Noah N.

Chelliah, MD, FACC, FACP, FCCP

President, The Heart Institute of North Dakota
Professor of Medicine,
UND School of Medical Sciences
Board Certified in Internal Medicine
Board Certified in Cardiology
Board Certified in Interventional Cardiology
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Turmeric Part-B

Health Optimization-8
By Dr. Noah N. Chelliah
For m ore health tips and recipes, listen to Dr. Chelliah’s President
Health Headlines Show: www.logosradio.us Or tune to:
The Logos Radio 88.3 FM in Grand Forks Do not stop your current medications without consulting
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your medical provider. All of these ideas can be
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implem ented in addition to your m edications. But check
with your medical provider before trying any of these
Professor of Medicine
strategies. UND Medical School
 Turmeric- Part B
There are several questions remain regarding spices:
1. Does the spice really get into your body? 2. If and
when it does get into your blood stream does it really
do anything?
A group of researchers at the University of Florida
in Gainesville, and Penn State set up an experiment
to find answers to these questions.
They were interested in testing to see whether
absorbed compounds would be able to protect white
blood cells from an oxidative or inflammatory injury,
or whether it would protect the strands of our DNA
from breaking when confronted by free radicals.
They also wondered if the consumption of herbs and
spices might alter cellular inflammatory responses in
the presence of an inflammatory insult.
They took a group of volunteers and divided them
into 10 small groups and had each group eat only
one type of spice for a week. They made sure that the
quantity of spices that study subjects consumed daily
was same as if they ate typical food cooked with
spices. Then at the end of the week they drew blood
from the dozen or so people they had adding black
pepper to their diets that week, and compared the
effects of their blood to the effects of the blood of the
dozen on cayenne, or cinnamon, or cloves, or cumin.
They had about 10 different groups of people eating
about 10 different spices. Then they dripped their
plasma (the liquid fraction of their blood without the
red blood cells) onto human white blood cells in
petri dishes which had been exposed to an
inflammatory insult. They chose oxidized cholesterol,
which is like what you'd have in your bloodstream
after you eat fried chicken. So they jabbed the white
blood cells with oxidized cholesterol and measured
how much TNF they produced in response.
TNF is the acronym for Tumor Necrosis Factor.
Tumor necrosis factor is a powerful inflammatory
chemical produced in the body, notorious for the
role it plays in autoimmune diseases like
inflammatory bowel disease.
Compared to the blood of those who ate no spices for
a week, was the blood of those eating black pepper
able to significantly dampen the inflammatory
response? No.
What about any of these other spices? Cloves,
ginger, rosemary, and turmeric were able to
significantly inhibit the inflammatory response.
Since they were dripping the blood of those who ate
the spices and so this represents what might happen
when cells in our body are exposed to the levels of
spices that circulate in our bloodstream after daily
consumption of these spices as might occur in
normal everyday life.
There are drugs that can do the same thing. Tumor
necrosis factor is a major mediator of inflammation
and inflammation-related diseases. There are TNF
blocking drugs on the market for the treatment of
inflammatory diseases such as osteoarthritis,
inflammatory bowel disease, psoriasis and
ankylosing spondylitis, which bring more than $20
billion a year in sales, because drug companies
charge people $15,000–20,000 a year for the drug.
These drugs carry black label warnings because they
can cause cancer and heart failure.
Curcumin, in turmeric is a lot cheaper and safer and
there's evidence that it may help in all of the diseases
for which TNF blockers are currently being used. It
is certainly far less expensive and safer!!
This landmark study comparing the ability of
different spices to suppress inflammation also
compared their ability to protect DNA. Cloves,
ginger, rosemary, and turmeric were able to
significantly reduce the inflammatory response.
Approximately 7% of the cells in an individual may
show evidence of DNA damage, manifested as actual
breaks in the strands of their DNA. And free radicals
will increase it to 10%. But, consumption of ginger
for a week, will decrease that to just 8 percent.
In other words, just including ginger in one’s diet
may cut that damage by 25%, and the same with
rosemary. But turmeric, this miracle spice reduced
that DNA damage by 50%!!.
And not only did the turmeric work significantly
better, but at a significantly smaller dose.
Researchers compared about one and a third
teaspoons a day of ginger or rosemary to
practically just a pinch of turmeric—about an
eighth of a teaspoon a day. That's how powerful
the turmeric is.
Turmeric worked even in patients who did not
abuse their bodies with unhealthy diets!!
This may be because curcumin is not just itself an
antioxidant, but boosts the activity of our own
antioxidant enzymes. Catalase is one of the most
active enzymes in the body. Each molecule of this
enzyme can detoxify millions of free radicals—per
second. And if you consume the equivalent of
about three quarters of teaspoon of turmeric a
day, the activity of this enzyme in your
bloodstream gets boosted 75%!
Why should one cook with turmeric rather than
eat is raw? That is because this effect was found
specifically for heat-treated turmeric. They tested
both turmeric and oregano in both raw and
cooked forms, although raw turmeric was found to
have powerful anti-inflammatory effects it was not
effective in reducing DNA damage. So we should
eat it both forms, raw and cooked.
All the above data are based on peer-reviewed articles in
reputable medical journals.
An Amazing Fact: 85-90% of all chronic diseases can be
prevented or cured by pursuing a vegan diet (no animal product
of any kind) combined with daily exercise.
This is part 8 of the series of FREE monthly newsletter
pam phlets. Contact Dr. Chelliah to obtain copies of the
others: drchelliah@heartnd.com .
© 2016 Noah N. Chelliah, MD, FACC, FACP, FCCP
For more health tips, go to www.logosradio.us and click
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