HowToPreventHeartDisease.com

Would Turmeric Really Protect Your Heart?
 

Turmeric, which has a peppery, warm and bitter flavor, is an essential ingredient for making curry. It gives curry the flavor and yellow color. It is also used in mustard and to color butter and cheese. Meanwhile, turmeric has been used as traditional medicine for 4,000 years to treat a variety of conditions including inflammation, infections and some cancer, and digestive problems.

A study from Thailand by researchers from Chiang Mai University found that extracts from turmeric might prevent heart attack in people who have had recent bypass surgery.

It has been known that during bypass surgery, the heart muscle can be damaged from prolonged lack of blood flow and this would raise the risk of heart attack. The new findings, which were published online on April 5, 2012 in the ‘American Journal of Cardiology’, suggested that curcumins (the yellow pigment in turmeric) might be able to reduce those risks when added to traditional drug treatment.

Half of the 121 consecutive patients, who had non-emergency bypass surgery at their hospital between 2009 and 2001, were given 1-gram curcumin capsules. They took 4 times a day, starting 3 days before their surgery and continuing for 5 days afterward. The other half took the same number of drug-free placebo capsules.

It was designed in such a way that neither study participants nor their doctors knew which heart patients were getting which pills, and surgeons were free to decide on which technique they preferred for each bypass procedure.

During the post-bypass hospital stay, it was found that 13 percent of patients who had been taking curcumins had a heart attack, compared to 30 percent in the placebo group. The researchers noticed that people on curcumins had a 65 percent lower chance of getting a heart attack after they accounted for any initial pre-surgery differences between the groups. Those patients taking curcumins also had lower levels of markers of inflammation and oxidative stress, like C-reactive protein and malondialdehyde in their blood. Though 1 in 5 participants quitted taking their assigned capsules early, there was no difference in the number of side effects including nausea and stomach pain among those taking curcumins versus placebo-users.

While this was the first rigorous and controlled study, conclusion was based on a relatively small group of participants. According to researchers, it needs to be confirmed in larger studies. Furthermore, although curcumins are supposed to be safe, there might be side effects when very large dose are consumed. Some reported side effects include stomach upset, nausea, dizziness or diarrhea. There was a report stating that a person who took very high dose of turmeric (over 1500 mg twice daily) experienced a dangerous abnormal heart rhythm. Nevertheless, there was no clear evidence found to show turmeric was the actual cause.

Some health experts believed curcumins could somehow play a part as previous research has suggested inflammation is involved in the development of a number of medical conditions including heart disease.

For many years, curcumin has been shown to reduce inflammation and to reduce oxygen toxicity or damage caused by free radicals in a number of experimental settings. Unfortunately, many studies were carried out in test tubes and animals, and there was a lack of evidence to show that turmeric might work well for humans. Meanwhile, some studies used an injectable form of curcumin, and more importantly, some of the studies showed conflicting results.

Curcumins are used in traditional Chinese and Indian medicines. It is inexpensive and can be bought over-the-counter. This does not mean it is a substitute for medications such as aspirin, statins and beta-blockers, which have been proven to help heart disease patients.

Before scientists can produce more concrete evidences to support the benefits, it is obviously not advisable to just go to health food store and start taking 4 grams of curcumin a day, as done in the study.

Copyright 2007-2012 © HowToPreventHeartDisease.com . All Rights Reserved.d........
Created by EpublishingVault.com
Heart Disease Prevention - 8 Simple Ways You Can Do Immediately