Turmeric - A Curry Spice with Magical Curative Properties

Indians have been using numerous herbs and spices for thousands of years. It was not all about taste, but it was the research of the scholars of holistic medicine that developed the Indian recipes. I am not going to write about the growing popularity of Indian/Pakistani dishes here as that is not the topic; but it always makes me feel kind of proud when I see, any new research mentioning the immense medicinal value of one of the spice used in Indian/Pakistani curry. Curry is popular in other parts of the world as well but the number of spices used in South East Asia is incomparable. Our kitchens literally look like a holistic medicine pharmacy.

Turmeric is the yellow pigment which gives Indian dishes its yellowish color. Recently many researches have come up proving its medicinal properties with respect to; anti-inflammatory, cancer fighting, anti-oxidant etc. We only used Turmeric powder for internal injuries caused due to falls, accidents etc. I remember my mother use to give me a glass of warm milk with Turmeric after any such incident.

Cancer

Turmeric contains a chemical that fights cancer cells. The potential is so great that the scientists are considering making anti-cancer medications form Turmeric. Turmeric contains an ingredient known as Curcumin which triggers the natural process of death in cancer cells called apoptosis. The cancer fighting property is effective in many forms of cancer from breast to skin cancer. You may find many studies performed in this regard over the internet.

Alzhymer’s Disease

A chemical found in Turmeric seed oils ‘curcuminoids’ called ‘bisdemethoxycurcumin’ is found to be helpful in getting rid of the Alzheimer’s brain plaque protein called amyloid beta. They already knew that Alzheimer's makes it hard for immune system cells called macrophages to get rid of amyloid beta. The curry spice chemical helped overcome that problem in the lab tests. The study was done by researchers that included ‘Milan Fiala’, MD, who works at the medical school of the University of California at Los Angeles and at the Greater Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Medical Center. http://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/news/20070716/curry-spice-may-counter-alzheimers

Heart

An experiment carried out on rats showed that curcumin, an ingredient of the Turmeric spice significantly helped in reducing the risk of heart failure and even inflammation of heart. Also, in one of the studies, the researchers saw signs that curcumin treatment reversed heart enlargement. The other study didn't include that experiment. Together, the studies suggest that curcumin short-circuited the heart enlargement process, though it's not clear how it did that. http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/heart-failure/news/20080226/curry-spice-may-thwart-heart-failure