Is Turmeric a panacea

Our ancestors used Turmeric in many of our treatments. More over we use this as a colouring material in our traditional cooking. Curcumin is the active ingredient in Turmeric. The ability of curcumin to cure many diseases is being proved by scientists all over the world. Recently Dr. Radhakrishna Pillai and DR. Dharam P Chauhan of University of California, San Diego has dound that curcumin is a potent anticancer drug. It can kill different types of cancer cells. With his research he proved that curcumin can kill cancer cells irrespective of its origin or genetic make up. Recently he has published some of his results in the international journal Anticancer Research.

            In another study Dr. Pillai and his group of researchers proved that curcumin can control the up regulation of chemokines. Chemokines are a group of chemicals produced in our body, which will help us to combat many of the infections. Though they are useful compounds, at times they cause harm to our body. For example in organ transplantation the donor organ will elicit immune response in the recipient’s body and this will result in over production of selected chemokines and in turn lead to the rejection of the transplanted organ. Ability to control production of chemokines in our body is a major concern. The power of curcumin to control chemokine production has got profound effect in treating diseases like AIDS or autoimmune diseases or even in survival of organ transplants. At present Dr. Pillai is engaged in a research project unravelling the role of curcumin in the survival of transplanted organs. The results are promising. If this research is successful we would have an easy and cost effective way to achieve success in organ transplantation.