Another miracle dietary supplement

Useful curcumin with a fatal outcome

Alexey Vodovozov, XX2 century
For links, see the original article.

The search for "superfoods" continues. And although the last really valuable thing that was found in food is vitamins, researchers do not give up trying to isolate a miracle remedy from some fruit or seasoning, and if it does not work out in a good way, they try to drag another candidate into a panacea in a bad way.

It's not enough for food to be just food. It is necessary that it is necessarily useful, preferably – it works as a preventive remedy all at once, and better yet – it also treats something terrible and so far not particularly curable like cancer or Alzheimer's. And even if it is called somehow in a mysterious way, say, goji berries (in the maiden name – berries of the common tree), it's quite good. Well, or at least let him cope with the extra kilos, like green coffee.

Curcumin in this sense is an almost win–win candidate, and the origin is from spices, and the name is appropriate, and the halo of oriental mystery. And it has truly unique properties, if, of course, you believe these internets of yours:

And in some sources they do not hesitate and directly declare:

Well, they are not shy in social networks either:

In 1997, a patent belonging to the University of Mississippi Medical Center for the wound-healing properties of curcumin was revoked, so mass research of the miracle substance was given the green light. And the market is growing rapidly, the Radiant Insights report contains a very optimistic forecast – by 2022 the volume will reach 94.3 million dollars worldwide, which puts it in the top of herbal supplements. What is the reason for such popularity? Let's figure it out.

Let's start with the most terrible for lovers of everything natural (and, therefore, useful): Curcumin is E100. Yellow-orange dye. Yes, yes, a terrible killing additive with the index E (see Codex Alimentarius). Also polyphenol to everything else.

If we analyze all the available qualitative information on curcumin, the conclusion is quite logical and characteristic of all such cases: yes, the substance was studied as a potential drug, no, nothing sensible could be squeezed out of it. Why? There are several objective reasons. The first is bioavailability, estimated at about 1%. It's worse than nothing. The second is a problem with stability, the half-life is calculated in minutes. But when has this stopped alternative artists and their fans?

Turmeric (as a less concentrated form of curcumin) actively sold, for example, as Turmeric Gold, "the latest revolutionary formula, certified organic, extracted with vegetable glycerin without GMOs," and both on frankly alternative sites, including my beloved iherb, and on a seemingly decent Amazon.

Whole turmeric, turmeric extract or pure curcumin are credited with at least 175 different beneficial physiological effects and more than 600 different indications – both in terms of prevention and as part of mono- and complex therapy, and it seems to be more effective than 14 real medicines. And all this is confirmed by "5,600 peer-reviewed studies". If you search through the available databases for these works, it turns out that the lion's share of them falls on the preclinical stage, that is, cell cultures and laboratory animals (mice and rats). And the results found there are of interest mainly for mice and rats, because they are very, very rarely transferred to humans.

Of course, there is anything in Pubmed, including stabilization of some markers of colorectal cancer and even greater effectiveness in rheumatoid arthritis compared to diclofenac. But when analyzing the design of studies, all sorts of interesting features are found that do not allow us to call these works trustworthy, for example, a small sample (in the first case) or single blindness, in which researchers are aware of which group the volunteer belongs to, as well as the absence of a placebo group (in the second case). But if such studies are funded by the US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCAM), the conclusions on the same rheumatoid arthritis are much more modest: "The authors identified the need for well-thought-out preclinical and clinical studies to further study turmeric for anti-inflammatory use." At the same time, NCCAM has spent only $150 million over decades to finally make sure that curcumin is unpromising as a potential drug. That would be enough to calm down. But no.

As is often the case in such cases, alternatives are not limited to oral administration of curcumin. Yes, there are quite a lot of well-founded claims against him, but when curcumin is injected into a vein ... there is no such thing, you say? It even happens:

"I am also pleased to announce that I am now offering intravenous curcumin for people experiencing pain (arthritis, inflammation, etc.). And which is also proving useful for people suffering from Alzheimer's disease/dementia," writes naturopath Kim Kelly. And further explains why curcumin in the vein is good. And also at the same time refers to clinical trials on humans. Only now the case ended in a fatal outcome in a 30-year-old patient with eczema. The second patient, a 71-year-old man, was more lucky, he got off with a severe allergic reaction and managed to be pumped out at the nearest hospital. Too much for an effective and safe panacea, don't you think?

As a cherry on the cake, you can recall another story related to curcumin. It is quite indicative and characteristic of many such cases, as always, everything is tied to money. Suffice it to recall that Andrew Wakefield, who falsified a study on the relationship between MMR and autism, was preparing to launch the production of monovaccines – instead of the "failed" one – at a specially created own "candle factory". Brian Wansink, a leading researcher of eating behavior, who was very stupidly burned and became almost a world champion in the number of recalled articles, is still the author of the healthy nutrition program for schoolchildren implemented in the United States and funded from the federal budget. There is one in curcumin studies. Bharat Bhushan Aggarwal, now a retired professor of biochemistry at the Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas, is one of the active curcumin researchers with an impressive list of publications. Which began to be withdrawn slowly since 2012: it turned out that the professor did not disdain falsifications, in particular, to confirm positive results in different articles, he used the same photoshopped photos, plus straightened the data for the correct concept. The concept, as you can guess, was consonant with the above examples – curcumin is beautiful, useful, safe, effective, buy our curcumin. About "buy" is not a figure of speech, a prudent professor in 2004 became a co–founder of Curry Pharmaceuticals, which, as the name implies, produced the same medicinal product.

When the investigation was just beginning, Aggarwal's lawyers behaved quite aggressively, for example, in 2013 they threatened the well-known Retraction Watch project, demanding to delete the publication about these events and promising otherwise to sue. Lawsuits, however, did not follow, because the situation quickly unfolded to Aggarwal stern: 65 of his articles were compromised. At the time of writing the column, there are decisions on 55 of them: 28 have been withdrawn, 10 of them have been "expressed concern" (what this is is well described in the blog of the PLoS journal by the editorial offices of the journals where they were published), 17 have been corrected.

Is Aggarwal lonely? Unlikely. He just got caught. The same Photoshop is now extremely actively used by unscrupulous scientists around the world, including our country, as the excellent scientific journalist Leonid Schneider regularly writes about. Should I correct a western blot in the photo editor that does not fit into the specified parameters? Easy. Transfer the correct results obtained once to all your subsequent publications? Even easier. Experts of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), who forbid us sausage, shish kebab and other joys of life, are also noticed in this.

Wanting to put a bold end to the curcumin issue, the FDA intends to prohibit its use in any combination drugs, including naturopathic (along with other ingredients, it is mentioned, for example, on page 42 of this 224-page document of the American regulator).

The reasons are as follows:

• low bioavailability;
• lack of uniformity in the substances on the market;
• lack of chemical research with proper design;
• lack of evidence of clinical efficacy of curcumin;
• lack of evidence of curcumin safety;
• the risk of using curcumin instead of FDA-approved medications.

At this point, I will risk stopping the speeches allowed to me and propose to make the final conclusion on my own.

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