Curry Evaluated as a Potential Disease-Fighter

Scientists are reporting on the development of a nanosize capsule that boosts the body's uptake of curcumin, an ingredient in yellow curry now being evaluated in clinical trials for treatment of several diseases.

The investigators' study was published in the October 14, 2009, issue of the American Chemical Society (ACS)' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Koji Wada, from the faculty of agriculture at the University of the Ryukyus (Okinawa, Japan), and colleagues noted that curcumin is a powerful antioxidant found in the spice, turmeric. Clinical trials are assessing its safety and effectiveness for colon cancer, psoriasis, and Alzheimer's disease. However, digestive juice in the gastrointestinal tract quickly destroys curcumin so that little actually gets into the blood.

Scientists have known for years that encapsulating insulin and certain other drugs into structures called liposomes can enhance absorption. The scientists prepared the liposomes encapsulating curcumin and fed them to laboratory rats.

Encapsulating more than quadrupled absorption of curcumin, and also boosted antioxidant levels in the blood. The encapsulating process could be an answer to the problem of increasing curcumin's absorption in the digestive environment of the gastrointestinal tract, the researchers suggested.

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University of the Ryukyus