Statistics say that almost 90% of the lung cancer is caused by cigarette smoke as it has many carcinogens or cancer causing agents. Why is nicotine to be blamed? Nicotine is not a carcinogen but an addiction causing agent. It has also been seen that nicotine also supports angiogenesis and abnormal cell growth.
Nicotine is also found to stimulate the cell cycle regulating factors which in turn help in the survival of cancer cells. Such cells had a reduced functioning of tumour suppressing protein. Curcumin causes a significant decrease in the survival signals of cancer cells no matter how the tumour suppressing protein works.
Cigarette smoke also has the presence of another strong carcinogen called Benzo [a] pyrene that promotes tumor formation by activating the protein nuclear factor- kappa B. It also causes inflammation and abnormal cell growth as well as block apoptosis.
Curcumin has the miraculous ability to prevent the activation of nuclear factor kappa B and the related genes causing lung cancer, thus preventing the progression to lung cancer. It also deactivates many other biological agents to prevent benzo [a] pyrene induced cancer formation.
