Slayer's Den

[01dragonslayer]

The Evolution of Turmeric Supplements​

The older forms of curcumin boosted blood levels by a small amount, but the new generation is 95 times more powerful.​

Turmeric, or rather its active ingredient, curcumin), is everywhere now. You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who wasn’t aware of the plant’s anti-bacterial, anti-atherosclerotic, anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory, anti-fat accruing, antioxidant, anti-thrombotic, anti-erectile dysfunction, and anti-viral effects.

Turmeric is found in skin products, teas, and digestive aids. And some people even throw the root directly into their protein shakes. Sadly, they’re largely wasting their time. Even the people who’ve graduated to using curcumin rather than the root that contains it aren’t doing themselves much good.

Here’s the problem. Turmeric contains too little of its active ingredient (curcuminoids) to do much of anything. And even if you do manage to ingest large amounts of raw curcumin, your digestive system goes to great lengths to absorb it and shuttle it off to your body where it can do its magic.

There are several reasons for this. For one, ordinary curcumin isn’t soluble in the acidic pH of the stomach. When it reaches the neutral or alkaline environment of the large intestine, much of it’s converted into inactive waste, a process called glucuronidation, which is how the body rids itself of most drugs and things it considers pollutants.

Even when some of the raw curcumin makes it through the large intestine intact, it’s subjected to further breakdown by the bacteria in the colon. Oh, a small amount eventually does get absorbed into the bloodstream, but much of it gets quickly metabolized by liver cells and excreted through bile.

As evidence, there are several studies, all disturbing, that have chronicled giving patients large amounts of raw curcumin, e.g., 3.6 grams (about 7 capsules), only to discover, an hour or more later, that blood and liver levels of free-form curcumin were almost non-existent. So yeah, all those people eating/drinking raw turmeric or non-enhanced curcumin are probably doing themselves little good.

Scientists knew this from early on, so they’ve devoted a great deal of time figuring out how to make curcumin the supplement it was supposed to be. It took three generations of curcumin formulations to get it right.




Older-Curcumin1000×409 85.6 KB
The earliest attempts to improve curcumin’s absorption included the addition of turmeric oil (BCM-95, BioCurcumax, Curcugreen), producing it as oleoresin (Curcugen), or adding a small amount of piperine, an alkaloid present in black pepper.

The piperine stimulated the gastrointestinal system, prevented curcumin efflux, and, most importantly, inhibited the hepatic and gastrointestinal glucuronidation described earlier. It roughly increased curcumin absorption 20-fold over raw, unmodified curcumin.

The result of this curcumin/piperine alliance was a measurable improvement in bioavailability and safety, significantly reducing delayed onset muscle soreness. It also led to anti-arthritic and even anti-diabetic effects, decreased oxidative stress, and reduced DNA damage. Most importantly, it teased at what curcumin could ultimately be, if bioavailability could somehow be enhanced further.

Curcumin is hydrophobic. Water “scares” it. Throw a scoop of it into a glass of water and it just floats there.

The natural response was to enhance curcumin’s solubility and bioavailability by combining it with fats – polysorbates, phospholipid complexes, liquid droplet nano micelles, and spray drying.

These second-generation formulations showed excellent bioavailability and proved to be anti-arthritic, anti-diabetic, and anti-viral in various clinical studies, along with improving the survival rates of cancer patients, supporting ulcerative colitis patients, and even having pro-sexual effects (raising testosterone levels).

These second-generation curcumins had 27 times the bioavailability of pure curcumin. Quite an achievement, but there was still room for improvement.

The newest curcumin formulations increase the bioavailability of “free” curcuminoids (the active polyphenol constituents found in curcumin) without using synthetic polysorbates and/or emulsifiers employed in the previous generation.

Further, they contain no adulterants, which makes them safer, i.e., nongenotoxic and nonhepatotoxic (safe for the liver). Most impressively, they’ve increased curcumin bioavailability by almost 100 times over that of raw curcumin. Comparing first-generation curcumins (or, worse yet, turmeric teas and various products) to this third-gen tech is like comparing Ask Jeeves to ChatGPT.

Take a single dose and high levels of curcumin are detected in the bloodstream within one hour. Furthermore, high levels are detected as long as 24 hours later, suggesting that one daily dose is all you need for round-the-clock protection.

In short, it does all the things the earlier generations of curcumin delivery systems hinted at, only a lot better.