HOW TO MAKE TUMERIC/CURCUMIN MORE EFFECTIVE

Today I was looking up some information on curcumin and turmeric and I found this  website .  I am not a cancer survivor  rather I have another very debilitating chronic illness  due to a long-term  bout with Lyme disease .  I was a healthy bike rider reduced to bed and not being able to stand or hold down food. I also required 27 hours of surgery due to a complication.  I have post treatment Lyme disease, adrenal fatigue and  an immune system and  nervous system that has gone haywire .  With that said, I thought I might share with you  what I have found about curcumin and diet.   Both have multiple benefits and are bringing me back to living.  Hope this is helpful... prayers to you all...... 

I  found a powdered curcumin ( drink mix) that comes in a plastic jar.  I use it in soups and smoothies and tea, also sprinkle it in salad etc. I add pepper.  It dissolves well with a little fat .  I use healthy oils high in omega 3 fatty acids such as walnut, avocado, and coconut oil mostly.  I find it dissolves best in soup without adding more oil. 

I also have eliminated sugar, dairy, beef , shellfish, soy, wheat, gluten, and unhealthy fats from my diet. I eat chicken, turkey, fish, eggs, lamb, duck,...  other game meats i can eat but don't like them.....I have three servings of a cleansing vegetable like Kale and artichokes, two cruciferous, one serving of another vegetable like tomato, etc., one serving of beans, nuts especially walnuts, one to two servings of berries, and coconut almond or cashew milk, and three tsps of a healthy fat each day.  ...  olive, walnut, avocado oil, high oleic sunflower, coconut, sesame, e g.

 I have also found many vitamins , especially B12, may not be absorbed. Methcobalamin is the most effective form to take. Calcium citrate is also the best absorbed form.  

I went to a nutritionist at the Center for Integrative Medicine at university of Maryland . I also worked with a doctor of osteopathy as well as my traditional Dr.   They helped me find the right vitamins and nutrients, as well as what to eat during the day.  They found that I had multiple vitamin deficiencies. The right food really made a difference in terms of how I feel. I can walk a little now and I'm doing much better with ADLs.   I can do this type of diet for the rest of my life. And if I want something sweet I had a little Stevia to some fruit or a fruit cobbler. My family doesn't seem to mind either and my husband is a picky eater.....or was... These people that think that diet doesn't matter are just crazy. I guess in some ways we are what we eat. 

Here's to Good Health. Best wishes

Hi,
I came across this discussion board while doing some research on turmeric on the net.  I've been using it for several years in cooking, as I am a survivor of Hodgkin's Lymphoma and wished to improve my odds of not getting secondary cancer from the treatments that I received many years ago.   Several users raised the question of dosage, and I thought the following information might be helpful.  First, let me say that I believe use of the actual spice is better than using supplements in all cases.  The supplements may or may contain the advertised dosage of key ingredient, they may or may not contain undesirable chemicals in the filler or binding, and the actual spice may contain additional helpful, perhaps even crucial components, yet to be discovered.  Second, the correlation between turmeric intake and differential cancer incidence rates between the US and India listed below might not be due solely to turmeric, but to other dietary differences, differences in physical activity level and other factors between the two nations.  However, I offer them because I thought they were interesting data when I read about them.

First, there was an excellent article published in 2010 in the Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention entitled "Measurement of Spices and Seasonings in India: Opportunties for Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention" which is available on the net, for free and in English.  Table 1, labeled "per capital spice consumption" compares three different cities in different regions of India.  The mean monthly consumption of turmeric varied from 21.8 to 28.6 grams.  There are 5 grams in a teaspoon, so mean monthly consumption per person in this study was between 4.4 and 5.7 level teaspoons per month, approximately. 

The second set of data that might be of interest to you is from a 2015 article by Dr. Michael Greger, also available free and in English on the net, entitled "Why are Cancer Rates so Low in India?".  That article cites other research which indicates that, compared to India, rates of cancer in the United States are 23 times higher for prostate cancer, at least 8 times higher for melanoma, at least 10 times higher for colorectal, 9 times higher for endometrial, 7 times higher for lung and bladder, and 5 times higher for breast cancers.  Once again, turmeric may only be a part of the reason, but even if it accounts for only a portion of that advantage, Indians accomplish this result with a median of less than 6 teaspoons a month.  For those of you interested in the upper end of Indian turmeric consumption, the 90th percentile ranged from 50 to 59.4 grams a month, or 10 to 12 teaspoonfuls.  If you consume turmeric every other day, that's well less than teaspoon.

Hope this was of interest to at least a few of you folks on here.  Good luck to you!
Pete

Thanks Pete for taking the time to share this information with us. I hope all is well with you these days!

Love and Hugs,

Cindi

I have a question about turmeric supplements...

Why use supplements at all?  Why not just use fresh turmeric, fresh black pepper, and olive oil?  It seems a lot cheaper and easier that trying to figure out which siupplements are "good or bad" and which ones have the right mistures.  What is the benefit to the supplement?

craig732 said:

I have a question about

I have a question about turmeric supplements...

Why use supplements at all?  Why not just use fresh turmeric, fresh black pepper, and olive oil?  It seems a lot cheaper and easier that trying to figure out which siupplements are "good or bad" and which ones have the right mistures.  What is the benefit to the supplement?

Your body can't absorb enough curcumin quickly enough before it passes out of your system. Google articles on curcumin absorption rates and you'll see that you have to either (1) take your supplement with oil or, better, (2) buy a supplement which has been specifically processed, usually using Piperine, for proper absorbtion. Here's a big long article about it, #6 addresses that part

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3918523/

It's definitely worth paying for a one-year subscription to ConsumerLab. I did after bumbling around and worrying that I was gagging on boatloads of pills that did no good. You can also check out the Memorial Slone Kettering supplements website. It doesn't speak to brands but I've found it very useful. 

https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/diagnosis-treatment/symptom-management/integrative-medicine/herbs