Arthritis Gold Pepper

Arthritis is back in the news and we immediately went to available treatments for this affliction especially since when combined with obesity is a larger problem for everyone. Gnarled bones and appendages does not make exercise either desirable nor comfortable. The more pain you have the less likely you are to move the body to reduce the pain. Your first desire is to simply reduce the pain.

We looked closer into turmeric treatment for arthritis and discovered that our suggestion to add the spice to your food, while it couldn't hurt, doesn't offer enough relief though it is a good, in our minds, way of thinking "brown." The research in 2006 found:

"Efficacy and mechanism of action of turmeric supplements in the treatment of experimental arthritis - ...before turmeric supplements can be recommended for medicinal use, clinical trials are clearly needed to verify/determine whether treatment with adequate doses of well-characterized turmeric extracts can indeed prevent/suppress disease flares in RA patients, as well as to explore any potential benefits of turmeric dietary supplements in the prevention or treatment of more common forms of arthritis in the general population." - Arthritis & Rheumatism (November 2006)

The researchers tested administering the turmeric in rats with injections. When you add piperine to curcumin and feed them to rats or human volunteers the amount that was absorped was greatly increased. It seems that piperine has an affect of making the effects much more effective. Called "bioavailability" adding spices can add life to your living. Spices are the key to life:

"Black pepper and its pungent principle-piperine: a review of diverse physiological effects - Piperine has been documented to enhance the bioavailability of a number of therapeutic drugs as well as phytochemicals by this very property. Piperine's bioavailability enhancing property is also partly attributed to increased absorption as a result of its effect on the ultrastructure of intestinal brush border. Although initially there were a few controversial reports regarding its safety as a food additive, such evidence has been questionable, and later studies have established the safety of black pepper or its active principle, piperine, in several animal studies. Piperine, while it is non-genotoxic, has in fact been found to possess anti-mutagenic and anti-tumor influences." - Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition (2007)

We're going to be adding black pepper, curcumin, turmeric allspice blends to all of our meals. While it isn't the "Big 10" doing the research and indeed few institutions of high learning in the US are doing the studies either. Most of this we can understand as very few school can afford to provide the necessary funding when there isn't a payoff to the institution in funding. Since above mentioned study is India based and a major source of the turmeric or curcumin for the country and possibly for the institution. We'll take the benefits where we can. Now what should we call this concoction of ours? We're thinking gold pepper!

"Vitamin D, curcumin may help clear amyloid plaques found in Alzheimer's - UCLA scientists and colleagues from UC Riverside and the Human BioMolecular Research Institute have found that a form of vitamin D, together with a chemical found in turmeric spice called curcumin, may help stimulate the immune system to clear the brain of amyloid beta, which forms the plaques considered the hallmark of Alzheimer's disease." - UCLA Newsroom (July 2009)

Add vitamin D supplement to make everything work better. Take a vitamin D pill just before we add the "gold pepper" to our meals and we're protected or better off than we were before the day began. We're healthier and stronger than we would be without it. It's not exercise but its a good start. Making everything work more effectively seems so efficient.