What is curcumin?

Curcumin is the bioactive, lipophilic, most studied active ingredient of turmeric that belongs to the Zingiberaceae family. The polyphenolic compound of turmeric has well-researched benefits, most of which come due to curcumin’s antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Curcumin has been proven by studies to be a potentially useful nutritional strategy to reduce inflammation, exercise-induced decrease in performance, muscle soreness, and loss of muscle function.

Do curcumin capsules contain soy?

AS-IT-IS curcumin supplement delivers 60 veg capsules with each capsule delivering 500mg of curcumin. Our curcumin capsules are soy-free, gluten-free, contain no sugar, flavour, additives, artificial ingredients, or preservatives. Curcumin capsules have gone through 3rd party lab testing to ensure quality and potency. Curcumin capsules are the convenient way to get the active ingredient of turmeric and provide you with the typical curcumin extract at a higher dose that would be difficult to get through spice alone.

Who is curcumin supplementation suitable for?

Curcumin has potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, it helps improve exercise performance, the potential mechanism of action of muscles, helps offset muscle damage, muscle soreness, impact muscle recovery following exercise. Curcumin supplementation is most suitable for those doing treadmill running, conventional running/walking, cycling, jumping, heavy weight lifting, basketball, football players, swimmers, those who do fitness exercises of the upper and lower body, highly active men and women.

Does curcumin help reduce inflammation?

Yes, curcumin’s anti-inflammatory effects have been widely explored. Although inflammation is a natural physical response triggered when the body begins to repair the damage, inflammation should be limited. Intense exercise involving eccentric contraction (lengthening of muscle that is actively developing tension) causes muscle damage which increases oxidative stress and inflammation which may further lead to muscle fatigue. Depending on the intensity and duration of the eccentric component, it produces great muscular damage, pain, inflammation, and functional deficit. Consuming curcumin works as a nutritional intervention to respond to muscle damage and reduce the accumulation of inflammatory markers, pro-inflammatory cytokines, downregulates inflammatory enzymes.

Curcumin looks like turmeric, are they both the same?

Curcumin is not the same as turmeric. Turmeric’s treasure lies in its active ingredient, curcumin.

Turmeric is the yellow spice that is extracted from the root of the turmeric plant and has been used for medicinal purpose for thousands of years. Curcumin is the principal curcuminoid found in turmeric which gives turmeric its bright colour and is considered the most active constituent of turmeric.

An average turmeric rhizome has just about 2% to 5% curcumin. In that sense, it takes about 25 kilos of turmeric to make just about 1 kilo of curcumin.

How does curcumin benefit exercise performance?

Several studies have shown how curcumin can be beneficial to exercise performance. Studies conducted to assess the potential effects of curcumin on sports performance have revealed that participants of intense physical performance supplemented with curcumin showed reduced oxidative stress, inflammation, decreased muscle pain, muscle damage, superior recovery, muscle performance, and better physiological responses during training. Curcumin promotes antioxidant activity by scavenging a variety of reactive oxygen species, reducing excessive oxidative stress that triggers inflammation and reduces muscle damage.

Does curcumin help with weight loss?

Yes. Although curcumin is not a supplement recommended primarily for weight loss benefits, its anti-inflammatory effects may have a positive influence on weight loss. Curcumin may reduce body mass index by reducing inflammatory markers, and leptin (a hormone that plays a role in obesity). Curcumin may set off inflammatory markers that may result in weight gain, it improves weight loss and metabolic status through increasing basal metabolic rate, which may contribute to help burn calories faster. Curcumin intake upregulates adipocyte energy metabolism which leads to fat loss, upregultes gene expression of phosphorylated AMPK. Curcumin is a safe, natural, well-tolerated product to boost weight loss results.

Does curcumin promote muscle recovery?

Curcumin is very popular in the sports nutrition sector because of its potential to reduce muscle soreness and inflammation caused by strenuous exercise. In athletes especially those that emphasize eccentric contractions can cause microscopic muscular tears and exaggerated inflammatory response. The subsequent muscular pain, inflammation and restriction of movement from exercise-induced muscle damage can limit an athlete’s performance. Faster recovery allows for consistent training which may lead to enhanced adaptation rate and performance. Curcumin results in higher training quality and greater exercise adaptations, it can help athletes perform at their best by supporting accelerated muscle recovery.

How long does it take to see effective results of curcumin?

It may not be possible to say exactly how long it might take before you see the results of curcumin. Some of the experimental evidence suggests that curcumin can have a similar anti-inflammatory activity to the counter anti-inflammatory drugs. Unlike the counter anti-inflammatory drugs, curcumin may not provide immediate effects, however, long term supplementation of curcumin is proven to be safe and provides effective results, without causing many of the side effects. Antioxidant, anti-inflammatory activities of curcumin would reduce inflammation-induced deficits in the regeneration of muscle fibres, soreness and central nervous system fatigue.

Does curcumin help with joint pain?

Yes, curcumin is shown to exert a beneficial effect on joint pain, osteoarthritis. Through its main claim of fame, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, curcumin counteracts the damaging effect of free radicals on joints and helps combat joint pain and inflammation. Curcumin modifies NF-kB signaling, proinflammatory cytokines such as interleukin production, COX-2 activities. While the counter anti-inflammatory drugs can have serious side effects in the gastrointestinal tract, and cardiovascular system, typically 1g/day of curcumin can improve joint pain, swelling, improve joint mobility, and joint stiffness without any reported side effects.

AS-IT-IS Nutrition Curcumin (Turmeric Ext), 0.1 kg