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"Turmeric Curcumin Reprogramming [br]Cancer Cell Death"

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The anticancer effects of the [br]turmeric pigment curcumin

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extend well beyond it's ability [br]to block carcinogens.

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The anticancer effects of [br]curcumin mainly result from

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the multitude of ways it regulates [br]programmed cell death.

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It's estimated that human body consists [br]of 10 or so trillion cells,

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that's a million million.

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Almost all of these cells get turned [br]over within approximately 100 days.

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We're like a new person, [br]every three months!

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We reinvent ourselves [br]physically.

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And since we're just [br]made up of 3 things

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air, water, and food - [br]those are the only inputs -

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we are what we eat [br]literally, physically!

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In a sense, our body has to rebuild [br]itself every three months

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with the building materials we [br]deliver to it through our stomach.

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Our mouths are like [br]the access road

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to the continual construction [br]site to our body.

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Trucks roll in [br]3 times a day.

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What do we want [br]them to deliver?

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Some shoddy cheap stuff [br]we scrounged around for

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or bought at the discount outlets [br]that's just going to fall apart?

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Or do we want to build [br]our foundation solid?

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We are each walking [br]around inside

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the greatest known architectural [br]structures in the universe!

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Let's not ruin such grand [br]blueprints by consuming junk.

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Anyway, we only own the biological [br]real estate we're born with,

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so if need to rebuild every three months, [br]we also need a wrecking crew.

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If we're replacing 10 trillion [br]every hundred days,

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that means we have to kill off like [br]100 billion cells every day, normally.

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Out with the old, [br]in with the new.

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We do that primarily through [br]a process called apoptosis,

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pre-programmed [br]cell death,

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from the Greek "ptosis" [br]meaning falling,

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and "apo" [br]meaning away from.

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So it's our cells falling [br]away from our body.

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For example, we all used to have [br]webbed fingers and toes, literally.

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Each one of us in the [br]womb until about 4 months,

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and then the [br]apoptosis kicks in

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and the cells in the webbing in between kill [br]themselves off to separate our fingers.

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Some cells in our body overstay [br]their welcome, though,

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like cancer cells.

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They don't die when [br]they're supposed to

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by somehow turning off [br]their suicide genes.

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What can we [br]do about it?

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Well, one of the ways [br]curry kills cancer cells,

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is by reprogramming the self-destruct [br]mechanism back into cancer cells.

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Let me just run through [br]one of these pathways,

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just to see the complexity.[br]FAS, is a so-called death receptor,

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which activates the FAS [br]associated death domain,

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along with death receptor 5, [br]and death receptor 4.

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FADD then activates caspase-8,

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which ignites the death[br]machine, and kills the cell.

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Where does curry powder [br]fit into all this?

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In cancer cells, curcumin, [br]the pigment in the spice turmeric

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that makes curry [br]powder yellow,

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upregulates and activates [br]death receptors,

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as has been demonstrated in [br]human kidney cancer cells

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as well as skin cancer, [br]and nose and throat cancer.

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It can also activate the [br]death machine directly,

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as has been shown in lung [br]cancer and colon cancer.

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Caspases are so-called[br]executioner enzymes,

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that when activated, destroy [br]the cancer cell from within

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by chopping up proteins [br]left and right,

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kind of a death by [br]a thousand cuts.

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And that's just [br]one pathway.

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Here's all the other ways [br]curcumin can affect apoptosis.

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Here's all the different types of [br]cancer cells curcumin can kill,

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but it tends to leave [br]normal cells alone

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for reasons that are [br]not fully understood.

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Overall, this review showed [br]that curcumin can kill

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a wide variety of tumor cell types [br]through diverse mechanisms.

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And it's because curcumin can [br]affect numerous mechanisms

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of cell death at [br]the same time,

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it's possible that cancer cells may [br]not easily develop resistance

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to curcumin-induced [br]cell death,

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like they do to [br]most chemotherapy.

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Furthermore, its ability to kill [br]tumor cells and not normal cells

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makes curcumin an attractive candidate… [br]for supper?

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Can't make money on some [br]spice you can buy anywhere.

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An attractive candidate [br]for drug development.