Turmeric & Black Pepper

Why I'm not convinced of the curcumin and piperine combo.

I bumped into one of my friends, Olivier Sanchez that I studied nutrition with yesterday at an iridology conference (the fab Andrew Mason was teaching behavioural iridology).

We were catching up and the topic of turmeric came up (as it does if you are a nutritional therapist 😅) and he said how terrible the curcumin supplements are on the market.

He had looked at the clinical trials on lots of brands and seen that the data used to back up a lot of the claims by the manufacturers was very poor.

He has written a blog on this that you can read here and he also has a great take on piperine- a substance found in black pepper that is often added to curcumin supplements.

Curcumin is one of many curcuminoids and other compounds found in turmeric. Although it is one of many, it is the one that has been most-researched for providing all the incredible therapeutic effects on the body from arthritis to Alzheimer’s- you name the condition and curcumin is probably going to help.

However, like Olivier, I am slightly sceptical of the curcumin/piperine combo that is being sold in expensive supplements.

I think turmeric is great, I use it a lot in clinical practice but I don’t use curcumin. I think black pepper has its place too (although I prefer long pepper) and I don't use piperine. So I talk in this podcast about why using piperine rings alarm bells for me!

P.S Olivier has written so many blogs would recommend checking out his website and he has got a book coming out on Detox which I know will be great!