Posted by andrewb on September 21, 2010, at 15:07:04
I havent posted here in a number of years but I think this is worth passing along. I started taking a new bioavailable form of the spice/supplement curcumin (Longvida brand) 4 months ago (1). It seems to have taken away completely my post exercise malaise. Since I have been an adult Ive always gotten brain fog and low and fragile mood about 24 to 72 hours after exercise. Nothing has seemed to really work for it until now, and Ive tried sooo many things over the decades(2). When I went off of the curcumin briefly, the post exercise malaise returned. My girlfriend also started this curcumin at the same time and it seems to have helped her a lot too. She used too get moody (crying, etc.) when a part of her body became inflamed through overuse or injury, and that seems to have passed.
Im wondering if this curcumin might be of help to a number of mental conditions. Curcumin has been researched a lot, in over a hundred medical and scientific journal articles in the last year alone. It has been well established that it is an anti-inflammatory, or more specifically, an inhibitor of a mediator of inflammation called NF-kappaB. It is also increasingly believed that inflammation, and specifically NF-kappaB is involved in the genesis of a variety of mental conditions including stress induced depression and schizophrenia(3,4). The problem with curcumin in its natural form is that an insignificant amount gets past the gut, let alone the blood-brain barrier. It seems this new formulation gets relevant amounts into both the blood and the brain(5,6). This was accomplished by creating curcumin microparticles and then coating them with a combination of 2 lipids; stearic acid and lecithin (possibly including phosphatidylcholine). Anyway, this product was developed by a group of neuroscientists at UCLA for Alzheimers patients. More information is available at the Longvida site.
It seems to me that the anti-inflammatory effects take up to a week to take full effect. I take four 500mg. capsules before bed, my girlfriend takes 3. Curcumin has other speculated anti-depressive actions that I guess would take longer to take effect, these include the modulation of the neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine, and increasing neurogenesis via neurotrophic factors such as brain derived neurotrophic factor(7).A few important notes:
- I dont have any financial connection with Longvida curcumin other than as a paying customer, and this is not an endorsement of this product, or a recommendation to take curcumin.
- This curcumin may work synergistically with a COX-2 inhibitor such as Celebrex in some conditions.
- Possible known side effects include: diarrhea at higher does, elevated cholesterol, and issues with blood thinning.
- Curcumin has a broad array of actions. Ive just focused on it as a NF-kappaB inhibitor in this post.
- Lastly and most importantly. Curcumin at these levels has been evaluated VERY little in human trials. In my uneducated opinion, this product should be treated as a new drug, potential powerful but also potentially dangerous. For example, while excess NF-kappaB inhibition has been implicated in many disorders, it also is a necessary and useful body process. The immune system is meant to work on the local level, the microenvironment. Overriding the immune system by taking agents that act on the whole body cant be expected to be without at lest some negative consequence.Footnotes:
(1) Curcumin is the lipid-soluble antioxidant compound obtained from the rhizome of Curcuma Longa Linn, also known as turmeric.
(2) As I recall, L-glutamine did help some though.
(3) Nuclear factor-kappaB is a critical mediator of stress-impaired neurogenesis and depressive behavior, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 February 9.
(4) The interaction of nuclear factor-kappa B and cytokines is associated with schizophrenia, Biol Psychiatry. 2009 Mar 15.
(5) Curcumin Structure-Function, Bioavailability, and Efficacy in Models of Neuroinflammation and Alzheimers Disease, J Pharmacol Exp Ther. 2008 July.
(6) Safety and pharmacokinetics of a solid lipid curcumin particle formulation in osteosarcoma patients and healthy volunteers, J Agric Food Chem. 2010 Feb 24.
(7) An Overview of Curcumin in Neurological Disorder, Indian J Pharm Sci. 2010 MarApr. Note: this article also hypothesizes that curcumin may be useful in treating tardive dyskinesia. Caveat though, Ive read a number of scientific articles out of India touting the multifold potential benefits of curcumin, and I feel the tone and content of the articles tend to be that of an advocate rather than that of scientific neutrality.
poster:andrewb
thread:963278
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20100812/msgs/963278.html