History Of The Turmeric Spice

Other Common Names: Curcumin, Curcuma, Curcuma longa

Range: Southern Asia. Cultivated in China, Bengal and Java.

The plant is a large-leaved herb, closely related to ginger. It is cultivated in tropical countries for the thick, rounded, underground stems or rhizomes, which constitute the spice, turmeric. Turmeric contains an oil, which consists in part of curcumin, which on oxidation is changed into vanillin, the active principle in vanilla. Curcumin is the yellow pigment of turmeric. Curcumin is the ingredient which gives curry its yellow color.

Turmeric is the key spice in curry. Curcumin has been used in both the Indian Ayurveda.html">(Ayurvedic) and Chinese Medicine systems for thousands of years. Curcumin studies have shown it to possess the following properties: antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-platelet, cholesterol - lowering antibacterial and anti-fungal effects. It contains a mixture of powerful antioxidant phytonutrients known as curcuminoids.

Turmeric is a mild spice. When curry is hot, that is due to other spices.

A recent paper listed the curcumin content of turmeric powder as about 0.6 percent.

Tumeric is a mild aromatic stimulant seldom used in medicine except as a coloring. It was once a cure for jaundice. It is also used as an adulterant of mustard (Commercial mustard usually combines white mustard for pungency with black mustard for aroma, and the yellow color is due to the addition of turmeric) and a substitute for it and forms one of the ingredients of many cattle condiments. Tincture of Turmeric is used as a coloring agent, but the odour is fugitive. It dyes a rich yellow.

Curcumin shares some of the same effects on the liver as silymarin and cynarin. It has demonstrated similar liver protection activity to silymarin. Curcumin is believed to also be converted to a choleretic compound, perhaps even caffeic acid. Curcumin's documented choleretic effects support its historical use in treating liver and gallbladder disorders. Like cynara extracts, curcumin has also been shown to lower cholesterol levels.

Studies have shown that curcumin inhibits cancer at initiation, promotion and progression stages of tumor development. Research in Germany and India shows that curcumin can also help prevent gallbladder disease. Bromelain is also recommended to aid absorption.

In March 1993, researchers at Harvard Medical School published results of laboratory tests of a new method of screening for potential AIDS drugs. They used genetically engineered cells to test for inhibitors of the "LTR" (long terminal repeat) sequence in HIV; the LTR is important for viral activation. The new test found three inhibitors; one of them is curcumin, a chemical found in the food spice turmeric. It was effective against HIV in both acutely and chronically infected cells.

In Trinidad, about 40 percent of the population is of Indian descent, and uses curry extensively in their diet. Another 40 percent of the population is of African descent, and seldom uses curry. Several years ago, studies of AIDS in Trinidad found that persons of African descent were more than 10 times as likely to have the disease as persons of Indian descent.

One reader of AIDS TREATMENT NEWS started using a turmeric extract with a very high concentration of curcumin -- about 100 times the concentration in ordinary turmeric -- which he obtained from a San Francisco health-food store. A week after he started using it his regularly scheduled blood tests showed a substantial drop in p24 antigen (a measure of viral activity). This unexpected change impressed his physician, a leading AIDS specialist in San Francisco.

The product he used was supplied in capsules, each containing "300 mg. turmeric extract concentrated and standardized for a minimum of preferred 95% curcumin" in a base of whole turmeric, according to the label on the bottle. He took three capsules three times a day -- about 2.5 grams of curcumin per day, for a person who weighs about 100 kg. This dose was chosen arbitrarily; it is considerably greater than the amount of curcumin one would ordinarily get by eating curry, and we do not know whether or not it is safe. Even for this large dose the cost was low, about $2 per day retail in the U. S.

We mention this single case because it may be the first time that anyone has taken curcumin as a potential treatment for HIV, and compared viral-activity measurements before and after starting.

Curcumin is not soluble in water, and animal tests have found very little of it in the bloodstream after it is eaten. Therefore, it would seem that this chemical could not work as an oral drug. But other researchers have reported much higher absorption -- as much as 60 percent or more. And in laboratory studies curcumin is often given to animals in the diet, and various effects are noted.

This apparent contradiction is resolved by results of animal tests, some with radioactive curcumin. Much of the radioactivity does reach the blood and organs, even though the curcumin doesn't -- meaning that the curcumin must have been changed into something else and absorbed in a different form. The same team had earlier reported that about 60 percent of the curcumin was absorbed, since only about 40 percent of the quantity administered was found remaining in the gut -- although only traces were found in the blood. Another paper by the same group concluded that "curcumin undergoes transformation during absorption from the intestine," and noted an unidentified compound that it was changed into. So the fact that chemists do not find curcumin in the blood when they look for it does not rule out the possibility that oral use could have biological effects.

Curcumin is being studied as an anti-inflammatory, as a possible cancer inhibitor, and for other potential medical uses. It is a strong anti-oxidant. A recent search of the Excerpta Medica database found citations to 149 papers, abstracts, etc. which mention curcumin; the word "curcumin" appears in the title of 74 of these. A review of some possible medicinal uses of curcumin was published in 1991.

Curcumin and turmeric have long been in daily human use, and are believed to have little toxicity in moderate doses. However, one group found that large doses caused stomach ulcers in rats. A thorough literature review is needed before large doses are used.

The information above is only suggestive, and does not show that curcumin will have any use in treating AIDS. Most new drug or treatment ideas fail, after later information shows that they are not useful. For curcumin as for any new treatment, the odds are that it, too, will be one of the failures.

But the possibility that curcumin or turmeric might be useful in treating HIV or AIDS is so important that it must be studied further without delay. Curcumin is known to be safe, at least in low and moderate doses, and could be available to everyone. Also, in the laboratory tests it was active against HIV not only in acutely infected but also in chronically infected cells -- where the currently approved drugs such as AZT are ineffective.

The next step in research should be to give a high but safe dose to 10 to 20 people for several weeks, and measure changes in viral activity, either with the readily available p24 test, or with sophisticated research tests such as quantitative PCR, or the branched DNA assay. Both natural turmeric and concentrated curcumin should be tested. If there is a dramatic decrease in viral activity in people (like that seen in the single case so far), then this potential treatment will receive plenty of attention. If there is little or no decrease, then we can forget about curcumin (except as a possible lead compound for drug development) and move on.

We do not know of anybody anywhere in the world doing such a study, or making plans to do so, or otherwise following up on curcumin as a possible AIDS treatment. This is not unusual; there has never been a serious institutional effort to test such treatment leads in early human trials. Medical research is expensive, and requires considerable effort and resources to make anything happen. Those with the resources -- mainly large pharmaceutical companies -- have little commercial or professional incentive to test low-cost, non-proprietary treatments. And government and non-profit research organizations have usually failed to focus on the critical need for getting safe, inexpensive treatment possibilities into small but credible tests for biological activity in humans.

Turmeric paper is prepared by soaking unglazed white paper in the tincture and then drying. Used as a test for alkaloids and boric acid.

See also Goldenseal (Turmeric root).

- Michael T. Murray, N.D. SILYMARIN COMPLEX FOR LIVER DISORDERS published in "Health World" spring 1987
- John S. James. Curcumin Update: Could Food Spice Be Low-Cost Antiviral? - AIDS Treatment News
- Li C.J., Zhang L.J., Dezube B.J., Crumpacker C.S., and Pardee A.B. Three inhibitors of type 1 human immunodeficiency virus long terminal repeat-directed gene expression and virus replication. PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, USA. March 1993; volume 90, pages 1839-1842.
- Cleghorn F, Battoo K, Diaz C, Balbosa S, Jack N, Blattner W, and Bartholomew C. Update on the epidemiology of AIDS in Trinidad. International Conference on AIDS, San Francisco, June 20-23, 1990
- Satoskar R.R., Shah S.J., and Shenoy S.G. Evaluation of anti-inflammatory property of curcumin (diferuloyl methane) in patients with postoperative inflammation. INT. J. CLIN. PHARMACOL. THER. TOXICOL. 1986; volume 24, number 12, pages 651- 654.
- Nagabhushan M. and Bhide S.V. Curcumin as an Inhibitor of Cancer. JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF NUTRITION. 1992; volume 11, number 2, pages 192-198.
- Ammon H.P.T, and Wahl M.A. Pharmacology of Curcuma longa. PLANTA MEDICA. February 1991; volume 57, pages 1-7.

Discuss It!