Curcuma Longa – Turmeric Sagyric Extract
Pharmaceutical Usage
Turmeric has been well established for thousands of years for its multi-purpose applications. From beng used in dyes, paints, and cosmetics, to its compainionship with food, and in the present era, actually used dominantly for pharmaceutical development over anything else. Its key component, Curcumin, blocks several inflammatory pathways, was studied in the 1950's for its anti-bacterial properties, is widely advocated for rheumatoid arthritis by doctors and clinicians worldwide and it even has promising activity as a neuroprotective. Its anti-coagulating actions keep the blood thin, increase bile production and flow in the liver, and has protective actions on the stomach. The herb helps to alleviate nauseua, arthritis and other inflammatory conditions like asthma and eczema. It serves as a powerful anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, neuroprotective, anti-cancer, hepatoprotective, and cardioprotective effects.
There is even mounting evidence in animal trials for its use against psychiatric and neurologic disorders like depression and epilepsy.
Popular Usage
Current culture acknowledges that turmeric can attenuate systemic biological inflammation that has implications beyond arthritis. Inflammation is correlated with 7 out of 7 of the most common diseases in Americans and is an integral component of many other chronic diseases. Attending to it and its causes regularly can be a massive factor in the future of your health and in the ultimate preparation for your death. While the active component of turmeric being curcumin, has not yet been approved for treatment of any human disease, its use since time immemorial and its numerous clinical drials has revealed its potential therepeautic use against a variety of human disorders.
Discovery of Curcumin
Pure curcumin was first isolated in 1842 but its structure was not idnetified until 1910 when its IUPAC structure was identified by Milobedzka and Lampe as diferuloymethane, or 1,6-heptadiene-3,5-dione-1,7-bis (4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)-(1E, 6E). Shortly after it was synthesized and quantified using chromatography. As noted above, it wasnt until the 1950's that curcumins biological activity was studiend and found to be active against bacterial strains: S. aureus, Salmonella, T. gypseum, and M. tuberculosis, thus encouraging explosive interests into its medical applications. Many different biological actions have been identified but much of this research has been steered into increasing the bioavailability of cucrumin.
Bioavailibility
Curcumin is a "new drug" in terms of its applicaiton in medicine. It has great potential if only a few minor stumbling blocks can be overtaken. Turmeric, Curcumin (and its derivatives), have such a rapid metabolism and systemic elimination, that it suffers from poor absorption into the blood stream and thus poor bioavailibility and low bio-action in the physiology. Most research has gone into increasing bioavailibilty through many promising approaches including the use of nanoparticles, liposomes, micelles, phospholipid complexes, and structural analogues.
Black Pepper Adjuvant
Despite ongoing research, one of the most effective breakthroughs in bioavailibility which has been empiracally verified after thousands of years of tradition, is the use of Black Pepper as an adjuvant to enhance the efficacy of the turmeric affects. The alkaloid piperine, derived from black pepper, concomitantly administered with curcumin showed a 2000% increase in the bioavailability of curcumin. The exact mechanism remains elusive, though it could be because the pepper increases absorption thgrough the intestines, or perhaps inhibits the metabolism in the liver, how again, we do not know, the fact of the matter, is if you are taking turmeric therepeautically then do so with freshly ground black pepper in order to truly activate the plant medicine.
Source
Curcumin: A Review of Its’ Effects on Human Health
Bioavailability enhancers of herbal origin: An overview
Piperine enhances the bioavailability of the tea polyphenol
