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Turmeric: An old world, modern day panacea, or state-of-the-art sports medicine?

  • Dr. Robert Verkerk
    Dr. Robert Verkerk

    Robert Verkerk is a leading scientist in the healthcare field and is the founder of the Alliance for Natural Health.

    Robert is an internationally acclaimed scientist with over 25 years experience in the field of agricultural and healthcare sustainability, having worked in academia, industry and the not-for-profit sector. He has worked extensively in Africa, Asia, Australia, the Americas as well as Europe. After leaving Imperial College London in 2002, he founded the Alliance for Natural Health, which he has headed since.

  • 12:28 reading time (ish)
  • Western Herbal Medicine

Ancient, tried and tested, multi-faceted, proven, the closest thing to a magic bullet, state-of-the-artā€¦? These are just some of the ways of describing turmericā€™s remarkable properties.

Ancient, tried and tested, multi-faceted, proven, the closest thing to a magic bullet, state-of-the-artā€¦? These are just some of the ways of describing turmericā€™s remarkable properties. A paper published in 2016 in the peer-reviewed journalĀ Current Topics in Medicinal ChemistryĀ linked the following biological and pharmacological activities to curcumin, the predominant active principle in turmeric: ā€œa natural antioxidantā€¦ anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, anti-cancer, anti-Alzheimerā€¦anti-tubercular, cardio-protective, anti-diabetic, hepato-protective, neuro-protective, nephron-protective, anti-rheumatic and anti-viralā€ (from Synthetic and Medicinal Prospective of Structurally Modified Curcumins). No licensed pharmaceutical drug can get close to having such a broad range of effects on the body. There are now over 7000 published research studies that have shed light on the antioxidant, hypoglycaemic, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer activities of turmericā€™s most studied active principle, curcumin (from The beneficial role of curcumin on inflammation, diabetes and neurodegenerative disease: A recent update).

The rhizome (root) of this perennial herb, known scientifically asĀ Curcuma longaĀ and belonging to the ginger family, is cultivated extensively in south and southeastern tropical Asia. It has become one of the hottest properties in natural medicine. So much so that it has the pharmaceutical interests salivating over how it can tweak some of turmericā€™s active principles to create synthetic analogues that can then be patented (from Synthetic and Medicinal Prospective of Structurally Modified Curcumins).

Dr. Robert Verkerk

Robert Verkerk is a leading scientist in the healthcare field and is the founder of the Alliance for Natural Health. Robert is an internationally acclaimed scientist with over 25 years experience in... Read more

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