Curcumin is an extract from the Indian curry spice turmeric, which is a plant in the ginger family. The curcuminoids in curcumin provide its medicinal benefits and its deep yellow-orange color.
Curcumin extract has remarkable anti-inflammatory and anti-tumor characteristics and is being studied in clinical studies to treat: arthritis, memory loss and cognitive decline, cancer, and for cancer prevention, just to name a few of the clinical trials using this product.
A challenge with curcumin is that it has fairly poor absorption when consumed as food or in supplement form. Some people prefer to mix turmeric spice with their food, but please keep in mind that you would need nearly 3 heaping tablespoons daily to achieve the same blood level that comes from a single 500 mg curcumin pill. Combining curcumin with pepper spice, lethicin, and/or with various oils appears to improve its absorption substantially. Buying cheap curcumin that you don’t absorb would be pointless, so this is one supplement that requires a high quality form of production. From reviewing published studies, the form with the best absorption that I can find is Meriva-500, an outstanding form of Curcumin.
I take my curcumin with my Multivitamin with Arthritis Support pack daily, which in addition to curcumin also contains fish oil with extra Vitamin D & Vitamin K, lethicin, a high quality multivitamin, plus glucosamine sulfate.
