Curcumin against cancer

Before you read my post, it is important for me to remember that I love to talk about natural substances potential applications and report scientific studies: my posts are created for informational purposes only. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

In my last post, I talked about some of the possible therapeutic applications of Turmeric.
When we talk about the benefits of turmeric root, we often refer to a particular molecule: curcumin.
Curcumin can modulate many, different cells pathways, and in the last half-century, many in-vitro, in-vivo and clinical trials were performed to investigate the possible application to treat cancer.
Actually, cancer neurodegenerative diseases, autoimmune and cardiovascular diseases are the most problematic illness of this century, referred mainly to developed countries.
Curcumin has shown potential benefits in prevention and treatment of cancer but also in all of the other fields, demonstrated by laboratory studies and clinical trials. Furthermore, safety and tolerability of this molecule are well established.

1 Skin cancer. Maybe the first evidence in cancer field. This compound can help to treat external cancerous lesions. Now scientist are studying melanoma applications, because despite of the various available treatment techniques, the survival rate for malignant melanoma remains relatively low.
In other studies the topical application of curcumin or turmeric paste, proved considerable improvements of the external cancerous lesions.

2 Colorectal cancer. Until now, there is not a very effective treatment of colorectal cancer, except the surgery resection on an early stage. Oral Turmeric extract preparations have shown efficacy on prevention and treatment of colorectal cancer improving normal physiological defence mechanisms. Curcumin also helps to prevent colorectal polyps in smokers, in some cases showed more efficacy than chemopreventive agents.

3 Pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer is the fourth most common cause of cancer death all over the world. One of the main causes is supposed to be the oxidative stress, so the effect of curcumin with piperine has been tested in India to treat pain (a significant symptom in this kind of cancer) and oxidative stress. Curcumin was found safe and well tolerated, reduces lipid peroxidation but unfortunately no effects were observed on pain relief. Another study on advanced pancreatic cancer demonstrated modest improvements where curcumin was associated with Gemcitabine, the main used chemical for pancreatic cancer.

4 Breast cancer. The second most common cause of cancer death in women. Curcumin was associated with the typical used agent to treat early and advanced stage breast cancer (Docetaxel) and demonstrated therapeutic properties, acting on different pathways that cause the formation and progression of the disease.

5 Prostate Cancer. PSA (prostate-specific antigen) reflects the risk to develop the prostate cancer. Patients with elevated level of PSA but no findings of prostate cancer were treated with Curcumin associated with soy isoflavones. The study demonstrated that this combination can significantly reduce PSA level, so as the risk to develop this kind of cancer.

6 Multiple myeloma. Is the second most common haematological cancer in the USA and in spite of the new compounds adopted to treat it, it is still incurable for most patients. Multiple myeloma is associated with anaemia, bone lesions and renal failure. Curcumin, in preliminary studies demonstrated efficacy on the progression of the cancer, but further studies on bigger groups of patients are necessary to well evaluate the therapeutic possibilities.

7 Lung cancer. Smokers have a higher risk to develop mutagens, so as the lung cancer. Dietary turmeric can act as an effective anti-mutagen and reduce the risk to develop lung cancer.
In spite of these interesting evaluations about Curcumin efficacy and the evidence of anti-metastatic, cytotoxic, cytostatic and cytoprotective for healthy cells acting on different cell pathways, the real application of curcumin for therapeutic purposes presents two main critical points: the chemical stability and the low rate adsorption. Therefore, other studies are ongoing to improve these features by direct chemical approaches on curcumin (semisynthetic drugs) or delivery systems such as nanoparticles.

References:
K Parashar et al., Evaluation of the anti-cancer activity of a curcumin analogue alone and in combination with current chemotherapeutics, 2018; 5(S 01): S7.
N. Harper et al., The ‘golden goddess’ of spices: a potentially effective topical therapy for Bowen disease?, 2017 British Association of Dermatologists.
Gupta et al., Therapeutic roles of curcumin: lessons learned from clinical trials, The AAPS Journal, 2012.
Charlotta D. Mock et al., Recent advances of curcumin and its analogues in breast cancer prevention and treatment, RSC Adv., 2015, 5, 75575-75588.