By: Charles Colenaty

Charles Colenaty — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 08:49:15 +0000

Healthy Fellow,

I want to compliment you for writing such a clear, comprehensive, and informative article about curcumin. I trust that you wont mind if I add a few points. As you mention, curcumin’s bioavailability in humans is very low. Very, very low, in fact. The best estimate that I have found so far is about 0.1%. For rats it is about 5%. Some researchers report absence of curcumin in the blood stream even at doses as high as 10 grams, while others report that about 3,500 mgs does the trick. Direct indication of physiological results from curcumin seems to require about 8 grams (see the “Margaret’s Corner” blog). But there is one important exception. The immune cell responsible for rheumatic arthritis (Th17), among other autoimmune diseases, matures in the small intestine. Curcumin inhibits this process of maturation, and so research involving much smaller doses of curcumin have shown a reduction in symptoms.

Nano versions of curcumin have recently become available that are advertised as having 10 times the bioavailability of normal curcumin. That is, 100 mgs of the nano version is comparable to one gram of regular curcumin. A noticeable improvement, but I think that more effectiveness is needed if we are to get up to the bioavailability of the rat — and that is what is needed to rack up practical results from curcumin.

Your point about lack of knowledge about the effects of different dosage levels will become a very critical issue once high bioavailability level is achieved. The work with rats and mice indicates that curcumin has a hormetic effect, which means that while a small amount can produce a positive effect, a larger amount might either have no effect at all, or possibly a negative effect. And there is currently no information about this.

There’s much more to say, but this comment is already loo long. Keep up the good work.

Charles

Comments on: Curcumin Research

By: JP

By: Charles Colenaty