On the other hand, a twin pair of studies from Columbia and Harvard Universities found that consumption of cured meat—like bacon, bologna, ham, hot dogs, sausage, and salami—may increase the risk of COPD.38,39 It’s thought to be due to the nitrite preservatives in meat, which may mimic the lung-damaging properties of the nitrite by-products of ciga

But when the smokers were given turmeric, the DNA-mutation rate dropped by up to 38 percent.15 They weren’t given curcumin pills; they merely got less than a teaspoon a day of just the regular turmeric spice you’d find at the grocery store. Of course, turmeric can’t completely mitigate the effects of smoking. Even after the participants ate turmeri

Curcumin is special in that it appears to belong to all three groups, meaning it may potentially help prevent and/or arrest cancer cell growth.13

For reasons not fully understood, curcumin seems to leave noncancerous cells alone.

There’s an enzyme in the roots of bristlecone pines that appears to peak a few thousand years into their life span, and it actually rebuilds telomeres.68 Scientists named it telomerase. Once they knew what to look for, researchers discovered the enzyme was present in human cells too.

So how does curcumin affect this process? It appears to have the ability to reprogram the self-destruct mechanism back into cancer cells. All cells contain so-called death receptors that trigger the self-destruction sequence, but cancer cells can disable their own death receptors. Curcumin, however, appears able to reactivate them.17 Curcumin can a

With more speaking requests than I could accept, I started putting all my annual research findings into a DVD series, Latest in Clinical Nutrition. It’s hard to believe I’m almost up to volume 30. Every penny I receive from those DVDs, then and now, goes directly to charity, as does the money from my speaking engagements and book sales, including t

“As a result of these conflicts [of interest],” concluded an analysis in the Food and Drug Law Journal, “the Guidelines sometimes favor the interests of the food and drug industries over the public’s interest in accurate and impartial dietary advice.”19

Cancer risk may also depend on what’s being fried. A study of women in China found that smokers who stir-fried meat every day had nearly three times the odds of lung cancer compared to smokers who stir-fried foods other than meat on a daily basis.25 This is thought to be because of a group of carcinogens called heterocyclic amines that are formed w