Top 7 Benefits of Turmeric/Curcumin
Turmeric, the anti-aging, anti-inflammatory solution?
Turmeric is the spice used in cooking that turns your food yellow, used both as a spice and a medicinal herb in the Indian culture for centuries & becoming more common in everyday use.
The main active ingredient, giving turmeric its anti-inflammatory and antioxidative effects, is curcumin.
Turmeric contains bioactive compounds with medicinal properties, but with the low curcumin content in turmeric itself, it would be very difficult to get enough of the benefits by just using turmeric as a spice in your foods.
This is where supplements come into play.
Being that curcumin is difficult for your body to absorb into the bloodstream in enough potency to see the benefits, it helps to consume it with black pepper, which contains a natural substance, piperine that enhances the absorption of curcumin by 2,000%.
The best supplements will contain piperine to increase effectiveness.
Top 7 Health Benefits of Turmeric & Curcumin:
1. Curcumin is a natural anti-inflammatory compound.
Inflammation is the cause for many of our daily struggles (digestion, bloating, sickness, etc.). Curcumin helps to fight off these foreign invaders causing inflammation in our bodies.
Chronic inflammation can lead to several health conditions and diseases, including:
-heart disease
-cancer
-metabolic syndrome
-Alzheimer’s disease
-various degenerative conditions
Curcumin and turmeric themselves cannot prevent these diseases, however, it is beneficial to reduce the inflammation in our bodies as much as we can. Curcumin is one of the best ways to do so.
2. Turmeric can increase the antioxidant capacity of the body helping to fight off aging, sickness & disease.
3. Curcumin can boost the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).
Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a gene that’s involved in making a protein responsible for promoting the life of neurons. This protein plays a role in memory and learning, which can be found in parts of the brain responsible for eating, drinking, and body weight.
Depression & Alzheimer’s disease, along with some other common brain disorders have been linked to those with lower levels of BDNF protein.
Animal studies have found that curcumin may increase brain levels of BDNF.
Supplementing with curcumin and turmeric may be effective in delaying or even reversing many brain diseases and age-related decreases in brain function, as well as improving memory and attention.
4. Curcumin may lower your risk of heart disease.
Heart disease is the number one cause of death in the world.
Curcumin, while not the only way to do so as heart disease is multifaceted, may help reverse many steps in the heart disease process by improving the function of the endothelium, the lining of your blood vessels.
Heart disease is related to when your endothelium is unable to regulate blood pressure, blood clotting, and various other factors & curcumin can lead to improvements in heart health.
As mentioned previously, curcumin can help with inflammation which is also a cause for heart disease.
5. Turmeric may help prevent cancer.
Curcumin has been studied as a beneficial herb in cancer treatment and has been found to affect cancer growth and development by:
-contributing to the death of cancerous cells
-reducing the growth of new blood vessels in tumors
-reducing the spread of cancer throughout the body
In addition to slowing the spread and development of cancer, there is evidence that it may prevent cancer from occurring in the first place, specifically cancers of the digestive system (i.e. colorectal cancer).
6. Curcumin may be useful in treating ( and preventing) Alzheimer’s disease.
There is no treatment for Alzheimer’s, but curcumin is a way to help in preventing dementia/Alzheimer’s disease before its onset because it has been shown to cross the blood-brain barrier.
As mentioned above, curcumins ability to help with inflammation & increase BDNF proteins, are also related to preventing Alzheimer’s disease.
7. Curcumin has benefits against depression acting as an effective antidepressant due to its ability to boost the brain neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine.
Depression is also linked to reduced levels of BDNF (see above), which curcumin can help boost BDNF levels, reversing some of these changes.
Overall, turmeric/curcumin’s many positive health effects, such as the potential to prevent heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and cancer, may aid in overall longevity. Thus, it is commonly used as an anti-aging supplement.