Reducing Pain/Inflammation & Maximizing Nutrient Absorption:
Turmeric (Curcuma longa) and several other species of the curcuma genus grow wild in the forests of Southern Asia including India, Indonesia, Indochina, nearby Asian countries, and some Pacific Islands including Hawaii. All of these areas have traditional culinary and medicinal uses for Turmeric going back to prehistory. Today, turmeric is grown in many countries including the USA.
Turmeric is known for strengthening and as an anti-inflammatory medicine. Traditional use includes improving digestion, improving quality of intestinal flora, elimination of worms, gas relief, cleansing and strengthen the liver and gallbladder, helping to normalize menstruation, relief of arthritis and swelling (inflammation), blood purification and topically for sprains, burns, cuts, bruises and insect bites.
According to Michael Moriarty, “The ancient Hawaiians used turmeric for many things, including the prevention and treatment of sinus infections, ear infections and gastrointestinal ulcers.”
In recent years turmeric has attracted quite a bit of interest for its natural healing properties, but it has actually been used medicinally for over 10,000 years. Analyses of pots discovered near New Delhi, India uncovered residue from turmeric that dates back as early as 2500 BCE.
The Italian explorer Marco Polo (year 1280) referred to turmeric as Indian saffron, a culinary spice also used as an Asian medicine.
In the mid-20th century, western herbalists began taking note and considering turmeric for herbal use – initially in Germany. In Rudolph Weiss’s book, Herbal Medicine, first published in 1961, he discusses the potential use of turmeric for the digestive system: “Its usefulness as a gallbladder remedy in the narrower sense has been demonstrated. The cholagogue and choleretic action is quite powerful.
While studies were being pursued on Turmeric in European, primarily German laboratories, Asian researchers were independently validating the same properties of turmeric. But their interest extended to the liver protective and curative principles of turmeric and in a series of brilliant papers they reported important findings.The potent anti-inflammatory activity (in the essential oil and in curcumin) of turmeric has been substantiated in other research.
Few contemporary herbalists recommended turmeric through the 1980’s and when they did it was for limited or special uses such as a liver tonic or for menstrual regularity. However, by the early 1990’s a chorus of prominent western herbalists (including Murray, Hobbs, Castleman, Mowrey, Duke, Clark, Tierra, and Pederson), began promoting the use of turmeric for several major health problems. As Michael Castleman put it: “Western herbalists, wake up. Turmeric is a healer.”
Today Turmeric is known as a potent medicinal herb which is widely used in dietary supplements for many health conditions and especially for its anti-inflammatory and digestive actions. Many scientific clinical studies have been conducted on Turmeric indicating its health benefits.
Traditional Uses of Turmeric and Turmeric extracts:
Turmeric contains medicinal properties and has several important compounds.
These compounds are called curcuminoids, the most important of which is curcumin.
1. Curcumin is a natural anti-inflammatory compound
Curcumin is the main active ingredient in turmeric. It has powerful anti- inflammatory effects and is a very strong antioxidant.
It is now believed that chronic, low-level inflammation plays a major role in almost every chronic, Western disease. This includes arthritis, heart conditions, malignant conditions, aging, and various other degenerative health conditions. Therefore, anything that can help fight chronic inflammation is of potential importance in preventing and treating these health conditions.
It turns out that curcumin is strongly anti-inflammatory, it is so powerful that it matches the effectiveness of some anti-inflammatory pharmaceuticals.
Curcumin actually targets multiple steps in the inflammatory pathway, at the molecular level.
Curcumin blocks NF-kB, a molecule that travels into the nuclei of cells and turns on genes related to inflammation. NF-kB is believed to play a major role in many chronic diseases.
2. Curcumin helps to increase the antioxidant capacity of the body.
Oxidative damage is believed to be one of the mechanisms behind aging
and many diseases.
It involves free radicals, highly reactive molecules with unpaired electrons. Free radicals tend to react with important organic substances, such as fatty acids, proteins or DNA.
The main reason antioxidants are so beneficial, is that they protect our bodies from free radicals.
Curcumin has powerful antioxidant effects that can neutralize free radicals due to its biochemical structure and also boosts the activity of the body’s own antioxidant enzymes. Curcumin helps the body to block free radicals and then stimulates the body’s own antioxidant mechanisms.
3. Curcumin Elevates Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor, Linked to Improvement of Brain Function and a Lower Risk of Brain imbalances.
We used to believe that neurons in the brain were not able to divide and multiply after early childhood. However, we now know that this is not true. Neurons can divide and multiply. They are capable of forming new connections, but in certain areas of the brain, they can also multiply and increase in number.
One of the main drivers of this process is Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF), which is a type of growth hormone that functions in the brain.
Many common brain disorders have been linked to decreased levels of this hormone including depression and Alzheimer’s conditions.
Curcumin can increase brain levels of BDNF and may be effective at delaying or even reversing many brain imbalances and age-related conditions that affect brain function.
4. Curcumin Leads to Various Improvements That Could Lower Your Risk of Heart Disease.
Heart disease is still the biggest killer in the world.
Curcumin may help reverse some aspects related to the heart disease process.
One of the main benefits of curcumin when it comes to heart disease, is improving the function of the endothelium, which is the lining of the blood vessels.
It is well known that endothelial dysfunction is a major driver of heart disease and involves an inability of the endothelium to regulate blood pressure, blood clotting and various other factors.
Several studies suggest that curcumin leads to improvements in endothelial function. One study shows that is even as effective as exercise.
5. Arthritis Patients Respond Well to Curcumin Supplementation.
Given that curcumin is a potent anti-inflammatory, it makes sense that it helps ameliorate arthritis conditions. Many studies show this to be true. Arthritis is a common disorder characterized by joint inflammation. Many studies show that curcumin helps treat symptoms of arthritis.
6. Curcumin is Powerful Antidepressant.
Curcumin has shown great promise in treating depression.
In a controlled trial, 60 patients were randomized into three groups. One group took prozac, another group took a gram of curcumin and the third group took both prozac and curcumin. After 6 weeks, curcumin led to improvements that were similar to prozac. According to this study, curcumin may be very effective as an antidepressant.
Depression is also linked to reduced levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor and a shrinking hippocampus, a brain area with a role in learning and memory. Because curcumin enhances BNDF levels, a reduced neurotrophic factor and shrinking hippocampus may be mitigated to some degree, potentially reversing some of these changes.
There is also some evidence that curcumin can boost the brain neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine, improving mood and reducing anxiety.
7. Curcumin longevity and anti-aging.
Because curcumin helps to prevent and treat many help conditions this gives it obvious benefits for longevity.
For this reason, curcumin has become very popular as an anti-aging supplement and given that oxidation and inflammation are believed to play a role in aging, curcumin may have effects that go far beyond just the prevention of illness and help us to live longer and healthier lives.
MICRONIZED TURMERIC EXTRACT
One of the main actives as found in Turmeric is curcumin or curcuminoids. These alkaloid parts of the Turmeric root represent some of the most potent compounds and characteristics of Turmeric ’s medicinal qualities and are known to produce powerful anti-inflammatory and enhanced positive digestive effects when used properly by health practitioners or as a dietary supplement.
Chemical Free Body has developed a special micronized Turmeric extract liquid, Turmeric 100™, that is very high in curcumin actives and has the added feature of micronization that increases its potency exponentially.
What is micronization and how does this create a more potent product? Let’s answer this question by first understanding how the technology of micronization potentizes a food supplement active and then explain how micronized turmeric actives work in the body to help to improve your health.
Micronization
The process of micronization or making small nanoparticles from larger particles or grains of a food, food supplements, herbal supplements, herbal actives or drugs is known as micronization.
Micronization is simply a process by which the average particulate diameter of a solid substance is reduced to only a few micrometers, or millionths of a meter. However, for pharmaceutical and food supplement purposes, the size of the particles is usually reduced to the scale of nanometers, or billionths of a meter.
Micronization can be very beneficial as a delivery system for medicinal actives.
Nutritionists have discovered that the body can absorb water-soluble dietary supplements more readily than it can absorb non-water-soluble materials. They also discovered that the body absorbs substances composed of smaller particles more efficiently, quickly and easily than it absorbs larger particles. In fact, the smaller the particle is, the more easily the body can take advantage of it. Clinical studies indicate that micronizing the particle can increase its absorption and bioavailability rate.
With micronization the delivery of nutrients can by-pass the digestive systems and the blood-brain barrier and become trans-dermally absorbed. This means that a liquified and micronized nutrient or active can be quickly absorbed through the mucus membranes of the mouth throat and esophagus and go right into the blood stream by-passing the digestive system for quick and efficient delivery to all organs and cells in the body.
Because micronization allows for transdermal absorption more of the nutrient or active can be absorbed directly into the blood stream and the efficiency of the absorption rate over and above normal digestive delivery can reach up to 100 or more times the normal digestive absorption rate or delivery rate of the nutrient or active. This means that micronized delivery of a nutrient or active ingredient is so potent and efficient that less of that nutrient or active will produce the same or better health benefits and effects. This is due to the better absorption and delivery rate of the micronized material.
The process of micronization as mentioned above is a mechanical process. In other words, the technology of micronization that we are discussing is a natural mechanical process and not a chemical or fermentation process which may also be used for micronization purposes, but is not natural.
The mechanical process of micronization does not change the material being micronized in any way other than making the material into very small particles that can be delivered into the body with higher absorption efficiencies.
In one study a micronized curcumin liquid was given to the participants that showed an over 100-fold or over 100 times the absorption rate of turmeric curcumin active into the body than was observed when ingesting and digesting the curcumin active that was not micronized.
Turmeric 100™ is a micronized Turmeric curcumin extract liquid product that is similar to that as used in the study above and has been shown to be very efficient for absorption. This makes Turmeric 100™ a very potent product for the traditional use of turmeric medicinal applications such as anti-inflammatory or digestive conditions.
References:
- Christina Schiborr, Alexa Kocher, Dariush Behnam, Josef Jandasek, Simone Toelstede, Jan Frank, The oral bioavailability of curcumin from micronized powder and liquid micelles is significantly increased in healthy humans and differs between sexes, Mol Nutr Food Res. 2014 Mar; 58(3):516-27.
- Knez, Željko; Hrnčič, Maša Knez; Škerget, Mojca (2015-01-01). “Particle Formation and Product Formulation Using Supercritical Fluids”. Annual Review of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. 6 (1): 379–407.
- Tandya, A.; Zhuang, H.Q.; Mammucari, R.; Foster, N.R. “Supercritical fluid micronization techniques for gastroresistant insulin formulations”. The Journal of Supercritical Fluids. 107: 9 –16.
- Reverchon, E.; Adami, R.; Campardelli, R.; Della Porta, G.; De Marco, I.; Scognamiglio, M. (2015-07-01). “Supercritical fluids based techniques to process pharmaceutical products difficult to micronize: Palmitoylethanolamide”. The Journal of Supercritical Fluids. 102: 24 – 31.
- Esfandiari, Nadia; Ghoreishi, Seyyed M. (2015-12-01). “Ampicillin Nanoparticles Production via Supercritical CO2 Gas Antisolvent Process”. AAPS PharmSciTech. 16 (6): 1263–1269.
