Curcumin Supplements - What to Look For?

Before you buy curcumin supplements, you need to know what to look for. Otherwise you could end up wasting your money or worse, you could end up with more health problems than you started with.

First, you need to know about "bioavailability".

The term is used by researchers to describe a drug's or nutrient's ability to be used by the cells of the body, their ability to pass into the bloodstream. Research has shown that the antioxidant does not show up in blood serum, even after eating large quantities.

Where does it go?

Most of it stays in the digestive system. It is rapidly degraded by stomach acid. In this form, it may still be beneficial for conditions such as ulcerative colitis and inflammatory bowel.

It might help prevent colorectal cancer as well, but some of the purported health benefits would require that it enters the bloodstream.

So, even high dose curcumin supplements may not provide the benefits that you are looking for. That's money wasted, but high doses can also cause health problems. Nausea and diarrhea have been reported in clinical studies.

It may also interfere with iron metabolism, which could cause anemia. These unwanted side effects are not seen at low to moderate dosages, but that brings us back to the problem of bioavailability.

It is possible to address that problem with a tablet that has an enteric coating. It is stomach acid that causes the degradation or breakdown of the beneficial compound.

An enteric coating protects it from that. The coating would also prevent any nausea or stomach upset.

Once the tablet passes the stomach, the nutrient is released into the upper intestine. There, it can pass through the intestinal wall and enter the bloodstream. Problem solved? Almost.

Safe daily dosages are in the range of 50-100mg per day, but with that small amount, we want to be sure that all of it is absorbed.

If your curcumin supplements contain piperine, it is included to insure that the entire nutrient is absorbed. Piperine is found in black pepper. It increases the bioavailability of many nutrients, including beta-carotene, selenium, B6 and amino acids.

When it comes to curcumin, it increases the bioavailability of that nutrient by 2000%.

Piperine has health benefits of its own. It improves digestion, reduces pain, may help reduce asthma attacks and increases the production of serotonin, one of the body's "feel good" chemicals.

Curcumin supplements, if properly designed, reduce inflammation, support brain, heart and liver health, reduce your risk of various types of cancer, support healthy immune system function and contribute to digestive health.

If you are looking for the best single-ingredient supplement, the only one that I would recommend is omega3 DHA fish oil. It's good for the brain, the heart and the joints.

But, even then, it is best to shop around for the highest quality, if you want to see the most benefit.

When it comes to antioxidants like curcumin supplements, there are just too many beneficial ones to choose from. Luckily, we don't have to.

Some supplements contain practically all of them.