Curcumin’s list of health benefits gets bigger each year, but curcumin has one flaw: it is poorly absorbed. Other herbs and supplements are often added to fortify and aid in curcumin’s absorption. While some of those herbs and supplements added can offer specific benefits of their own, sometimes you just want curcumin by itself, and researchers have just unveiled a new nano-formulation of curcumin that raises its bioavailability 117% more.
The most exciting news from this development is that these curcumin nanoparticles have shown huge promise in preliminary animal studies for neurodegenerative conditions.
Curcumin’s potent antioxidant properties help reduce inflammation and detoxify the brain from the amyloid plaques that form during neurodegenerative diseases. These amyloid plaques, made of beta amyloid proteins, tangle and clump abnormally in these affected brains.
This same antioxidant protections are also being tested to treat genital herpes virus due to curcumin’s ability to reduce inflammation and risk of other secondary STIs. The trick is, however, that these types of conditions rely on needing curcumin to be absorbed to the fullest extent possible, so the nanoparticle formulation is exactly what is needed to take research on these conditions and curcumin to the next level.
References
Danielle Vitali, Puja Bagri, Jocelyn M. Wessels, et al. Curcumin Can Decrease Tissue Inflammation and the Severity of HSV-2 Infection in the Female Reproductive Mucosa. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 2020; 21 (1): 337 DOI: 10.3390/ijms21010337
