› Forums › Cutaneous Melanoma Community › Curcumin is a potent melanoma fighting substance
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- May 27, 2011 at 5:56 pm
ScienceDaily (July 14, 2005) — HOUSTON – Curcumin, the pungent yellow spice found in both turmeric and curry powders, blocks a key biological pathway needed for development of melanoma and other cancers, say researchers from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
ScienceDaily (July 14, 2005) — HOUSTON – Curcumin, the pungent yellow spice found in both turmeric and curry powders, blocks a key biological pathway needed for development of melanoma and other cancers, say researchers from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
See Also:The study, to be published in the August 15, 2005 issue of the journal Cancer, but available on line at 12:01 a.m. (EDT) on Monday, July 11, demonstrates how curcumin stops laboratory strains of melanoma from proliferating and pushes the cancer cells to commit suicide.
It does this, researchers say, by shutting down nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-kB), a powerful protein known to promote an abnormal inflammatory response that leads to a variety of disorders, including arthritis and cancer.
The study is the latest to suggest that curcumin has potent anticancer powers, say the researchers.
"The antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-carcinogenic properties of curcumin derived from turmeric are undergoing intense research here and at other places worldwide," says one of the study's authors, Bharat B. Aggarwal, Ph.D., professor of cancer medicine in the Department of Experimental Therapeutics.
At M. D. Anderson, for example, dramatic results from laboratory studies have led to two ongoing Phase I human clinical trials, testing the ability of daily capsules of curcumin powder to retard growth of pancreatic cancer and multiple myeloma. Another Phase I trial is planned for patients with breast cancer, and given this news of curcumin's activity in melanoma, animal studies will soon begin, Aggarwal says.
Ground from the root of the Curcuma longa plant, curcumin is a member of the ginger family. It has long been utilized in India and other Asian nations for multiple uses: as a food-preservative, a coloring agent, a folk medicine to cleanse the body, and as a spice to flavor food (two to five percent of turmeric is curcumin, for example).
While researchers had thought curcumin primarily has anti-inflammatory properties, the growing realization that cancer can result from inflammation has spurred mounting interest in the spice as an anti-cancer agent, Aggarwal says. He adds that another fact has generated further excitement: "The incidence of the top four cancers in the U.S. – colon, breast, prostate, and lung – is ten times lower in India," he says.
This work is just the latest by M. D. Anderson researchers to show how curcumin can inhibit cancer growth. "Curcumin affects virtually every tumor biomarker that we have tried," says Aggarwal. "It works through a variety of mechanisms related to cancer development. We, and others, previously found that curcumin down regulates EGFR activity that mediates tumor cell proliferation, and VEGF that is involved in angiogenesis. Besides inhibiting NF-kB, curcumin was also found to suppress STAT3 pathway that is also involved in tumorigenesis. Both these pathways play a central role in cell survival and proliferation."
He said that an ability to suppress numerous biological routes to cancer development is important if an agent is to be effective. "Cells look at everything in a global way, and inhibiting just one pathway will not be effective," says Aggarwal.
In this study, the researchers treated three different melanoma cell lines with curcumin and assessed the activity of NF-kB, as well the protein, known as "IKK" that switches NF-kB "on." The spice kept both proteins from being activated, so worked to stop growth of the melanoma, and it also induced "apoptosis," or programmed death, in the cells.
Surprisingly, it didn't matter how much curcumin was used, says the researchers. "The NF-kB machinery is suppressed by both short exposures to high concentrations of curcumin as well as by longer exposure to lower concentrations of curcumin," they say in their study. Given that other studies have shown curcumin is non-toxic, these results should be followed by a test of the spice in both animal models of melanoma and in human trials, they say.
###The study was funded by the National Cancer Institute and the Department of Defense. Co-authors included principle investigator Razelle Kurzrock, M.D.; first author Doris Siwak, Ph.D. and Shishir Shishodia.
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The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by University Of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
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- May 27, 2011 at 6:08 pm
If you do a search of the archives, you will notice this has been mentioned many many times in the past.
http://www.melanoma.org/community/archived-mrf-bulletin-board
I take it as do others here.
Good luck,
Michael
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- May 27, 2011 at 6:23 pm
Dear Michael,
Thank you for your reply.
Unfortunately due to my busy schedule for treatments I do not have the physical time to trough the numerous archives so I apologise if I have repeated information that has been aready mentioned here before;
Just trying to be helpful to people in case they do not have the time to go trough previous postings, just like me.
Good luck to you too.
Teodora
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- May 27, 2011 at 8:43 pm
I was in no way trying to say you repeated information, merely that if you wanted to read some of the past posts here that you could feel free to do so. It is a much discussed topic here, and I find it interesting.
Sorry if it seemed anything otherwise.
Michael
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- May 27, 2011 at 10:20 pm
Michael
Once again you are a wealth of information – I can only hope to be as informed as you one day. Since I am fairly new to this board I was wondering if anyone can tell me if there is a way to locate all of the posts regarding curcumin without having to read through the 1000's that are here. I just recently started taking it myself and would be interested to learn others thoughts on the subject.
Thanks for the info
Hugs and Smiles
Dawn
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- May 27, 2011 at 10:20 pm
Michael
Once again you are a wealth of information – I can only hope to be as informed as you one day. Since I am fairly new to this board I was wondering if anyone can tell me if there is a way to locate all of the posts regarding curcumin without having to read through the 1000's that are here. I just recently started taking it myself and would be interested to learn others thoughts on the subject.
Thanks for the info
Hugs and Smiles
Dawn
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- May 27, 2011 at 8:43 pm
I was in no way trying to say you repeated information, merely that if you wanted to read some of the past posts here that you could feel free to do so. It is a much discussed topic here, and I find it interesting.
Sorry if it seemed anything otherwise.
Michael
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- May 27, 2011 at 6:23 pm
Dear Michael,
Thank you for your reply.
Unfortunately due to my busy schedule for treatments I do not have the physical time to trough the numerous archives so I apologise if I have repeated information that has been aready mentioned here before;
Just trying to be helpful to people in case they do not have the time to go trough previous postings, just like me.
Good luck to you too.
Teodora
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- May 27, 2011 at 6:08 pm
If you do a search of the archives, you will notice this has been mentioned many many times in the past.
http://www.melanoma.org/community/archived-mrf-bulletin-board
I take it as do others here.
Good luck,
Michael
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- May 27, 2011 at 8:09 pm
Nice to see mainstream medicine getting on board with the rest of use. 🙂
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- May 27, 2011 at 8:18 pm
I take 1800 mg of curcumin every day along with a whole bunch of other holistic stuff. I believe that natural and modern day medicine can work wonders for both the immune system and cancer. When you're fighting melanoma, you might as well use everything you possibly can.
Lisa
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- May 27, 2011 at 8:18 pm
I take 1800 mg of curcumin every day along with a whole bunch of other holistic stuff. I believe that natural and modern day medicine can work wonders for both the immune system and cancer. When you're fighting melanoma, you might as well use everything you possibly can.
Lisa
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- May 31, 2011 at 7:28 am
Molecular Targets of Dietary Agents for Prevention and Therapy of Cancer
Aggarwal BB, Shishodia Sposted November 2006
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- May 31, 2011 at 7:28 am
Molecular Targets of Dietary Agents for Prevention and Therapy of Cancer
Aggarwal BB, Shishodia Sposted November 2006
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Tagged: cutaneous melanoma
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