A woman who has been suffering from blood cancer for a decade has finally stalled the terminal disease, that too with the help of turmeric. Dieneke Ferguson shares her story of how she's finally living a normal life after giving up on treatments that just wore her down without any success.
Even though doctors claim her case is a first of its kind where spices proved to work after conventional treatments failed, her type of cancer was also reported to have an average survival of just five years.
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Even after three rounds of chemotherapy and four stem cell transplants, her cancer kept spreading rapidly – but that was until she started taking a daily dosage of 8g of curcumin – one of the main compounds in turmeric, which is responsible for its bright yellow colour.
The north London resident was suffering from intense back pain and had already endured a second relapse before she came across the remedy on the internet, back in 2011, and had decided to at least give it a last shot, as reported by Daily Mail Online.
The tablets are expensive, costing £50 for ten days. But kitchen turmeric contains just 2 percent of curcumin, so it wouldn't serve the purpose. And Mrs Ferguson still continues to take curcumin without going for further treatment, and surprisingly enough, her cancer cell count is negligible.
Her doctors, from Barts Health NHS Trust in London, wrote in the British Medical Journal Case Reports: "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report in which curcumin has demonstrated an objective response in progressive disease in the absence of conventional treatment."
They also added: "In the absence of further antimyeloma treatment the patient plateaued and has remained stable for the past five years with good quality of life."
More than 50 studies in the last century have suggested that curcumin can protect against several cancers, as well as Alzheimer's, heart disease and depression. It has also proven to be beneficial in cases of speedy recovery post surgery, as well as in treating arthritis.
But Professor Jamie Cavenagh, however, is sceptical about curcumin's miracles in every patient's case. He said: "A lot of my patients take curcumin at different stages of their treatment. I don't object to it. Dieneke's is the best response I have observed and it is clear-cut because we had stopped all other treatment."
Ferguson, the owner of a non-profit foundation that helps artists make their work, believes more research should be carried out so doctors can finally recommend the spice to their patients.
She said: "I hope my story will lead to more people finding out about the amazing health benefits of curcumin."
