Hope For Cystic Fibrosis

American and Canadian researchers reported Thursday that they were able to resolve the symptoms of the debilitating disease in mice by dosing them with curcumin, a compound that gives turmeric its brilliant yellow colour.

Furthermore, CF mice receiving treatment with curcumin had a life-span almost identical to that of a normal healthy mouse - a startling development in a disease that generally kills human sufferers by their mid-30s.

While it's too soon to say whether curcumin will have the same impact in humans, the U.S. Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is already developing human safety and dosage trials which could begin this summer.

When a treatment is as simple as that found in a common spice, one would hope that such trials would be fast tracked - especially as there is likely to be immediate experimentation in the form of home remedies.

Mice with CF who were fed infant formula laced with curcumin stopped suffering the symptoms of the disease. But Caplan and his co-investigators wanted to be sure that the effect they were seeing was caused by the compound, so they enlisted the help of cell biologist Dr. Gergely Lukacs - one of Canada's leading CF researchers - at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children.

"I was very skeptical at the beginning," Lukacs said in an interview Thursday.

But he tested the compound in cell cultures and the findings were clear. The protein that was trapped in the interior of the cell moved to its proper location when curcumin was added. "I am 100 per cent convinced," said the former skeptic. "The animal studies from the very beginning are absolutely convincing."

No information as to how they were led to do research into this spice, but it seems that sufferers were already aware it had beneficial properties, while it has had long use as a herbal remedy for other ailments, including Alzheimer's.

Posted by Kate at April 23, 2004 12:43 AM