It’s been a long time since I’ve written a myeloma research post, but a recently published Korean abstract made my fingers itch to hit the keyboard. Here goes…
Remember ursolic acid? Well, perhaps not, since the last time I wrote about it was, oh, as long ago as 2007, the year I began blogging, in fact. What is ursolic acid? It’s a pentacyclic triterpenoid (yeah, I know, I know…) that can be found in a lot of foods, such as rosemary, apples, cranberries, pears, oregano, holy basil, thyme and prunes.
Back to the Korean abstract (the full study, from what I can gather, hasn’t been published yet), which I read about a half hour ago: it reports that the ursolic acid found in the root bark of Morus Alba, more commonly known as white mulberry, doesn’t just inhibit “the proliferation of RPMI-8226 multiple myeloma (MM) cells,” but it kills them, too. Oh yeah!
You can read the abstract here: https://www.jmb.or.kr/journal/view.html?doi=10.4014/jmb.2109.09002
Conclusion: “These findings suggest that MRBE and its active ingredient, ursolic acid, […] may have significant chemopreventive potential against MM.” Very exciting, don’t you think? Of course, we must remember that this is a study that used MM cells in a lab setting (not human patients, I mean), so, as always, we mustn’t get overly excited. But still, a wee bit of excitement can’t hurt, right? 🙂
I have already ordered some white mulberry tea, while I do some more research to find a reliable source for ursolic acid (I hope to find the Morus Alba extract…but so far, I’ve found mainly rosemary extracts…). No idea if the tea will do any good, but at least it can’t hurt!
Fingers crossed…
Margaret have you had your hip surgery?? Still thinking of you and checking.
we miss you…hope all is going well with your hip? let us know…the best to you, Beatrice
Hi Margaret. Thought I would chime in with my situation and experience. I had a stem cell transplant after being diagnosed with MM in October of 2014. At that point my m protein was 9 g/dl. After treatment and transplant it went to trace. It remained under 2 g/dl until I had a double bypass and had to stop lenalidomide in February of 2018. I has increased slowly but remained at 4 g/dl or less for some time. I took Curcumin in capsule form form after the transplant (after reading about your experience), but about 3 years ago I switched to Liposomal Curcumin – I take 6 tsp per day. In this form the Curcumin supposedly will absorb much better. I don’t know if others have switched to this way of delivering Curcumin. I hope it is helping keep me fairly stable – smoldering. I’m also very active and still an avid cyclist at age 76. I feel fortunate to have discovered the Myeloma early – due to a cycling accident when they discovered some small lesions in my cervical spine from a CT Scan. I was completely asymptomatic and I still am except for neuropathy in my feet, probably from the early treatments. Best wishes to you and thanks for the inspiration.
Hi Margaret, I’m a caregiver to my wife who is smoldering. Hope you are well. Thanks for sharing such interesting info. Based on your below statement, have you found a source for Morus Alba extract and if so…. Where can we get that?
“I have already ordered some white mulberry tea, while I do some more research to find a reliable source for ursolic acid (I hope to find the Morus Alba extract…but so far, I’ve found mainly rosemary extracts…).”
I have found white mulberries, dried. Have ordered several bags to eat as “daily fruit” allotment. Pricey, but then what isn’t these days.