammation it also inhibits the formation of the large amyloid-B plaques (Yang, 2005).  Not only is plaque-formation reduced, but the immune function of Alzheimer’s sufferers is increased.  Fiala showed that curcumin boosts macrophage activity to normal levels, thus allowing sufferers to clear amyloid-B plaques (2007).

The mechanisms behind the extraordinarily wide-reaching benefits of turmeric are not fully understood yet, but as research continues it is becoming clear that the curcumin it contains might prove to be a significant part of maintaining good health right into old age.

References:

1.An D, Kim K, Kim J.  Microfluidic System Based High Throughput Drug Screening System for Curcumin/TRAIL Combinational Chemotherapy in Human Prostate Cancer PC3 Cells.  Biomol Ther (Seoul). 2014 Jul;22(4):355-62

2. Chang YC, et al.  The generation of induced pluripotent stem cells for macular degeneration as a drug screening platform: identification of curcumin as a protective agent for retinal pigment epithelial cells against oxidative stress. Front Aging Neurosci. 2014 Aug 1;6:191

3. Chanvorachote P et al.  Curcumin sensitizes lung cancer cells to cisplatin-induced apoptosis through superoxide anion-mediated Bcl-2 degradation. Cancer Invest. 2009;27:624–35

4. Chirnomas D, Taniguchi T, de la Vega M, et al. Chemosensitization to cisplatin by inhibitors of the Fanconi anemia/BRCA pathway. Mol Cancer Ther. 2006;5:952–61

5. Dhillon N et al.  Phase II trial of curcumin in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.

Clin Cancer Res. 2008 Jul 15; 14(14):4491-9

6. Everett PC et al. Preclinical assessment of curcumin as a potential therapy for B-CLL. Am J Hematol. 2007 Jan;82(1):23-30

7. Fiala M et al.  Ineffective phagocytosis of amyloid-beta by macrophages of Alzheimer’s disease patients. J Alzheimers Dis. 2005 Jun;7(3):221-32; discussion 255-62. 2005. PMID:16006665.

8. Fiala M et al.  Innate immunity and transcription of MGAT-III and Toll-like receptors in Alzheimer’s disease patients are improved by bisdemethoxycurcumin. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 Jul 31;104(31):12849-54. 2007. PMID:17652175.

9. Gupta, SC et al.  Regulation of survival, proliferation, invasion, angiogenesis, and metastasis of tumor cells through modulation of inflammatory pathways by nutraceuticals. Cancer Metastasis Rev. 2010 Sep;29(3):405-34

10. Howells LM, Mitra A, Manson MM. Comparison of oxaliplatin- and curcumin-mediated antiproliferative effects in colorectal cell lines. Int J Cancer. 2007 Jul 1;121(1):175-83

11. Kamat AM, Sethi G, Aggarwal BB. Curcumin potentiates the apoptotic effects of chemotherapeutic agents and cytokines through down-regulation of nuclear factor-kappaB and nuclear factor-kappaB-regulated gene products in IFN-alpha-sensitive and IFN-alpha-resistant human bladder cancer cells. Mol Cancer Ther. 2007;6:1022–30

12. Kolodziejczyk J, et al.  Antioxidative properties of curcumin in the protection of blood platelets against oxidative stress in vitro.  Platelets. 2011;22(4):270-6

13. Kuptniratsaikul V, et al.  Efficacy and safety of Curcuma domestica extracts compared with ibuprofen in patients with knee osteoarthritis: a multicenter study. Clin Interv Aging. 2014 Mar 20;9:451-8

14. Nagpal M, Sood S.  Role of curcumin in systemic and oral health. J Nat Sci Biol Med. 2013 Jan;4(1):3-7.

15. Yang F, et al.  Curcumin inhibits formation of amyloid beta oligomers and fibrils, binds plaques, and reduces amyloid in vivo. J Biol Chem. 2005 Feb 18;280(7):5892-901