Sometimes it seems that the simpliest and common things are the best for us. Tumeric (Curcumin Longae) the common kitchen spice and Chinese herbal remedy (Jiang Huang), was shown to be very effective at reducing the thick plaques of psoriasis. In fact the researchers who did the study found that Tumeric was twice as effective as the western drug calcipotriol, also known as Dovonex.
In the study, which was published by the British Journal of Dermatology, topically applied curcumin yielded a 90% resolution of plaques after 2-6 weeks of treatment in 50% of patients. The commonly used drug Dovonex usually takes at least 3 months for best results to occur. Curcumin's ability to relieve psoriasis is because it directly inhibits phosphorylase kinase (PhK), a protein found to be elevated with psoriatic activity. The researchers actually found that curcumin lowered PhK by more than 50% compared to calcipotriol.
You can read the abstract for this study in the research section of my website.
http://skin.health-info.org/research_terms/Psoriasis
(the abstract is at the bottom)
Trevor
Jiang Huang
How was this herb applied topically? If it was an ointment, was it mixed with beeswax or vasoline? Or was the powered herb sprinkled on the psoriasis? Did these patients take a internal herbal medicine? thanks Steve