The spice in question was turmeric, a bright yellow colour that can be found mainly in curries. The article goes on to give a basic explanation of how this happens and then states, "Cancer experts said the findings in the British Journal of Cancer could help doctors find new treatments".

    So what they mean is let the doctors of all the various pharmaceutical companies do millions upon millions of dollars of research and tests to synthesize the active ingredients so that they can then sell a product at high cost to all the health services around the World in lets say 10 years time.

    Now forgive me for being na?ve, but if the basic spice turmeric kills cancer cells, why cannot the individual just eat it in curries or alike to gain some of the beneficial effects?

    Firstly doctors very rarely give dietary advice and hardly ever with most cancers and the vast majority are not trained nutritionists, so they tend to ignore this until a drug comes out through the 'standard' path. It may be true that when the drug and it will be a drug with possible side effects enters the market that it may be more potent than the original turmeric, but it may be more dangerous too.

    I think we all can see a huge weakness in this process. What happens to the current day sufferers? Unless they find this information out for themselves or are told about it, they sit there suffering and not receiving a potential benefit. Once they do know they have the choice of ignoring it, eating curries or supplementing it in other ways, but at least they have a choice!

    The case of turmric is not alone. Many herb, spices and enzymes to name some potentially beneficial substances, may give recovery benefits to many different diseases. Unfortunately they are secretly locked away in the lab until the company can make a profit from isolating a component or components and can patent this.

    There is fortunately however, lots of information out there in the public domain on many substances. Search on turmeric and you will find quite a lot of evidence supporting the headline. You will also find much more. In the case of turmeric, on the BBC website alone you find, "Weekly curry 'may fight dementia' " and "Curry spice 'help for arthritis' ".

    It appears to be quite an all rounder!

    探討的香料是姜黃，主要在咖喱里發現的亮黃色物質。文章接下來會對它如何發生作基本解說，然后作闡述，"在《英國癌癥期刊》中癌癥專家稱發現可幫助醫生尋找新療法".

    因此他們的意思是讓各種制藥公司的醫生花費千百萬美元的研究及試驗來合成活性成分，這樣他們稱在10年時間里全世界的衛生部門高價出售這種產品。

    現在原諒我的幼稚，但是如果普通香料姜黃能殺死癌細胞，那為什么不在以咖喱的方式食用它呢，同樣可得到一些益處？

    首先醫生很少給出飲食建議并且基本上沒有癌癥的，他們中的大部分是未受訓練的營養師，因此他們可能忽視這個直到藥物經"標準"途徑得到。當藥物和可能有副作用的藥物進入市場時，它可能本原來的姜黃有效，但它可能也更危險。

    我認為我們該過程中的都能看見一個巨大的缺陷。現在的患者身上都發生了什么呢？除非他們發現信息過時了或者他們得到告知，否則他們只會坐以待斃而非得到潛在好處。一旦他們知道他們有忽視它、吃咖喱或以其它方式補充姜黃的選擇，那么至少他們還有選擇！

    不僅僅是姜黃。許多草藥、香料及酵素有一些潛在有益物質，對許多不同的疾病有恢復療效。不幸的是，他們多被束之高閣直到公司能分離出一種或一些成分從中獲利并取得專利為止。

    但是幸運的是，在公共領域里有許多物質的大量信息。對姜黃的研究，你會發現支持標題的大量證據。你同樣將發現更多。僅姜黃而言，僅在BBC網站上你就會發現"每周咖喱'可能對抗癡呆'"和"咖喱香料'有益膝關節'".

    如此看來，姜黃似乎是個多面手！