Turmeric cures cancer: Miracle drug or rumor?

There is currently a trend of using turmeric starch because turmeric is not only a “miracle drug for postpartum women”, a special treatment for gastric and duodenal ulcers, but is also said to prevent cancer. The following conversation with Prof. Dr. Dao Van Phan, Hanoi Medical University, will help clarify this issue.

Rumors that turmeric is not only a “miracle drug for postpartum women”, a special treatment for duodenal ulcers but also has anti-cancer effects have created a trend of using turmeric starch everywhere. Searching for the keyword “turmeric starch” or “turmeric essence” on Google brings up nearly 7 million results with dozens of websites and hundreds of topics selling turmeric powder on forums and social networks with quite impressive phrases such as “repel cancer” and “turmeric starch contains cancer-destroying substances”.

So what are the real effects of turmeric, and what dosage and form of preparation should it be used in to achieve the highest efficiency? We had a discussion with Professor Dao Van Phan, former head of the Department of Pharmacology, Hanoi Medical University to clarify this issue:

Turmeric starch has long been used to treat stomach ulcers, but recently public opinion has been stirred by the news that turmeric starch also has the ability to fight cancer. So, what is the professor's opinion on this issue?

Prof. Dr. Dao Van Phan:Turmeric has been used in traditional medicine for hundreds of years for its anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, liver detoxifying, and anti-gastric ulcer effects, especially for postpartum women. In the 20th century, scientists discovered that the main active ingredient responsible for turmeric's effects is Curcumin.

Experimental studies have shown that Curcumin has the ability to selectively destroy cancer cells without affecting healthy cells.

However, when studying on humans, to achieve effective treatment, cancer patients must take up to 12-20g, equivalent to 24-40 Curcumin 500mg tablets or 4-6 ounces of turmeric powder. This is a very high dose, patients cannot comply because of the unpleasant taste and irritation of the digestive tract. Therefore, with the current dosage, I believe that turmeric starch or curcumin capsules are almost ineffective for cancer.

So, Professor, which form of turmeric extract should cancer patients use to achieve the best results?

Curcumin is not soluble in water, easily destroyed in the intestines, metabolized in the liver, so it is only absorbed into the blood 2-5%. Therefore, to achieve a blood concentration sufficient to be effective, patients must take high doses of Curcumin or use dosage forms that help maximize absorption such as adding auxiliary substances (piperin), creating chelated complexes of curcumin with metals, liposome curcumin, and especially Nano. Nanotechnology helps create Nano Curcumin particles with an extremely small size of less than 100nm, equal to 1/80,000 of a hair, penetrate well into cells and the absorption rate can be up to 90-95%.

Prof. Dr. Dao Van Phan attended the workshop "Application of Nano Curcumin in disease prevention and treatment" with Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Hieu, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Khanh Trach and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pham Duy Hien

For thousands of years, our people have used turmeric in oriental medicine and as a daily spice. When experiments discovered that Curcumin had the effect of curing cancer, but the dose was too high, it could not be applied in clinical practice. Only when Nano Curcumin was successfully created, did scientists awaken the healing potential of turmeric - an ancient medicinal herb. Currently, Nano Curcumin is considered a representative substance for a new generation of herbal anti-cancer substances that are powerful and safe for regular, long-term use.

So can the Professor tell us the mechanism of action of Nano Curcumin on cancer?

Nano Curcumin destroys cancer cells through 5 mechanisms: 1 is multi-target action, 2 is hitting cancer cells more than healthy cells, 3 is enhancing the immune system, 4 is restoring the programmed death process of cancer cells, 5 is inhibiting the proliferation of new blood vessels, limiting cancer metastasis. At the same time, Nano Curcumin also inhibits inflammatory agents such as NF-kB, TNF, IL1, IL6... helping to reduce pain and limit the toxic effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

It is known that at the workshop "Application of Nano Curcumin in disease prevention and treatment" organized by the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology and the Vietnam Internal Medicine Association, it was announced that Vietnam has become the 10th country to successfully produce Nano Curcumin, with the name CumarGold. So, according to the Professor, does the source of Nano Curcumin produced in Vietnam ensure the same quality as foreign Nano Curcumin products?

Nano curcumin produced by the Vietnam Institute of Natural Sciences has a size of 50-70 nm, bioavailability up to 90-95%, meeting quality standards equivalent to the US Nano Curcumin product, higher than products from India, China, and Taiwan. CumarGold has also been studied at Hanoi National University, showing that Nano Curcumin (CumarGold) is superior to Curcumin in terms of solubility, penetration, and ability to inhibit cancer cells.

According to dantri