Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Turmeric!! After 120+ trials, researchers' surprising conclusion on curcumin

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Turmeric!! After 120+ trials, researchers' surprising conclusion on curcumin

    When you google multiple sclerosis and turmeric, over 300,000 results pop up, including this lead description (sourced from turmericforhealth.com):
    "Curcumin is the key active ingredient in turmeric. Initial studies have found that curcumin could block progress of MS. In laboratory tests, mice where bred with illness resembling multiple sclerosis symptoms called EAE – experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis."

    There's just one problem. It's apparently BS. Based on all available scientific evidence—thousands of research papers and over a hundred clinical trials—there's zero evidence curcumin has any medical benefit, say researchers in a groundbreaking analysis.

    From the latest issue of Nature....

    Deceptive curcumin offers cautionary tale for chemists
    Spice extract dupes assays and leads some drug hunters astray.
    By Monya Baker
    11 January 2017, Nature

    Inside the golden-yellow spice turmeric lurks a chemical deceiver: curcumin, a molecule that is widely touted as having medicinal activity, but which also gives false signals in drug screening tests. For years, chemists have urged caution about curcumin and other compounds that can mislead naive drug hunters.*

    Now, in an attempt to stem a continuing flow of muddled research, scientists have published the most comprehensive critical review yet of curcumin*—*concluding that there’s no evidence it has any specific therapeutic benefits, despite thousands of research papers and more than 120 clinical trials. The scientists hope that their report will prevent further wasted research and alert the unwary to the possibility that chemicals may often show up as ‘hits’ in drug screens, but be unlikely to yield a drug.

    “Curcumin is a cautionary tale,” says Michael Walters, a medicinal chemist at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and lead author of the review (K.*M.*Nelson et*al. J.*Med. Chem. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jmedchem.6b00975 2017), published on 11*January.

    ...Walters isn’t confident that his report will stop poorly conducted research. “The people who should be reading this probably won’t,” he says.

    FULL ARTICLE IN NATURE: http://www.nature.com/news/deceptive...TWT_NatureNews
    Well, at least we at ActiveMSers are reading this. - D

    Dave Bexfield
    ActiveMSers

  • #2
    The abstract of the study.

    Curcumin is a constituent (up to ∼5%) of the traditional medicine known as turmeric. Interest in the therapeutic use of turmeric and the relative ease of isolation of curcuminoids has led to their extensive investigation. Curcumin has recently been classified as both a PAINS (pan-assay interference compounds) and an IMPS (invalid metabolic panaceas) candidate. The likely false activity of curcumin in vitro and in vivo has resulted in >120 clinical trials of curcuminoids against several diseases. No double-blinded, placebo controlled clinical trial of curcumin has been successful. This manuscript reviews the essential medicinal chemistry of curcumin and provides evidence that curcumin is an unstable, reactive, nonbioavailable compound and, therefore, a highly improbable lead. On the basis of this in-depth evaluation, potential new directions for research on curcuminoids are discussed.
    Dave Bexfield
    ActiveMSers

    Comment


    • #3
      And Forbes Magazine had this to say. Interesting...

      http://www.forbes.com/sites/samlemon.../#72536c702917
      Dave Bexfield
      ActiveMSers

      Comment


      • #4
        One of the more interesting turmeric findings: the fact that in tests (on rats), only 1% of the curcumin was absorbed by the body. Which means you'd have to ingest 100 pills to get the full effect of one pill. If there is an effect to begin with. Sounds like of turmeric is going to have any chance of becoming an effective therapy, the mode of delivery likely has to change.
        Dave Bexfield
        ActiveMSers

        Comment


        • #5
          I'll continue with crossed fingers

          I don't take it for MS, but as an Alzheimer's preventative. It is without dispute that Alzheimer's rates are much lower in India than the USA. Two things about diet are significantly different consumption of curries and consumption of meat; higher and lower respectively. Not much I'm going to do about meat, but I can take turmeric supplements.

          They've known about the low absorption rate for years. Absorption is increased by consuming pepper with the turmeric (many curries have very potent peppers in them). There are a number of supplements compounded for higher absorption; two I can name off the top of my head, CuraMed (the one I take) and Theracurmin. They claim "10 times higher absorption", so let's call it 10%.

          It will be interesting to watch as the Indian diet becomes westernized; does their Alzheimer's rate go up? I'll probably be dead before that's answered.

          Craig

          Comment


          • #6
            Like I said, can't hurt, Craig. The UCLA Alzheimer Center has a bunch of good info on curcumin, but they are quick to state that "there is no trial demonstrating effectiveness of curcumin in preventing Alzheimers." Frustrating.

            http://alzheimer.neurology.ucla.edu/Curcumin.html
            Dave Bexfield
            ActiveMSers

            Comment

            Working...
            X