Tumeric--yes or no

Sorry to see no one has weighed in, so here's my 2 cents: To my knowledge, turmeric goes after and kills cancer cells, but there is an absorption problem and it doesn't stay and work in our bodies for very long. More recently, I saw on the Food For Breast Cancer site that turmeric is thought to be estrogenic, so the author of that site was recommending that those with ER/PR+ not use it. My understanding though, is that a lot of estrogenic stuff is OK. The estrogenic substances seem to work for both good and bad, depending. There are different estrogen receptors in our bodies and depending on which one gets activated by the substance, it can do either good or harm. Soy and flaxseed are two other estrogenic substances that there is controversy about. Lately though, most are saying that they are both OK, even beneficial, because they have the good estrogenic effect in reasonable amounts, including the Food For Breast Cancer site that is now saying turmeric might be iffy. I continue to take my turmeric and I realize I might be taking a chance, but it also really helps my aches and pains from Letrozole, so I'm going with it being OK. Many sites on the web say it is good for cancer, so I just don't know. If turmeric is raising my estrogen levels, I'd never know it from all the low estrogen side effects I get from Letrozole. If the turmeric is doing anything bad, the Letrozole must be cancelling it out.

I am no expert and no medical or science person, this is all just my opinion and take from what I have read over the last 3 years. If nothing else, I hope it gives you some more food for thought.

Hi Snoopygirl, for hormone positive breast cancer, my oncologist told me turmeric supplements are a no as they increase your estrogen . Adding tumeric to food , salad dressing etc is fine, just the supplements are a no. I took them for a bit as a preventative for inflammation. I started seeing a new oncologist when I had a recurrence in 2019 and this new oncologist told me to stop the tumeric supplements.

I both take a turmeric supplement and ingest 1/4 tsp. of tumeric everyday based on Dr. Greger's Daily Dozen. He seems to be under the impression that it is one of the most potent chemopreventive substances there is. Dr. Kristi Funk also recommends it and includes it in her antioxidant breast health smoothie.

Like April mentioned, to too was told that it’s fine in food but not to take supplements. Both my MO and nutritionists at my cancer center advise trying to get the complimentary stuff through food.

sad to see all the people saying turmeric is bad for BC. I’ve been taking it ever since my diagnosis in 2019 thinking it kills breast cancer cells. I had read that somewhere anyway. My oncologist said it was okay to take but maybe she doesn’t know? She also said soy was probably okay, but I avoid that. My cancerestrogen positive.