Aug 01 2008
Curried Cure for Diabetes?
If what follows works out, I may be out of a blog.
Researchers at the Naomi Berri Diabetes Center have been, by their claims, able to cure diabetes in mice using a component of turmeric, a spice used in curries. (Follow the link at the end to a clip and short article about it.)
Turmeric is already used as an antiseptic in India and other recent studies have suggested that it may be able to treat Alzheimer’s, slow the growth of breast cancer and be used as a pain reliever.
In June, a paper was presented national meeting of the Endocrine Society (which despite the name, is not a group of really bad superheroes or an indy rock band) showed turmeric capable of slowing the onset of Type 2 diabetes in mice by lessening insulin resistance. This alone would be great news for the blood sugar challenged, but these new claims are even more exciting.
I’m personally holding some skepticism, but only because the clip I watched promises a lot and says very little. I’m assuming that they are still talking about Type 2, but they don’t say. They also suggest that they can cure the symptoms of obesity, though the treatment would not affect weight, which is what I thought the symptom of obesity was*.
Vagueness aside though, this could mean big things and I look forward to seeing the developments. And having an additional excuse to go to my local Indian buffet.
The article in question.
Where I got my information about turmeric.
*Obesity is a complication that contributes to health problems, I know. I’m not trying to be dense, but I get irked when people discuss obesity as if it were a death sentence. Also, obesity and diabetes don’t automatically come as a set, though one increases the risk of the other. The way they talk about them in the clip is as if they were interchangeable.
I came across articles on tumeric when I was researching links between obesity and breast cancer (for the now dropped dissertation topic). Obesity, it turns out, is a chronic inflammatory state and and fat is an active endocrine organ. Which is kind of cool, form an academic standpoint, but less cool on a personal level (plus when the pathologist thinks it’s cool, you don’t want it :P). I was going to be looking at conjugated linoleic acids, some of which are anti-inflammatory, may increase insulin sensitivity, and reduce cancer cell proliferation. And guess what? They occur primarily in *grass fed* beef and dairy products. So…curried beef? yum.