Curry may help fight debilitating disease

It's the normal news coverage of biomedical stuff- way over-hyped. It's like finding a lottery ticket and writing about how you're going to choose the color of your new Ferrari.

Last year I wrote an article about a bunch of "superfoods" and found the stuff written about turmeric to be pretty intriguing...

Here's a link about turmeric, which may have antioxidant properties: http://nccam.nih.gov/health/turmeric/

Besides curry powder, turmeric is an ingredient of prepared yellow mustard, like French's...I can see the advertising now...

Kind of puts one on the horns of a dilemma.

Does the article mention that turmeric is also famous for having a known carcinogen?

That was the chief health-related aspect about it for a long time, cited in some Indian cookbooks.

What was it?

If you mean what is the toxic component in turmeric, Larry, unfortunately I don't know and haven't researched it recently. But that was the notable "unusual" aspect of the spice in past years. You might think that recent writing about turmeric and health would entail some research bringing this seemingly relevant context to the writers' attention.

Occasionally, the way information is reported discloses more about the reporting than about the information. I can think of famous wine-related cases. For instance the notoriously garbled coverage of the 1985 Austrian wine-adulteration scandal (the garbling is examined explicitly in major English-language wine reference books, Robinson's and Stevenson's, yet still resurfaces sometimes in general media*) and the 2006 reporting of the 1976 "Spurrier" Paris winetasting (which I cited in the recent wine-forum thread on rival films).


*I had a little argument with the food editor of a very well-known newspaper in one recent case. I sent a correction note about part of a story, citing authoritative technical data and where to verify it (and also the wine reference books just mentioned). Evidently the editor didn't check these sources, but relied on an advisor who summarized the authoritative technical source, overruling my correction. The advisor was wrong, contradicted by the very source he cited, available in any library. (Illustrating the value of "going to the source.")

To follow up, here's more info. I did quick Internet searching. Most hits are on multiple, recently discovered protective properties of turmeric (including a US patent granted on a new use for it in wound healing). FWIW, one scientific paper cited in Wikipedia mentions chemical bases for simultaneous carcinogenic and anti-carcinogenic effects (no doubt with different cell types, a situation not unique in food), but further work failed to show the practical carcinogenesis in one animal study. Also, there was a bulletin on some turmeric powders shipped adulterated by a dangerous dye. It's also true, as Stuart Y pointed out, that online reports of biomedical science tend to be very gee-whiz and shallow.

(Unforgivably, while corresponding about the complex relationship between acetaminophen [Tylenol (tm)] and alcohol, a medical-faculty friend quipped repeatedly that online advice about liver health must be viewed with a jaundiced eye.)

Info I read earlier on then-fairly-recent information cautioning of health hazard in turmeric -- an argument to use it moderately -- was in writing about cooking, published circa 1990, and I likely still have it (somewhere). Interestingly, the combination of onions and turmeric seems from recent reports to be especially healthy. A favorite Indian meat dish described in Julie Sahni's original cookbook consists of partly browned onions and turmeric to which thin raw tender lamb (or other meat) is added, then left covered off the heat. The heat from the onions cooks the meat, and the turmeric imparts a rich woody flavor.

More broadly, remarkably many ancient condiment foods -- which aren't staple foods, but flavorings and whatever that people have long used by choice -- now reveal health benefits to scientists. Cinnamon, ginger, the onion family, the mustard family, green tea, the list is long. I was amazed when coffee and even dark chocolate recently joined this list (coffee even having a specific hepatocellular protective against alcohol damage as well as, one physician remarked, "the main source of antioxidants in many people's diets" -- he was defending the stuff, of course he's a regular coffee drinker too.)

There might be a deeper principle here. It's as if human taste for these condiments had more behind it than the simple gustatory pleasure.