What if it came to light that one little, time-tested plant has the power to kill nearly all forms of cancer cells with stunning effectiveness, without causing the side effects, complications, and deaths all too often associated with chemotherapy?
This is exactly what researchers are finding about turmeric, a root that has been used as a safe and effective healing agent for thousands of years. A new round of studies has revealed a number of ways in which curcumin—the most popular and well-studied of turmeric’s constituents—is superior to chemotherapy for treating cancer.
Studies like these are revolutionizing scientists’ foundational understanding of cancer. An updated approach to cancer treatment is sorely needed—diagnoses are still on the rise, and conventional treatments like chemotherapy and radiation therapy aren’t proving to be nearly as safe or effective as they need to be.
The problem with chemotherapy
Chemotherapy, like many allopathic medical techniques, operates on a fundamentally limited premise. It targets cancer cells as foreign agents to be eliminated at all costs—even at the expense of the body’s overall health. It ignores root causes, and doesn’t address the need to create an optimal “anti-cancer” environment in the body.
Worst of all, the horrendously toxic drugs used for chemotherapy don’t work very well against drug-resistant cancer cells or cancer stem cells (CSC’s), the “mother cells” that control the growth of tumors. Mainstream oncology’s response to such resistance is to flood the patient’s body with even larger and stronger doses of chemo drugs.
While doing so sometimes destroys a greater number of cancer cells, it still barely touches CSC’s—and it kills countless healthy cells in the process. This “collateral damage” leaves the body fragile in the face of the remaining CSC’s, which can regenerate newly emboldened, treatment-resistant cancer cells.
This dangerous game of conflict escalation seems to be a pattern in the Western world—chemotherapy could easily be compared to dousing crops with toxic pesticides just to get rid of bugs, or destroying the microbiome with antibiotics just to kill an acute pathogen. While such extreme medical treatments can be literal lifesavers in some contexts, we seem to be slow at learning that they should only be used as a last resort.
Luckily, turmeric is pointing the way toward the future of cancer treatment—one that is more sophisticated, more holistic, and far less barbaric.
The case for turmeric
The scientific community used to cite the lack of compelling research as a reason for doubting turmeric as a legitimate cancer treatment, but now such statements are almost absurd—there are over 1500 studies demonstrating that turmeric is an effective treatment for over 100 different types of cancer.
Very few studies have compared turmeric directly to chemotherapy, though, until recently. Researchers in the United Kingdom tested the efficacy of both a curcumin extract and a combination of the chemo drugs 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and oxaliplatin (FOLFOX) against colorectal cancer. They found that adding curcumin to this chemotherapy regimen inhibited cancer cell proliferation and increased apoptosis (cancer cell suicide) to a greater degree, compared to chemotherapy on its own.
Furthermore, the addition of curcumin enabled the treatment to target CSC’s (something that chemotherapy can rarely do on its own). They also showed that curcumin combines safely with chemotherapy, and actually exhibits chemopreventative effects—that is, it lessens the side effects caused by chemotherapy.[1]
Demonstrating the benefit of using curcumin in conjunction with chemotherapy was the primary stated goal of this study (perhaps because it’s easier to get funding when a study stays within the bounds of conventional procedures). But the researchers reported on an even more ground-breaking finding, which they downplayed in order to focus on chemoprevention: curcumin on its own was more effective at reducing the overall constellation of cancer cells and CSC’s than chemotherapy.
A wealth of other studies help elucidate how turmeric is able to pull off this incredible feat. Quite simply, it hits cancer from every angle: it directly kills cancer cells (in the way that chemotherapy drugs do), induces apoptosis, inhibits the growth of new cancer cell colonies on a genetic level, effectively kills cancer stem cells, and even strategically prevents the transport of blood to growing tumors.[2]
And it does all this without harming healthy cells or interrupting the body’s normal balance—in fact, it actively supports the body with its potent anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and hormone-balancing properties.
You’d expect the medical community to be thrilled, and for this wonder plant to replace more dangerous and outdated cancer treatments, right? Unfortunately, the medical industry just doesn’t work that way.
So what’s the hold up?
In the best of all possible worlds, turmeric would already be an FDA-approved cancer treatment—its resume of demonstrated benefits certainly entitles it to this kind of mainstream acceptance.
But the road to FDA approval is a long and hard one: it costs around $800 million to run the requisite clinical trials, and those with vested interests in the immensely profitable industry around conventional cancer treatment won’t be quick to let go of their stranglehold. The pharmaceutical companies who manufacture chemotherapy drugs even lobby to ensure that treating cancer by unconventional means remains a criminal offense for doctors.
Not to worry, though: you don’t have to wait for the FDA’s permission to take health into your own hands. You can join the growing community of people who use turmeric to prevent and treat cancer (and to optimize their overall health). Learn more about turmeric’s versatile healing powers here and here, and explore other cancer-fighting foods here, here, and here.
Turmeric is always a good choice
In short, it seems there’s no limit to turmeric’s healing capabilities—it’s foods like this for which the word “panacea” was made. Even if you aren’t suffering from any of the conditions mentioned above, integrating turmeric into your life is always a wise choice. By using it to ward off inflammation and oxidative stress, you’ll be preventing a huge variety of ailments.
But not all forms of turmeric are created equal…
Most of the turmeric supplements you see in stores come in the form of encapsulated powders. The truth is with turmeric powder you may be
getting very little actual benefit.
Turmeric powder has a fairly low bioavailability (meaning that a good portion of it isn’t properly absorbed by your body), it often isn’t very fresh, and
it’s sometimes made with harsh processes that can destroy or degrade turmeric’s healthful components.
Because turmeric is hard to absorb, it must be formulated in a certain way allowing the body to absorb and utilize its entire spectrum of nutrients.
Otherwise it is useless…
PuraTHRIVE Organic Turmeric Extract is an outstanding full-spectrum extract that’s “liposomalized”—meaning it’s specifically blended to make the turmeric bind to phosphlipids (fats) that increase its bioavailability 10 to 20 times!
This formulation takes all that raw turmeric has to offer and presents it in a format that your body LOVES to consume.
==> Give this truly revolutionary product a try… you won’t believe how quickly you feel its effects. Once you do, you’ll wonder why you didn’t make turmeric a part of your daily life a long time ago.
References
[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4510144/
