I read another fascinating article written by Jacob Schor, President of the Oncology Association of Naturopathic Physicians (thank you!), titled “Will asparagus cure cancer?”: goo.gl/d42eV I’m still in shock. It turns out that eating a lot of asparagus can actually be harmful in certain types of cancer. ALL (=acute lymphoblastic leukemia), specifically.

But please note this paragraph in particular: As the names hints, asparagus contain l-asparagine. Eating asparagus would seem ill advised for people who have cancers that respond to l-asparaginase. This enzyme may be useful in treating lymphoma and multiple myeloma. Eating asparagus may make all of these cancers grow faster, most especially ALL.

Uhm…wait…

Asparagus might possibly make my myeloma cells grow FASTER???!!! Well then, I’m definitely striking it off my list of foods. Drat. I really LIKE asparagus! But my health is much more important to me, of course!

I don’t have much time today (familiar story, eh, especially these days…), but I did find out that there is at least one clinical trial testing a drug called PEG L-asparaginase on patients with refractory lymphoid malignancies, including multiple myeloma  (see http://goo.gl/HnYuZ). This drug is a modified version of an enzyme, L-asparaginase, which…Oh wait a second…I think it’d be a good idea right now to stop, take a step back and try to understand what this stuff means…

So, what is asparagine? Basically, it’s a chemical that cells, all cells!, need to survive. Healthy cells can produce their own asparagine, but cancer cells cannot. But cancer cells desperately need this chemical, of course, so they grab and use up every available scrap of asparagine circulating inside the body. And in fact the idea behind the above-mentioned drug, PEG L-asparaginase, is that it gets rid of the circulating asparagine, which has the rather obvious effect of KILLING the leukemic cells. Simple, no? Well…a big problem with this drug, from what I read (quickly!) are its side effects, which can be quite serious…

Oh, before I go on, I also found this Cleveland Clinic bit of info on PEG etc.: http://goo.gl/fjZ61 Hmmm.

At any rate, I ask you, what would happen if we cut down on asparagine-containing foods? I don’t think we should eliminate them entirely, since that might hurt our healthy cells, too (mental note: more research needed). Oh, since this post is a work in progress, as you can tell!, let me mention that I just read that asparagine can be found in quite a number of foods–dairy, eggs, potatoes, nuts and so on…So we probably couldn’t eliminate them entirely, anyway. But I don’t see how it would hurt to cut down…

That’s what I’ve decided to do. Soooo…farewell, lovely asparagus… 🙁

Before I begin, I’d like to say it was my computer’s fault, not mine…In fact, when you really think about it, it was Stefano’s own fault. So there!

When he last updated my computer, you see, he must have erased my nifty calendar somehow…yep, the entire thing. All my appointments—gone. All those helpful and reliable (!) birthday reminders for all the important people in my life—gone. As quickly as you can say “keystroke.” Poof. And of course, I didn’t find out until yesterday morning…

You’d think I’d have known that something was wrong when my computer neglected to remind me of my sister’s birthday last month. But no, I didn’t. I’ve been so busy and distracted by other things that I guess I just didn’t pay any attention…

Okay. Fast forward to yesterday morning.

As we were getting ready for work, Stefano asked innocently, “Don’t you have anything to say to me?” I mulled this over for a moment and replied, beaming a smile at him, “Well yes, of course. Good morning!!!”

Hurt look. Downturned mouth. He moaned, “You forgot…you forgot…”

“Forgot WHAT???,” I retorted, putting on a sock. (Quick note: since I’ve been on curcumin, my memory has improved a whole lot…So I was 100% certain I’d forgotten nothing and that he was pulling my leg just to annoy me…).

He answered, “YOU FORGOT MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!”

After a stunned nanosecond of silence, I protested, “NOOOO, silly, it isn’t your birthday today, of course it isn’t!!!!!!!!!! That’s impossible!!!! My computer didn’t warn me!!!”

I’ve NEVER EVER forgotten his bday before…

But he was right.

I had!!!

Panic, total panic…holy caaaaaats!!!

And that’s when it hit me. I looked down at my computer screen and told him I thought there was something wrong with my calendar, since it hadn’t “warned” me first about my sister’s birthday and now about his birthday, as it usually does. That’s how we discovered that my calendar had been completely erased…Oh well. Not my fault, then. 🙂

After work, I drove directly to our favourite pasticceria (=cake shop), one of the best in Florence, and managed to slip inside just as it was closing…After apologizing for my foot-in-the-door intrusion, I explained that I’d forgotten my husband’s birthday, at which point the tired pasticceria owners turned into the most understanding and helpful people on Earth. “Signora, try this…hmmm, what do you think about getting him one of these? Ah, and how about this chocolate one?”

I ended up buying all his favourite sweets. Every single one. And a GLORIOUS cake consisting of a tart crust base topped with a lemon-based Bavarian cream custard surrounded with raspberries and strawberries and passion fruit (nice touch, eh, the passion fruit 😉 )…Oh, and let me tell you, it was absolutely delicious…

But that didn’t seem like enough. I mean, can a few sweets possibly make up for forgetting the birthday of the most important person in your life?

So in the late afternoon, braving the pouring rain (incidentally, it’s been raining buckets upon buckets here since Sunday…to the point where my flowers are floating and I’m thinking of trading my car in for a boat…), I went out again and bought him some books and some expensive Scottish whisky—two of his favourite things in the world (that is, after the cats and me and his computer…ah yes in that order…).

Oh, I forgot to tell you. To make matters worse, yesterday morning Stefano told me that for MY birthday he’s planning to whisk me away for a romantic weekend in a European capital…

Well, Stefano’s birthday turned out well in the end and life is good. And the best part is that I married a great guy with a great sense of humor…Hmmm, speaking of that great sense of humor…I really hope he wasn’t kidding about the romantic getaway! 😉

I have time only for a super duper amazingly quick post today, but I just read this bit of info and thought it too important not to share immediately, since I know that doxorubicin can do some real damage to the heart. If you are taking doxorubicin or know someone who is, please read this article: http://goo.gl/4k43c

Have a great Sunday, everyone!

As a result of the messages I’ve received in the past few days, I know that many of you have noticed that my blog hasn’t been feeling very well lately. It has been feeling so poorly, in fact, that now and again it decided to show the world a blank “face” (that is, my homepage vanished, gulp). Then it decided to replace its blank face with my regular homepage but not the list of Pages on the right. Then some blog readers could see my homepage; others, yours truly included, couldn’t. It seemed to depend on our country of residence…anyway, very odd.

This situation has been driving the fabulous Healthblog manager absolutely bonkers…she has been trying to figure out what the problem is…She’s probably fixed it by now, but then this morning I discovered, purely by chance, that my photo album is now topsy turvy. What’s going on?

This is all a puzzle. Luckily, Stefano and I have been very busy with this and that and everything else (!) these past few days, so the fact that my blog has been misbehaving hasn’t been a huge problem for me, since I didn’t have time to write a post anyway! But I must say, when it first happened, it was a tad disconcerting to wake up and find my blog’s regular, reassuring homepage replaced by a completely blank page…All my work, seemingly GONE! Eeeek! 😉

It’s a long (four-day) holiday weekend here in Italy. Stefano and I had originally planned to go off somewhere with friends or on our own (London or the Dolomites or…wherever-but-not-too-far…), leaving our cats in the loving care of our fabulous cat sitter, but in the end we simply decided to stay home…We may go on a day trip tomorrow, and we have plans with other friends (locally), AND we have to do some work in the garden…but, most of all, we are going to RELAX… 🙂

That is why for now I’m going to ignore the fact that my blog looks more disorganized than usual (!) and the fact that the comment section on the right has vanished (!!!). Instead of worrying about that, I’ll simply post a couple of really cute videos/stories that I’ve watched/read recently:

• Mom cat hugs baby kitten (Cute Factor: verrrrry high!), accompanied by an interesting National Geographic explanation: http://goo.gl/v7k34
• Great story. 10 trapped ducklings rescued in Hyannis, MA: http://goo.gl/vLH64
• Remember Nora, the piano-playing cat? Well, read this: http://goo.gl/cZONg
• Cat plays the shell game (love the way the kitty ends the game, hehe, typical…): http://goo.gl/dV5mq

What a glorious Sunday we had! 🙂

Yesterday, before meeting up with our friends, one of whom was playing all day with his jazz band at a winery (see previous post), Stefano and I stopped at Montefioralle, a 12th century fortified hilltop village not too far from Greve in Chianti (=less than an hour’s drive from where we live in Florence).

Pretty little village, for sure, but Stefano and I kept looking for a central piazza (square)…to no avail. “There just has to be one,” I insisted. We walked around the village twice, just to make sure we hadn’t missed it…But no, we came up empty handed. How very odd. Hmmm. Anyway, my first two photos are shots of central-square-less Montefioralle… 🙂

Next stop: Villa Cafaggio, with its 45 hectares of vineyards, see photos below. This is where our friend was playing, incidentally (see my next-to-last photo). Anyway, according to the Villa’s website, Villa Cafaggio or Cafaggiolo belonged to Benedictine monks in the 15th century. One of its most enjoyable features, IMO, was its position–on top of a small hill, surrounded by hills, vineyards, cypress trees and farmhouses. An absolutely lovely area, as you can see, sort of, from my photos…

We toured the villa’s wine cellars, of course, which were quite modern. No traditional “pressing the grapes with your feet” in this establishment! But, hey, modern techniques have their advantages…HYGIENE, for one! 😉

After enjoying a guided tour of the villa’s cellars and taking some photos of the view of and from its vineyards, we sat down on the villa’s terrace for the official wine tasting, which is always accompanied by an explanation (which type of grapes are used in which wine and so on)…This experience was enhanced by live jazz music in the background. 🙂

We were each given a plate with slices of ham, salami, Pecorino (=sheep) cheese and finocchiona, which is salami flavored with fennel seeds. Quick aside: as I was attempting (in vain) to find a translation for finocchiona, I came upon a tale that I thought I’d share with you:

Finocchiona supposedly owes its origins to a thief at a fair near the town of Prato, who stole a fresh salami and hid it in a stand of wild fennel. When he returned for it he discovered it had absorbed the aromas of its hiding place and had become fit for the Gods.

Cute!

Well, I don’t care much for the taste of salame or finocchiona, which I handed over to Stefano (who was more than happy to, ehm, oblige…), but I did very much enjoy the Pecorino cheese, and the wine was verrrry nice, too, especially the 2007 riserva, i.e. the 2007 vintage…

We were given generous “sips” (see last photo, that’s my glass of wine, btw) of four different types of wine. Since I don’t usually drink anything but water, by the fourth taste I was quite, er, happy, shall we say…So I must say, it’s a good thing there was some FOOD and water on the table, too! 😉

Just as we were finishing our “tasting” and were thinking of moving on, a blog reader who lives in Florence and who has become a friend of mine walked out onto the terrace together with her partner. What a splenddddid surprise! So we stayed on a bit longer, waiting for them to have their tasting and visit the cellars. We sat and chatted and listened to some more music…Then, before leaving, we bought some riserva wine to share with my parents when they arrive here in July…

Well, as it happened, we had a petit Tuscan adventure. After Villa Cafaggio, we’d originally intended to go check out the Castello da Verrazzano, another well-known winery in the area. So Stefano entered the castle’s address into his GPS system, and off we went. My blog reader and her partner followed us in their car…

At one point the GPS decided to go bonkers (intoxicated by all those vineyards, perhaps???)…All of a sudden, you see, we took a turn and found ourselves trundling down a tiny, very dusty and very bumpy country lane that seemed to lead nowhere. On and on we went. Nobody in sight…not even a dog. Just a few lizards…And typical Tuscan vineyards and hills and dust all around us…The views were very pretty, mind you…but…

We soon realized that the GPS had made a mistake, but there was no way we could turn around and retrace our “steps”…So on and on we went. I began stifling a chuckle, then I couldn’t stand it anymore and burst into peals of laughter. Within seconds, even though he was a bit concerned about his car getting scratched and bruised by brambles and stones, Stefano joined in. So we howled and howled and howled. And what made it even funnier was the fact that my blog reader and her partner were still faithfully following us…probably wondering if we’d lost our minds…Bumpety haha bump, hahaha! 🙂

We finally managed to get back onto an asphalted road and head off in the right direction, which (for your information…) meant retracing our steps entirely and passing by the Villa Cafaggio…again. Ehm. By then it was mid afternoon, so the four of us stopped at the first winery we saw, which happened to be the Castello di Uzzano. After all that bumping around and all that laughing, we needed a rest AND something else to eat…And, why not?, we also tried some of their riserva wine…

Anyway, if you are in Italy on the last Sunday in May, don’t miss Cantine Aperte. It’s a GREAT experience, especially if your GPS misbehaves hehe…and a very tasteful one, too! 🙂 Oh, and I should note that many, perhaps most, of these wine-tasting events are free. Yes, free.

And if that isn’t incentive enough…well, Tuscany is one of the most beautiful places on Earth!, especially at this time of year…April-May… 🙂

Glancing through a list of recent “Blood” studies, I came upon a few interesting ones, which I don’t have time to read super carefully right now (after all, it’s THE WEEKEND! 🙂 )…but I thought I would go ahead anyway and post the links, for those of you who might be interested in giving them a go…

The first is titled “Monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) and smoldering multiple myeloma (SMM): novel biological insights and development of early treatment strategies.” Those of you who have been reading my blog for some time know how STRONGLY I feel about the issue of doing chemo or any conventional EARLY treatments, especially in the absence of CRAB symptoms…But anyway, that’s not the point…

The point is to give you the link to this study, which I’ll do immediately: http://goo.gl/P42lR If you’d like to read the whole shebang (yes, available for free…ahhh, I just love that!!!), just click on “Full Text PDF” on the right…Incidentally, the type may look small, as it did on my computer, but you can enlarge it by pressing “+”…

I was surprised to find three “alternative” clinical studies listed in Table 3 (page 8 of 10). Wow, I wasn’t expecting that from a group of conventional doctors…Hmmm, an indication of the, er, changing times, perhaps? Nice! 😉 Here are the three alternative studies: 1. the curcumin vs placebo Australian trial (26 MGUS folks), 2. the green tea extract trial (17 MGUS and SMM folks) and 3. the Omega-3 fatty acid trial (48 MGUS, SMM and CLL folks). There is also a monoclonal antibody trial that looks interesting…But I know zip about it, except for what I have read about those thingies in various studies here and there…

The May 5 2011 edition of “Blood” published two “Consensus recommendations,” which were written by the International Myeloma Workshop folks. The first concerns risk stratification in multiple myeloma: http://goo.gl/U4gXW Again, click on Full Text PDF if you want to read the entire text. There are some interesting items here, especially for those of us who are interested in risk factors, which, in addition to the chromosome deletions (13 and so on), are also: high B2M, low albumin and high LDH (incredibly, LDH is not always tested…it should be, as should vitamin D levels…incidentally, I have had mine tested ever since I changed hematologists here in Italy, and mine has always been in the normal range, phew…). If your LDH has never been tested, please ask your doctor…

The same issue of “Blood” has another report that recommends the uniform reporting of clinical trials: http://goo.gl/muVHg Again, the full text is available online…

Okay, now I’m going back to my fab weekend…Tomorrow Stefano and I are driving to a vineyard near Greve in Chianti, south of Florence, where a friend of ours is playing jazz all day with his band, as part of “Cantine Aperte 2011,” which means “Open Wine Cellars 2011.” This is THE MOST important annual Italian wine event during which many wine producers open their usually-closed cellars to the public. It’s great, since you’re able to visit the vineyards and the cellars (inside castles, too)…And you can taste some great Chianti wine (and some typical local food, pecorino cheese and so on, if you’re lucky!), listen to concerts etc. Anyway, it’s usually lots and lots of fun, and the weather looks good…So we’re really looking forward to it. I’m taking my camera… 🙂

On Monday I read a Toronto Sun article written by Dr. Richard Béliveau (no need to introduce him, I hope! 🙂 ): http://goo.gl/2umwt Nothing new…except for what he says towards the end. I had to stop, rub my eyes and then read these two paragraphs again:

Studies done recently by a group of Japanese researchers have also shown that the metabolising of curcumin could be influenced by the abundance of bacterial flora found in the colon […]. The researchers were also able to determin that Escherichia coli, an abundant layer of bacteria in the colon, possesses an enzyme capable of transforming curcumin into tetrahydrocurcumin, a more stable version of the original polyphenol.

This is particularly interesting considering that secondary studies showed that the anti-inflammatory and anti-cancerous activity of tetrahydrocurcumin is even higher than that of curcumin itself. In other words, far from reducing its cancer-fighting potential, the transformation of curcumin by some intestinal bacteria could instead increase its power and therefore play a major role in the multiple health benefits associated with the regular consumption of turmeric.

Whatwhatwhaaat? WHATWHATWHAAAAAAAT???!!!!! Tetrahydrocurcumin is a more stable and perhaps EVEN BETTER cancer-fighter than curcumin????????? Why, that’s the complete opposite of what I’ve read up to now. My world has been turned upside down…What an incredibly exciting concept! More research needed, clearly…but not today. I’m too distracted…today…

Busy days…But this morning I did find time to read a few Science Daily articles that I hope you will find interesting, too.

1. This article (http://goo.gl/EdGgc) tells us about bitter cumin, a spice that is used extensively in traditional medicine to treat a range of diseases from vitiligo to hyperglycemia. It is considered to be antiparasitic and antimicrobial and science has backed up claims of its use to reduce fever or as a painkiller. A recent study has shown that it is chock-full of antioxidants. Sound familiar? Yeah…thought so… 😉 The full text is available online, by the way (http://goo.gl/U8rI9). I took a super quick look at it and found this: The seeds have a hot sharp taste; acrid, astringent to the bowls, antihelmintic; cure ulcers, used in skin diseases, leucoderma and fevers. It’s like a déjà vu…
2. Another interesting new study (http://goo.gl/f5q7x) deals with a common side effect of conventional cancer treatments, that is, the impairment of the immune system, which can result in life-threatening secondary infections and so on (see the article for more information/details). In this study, Indian researchers tested extracts from several plants used in traditional or folk medicine against microbials found in the mouths of oral cancer patients. Of the 40 patients involved in the study, 35 had compromised immune systems with severely reduced neutrophil counts. Eight of the plants tested were able to significantly affect the growth of organisms collected by oral swab, and pure cultures of bacteria and fungi grown in the lab. This included wild asparagus, desert date, false daisy, curry tree, caster oil plant and fenugreek. Well, well…Ah, FYI, I see that the full text is available online (http://goo.gl/3S3t2). I don’t have time to read it right now, though…
3. Thanks to a Facebook friend/blog reader, I read a list (http://goo.gl/2Kcde) detailing some of the benefits of turmeric. The list gives only 20 good reasons to add turmeric to our diet (I could find many more than that!), plus it’s a bit dated (i.e., 2007)…lots has happened since 2007, of course…but it’s still quite a decent summary. Ah, there’s a slight (!) mistake in item no. 17: it should be “curcumin,” not “turmeric”! (Let’s not forget that the Indian spice turmeric contains only a small percentage, only between 8 and 9%, of its active ingredient, i.e., curcumin…)

Yesterday Stefano and I had dinner with a couple of friends who live near Casole d’Elsa, which, hmmm, let’s see (what follows is for those who know their way around Tuscany or like to use Google Maps…), is about an hour and 15 minute drive south (slightly west) of Florence OR about a half hour drive south from San Gimignano OR about a 45 minute drive west from Siena. 🙂

Since we weren’t meeting our friends in Casole d’Elsa until 5 PM, Ste and I decided to drive first to the town of Certaldo, which was not too far from our meeting point. This is the hometown of Giovanni Boccaccio, the famous 14th century Italian author and poet…He wrote the “Decameron,” a title you might recognize even if you aren’t Italian…

Certaldo, like many other Tuscan hilltop towns, is divided into two parts: 1. the medieval walled town perched on top of a hill (= Certaldo Alta, which literally means “high” Certaldo) and 2. the modern and, er, much less attractive town (= Certaldo Bassa, or “low” Certaldo) located at the bottom of the (same) hill. What we did was park in the modern part of Certaldo and reach the hilltop part by cablecar. Now that was fun!

I wanted to mention that the old part of Certaldo was quite heavily damaged in World War II bombings…And one of the hardest hit buildings was Boccaccio’s family home, which, however, was entirely rebuilt in 1947. This rather austere-lbut-not-remarkable-looking terracotta brick building (in fact, we walked right by it without giving it a second glance, at first) is located in the middle of Via Boccaccio, the town’s main drag, named after him, of course…

The 360° views from the Boccaccio family home’s brick tower are magnificent (see photo no. 2, a view over the rooftops of Certaldo Alta). Stefano and I climbed up to the top terrace and were blown away by: 1. the views…goes without saying, and 2. the horrendous, overwhelming heat.

Yesterday, you see, was a particularly bright, sunny but also very hot day…the hottest day so far this year, I think. Taking photographs on top of that tower, under the midday sun, was therefore not pleasant at all…I began thinking that even my eyes were sweating. 😉 But the view was worth it…I just wouldn’t make that climb on midday in July or August…

We also visited the Palazzo Pretorio or Palazzo Vicariale, a beautiful palace that used to be the residence of the governors of Florence and is located in the highest part of Certaldo. Unfortunately, its strikingly picturesque façade, decorated with a variety of ceramic coats of arms, is being restored right now, so I don’t have any photos of it. 

Luckily, another lovely feature of this palace was fully visible: its inner courtyard (photo 3), also decorated with coats of arms and whatnot…AND the views over the surrounding countryside are equally lovely (photo 4, taken through a stained glass window)…

Almost the most enjoyable part about visiting the two towns of Certaldo and Casole d’Elsa yesterday was the complete lack of tourists. The much more famous town of San Gimignano is absolutely gorgeous, no question about that!, and I love to go there…However, at this time of year (well, at ANY time of year!) it is jam-packed with tourists, which is great for the economy but…well…you know!!!

My point is: other, not-so-famous Tuscan hilltop towns may not be as stunning as San Gimignano, but part of their charm and appeal is that they are not as crowded, and the other thing is that you will most likely eat well for a reasonable amount of money (= we had a very nice lunch in Certaldo, in fact…).

Furthermore, in these lesser known towns, you can still come upon groups of town residents sitting right outside their homes or outside the local cafés, gossiping and chatting with friends and neighbors…or working on various projects (watering their plants, knitting, watching their children/grandchildren play and so on…). You can see a bit of that in the first photo, which is a downhill view of Via Boccaccio. On the left, there are four elderly Certaldini sitting outside a café. These men were there when we arrived…and they were there when we left. Still talking and gesturing animately, the way Italians do… 🙂

By the way, if you look closely at that photo, you will see one side of the Church of Saints Iacopo and Filippo, where Boccaccio is buried (there was a wedding going on at the time, so we didn’t get a chance to visit the inside)…If you look more in the background, the second tower down the street on the right is the one we climbed…

The town of Casole d’Elsa (my photos of Casole begin with the narrow, plant-filled street view, i.e., photo no. 5) is where we finally met up with our friends in the late afternoon. It wasn’t as pretty as Certaldo, for sure, but it was very lively and colorful, and we enjoyed our visit.

The town was bustling with preparations for an upcoming “palio,” which, like the more famous palio held in Siena, is mainly a horse race (of medieval origin). It was fun to walk down the streets of rival contrade, or town wards, and take photos of the differently colored contrade flags waving in the wind…Photo 6 shows two flags from the contrada “Pievalle,” in addition to two Italian flags (celebrating the 150th anniversary of Italy’s unification).

Another interesting feature of Casole d’Elsa: its buildings were decorated here and there with ceramic tiles painted by, I suppose, the inhabitants…And some of them were quite good, as you can see (last two photos)…

Just as we were about to leave Casole, clouds appeared out of nowhere, and a sudden downpour gave us an incentive to make a beeline for the car and drive off toward our friends’ house…

AND it also gave us an excuse to stuff ourselves with a yummy, homemade dinner, mamma mia! 🙂

When I first began taking curcumin, more than five years ago–in January 2006, to be exact!–there was hardly any information to be had on the active ingredient of the Indian spice turmeric. About a year later, in March 2007, I began blogging about my very positive experience (in so many unexpected ways!) with curcumin…Again, I could not find much information on the marvelous spice extract…

But since then I have noticed a slow but steady increase in the publication of articles and studies on curcumin (oh, of course, I don’t mean to imply that my blog had anything to do with this increase…! 😉 )…

Especially in recent times…

I’m verrrrry pleased, of course. The more articles we have about curcumin (and other non-toxic extracts), the more the amazing healing properties of curcumin cannot be scoffed at and ignored. It’s about time…!

Here are just a few examples of the recent stuff I’ve read.

1. A Medical News Today article reports on a new University of Michigan study on head and neck cancer and curcumin. In a nutshell, the researchers were able to cut the dose of the chemotherapy drug cisplatin by four by using a new curcumin compound, FLLL32, which also reduced chemoresistance: http://goo.gl/EVvj2 (Oh, there is a slight mistake in the article: the Indian spice is “turmeric,” not “curcumin.”) Amazing, eh?
2. A Fox News article on natural and safe anti-inflammatory “medicines” mentions curcumin (see the “Hippocrates” paragraph): http://goo.gl/o1tue
3. Curcumin keeps cancer cells at bay (Live in the Now): http://goo.gl/WjZZp
4. Curcumin is a powerful anti-inflammatory (article written by Dr. Mercola published in Foodconsumer): http://goo.gl/gzSpT Not so sure about that egg yolk concoction, though…or about the boiling bit. Hmmm…
5. The New York Times tells us that worms live longer on curcumin: http://goo.gl/SYIcX  🙂

And here is a recent Fox News (yeah, I know, I know…) video about curcumin: http://goo.gl/eElHh

I’ll stop here…So much to read, so little time!