I read a fascinating article yesterday in Science Daily (http://tinyurl.com/449vm3) about curcumin’s ability to reduce the size of blood clots. Curcumin may reduce the size of a hemorrhagic stroke, say Medical College of Georgia researchers. They are using animal models to study curcumin’s effect on intracerebral hemorrhages, bleeding in the brain caused by ruptured vessels.

You learn something every day. I didn’t know that patients suffering from hemorrhagic strokes are treated for symptoms (nausea etc.) but not for the actual cause. The reason is that the blood clot must usually be removed surgically, a procedure that is not advisable, for obvious reasons, in the case of hemorrhagic strokes, which account for about 17 percent of all strokes.

The researchers are studying how to solve this problem using animals (sigh). And here is the interesting part. They dissolved curcumin in corn oil, injected it into the abdomen of an animal model of hemorrhagic stroke three times over three hours, and found that it significantly decreased the size of blood clots. Extraordinary. Hmmm, I wonder why they chose to use corn oil…?

At any rate, they are currently working on developing an intravenous form of curcumin with the idea that it may also help prevent strokes. Intravenous, huh? Well, well, my dream of having intravenous curcumin may be fulfilled sooner than I think…