What health benefits are in Turmeric?

Written by Dr Harold Gunatillake-Health writer

I am writing this article after reading the one by Michael Mosley, one of the presenters of Trust Me, I’m A Doctor, broadcast on BBC  He states that he tracked down leading researchers from across the country and with their help recruited nearly 100 volunteers from the North East to do a novel experiment.

Then we divided them into three groups, he says.

We asked one group to consume a teaspoon of turmeric every day for six weeks, ideally mixed in with their food. Another group were asked to swallow a supplement containing the same amount of turmeric, and a third group were given a placebo, or dummy pill.

The volunteers who were asked to consume a teaspoon of turmeric a day were ingenious about what they added it to, mixing it with warm milk or adding it to yoghurt. Not everyone was enthusiastic about the taste, with comments ranging from “awful” to “very strong and lingering”.

But what effect was eating turmeric having on them? We decided to try and find out using a novel test developed at University College, London, by Prof Martin Widschwendter and his team.

Prof Widschwendter is not particularly interested in turmeric but he is interested in how cancers start. His team have been comparing tissue samples taken from women with breast cancer and from women without it and they’ve found a change that happens to the DNA of cells well before they become cancerous.

The change is in the “packaging” of the genes. It’s called DNA methylation. It’s a bit like a dimmer switch that can turn the activity of the gene up or down.

The exciting thing is that if it is detected in time this change can, potentially, be reversed, before the cell turns cancerous. DNA methylation may explain why, for instance, your risk of developing lung cancer drops dramatically once you give up smoking. It could be that the unhealthy methylation of genes, caused by tobacco smoke, stops or reverses once you quit.
So we asked Prof Widschwendter whether testing the DNA methylation patterns of our volunteers’ blood cells at the start and end of the experiment would reveal any change in their risk of cancer and other diseases, like allergies. It was something that had not been done before.

The Professor found that the group who mixed turmeric powder into their food,” he continued, “There we saw quite substantial changes. It was really exciting, to be honest. We found one particular gene which showed the biggest difference. And what’s interesting is that we know this particular gene is involved in three specific diseases: depression, asthma and eczema, and cancer. This is a really striking finding.”

Editor’s note: It is a sensible health benefit, by keeping a bottle of turmeric on your dining table with salt and pepper; you would be motivated to sprinkle turmeric instead of the others on your food.

Isn’t that a good way to prevent cancer, asthma depression and many more un-researched benefits?

Remember, turmeric prevents a process called ‘Methylation” of the DNA by consuming turmeric in your food daily.