Side effect from chemotherapy is the burden of every cancer patient. To be sure that no cancer cells are left after treatment, the maximum dose are thus given. The neurotoxicity or brain toxicity and kidney toxicity induced by reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated by chemotherapy agents occurs as an adverse effect with platinum compounds, such as cisplatin.

What do cisplatin do?

Cisplatin also called cis-diamminedichloroplatinum II or cDDP is an antineoplasic pharmaceutical recommended in the treatment of ovarian cancer, prostrate cancer, esophagus cancer, bladder cancer, breast cancer and lung cancer. The use of this drug in clinical practice is limited due to its adverse effects, including nephrotoxicity (kidney), ototoxicity , neurotoxicity (brain) and genotoxicity. Functional foods or nutraceuticals have demonstrated potential neuroprotective activity in several experiments and models. A cancer research team from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil demonstrated a reduction on brain toxicity when tumeric was added to the equation.

But one question is left

Does Tumeric lower the toxicity of the chemotherapy agent cisplatin to the cancer cell? And the answer is no. True that turmeric is an antioxidant but where diet supplements reduced the effectiveness of the chemotherapy agent by lowering ROS generation, a team for the University of Modena in Italy showed a synergic effect on ovarian cancer cells as well for tumeric. The results showed an improvement of cDDP efficacy with higher selectivity towards cancer cells than non-cancer cells. Furthermore, the same results were shown with lung cancer by a team at the University of Chulalongkorn in Thailand.

The bottom line

You might talk to your oncologist about these cancer researches if you’re on cisplatin as chemotherapy treatment. Those results are quite interesting.

Reference

Synthesis, cytotoxic and combined cDDP activity of new stable curcumin derivatives.Ferrari E, Lazzari S, Marverti G, Pignedoli F, Spagnolo F, Saladini M.Bioorg Med Chem. 2009 Apr 15;17(8):3043-52.
Curcumin Sensitizes Lung Cancer Cells to Cisplatin-Induced Apoptosis Through Superoxide Anion-Mediated Bcl-2 Degradation.Chanvorachote P, Pongrakhananon V, Wannachaiyasit S, Luanpitpong S, Rojanasakul Y, Nimmannit U. Cancer Invest. 2009 Mar 12:1.
Evaluation of the cytotoxicity and genotoxicity of curcumin in PC12 cells.Mendonça LM, Dos Santos GC, Antonucci GA, Dos Santos AC, Bianchi Mde L, Antunes LM.Mutat Res. 2009 Apr 30;675(1-2):29-34.