More Turmeric

Turmeric Plant

Back on 5 January 2014 I wrote about turmeric and health and cited a couple of studies about the cancer fighting power of turmeric.  I told you that I would write more about it, so here it is . . . .

Turmeric and its major active ingredient curcumin are among the most clinically studied spices and herbs today. I just did a search on the National Institute of Health web site for “turmeric” and it came back with 127,000 hits.  A search of “curcumin”, which is the major active ingredient in turmeric, resulted in 112,000 hits.  Not bad for a little herb. 

Dr. Wanwarang Wongcharoen led a research team from Chiang Mai University at the University Hospital in a recent study involved heart bypass operation patients in Thailand and their study was published in the American Journal of Cardiology. The research team followed 121 consecutive patients who had non-emergency bypass surgery at the hospital between 2009 and 2011.  All of the patients were given one gram pills four times daily for three days before the surgery and five days after. However, half were given sugar pills (placebo group) and the other half was given curcumin capsules. Neither group of patients nor their doctors knew who was taking what. This was a well-designed, double blind study.  The results were impressive.  The curcumin group had a 65% lowered risk from post bypass operation heart attacks. That group also showed significantly lower levels of inflammation and oxidative stress markers in their blood. 

In another study researchers assigned 32 women to either take a curcumin supplement, engage in moderate aerobic exercise training, or undergo no intervention at all. The researchers measured participants' vascular endothelial function at the beginning and end of the study.  This measures the responsiveness of the layer of cells that line the blood vessels and is a key indicator of overall cardiovascular health. They found that while there was no improvement in the control group, endothelial function significantly increased in both the exercise and curcumin groups. Most surprisingly, the improvement in the two experimental groups was identical.

A similar study examined curcumin's effects on the responsiveness of arteries to changes in blood pressure, or arterial compliance, which is another key measure of cardiovascular health. In this study 32 women were randomly assigned to receive either a curcumin supplement or a placebo pill, or to undergo an exercise routine plus either a curcumin or placebo pill. No significant improvement was found in the control (placebo) group.  Significant (and equivalent) improvements in arterial compliance were reported in both the exercise-only and curcumin-only groups. Finally, the greatest improvement was found among the study participants who exercised and also took the curcumin supplements.  These results are summarized in the diagram below.

	Exercise
Supplement	No Exercise	Exercise
Placebo	No improvement	Significant improvement
Curcumin	Significant improvement	Greatest Improvement

Do your own research and make your own decisions about your health because I don’t give medical advice, I just report what I have read in medical journals.  However, I bet you can guess what I do and what I take every day.

The Fairy Doctor

In Celtic lands the world was/is viewed differently from the view that most of us modern, sophisticated people take. As in most cultures there is the world that we inhabit and an Otherworld.  The Otherworld is the world that we can’t see and most don’t interact with.  It is the Lower World, the Middle World and the Upper World.  The Otherworld that some Celtic people call the Sidhe (pronounced "shee") consists of the fairy world and the fairies themselves.

According to ancient Irish tradition if a healthy child suddenly drooped and withered then that child is fairy-struck and a fairy doctor must be at once called in. Young girls who fell into rapid decline were said to be fairy-struck.  They were wanted in Fairy-land as brides for some chief or prince and so there was a risk that they would pine away without visible cause till they died.  In both of these cases the children were believed to have suffered from a fairy stroke.

The Irish, before the advent of modern medicine and even afterwards in places without Western medicine, were also wary the Wind and the Evil Eye. The evil power of the Wind is called a fairy blast.  One suffering from the Evil Eye they say he has been "overlooked."

In these cases it was necessary to call a fairy doctor.  The fairy doctor would pronounce from which of these three causes the patient is suffering, the fairy-stroke, the fairy-blast, or the Evil Eye.

Fairy doctors in rural Ireland and other Celtic lands treated people suffering from illnesses and misfortunes attributed to faery influence. Fairy doctoring was strongest in areas without western medical care and where the presence of the Otherworld was recognized as one of the realities of daily life. However, like shamanism it has never completely disappeared.  Fairy doctoring holds much in common with shamanism and like shamanism and other indigenous practices it is undergoing a revival. It seems that fairy doctors, shamans, and druids reappear in every age when needed.   

The dis-eases treated by fairy doctors remarkably similar to the symptoms of many modern ailments: tiredness, lack of energy, depression, listlessness, low enthusiasm for life, and an inability to focus attention that suggests partial soul loss. As shamanic practitioners we can orient our practice to faery doctoring traditions and also discover new ways from the faery world itself to apply our skills. Learning healing methods from the faeries is a major part of the tradition.

The Sidhe has been "returning" in the sense that more and more people are becoming aware of its presence and of its influence. Among some there is a growing realization that our two worlds must live, work, and play in greater harmony.  The Sidhe take energy and vitality from humans to restore and rebalance the life force that we consume wastefully, selfishly, and in great quantities.  This energetic “borrowing” results in an epidemic of fairy illnesses.  

As we learn to take better care of ourselves and the world in  which we live we decrease the need for the Sidhe to “borrow” our energy.   As we become more aware that there is more to this world than what we see with our eyes we can begin to work as friends and partners with the Sidhe.

May the saddest day of your future

Be no worse

Than the happiest day

Of your past.

  -- Old Irish Blessing

The Cauldron of Poesy

The thought of a fire burning under a bubbly cauldron of potato soup is particularly appealing this morning.  I heard on the radio, before the sun poked his head up, that this is the coldest morning in Central Virginia since 1912.  By my thermometer it was 3 degrees Fahrenheit (-16 C) at 5:00 a.m. and the wind was blowing.  I don't want to know what the wind chill was. 

The Irish text The Cauldron of Poesy speaks to the three cauldrons that reside within us all.  They are called the Coire Goiriath (The Cauldron of Warming and Incubation), Coire Érmai (The Cauldron of Movement, Vocation, Aptitude) and Coire Sofhís (The Cauldron of Wisdom and Spiritual Knowledge). The three Cauldrons are related to the three worlds. (If you have read some of my previous blogs about shamanism then you should be familiar with the concept of three levels or worlds.)  The three worlds in the Celtic tradition are the World of Land, the World of the Sea, and the Skyworld.

Before we go on, please consider the state of your cauldrons.  Are they upright and able to contain their fill? Are they turned on their sides so that their contents start to run out?  Or, are one or more of you cauldrons turned upside down so that no matter  how hard you try nothing can enter?

The Cauldron of Warming is the source of life in each of us. This cauldron is placed upright at birth and remains that way throughout our lives.  However, I believe that traumatic events can tip the cauldron and that causes us to spill some of our life force.  This cauldron represents the fires of emotion, vitality and power that sustain all of our activity within the Three Worlds. The Coire Goiriath represents the connection between the self and World of the Sea, the world of existence and emotions.  To better understand the World of the Sea think of the power and action of waves crashing on the shore and the different emotions expressed by the sea from a calm and tranquil sea to one that is raging in fury.

The Cauldron of Movement is tipped on its side when we are born and we, through our efforts or lack thereof either invert the cauldron or place it upright.  When a person becomes aware of their gift they begin to turn this cauldron upright.  With training and perseverance the cauldron becomes fully upright and then starts to fill. The Coire Érmai represents the connection between the self and the Middleworld of Land, the realm of most of our actions. 

The Cauldron of Wisdom and Knowledge was said to be upside down at birth because most of us forget our previous lives from the shock of passing through the Otherworld. Some spend an entire lifetime refilling and changing the position of this particular cauldron in their search for wisdom and knowledge. In the celtic tradition it was thought that the cauldron would stand upright after a strong major emotional event, like extreme sorrow or extreme joy. Once upright the Cauldron of Wisdom and Knowledge is capable of holding much more knowledge and wisdom.The Coire Sofhís is emblematic of the connection between the Skyworld of the Gods and the spiritual and mental aspects of life.

The Three Cauldrons at Birth

I hope that your cauldrons are upright and full, that the rain of heaven continues day-by-day to fill them to overflowing.

The Three Cauldrons Upright

May you find peace and may your cauldrons be full,

Dr. Dave

Interconnected . . . And How!

To say that we are all interconnect sounds nice but sometimes it is hard to visualize.  So this morning let's try a little exercise that I use in shamanism workshops.  Imagine that you stopped on your way to work this morning and bought a cup of coffee.  Start making a list of all of the people that you interacted with.  Were this a real workshop I would leave you alone to work on your list.  But it's not so let's walk through the process together . . . I expect that there are two people on your list, the barista and the cashier.  Good start.

Now, let's start adding all of the hidden people to the list.  What about the coffee shop manager, the person that orders the coffee and makes out the work schedule.  Oh, and then there is the owner that hired the manager.  Better add at least two more people to the list.

How did the coffee get to the coffee shop?  Well, maybe a UPS delivery person made a delivery, a couple of boxes filled with bags of coffee.  This is going to get complicated.  Try to imagine and list all of the people at UPS who were involved in getting the delivery to the coffee shop.  Then how did the coffee get to UPS?  Was it delivered by ocean freighter from Colombia?  We need to include all of those people on our list.  Now still working backwards how did the boxes filled with bags of coffee get to the ship?  There had to be an in-country packaging and delivery system.  And that system probably received the coffee beans from a wholesaler who sent out buyers to the coffee plantations.  Guess what, now try and list all of the people involved in growing the coffee, buying it bulk, roasting and packaging the beans, getting the beans to a ship, navigating across the ocean to a port where the container full of boxes full of bags of coffee was off-loaded and delivered to warehouse until an order was received and the boxes were entrusted to UPS for final delivery  Wow, that's lots of people.

You probably wish that we were finished but we're not.  Did you drink your coffee out of a paper cup?  If so, where did the cup come from.  Tracing that process backwards will take us all the way to lumberjacks who cut down trees that were sent to a pulp mill.

I bet that the lights were on in the coffee shop.  That means that they had electricity.  Who strung the power lines?  How was the electricity generated?  If it was from a coal-fired power plant then who was involved in mining the coal and transporting it by rail to the power plant?  Lest we forget, there is a small army of managers, accountants, and clerks at the power company measuring usage and making sure that it is appropriately billed and that the account are paid so that they can continue to generate electricity as well as the engineers and technicians who run the plant.  Who built the power plant?  Who designed it?  Where did the material come from to build it?  Our list could get really long.

Far enough?  Getting tired yet?  Just one more step.  By now you have probably thought of hundreds if not thousands of people who made your cup of coffee possible this morning.  And you, along with millions of other coffee drinkers helped ensure that all of those people have job today.  But we are forgetting someone.  We are forgetting spirit.

Plant spirit was there tending the coffee plants, sun spirt was there to provide sunshine and warmth.  Earth sprit provided nourishment for the plants.  The spirit of the ocean helped support the freighter.  Earth and rock spirits were in the ground with the coal.  Let us not forget that spirit interpenetrates all.  Spirit was there first.

You are not alone.  I am not alone.  Everything we do affects the web of life.  Enjoy this day, find joy in your interconnections with others and with spirit.

Peace,

Dr. Dave

Turmeric and Your Health

Turmeric

Research is consistently reporting the health benefits turmeric.  You remember turmeric, right?  It is the herb that gives curry its distinctive flavor and color.  It’s the herb that I sprinkle of zucchini every morning will I sauté it for breakfast and then mix it with homemade humus.  What a yummy, vegetarian breakfast!

Anyway, some of the latest research  highlights the how turmeric fights cancer. A recent study published in the Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention, found that a dose-dependent administration of curcumin (the primary active component in turmeric) effectively activated apoptosis of liver cancer cells.  This means that it prompted these harmful cells to die. In their conclusion, the researchers involved with this study declared curcumin to be a "promising phytomedicine in cancer therapy."

Researchers from the Department of Gastroenterology at the Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center in Israel published their findings of a 2007 study in the journal, Liver International.  They tested the effects of curcumin in mice with chemical-induced liver damage. Compared to hepatic damaged mice not given curcumin, those given the spice effectively averted developing liver cirrhosis, an outcome that researchers attributed to turmeric's anti-inflammatory properties.  In their conclusion they wrote that, "As curcumin ingestion is safe in humans, it may be reasonable to assess in clinical studies the beneficial effect of curcumin in slowing the development of liver cirrhosis. . . .”

Researchers from Taiwan published a study  in 2008 that demonstrated that curcumin can also benefit in the treatment of lung cancer.  Not only did curcumin demonstrate a unique ability to prevent cancer cells from invading and spreading, but it also activated key proteins responsible for naturally blocking and suppressing tumors from forming. The team from the National Yang-Ming University in Taipei ultimately declared that their findings support the application of curcumin in anti-cancer metastasis therapy.

A study published  in the Journal of Ovarian Research in 2010 found that patients with ovarian cancer, which is difficult to treat conventionally due to chemotherapy and radiation resistance, can be effectively "pre-treated" with curcumin to improve the efficacy of conventional cancer treatment.  They reported that, "Curcumin pre-treatment enhances chemo/radio-sensitization in ... ovarian cancer cells through multiple molecular mechanisms. . . [C]urcumin pre-treatment may effectively improve ovarian cancer therapeutics."

The Life Extension Foundation (LEF)    has conducted extensive research into the anti-cancer properties of turmeric and found that the spice targets ten causative factors involved in cancer development, including DNA damage, chronic inflammation, and disruption of cell signaling pathways. Countless hundreds of published studies, it turns out, have also shown that curcumin is a potent anti-cancer food that blocks cancer development in a number of unique ways.

A precise cancer-prevention dosage of turmeric has not been established, studies involving human patients with diagnosed cancer found that curcumin doses of about 3,600 mg (3.6 grams) induced paraptosis; targeted destruction of cancer cell mitochondria; disruption of the cancer cell cycle; cancer cell down-regulation; and arrested stem cell development.

Turmeric, is available at most well-stocked natural health store and online through places like SwansonVitamins (I don’t work for Swanson and receive no compensation from them . . . that’s just the source that I use. You can find them at  )  Where every you purchase your Turmeric, make sure that it is high quality.

Check back in a day or two and read more about the heart-healthy benefits of turmeric.