My MMA list friend left for Sorrento this morning. From there, she will visit Naples, the Amalfi Coast and Pompeii. She will be back in Florence on Tuesday. She planned this short trip, I think, in order to leave Stefano and yours truly alone for the long weekend. Very thoughtful of her! We don’t have anything romantic planned YET, but we will definitely do SOMETHING! After all, it is not too hard to be romantic in Tuscany…!
Back to my post title. I finally had the time to read, carefully, the comments on my October 28th post. WOW! Thank you, everyone. The comments were so out of the ordinary that I decided to write an entire post about them. Proceeding in order, more or less:
Eileen. Interesting abstract on the transfollicular delivery system, thank you. Well, well. Food for thought. Yes, the problem is how to avoid looking like a circus clown. Some time ago, I tried dabbing curcumin on my rosacea, which made me look as though someone had thrown bright orange paint in my face (the Sabinsa curcumin has an orange hue). This effect lasted for a few days, no matter how much I scrubbed my face. So I gave up on that plan, even though my rosacea did improve somewhat.
A perhaps (perhaps not!) related matter is that I have noticed that my tongue turns bright orange after I drink my curcumin powder mixture. I feel certain that my tongue delivers at least some curcumin to my malignant cells (even if that is not the case, I will continue to believe it until someone tells me otherwise). Not that I am an expert of Ayurveda or Chinese traditional medicine, but I do know that the tongue is very important and, after all, many conventional and alternative remedies have to be dissolved on or under the tongue. Ok, that’s beyond the point, here.
JHope’s comment: I have no idea! Anyone else?
Snezhi’s suggestion that we could make our own nasal sprays is also very interesting. I confess I do not have the know-how, but I would have no problem spraying curcumin up my nose, and I say this seriously, even though it might sound facetious. And hey, how about the nose hair follicles (see Eileen’s comment)? There you go, more food for thought…
Don: thirty-four GRAMS of curcumin??? At times I have gone up to almost 10 grams. Never beyond that. I cannot imagine taking more than 12, which is the most that, as far as I know, has been tested in Phase I clinical trials on healthy subjects. Perhaps there is more recent info on that, though. One word of caution: we do not know the long-term effects of such high doses (as the lab rats in Eileen’s household are taking). If I were on such a high dose, I would have all sorts of tests run every couple of months, perhaps even once a month, if possible. Speaking of taking massive amounts of curcumin, please read Wally’s brilliant comment carefully. If we can manage to make curcumin more bioavailable, we don’t have to take huge doses. Makes a lot of sense to me.
The matter of doses brings me to my friend Ana’s comment. She has just begun taking curcumin (e vai!!! π ), and has decided to take it in one large dose instead of two or three. Well, until quite recently, that’s precisely how I took it, whether it was powder mixed with a fat or curcumin with bioperine capsules. My counts remained stable and even decreased. So I say, whatever works for you, your markers and your daily routine…go for it!
Speaking of Ana, she and I have already discussed the idea of offering ourselves as lab rats to a doctor here in Tuscany who is doing a lot of research on curcumin, which he is using (successfully) with his prostate cancer patients. I haven’t talked about it here because I don’t know if it’s even feasible. But it’s well worth a try, perhaps two. I am going to get in touch with this doctor soon, perhaps even this weekend, to ask if he has access to a laboratory, and, if so, if he would be willing to set up a tiny trial testing Ana and me as well as our willing husbands (two healthy subjects). I may be able to get another Florentine friend with MGUS involved, too. I can provide the necessary curcumin powder or capsules, since I have plenty of both. My idea is that we could ingest different amounts of curcumin in different ways and at different times of the day, and then have our blood tested, obviously at different intervals etc. I will also approach my haematologist in Florence about this. Fingers crossed.
Wally is so right: we need this data. Soon. Now.