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!

探讨的香料是姜黄，主要在咖喱里发现的亮黄色物质。文章接下来会对它如何发生作基本解说，然后作阐述，"在《英国癌症期刊》中癌症专家称发现可帮助医生寻找新疗法".

因此他们的意思是让各种制药公司的医生花费千百万美元的研究及试验来合成活性成分，这样他们称在10年时间里全世界的卫生部门高价出售这种产品。

现在原谅我的幼稚，但是如果普通香料姜黄能杀死癌细胞，那为什么不在以咖喱的方式食用它呢，同样可得到一些益处？

首先医生很少给出饮食建议并且基本上没有癌症的，他们中的大部分是未受训练的营养师，因此他们可能忽视这个直到药物经"标准"途径得到。当药物和可能有副作用的药物进入市场时，它可能本原来的姜黄有效，但它可能也更危险。

我认为我们该过程中的都能看见一个巨大的缺陷。现在的患者身上都发生了什么呢？除非他们发现信息过时了或者他们得到告知，否则他们只会坐以待毙而非得到潜在好处。一旦他们知道他们有忽视它、吃咖喱或以其它方式补充姜黄的选择，那么至少他们还有选择！

不仅仅是姜黄。许多草药、香料及酵素有一些潜在有益物质，对许多不同的疾病有恢复疗效。不幸的是，他们多被束之高阁直到公司能分离出一种或一些成分从中获利并取得专利为止。

但是幸运的是，在公共领域里有许多物质的大量信息。对姜黄的研究，你会发现支持标题的大量证据。你同样将发现更多。仅姜黄而言，仅在BBC网站上你就会发现"每周咖喱'可能对抗痴呆'"和"咖喱香料'有益膝关节'".

如此看来，姜黄似乎是个多面手！