I do not believe that curcumin is unstable in acids, or that stomach acid destroys it. There should be no need for an enteric coating. LEF claim that mixing about 20% turmeric with curcumin increases bioavailability significantly, as does adding piperine. Significant amounts of piperine are found in black pepper, and it can be purchased as an extract as well.
Cooking up in a curry with mustard seed oil would be authentic, but any healthy oil would do the job. IF you like curry. Otherwise make your own turmeric/black pepper capsules to take with the plain curcumin.
Margaret's blog has a lot of information on curcumin as used for treating multiple myeloma:
http://margaret.healthblogs.orgAnother possibility that complements curcumin is
zerumbone, isolated from a tropical species of ginger; it inhibits the hedgehog pathway, which is necessary for cancer cells to metastasize and grow. Margaret has some information about it in her blogs, which are well indexed. Zerumbone can be purchased from www.kingherbs.com.cn, and from www.kingherbs.com. If you are interested in trying it after studying the links provided in the blog, PM me. I will see if I can get you some for "compassionate use."
Cancer Res. 2008 Nov 1;68(21):8938-44.
Zerumbone down-regulates chemokine receptor CXCR4 expression leading to inhibition of CXCL12-induced invasion of breast and pancreatic tumor cells.
Sung B, Jhurani S, Ahn KS, Mastuo Y, Yi T, Guha S, Liu M, Aggarwal BB.
Department of Experimental Therapeutics, Cytokine Research Laboratory, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
CXC chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4), initially linked with leukocyte trafficking, is now known to be expressed in various tumors including breast, ovary, prostate, gastrointestinal, head and neck, bladder, brain, and melanoma. This receptor mediates homing of tumor cells to specific organs that express the ligand CXCL12 for this receptor. Thus, agents that can down-regulate CXCR4 expression have potential against cancer metastasis. In this study, we report the identification of zerumbone, a component of subtropical ginger (Zingiber zerumbet), as a regulator of CXCR4 expression. This sesquiterpene down-regulated the expression of CXCR4 on HER2-overexpressing breast cancer cells in a dose- and time-dependent manner. The decrease in CXCR4 by zerumbone was found to be not cell type specific as its expression was abrogated in leukemic, skin, kidney, lung, and pancreatic cancer cell lines. The down-regulation of CXCR4 was not due to proteolytic degradation but rather to transcriptional regulation, as indicated by down-regulation of mRNA expression, inhibition of nuclear factor-kappaB activity, and suppression of chromatin immunoprecipitation activity. Suppression of CXCR4 expression by zerumbone correlated with the inhibition of CXCL12-induced invasion of both breast and pancreatic cancer cells. An analogue of zerumbone, alpha-humulene, which lacks the carbonyl group, was found to be inactive in inducing CXCR4 down-regulation. Overall, our results show that zerumbone is a novel inhibitor of CXCR4 expression and thus has a potential in the suppression of cancer metastasis.
PMID: 18974138
Mol Carcinog. 2009 Dec 18. [Epub ahead of print]
Curcumin inhibits the Sonic Hedgehog signaling pathway and triggers apoptosis in medulloblastoma cells.
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Elamin MH, Shinwari Z, Hendrayani SF, Al-Hindi H, Al-Shail E, Khafaga Y, Al-Kofide A, Aboussekhra A.
Department of Biological and Medical Research, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Medulloblastoma is an aggressive primary brain tumor that arises in the cerebellum of children and young adults. The Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) signaling pathway that plays important roles in the pathology of this aggressive disease is a promising therapeutic target. In the present report we have shown that curcumin has cytotoxic effects on medulloblastoma cells. Curcumin suppressed also cell proliferation and triggered cell-cycle arrest at G(2)/M phase. Moreover, curcumin inhibited the Shh-Gli1 signaling pathway by downregulating the Shh protein and its most important downstream targets GLI1 and PTCH1. Furthermore, curcumin reduced the levels of beta-catenin, the activate/phosphorylated form of Akt and NF-kappaB, which led to downregulating the three common key effectors, namely C-myc, N-myc, and Cyclin D1. Consequently, apoptosis was triggered by curcumin through the mitochondrial pathway via downregulation of Bcl-2, a downstream anti-apoptotic effector of the Shh signaling. Importantly, the resistant cells that exhibited no decrease in the levels of Shh and Bcl-2, were sensitized to curcumin by the addition of the Shh antogonist, cyclopamine. Furthermore, we have shown that curcumin enhances the killing efficiency of nontoxic doses of cisplatin and gamma-rays. In addition, we present clear evidence that piperine, an enhancer of curcumin bioavailability in humans, potentiates the apoptotic effect of curcumin against medulloblastoma cells. This effect was mediated through strong downregulation of Bcl-2. These results indicate that curcumin, a natural nontoxic compound, represents great promise as Shh-targeted therapy for medulloblastomas.
Edited by maxwatt, 14 January 2010 - 01:36 AM.
spelling eras
