Curry Cancer Fighter

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Curry Spice May Fight Skin Cancer

By Jennifer Warner

WebMD Medical News Reviewed By Brunilda Nazario, MD

on Monday, July 11, 2005

 

July 11, 2005 -- The essential curry spice that gives Indian curries their

characteristic yellow color may also be a potent cancer fighter.

A new study shows that curcumin, the yellow pigment found in the spice

turmeric, kills and stops the growth of melanoma skin cancer cells in laboratory

tests. Melanoma is the deadliest and can be the most difficult-to-treat form of

skin cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, melanoma accounts for

about 4% of skin cancer cases, but it causes about 79% of skin cancer deaths.

It's not the first time that curcumin has been hailed as a potential disease

fighter. The spice has both antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects that may

be useful in combating a variety of diseases.

But researchers say this is the first study to demonstrate that curcumin

works in both high concentrations for short periods of time and at low

concentrations for long periods of time to trigger cancer cell death.

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From Curry Spice to Cancer Fighter

In the study, which appears in the Aug. 15 issue of the journal Cancer,

researchers evaluated the effects of curcumin on three different melanoma cell

lines in varying doses and duration.

The results showed that the curry spice inhibited cancer cell viability and

triggered cell death in three different melanoma cell samples. While all doses

used were shown to decrease cancer cell lines, higher doses were shown to be

more effective.

Researchers say curcumin triggered the natural process of cell death, known

as apoptosis. The spice suppresses the production of proteins normally found in

cancer cells that prevent the cancerous cells from dying off. The bigger the

dose of curcumin that was delivered, the more cancer cells died.

Although curcumin was effective at altering pathways that lead to cancer cell

death, researchers say the curry ingredient had no effect on other pathways

associated with cancer cell proliferation.

They say further studies to determine the effects of curcumin in animal

models of melanoma and human studies are needed before the curry ingredient can

be

transformed into a potential cancer treatment.