Turmeric (Yellow Spice) used In Indian Cooking fights Breast Cancer ()

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News

Turmeric fights breast cancer in mice - study

 

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science CorrespondentThu Jun 9, 4:19

PM ET

 

Turmeric, a yellow spice used widely in Indian cooking, may help

 

stop the spread of cancer, U.S. researchers reported on

 

Thursday.

 

Tests in mice showed that curcumin, an active compound found in

 

turmeric, helped stop the spread of breast cancer tumor cells to

 

the lungs.

 

Tests have already started in people, too, said Bharat Aggarwal

 

of the Department of Experimental Therapeutics at the University

 

of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, who led the

 

study.

 

" Here you don't need to worry about safety. The only thing we

 

have to worry about is efficacy, " Aggarwal said in a telephone

 

interview.

 

" Curcumin, as you know, is very much an essential part of the

 

Indian diet, " he added.

 

" What's exciting about this agent is that it seems to have both

 

chemopreventive and therapeutic properties. If we can

 

demonstrate that it is efficacious in humans, it could be of

 

tremendous value, but we're a long way from being able to make

 

any recommendations yet, " Aggarwal said.

 

Earlier research showed that curcumin, which acts as an

 

antioxidant, can help prevent tumors from forming in the

 

laboratory.

 

For their study, Aggarwal and colleagues injected mice with

 

human breast cancer cells -- a batch of cells grown from a

 

patient whose cancer had spread to the lungs.

 

The resulting tumors were allowed to grow, and then surgically

 

removed, to simulate a mastectomy, Aggarwal said. Then the mice

 

either got no additional treatment; curcumin alone; the cancer

 

drug paclitaxel, which is sold under the brand name Taxol; or

 

curcumin plus Taxol.

 

Half the mice in the curcumin-only group and 22 percent of those

 

in the curcumin plus Taxol group had evidence of breast cancer

 

that had spread to the lungs, Aggarwal said in a study to be

 

presented to a breast cancer research meeting in Philadelphia.

 

But 75 percent of animals that got Taxol alone and 95 percent of

 

those that got no treatment developed lung tumors.

 

Aggarwal said earlier studies suggest that people who eat diets

 

rich in turmeric have lower rates of breast cancer, prostate

 

cancer, lung cancer and colon cancer.

 

His team would like to try giving curcumin to women who know

 

they have a high risk of breast cancer -- such as those who have

 

a mother or sister with the disease.

 

No drug company is likely to develop a natural product that

 

cannot be patented, he said. " There are no companies behind it

 

so our only source of funding is either the National Institutes

 

of Health or the Department of Defense, " he said.

 

This study was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense's Breast

 

Cancer Research Program.

 

Aggarwal's team is also testing curcumin against pancreatic

 

cancer and multiple myeloma.