New research has found that a compound in the common spice, turmeric helps to counter the negative impact that hormone replacement therapy has on breast cancer risk.

A whole raft of scientific studies carried out over the past few decades has shown conclusively that turmeric's principal antioxidant phytonutrient, curcumin has powerful cancer fighting properties. This new research is yet a further endorsement of this spice's fantastic disease fighting capabilities.

Curcumin is found in turmeric, ginger and a number of other spices.  It is a widely acknowledged to be one of the most important cancer fighting, food-based compounds as it has also been shown to help prevent a number of cancer types as well as neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.

Researches at The Dalton Cardiovascular Research Center and the College Of Veterinary Medicine in the USA have discovered another string to this wonderful spice's medicinal bow. In a recent paper published in the journal "Menopause" the scientists describe how curcumin blocks the carcinogenic effects of hormone replacement therapy in post menopausal women.

Most hormone replacement preparations prescribed for post menopausal problems include a combination of estrogens and progestin hormones. It is the latter synthetic progesterones that increase the risk of breast cancer in those who have such bad menopausal symptoms that they cannot do without hormone replacement therapies.

Progestins increase the risk of breast cancer by stimulating the blood supply to developing cancer cells. They do this by enhancing the production of a growth factor that is responsible for the formation of new blood vessels.

By blocking the production of the progestin-stimulated growth factor, curcumin attenuates the blood supply to breast cancer cells without which they cannot survive.

Coincidentally another recent bit of scientific work indicates that curcumin's ability to inhibit the growth of blood vessels may also make it a useful in the fight against obesity! In a similar fashion to its cancer-fighting effects it does so by inhibiting the blood supply to new fat cells. By inhibiting the formation of fat cells curcumin slows down the rate at which the body stores fat. More importantly it makes it easier for individuals to lose weight as, once a fat cell has formed, the body can't get rid of it.

It is important to note that curcumin taken on its own is not well utilized by the body – i.e. it has a low bioavailability. This is because enzymes in the intestines and liver break it down before it has had a chance to do its good work.

Fortunately other spices contain compounds (like black pepper's piperine) that increase the bioavailability (and thus efficacy) of curcumin by several thousand per cent. Therefore taking a capsule of curcumin on its own is unlikely to be of much benefit in terms of the prevention or treatment of disease. It is far better to follow the culinary wisdom of thousands of years and use a wide variety of spices with curcumin-containing turmeric as phytonutrients in plant foods tend to have synergistic effects with one another.

References:

1) Curcumin inhibits MPA-induced secretion of VEGF from T47-D human breast cancer cells Menopause May/June 2008 - Volume 15, Issue 3, pp 570-574
Carroll, Candace E. BS; Ellersieck, Mark R. PhD; Hyder, Salman M.

2) Curcumin inhibits adipogenesis in 3T3-L1 adipocytes and angiogenesis and obesity in C57/BL mice.J Nutr. 2009 May;139(5):919-25. Epub 2009
Ejaz A, Wu D, Kwan P, Meydani M.

3) Curcumin suppresses the paclitaxel-induced nuclear factor-kappaB pathway in breast cancer cells and inhibits lung metastasis of human breast cancer in nude mice.
Clin Cancer Res. 2005 Oct 15;11(20):7490-8.
Aggarwal BB, Shishodia S, Takada Y, Banerjee S, Newman RA, Bueso-Ramos CE, Price JE.

4) Curcumin exerts multiple suppressive effects on human breast carcinoma cells.
Int J Cancer. 2002 Mar 10;98(2):234-40.
Shao ZM, Shen ZZ, Liu CH, Sartippour MR, Go VL, Heber D, Nguyen M.