 Arsenic is a carcinogenic heavy metal, and the major mechanism of arsenic-related damage appears to be oxidative stress. It's the arsenic-induced accumulation of free radicals that can kill off cells and damage our DNA. And then the double whammy is that it may disrupt our body's ability to repair our DNA once it's damaged. Well if the damage is oxidation, what about eating an antioxidant-rich food, such as the spice turmeric, which contains an antioxidant pigment known as curcumin? As anyone familiar with my videos can attest, numerous clinical trials have suggested therapeutic efficacy against a variety of human diseases, including cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, and inflammatory bowel, joint, lung, skin, and eye diseases. In terms of protection against heavy metals, they suggest turmeric may both help scavenge the radicals, as well as chelate, or bind up heavy metals, complete with a fancy colorful diagram, but it's all just theory until you put it to the test. Unfortunately until recently, the tests were like this, where you can see if curcumin can protect against heavy metal-induced oxidation in pureed rat brains. Why can't you just give some turmeric to people? It's not like there aren't millions of people out there who've been exposed to arsenic and could use some help. And what became the greatest chemical disaster in human history? So-called tube wells were installed in Bangladesh to provide clean water. UNICEF meant well, too bad they didn't test the water for arsenic. People started showing up with feet that looked like this, and as many as 1 in 10 in some parts of the country will now go on to die from cancers caused by the arsenic exposure. This allowed the medical community to document all sorts of interesting cancers, but why not give them something that may help, like turmeric curcumin? After determining the extent of DNA damage, 50% of volunteers were randomly selected and prescribed curcumin capsules blended with a little black pepper compound, and the other half were given a placebo. There's the amount of DNA damage that was found in the curcumin and placebo groups of arsenic-exposed individuals before the study started, compared to the DNA damage found in a control group of individuals not exposed to arsenic, which remained the same throughout the study. Now they wanted to establish a baseline in the arsenic-exposed group, so they waited for three months to start the study, and indeed the DNA damage remained stable. Then for three months they proceeded to give them the curcumin or the placebo. The placebo didn't do much, but within the first month you could see the curcumin working, and by the third month the DNA damage in the curcumin-treated arsenic group was no worse than those who hadn't been exposed to arsenic at all. That's amazing. The curcumin had an effective role in the regression of DNA damage. Yes, it's an excellent antioxidant agent, but what they found subsequently is that the curcumin undid the arsenic crippling of our DNA repair enzymes, so both help prevent the damage and facilitate repair. Thus, curcumin may be a useful modality for the prevention of arsenic-induced cancer development. Of course, you have to make sure the turmeric itself isn't contaminated with heavy metals, all those poor kids in Bangladesh. It's not one thing, it's another, and it's not just kids in Bangladesh. Nearly a quarter of spices purchased in Boston had lead in them. It's not just a matter of buying US versus foreign brands, as the lead levels were not found to be statistically significantly different. How about just eating antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables? The reason we care about DNA damage is that we care about cancer. What if you measured the beta-carotene levels in people exposed to arsenic who went on to develop cancer, compared to those who got exposed to the same amount of arsenic but didn't get cancer? Beta-carotene is like a proxy for healthy fruit and vegetable intake. The way you get high levels in your blood is you eat lots of healthy foods, like greens and sweet potatoes. Compared to those with low levels, those with high levels of beta-carotene in their blood had 99% lower odds of getting arsenic-induced cancer, 100 times lower odds. So if you're going to eat rice, why not some rice with some sweet potatoes on top?