Curry spice 'kills cancer cells'

[Floater]

An extract found in the bright yellow curry spice turmeric can kill off cancer cells, scientists have shown.

The chemical - curcumin - has long been thought to have healing powers and is already being tested as a treatment for arthritis and even dementia.

Now tests by a team at the Cork Cancer Research Centre show it can destroy gullet cancer cells in the lab.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8328377.stm

[jw]

I've been using tumeric to flavour and colour rice for years.
I hope it undoes all the cigarettes...

Incidently, I heard this on our news yesterday and they said it could ten years to make medicines from this discovery. Why so long?

[Jahungo]

Except they didn't do the obvious control of treating non-cancer cells with curcumin under the same circumstances, so we don't know based on this study if there is a selective effect that would be important for any potential treatment. It does say in the intro that a few studies have found it not to have an effect on normal cells, but really a side by side is necessary, given the potential for variability of all kinds. Why they did not do this obvious control I do not know.

[Jay Tea]

Between this and recent cheese news, i'm gonna live forever!!

>thud!<

[Nick Theodorakis]

There are a gajillion papers looking at in vitro effects of curcumin in a number of cancer or normal cell lines, including its effects on cell growth or apoptosis (cell death) so I'm not sure this paper adds anything new other than, "well, nobody has tried it yet on this particular cancer cell line, so let's throw some on and see if we can get some free publicity."

Nick

[Mad Jay]

As far as I am concerned, tHe more research that shows Indian food is better for you, the better However, it does make it difficult for the Indian goverment to fight those stupid patents