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    Turmeric: Nature's Miracle Healer: Fact or Fiction
    Turmeric: Nature's Miracle Healer: Fact or Fiction
    Turmeric: Nature's Miracle Healer: Fact or Fiction
    Ebook176 pages1 hour

    Turmeric: Nature's Miracle Healer: Fact or Fiction

    By Penelope Ody

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    About this ebook

    Turmeric is a traditional herbal remedy that has been used for centuries and in recent years has been hailed as a "miracle cure" for a range of illnesses from arthritis to auto-immune disease. Penelope Ody, one of Britain's leading herbalists, draws on the extensive scientific studies that have appeared on curcuminoids (one of the many chemical constituents of turmeric) in one of the most authoritative book on turmeric currently available. In Turmeric Penelope Ody provides a history of turmeric and its therapeutic role. From its cultivation to its traditional use in Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine to its centrality to the Asian diet (including some recipes, since many will be familiar with turmeric as a culinary spice). Turmeric has been used medicinally in South Asia for more than 4,000 years; today its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties are well established and may be helpful for a host of illnesses, from arthritis and diabetes to Alzheimer's and heart disease. Penelope Ody investigates this ancient remedy's suitability for twenty- first century ailments separating the hysteria about its benefits from a realistic evaluation into how it can help to improve any reader's health.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSouvenir Press
    Release dateSep 1, 2018
    ISBN9780285644045
    Turmeric: Nature's Miracle Healer: Fact or Fiction
    Author

    Penelope Ody

    As well as being a respected journalist and editor focussed on retail and information technology, Penelope Ody qualified as a medical herbalist in the 1980s and practised part-time for 11 years. She has written more than 20 books on herbal topics, edited The Herb Society's journals from 1988 to 1994 and has written on herbal and health topics for several consumer magazines. She frequently gives talks on herbal topics for both the general public and specialist groups and since 2002 she has held day courses on various herbal subjects at her home in Hampshire.

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      Book preview

      Turmeric - Penelope Ody

      Chapter 1

      Fashionable hype … and confusion

      One of those irritating spam e-mails arriving in my in-box just as I began writing this book seemed to sum it all up perfectly: Turmeric "… a remedy for every kind of human inflammation, [brand name] now brings it to you in a bottle! CURES WHATEVER AILS YOU. If you talk to turmeric fans, they’ll tell you it can cure cancer, reduce your risk of disease, and flood your body with life-saving anti-oxidants".

      The spam message was typical of the advertising that surrounds many of the turmeric-based remedies sold in health food shops. If even half the marketing hype one reads about turmeric were true it could well fall into the nature’s miracle category. The question to ask is, of course, just how valid are the numerous claims made for the herb? Traditionally, turmeric’s medicinal uses have been far more limited than much of the current media hype suggests. If it really achieves half the cures claimed for it, then it would be rather strange if these actions had only become apparent in the past 20 years and had never been noticed during its millennia of use. Perhaps the placebo effect is playing a part with those turmeric fans so convinced of the herb’s near-magical properties that the health benefits they perceive are a classic case of mind over matter?

      Turmeric – particularly its chemical constituents, the curcuminoids, responsible for the yellow colouring – has been extensively studied in recent decades. In 2015 a database¹ was established to attempt to keep track of all this research. At the time of writing it lists 10,971 publications on curcumin as well as 962 patents involving the substance.

      An extensive review of curcumin chemistry published in 2017² noted that since the late 1990s the number of scientific papers published about curcumin had increased exponentially from around 100 per year to some 1,400 in 2016. Although this study focussed on curcumin chemistry, rather than turmeric as a whole, it noted how any negative studies about the constituent tended to be swept away in the face of a … torrent of papers, reviews, patents, and Websites touting the use of curcumin … as an anticancer agent, a therapeutic for Alzheimer’s disease, a treatment for hangovers, erectile dysfunction, baldness, hirsutism, a fertility-boosting and contraceptive extract, collectively establishing the properties expected of a panacea. While the curcuminoids have been the focus of much research, this study raised significant questions as to whether these chemicals really are entirely responsible for turmeric’s therapeutic properties. Not that this appears to concern the manufacturers of the various curcumin extracts.

      Much research into herbs is aimed at identifying key chemical constituents, which can then be individually extracted or replicated synthetically to produce unique drugs. These can be patented and thus become profitable for the companies involved. There is little incentive in researching – at considerable expense – a whole plant that can then be grown in a back garden or foraged and be used – for minimal expense – by anyone who wishes to benefit.

      A problem with this isolated chemical approach is, of course, that as far as herbs are concerned the whole plant is often greater than the sum if its parts. Examples abound: such as meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria) which contains the same chemical as aspirin, but the whole herb is used as a remedy for gastritis, whereas aspirin alone is a significant cause of stomach inflammation; or dandelion leaf (Taraxacum officinale) – a potent diuretic – that is extremely rich in potassium, which is lost from the body by excessive urination, so the herb is effectively putting back what it is taking out.

      We also know very little about how the various chemical constituents of a plant work together to create physiological effects. While the constituents of many herbs have been identified there are often a few that remain unclassified and inevitably the mix varies depending on growing conditions, age of the plant, soil composition and so on. While individual plant constituents can be highly significant – as with digoxin and digitoxin from the foxglove – when used in isolation these chemicals can have very different therapeutic properties from the whole plant.

      The result, seen on any health food store shelf, is that while some manufacturers are happy to sell capsules filled only with turmeric powder, many others prefer to offer a variety of curcuminoid extracts: sometimes just curcumin, sometimes all of the curcuminoids, and sometimes a mixture of curcumin and other herbs or vitamins.

      The various curcumin and curcuminoid extracts are produced by a small number of global companies specialising in biotechnology or pharmaceuticals (see Chapter 4). These patented products are then used by numerous supplement manufacturers to make the wide assortment of pills, capsules and liquid extracts available. The various patented products have also been used in many company-sponsored research studies and clinical trials, which are used to support the various claims made by the producers of the final consumer products.

      How these manufacturers market the final products varies and can lead to significant confusion in the claims they make and the language they use to promote their products. Because curcumin has poor absorption when taken orally (most is simply excreted) the extract makers have tried various tactics to improve its bioavailability. One website³, for example, offers a product that contains 95% curcuminoids and declares that turmeric has traditionally been used for nearly every health condition known – from smallpox to a sprained ankle. Another⁴ puts its claim for a comparable product rather differently as yields 95% curcuminoids. Yield is entirely different to contains as it implies how much of the curcuminoids present may be available to someone taking the remedy. Some talk of enhancing bioavailability by up to 285 times while others prefer to claim 2000%, which is mathematically confusing.

      The various curcuminoid capsules on the market typically contain anything from 20mg to 250mg or more of the designated extract and, typically, two capsules per day are recommended. The amount of curcuminoids in turmeric varies, from about 1% to 6% – occasionally more – depending on variety and where grown, but generally accepted to average about 4.5%. Given this low and variable content, if the curcuminoids really are the key therapeutic constituents high doses of turmeric would probably have been needed in the past to have any significant affect.

      Doses of turmeric suggested by today’s herbalists vary: the simplest will probably involve a teaspoonful of powdered rhizome (about 4g) mixed with milk to form a slurry and to be taken twice a day. This would deliver around 360mg of curcuminoids. Chinese medicine – not known for prescribing low quantities of herbs – gives the recommended dose of whole turmeric as 3–9g per day, which could provide, on average, anything from 135mg to 405mg of curcuminoids daily. These turmeric dosages thus provide rather less curcumin than that supposedly delivered by many of today’s curcumin food supplements; in reported clinical trials involving extracts, dosages of 2–5g of curcumin daily are not uncommon.

      Increasing the dosage of any herb is not always going to deliver greater benefit: it can simply increase the risk of side effects. As the 15th century herbalist Paracelsus famously declared: In all things there is a poison and there is nothing without a poison. It depends only upon the dose whether a poison is a poison or not.

      For anyone hoping to use turmeric to treat a particular ailment or improve their general health, the wide variation in curcuminoid content and apparent dosages is confusing. As is the enormous range of ailments which turmeric is said to treat. The list provided by one online health site⁵ is impressive: "Turmeric is used for arthritis, heartburn (dyspepsia), joint pain, stomach pain, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, bypass surgery, haemorrhage, diarrhoea, intestinal gas, stomach bloating, loss of appetite, jaundice, liver problems, Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection, stomach ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), gallbladder disorders, high cholesterol, lichen planus, skin inflammation from radiation treatment, fatigue, headaches, bronchitis, colds, lung infections, fibromyalgia, leprosy, fever, menstrual problems, itchy skin, recovery after surgery, cancers, depression, Alzheimer’s disease, swelling in the middle layer of the eye (anterior uveitis), diabetes, water retention, worms, systemic lupus erythematosus, tuberculosis, urinary bladder inflammation, kidney problems and externally for pain, ringworm, sprains and swellings, bruising, leech bites, eye infections, acne, inflammatory skin conditions and skin sores, soreness inside of the mouth, infected wounds, and gum disease".

      It is an impressive, if slightly bizarre, list for a herb that traditionally has been limited to little more than use in digestive problems, pain relief, eye disease, urinary tract disorders, some menstrual complaints and to beautify the skin. This book attempts to cut through some of this hype, identify the real therapeutic nature of turmeric, evaluate the claims made for curcumin and the various patented extracts and make some practical suggestions for using turmeric to deliver genuine health benefits.

      A note of caution

      There have been cases of medicinal grade curcumin being adulterated with synthetically made substitutes, while culinary grade turmeric is often mixed with fillers – typically rice flour, chalk powder or starch – which has been coloured yellow with lead chromate or metanil yellow, a non-permitted food colouring widely used in India which in chronic consumption can affect the nervous system⁶.

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