The £1 cancer cure?

I feel amazed and humbled.

Amazed as I look at curry power from curry powder. Specifically tumeric, or the active ingredient which is curcumin. I bought a jar at Sainsbury's last night for less than a pound. My reading suggests that mixed with black pepper and green tea this could make radiotherapy at least ten times as effective in killing cancer cells, with continuing benefits for life.

Humbled as I read the CV of one of the researchers into curcumin, Dr. Bharat Aggwhal. He is a professor searching for cancer cures at a mainstream Texan University Cancer Centre, so not a health food crank, though maybe pre-disposed to look to India for low cost traditional remedies. His CV states "our cancer journey started almost 25 years ago continues with the focus of discovering novel molecules that are safe, efficacious, and yet inexpensive for the treatment of cancer."

He worked for Genentech, strange as they are a $9 billion company yet he freely publishes research results on the web, unlike so may quacks picked up by Google ads who demand money for bogus cures. The use of curcumin (found in curry) is not the dream of a madman, a Google search on "curcumin radiosensitization" finds almost 10,000 hits. The first hit is here, a 2008 report on cervical cancer, so its brand new fresh off the press. Radiosensitization means making tumours more sensitive to radiotherapy, or making radiotherapy better able to kill cancer. Another report suggests curcumin doubles the effectiveness of radiotherapy. Add pepper and green tea to get my ten fold gain! A third report from India is specific to breast cancer and claims less gain, but still substantial.

Green tea and radiosensitization gets mention in 2400 Google hits, I include a fourth and fifth report. Another details benefits of green tea whilst receiving radiotherapy for breast cancer!

The NHS claim they have removed all cancer by surgery, and radiotherapy is to "mop up" any left over! What an over-simplification. Is that why they do not mention curcumin, it would cast doubt on the effectiveness of radiotherapy? Why do the statistics show Jan has a six fold increased risk of getting another cancer over the general public, has lost ten years of life expectancy, and has a 50% chance of death related to this breast cancer within 15 years?

Her doctors disagree between themselves over the use of Tamoxifen whilst receiving radiotherapy. Jan takes it, but it protects cancer cells from radiotherapy damage, so we need all the help we can get to resensitise them.

The use of diet for radiosensitisation is new research that has yet to be proven outside animal and lab trials, so it has no NHS guarantee. But we have to eat something, and at less than a £1 a jar why not try curry, black pepper and green tea? Jan took an eighth of a teaspoon as curried egg last night followed by two cups of tea, none of the profit or foil wrapped accuracy to a milligram that big pharma gives us!

The pepper, tea and tumeric act synergistically. This paper says tea acts in unison with Tamoxifen. I quote "there is now mounting evidence that the active compounds in tea are an effective adjuvant therapy for the treatment of cancer, particularly when combined with other natural anti-cancer agents such as curcumin, or with conventional drugs such as tamoxifen or chemotherapy. Finally, tea and green tea extract can also be used for prevention of recurrence and metastasis." Metastasis is the the deadly spread of cancer that can be kicked off by radiotherapy as it stimulates blood flow to the inflamed breast tumour. Another paper explains the synergy: "Curcumin arrests the growth of cancer cells in the G2 stage. Green tea arrests cancer cell growth at the G1 phase. Combining tea with curcumin increases the odds of killing more cells."

Obviously I exaggerate to suggest this is a £1 cure. But I exaggerate less than Professor Sir Richard Peto who claims with chemotherapy we are close to a cure, yet only delivers a 3% benefit, or radiotherapy where only one report in 12 claims any long term benefit?