Since ancient times, turmeric has been in use as a medicinal herb. The old Indian herbalists used to prescribe turmeric as an antidote for a variety of diseases. However, recently, scientific research also found that turmeric is highly beneficial for us. So, in this article, we’re going to discuss the benefits of using turmeric and how it can help you in staying healthy. Keep reading to learn more!
Nowadays, the use of turmeric has become a common practice, as it has many benefits. People use turmeric to give a yellow-orange color to the curry. This color is due to the curcumin molecule, an ingredient of turmeric. Curcumin has anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant effects.
The use of turmeric is not only restricted to giving colors to food, but it is also used as a medicinal herb for centuries. Turmeric is being applied to wounds to cure them, as it acts as an antiseptic. It is also used with milk to heal pain after injuries.
Benefits of Using Turmeric
The benefits of turmeric are not only limited to the cures as mentioned earlier. Other benefits of turmeric are discussed below.
Curcumin’s Anti-inflammatory Effect
Short-term inflammation helps fight the germs and to regain your body’s strength by healing. However, chronic inflammation can be dangerous and causes damage to your body tissues. Chronic inflammation can lead to many diseases like heart diseases, brain damage, metabolic ailments, and even cancer.
Therefore, any cure reducing long-term inflammation can help reduce the risks of the diseases as mentioned above. Turmeric contains curcumin, which reduces the risk of severe medical conditions by reducing inflammation.
However, overdosage of the compound may cause blood thinness and increase the danger of severe bleeding. You must consult your doctor for dosage recommendations before using it.
Medicinal Use of Bioactive Compound found in turmeric
Extracts of turmeric contain approximately 2-3% curcumin, a bioactive compound. This quantity is too low for the usage of curcumin as medicine. To increase the dosage, some people use supplements to improve the level of dosage.
The body does not absorb curcumin easily. To increase the absorption, it is studies find that taking curcumin with black pepper is beneficial as black pepper has piperine that enhances its absorption. Therefore, the supplements also contain some amount of black pepper to make curcumin effective.
Curcumin is easily soluble in fats, as, it is fat-soluble. Therefore, they use the best turmeric curcumin supplement with food rich in fats.
Turmeric as Anti-oxidant Effect
Oxidative agents like free radicals and highly reactive substances with unpaired electrons react with the proteins like DNA or RNA and cause severe damage to your health. These factors play a role in aging and many other serious diseases.
Turmeric supplements help these free radicals to neutralize, as these are anti-oxidants in nature. Thus, these supplements play a vital role in protecting your body from many. They also stimulate the other anti-oxidants to perform well against these highly reactive compounds.
Turmeric helps to Control Brain Damage
Neurons play a vital role in the brain’s controlling mechanism. These channels interconnect the other body parts with the brain. The brain controls each part of the body. These neurons can increase in number in certain brain areas by their division.
However, brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) plays a major part in the division process. BDNF produces a protein that is responsible for increasing the life span of the neuron. It also helps in memorizing and learning process of the brain.
A low level of BDNF causes brain damage and diseases like Alzheimer’s disease, depression, anxiety, and stress. Therefore, they test turmeric supplements on animals and they find it to help increase the BDNF level in the brain and reduce the risk of these diseases. Turmeric supplements containing turmeric extract also help in improving memory.
Turmeric’s Role in Preventing Heart Diseases
Turmeric also plays a vital role in preventing heart diseases, which might be due to inflammations, oxidative agents, or endothelial dis-functioning. Turmeric helps to reverse heart diseases to many levels.
About the Author/s
The New Jersey Digest is a new jersey magazine that has chronicled daily life in the Garden State for over 10 years.
