[DallasGG]

Curcumin and Velcade

by DallasGG on Wed May 25, 2016 1:11 am

LauraB, I'm curious about your statement about taking curcumin with Velcade:

For example - take curcumin. Wonderful substance - studies at Memorial Sloan show it works wonderfully for treatment resistant colon cancer, actually enhancing the efficacy of chemo­therapy. It's a tremendous cancer fighter. Yet, that too inhibits Velcade if - .wait for it - it's taken 24 hours before and after a chemo treatment. Otherwise, It's perfectly safe to take the other days of the week.

Was the part about curcumin inhibiting Velcade under certain conditions in the Memorial Sloan study or some other study? If you read that somewhere else, can you remember where?

I'm currently taking curcumin and when/if I relapse and take Velcade again, this will be valuable information to have. I've read information on other studies showing that curcumin and Velcade actually work well together.

Thanks.

[Tracy J]

Re: Curcumin and Velcade

by Tracy J on Tue May 31, 2016 7:36 am

Well there's this from the scholarly journal "Blood". This one says that one of the primary active ingredients in curcumin interferes with bortezomib's activity.

Shah, JJ, et al, "Bortezomib and EGCG: no green tea for you?", Blood, June 4, 2009 (abstract)

But there are also articles out there claiming that they help each other, like this one from the "International Journal of Molecular Sciences".

Bai, Q-X, et al, "Curcumin Enhances Cytotoxic Effects of Bortezomib in Human Multiple Myeloma H929 Cells: Potential Roles of NF-κB/JNK," International Journal of Molecular Sciences, April 2012 (full text)

So the evidence is mixed. I think the jury is still out.

[DallasGG]

Re: Curcumin and Velcade

by DallasGG on Tue May 31, 2016 9:14 am

Tracy, thanks for the information.

As you said in your earlier post, you suggested not taking curcumin 24 hours before and 24 hours after getting Velcade. That's pretty easy to do and I'll keep that in mind. I never took curcumin during my initial 5 months of induction therapy, which included Velcade and which brought me to a complete remission.

If I have to take Velcade again in the future, not taking curcumin probably won't affect my outcome much at all anyway.

[TerryH]

Re: Curcumin and Velcade

by TerryH on Tue May 31, 2016 10:36 am

Hi Tracy,

I don't see anything in the Blood article that you posted that discusses a potential interaction between curcumin and Velcade. The paper discusses EGCG, which is an ingredient in green tea, but not so much curcumin (from what I have found from poking around the interwebs). The only mention of curcumin in the article is in regard to a study about how it might affect cyclo­phos­phamide when used to treat breast cancer.

Also, the study indicating curcumin might enhance Velcade's efficacy is based on preclinical research involving a single myeloma cell line.

There is a similar study, with a different myeloma cell line, that came to a similar conclusion, which is that curcumin may improve the anti-myeloma effect of Velcade,

Park, J, et al, "Curcumin in combination with bortezomib synergistically induced apoptosis in human multiple myeloma U266 cells," Molecular Oncology, December 2008 (full text)

Overall, I'd say there is limited, at best, evidence that curcumin improves Velcade's anti-myeloma effect.

[Tracy J]

Re: Curcumin and Velcade

by Tracy J on Tue May 31, 2016 1:09 pm

TerryH,

Oh, you are right! Sorry! I was thinking of the interaction between cyclophosphamide and curcumin. Sorry! Curcumin seems to interfere with the function of cyclophosphamide. The following study is in breast cancer patients, where cyclophosphamide is more commonly used, but it's also used in multiple myeloma and others.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12097302

As regards bortezomib, here's a good reference from 2012 that suggests that curcumin HELPS bortezomib's action. But this study, along with all the other ones I could find, were all done in the lab in human multiple myeloma cells. None of the ones I could find were done in actual patients. So it's unclear whether curcumin is actually helpful int the "real world".

http://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/13/4/4831/htm

Thanks for correcting me TerryH. It's important.
Tracy

[LauraB]

Re: Curcumin and Velcade

by LauraB on Tue Jun 21, 2016 3:36 pm

I'm sorry I didn't respond sooner to this post.

My educational training is as a biochemist, so I do exhaustive research before we add anything to my husband's integrative medicine/supplement toolbox. If I'm not sure about something, I ask his doctor. Curcumin is terrific and it only interferes with Velcade's mechanism of action during peak periods - that is the day before and after chemo. Otherwise, it's pretty safe to consume. I added an extra day as a "buffer" for my husband, so he really only takes it three times a week.

Most of the big cancer centers have integrative medicine departments or clinics, so it's wonderful to take advantage of them. They will have clinicians and nutritionists and lots of alternative therapy experts to help you integrate supplements and other treatments SAFELY.

[Kebo]

Re: Curcumin and Velcade

by Kebo on Sun Aug 07, 2016 1:57 pm

I was diagnosed in 2008 with MGUS. Starting taking curcumin in 2009 and it worked for me, keeping my free light chain (FLC) level and immunoglobulins in check. It worked so well I was able to reduce my FLC by 40%. Eventually, I started to back off the dosage I took (8 g daily). About 6 months after I backed off and eventually completely stopped, my numbers started to creep up again. I started again and successfully brought my FLC down 25%. But eventually it stopped working and I progressed to active multiple myeloma in July 2016. However, I will continue to take it during treatment (around the Velcade injections). I believe it was effective in stalling the progression to the active stage.

[JohnC]

Re: Curcumin and Velcade

by JohnC on Mon Aug 08, 2016 9:48 am

Hi Kebo,

I am curious about curcumin. But I am not sure I understand the dosage. Most come in 500 mg capsules. So do you actually mean 8 g, or 16 capsules, per day? That sounds like an extreme amount, but maybe that is the amount needed?

That is approximately 5800 capsules annually.

[Kebo]

Re: Curcumin and Velcade

by Kebo on Mon Aug 08, 2016 11:02 am

Yes, 8 g. I would usually dissolve them into pancake mix or dissolve them and mix with peanut butter on toast. Most of the time I would take it all at once. Others take it throughout the day. Track your results. Like I said, it worked for me.

[TerryH]

Re: Curcumin and Velcade

by TerryH on Mon Aug 08, 2016 11:37 am

Kebo,

I'm sorry, but I really don't see how your results with curcumin support the idea that it prevents progression of MGUS to multiple myeloma.

Let me explain.

There's a standard categorization of MGUS patients developed by the Mayo Clinic that splits patients into four different groups based on their risk of progressing to multiple myeloma within 20 years. The categorization is described in this forum thread about the risk of progression from MGUS to multiple myeloma.

The lowest risk MGUS patients have only a 5 percent chance of progressing to multiple myeloma within 20 years.

More importantly, even the patients in the highest risk category have less than a 60 percent chance of progressing to multiple myeloma within 20 years. That works out to a 2.3 percent chance of progression per year.

So, even if you were in the highest risk MGUS category at diagnosis, you had only a 2.3 percent chance of progressing to multiple myeloma in any given year. That works out to a 23 percent chance of progressing within 9 years of diagnosis – which is how long it took you to actually progress.

In other words, while regularly taking high doses of curcumin, you progressed from MGUS to multiple myeloma in 9 years. Even if you were in the highest risk MGUS category at diagnosis, you had more than a 75 percent chance of NOT progressing within 9 years. Yet you did progress.

So, as I said, I really don't see how your case argues in favor of curcumin helping to prevent progression from MGUS to multiple myeloma.