GreenMedInfo, By: Sayer Ji, 11/04/2013

The humble spice turmeric, in doses available for pennies a day, has been found to reduce one of the most devastating side effects of radiation treatment for head and neck cancer. While in many ways the treatment of head and neck cancer through solely conventional means is tragic today, the medical establishment is beginning to wake up to the utility of natural compounds in at least reducing or preventing unnecessary harm caused by the use of chemotherapy and radiation. There is no denying that a massive body of research has now accumulated showing that spices as common as turmeric are capable of both increasing the effectiveness of conventional treatment while at the same time reducing the collateral damage to the patient caused by them. [Read: Integrative Cancer Research: Surviving Chemo & Radiation for more information]. From the perspective of a patient faced with the inevitable side effects of radiotherapy, it is clearly unethical for practicing physicians to ignore, or worse, deny the evidence that better outcomes are available using an integrative approach.

Natural Society, By: Elizabeth Renter, 10/24/2013

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most deadly forms of cancer around. The National Cancer Institute estimates 45,220 new cases of pancreatic cancer will be diagnosed and 38,460 people will die of the disease in 2013. While treatment is often considered futile in this highly lethal form of cancer, a new study indicates a turmeric extract could provide a reasonable chemotherapy alternative.

Research published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Anticancer Research found liposomal curcumin was able to inhibit pancreatic cancer cell proliferation in vitro and when administered to mice three times a week for four weeks, it was able to suppress tumor growth when compared with control groups.

By: Sayer Ji, 09/11/2013

A remarkable human clinical study published in the journal Diabetes Care, the journal of the American Diabetes Association, revealed that turmeric extract was 100% successful at preventing prediabetic patients from becoming diabetic over the course of a 9-month intervention.[1] Performed by Thailand researchers, the study’s primary object was to assess the efficacy of curcumin, the primary polyphenol in turmeric which gives the spice its golden hue, in delaying the development of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in a prediabetic population.

The study design was a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial including 240 subjects who met the American Diabetic Association’s criteria for prediabetes. All subjects were randomly assigned to receive either 250 mg of curcuminoid or placebo capsules for 9 months. Type 2 diabetes progression was assessed by measuring a wide range of parameters, including changes in the insulin-producing cells within the pancreas known as β-cells, insulin resistance, and the anti-inflammatory cytokine known as adiponectin, at four different times:  baseline, 3-, 6-, and 9-month visits during the course of intervention.