Breast cancer is one of the most feared diseases that can affect both men and women.
Although breast cancer itself can be quite frightening, the possibility of it spreading to the lungs is particularly worrisome.
In some countries, breast cancer rates are surprisingly low, which have led scientists to examine the dietary habits of these citizens.
What they discovered was that people living in those regions, consumed on average 100-200g of turmeric a day, which contains curcumin, a cancer-fighting compound (1).
The Ultimate Breast Cancer Combination
In one study, co-ingestion of curcumin with 20 mg of the pepper constituent l-piperoylpiperidine appeared to increase curcumin’s bioavailability by 2000% (2).
Piperine, an alkaloid from black pepper, had been shown to inhibit the growth of human colon cancer cells by stopping the cancer cell cycle and inducing cell death, while distinguishing between healthy and cancerous cells (3).
On the other hand, curcumin inhibits tumor invasion and angiogenesis, preventing the spread of cancer to other regions of the body and induce death in breast cancer cells(4).
Human Clinical Trial (Phase I)
A phase I clinical human trial involved giving curcumin to 25 patients with precancerous changes in different organs. This study seemed to show that curcumin could stop the precancerous changes from becoming full-blown cancer. (source)
The combination seems to work most effectively on breast cancer, bowel cancer, stomach cancer and skin cancer cells.