How Turmeric Reduces Oxidative Stress and Supports Your Brain and Heart

How Turmeric Reduces Oxidative Stress and Supports Your Brain and Heart (Waking Times, June 13, 2013):

Curcumin has increasingly come under the scientific spotlight in recent years, with studies investigating its potential health benefits. It has even been found to outperform pharmaceuticals in preventing disease. Curcumin is a compound found in the spice turmeric which gives it a natural pigment. It has been linked to a range of health benefits, including potential protection against prostate cancer, Alzheimer’s, protection against heart failure, diabetes, and arthritis. Two studies add to that mix with benefits for arterial aging and cognition.

The first of the news studies, published in Experimental Gerontology and performed by scientists from the University of Colorado, found that curcumin was associated with improved vascular health in aging lab mice.

Curcumin is a diferuloylmethane derived from turmeric (popularly called “curry powder”) that has been shown to interfere with multiple cell signaling pathways, including cell cycle, proliferation, survival, invasion, metastasis and inflammation.

Adding curcumin to human cells with the blood cancer multiple myeloma, Dr. Bharat B. Aggarwal of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and his colleagues found, stopped the cells from replicating. And the cells that were left died.

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Vitamins A, C and E Increase Mortality! (and other nonsense from the realm of junk science)

(NaturalNews) The latest attack on vitamins A, C, E, selenium and beta-carotene comes from the Cochrane Library, a widely-read source of information on conventional health matters. In the paper published yesterday, these antioxidants were linked with a higher risk of mortality (“they’ll kill you!”), and now serious-sounding scientists have warned consumers away from taking vitamins altogether. But with all the benefits of antioxidants already well known to the well-informed, how did the Cochrane Library arrive at such a conclusion? It’s easy: The researchers considered 452 studies on these vitamins, and they threw out the 405 studies where nobody died! That left just 47 studies where subjects died from various causes (one study was conducted on terminal heart patients, for example). From this hand-picked selection of studies, these researchers concluded that antioxidants increase mortality.

Just in case the magnitude of the scientific fraud taking place here has not yet become apparent, let me repeat what happened: These scientists claimed to be studying the effects of vitamins on mortality, right? They were conducting a meta-analysis based on reviewing established studies. But instead of conducting an honest review of all the studies, they arbitrarily decided to eliminate all studies in which vitamins prevented mortality and kept people alive! They did this by “excluding all studies in which no participants died.” What was left to review? Only the studies in which people died from various causes.

Brilliant, huh? This sort of bass-ackward science would earn any teenager an “F” in high school science class. But apparently it’s good enough for the Cochrane Library, not to mention all the mainstream press outlets that are now repeating these silly conclusions as scientific fact.

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