all about curcumin

[NHE]

Neuroprotective effects of Curcumin
http://www.thisisms.com/forum/natural-a ... 18592.html

Curcumin enhances the activity of Ifn-B
http://www.thisisms.com/forum/natural-a ... 18590.html

Tumeric Root Extract
http://www.thisisms.com/forum/natural-a ... 18591.html

How tumeric (curcumin) works inside the body
http://www.thisisms.com/forum/natural-a ... 18595.html

Curcumin really helps my spasticity!
http://www.thisisms.com/forum/natural-a ... 18594.html

BCM-95 Curcumin
http://www.thisisms.com/forum/natural-a ... 18585.html

Curcumin + Piperine
http://www.thisisms.com/forum/post181912.html#p181912

[THX1138]

This article turned me on to Turmeric / Curcumin years ago.

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/id/QAA288736

[cheerleader]

New research from Johns Hopkins Dept. of Neurology on curcumin as a protector of axons--full paper at link:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 8613003828

Axon degeneration is a hallmark of several central nervous system (CNS) disorders, including multiple sclerosis (MS), Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Parkinson’s disease (PD). Previous neuroprotective approaches have mainly focused on reversal or prevention of neuronal cell body degeneration or death. However, experimental evidence suggests that mechanisms of axon degeneration may differ from cell death mechanisms, and that therapeutic agents that protect cell bodies may not protect axons. Moreover, axon degeneration underlies neurologic disability and may, in some cases, represent an important initial step that leads to neuronal death. Here, we develop a novel quantitative microfluidic-based methodology to assess mechanisms of axon degeneration caused by local neuroinflammation. We find that LPS-stimulated microglia release soluble factors that, when applied locally to axons, result in axon degeneration. This local axon degeneration is mediated by microglial MyD88/p38 MAPK signaling and concomitant production of nitric oxide (NO). Intra-axonal mechanisms of degeneration involve JNK phosphorylation. Curcumin, a compound with both anti-oxidant and JNK inhibitory properties, specifically protects axons, but not neuronal cell bodies, from NO-mediated degeneration. Overall, our platform provides mechanistic insights into local axon degeneration, identifies curcumin as a novel axon protectant in the setting of neuroinflammation, and allows for ready screening of axon protective drugs.

part of the Endothelial Health Program since 2008
http://ccsvi.org/index.php/helping-myse ... ial-health

craving Indian food.....
cheer

[ThisIsMA]

Hi Cheer,

That study you quoted on Curcumin says:

This local axon degeneration is mediated by microglial MyD88/p38 MAPK signaling and concomitant production of nitric oxide (NO).

I see that kind of sentence a lot: that "X" is mediated by "Y". Can you explain what that means? Its the word "mediated" that's tripping me up. I know what the word means in other contexts but it just occurred to me I might be misunderstanding it in a medical study context.

In the above quoted sentence are they saying that increased production of nitric oxide reduces the rate of axon degeneration, or does it make it worse?

Thanks,

M.A. (<--trying to improve my study reading skills)!

[NHE]

I see that kind of sentence a lot: that "X" is mediated by "Y". Can you explain what that means? Its the word "mediated" that's tripping me up. I know what the word means in other contexts but it just occurred to me I might be misunderstanding it in a medical study context.

In the above quoted sentence are they saying that increased production of nitric oxide reduces the rate of axon degeneration, or does it make it worse?

Thanks,

M.A. (<--trying to improve my study reading skills)!

Not to answer for Cheer, but I think 'caused by' is likely the correct interpretation.

[ThisIsMA]

Not to answer for Cheer, but I think 'caused by' is likely the correct interpretation.

Hi NHE,

Wow, I would not have guessed that. So "X" is mediated by "Y" means that "Y" causes "X"? Or to say it another way: Increases in Y cause increases in X? I was thinking just the opposite. I guess I'm confusing the word "moderated" with the word "mediated". I hope someone else jumps in to confirm this, since it will affect how I read study results in the future!

In a non-medical context the word "mediate" means:

To resolve or settle (differences) by working with all the conflicting parties

So I thought in a study context, that a substance named as mediating a process, was a substance that calmed down the problem or helped the problem resolve.

I just tried to look this up further, and found another definition online that seems more medically relevant:

to cause a change, as in stimulation by a hormone.

So I think your definition is correct in a medical context. Its going to take a while to get used to that definition, but it sure makes a huge difference in reading medical studies!

For example in this sentence from earlier in this thread:

This local axon degeneration is mediated by microglial MyD88/p38 MAPK signaling and concomitant production of nitric oxide (NO).

the nitric oxide production is bad, causing the axon degeneration!?

Learn something every day...

M.A.

[seeva]

HI FRENDS PLEASE READ
https://www.turmericforhealth.com/turme ... -sclerosis

CURCUMIN IN THE TURMERIC IS A PROMISING NUTRACEUTICAL AGENT FOR M.S
WE CAN GET CURCUMIN TABLES FROM CHEMIST

regards
seeva

[jimmylegs]

where's the science part

[NHE]

where's the science part

I guess you didn't see the links to the articles on PubMed. They seemed obvious to me.

[jimmylegs]

i don't click through to obviously biased sources without some better evidence for the content. to each their own.

[ElliotB]

Just about every source of information you go to, whether on the web or otherwise, is biased in one way or another. To me, most clinical trials are a sham as they can be easy to manipulate to achieve a desired outcome. By using multiple sources, you can usually weed out the biases.

Quality research really needs and involves using many sources in order to establish facts and weed out biases.

[jimmylegs]

hence the value of academic sources, gold standard research methods, and where one or a few studies don't clarify, a high quality systematic review and meta analysis.
sadly, not every systematic review and meta analysis makes the high quality cut.

[NHE]

i don't click through to obviously biased sources without some better evidence for the content. to each their own.

I believe that you're mistaken about the article. All the links to PubMed peer reviewed journal articles are right there. All you have to do is hover your cursor over the link to see where it goes. It's easy, really. I could repost the links for each of the 8 points of their article, but if you're not willing to look at them for yourself, then what's the point.

[jimmylegs]

i think you're assuming i took the clickbait

[jimmylegs]

Deceptive curcumin offers cautionary tale for chemists
Spice extract dupes assays and leads some drug hunters astray.
https://www.nature.com/news/deceptive-c ... ts-1.21269

Inside the golden-yellow spice turmeric lurks a chemical deceiver: curcumin, a molecule that is widely touted as having medicinal activity, but which also gives false signals in drug screening tests. For years, chemists have urged caution about curcumin and other compounds that can mislead naive drug hunters.

Now, in an attempt to stem a continuing flow of muddled research, scientists have published the most comprehensive critical review yet of curcumin — concluding that there’s no evidence it has any specific therapeutic benefits, despite thousands of research papers and more than 120 clinical trials. The scientists hope that their report will prevent further wasted research and alert the unwary to the possibility that chemicals may often show up as ‘hits’ in drug screens, but be unlikely to yield a drug.

“Curcumin is a cautionary tale,” says Michael Walters, a medicinal chemist at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and lead author of the review (K. M. Nelson et al. J. Med. Chem. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jmedchem.6b00975; 2017), published on 11 January. Commonly used drug screens detect whether a chemical latches on to a binding site of a protein implicated in disease — a hint that it may be the starting point for a drug. But some molecules, such as curcumin, seem to show such specific activity when there is none. The molecules may fluoresce naturally, foiling attempts to use fluorescence as a signal of protein binding. They may disrupt cell membranes, duping assays that try to spot drugs targeting specific cell-membrane proteins. And they may surreptitiously degrade into other compounds that have different properties, or contain impurities that have their own biological activity.

Chemists call these irritants PAINS (pan-assay interference compounds) — and curcumin is one of the worst. “Curcumin is a poster child for these promiscuous molecules that come up often in screens,” says James Inglese, who directs assay development and screening technology at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. “A lot of people doing this kind of work aren’t technically aware of all the issues that this thing can cause.”

“Much effort and funding has been wasted on curcumin research,” says Gunda Georg, co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, which published the review. Even so, she says, her journal sees a regular stream of curcumin manuscripts. Curcumin has been proposed to treat such disorders as erectile dysfunction, hirsutism, baldness, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, says Guido Pauli, a natural-product researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a co-author of the review. But it’s never yielded a proven treatment.

Pauli thinks part of the problem is that researchers don’t always know what molecule they are studying. Turmeric extracts contain dozens of compounds besides curcumin, which is itself used as a shorthand for three closely related molecules. In some cases, researchers may observe promising biological effects but ascribe activity to the wrong molecule.

Misinterpretations feed on themselves, Walters says. Curcumin gets reported as having an effect even if the assay was flawed. “People accept what is in the literature as being correct and then build a hypothesis, even though it doesn’t hold up.” And scientists don’t seem to check the literature to see whether compounds have been flagged as problematic. At least 15 articles on curcumin have been retracted since 2009 and dozens more corrected.

Many researchers are still optimistic about curcumin. “There is evidence that the biological activity of curcumoids is real,” says Julie Ryan, a radiation oncologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York. She says that it interacts with many different proteins and so works differently from many drugs. Ryan has tested curcumin in clinical trials for dermatitis on more than 600 people. Although she found no significant effect, she says there were trends that warrant further study. She thinks that chemically modified forms of curcumin might prove more effective at reaching tissues.

But the review shows that getting real answers will be tough, says Bill Zuercher, a chemical biologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “It may very well be the case that curcumin or turmeric extracts do have beneficial effects, but getting to the bottom of that is complex and might be impossible,” he says. Walters isn’t confident that his report will stop poorly conducted research. “The people who should be reading this probably won’t,” he says.