"Phase II Trial of Curcumin in Patients with Advanced Pancreatic Cancer":
The most noticeable finding of the study is "limited absorption" - plasma curcumin concentration reached only 20-40 ng/ml at day 3 of continued dosing. Considering 8,000,000,000 ng was given every day, the total plasma load of just 100,000-200,000 ng (5000 ml being the average human blood volume) is quite tiny, at only 0.001-0.0025% - 99.998% loss. Even when we take into account of curcumin's short half-life in human (<1 h), this level of bioavailability is truly disappointing. Basically, as hydrophobic molecules, the curcuminoids ended up going with the bile, no good to any organ site that requires the blood to transport this "medicine". Not to mention that the detected curcumin was in the form of glucuronide conjugate, the biological activity of which is rather unknown [they had to enzymatically release free curcumin from the conjugates in blood in order to do a HPLC measurement].
In numerous in vitro ("test tube") studies, microgram level of curcumin (that is 1000x higher than detected in patients) was required to achieve biological activities. Well, we can only hope that there perhaps maybe short-living much higher peak concentration of curcumin immediately after dosing in patients. And the potency of the medicine makes it unnecessary to maintain microgram-level concentrations. Only if this is the case, the one and only patient out of 25 that "benefited" from this trial to result in >18 months ongoing stable disease, can be attributed to the therapeutic effect of curcumin. What do I truly think? Quite bogusy, honestly.
In plain English, this "landmark" study of curcumin on pancreatic cancer patients showed no beneficial survival effect whatsoever, but those authors (I happened to know some of them as I had been in inflammation research for a number of years, I'd rate them low to no credibility in science) while failed in science and medicine, went to the media with great "success stories" with treating terminal cancer using curcumin. Conflict of interest all over when you dig into it, the lead author sits on board of a company whose main business is in the making and selling of, none less than, curcumin.
You would wonder, if it is indeed so wonderful in helping, or even curing terminal cancer, why is there no followup phase 3 study? Because, by scientific standards in medicine, it does not work at all!
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