A regular route to turmeric
SCIENTISTS have made a major step forward in harnessing the unique power of curcumin, a versatile component of turmeric that has demonstrated a potential benefit for a range of health conditions. The discovery of a method to standardise the dose and boost the body’s absorption of the compound has brought new hope that curcumin’s therapeutic properties will at last be able to be delivered in a reliable way with every tablet.
The product, called Turmeric+ and available to British consumers, has excited the interest of university researchers trying to find a reliable and reproducible dose to demonstrate the properties of curcumin, the active ingredient in turmeric. Curcumin is a minor compound in the plant-root based Indian spice turmeric. Thousands of published studies have already shown its exciting capacity to impact human health.
Although curcumin can have positive effects in the body, until now it has been difficult to get the human body to absorb the large volumes required. A 45g supermarket jar of ground turmeric only contains 2 per cent curcumin, so it contains less than one gram of the active ingredient.
A whole jar of turmeric would not contain even one daily curcumin dose delivered by Turmeric+.
Not only that, studies have shown most people cannot absorb enough curcumin in its natural form to benefit, which means simple curcumin tablets may not work.
Turmeric+ follows more than a decade of research by international scientists working in university laboratories.
They were looking for a way of boosting curcumin absorption and succeeded in combining it with plant-based phospholipids from soy beans.
PHOSPHOLIPIDS are a class of fats that are a major component of all cell membranes and published studies have shown that combining them with curcumin will produce a 29-fold increase in curcumin uptake by the body.
Turmeric+, marketed by Cambridge-based brand FutureYou, is manufactured to pharmaceutical grade and is now embarking on further studies to show its benefits.
Talks are under way with a number of British universities.
“We are very excited by the level of interest from scientists in our product,” said Alf Lindberg, a former secretary to the committee of the Nobel prize for medicine and a Chief Scientific Officer to Cambridge Nutraceuticals. “We think we at last have a way to deliver a reliable regular dose of this compound.
“We’re hoping the trials will give definitive proof of the benefits of Turmeric+.”