EFFECTIVE WAY OF MAKING TURMERIC & CURCUMIN BIO-AVAILABLE

[Guest]

Why not just take PiCur from <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.theglobaleader.com">http://www.theglobaleader.com</a><!-- m -->? They have a patented product called PiCur, thier blend of curcumin boosts the effective Orac Value by 1000%, taking it to a Global Leader at 1.59 million Orac Value. This is all in just 250 mg capsule.

[SGM123]

edc

[esoteric17]

SGM123 Wrote:What is most effective in making turmeric or curcumin bio-available? Black pepper extract or olive oil?

While black pepper extract (bioperine) appears to work to some degree in making turmeric or curcumin bioavailable it appears less successful than oil/fats in increasing these spices bio-availability. A drawback with black pepper extract is that it can irritate the stomach lining much like it's origin black pepper. Black pepper's irritating affect has been linked with stomach cancer and nausea. On the other hand using a good fat like antioxidant rich pure virgin olive oil or even peanut butter, prior to taking a teaspoon of tumeric or a capsule of curcumin, can greatly increase the bio-availability of turmeric or curcumin. These oils and fats keep our stomach acids from diminishing turmeric and curcumin's wonder powers.

For a long time researchers wondered why the turmeric in Indian curries and cuisine was so successful in getting into the blood and brain. Studies showed it was the fat used in Indian cooking. All those nut oils and butter were excellent transporters of turmeric and hence why the curry part of India has extremely low incidences of Alzheimers and inflammatory disease. I personally mix my morning turmeric with either pure virgin olive oil or some peanutbutter. Heck you could likely get that bio-availability with some chicken soup.

Indian grocery stores here in the USA sell turmeric by the very inexpensive pound. They often call it Haldi.

Piperine (from black pepper) has been shown to raise curcumin bioavailability by 2000%. People taking other drugs may want to avoid it because it can affect drug metabolism also (it raises the bioavailability of many things). I'm not sure about the stomach cancer though; people have been using black pepper for thousands of years.

Regarding the fat bioavailability, do you have any studies about that? I would be interested to see those. I have seen a study about curcumin bound to phosphatidylcholine (Meriva) which increased the bioavailability. This might indicate that taking curcumin with lecithin may help.


<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9619120">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9619120</a><!-- m -->

Quote:Concomitant administration of piperine 20 mg produced much higher concentrations from 0.25 to 1 h post drug (P < 0.01 at 0.25 and 0.5 h; P < 0.001 at 1 h), the increase in bioavailability was 2000%. The study shows that in the dosages used, piperine enhances the serum concentration, extent of absorption and bioavailability of curcumin in both rats and humans with no adverse effects.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.springerlink.com/content/41064982264j3516/">http://www.springerlink.com/content/41064982264j3516/</a><!-- m -->

Quote:The results suggest that curcumin formulated with phosphatidylcholine furnishes higher systemic levels of parent agent than unformulated curcumin.

[SGM123]

edc

[esoteric17]

No need for the incredibly large font size. Fine that's one study. More below, by no means an exhaustive list (some on curcumin + piperine, some on piperine in general). Piperine increases the bioavailability of MANY things, beyond just curcumin. I'm not sure about your lysergic acid reference...there are no known human cases of LSD overdose. I can't find the lethal dose for LSA instead of LSD but I would think it's similar (in fact, LSA is siginificantly less potent than LSD).

You're comparing black pepper to heavy metal? One day the incredible dangers and toxicity of black pepper will be exposed? The piperine you would take in order to increase bioavailabilty of your curcumin (or other product) is typically standardized to 95% piperine. So probably less safrole than you would get from grinding black pepper on to your food. Even Dr. Weil says "Maybe, but you would have to use an awful lot of pepper for a long time to run into trouble". Better stay away from the orange juice and tomatoes just to be safe

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safrole">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safrole</a><!-- m -->

Quote:[Safrole] naturally occurs in a variety of spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, black pepper and herbs such as basil. In that role safrole is believed, although not proven, to make a small but measurable contribution to the overall incidence of human cancer, equal to the hazards presented by orange juice (due to limonene) and tomatoes (caffeic acid).

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19000708">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19000708</a><!-- m -->

Quote:The combination of piperine (2.5 mg/kg, i.p., 21 days), a bioavailability enhancer, with curcumin (20 and 40 mg/kg, i.p., 21 days) showed significant potentiation of its anti-immobility, neurotransmitter enhancing (serotonin and dopamine) and monoamine oxidase inhibitory (MAO-A) effects as compared to curcumin effect per se.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18766332">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18766332</a><!-- m -->

Quote:The coadministration of piperine (2.5 mg/kg, i.p.), a bioavailability enhancing agent, with curcumin (20 and 40 mg/kg, i.p.) resulted in potentiation of pharmacological, biochemical, and neurochemical activities.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17987447">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17987447</a><!-- m -->

Quote:The most far-reaching attribute of piperine has been its inhibitory influence on enzymatic drug biotransforming reactions in the liver. It strongly inhibits hepatic and intestinal aryl hydrocarbon hydroxylase and UDP-glucuronyl transferase. Piperine has been documented to enhance the bioavailability of a number of therapeutic drugs as well as phytochemicals by this very property. Piperine's bioavailability enhancing property is also partly attributed to increased absorption as a result of its effect on the ultrastructure of intestinal brush border. Piperine, while it is non-genotoxic, has in fact been found to possess anti-mutagenic and anti-tumor influences.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3917507">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3917507</a><!-- m -->

Quote:These results demonstrate that piperine is a potent inhibitor of drug metabolism.

[SGM123]

edc

[esoteric17]

I'm not going to get into further discussions about the LSD. Your additional comments regarding black pepper in response to mine are moot. My comment focused specifically on black pepper and stomach cancer. As I refuted, the cancer risk from safrole is as low as orange juice or tomatoes. It is even lower with 95% piperine with negligible safrole.

Yes you certainly went on a lengthy rant about that one study. Here is yet another. Yes this study is by the makers of Biocurcumax, but I'm not presenting it to tout the superiority of Biocurcumax. Instead, shows that plasma concentration of orally administered curcumin alone peaked at 149 ng/g (AUC 462), while orally administered curcumin + piperine + lecithin peaked at 344 ng/g (AUC 624). This is a 2.3 fold increase in plasma concentration. Yes this is a small study (11 volunteers). Yes the increase cannot be attributed to piperine alone (or lecithin alone); could be either, or both in combination.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2792534/">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2792534/</a><!-- m -->

I presented additional curcumin + piperine studies. I'm quite aware they were done on rats. Speaking of rats, you have yet to provide a single in vivo human study supporting your initial suggestion of mixing non-standardized turmeric (only 3.4% curcuminoids by weight) with olive oil or peanut butter to make curcumin more bioavailable. In the "Liposomes, Micelles, and Phospholipd Complexes" of your Molecular Pharmaceutics paper linked above, I couldn't find a single in vivo human study (the one mentioned was in vitro on human cells). All of the in vivo studies mentioned are on rats and mice.

On what basis exactly are you providing your suggestion of mixing non-standarized turmeric with olive oil or peanut butter to increase its bioavailability? By your own standards (lack of rigorous studies with numerous human volunteers), your claims are speculative at best. Additionally, you claim that bromelain (I think you mean bromelain; you said "bromaline") is "superior to piperine for curcumin bioavailability". Are you making this up? Bromelain isn't mentioned whatsoever in your systemic review paper. In fact, I couldn't find a single study (human, rat, or otherwise) regarding bromelain increasing curcumin bioavailability. Please subject your claims to your own standards.

That being said, personally I do take 95% curcumin along with piperine and lecithin. Am I 100% sure the piperine is increasing the bioavailability? No. Am I 100% sure that taking it with lecithin (instead of being bound to lecithin) is increasing the bioavailabilty? No. Why do I do it then? I can get 120 tablets of piperine for $5. I'm not taking any prescription drugs which would be affected. If it increases the bioavailability of my curcumin, great. If not, it's probably (though not surely) increasing the bioavailability of other supplements I take. I can also get 300 pills of lecithin for $10 (by the way lecithin is a phospholipid, not just another lipid). Again, no huge loss if it's not doing anything. I take these possible adjuvants because the potential benefits, based on my understanding of available studies, outweigh the negligible costs.

[SGM123]

edc

[selfquest8]

SGM,Thank you very much for your very informative post about the indian piperine experiment.
I really appreciate your breakdown of the study.I won't be buying those piperine products anymore.

[esoteric17]

SGM123 Wrote:I never made a scientific claim for mixing oils and fats with turmeric or curcumin. I gave an opinion that at this time it appears like a good way to go. (Just like your lecithin and piperine self-experiements) We see in the Indian diet where turmeric (mixed with the fats sesame oil and ghee) is extensively used. In those tumeric and fat areas science has noted via analysis that Alzheimer's and certain cancers are little existant. (No scientific gospel here) In current studies on making curcumin bioavailable, science is looking at
turmeric oil and lecithin (a fatty substance) among other transports like nanoparticles. Hopefully they find something.

You claimed that combining turmeric with fats greatly increased bioavaiaibility (along with bromelain), with no supporting studies or evidence. Seems like an unsupported scientific claim to me.

SGM123 Wrote:On the other hand using a good fat like antioxidant rich pure virgin olive oil or even peanut butter, prior to taking a teaspoon of tumeric or a capsule of curcumin, can greatly increase the bio-availability of turmeric or curcumin.

SGM123 Wrote:In your moments of having your evidence dismissed for your gospel like claims about the socalled 2000% piperine bioavailability failure in India, you appear to have distorted what I said about piperine and stomach cancer and nausea. I merely used the word "linked". "Linked" is cautionary and not a scientific claim. It was not a significant issue when I wrote about the failed piperine experiment that you touted. But thanks for the Biocurcumax study and it's terrific link to piperine as a powerful rat and mouse poison. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6857729">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6857729</a><!-- m --> I never knew about that.

Don't feel bad--there's many supplement companies that promote that piperine 2000% study. They promote many unscientifically grounded products to individuals who don't bother to read the actual studies or who are taken in by pseudo scientific name dropping. (I'm not saying this about you)

Patronize much? By the way, there are many substances toxic to rats or mice (or dogs or other animals) which are not toxic whatsoever to humans. You certainly have quite a personal issue with pepper.