Turmeric/curcumins in diet may enhance blood cancer therapy and reduce treatment related side effects
Introduction/Background/Significance: All trans retinoic acid, RA (tretinoin) is structurally related to vitamin A, is effectively used to treat hematological malignancies including acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL). RA/vitamin A pays an important role in various cellular activities, including gene expression, cell differentiation and apoptosis. Vitamin A is essential for the heathy cell functions, growth, and differentiation. Excess vitamin A /RA causes bone thinning, diarrhea and liver damage. Turmeric is a popular spice present in human diet has antitumor/leukemic, prevents initiation, promotion, progression and drug resistance cancer development (Nagabhushan 1987).
Materials and Methods/Case Presentation/Objective: In Asian countries the incidence of leukemia is low. They consume daily large quantities of turmeric. In other parts of the world now a days use turmeric/curcumins as supplement. There is a lack of scientific knowledge among clinicians about the effects of diet in APL patients undergoing RA treatment. The PubMed Literature search was performed and summarized the findings
Results/Description/Main Outcome Measures: Curcumin, the yellow coloring principle of spice turmeric, enhances RA-induced differentiation of human APL, prevents RA drug resistance, exhibits anticancer activity against P388 leukemia, human chronic myeloid leukemia, and human B-cell lymphoma
Conclusions: Turmeric/curcumins enhances RA-induced APL differentiation/reversal of drug resistance may reduce the RA dose for treatment of APL in clinics, thus reducing the toxicity of RA to patients. Other side effects of RA treatment such as muscle/hair loss, chronic inflammation, loss of appetite, taste, digestion and nutrients absorption and immunity may be restored by including turmeric/curcumins. It has been shown that taking turmeric powder in boiling milk is better than taking curcumin in capsules.
References
Nagabhushan Moolky (1987) Mutagens and antimutagens from India diet with special reference to spices, Ph.D. Thesis, page 1-301, University of Bombay, INDIA
