1. Curcumin Helps Your Gut
Curcumin stimulates your gallbladder to
release bile.
Bioavailable Curcumin helps with stomach ulcers by inhibiting stomach acid
secretion and inhibiting the activity of pepsin.
2. Curcumin Fights Autoimmunity: Multiple
Sclerosis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Psoriasis, and IBD
Curcumin ameliorates multiple
sclerosis (MS), rheumatoid
arthritis, psoriasis,
and inflammatory
bowel disease in human and animal
models .
Curcumin helps in the treatment
of inflammatory bowel disease , and
appears to be safe and effective in maintaining remission in patients with
inactive ulcerative
colitis .
In patients with rheumatoid arthritis, dosing
at 500mg curcumin + diclofenac sodium was found to be effective .
In Lupus patients,
short-term turmeric supplementation decreases blood and protein in the urine along
with systolic blood pressure .
Curcumin protects against autoimmune diabetes.
Curcumin inhibits autoimmune diseases by
reducing inflammatory cytokines such as IL-1beta, IL-6, IL-12, TNF-alpha and IFN-gamma and associated JAK-STAT and NF-kappaB signaling pathways in immune
cells.
3. Curcumin is Anti-Viral, Anti-Bacterial & Anti-Fungal
I’ve already discussed how
curcumin inhibits biofilms and quorum sensing. I’ve also discussed how curcumin is capable of activating the vitamin D receptor,
which is important for combating infections.
Curcumin also shows anti-viral activity against influenza, adenovirus, coxsackievirus, HIV, and
reduces hepatitis
C gene expression.
As an antifungal agent,
curcumin (+ piperine) shows activity against Candida
albicans, inhibiting hyphae development .
Curcumin protects against septicemia in
mice exposed to the pathogenic bacteria responsible for cholera and reduces
mortality rates .
Curcumin combined with antibiotics helps decrease lung inflammation in Pneumoniae .
4. Curcumin is Good For The Brain
One of the most interesting
things curcumin does for the brain is it increases DHA .
Curcumin elevates levels of
enzymes involved in the synthesis of DHA from ALA in both liver and brain
tissues .
This is significant because
even Fish oil/DHA supplements often don’t increase
DHA in the brain.
Curcumin is protective against
cell death in brain injuries caused by rapid blood return (reperfusion) .
Bioavailable Curcumin used in brain hemorrhaging
improves neurological function and reduces brain water
content .
In spinal cord injury, curcumin inhibited cell death and neuron loss, and
significantly improved neurologic deficit seven
days after injury
Curcumin dramatically counteracts the cognitive
impairment caused by Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), reduces oxidative damage and
normalizes levels of BDNF, synapsin I, and CREB .
In an animal model of dementia,
curcumin prevented memory loss, restored healthy glutathione levels, restored insulin receptor protein levels, and reduced oxidative stress overall .
Curcumin helps the brain, in
part, by inhibiting GSK3b .
Alzheimer’s / Neurogenesis
Bioavailable Curcumin helps create new
brain cells in adults and reverses cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease.
Curcumin was found effective in reducing amyloid
plaque .
Curcumin (+ piperine)
showed strong neuroprotective activity against quinolinic acid-induced neurodegeneration , which is
caused by inflammation and emotional stress.
Curcumin improves learning and spatial
memory in adult and aged mice by increasing BDNF and CREB .
Curcumin can stimulate
developmental and adult hippocampal neurogenesis, neural plasticity and repair .
5. Curcumin Protects Against Stress & Depression
Like the prescription
antidepressant imipramine, curcumin promotes the development of new cells in the hippocampus in chronically stressed
rats, while simultaneously protecting BDNF stores .
Curcumin
(+piperine) enhances the effects of SSRIs and SNRI antidepressants in mice .
Curcumin significantly improved sustained attention, working memory, and mood in
a healthy older population
It reduces depressive symptoms in
patients with major
depression .
Curcumin has an antidepressant-like effect in
animal models of depression , with
an increase in hippocampal BDNF .
It also lowered blood cortisol levels
and increased cortisol sensitivity(increased Glucocorticoid
Receptor Expression) .
Curcumin’s anti-depressant
effect may work in part via the 5HT2C receptor .
6. Curcumin Protects Against Metal Toxicity and Fluoride
Curcumin decreases inflammatory
markers in copper-overloaded rats
and reduces aluminum-induced
inflammatory responses in rat brains .
Curcumin protects against DNA
damage from arsenic and
reduces ROS generation and lipid peroxidation and increases antioxidant activity
in human studies .
Curcumin reduces tissue mercury
concentrations .
In mercury-exposed rats,
curcumin reduces oxidative stress and other
negative biochemical changes .
Curcumin may be effective as pre-treatment to mercury intoxication in
the liver, kidney, and brain .
Curcumin is protective against selenium toxicity in
the liver and kidneys .
Curcumin protects against
the genotoxic effects of arsenic and fluoride .
Treatment with curcumin in iron-overloaded rats
resulted in a marked decreased iron accumulation in
the liver and spleen, while simultaneously restoring antioxidant
levels
Curcumin has also been found to ameliorate
the neurodegenerative effects of fluoride on
the brain .
7. Curcumin Helps Treat Obesity, Diabetes, Libido,
Cataracts and Increase Muscle Tissue
Bioavailable forms of curcumin
can cause weight
loss in overweight individuals .
Curcumin enhances erectile
function in diabetic male rats .
Curcumin lowers blood sugar, improves insulin sensitivity, reduces urine
sugar and in some mice, it reversed diabetes .
Curcumin lowers blood
sugar by stimulating insulin secretionfrom pancreatic
cells
It also helps in pancreatic regeneration .
It also helps in pancreatic regeneration .
It helps improve muscular insulin
resistance in rats and prevents insulin
resistance and obesity .
Curcumin improved leptin sensitivity in
rats with fructose-induced fatty
livers (hepatic steatosis), lowering LDL cholesterol and triglycerides .
It inhibits obesity-induced
inflammation .
Curcumin improves
cardiovascular function and reduces oxidative
stressin diabetic patients .
Bioavailable Curcumin delays cataract development in
diabetic rats .
It alleviates diabetic cardiomyopathy in
diabetic rats .
Studies show
curcumin lessens diabetic complications in rat brains, slowing
mitochondrial dysfunction .
A nine-month curcumin
intervention significantly lowers the chances that
prediabetes develops into Type II diabetes,
simultaneously improving overall function of pancreatic
cells .
Curcumin activates AMPK in
muscle leading to increased glucose uptake and inhibiting new growth and
formation of fat cells
Curcumin is also therapeutic
for muscle tissue generation and accelerated healing after
injury .
Curcumin significantly lowered inflammatory
markers in rat pancreatitis.
8. Curcumin is Anti-aging
Age-related diseases (Alzheimer‘s, atherosclerosis, metabolic disorders, etc.)
are caused in large part by chronic low-grade inflammation and oxidative stress (ROS). This leads
to molecular damage and DNA replication errors.
Curcumin is a powerful anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory agent.
It inhibits release of cytokines (IL-1, IL-6, TNF-alpha) that are responsible for
the inflammation. Aging slows when inflammation is reduced .
9. Curcumin is an Antioxidant and an Anti-inflammatory
Curcumin is an oxygen radical
scavenger. It acts as an antioxidant through increasing glutathione
levels, and as an anti-inflammatory agent through inhibition
of IL-8 (in lung cells) .
Curcumin inhibits enzymes which
are responsible for mediating inflammation .
Curcumin treatment was
found to be protective against oxidative stress, especially through
inhibiting lipid peroxidation and increasing levels of glutathione, superoxide dismutase (SOD), and catalase activities in the kidney, liver, and
brain .
Curcumin binds to iron, which
is one mechanism by which it combats free radicals
In rats exposed to TCDD
dioxin (found in Agent Orange), curcumin was shown to increase SOD activities of
the liver, kidney and brain, catalase (CAT) activity
of the heart, and glutathione
peroxidase(GPx) in
the heart and brain.
Curcumin’s anti-cancer activity on pre-cancerous lesions is through increasing
levels of vitamins C & E and preventing lipid peroxidation and DNA damage .
Curcumin can switch genes on and off through
its interactions with various enzymes (HDACs, HATs, DNMT
I and miRNAs) .
Curcumin is a more potent anti-inflammatory than aspirin and ibuprofenand
is comparable to corticosteroid therapy in inflammatory eye diseases .
It decreases elevated blood inflammatory
markers (IL-8, IL-10, and TNF-α) in rabbits after cardiopulmonary
bypass.
Curcumin significantly
reduced oxidative stress and inflammatory marker (TNF-α) levels
in a mouse model of chronic fatigue and
prostate inflammation .
Curcumin suppresses IL-18 reduces
PAI-1 and inhibits mTOR in a unique way .
Curcumin induces tolerance to
proteins by increasing Tregs .
Curcumin inhibits mast cells , but also
decreases DAO, which can increase histamine .
10. Curcumin Supports Women’s Health (PMS, HPV, Cervical
Cancer)
Curcumin is beneficial in reducing the severity of
PMS .
Curcumin applied
in a multi-herb cream had a clearance rate of 81.3% in cervical HPV infection .
Bioavailable Curcumin and
curcumin combined with ultrasound is aneffective treatment for cervical cancer by
inhibiting cell growth, inducing cell death, and arrests the
cell cycle .
11. Curcumin Helps Joint Problems
Curcumin may regenerate cartilage and was preferred by
patients over analgesic and anti-inflammatory drugs
Curcumin reduces symptoms of osteoarthritis A three-month
treatment of 200mg/day of the curcumin-phosphatidylcholine complex decreased pain scores by 58% and increased
walking distance by over 400% in osteoarthritis.
12. Curcumin Fights Cancer (Breast, Colon, Leukemia, Lung,
Prostate, Pancreatic, Brain)
Curcumin has been shown to not
only reduce the growth of new
blood vessels in tumors ,
but also induce programmed cell death in
human malignant brain cancer (glioblastoma)
cells , oral cancer cells , T-cell lymphoma cells. , bone– , brain, and melanoma cancer
cells .
Curcumin is toxic against cancer cell
mitochondria, which is important for its anticancer effect .
Curcumin stops the growth of
malignant cells in oral cancer but doesn’t affect normal cells .
Breast cancer
Curcumin and piperine may prevent breast
cancer by inhibiting breast
stem cell self-renewal .
In a trial of breast
cancer in humans, curcumin given orally at a dose of 6 g/day was found to improve the
efficacy of the breast cancer treatment .
Colon cancer
Curcumin activates the nuclear vitamin
D receptor, which is associated with chemoprotection against intestinal cancers .
In patients with colorectal
cancer, ingesting 6g curcumin achieves medically effective levels in
the colorectum with negligible distribution outside the gut .
The combination of curcumin and quercetin appears to reduce the
number and size of ileal and rectal adenomas which
typically lead to cancer in FAP (Familial adenomatous polyposis) .
Leukemia
Curcumin is effective against leukemia, with
no danger to normal cells . Curcumin
combined with the green tea extract, EGCG (epigallocatechin-3-gallate), promotes cell death in
chronic lymphocytic leukemia .
Lung
Cancer
In Lung cells, curcumin acts as
an oxygen radical scavenger, an antioxidant (through modulation
of glutathione levels), and an anti-inflammatory agent through inhibition
of IL-8 .
Curcumin has been shown to activate programmed
cell death , as well
as inhibit lung cancer growth, through mitochondrial pathways .
Curcumin works against lung
cancer cells by stopping the cell cycle
. Curcumin also promotes programmed cell death in human lung cancer with multi-drug resistance .
. Curcumin also promotes programmed cell death in human lung cancer with multi-drug resistance .
Dietary curcumin at 5%
concentration decreases radiation-induced lung fibrosis while
not lessening the effectiveness of the radiation against tumor cells.
It also significantly improved survival in mouse studies .
Prostate cancer
Of seven tested phytoestrogens,
curcumin was found to be the most potent inhibitor of cancer cell growth while
also inducing cell death in human prostate tumor cells , through mitochondrial cancer cell
damage .
Pancreatic Cancer
Bioavailable Curcumin blocks tumor growth and metastases in
preclinical models of pancreatic cancer .
Brain Cancer
Curcumin works synergistically
with chemotherapy in the treatment of Glioblastoma, a
highly aggressive brain cancer, to improve results .
13. Curcumin Benefits Liver Health (From Alcohol and
Aflatoxin)
By reducing inflammation
and lipid peroxidation and increasing antioxidant enzymes, curcumin prevents alcohol-induced oxidative
stress and has been shown to prevent liver disease .
Curcumin protects the liver from aflatoxin .
14. Curcumin Protects Your Kidneys
A turmeric-based diet protected against kidney
injury in rats .
Curcumin can prevent Tylenol overdose-induced damage to kidney cells.
15. Curcumin Helps Your Eyes (Cataracts, Dry Eyes)
Curcumin prevents cataracts in
animal models.
Curcumin may have therapeutic potential for dry eye .
Safety and
Dosage
Curcumin has been found to be
safe to consume without side effects up to 10g/day .
I recommend ingesting 1-2g in
the morning, upon awakening.
Potential Risks and Side Effects
In High
Dose In-Vitro Models, Curcumin Can Cause Cytotoxicity and DNA Damage
At low doses (as shown in many
studies above) it acts as a potent antioxidant, scavenging ROS. At
high doses it is suggested that it may actually
induce ROS, leading to DNA damage .
Many of the concerns regarding
curcumin toxicity are addressed in this letter .
As a quick summation of the
article, although worth the read, the first issue addressed is that many of
these studies are done in-vitro. Meaning done in a test tube, outside of a
living breathing organism.
With curcumin being extensively
metabolized in the intestine , raising
blood plasma levels by oral consumption to meet levels administered in the lab
test tubes, at this point in time have not been achieved in the body . It is also important to note that many studies (also included
above) have already shown consumption of 10g/day (that’s a lot) with
no negative side effects .
Additionally, to obtain higher
levels of solubility, Curcumin was dissolved using ethanol as a solvent.
Against controls, it is unclear if the toxicity and damage to
the DNA is due to the curcumin, ethanol, or curcumin+ethanol.
The authors write ‘The DNA damage described by
Goodpasture and Arrighi, and others, therefore, cannot be possibly due
to the binding of curcumin to DNA or its intercalation into DNA‘ .
But they do express the
interest to see the effect high levels of curcumin on DNA would be if
solubilized in water + heat as opposed to curcumin + organic solvents.
Testosterone
Curcumin may inhibit
enzymes involved in the final step of testosterone synthesis. This could
potentially lead to a reduction in testosterone levels at very high
concentration. However, the significance of this effect is unclear.
The same study states that
because humans can consume up to 8 grams of turmeric per day without apparent
side effects, consuming curcumin orally may not increase curcumin levels in the
blood enough to inhibit testosterone synthesis.
Parkinson’s Disease
In vitro, curcumin increases
LRRK2 mRNA and protein. LRRK2 is a gene whose expression has been positively
associated with Parkinson’s disease. This could, in theory,
lead to increased risk of Parkinson’s disease. However, this study suggests
this is only one factor of many, including age and genetic predisposition .
Synergies
Adding piperine (from black
pepper) increases the absorption of curcumin in the blood by 2000% .