A turmeric tonic for niggly knees
WHEN your joints and muscles earn you a living, it’s important to look after them as well as you can. This is how yoga instructor Fenella Lindsell discovered the power of turmeric. Fenella, 52, from London, runs her own yoga business, Yoga Forever. She runs classes for people aged eight to 80 and also organises six yoga retreat holidays a year, which combine the practice with other sporting activities.
After suffering from nagging knee pain, Fenella looked for a natural solution for her discomfort and came across super-spice turmeric.
She says: “My practice and yoga style is quite demanding and I demonstrate a lot of positions as well as hopping up and down to adjust my students during classes!
“In addition to yoga I play tennis for our local club, run once or twice a week, play football and do a circuit training class. I don’t really intend to do as much exercise as I do but I enjoy it, particularly all the different people it involves.”
Turmeric has long been popular in traditional Indian medicine and is recognised as one of nature’s superfoods. The spice, a member of the ginger family, is rich in compounds called curcuminoids and is now attracting the attention of scientists, nutritionists and healthcare professionals looking for ways to improve our joint health and flexibility.
Her research led her to Turmeric+, a supplement developed by the Cambridge-based brand, Future You.
Fenella adds: “I decided to trial Turmeric+ and to see if my yoga students might like to as well. It’s been so worthwhile. Not only has the stiffness and recovery after highimpact sport been noticeably better but also my knee injury has greatly improved, as has my overall flexibility.
“After trialling Turmeric+ I feel so much better in terms of muscle and joint recovery after exercise. It’s been two months now and I find I’m sleeping better and my digestion and gut seem to be working more efficiently. I’m a convert and I’m not giving it up any time soon.”
Years of intensive research led to the development of the formulation used in Turmeric+. Each tablet combines curcumin with another plant extract, called soy lecithin, creating a supplement that is extremely bioavailable, meaning that it’s better absorbed by the body than just eating the turmeric. The formulation has 22 published clinical research papers demonstrating its benefits and tests have shown that it is 30 times more bioavailable than standard turmeric alone.
This means the unique formulation delivers more of the “good stuff” and therefore more benefits to the body.