Two friends have recently gotten in touch with me because relatives are just starting treatment for pancreatic cancer. I was happy to pass on my best thoughts for dealing with the Beast and the chemo, but I suddenly remembered that I forgot to talk again about curcumin.
Curcumin comes from turmeric and has been used in South Asia for generations as a panacea, but recent research suggests that it may be especially useful to boost the power of chemotherapy drugs. This is real research at, for example, MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas. So far, the research hasn't gone too far -- it must be hard to get funding to study something that millions of people eat every day -- but at the very least, it shows that curcumin seems to be harmless. I've been taking it along with the chemotherapy for two years now, and so far it seems to be working! (But anectodal evidence is not worth much, as we all know.)
For the fine (upbeat, enjoyable, authoritative) blog that started me on curcumin, I recommend that you check out Margaret's Corner (living with myeloma) http://margaret.healthblogs.org/ and also Curcumin: the Indian Solid Gold http://www.curcuminresearch.org/ . There are contraindications, but in general it is worth looking into.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment