Are You Really Getting the Benefit You Expect from Your Curcumin (Turmeric) Supplement?
Over 4000 publications support curcumin as a powerful anti-oxidant, anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory and anti-tumour agent. Studies have demonstrated that curcumin acts on every organ and many diseases including arthritis, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and many others - possibly even Alzheimer’s disease.
Thankfully, an increasing number of people are now aware of these benefits. And more and more people are taking taking action and diligently incorporating turmeric, or its most active constituent - curcumin, into their diet as supplements, teas, powders or other forms.
The Challenge is Getting Enough of It
But the problem is that although these forms of curcumin actually do give some benefit, as demonstrated in several studies, they generally fall far short of the promise that you read about with respect to curcumin. This is due to three main factors:
Firstly, both turmeric and curcumin are highly insoluble. It is thought that only 2% of curcumin ingested in its raw form actually gets into the bloodstream. Considering that turmeric only contains 3-6% curcumin by weight, you can imagine how little curcumin you are ingesting when you sprinkle turmeric powder over your food! Having said that, this spice is so powerful, you will probably derive some benefit from doing so over a long period of time, but perhaps it would be better to invest in a better source of curcumin.
Secondly, the tiny amount of curcumin that actually gets into the bloodstream is rapidly conjugated in the liver to a much more inactive form than free, un-conjugated curcumin. Only two formulations of curcumin have been shown to give significant levels of this active free-form curcumin: Longvida and CurQfen. Of the two, CurQfen has better performance in terms of absorption and levels in the bloodstream.
The other prominent brands show virtually no measurable free curcumin. These formulations base their bioavailability claims on testing blood levels AFTER an its acted on by an enzyme called glucuronidase in the lab to release free curcumin. So the curcumin levels reported for these formulations don't actually correlate with what is found in the body.
This is CRITICAL because free curcumin is the form that produced staggeringly positive results in the in-vitro studies on cancer cells, infective agents and many other models of disease states. To be clear, these other formulations still have proven clinical benefit, but Longvida and CurQfen are far superior.
Bulky conjugated curcumin is also less able to traverse the blood vessel lining into the cells to exert its effects or cross the blood brain barrier - an important factor in potentially targeting Alzheimer’s disease.
CurQfen was the first form of curcumin to confirm delivery to various organs in biologically significant levels, including the brain. Its no surprise then that CurQfen studies have actually demonstrated reduced anxiety and depression in actively treated subjects. Other CurQfen studies have shown positive results on chronic liver damage and cholesterol levels and many more are in the pipeline.
The third challenge with curcumin bioavailability is that once the liver conjugates curcumin, the kidneys can readily excrete it from the body. As a result, half the conjugated curcumin is usually excreted within 2 hours. However significant levels of CurQfen remain even after 24 hours.
Some Curcumin Formulations Potentially Risky
Not only are many of the other formulations far inferior in terms of providing viable levels of free active curcumin, some of the curcumin formulations utilize means of increasing absorption or reducing liver conjugation that may actually pose a health risk:
Innovative Developments
Longvida is absorbed directly into the lymphatic system instead of the bloodstream, thereby avoiding breakdown by the liver for a period of time. CurQfen promotes absorption and avoids liver breakdown of curcumin by surrounding it with a highly soluble dietary fiber called fenugreek.
An Advanced Formulation
In summary, CurQfen shows the greatest performance of the currently available curcumin formulations. However Advanced Orthomolecular Research has gone a step further and combined CurQfen with Turmacin. Turmacin is composed of tumeric polysaccharides, another component of tumeric, which afford anti-inflammatory benefits in their own right. The result was an award winning formulation called Curcumin Ultra. Curcumin Ultra is especially helpful for arthritis and other forms of inflammation. Formal testing of Curcumin Ultra has produced some impressive stats:
High bioavailability: 270 times greater than standard curcumin-95 using the methods usually employed to test bioavailability.
Much more importantly, significant levels of free curcumin: Tests confirm 75% of free curcumin even 5 hours after ingestion
Rapid onset of action
Lasting therapeutic effects - up to 24 hours
If you would like a more in-depth understanding of the available curcumin options available, along with scientific references, please take a look at a wonderful article written by Taz Janeen of Advanced Orthomolecular Research.