I am certain work will continue looking into tumeric. Just because Curcumin doesn't appear to be effective doesn't mean there isn't something else that is. It also doesn't mean that with different conditions the stability of Curcumin can't be improved, however it's stability under physiological conditions is indicative that it falls apart even when ingested so it's probably still not the active causitive agent.

Methylation to DNA isn't damage, it's a form of gene regulation. I am working on a post about that aspect of epigenetics currently. I will post it hopefully soon ish if you have interest in that area of DNA science :)