Cheryl Myers, an American integrative health nurse, author, and expert on natural medicine, is the head of Scientific Affairs and Education for EuroPharma, Inc. She refers to curcumin as the anti-cancer herb, because of its success in stopping cancer formation, replication and spread.
Interestingly research shows curcumin increases the activity of certain cancer drugs while protecting normal organs such as liver, kidney, oral mucosa, and heart from chemotherapy and radiation therapy induced toxicity. It has also been proven to reduce systemic inflammation and help with oxidative stress.
"Epigenetic studies have shown that curcumin is the most potent natural compound for waking up sleeping genes by reawakening our bodys own tumor suppressing gene", Myers says.
James Duke, PhD, author of The Green Pharmacy, and the man who established the United States Department of Agricultures (USDA) ethnobotanical and phytochemical database, has said that of the thousands of botanical medicines in the world, if he had cancer and could select only one herb to have the greatest impact, that herb would be curcumin.
Curcumin absorption
Curcumin isn’t absorbed very easily, and olive oil and black pepper have been shown in research to aid the absorption and effect. Myers suggests that patients undergoing cancer therapy take 500 mg of curcumin 3 times daily.
Warning:
With all of this in mind, it is important to know that there are two types of chemotherapy, Adriamycin and the cyclophosphamide group, for which curcumin may not be helpful. Further research must be done on these therapies, so it is always best to work with an integrative oncologist when combining supplements with chemotherapy.