Potential Medical Benefits of Eating Curry: A Self-Reported Case and Review

Background: This report describes the case of a 61-year-old man who ate curry for 50 years. Three months after he stopped eating curry, he developed neuropathic pain. After 6 years of not eating curry, he experienced visuospatial disturbances, and his serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) increased from 1.91 to 5.38 ng/mL. He tested whether normal aging or the dietary change accounted for his PSA data and symptoms. This self-reported case is the first of its kind in the medical literature. Method and Results: The subject developed a vegetable curry recipe that included turmeric/ curcumin. After 7 to 10 days of eating meals containing this curry twice daily, his pain decreased noticeably, and his visuospatial memory returned. After 8 to 9 weeks of eating curry, his PSA level dropped to 3.85 ng/mL. Using a sensitive high-performance liquid chromatography method with a detection limit of 1 ng/mL curcumin, his plasma unmodified curcumin level was 2.89 ng/mL after eating a curry meal and 4.56 ng/mL after fasting for 13 h. Detection of curcumin in the blood is important because curcumin has very low oral bioavailability, and plasma curcumin has not been detected in several previous clinical trials even after administration of gram quantities of unformulated 95% curcuminoid extract. This report also presents several converging lines of evidence that may account for the apparent salutary effect of restoring curry to one’s diet. Conclusions: The results advance our understanding of curcumin effects at the level of the individual. This original case report should be of interest to a wide clinical audience that spans several clinical specialties, including neurology, urology and diabetology.