Golden or just yellow?

Tumeric has a long tradition in Eastern and Asian cuisine. For generations people believed in it’s healing propperties. Several studies indicated that tumeric is a promocing food component that could boost the immune system or could be used to cure Alsheimer, cystic fibrosis, baldnes or could even be used as an anticancer agent. And the list is far more extensive… Nevertheless common truth can differ from scientific facts. The main component of tumeric is curcumine (in Dutch tumeric also calls ‘Kurkuma’). Researchers from the universities of Minnesota, Harvard and Illinois put togheter all the conducted research regarding curcumine. Their conclusion: Tumeric has no spectacular health properties whatsoever or we haven’t found them yet.

Why is this result so different from the information we always assumed to be true? There are a couple of reasons. I tried to touch the essentials of the article to give you some basic information in a few sentences. Notice that the full study was far more detailed and complex and covers a broader range of scientifically based arguments.

Curcumine has not what it takes to be a good drug. The researchers proved that curcumine is unstable under physiological conditions, like body temparature and chemical conditions in the body. Even when used in high oral doses, the compound was very poorly absorbed by the body. Curcumine has a reactive chemical structure, so it’s highly likable to undergo modifications and to get metabolised. The origional compound does not distribute to any specific organ. Curcumine even can be toxic as it can not distinguish normal cells for cancerous cells. For some time, curcumine has been known as a tricky component in the field of chemistry. It’s called a pan-assay interference compound (PAIN). indeed, refering to a pain in the ass. It interferes with many chemical tests, affecting the outcome. For example, it interferes with fluorescence detection methods. It’s nonselective for the activation of multiple biological targets. It can damage cellular membranes,… This all leads to a different outcome.

This shows that research is an interdisciplinary search for truth. It’s a puzzle including many scientific areas and you have to take everything into account and can’t accept things to be true because social convention believes they are. You have to be critical and can’t base your research on data that are not 100 % sustainable.

Source:

The Essential Medicinal Chemistry of Curcumin

Kathryn M. Nelson, Jayme L. Dahlin, Jonathan Bisson, James Graham, Guido F. Pauli, and Michael A. Walters

Journal of Medicinal Chemistry Article ASAP

DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.6b00975