This new finding comes from an animal study. After exposure to the chemical curcumin, rat cancer cell populations appeared to undergo a daily cycle of cell death. This suggests tumors may keep time and certain cancer drugs should be administered at certain times of the day in order to achieve maximum effectiveness. This relates to a field of biology called chronotherapy.
Curcumin is a component of the spice turmeric and is known to have anti-cancer properties. For these reasons scientists are testing it out as a potential therapeutic agent. Importantly, curcumin can activate a gene important to regulating the circadian clock.
A study led by Ashapurna Sarma from the University of Findlay’s College of Pharmacy in Ohio, has looked into whether the anti-tumor effects of curcumin display any circadian rhythms. Circadian rhythms are physical, mental and behavioral changes that follow a roughly 24-hour cycle, responding primarily to light and darkness in a person’s environment.
With the study, Sarma exposed rat cells to curcumin and filmed them for five days via time-lapse microscopy. The researchers then went back through the images and at five-minute intervals, manually counted the cancer cells. They found that “there’s a lot more apoptosis” in the treated cells compared to controls, according to The Scientist. With one particular concentration of curcumin, the treated cells peaked in die-offs just about every 24 hours. The findings suggested further studies should be conducted into the effects of the body and tumor treatments.
The findings have yet to be published. However, an experimental summary was presented at the April 2015 annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) in Philadelphia.
