Is Turmeric A Super Spice With Amazing Health Benefits? The Science Says...Doesn't Seem So
This one is fun because I was just having a conversation about turmeric at the lunch table this week. One of my coworkers brought up how it was reportedly a super food (well ... super spice) with amazing health benefits!
A cursory internet search will provide you with article after article after article discussing just how wonderful turmeric is for you!
10 Turmeric Benefits: Superior to Medications?
WOW!
10 Proven Health Benefits of Turmeric and Curcumin
AMAZING TELL ME MORE!!
We can look in these articles and see claims like:
Turmeric contains bio-active compounds with powerful medicinal properties. These compounds are called curcuminoids, the most important of which is curcumin. Curcumin is the main active ingredient in turmeric. It has powerful anti-inflammatory effects and is a very strong antioxidant.
In fact turmeric is reported to cure: Acne, MRSA, Alzheimer's , Arthritis, Cancer, Diarrhea, Erectile Dysfunction and Super Aids. AND SO MUCH MORE!!!
...However
A recent publication in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry titled "The Essential Medicinal Chemistry of Curcumin" throws a bunch of cold water all over those claims.
Natural Products Often Lead To Effective Drugs
There have been a wide variety of drug's that have been developed from traditional medicine, and so turmeric with its active compound curcumin was a very attractive candidate for research. The authors state that curcumin "has shown excellent promise in early testing, even though this testing may have been bedeviled by design problems that lead to several misfires." Publications keep piling up by the hundreds based on the reported activity and therapeutic magic of curcumin.
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Yet the authors were unable to locate one single randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial where curcumin has been proven effective effective for treatment of anything.
What they did find was:
Curcumin is a PAINS
PAINS stands for pan-assay interference compounds, which are compounds which show activity by interfering with assay readouts rather than through actual compound/target interactions. Curcumin is a PAINS (in the ass...eer...) because it does a lot of different things that can obscure accurate quantification in an assay! It has been shown to covalently bind to proteins (aka it reacts and sticks to them), bind up and sequester metals ( metal ions are often important cofactors necessary for assay functioning), disrupt cell membranes, interfere with fluorescence among others, and worst of all the compound is prone to aggregation (aka clumping together into a big mass) at higher concentrations. Assays which don't account for the plethora of potential interference properties are prone to false positives.
Curcumin Is Unstable
Good drug compounds are required to be stable under "physiological conditions." This means an environment where water is the solvent, the pH is around 7.4 and the temperature is human body temp or around 37 °C, unfortunately the authors report that curcumin possesses none of those properties!
The article presents an extensive review of the literature reports of the activity of the compound.
The authors found that reported activity in publications was found to occur at concentrations above that at which the compound aggregates, in most cases other interference possibilities were not taken into account in assay design, and nobody seemed to take the stability of the compound into consideration.
The Authors Conclude
At first, curcumin appeared to offer great potential for the development of a therapeutic from turmeric. Unfortunately, no form of curcumin, or its closely related analogues, appears to possess the properties required for a good drug candidate. The in vitro interference properties of curcumin do, however, offer many traps that can trick unprepared researchers into misinterpreting the results of their investigations
In short, curcumin doesn't do anything. If turmeric does have beneficial properties to human health its not because of curcumin like we were being lead to believe. Still turmeric is likely not the magic cure-all that people wish it was.
However There Is One Thing that Turmeric Still Is..
Delicious
I love turmeric, it adds a wonderful nutty flavor! Indian and Asian cuisine that incorporate it are incredibly great foods. If you eat these things because you love them, keep right on doing it. However the research indicates that if you are eating turmeric because of its amazing health benefits, you probably aren't getting what you are bargaining for.
Sources
- http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.jmedchem.6b00975
- http://www.clearskinforever.net/turmeric-acne-does-turmeric-help-acne/
- https://www.earthclinic.com/cures/turmeric-cure-for-mrsa.html
- https://draxe.com/turmeric-benefits/
- https://authoritynutrition.com/top-10-evidence-based-health-benefits-of-turmeric/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781139/
- http://www.arthritis.org/living-with-arthritis/treatments/natural/supplements-herbs/guide/turmeric.php
- http://www.lifeextension.com/magazine/2009/11/a-natural-approach-to-erectile-dysfunction-that-improves-vascular-health/page-01
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A TV programme (can't remember what it was called) found that tumeric undid methylenation damage to DNA. If tumeric can't easily be made into a drug....perhaps that's why it's health benefits may be questioned? I eat quite a bit of organic tumeric so I hope there's no lead in it! We need more decent, independent research on everything! :)
I am certain work will continue looking into tumeric. Just because Curcumin doesn't appear to be effective doesn't mean there isn't something else that is. It also doesn't mean that with different conditions the stability of Curcumin can't be improved, however it's stability under physiological conditions is indicative that it falls apart even when ingested so it's probably still not the active causitive agent.
Methylation to DNA isn't damage, it's a form of gene regulation. I am working on a post about that aspect of epigenetics currently. I will post it hopefully soon ish if you have interest in that area of DNA science :)
Cool! I look forward to that post :)
Very interesting! I actually do NOT like the taste of turmeric at all, but I buy it and sprinkle it on some of my meals for the supposed health benefits. I think I'll scale back on it!
Bummer that you don't like it. Still remember just because this paper makes a convincing argument that the curcumin is not what it was made to be, doesn't mean that there isn't Something in tumeric worth eating. It just isn't what people were claiming it was.
But yeah if you don't like it, doesn't look like there is strong evidence that it's worth forcing yourself to eat. Plenty of other healthy things that ARE beneficial that you can go for instead.
I add 4 spices to some dishes, several times a week: turmeric, ginger, cayenne pepper , and garlic. All in powder form. I buy the organic versions if I find them. I don't really taste the turmeric much. I'll probably still use it, just less.
I think ginger is related to turmeric and I wonder if it is as healthy as advertised. The pepper heats me up, which is good in the winter, and is supposed to speed up metabolism a little. Garlic is supposed t be a natural antibiotic, and I do like its taste.
Any other spices that I might add to my mix?
I only use the fresh versions of most of those, cayannes I'm using dried now, but they were fresh when I grew them. :D I don't know of too much that would complement your mix taste wise.
I use a ton of different spices when I cook but I grow herbs because I love the fresh taste. Still only certain things mix well with certain others.
Sage Thyme Rosemary is a great combo (well on roasted potatoes ...Mmmm) but none of those mix into your set of 4 very well.
I don't think I'm much help here...
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Doesn't help that commonly sold turmeric is high in lead... http://www.naturalnews.com/054964_turmeric_spices_lead_contamination_FDA_recall.html
Yeah lead is something you want to avoid ingestion of. Just ask the children of Flint Michigan what that will do to you.
Well written, interesting and in addition a nice photo. :)
Thank you very much!
well, I read this the other day as well. it's kindof clear to me that the science just isnt there for the wild claims some make about this stuff. however, we should not completely bash it from consideration as it may have unspecific or effects via molecular mechanisms different than those for which it was thought to...
How about treat it like any other food that may have some good properties to it and eat it if you enjoy it? I wasn't bashing turmeric, but rather the wild claims. Mostly because those claim were built and cite poorly designed research (as the author's of this article pretty clearly state).
ttrymHi @juse90, nice post , again !.... thank you....
In india they drink a tea with dry neem leaves and a bit of tumeric, neem and tumeric has the super ability to fully charged all our bodies cell....you should give it a try !
I am sure it is tasty, but I trust the science on tumeric that it's not doing anything special. :)
I would love to try the tea though!
yes, in the tea it's a very little pinch of tumeric , just for ingedients to mix, we add a tea spoon of honey as well, 6-8 dry neem leaves / glass. For Neem it's interesting....http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/yoga-meditation/demystifying-yoga/benefits-of-neem/
It sounds lovely, I will have to try to see if I can find some neem tea leaves at a tea store around here. Would like to try :)
Thanks!
you are welcome @justtryme90,
btw i could not respond to your last reply on ...water....so i did a post to do so :
https://steemit.com/science/@olisan/water-has-memory-or-kind-of-several-experiments-prove-it
Science is great...they have done many good things for all of us, but they have a major short coming... they work (as in this case) to reduce everything down to a cellular level and work to produce man made similar substances.
Life is not a reductive process, rather it is an experiential and where the sums add to the whole .
One other thing is that when scientists do break things down to a cellular level to do one thing, it most times causes difficulties in other areas and functions.
Could it be that this "Test" failed due to the process of testing... pharmaceutical companies are notorious for this as well as a host of other issues?
Just saw this online today.... on twitter (Clif High) posting.
Garlic, Turmeric, Lemon.... FOOD
This wasn't a singular test but an analysis of the work of a variety of different tests on different aspects of curcumin's possible effects.
I'm gonna add an edit for the picture, and say the oneside is helps you if you break, and the other side is helps you not break to begin with. That said if you develop a real issue, all the healthy eating in the world probably will not fix you. There is a role for all things IMO.
Sorry to seem so anti-whatever, but actually, many people come back from what are deemed chronic and terminal illnesses by changing their lifestyle and stopping eating the carbs and sugars. “Diets” that can evince cures that no drug on earth can.
Usually it's looking like what's in that right picture and throwing in the bin what's in the left picture.
The only thing missing from that right picture is a bottle of olive oil, some coconut oils and a little bit of protein.
Anti-whatever? No worries!
Sure, but a lot of people come back from what are deemed chronic and terminal illnesses by not changing their lifestyle, and doing literally nothing. Diets are contributing factors to your health, however when things swing too far to one side then often times other treatments are necessary.
I appreciate what you are saying, but biology is just much more complicated. Diet is but one (mind you, very important) piece of the puzzle.
I hear you and appreciate it, I do not discount it either. However they have done so many "Random" tests with other drugs and foods, only to either go back years later to revise their findings as well as to see how damaging their methodology has been.
Eggs were eggs, then they were good, then they were bad, then they were good again...
3000 years is better evidence than 1... for me anyway... thanks for the info!
You are welcome, I understand your point! Unfortunately for all of us science is an iterative learning process where people do work on projects based upon previous data and love to contradict prior work (as is this articles case).
Thanks for taking the time to read and chat a bit with me :)
You need to remember that these drug companies were only looking at whether Tumeric had something in it that could be a candidate for them to patent and use.
They only found that it was unsuitable for their use, it resisted testing or analysing, and that there were no suitable studies they could find that proved it was good at anything.
The corollary does not equate to that it's useless. Just that it's useless for them, and that nobody probably wants to fund a study into the benefits of tumeric, or if they did that they don't want to publish the results.
Pharma companies that sponsor studies into natural remedies that prove positive don't go around publishing that stuff. It'd put them out of business... You can guarantee that if it said the opposite, that tumeric was useless, there'd be all kinds of reports published all over the place stating that.
The fact that there's not leads me to believe that there's something there, more than not.
At the end of the day, there's entire cultures out there that use tumeric as a core part of their cuisine, and they're doing a heck of a lot better than we are.
These were not drug companies, this study was published by researchers of two universities and a hospital.
Sorry, they were trying to make some $$$'s and patent a drug. The research paper was their consolation prize.