Today, while doing research on something different, I came across an abstract (see: http://tinyurl.com/q5rlu3) that may be of interest to some of you.
Cachexia is a syndrome that unfortunately affects about 50% of cancer patients and, in general, people with chronic diseases such as AIDS or COPD. Symptoms are: progressive weight loss, muscle atrophy, fatigue, anemia, weakness and loss of appetite. The body basically stops absorbing nutrients. No matter how much you eat. From the little I read just now, this condition cannot be easily reversed…
Well, things may soon change. According to this recent study, in fact, curcumin didn’t just prevent weight loss in mice with colon tumours but also—in higher doses— resulted in approximately 25 % (P < 0.05) weight gain as compared with the placebo-treated animals. Holy cats!
In other words, curcumin prevented AND was even able to reverse cachexia. Another feather in curcumin’s impressive (and, by now, very large!) cap…
Hi Margaret,
It appears that fish oil may be good in this area also. Combining with curcumin may turn out to be quite the ticket!
Art
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=18850196
I’ve never gotten around to thanking you for all of the great info on your blog. I was dxed with unresectable pancreatic cancer in February ’08, and ever since I found your blog, in August, I’ve been taking the curcumin, feeling good (except for the perforated ulcer in Dec), not losing weight. You perform a wonderful service for us all. May you keep up the good work for many, many years.
Lucie
Hmmm – how does this square with all the hubub over curcumin limiting the growth of blood vessels in fat cells, therefore inhibiting weight gain? I’ve seen all kinds of pop diet articles, misleading in that headlines attribute weight LOSS to the curcumin when the explanation seems to be it just inhibits further GAIN.
I would personally like for it to make me thinner. So far my husband’s myeloma has mostly resulted in me cooking non-stop, to promote his appetite, healthy stuff but I am eating way too much of it myself. And … if it limits fat growth and tumor growth, does it also limit the increase of blood vessels to create new muscle (in response to excercise) as well?