Cholesterol & Turmeric

Turmeric is a flowering perennial, a large, green-leafed plant of the ginger family, its roots or rhizomes long harvested as a spice and a dye. Turmeric has also been widely used for about 4,000 years as a medicine to treat a variety of illnesses and ailments. While modern animal tests confirm its possible uses as a treatment for many illnesses, human tests have shown positive results in its effect on cholesterol.

What Is Cholesterol?

• Cholesterol is found in the body's cells, a fat-like, waxy substance the body uses for many purposes. One of its essential functions is to manufacture the lining of cell walls and form myelin coverings that act as protective coatings to peripheral nerves. The liver is the chief source of cholesterol in our bodies. When cholesterol leaves the liver it does so in small packets called lipoproteins, internally composed of fat and externally composed of proteins. There are two kinds of cholesterol, HDL, or the "good cholesterol" and LDL, or the "bad cholesterol." Complexly, the body needs both kinds to function well. When a body produces too much, however, it becomes at risk for developing heart disease.

How Does Turmeric Work?

• Preliminary studies indicate that turmeric may assist in preventing atherosclerosis, the accumulation of plaque that limits blood flow to arteries and results in heart attacks and strokes. When turmeric is eaten with a meal, it is thought to have the result of grouping the cholesterol sources in the food, making them nonabsorbable.

What is Curcumin?

• According to a 2007 study by D. Peschel et al. published in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, "Turmeric's cholesterol-lowering effects are the result of the curry spice's active constituent, curcumin, which research reveals is a messaging molecule that communicates with genes in liver cells, directing them to increase the production of mRNA [messenger proteins] that direct the creation of receptors for LDL [bad] cholesterol. With more LDL-receptors, liver cells are able to clear more LCD-cholesterol from the body."

How Does Curcumin Work?

• Laboratory

  Researchers have found that curcumin, the element in turmeric that gives it its deep yellow color, causes changes in how genes appear when involved in cholesterol metabolism. Scientists examined these changes using a human liver cell as a model.

The Results

• The curcumin-treated liver cells resulted in a treated concentration increase in LDL-receptor mRNA of up to seven times greater than without the curcumin. This increase conveyed the probability that curcumin would result in a higher uptake of LDL cholesterol in blood plasma, and in so doing would help the body eliminate more of the bad cholesterol. Furthermore, the curcumin showed no toxicity to the liver cells. The researchers concluded that the curcumin was aiding in the metabolism of cholesterol.

  In 1992, research published in the Indian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology reported that when a small group of subjects ingested 500 mg of curcumin per day for seven days, their total cholesterol droped 11.63 percent and their HDL (good cholesterol) increased by 29 percent.