Cancer- Curcumin has the capacity to interact with multiple molecular targets affecting the many processes in cancer formation. Curcumin, in mice, interferes with the spread of breast cancer tumor cells to the lungs. Curcumin administration suppressed two proteins that tumor cells use to keep themselves immortal. Studies evaluating the role of curcumin and cancer continue to advance at a fast rate.

Melanoma-Curcumin, found in the spice turmeric, interferes with the growth of melanoma cells. Tests in laboratory dishes show that curcumin made melanoma skin cancer cells more likely to self-destruct in a process known as apoptosis.

Earlier research showed that curcumin, an antioxidant, can help prevent tumors from forming in the laboratory. For their study, Aggarwal and colleagues injected mice with human breast cancer cells -- a batch of cells grown from a patient whose cancer had spread to the lungs. The resulting tumors were allowed to grow, and then surgically removed, to simulate a mastectomy, Aggarwal said.

Then the mice either got no additional treatment; curcumin alone; the cancer drug paclitaxel, which is sold under the brand name Taxol; or curcumin plus Taxol.

Half the mice in the curcumin -only group and 22 percent of those in the curcumin plus Taxol group had evidence of breast cancer that had spread to the lungs. But 75 percent of animals that got Taxol alone and 95 percent of those that got no treatment developed lung tumors.

Earlier studies suggest that people who eat diets rich in turmeric have lower rates of breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer and colon cancer.