Virtues of Turmeric

I am a great advocate of Turmeric, I take it together with Boswellia and Rose Hip.

They have helped my pain and inflammation levels enormously,just a word of caution though,it can take quite a while before the full benefits kick in.

So, if you decide to give them a go,a little patience is required but in my opinion it's well worth the wait.

Thanks to these wonderful natural substances I have made it through the darkest times with very few pain killers and that has to be a good thing!

Tickled

I take curcumin, which is of course derived from Tumeric, my LLMD highly recommends it. She said to make sure it has black pepper extract in it to help w/ absorption

My LLMD recommends it and I take curcurmin prescription strength from Lee Silsby pharm., I think, and I still take a lot of pain meds but it can't be hurting. I take a lot of herbs and I don't know if any of them are doing anything, but I keep taking them all! I trust my LLMD knows a lot.

I see a lot of good comments here. I personally use turmeric for myself. When i get up in the morning and walk to the bathroom, I don't feel like the tinman with knee pain any longer.

The guy that does cranio-sacral massage on Heather is also an ND and is knowledgeable about a lot of things. He is a 57 y.o. guy that is still into olympic style weightlifting. He has experienced a lot of muscular pain and joint inflammation due to the rigors of his sport. He says that he uses compounded curcumin and it has done wonders for him. Heather has been using it for 2 weeks and it is doing wonders for her. She has been looking for the magical thing that will eliminate the muscular pain from overtraining. It seems that she has found it.

Mystery Illness is correct in that black pepper has a substance that greatly increases the bioavailability of turmeric and curcumin, and is called bioperine. You can purchase bioperine, use black pepper extract, or you can grind relatively fresh black peppercorns. I have already purchased the black peppercorns, but I need to purchase the grinder like they have in the restaurants. I mix up my green shakes, and add my turmeric. I will then just add a twist or two on the pepper grinder, and I will be potentiating the nutrition of my shake, including the turmeric. Heather's curcumin is compounded with the bioperine already in it.

Store bought pepper that is already pre-ground has only low amounts of bioperine, and is next to worthless for the effect that you are looking for.

Don

samjones,

I have most often read that Bioperine increases the bioavailibility of Turmeric and Curcumin. I have rarely read that Bioperine increases the bioavailibility of nutrients in general. I have to admit that I don't really know.

I just had a slight stroke of genius- for me at least! Heather's OTC Curcumin is compounded with Bioperine. The proportions for a capsule of Curcumin/Bioperine are as follows: 600mg/10mg. She takes 3/day.

I will tell you that the compounded Curcumin/bioperine is $59 for a months supply. That's pretty steep, and I'm not happy about that expense. Heather is happy though!

As far as the amount of pepper is concerned, I don't know the answer. I guess that I am going to try to find out how many Mg's of Bioperine are in a peppercorn and then go from there. I haven't started to use the peppercorns yet.

Don

It looks like I may have confused some of the terminology a bit. "Piperine" is the active ingredient naturally occurring in black peppercorns of which we are talking about. Bioperine seems to be the patented black pepper extract containing the piperine. It is a product name.

Also, as is the case with anything there are some contraindications for its use. Here is its label:

Supplement Facts
Serving Size: 1 Tablet
Amount Per Serving
% Daily Value
Calcium
28 mg*

2%
Bioperine (Black Pepper Extract)
10 mg

†

†1% Daily Value not established. No of Servings 5

DOSAGE: As a dietary supplement take 1 tablet with a vitamin supplement 30-60 minites before meals. Do not exceed 2 tablets daily

CAUTION: Do not take Bioperine with medication. if you are pregnant, may become pregant, or breast feeding.
Consult a healthcare professional before use.

Other Ingredients: Cellulose (capsule), rice flour, magnesium stearate(Veg Source), stearic acid(Veg source) and silica

DOES NOT CONTAIN sugar, salt, starch, yeast, gluten, corn, soy,milk, wheat, egg, shellfish or preservatives.

Store in a cool, dry place. Please Recycle.


Don

Hi, I have been on curcumin for about 3 weeks now. My hip pain is almost 100% gone. It was quite severe, esp on my 12 hour work days and at night, rolling side to side.

My question is this: what brands are you all using? I am using enhansa, 150 mg capsules and am on a taper up dose to get to 3 in am and 2 in pm for a 750mg total dose. The cost is $58 per bottle which will be a 1 month supply when I'm tapered up to full dose.

I am finding a lot of less expensive brands out there, but am hesitant to switch until I get some feedback from the experts: you!

Shelly71,

I am so happy to hear that the curcumin is helping you! That's what this forum is all about.

I just spoke to my wife about Heather's curcumin. She said that we purchase it at a local compounding pharmacy. It doesn't have a brand name as it is made from the raw ingredients at the pharmacy. She thinks that the bottle has 60 - 600 mg capsules. Heather used to take 3/day, but my wife thinks that she now takes 1 or 2 capsules per day because her need to use it has been reduced! I'm sure that Heather's curcumin is very expensive compared to others. I do have confidence that it is of excellent quality however.

Don

There are brands of turmeric which bind the curcumin to phosphatidyl choline making a phytosome. This increases bioavailability and absorbtion:

http://www.thorne.com/articles/meriva.jsp

iHerb carries some different Meriva Phytosome Curcumin complexes including Thorne, SourceNaturals, and NOW:

http://ca.iherb.com/Meriva-Phytosome-Curcumin

There is also Longvida, which is another type of bioavailable curcumin. Very expensive, but may be worth it if curcumin gives you good results. They claim it can pass the BBB:

http://www.longvida.com/Buy-Longvida-Curcumin.html

Buhner mentions in his new Herbal Antibiotics book that piperine works by opening the tight junctions in the gut allowing greater absorbtion of herbs into the bloodstream.

"Piperine Warning: Under no circumstances should you use piperine for severe intestinal infections such as E. coli 0157:H7 or cholera. Piperine increases intestinal permeability, which can allow the resistant organisms access to the interior of your body in significantly greater numbers. It can make you much sicker."

This statement made me nervous at the time because I know a lot of us are dealing with gut/leaky gut issues. For this reason we use the phytosome.

If you guys are having trouble getting organic tumeric in bulk (and cheaply) look into 1st Chinese Herbs.

My problem right now is in eating it....... it tastes horrible and is difficult to hide. However, Im starting to blend it (and black peppercorn, cinnamon, ginger,etc ) into my Chai teas. Im curious if this tea-brewing process makes the active ingredient any less effective?

Thank you all. It's good to know that it helps with breathing issues, as I was just diagnosed withr Bart & babs, in addition to lyme. I haven't really had night sweats or air hunger and am hoping this tumeric keeps it away. Then it would be worth every penny. I order vitamins through encapsulations and get a 50% discount with my RN license.

Lil Gabby said...
Is the turmeric in capsule or tincture? I also have along with lymes, leaky gut, crohns, sjogrens,and food allergies and a couple other things going on as well. Can one take turmeric with leaky gut? I do not see or ran into any info, that it will hurt with leaky gut. I do have turmeric tincture, but not sure how much one can take or it.

Gabby

Hi Gabby,
I started out using a turmeric tincture that my doc made. She had me use 1 full dropper (30 drops) 2 times a day. I hope that will give you an idea of what you should be using.

Turmeric is one of the herbs mentioned for healing leaky gut syndrome!! So yes, please do use it!