In an email I received yesterday, Dr. Terry Golombick notified me that her team’s most recent article has been published in the Journal of Hematology and Medical Oncology. It is available for free online…just click here: goo.gl/cEP93h
Ahhhh. Wonderful…absolutely wonderful.
Wonderful, because finally…FINALLY (!!!)…we have a long-term look at a GROUP of MGUS and SMM patients taking curcumin. These are those who participated in the Australian MGUS/SMM study and who “continued to take curcumin over a number of years, of their own volition, even though the studies in which they were participating are complete.”
So this is a “long-term follow-up of 13 MGUS/SMM patients who have been taking curcumin (at a dose of 4 -8 grams daily) for a period of 3-9 years.”
Only one patient, who had cardiac amyloidosis (!), went on to full-blown myeloma and is currently undergoing conventional treatments. The rest of the patients are doing quite well, some better than others…anyway, you can read all the details in the report…
I really hope that this report will encourage more and more centers to start giving curcumin to their MGUS and SMM patients and, why not?, to their MM patients as well. At this point, I could go into a tirade about the short-sightedness of conventional medicine, but, at least for now, I’d rather look at the positive side, which is the publication of some CASE STUDIES, like the one concerning my blog reader D., and this Australian one.
I would like to end this post by stating that we all owe a large debt of gratitude to dedicated researchers like Dr. Golombick who have overcome all sorts of obstacles (I’m sure of that!!!) to help patients like us have the best quality of life possible, for as long as possible…
To all the Golombicks of the world: thank you, thank YOU, THANK YOU!!! 🙂 
By the way, let me remind you that Dr. Golombick and her team have set up a useful website for all of us who have a type of blood cancer. I’ve talked about it here on the blog, but just in case you missed that post, here is the link: https://www.watchandwaitbloodcancers.com/
KEEP CALM AND…
WATCH AND WAIT!!!!!!
Some doctors get visibly angry should you bring up supplements. My Notre Dame grad dr absolutely hates supplements. But I wrote a review on the dr and the fact that he is very good but not open to supplements – even supplements that you find research about on University websites (sites with .edu extensions) where they’ve done tests or double-blind studies. I also realize there are lots of snake oil sites out there and the Dr is very busy, but he should be open to independent University led studies. I think he must have read my review because he seems to be much more open to them now 🙂
Yes, Dr. Golombick definitely deserves credit for going against the normal mentality of thinking supplements are junk.
A side rant. I find it kind of weird that I can buy regular generic prescription medication for about 93% less than many supplements. For example, generic synthetic thyroid is only $4 a month. Curcumin is about $59.
GOD bless you Margaret for all that you write for us.
Thanks for letting us know, Margaret.
Keep them coming.
Best
D.
Along with many, I have Mgus. I will monitor and wait, but find it so frustrating that they can’t just eliminate the cells in Mgus. Thank you for the updates, but there has to be more to this. Faint levels..and Many have to watch and wait. Now is the time to destroy the cells not wait. Years of research and there is still not a way to get rid of cells that have not turned into cancer. Just very sad..
Deborah,
Some researchers are looking into stopping myeloma/waldenstroms while it is in the MGUS stage. Dr. Irene Ghobrial of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute is one of them. She pretty much agrees with what you said: eliminate it early like you do breast cancer.
Here’s a link to an interview she gave on the subject:
http://www.myelomacrowd.org/myeloma-prevention/
I believe you can call Dana Farber and get a second opinion on your treatment. I haven’t tried it but I might this fall. Let us know if you try it.
Jim