Thinking Nutrition

Can curcumin help with PCOS?

November 30, 2021 Dr Tim Crowe Episode 88
Thinking Nutrition
Can curcumin help with PCOS?
Show Notes Transcript

Curcumin is the bioactive ingredient found in the popular spice turmeric. Medical science is backing up many of the traditional health claims made about turmeric and the compounds it contains. Conditions such as arthritis, high cholesterol, exercise recovery and even depression all have a growing positive evidence base of research behind them. Now a new research review has looked at the evidence for curcumin supplementation in treating some of the symptoms of PCOS. In this podcast, I give an overview of the use of curcumin in different conditions and explain how it may be effective in PCOS too.

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Curcumin is the bioactive ingredient found in the popular spice turmeric. Medical science is backing up many of the traditional health claims made about turmeric and the compounds it contains. Conditions such as arthritis, high cholesterol, exercise recovery and even depression all have a growing positive evidence base of research behind them. Now a new research review has looked at the evidence for curcumin supplementation in treating some of the symptoms of PCOS. In this podcast, I will give an overview of the use of curcumin in different conditions and explain how it may be effective in PCOS too.

Turmeric is a spice belonging to the same family as ginger that has been used in traditional cooking for thousands of years. There is a lot of interest in the potential health benefits of turmeric, and for this, it is the primary bioactive substance in the spice – called curcumin – that gets most of the attention. Curcumin is a yellow pigment so this is the ‘secret sauce’ responsible for the colour of turmeric.

Curcumin is a polyphenol with anti-inflammatory properties. But, while curcumin is all you seem to hear about, there are plenty of other compounds belonging to the wider family of curcuminoids that could be beneficial.

Most over-the-counter supplements you’ll find on the shelf have curcumin as their main ingredient as it can be extracted from turmeric to give much higher potency doses than you would find in native turmeric. But curcumin is absorbed poorly, hence the myriad of different formulations that have been created to improve its bioavailability.

A common co-agent to help curcumin absorption is piperine which is a bioactive compound found in black pepper. Then there are a whole bunch of proprietary formulations that combine the curcumin with lipids and other chemical agents, each touted by their manufacturer with fancy-looking graphs for how much more bioavailable their formulation is compared to their competitors. It’s a curcumin arms race. Some of the popular proprietary curcumin formulations you’ll find in supplements go under the trademark of BCM-95, CurcuWIN, Meriva and Longvida, but there are a bunch of others too.

Back in podcast episode 73, I did a detailed rundown on the evidence for using curcumin supplements in a variety of health conditions. And the evidence looked really promising. So, for the full overview, dip back into episode 73 to get the full brief. But the summary is there was a good deal of evidence to show that curcumin may offer benefits in inflammatory conditions such as osteoarthritis as well as helping in lowering blood lipids, recovery after sport and even perhaps offering some benefit in depression.

 There are also some other growing areas of interest that curcumin may have a role to help with. Cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease, colorectal cancer and ulcerative colitis all come up as being areas that the research is still in an early stage, but some promise is being seen.

So, now onto the main topic of today’s podcast: and that’s on the potential use of curcumin in treating PCOS.

PCOS is a health problem that can affect a woman’s menstrual cycle, fertility, hormones, insulin production, body weight, heart, blood vessels, and appearance. The condition is now one of the most common endocrine problems seen in women of childbearing age, affecting 6-10 per cent of women in this group. While the causes of PCOS are not clear, it can be aggravated by poor diet, obesity, and physical inactivity.

 PCOS is a disease where insulin resistance lies at the heart of many of the problems so not surprisingly, PCOS is a major risk factor for developing diabetes and heart disease. By the age of 40, almost half of all women with PCOS will develop type 2 diabetes or a condition of pre-diabetes such as impaired glucose tolerance.

High levels of insulin precede many of the health problems in PCOS. It is thought that insulin acts on the ovaries to disrupt the normal reproductive cycle. This results in the eggs not developing properly (underdeveloped eggs in the ovary are seen as cysts on an ultrasound) and not being released from the ovary, as would normally occur during ovulation. This also means that ovulation either does not take place or cycles are much longer than the expected 28 days.

 Because of the many metabolic effects seen in PCOS, especially insulin resistance and elevated lipids, researchers have been exploring for some time if curcumin supplementation could be a good adjunct treatment because of its effect on inflammation, blood lipids and glycaemic control.

So, what do the available clinical trials say? In a just-published systematic review and meta-analysis which I’ll link to in the show notes, 5 randomised controlled trials, involving almost 300 women, examined the effects of curcumin supplementation compared to either placebo or the common medication metformin used to treat insulin resistance. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34517426

And the results looked good. Those taking curcumin showed better glycaemic control with lower fasting glucose, lower insulin levels and less insulin resistance. Their blood lipids were also improved with lower cholesterol readings. And this benefit was fairly consistent across the trials. 

While the number of studies and women included was fairly small, the results are in agreement with the wider research field for curcumin that it appears to have some real metabolic effects. And for PCOS, a benefit for curcumin is thought to be by reducing luteinising hormone, helping to induce ovulation, decreasing insulin resistance, improving body weight, and correcting lipid abnormalities

 What was the type and dose of curcumin used? Doses ranged from 80 mg once daily up to 500 mg three times per day. And different types of formulations were used – some claimed to be more bioavailable than others. But for anyone who has dipped their toe into the curcumin supplement market, you would be aware that it is a marketing arms race between different manufacturers in making claims about the bioavailability of their proprietary supplement.

 So, let’s wrap all this up. The list of potential benefits of supplemental curcumin seems to be quite broad and is actually supported by good evidence – so again, check out my previous podcast episode 73 on turmeric to get the full over-overview. And now it looks like there could just be a use case for curcumin in PCOS too.

As for what form of supplemental curcumin is best, there are so many on the market that I would suggest trialling several types either with piperine (which is from black pepper) or using a proprietary form that has solubilised the curcumin in a lipid and I’ve already mentioned some of the common brand names that can appear on an ingredient list earlier in this podcast. And if you don’t feel one form of curcumin is benefiting you then you can always trial another.