Hormone therapy after breast cancer best not to combine with turmeric supplements

Women receiving hormone therapy as post-treatment for hormone-sensitive breast cancer sometimes have to deal with painful, stiff joints, a common side effect of hormone therapy. Logically, some of them take turmeric tablets, which are sold against joint pain and indeed have a modest beneficial effect on it. However, researchers at the Netherlands Cancer Institute Rotterdam found that these supplements may slightly reduce the effect of hormone therapy, theoretically increasing the risk of relapse*. If you have had breast cancer and are receiving hormone therapy, then in case of joint pain it is better to resort to classic painkillers, genre paracetamol. This is safer in all cases.

There is another reason why a lot of breast cancer patients take turmeric supplements: some claim that this herb in high concentration reduces the risk of cancer and relapse after cancer. There are indeed some studies indicating this, but these have been conducted in laboratories on cell cultures or in animal experiments, while the effects have never been studied in cancer patients. Therefore, this claim counts as unproven.

If you like to use turmeric as a kitchen herb on certain dishes, don't worry. In the kitchen, you will never reach the concentrations found in the tablets.

*Hussaarts K, Hurkmans D, Oomen - de Hoop E et al. Impact of curcumin (with or without piperine) on the pharmacokinetics of tamoxifen. Cancers 2019;11:403

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