I recently
spent my October half term in Goa, India visiting family. My family who live
there are quite remarkable; they moved from England to Goa about 17 years ago,
whilst Goa was still a destination for ‘hippies’ so it comes as no surprise
that they, and in particular my Granddad, are full of weird and wonderful
facts. Often we will just be sitting talking and my Granddad will burst out
with an anecdote about travelling in Thailand or Cambodia and often I just
laugh at them, never really taking them seriously. However, one morning we were
sitting in the usual French bakery for breakfast and he starts talking about
the benefits of turmeric as an antiseptic or how he worded it ‘the magical
healing powers of turmeric’. The story came about as his cat had an infection
on his head, from a cut, so my Granddad proceeded to ‘slap some turmeric on his
head, and the next day boom the infection was healing’. After a few more
stories about the animals he has saved through the magic of turmeric he showed
me how he was also using it on his foot for an infection, and it seemed to be
working.
Normally I
do not think much of holistic medicine, and on that trip I was particularly
sceptical as I had just been reading Bad Science by Ben Goldacre, yet my Granddad’s
stories seemed to good to be true, so I proceeded to do some research on ‘the
healing powers of turmeric’.
It seems
that many others have been curious on turmeric’s effects, and it has in fact
been used for over 4000 years to treat many conditions as an anti-inflammatory,
antiviral, antioxidant, antifungal, commonly used in Chinese and Ayurvedic
medicine. It is even said to help fight some cancers! However, the evidence
gathered appears to be conflicting, like much of the evidence with regards to
holistic medicine, and it is suggested that the effects of turmeric may not be
as good on humans as it is for animals.
Despite this
it does seem that there are some benefits of turmeric, and my Granddad may be
right, so below I have left some links to some interesting websites on ‘the
healing powers of turmeric’ for you to make up your own mind.
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