Encapsulated Curcumin from Curry Spice Turmeric May Fight Disease
Recent clinical tests have found that curcumin is more rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream when encapsulated in a liposome. This bioactive yellow compound extracted from the curry spice turmeric serves as an antioxidant and may be useful in treating a number of diseases. From Private MD News:
The study, which appears in the American Cancer Society’s bi-weekly Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, notes that curcumin, an ingredient in yellow curry and the spice turmeric, is known to act as a powerful antioxidant. Because of this property, researchers are performing testing to detect whether the spice can be safely used to treat diseases like colon cancer, psoriasis and Alzheimer’s disease.
One obstacle to treatments, however, is that digestive juices in the gastrointestinal tract quickly destroy curcumin so that very little is absorbed by the bloodstream.
In the past, scientists have encapsulated drugs like insulin into small structures called liposomes, which can improve absorption of the chemicals. Researchers Koji Wada and colleagues are testing whether samples of curcumin, when encapsulated in liposomes, are more effectively immersed into the bloodstreams of laboratory rats.
View the full study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Here is the abstract:
To enhance the curcumin absorption by oral administration, liposome-encapsulated curcumin (LEC) was prepared from commercially available lecithins (SLP-WHITE and SLP-PC70) and examined for its interfacial and biochemical properties. A LEC prepared from 5 wt % of SLP-PC70 and 2.5 wt % of curcumin gave a good dispersibility with 68.0% encapsulation efficiency for curcumin, while those from SLP-WHITE did not. Moreover, the resulting LEC using SLP-PC70 was confirmed to be composed of small unilamellar vesicles with a diameter of approximately 263 nm. The resulting LEC was then examined for its effect on bioavailability in Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats. Three forms of curcumin [curcumin, a mixture of curcumin and SLP-PC70 (lecithin), and LEC] were then administered orally to SD rats at a dose of 100 mg curcumin/kg body weight. The pharmacokinetic parameters following curcumin administration were determined in each form. Pharmacokinetic parameters after oral administration of LEC were compared to those of curcumin and a mixture of curcumin and lecithin. High bioavailability of curcumin was evident in the case of oral LEC; a faster rate and better absorption of curcumin were observed as compared to the other forms. Oral LEC gave higher Cmax and shorter Tmax values, as well as a higher value for the area under the blood concentration-time curve, at all time points. These results indicated that curcumin enhanced the gastrointestinal absorption by liposomes encapsulation. Interestingly, the plasma antioxidant activity following oral LEC was significantly higher than that of the other treatments. In addition, the plasma curcumin concentration was significantly correlated to plasma antioxidant activities, and enhanced curcumin plasma concentrations might exert a stronger influence on food functionality of curcumin. The available information strongly suggests that liposome encapsulation of ingredients such as curcumin may be used as a novel nutrient delivery system.