Is turmeric really helpful to reduce inflammation?
Is it safe to use high doses of turmeric in supplement capsules?
Is it enough just to add turmeric to my diet? Will I get the anti-inflammatory benefits?
I’ll answer these questions in this video. So, let’s talk about turmeric today.
Turmeric is a plant in the ginger family. The stems and roots are ground into a powder that
is used in many Asian cooking, and it is the main ingredient in curry. I love cooking with turmeric,
and my favourite dish is chicken masala. Turmeric contains a yellow-coloured
substance called curcumin, that can be used in cosmetics, pigmentation
or foods. In about 1,000 mg of turmeric, there is about 30 to 50 mg of curcumin. There are
many animal studies that show antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of curcumin.
There have been various scientific studies showing that turmeric offers several health benefits,
the main one is its anti-inflammatory properties. Inflammation is a reaction
of the body to some injury, or when we need to heal a bone fracture or a tendon rupture.
However, there are situations that the person’s own immune system will attack itself,
we call this auto-immune disease. One of these diseases is rheumatoid arthritis.
A meta-analysis of 8 randomized trials supports the benefits of turmeric at about 1,000 mg/day in
the treatment of arthritis. The patients reported improvement in morning stiffness, walking tie and
joint swelling after 3 months of treatment. It seems that the effects were similar to using
non-prescription non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, like ibuprofen or diclofenac.
I have another video about NSAIDs that you can watch.
Now, listen to this carefully. Because turmeric has shown some effects for rheumatoid arthritis,
there are a lot of claims that it can also be useful for other kinds of diseases where there is
low-grade inflammation, like heart disease, diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.
There has been some speculation from pre-clinical studies that turmeric, and the active substance
curcumin, could reduce inflammation after a major surgery. To look at this, a high-quality Canadian
randomized trial published in 2018 by Dr. Garg and colleagues examined the effects of curcumin
at high doses in the pre-operative of abdominal aortic aneurysm repair in Canadian hospitals.
Patients received either 2000 mg twice a day for 4 days or placebo.
They looked at four types of biomarkers of tissue inflammation in the hours and days after surgery.
There was no difference between these two groups and the group that received curcumin had
higher risks of postoperative kidney injury than the group that received placebo.
When you buy supplements, any type of supplements, remember that they are not regulated the same way
that medicines are, so they may say that they contain certain quantities of substances but
that is not accurate. Manufacturers of natural health products can sell a product
and claim health benefits without having to obtain the same supporting evidence
that would be needed if it were sold as a drug. If the person decides to use turmeric supplements,
it is important to check if they also contain piperine a substance found in black pepper
which helps with the absorption of curcumin. But if the curcumin supplement
that you buy does not have piperine, just add some black peppers to help in the absorption.
How about getting curcumin from regular diet? The amount of turmeric and curcumin in diet
varies depending on the products that are used. The average Indian diet contains around
2,000 mg of turmeric which provides around 60 mg of curcumin per day.
Are there any side effects of turmeric and curcumin?
Remember that high doses or long-term use of turmeric may cause gastrointestinal problems,
similar to the NSAIDs. So, doses above 2,000 mg of turmeric per day are not recommended.
If you go to “see more” below this video, there is a description of all products that I mentioned
in this video if you are interested in purchasing them.
I added time stamps to this video, so you can watch the parts that are useful to you,
like the summary of these exercises. Please, don’t forget that this
video is for educational purpose only. If you have a condition that needs medical advice,
please talk to your doctor. And if there is an emergency,
go to the nearest emergency department. Below this video, in the description, there
is a link to a document that you can download and it summarizes all the content of this video.
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Thank you for watching. Good bye