Talk:Curcumin

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Dr. Dennis Liotta is a biology proffessor at Emory University in Atlanta.

Along with Dr. Raymond F. Schinazi and Dr. Woo-Baeg Choi of Emory, he discovered Emtricitabine, which is a breakthrough HIV drug; it was sold to Gilead Sciences in July 2005 for $525 million and it is marketed under the name Emtriva. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.19.17.2 (talk • contribs) .

What does that have to do with anything? —Keenan Pepper 23:54, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Does dried, ground tumeric oxidize? The fresh root is so expensive. --63.24.85.190 06:14, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone know what the excitation and emission fluorescence spectra of curcumin is? 129.43.47.159 18:25, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Misrepresentation of research (title added)

The research article mentioned in the Wikipedia definition of curcumin and its prooxidant effects on DNA (Kelly MR, Xu J, Alexander KE, Loo G. 2001. Disparate effects of similar phenolic phytochemicals as inhibitors of oxidative damage to cellular DNA. Mutat Res. May 10;485(4):309-18.) have not been accurately described.

The article clearly states "Therefore, it is concluded that NDGA has antioxidant activity but curcumin has prooxidant activity in cultured cells based on their opposite effects on DNA". The key terms in this sentence are "in cultured cells". Therefore, in the Wikipedia description of curcumin where this article is addressed, it should not state that this research "proves" curcumin's prooxidant affects. The data presented in the referenced article provides in vitro evidence of a prooxidant affect on cultured cells. It is clearly a stretch to say it proves this activity occurs in vivo, e.g. when humans consume curcumin. The paragraph describing this research is extremely misleading, especially to non-scientists, and should be removed from the web-description of curcumin. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ajourdan (talk • contribs) .

Well, Be bold - you've read the article, you seem to have understood it - go ahead and fix the article :) I think it is good that the article mentions that the antioxidant role of curcumin is not as clear as the rest of the article suggests. But I'm looking forward to seeing your corrected version ;) Iridos 21:01, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

It is fundamentally wrong to cite the Kelly article as showing anything about the effects of curcumin on healthy cells. In this study, the authors used Jurkat T-cells. Jurkat cells are cancer cells. Any effect of curcumin on these cells cannot be reliably extrapolated to healthy cells. As the work of Michael Karin has shown, cancer cells have high levels of NF-kappa B activity and depend on this for survival. Bharat Aggarwal, at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, has shown that curcumin inhibits NF-kappa B activity. This effect will cause apoptosis (programmed cell death) in cancer cells.

[edit] Contradictory statements need to be resolved

In Paragraph 5, the second sentence reads:

"Its anticancer effects stem from its ability to induce apoptosis in cancer cells without cytotoxic effects on healthy cells."

But in Paragraphs 9 and 10, the text states:

"However, as pointed out by Kawanishi et al. (2005) curcumin is a "double-edged sword" having both anti-cancer and carcinogenic effects.

"Curcumin has devastating effects on healthy human cells."

It seems to me that having "devastating effects on healthy human cells" would reasonably constitute a "cytotoxic effect[] on healthy cells," would it not? Either way, perhaps some clarification by someone knowledgeable might be in order?