Curcumin supplement shown to reduce heart disease risk
Curcumin supplementation may lower risk of heart attacks and strokes according to research from Mashhad University of Medical Sciences in Iran.
Curcumin is a powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory. In a randomised, controlled clinical trial with humans over an eight week period, taking one gram a day of curcumin lowered all the important markers of inflammation – such as levels of C-reactive protein, fasting blood sugar and haemoglobin A1c.
Amirhossein Sahebkar, lead author, explained that ‘metabolic syndrome’, indicating a probability of heart disease, includes having a large waistline, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, low levels of HDL (good) cholesterol and high levels of triglycerides. People with three or more of these classic traits are at higher than average risk of developing heart disease or diabetes or both.
Readers may like to know that the use of black pepper with curcumin greatly increases bioavailability and there are several studies showing that the action of curcumin is synergistic with, and enhanced by, resveratrol and EGCG from green tea.
