How many times has your mum run behind you or scolded you for not having that haldiwala doodh ka glass? Can’t keep a count, right? I have had gotten endless lectures (still do) on the benefits of haldi aka turmeric and of course, of milk too. Even you know in your heart that it is a magic ingredient, really good for one’s health. So good that it helped beat cancer. Yes, you read it right.
67-year-old London woman, Dieneke Ferguson, has beaten blood cancer myeloma with curcumin (found in turmeric) and in the past five years her blood cell count is negligible. She was diagnosed in 2007 and has had three rounds of chemotherapy and four stem cell transplants.
Ferguson, who helms a not-for-profit business that helps artists market their work, told Daily Mail about how she had tried everything.
After doing everything and gulping down series of drugs, Dieneke found her cure sitting inside kitchen cabinets. Not an expensive or rare drug, just a spice.
It was curcumin, a component found in turmeric. (The magical spice that has been a core ingredient in Indian Ayurvedic practices and is a staple Indian spice used in cooking basically every Indian styled meal.)
In Eastern medicine (read Indian Ayurveda) turmeric has been studied for its anti-inflammatory and antiseptic effects.
Dieneke uses a product from an Indian company called Sabinsa, which is made from three forms of curcumin molecules. She takes about 8g tablet form of curcumin daily which equivalent to about two teaspoonfuls of purely powdered curcumin.
The normal turmeric available in kitchen has about 2 percent of curcumin. Five years, she’s still strong and her case has gotten the much-needed attention.
Wondering how she came across the remedy? It was through an internet support group. She decided to give it a try because she had nothing to lose.
“I told my oncologist I was taking it and he was very interested, especially when it apparently made such a difference.”
Ferguson’s story of beating cancer has also made it to the pages of British Medical Journal and doctors are quite intrigued by it. Not only that, a cancer specialist at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York has biological evidence that curcumin really works in beating cancer.
According to a U.S. review of evidence, turmeric/curcumin products and supplements provide therapeutic benefits for skin conditions like acne and psoriasis too. Its benefits are also associated with helping treat arthritis, heart diseases, infections, depression, and dementia.
A professor of cancer at St George’s Hospital in South London, Angus Dalgleish, who has researched curcumin’s effect on his patients said,
AÂ small trial (of treating cancer patients) at University of Leicester is on and we just hope the bigger trials are on the way.
We are pretty sure Indian Ayurvedic practitioners must be proud upon hearing this. But, we can hear moms exclaim ‘Dekha’, in our heads.
My mom would be really happy if I tell her that I have considered consuming that haldiwala doodh ka glass, daily.