I don't know if turmeric is an immune stimulant. But as an Indian who grew up eating food cooked with freshly ground turmeric -- one thing I can say that it surely has some special properties that at least retards bacterial growth in food. If you cook two dishes at the same time with the same ingredients but use turmeric in only one of them and not in the other -- and then leave them in room temperature -- you will see which one goes bad first. The one without the turmeric.
However as for getting full health benefit -- I am not sure if the powdered kind that we buy today are as good as the real thing which looks something like a yellow colored ginger root and then it needs to be soaked and ground before cooking with it. As children we were told to eat the uncooked root directly as medicine first thing in the morning to keep the digestive system and the blood in good shape. But here in the US I have found the whole roots only once in a while in Asian markets.
Due to its lack of availability where I live now, I haven't had a chance to experiment with its anti-inflammation properties. But I have found directly eating ginger root(chewing up a half inch cube or so and drinking it down with water) helps me for several hours. If I had access to fresh turmeric I would have tried that too.
Some more on turmeric if anyone is interested:
http://www.indiatogether.org/2006/mar/hlt-turmeric.htmhttp://www.medindia.net/alternativemedicine/index.asp?Choice=Turmerichttp://www.goodnewsindia.com/Pages/content/traditions/turmeric.htmlI still use the powdered form in cooking because I like the taste and hope it does some good also, but don't know how effective that is for helping me with AS.
Sudeshna
