Chris Kresser: I just did a kind of fairly deep dive into the literature on curcumin absorption, and it’s really murky, I’ll tell you. Most of the studies that are done on the various preparations are paid for by the companies that are selling those forms of curcumin. Again, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we can’t rely on them, but it does raise questions, and the whole understanding of how curcuminoids work and what the relevant factors are in terms of a supplement is pretty complex because there’s more to it than just absorption. It matters what curcuminoids are present and what the half-life is, how long they stay around in the bloodstream, etc. There’s a lot to consider, and a lot of these studies are comparing apples and oranges. You might see one study that claims 29 times higher bioavailability. Well, what are they comparing that against? Are they looking also at the range of curcuminoids in the product, or are they only looking at bioavailability and absorption? Are they looking at half-life? It’s kind of a mess.
There are all these different forms. There’s Miriva. There’s BCM-95, which is a form of curcumin with piperine, which is a pepper derivative that actually is thought to increase the transport of curcumin from the gut into the bloodstream, but the way it does that apparently is by increasing permeability of the gut, which may not be desirable. But then I’ve talked to a microbiologist at one of the companies that sells curcumin with piperine, and he says the dose of piperine that’s in these products is high enough to increase absorption but not high enough to cause any kind of adverse type of permeability. I’m not sure. He works at that company.
Yeah, it’s kind of unclear what the best form is of curcumin. I think, generally, from what I’ve seen in the literature, liposomal forms of most nutrients are well absorbed, and there is research to support liposomal curcumin. There’s a new form of curcumin, relatively new, called NovaSOL, which looks like it has some pretty good research behind it. There’s Longvida curcumin and CurcuBrain, which we use. I kind of alternated between these different products, and a lot of them seem to help patients. I haven’t yet found a really clear, clear winner in terms of which one to use, so I kind of default to liposomal because I feel pretty confident with that, and then I’ve also been using the Longvida form more often.