Curry Evaluated as a Potential Disease-Fighter

Koji Wada, from the faculty of agriculture at the University of the Ryukyus (Okinawa, Japan), and colleagues noted that curcumin is a powerful antioxidant found in the spice, turmeric. Clinical trials are assessing its safety and effectiveness for colon cancer, psoriasis, and Alzheimer's disease. However, digestive juice in the gastrointestinal tract quickly destroys curcumin so that little actually gets into the blood.

Scientists have known for years that encapsulating insulin and certain other drugs into structures called liposomes can enhance absorption. The scientists prepared the liposomes encapsulating curcumin and fed them to laboratory rats.

Encapsulating more than quadrupled absorption of curcumin, and also boosted antioxidant levels in the blood. The encapsulating process could be an answer to the problem of increasing curcumin's absorption in the digestive environment of the gastrointestinal tract, the researchers suggested.

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