Today I have no inspiration. I tried and tried to do some research, but that went nowhere, and my post just isn’t happening. I played with the kitten (but this photo actually shows Priscilla, two years old, lying in the bathroom sink) and went back to my search results and what I have written so far. No change. So I give up. It’s almost time for dinner, anyway, so I will forget about my draft until tomorrow morning.

Just for fun, today, I googled Margaret’s Corner, and found more than 1600 entries. Many of them refer to my blog, but many refer also to other blogs by other Margarets. This made me think that I really should rename my blog some day. A blog title should indicate the content of a blog, but my current title indicates very little about my blog, just my first name. “Margaret’s Corner” could be the name of a cafè or of a corner store, really. Hardly my case! 🙂

We are having a family dinner tonight. My aunt, cousins, their partners and my cousin’s little boy (an adorable four-year-old who speaks both English and Italian) will be here in about fifteen minutes, and we have been cooking up a storm almost all afternoon. We haven’t seen them since Xmas, it’s one of those things, we all have busy lives etc., so it’s a celebration when we manage to get together all in one place. They actually don’t live too far from here, only about a half hour outside of Florence, in a beautifully-restored former mill built in the Middle Ages. When you think of the Tuscan countryside and have a vision of hills and cypresses and green valleys and bubbling streams, well, that’s the area where my aunt and cousins live. Yep, it’s beautiful out there. I will have to go visit them and take some photos for my blog, even though it’s prettier there in the springtime. Anyway, as a result of this dinner, I have done almost no research today. Tomorrow!

New Generation Curcumin. A myeloma list member brought a new product to my attention, and even though I don’t like to publicize brands, I am curious to know if any of my readers takes it. It is the new Life Extension Foundation Super Bio-Curcumin, and more info can be had here: http://tinyurl.com/2aarkp Here is an excerpt from the LEF web page: The 100% natural curcuminoids complex in Super Bio-Curcumin ® is a patent-pending synergistic blend of curcuminoids and sesquiterpenoids with enhanced bioavailability and sustained retention time in the body confirmed by human clinical studies. Super Bio-Curcumin ® is a ‘next generation’ in delivery of curcumin compounds that no longer requires high doses of curcumin to reach sustainable levels of curcumin in the blood plasma. Each 400 mg capsule of Super Bio-Curcumin ® is equivalent to 2772 mg of a typical 95% curcumin extract. I take 15 capsules of curcumin a day. The new LEF product would cut down that number considerably (where is my calculator when I need it? 😉 ). Wowie zowie. Of course, I now have in my possession enough regular curcumin to last me for one entire year. Typical! Anyway, I thought it was worth mentioning. And I hope this product is the first in a series!

I am on a hot trail today, but there is no way I will be posting anything about my latest discovery until at least tomorrow or, possibly, day after tomorrow. No time to finish the research now.

Doing research is a bit like playing Scrabble. You look at your tiles (letters) and come up with a word, but then you find that the combinations left by other players on the board lead to other possibilities, better possibilities. So you think of other words. And all the time you are trying to find a really good seven letter word, like myeloma” 😉 , in order to get that 50 point bonus. I drive my sister and niece nuts when I play Scrabble with them, because I invent the most ludicrous-sounding words and insist that they look them up in the Scrabble dictionary. And, more often than not, those words exist. 🙂 I happen to like comical-sounding names. If you look on the right-hand side of my homepage, you will see that a lot of my research has had to do with words such as baicalein (Scutellaria baicalensis), guggulsterone and gossypin.

Well, in a way, research is like one huge Scrabble game, with one item leading to another (at times) more interesting item. And then another, and so on, almost ad infinitum. The stakes are higher here, much higher, of course, much more than a mere 50 point bonus. But now, after spending the morning on this new (for me) topic, I must devote the afternoon to preparing my classes for tomorrow. I will leave the Scrabble game to Piccolo (isn’t he adorable?), and have a look at my board again tomorrow when I get home from work.

This is the title of a Science Daily article (http://tinyurl.com/38gz4d) posted by a MM listserv member yesterday. In a nutshell, it appears that Emory University researchers have discovered a new target in the treatment of multiple myeloma called Ribosomal S6 kinase 2 (RSK2). A quick look through the article took me to a key sentence: The researchers observed that elimination of RSK2 proteins or shutting down RSK2 activity blocks FGFR3 transformation signaling in myeloma cells. This means FGFR3 requires RSK2 to transform normal cells. So, eliminate or inhibit the activity of this protein, and normal cells don’t turn malignant. Is that significant or WHAT? (FGFR3 simply means “fibroblast growth factor receptor 3,” in case you were wondering). Of course, I immediately did a search to see if there were any studies on curcumin and RSK2, but got side-tracked when I found that aspirin and salicylic acid inhibit this protein (see: http://tinyurl.com/2mzvg5). I started with RSK2, then one thing led to another until I came to an unexpected conclusion. It was like reading a good mystery novel with a Deaver-like twist in the end. But first things first.

According to a Yahoo health page (http://tinyurl.com/2qk2ko), salicylates are a naturally occurring group of chemicals found in a wide range of foods, herbs and spices. [ ] The average ‘Western diet’ has an estimated Salicylate intake ranging from 10 to 200 mg per day. In comparison, the average dose of aspirin contains 650 mg of Salicylic acid. Naturally-occurring AND chemically similar to aspirin? Yahoo (no pun intended, hehe)! Oh, and by the way, salicylic acid is obtained from the active ingredient of the bark of the willow tree (or Salix, in Latin), which was used for centuries in traditional medicine to relieve fever and pain. Here follows a partial list of foods that have a high salicylate content. FRUIT: apricot, avocado, blackberry, black currant, blueberry, cherry, cranberry, date, grape, grapefruit, kiwi, mandarin, mulberry, nectarine, orange, peach, pineapple, plum, prune, dried raisins, raspberry, red currant, strawberry, watermelon etc. VEGETABLES: alfalfa sprouts, capsicum, champignon mushrooms, chicory, cucumber, eggplant, endive, hot pepper, olive, radish, tomato, zucchini, watercress etc. NUTS: almonds, cashews, etc. SWEETS: golden syrup, honey, liquorice, peppermint etc. HERBS AND SPICES: allspice, aniseed, bay leaf, black pepper, caraway, cardamom, cayenne, cinnamon, clove, cumin, curry, dill, five spice, garam masala, ginger, mace, mint, mixed herbs, mustard, nutmeg, oregano, paprika, pimiento, rosemary, sage, tarragon, thyme, turmeric, white pepper, etc. BEVERAGES: alcohol (especially apple cider, beer, sherry, brandy, liqueur, port, wine and rum), coffee, tea (black, caffeinated, decaffeinated, rosehip and peppermint), fruit juice etc.

Now, did I read TURMERIC? Yes, indeed, I did. And here comes my shocker for the day. 😉 I found an article (http://tinyurl.com/yrjgs3) titled Vindaloo Indian Dish Healthier than Aspirin, in which British nutrition researchers discovered that one portion of the Vindaloo dish contains more salicylate (95 mg) than a low dose aspirin tablet (65 mg.). Just ONE portion??? Vindaloo, by the way, is a traditional Indian dish with bits of boneless pork, onions, vinegar, garlic and lots of spices. I have made many Indian dishes, but confess that I have never made this one. Well, I guess I will be learning how to make it SOON! Oh, oh, I just had a possibly brilliant thought. Why couldn’t I mix my curcumin powder with just the spice part of Vindaloo (i.e., without the pork), and eat that concoction warmed up? Now how about that? A delicious and perhaps optimal way to reap all sorts of anti-myeloma benefits.Vindaloo for thought!

Warning: some folks are allergic to salicylates, so be cautious. Until I did research for this piece, I had no idea that there was an allergy to aspirin out there. So much to learn. Speaking of which, I forgot to mention that aspirin is a blood thinner. Another note of caution, thanks to Don’s comment!

My first day of teaching has always exhausted me, and this was no exception. But I think it went quite well. The hours flew by, unnoticed, and my students and I had quite a few jolly laughs, which is part of my teaching with laughter philosophy. For instance, at one point, after hearing too much Italian being spoken during my full immersion English class, I threatened that they would have to pay me one euro (about $ 1.35 U.S.) for each word they uttered in Italian. Since I had managed to keep a straight face, for a second or two I was able to enjoy their baffled expressions (they don’t know me yet!). Then we all burst into laughter as one student tried to bargain me down to five cents per word while another pulled out his wallet and handed me his credit card. Yep, I am satisfied that I have not lost my old teaching touch. Yet! 😉

While a part of me is too tired to post more than these few words or answer any e-mails, another part feels like Peekaboo in this photo, proudly carrying her prey across our dining room table. The I made it! feeling.

A blog reader (thank you!) recently posted a comment, with an attached abstract, on this topic, which for obvious reasons is of utmost importance and interest to me and to anybody else who takes curcumin. The abstract (http://tinyurl.com/2t73w5) reports that the bioavailability of curcumin is enhanced with HEAT. Key sentence: We report here that the water solubility of curcumin could be increased from 0.6 μg/ml to 7.4 μg/ml (12-fold increase) by the use of heat. A 12-fold increase in water solubility? That’s nothing to sneeze at. These researchers also found [ ] no significant heat-mediated disintegration of curcumin. Well we certainly do NOT want curcumin to disintegrate, do we? Now, I already knew that curcumin dissolves in fats (I have seen that happen with my own eyes) and I have read that it dissolves in alcohol (bring on the vodka, hic!), but heat? And then, boom!, it hit me. When I first started taking curcumin, I mixed the powder with very warm, but not boiling, coconut milk. At that time I hadn’t even heard of bioperine nor was I taking any oil capsules. I had simply read that it was best to take curcumin powder mixed with a fat. I drank this concoction for months. And by the way, after the first eight weeks my IgG count went down almost 20 %.

Consideration. As I have said before, curcumin is not water-soluble. However, recently another blog reader commented that she mixes her curcumin with heated organic whole milk. She wrote that one day she ran out of milk but managed, eventually, to dissolve her curcumin in hot water. Well, so this heating curcumin business may make sense after all. Another consideration: back in May I wrote a post on a study (http://tinyurl.com/2fh26z) that examined the degradation of curcumin when heated up. I reread it yesterday and found that curcumin was affected after being boiled in water for ten and twenty minutes. Well, no worries, then. I don’t plan to BOIL my curcumin as I do pasta, not even for a few seconds, but just heat it up enough to make it more bioavailable. And that leads to the obvious question: how much is “enough”? Ok, NOW I’m in trouble!

While looking for material on this topic, I came across an interesting Dutch website called Food Info Net, which is (and I quote): an independent joint project, initiated and run by Wageningen University (the Netherlands) in co-operation with several other partner universities in Europe. The site is non-commercial and all responsibility on content and lay-out is with the university partners. Hmmm, interesting. I will go back at some point and have a look at the various sections on food allergies etc. At any rate, Food Info has info on curcumin (http://tinyurl.com/ywf75z), as follows: Curcumin is light sensitive but stable at temperatures used in food processing. So, that is reassuring. It would appear that heating it up for a few seconds wouldn’t alter its properties. Or would it? My final question is: should we try taking curcumin mixed in, or simply accompanied by, a cup of hot milk?

I knew I should have been a Science major. Drat. Well, the search continues. And any suggestions or other studies would be welcome. My work has just begun.

I spent most of today doing research AND preparing my classes for Tuesday. Ah yes, my new teaching job is about to begin! Well, I haven’t taught languages in any shape or form 😉 for many years, so this will be a challenge. By the way, the job is starting out as part-time, so I won’t be abandoning my blog or research.

While working on my serious research post, I thought I would post a joke. It gave me a giggle, and I hope it gives you a giggle, too, for the sake of those NK cells! 😉 Here goes:

A woman arrived at the Gates of Heaven. While she was waiting for Saint Peter to greet her, she peeked through the gates. She saw a beautiful banquet table. Sitting all around were her parents and all the other people she had loved and who had died before her. They saw her and began calling greetings to her “Hello, how are you? We’ve been waiting for you! Good to see you.” When Saint Peter came by, the woman said to him, “This is such a wonderful place! How do I get in?” “You have to spell a word,” Saint Peter told her. “Which word?” the woman asked. “Love.” The woman correctly spelled “Love” and Saint Peter welcomed her into Heaven. About a year later, Saint Peter came to the woman and asked her to watch the Gates of Heaven for him that day. While the woman was guarding the Gates of Heaven, her husband arrived. “I’m surprised to see you,” the woman said. “How have you been?” “Oh, I’ve been doing pretty well since you died,” her husband told her. “I married the beautiful young nurse who took care of you while you were ill. And then I won the multi-state lottery. I sold the little house you and I lived in and bought a huge mansion. And my wife and I traveled all around the world. We were on vacation in Cancun and I went water skiing today. I fell and hit my head, and here I am. What a bummer! How do I get in?”“You have to spell a word,” the woman told him. “Which word?” her husband asked. “Bisdemethoxycurcumin.”

Well, ok, so the original word in the punchline was Czechoslovakia. But isn’t it MUCH better this way? 😉

My post title actually belongs to an article I read online yesterday on what happens to oral vitamin C supplements once they are ingested, if fat is present in the upper stomach. The key sentence is: “[…] when vitamin C and nitrites meet in environments with 10 percent fat, vitamin C multiplied the production of cancer-causing nitrosamines by eight to 140 times.” 140 times????? Yikes! Here is the article:

“THURSDAY, Sept. 6 (HealthDay News) — When fat is present in the stomach, vitamin C transforms from a cancer-fighter to a possible contributor to malignancy, new research suggests. Researchers at Western Infirmary in Glasgow, Scotland, analyzed the interaction between vitamin C and lipid (fat) in the upper stomach, which is particularly vulnerable to pre-cancerous changes and tumor growth. They focused on changes in nitrite chemistry. Nitrites are present in human saliva and preserved foods. During the digestive process, they can be converted to cancer-causing compounds called nitrosamines, which form in acidic conditions. However, vitamin C usually inhibits their formation by converting nitrites to nitric oxide. But the researchers found that when vitamin C and nitrites meet in environments with 10 percent fat, vitamin C multiplied the production of cancer-causing nitrosamines by eight to 140 times. Without high fat levels, vitamin C curbed the levels of two nitrosamines by a factor of between five and 1,000. And it completely eliminated the production of the other two, the researchers said. Fat remains in the stomach for some time after eating and also makes up the content of many cells lining the stomach, the study authors noted. Writing in the September issue of Gut, the team theorized that this interaction explains why vitamin C supplements have not had significant success in reducing cancer risk.— Madeline Vann”

The study abstract can be read here: http://tinyurl.com/3cjukq The lesson to be learned, I guess, is not to take any vitamin C with meals. Who would have thought?

The CPS. I have been receiving some stupendous food-for-thought (and also very kind) comments, as well as suggestions and requests that I organize and set up (and I quote) a do-it-yourself trial on curcumin (and maybe other substances as well). This reader takes up Paul’s brilliant suggestion about having (again, I quote) an €˜Open Label Clinical Trial’, which is often used, especially by doctors who have some idea they want to test out on a small group of patients under certain controls, but not the complete formality of a double blind placebo controlled trial of a large group at multiple sites. Such doctors sometimes using primarily their own patient population. Such a trial isn’t intended to prove the efficacy of a substance to the high standards of an FDA approved Ph. II or III trial, but mostly wants to accumulate a mass of controlled data that may show a result that will spark the interest of some other researchers or government agencies to conduct that more regulated and controlled trial to really prove what the substance seems to have shown in the open label trial.

Matters would be easier if I were an MD, of course. Ahhh, if only I could go back in time and study medicine! Drat. However, all drats aside, I am pleased to report that a sort of informal clinical trial on curcumin and MM has been in the works since May. My friend David will soon (in a week or so) be setting up what he has called the CPS, or Curcumin Patients Study, on his website, Beating Myeloma (the link to his website, which also has a MM alternative and complementary treatment discussion listserv, is on the right-hand of your screen, under MM blogs/sites). All CPS participants, i.e. curcumin-takers, will have access to their own questionnaire-type page where they can provide information about their protocols, test results and side effects. These pages will be accessible to the public. Of course, the success of this informal trial depends on the participation of as many curcumin-takers as possible. Once the CPS is available on the Beating Myeloma website, I will be sending out a message to all the curcumin-takers in my growing file, including those who have not reaped any benefits from curcumin, since it is important to know the negative as well as the positive results. Perhaps with the CPS we will be able to figure out WHY some curcumin-takers do better than others. I admit that I have my own theory, but it’s too early for me to post any more about that. Ah yes, a woman of mystery 😉 Besides, I may be completely off track, so what’s the point of speculating? More news: David also plans to set up similar trials for other substances as well. So this will be an exciting period. What I would like to do is put together a summary of the CPS and post it on my blog at some point. I haven’t mentioned the CPS before on my blog, even though I have been involved somewhat in the project as a sort of advisor, because I wanted to surprise y’all! But now that I have been asked to set up more or less the same thing, it’s time to let the kitten, not quite a cat yet, out of the bag.

My future non-ambitious plans. I also wanted to mention that, in addition to being a sometimes very outspoken member of three MM listservs, I have joined a Yahoo Health group, and intend to do more of that in the future, in part to publicize my blog and get the word out about all these promising (in vitro, sometimes in vivo) substances, in part to see what other alternatives are saying and doing. I will also be contacting some of the researchers whose studies and papers I have read. Of course, Prof. Aggarwal knows about my blog, as do my Italian doctors and a couple of very kind U.S. myeloma specialists with whom I have been in correspondence since 2005, but I plan to contact a few more. I have a list of names, now I just have to find the time to do the message-writing. I have also listed my blog in several directories (such as Technorati), both in the U.S. and, more recently, in Italy. The only problem I have run into, since I am a technical zero, is that I cannot figure out how to add (to my blog homepage) the directory button links that some directories require in order to list your blog on their website. I cannot even figure out how to put in a statistical counter! Sigh. Some day I may figure all this out. And yes, I do know that my web page has to be in the HTML mode (and I have gotten that far), but when I try to save the changes, nothing happens. It could be because of the particular blog theme I have chosen. But it’s probably due to my own ineptness. 🙂 I am now going to do some more research into the promising bit of information that Wiroj posted in his blog comment. And thank you so very much for writing, everyone!

Beth’s SCT. Last but not least, my friend Beth is currently undergoing a stem cell transplant, or SCT. I just wanted to mention that things are looking goooood. Her first post-transplant week has ended, and she is doing well. You can check out her progress by clicking on the link to her blog (Beth’s Myeloma Blog) on the right-hand of your screen. Go, Beth!

Well, I WOULD have a lot to write about today, based on all the great blog comments I have received, but I am feeling a bit too lazy now. I will post a better post tomorrow. Ah, why am I feeling lazy? Well, this morning I got up before dawn to go to the hospital lab for my blood tests, so I confess to being a bit tired. I try to get there early to avoid the crowds, but even at 6:45 AM there were already 41 people in line in front of me (well, it is a take a number system, so you can sit down once you have a number, it’s really not hard at all, plus I am rereading Gerald Durrell’s books, which I read as a kid but still give me the giggles, so the wait was actually easy). I should be getting my test results (in the mail) by the end of this month. I asked my GP to add a new test called monoclonal measurement or monoclonal dosage (a literal translation from the Italian dosaggio monoclonale ), which should turn out to be the M-spike. I am a bit doubtful only because the nurse was puzzled by this test request and couldn’t find the specific code for it. Well, we shall see what happens.

Today I began my fall experiment: two months on resveratrol. I took my first capsule at lunch. Very exciting. And yes, this will be in addition to curcumin, quercetin and flaxseed oil, except now I have to decide how to take my curcumin: capsules with bioperine (again) or curcumin powder mixed with a fat (again)? Based on Wiroj’s comment (see previous post), I am seriously thinking of trying the powder concoction again. Hmmm. Today I chose the capsules. Lazy…again!

This morning, as I was driving home from the hospital lab, dreaming of a nice hot cappuccino and a pastry that I had just picked up at the Pasticceria Stefania (best patisserie in Florence, conveniently located in my neighbourhood!), I learned that Luciano Pavarotti, the great Italian tenor, had died earlier today. He had pancreatic cancer. Well, that is sad news indeed. I am not an opera fan (I am, however, a HUGE classical music enthusiast), but Pavarotti’s spectacular voice gave me goosebumps. He is probably best known for singing Nessun dorma (from Puccini’s Turandot), but the radio station I was listening to broadcast his rendition of a chirpy song titled Voglio vivere così, which means I want to live like this. Here are a few lines from this pretty song, describing how he (he = the author, who also happened to be a tenor) wants to live, enjoying the simple things in life: Voglio vivere così, col sole in fronte, e felice canto, beatamente… Translation, more or less (I hope!): I want to live like this, with the sun on my forehead, and, in high spirits, I sing happily. Ok, it sounds better in Italian, and this excerpt is out of context so perhaps it’s hard to understand. But that’s how I would like to live, too, happily, enjoying the simple things in life. For the most part, I do. Except on the days I go for my blood tests! 😉