Bioavailability of curcumin

[Guest guest]

Turmeric

is a powerful anti-inflammatory, so as well as helping the stomach problem, it

may also be indirectly beneficial for the prostatitis.

Carole in Oz

http://margaret.healthblogs.org/life-with-myeloma/discovery-of-curcumin/bioavailability-of-curcumin/

Bioavailability

of curcumin

There are

several studies online about curcumin’s low bioavailability, which means that

most of what we swallow goes directly into our gastrointestinal area and is

expelled. Very little remains in the bloodstream about an hour or so after

ingestion. However, it is possible that the small amount that does get absorbed

is enough to induce apoptosis of the MM cells. Otherwise, curcumin wouldn’t

have worked in my case.

Curcumin is

not soluble in water, but in fat. When dissolved in fat, curcumin will go

directly into the lymphatic system. On the Grouppe Kurosawa website

(www.grouppekurosawa.com) there is a lot of information on the bioavailability

of curcumin, such as the following: The lymphatic system bathes all the cells

in the body. It also bypasses the liver in what is called the first pass

phenomenon. This means that more curcumin gets into the body to interact with

cancer cells. Some more scientifically-minded MM listserv members have disputed

this, writing that fats do not by-pass the liver. They travel from the stomach

to the intestine, where they are digested, and the digestion products travel

from there to the lymph, then to the blood, and then to all organs of the body,

including the liver. But that’s fat. Curcumin isn’t fat.

The fact

remains that my Ig count decreased or remained stable on my coconut milk

(fat)-curcumin powder drink. So, whatever the mechanism, some curcumin had and

has to be reaching my malignant cells.

Some

curcumin-takers advised me to take curcumin capsules together with fish oil or

flaxseed oil capsules. Aha, the fat needed for curcumin to be absorbed!

A month or

so ago, an Acor listserv subscriber posted a study called the Delano Report,

which suggested that quercetin, a flavonoid found in apples, onions, red

grapes, citrus fruits, broccoli and so on, would inhibit the sulfotransferase

enzymes which render curcumin relatively inactive (for more information, see

the Delano Report at: http://tinyurl.com/yyucfp ). As a result, I now take

between 1 and 2 grams of quercetin 15 to 30 minutes before curcumin.

Bioavailability

update. September 10 2007 post. A blog reader recently posted a comment, with

an attached abstract, on this topic, which for obvious reasons is of utmost

importance and interest to me and to anybody else who takes curcumin. The

abstract (http://tinyurl.com/2t73w5) reports that the bioavailability of

curcumin is enhanced with HEAT. Key sentence: We report here that the water

solubility of curcumin could be increased from 0.6 μg/ml to 7.4 μg/ml

(12-fold increase) by the use of heat. A 12-fold increase in water solubility?

That’s nothing to sneeze at. These researchers also found [ ] no significant

heat-mediated disintegration of curcumin. Well we certainly do NOT want

curcumin to disintegrate, do we? Now, I already knew that curcumin dissolves in

fats (I have seen that happen with my own eyes) and I have read that it

dissolves in alcohol (bring on the vodka, hic!), but heat? And then, boom!, it

hit me. When I first started taking curcumin, I mixed the powder with very

warm, but not boiling, coconut milk. At that time I hadn’t even heard of

bioperine nor was I taking any oil capsules. I had simply read that it was best

to take curcumin powder mixed with a fat. I drank this concoction for months.

And by the way, after the first eight weeks my IgG count went down almost 20 %.

Consideration.

As I have said before, curcumin is not water-soluble. However, recently another

blog reader commented that she mixes her curcumin with heated organic whole

milk. She wrote that one day she ran out of milk but managed, eventually, to

dissolve her curcumin in hot water. Well, so this heating curcumin business may

make sense after all. Another consideration: back in May I wrote a post on a

study (http://tinyurl.com/2fh26z) that examined the degradation of curcumin

when heated up. I reread it yesterday and found that curcumin was affected

after being boiled in water for ten and twenty minutes.

>>>>>

curcumin will dissolve in alkaline aqueous solutions, but not acid solutions.

The stomach is very acidic but the small intestine is very alkaline.