Ingram Fry brother, heard something is not what science accepts. As of turmeric, i am a Pakistani and here in Pakistan+India+Bangladesh almost every spice has turmeric in it as a major ingredient but we have the same lifespan as other human beings on this planet.

I appreciate your answer and expertise.

I heard that telomerase helps repair telomeres from a discovery channel DVD on Stress. I am aware this is not a particularly scientific source which is why I asked the question to begin with.

I have also read in journals that turmeric inhibits telomerase, so I am pretty sure this is true.

Pakistan and India do not have particularly impressive lifespans. https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/world-life-expectancy-map

But even if they did, the question would be "can their life spans be longer? (even if its only slightly)".

My layman's question essentially is, "is the inhibition of telomerase a good thing, a bad thing, or neither?".

I thought this would be a pretty simple question for someone as informed as you are.

Brother this is because these countries are rich and have high standard heath facilities. Inhibition is good in sense of cancer and bad in sense of normal cells. Here is an article of nature journal about curcumin obtained normally from Turmeric

Inhibits Colorectal cancer https://www.nature.com/articles/1209019

Pencreatic cancer Article Notch-1 down-regulation by curcumin is associated with the i...

and many more. No doubt its a very simple question that in normal cells telomerase inhibition will have drastic effects but what if we use it against cancer ?

That region of the world does seem to have very low levels of cancer. https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/

I am not doubting that turmeric/curcumin has benefits, likely net benefits.

I am just trying to establish whether those benefits come with a caveat.

Perhaps any changes to telomere length in healthy cells is offset by a decreased risk of getting cancer, or better prospects for people with cancer.

Or is curcumin somehow able to target tumors/cancer, so that it has little effect on healthy cells?

I read your links but I don't understand the technical elements in order to answer my questions.

If you see the list and observe the types of cancers and there prevalence ration so Pakistan is in either grey (low) or purple slightly above low. I have shown you the articles from well reputed journals even nature that clear shows that curcumin helps fight cancer. Do you have any article related to your perspective of curcumin effecting normal cells by reducing their lifespan resulting from telomerase inhibition?

It seems that journal articles reference the inhibition of telomerase specifically in cancers. I don't know whether it affects normal cells. But It seems pretty amazing that it would only target cancer. However it seems this may be the case.

" Curcumin treatment induced cellular DNA fragmentation in all the three tumor cells lines; however, no DNA fragmentation was observed in normal hepatocytes (Fig. 2A). We also confirmed apoptotic death in MCF-7, MDAMB, and HepG2 cells by Annexin V staining (Fig. 2B). Again, normal hepatocytes did not stain with Annexin V."

Syng-ai, C., Kumari, A. L., & Khar, A. (2004). Effect of curcumin on normal and tumor cells: role of glutathione and bcl-2. Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, 3(9), 1101-1108.

It seems the answer to my original question is: no. Turmeric/Curcumin does not shorten telomeres in normal cells, but does target many tumors.

This is surprising to me.

That's what i was saying. Try using the negative aspect of something in a positive direction. Inhibits but in cancers which is a good thing indeed

"[Curcumin] turns on telomerase in normal cells, but turns it off in unhealthy cells." according to an article I googled.

https://medium.com/@alsearsmd123/turmeric-the-natural-miracle-root-for-anti-aging-c5df059b13f7

But I can find no scientific backing for this statement.

If this is true then it is truly amazing.

So my question now is does turmeric/curcumin lengthen telomeres?

The answer seems to be: no. The article I read was probably bogus and doesn't link to any scientific studies.

Article Curcumin and Cancer Stem Cells: Curcumin Has Asymmetrical Ef...

"Curcumin has contrary, but doubly-beneficial, actions like inhibiting CSCs, [cancer stem cells] while at the same time stimulating normal NSC [normal stem cell] function (204, 222). "

I think what this article is saying is that the beneficial aspects of turmeric in the normal cell are not related to the negative consequences to the malignant cell. Hence I take this to mean that the beneficial aspect is not the activation of telomerase but some other process hence the effects are "asymmetrical". The simultaneous activation and inhibition of telomerase, in normal and malignant cells, would surely be described as symmetrical.

Yes! Please see the following RG link.

Article Curcumin inhibits telomerase and induces telomere shortening...