Breast Cancer Warden

TIME recently published a breast cancer ‘heat map’ (link) mapping countries around the world according to their respective breast cancer incidence rates.

One of the things we observed on this map was that India and China have one of the lowest breast cancer incidence rates (19.1 and 18.7 per 100,000 people respectively). There would be several explainations to this, including regional factors, genetic makeup in the demography, etc

There is one more thing which sets apart India and China from rest of the countries in this demography which could be a possible reason for low breast cancer occurence rates compared to other similar countries - Regular usage of turmeric in daily foods. Turmeric regularly features in Indian and Chinese recipes, especially in its powdered form and its intake in India and China is higher than in any other country.

A 2005 study conducted by University of Texas on rats concluded that curcumin, an antioxdant found in turmeric, is effective in curbing the spread of cancer to other areas of the body and highlights its potential as an anti-cancer agent. Other studies have also found curmucin effective against Alzheimer’s disease.

For those wondering how to intake this otherwise bitter tasting spice, we have discovered an Indian recipe site which has a couple of turmeric recipes - Honey Turmeric and Turmeric Milk.

If you have more info/recipes to share on turmeric please comment below.

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While it is an established fact that Estrogen is responsible for development of Cancer, a study by University of California, San Diego has linked that Estrogen to recurrence of breast cancer as well.

Anti-estrogen durgs like tamoxifen have not been observed to be an end-all solution, since this pilot group for this study included a proportion of women who were on tamoxifen.

Some of the tips to keep your estrogen levels low: Read the rest of this entry »

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