Does Turmeric Reduce Inflammation?

Benefits of Kefir

Check out this answer from Consensus:

Kefir is a nutrient-dense, probiotic-rich beverage with a wide range of health benefits. Its antimicrobial, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antioxidative, and immune-modulatory properties make it a valuable addition to a healthy diet. While more clinical trials are needed to fully understand the extent of these benefits, current research supports the potential of kefir as a functional food with significant health-promoting properties.

Kefir, a fermented milk beverage, has garnered significant attention in recent years due to its numerous health benefits. This article explores the various advantages of kefir consumption, supported by scientific research.

Nutritional Composition

Kefir is produced through the fermentation of milk by kefir grains, which consist of a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeasts. The nutritional composition of kefir can vary based on the type of milk used, fermentation conditions, and storage practices. It is rich in essential nutrients, including proteins, vitamins, and minerals, making it a valuable addition to a balanced diet2 10.

Probiotic Properties

One of the most notable benefits of kefir is its probiotic content. Kefir contains a diverse range of beneficial microorganisms, including Lactobacillus species, which contribute to its probiotic properties. These probiotics can help maintain a healthy gut microbiota, improve digestion, and enhance immune function1 4 5 9.

Antimicrobial and Anticancer Activities

Kefir has demonstrated antimicrobial properties, which can help combat harmful pathogens in the gut. Additionally, studies have shown that kefir exhibits anticancer activities, potentially inhibiting the growth of cancer cells and reducing the risk of certain cancers1 3 7 8.

Anti-inflammatory and Antioxidative Effects

Regular consumption of kefir has been associated with anti-inflammatory and antioxidative effects. These properties can help reduce inflammation in the body and protect cells from oxidative stress, which is linked to various chronic diseases2 3 6.

Glycemic Control

Kefir has shown promise in managing blood sugar levels. Research indicates that kefir consumption can lead to significant reductions in fasting blood sugar and insulin levels, making it a potential dietary intervention for individuals with diabetes or those at risk of developing the condition4.

Cardiovascular Health

Kefir may also contribute to cardiovascular health. Studies have suggested that kefir can help lower cholesterol levels and reduce markers of inflammation, such as C-reactive protein (CRP), which are associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases6 7.

Immune System Modulation

The immune-modulatory effects of kefir are another significant benefit. Kefir consumption has been linked to enhanced immune responses, which can help the body fight off infections and reduce the severity of allergic reactions1 8 9.

 

 

Does turmeric reduce inflammation?

Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz has answered Extremely Unlikely

An expert from University of Wollongong in Epidemiology, Public Health, Diabetes

As has been noted a number of times, there is good evidence of reasonable certainty that curcumin, a compound that is present in turmeric, has some anti-inflammatory properties. There is some debate that this is true, but overall it’s likely to improve inflammation in some way.

The issue is, how much curcumin? And does that mean that turmeric does, itself, reduce inflammation?

By weight, turmeric is made up of about 3% curcumin. An active dose – the amount needed to see a benefit in people – of curcumin varies, but is usually somewhere between 200-1,000 milligrams per day. So, to get the amount of turmeric that you’d need to eat to get an active dose of curcumin, you multiply by 33, making an active dose of turmeric about 6-30 grams per day. However, there’s another problem – curcumin isn’t very bioavailable, which means your body only absorbs about 25% of the curcumin from the turmeric that you eat. So we have to take our number and multiply by 4, which means that the lowest amount of turmeric you’d have to eat to get an active dose of curcumin is 24 grams a day, which is about the size of a supermarket jar of the dried powder. This low estimate is also a bit misleading, because studies that use these low doses of curcumin usually have formulated a special supplement that is more bioavailable, which is very different to just eating turmeric.

This is a problem – curcumin may reduce inflammation, in sufficient doses, but eating 24-120 grams a day of turmeric is a bit of a different question. Overall, it’s unlikely that turmeric reduces inflammation as part of most people’s diets, unless they are eating truly vast quantities of the spice.

 

Does turmeric reduce inflammation?

Zorica Stojanović-Radić has answered Near Certain

An expert from University of Niš in Microbiology, Biology, Biotechnology, Pharmaceutics, Botany

Turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) represents a plant species belonging to family Zingiberaceae. Its rhizomes in powdered form are used as a food ingredients as spices, as well as in traditional therapy due to many biological activities. In herbal and traditional medicine, turmeric is used for rheumatoid arthritis, chronic anterior uveitis, conjunctivitis, skin cancer, small pox, chicken pox, wound healing, urinary tract infections and liver ailments, strengthening the overall energy of the body, dispelling worms, regulating menstruation, dissolving gall-stones, cleansing wounds, and for various digestive disorders. Turmeric contains various chemical compounds in its chemical composition, but curcumin represents the most important one, present in high amount (3%) and responsible for various biological activities of turmeric powder.

Along with many other scientifically proven biological activities, anti-inflammatory activity of curcumin (thus, turmeric as well) was investigated and confirmed in many clinical trials on humans. These studies confirmed remarkable potential of this compound to reduce inflammation in conditions such as arthritis, osteoarthritis, various metabolic diseases as well as post-operative conditions. The effects after oral administration of curcumin in different doses (200-2000 mg/day), formulations (C3 complex, Meriva, NR-INF-02 or mixture with other plant extracts) and time of administration (2 weeks to 6 months) were monitored through various symptom scales and/or inflammatory and stress markers. In all studies, curcumin was applied orally in the form of mentioned formulations, which mostly included piperine to enhance bioavaliability of curcumin (which is generally very low).

Generally, the results obtained in all these studies highly support application of curcumin for the treatment of various inflammatory conditions.  

However, one should have in mind that if curcumin is the active ingredient of turmeric and is present up to 3% in this plant, while active doses ranged up to 2 g of curcumin, a very high amount of turmeric powder should be taken daily (66 g of turmeric powder) to get the same results, but with piperine to improve its absorption in the gut. Therefore, the best results will be achieved by taking some commercially available curcuminoid preparation.

 

Does turmeric reduce inflammation?

Cornelie Nienaber-Rousseau has answered Likely

An expert from North-West University in Nutrition

Turmeric is a spice from the root of Curcuma longa in the ginger family. Extracted turmeric is a yellow crystalline powder, practically insoluble in water, but soluble in fats and ethanol. It is often used alone or mixed with other spices to form curry powder to season and or color food or even fabrics. Mustard sauces usually contain turmeric to enhance flavor and to deepen the yellow color. Consuming 1 g or more per day is considered high, because it is higher than what most people obtain from diet alone. Approximately 2–6% of turmeric powder is curcuminoids, containing mostly curcumin. Curcumin is a polyphenol and is considered to be turmeric’s active ingredient. Turmeric/curcumin is associated with various health benefits including having an anti-inflammatory effect.

In a summary of studies (a systematic review with meta-analysis), curcuminoids was shown to reduce the inflammatory marker, circulating C-reactive protein (CRP) concentrations (Sahebkar, 2014). This lowering effect appeared to be dependent on the bioavailability of curcuminoids preparations and also duration of supplementation. A systematic review and meta-analysis including 9 good quality studies comprising 10 treatment arms found a significant reduction of the inflammatory marker, interleukin-6 (IL-6) following curcuminoids supplementation and that this effect was more evident in patients with higher degrees of systemic inflammation (Derosa et al., 2016). Another systematic review with meta-analysis indicated that curcumin downregulates tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-a) levels (Sahebkar et al., 2016). However, a more recent summary of the current scientific evidence on this topic including 15 good quality experimental studies, indicated that curcumin-containing supplements exert anti-inflammatory effects by reducing both IL-6 and CRP, but not TNF-a (Tabrizi et al., 2019).

In terms of diseases with an inflammatory component:

• A summary of research on curcuminoid-piperine in complex found that short-term supplementation improved oxidative and inflammatory status (effective in lowering C-reactive protein) in patients with metabolic syndrome (Panahi et al., 2015).
• A summary of scientific evidence concluded that turmeric extracts (typically 1 g/day of curcumin) treatment over 8-12 weeks can reduce pain and inflammation-related symptoms and result in similar improvements in the symptoms as ibuprofen and diclofenac sodium without the gastrointestinal symptoms associated with the conventional drugs in those with arthritis especially osteoarthritis (Daily et al., 2016).
• In terms of treating oral mucositis in cancer patients undergoing chemo and/or radiotherapy, scientists has shown that turmeric/curcumin applied topically as a gel or as a mouthwash reduced the grade of mucositis, pain, erythema intensity, and ulcerative area and, therefore, it could be recommended to those with mucositis (Normando et al., 2017)
• A small systematic review and meta-analysis that included three randomized control studies (Iqbal and colleagues), showed higher clinical remission rates when curcumin was used in combination with mesalamine, the medication used to treat inflammatory bowel disease, to achieve remission in patients with ulcerative colitis (Igbal et al., 2018).

 

Does turmeric reduce inflammation?

Marcella  Nebbioso has answered Near Certain

An expert from Sapienza University of Rome in Ophthalmology

The mechanism by which Curcumin induces its effects is yet to be fully elucidated, but many studies have shown its relevance as a potent anti-inflammatory and immunomodulating agent. It could reduce symptoms and signs of eye discomfort after treatment. Most studies demonstrated its potential therapeutic role and its efficacy in eye relapsing diseases through inhibition of neuronal and vascular damage or oxidative stress, angiogenesis, metastasis, cellular malignant transformation, and inflammatory diseases. In light of its angiogenesis-modulating profile and anti-inflammatory properties, curcumin has great potential in the treatment of diseases such as dry eye syndrome, allergic conjunctivitis, anterior uveitis, glaucoma, maculopathy, ischemic and diabetic retinopathy. Indeed, curcumin with its pleiotropic activities can modulate the expression and activation of many cellular regulatory proteins such as chemokines, interleukins, hematopoietic growth factors, and transcription factors, which in turn inhibit cellular inflammatory responses and protect cells. The researchers hypothesized that curcumin could be an effective nutraceutical compound for preventive therapy of several ocular diseases.

Pharmacologically, curcumin does not show any dose-limiting toxicity when it is administered at doses of up to 8 g/day for three months. It is recommended to take 100-200 mg of phospholipids-curcumin 2 times daily with meals.The main complication to the clinical diffusion of curcumin remains the low gastrointestinal absorption and the fast hepatic and intestinal metabolism. Several formulations have been studied to overcome this limitation and increase the bioavailability of curcumin. One formulation proposes to place curcumin in a phytosome made of phospholipids in order to protect it from intestinal hydrolysis. With the formulation of the complex lecithin phospholipids-curcumin increases over 20 times the bioavailability compared with plain curcumin, so allowing a better use of curcumin and validating all those studies in which it was expected that high doses of curcumin were difficult to achieve due to a poor compliance of patients. Turmeric phospholipids underwent pharmacokinetic tests both in animals and humans and showed statistically significant increased bioavailability of the curcumin. The administration of 1 g of turmeric phospholipid corresponds to more than 5 grams of curcumin alone. In the future nanoparticles may prove able to solubilize curcumin, as demonstrated on human tumor pancreatic cell experiments, though this still needs to be tested in vivo. Unfortunately, there are no clinical studies showing the effectiveness and safety of curcumin eye drops.

 

Does turmeric reduce inflammation?

 

Does turmeric reduce inflammation?

Pavla Jendelova has answered Likely

An expert from Czech Academy of Sciences in Neuroscience, Stem Cells

Our research have shown that application of curcumin (turmeric) in rat experimental model of spinal cord injury can reduce activation of one of the proinflammatory pathways (NF-kB), which is activated after injury. This leads to reduction of pro-inflammatory cytokine TNF-a and further attenuation of inflammation. However, this statement cannot be generalized. Also, we applied curcumin dissolved in oil directly to the spinal cord and in intraperitoneal injections. It must be taken into account that curcumin is not water soluble and oral administration can have less profound effect.