Curcumin Found to Benefit Crohn’s Patients

by | Apr 4, 2018 | 2014, Autoimmune Disease, Botanicals, Curcumin, Digestive Health

Written by Greg Arnold, DC, CSCS. Treatment with curcumin was shown to result in significant improvements of symptoms related to ulcerative colitis.

Ulcerative colitis is an inflammatory bowel disease that causes long-lasting inflammation and ulcers in the digestive tract, affecting the innermost lining of the large intestine and rectum (1). Ulcerative colitis can be debilitating and sometimes can lead to life-threatening complications. It involves a reaction by the immune system to bacteria in the digestive system (2), resulting in “persistent colonic inflammation and tissue destruction” by inflammatory proteins called cytokines (3, 4) which are controlled by another inflammatory protein called NF-kB (5).

Although prescription anti-inflammatory medications have been shown to inhibit the activity NF-kB (6, 7), they are ineffective in as many as 30% of ulcerative colitis patients, increasing the urgency for new, effective treatments. Now a new study (8) suggests that treatment with curcumin, the antioxidant found in turmeric, may help those with ulcerative colitis.

The study involved 30 subjects (16 men, 14 women) aged 23 to 48 with mild to moderate ulcerative colitis (defined as having an Ulcerative Colitis Disease Activity Index score (9) between 3 and 9) within the final 25 centimeters of their large intestine. They received an enema containing a standard prescription medication (5-ASA) supplemented with curcumin (a standardized extract of Curcuma longa with a composition of 72% curcumin, 18.08% demethoxy curcumin and 9.42% bis-demethoxy curcumin = 14 subjects) or just the 5-ASA enema (16 subjects) once per day for 8 weeks.

After 8 weeks, those in the curcumin group saw significant improvements in “response” (when a patient had a decrease in the Ulcerative Colitis Disease Activity Index by at least 1 point), “remission” (when their activity index score dropped below 3), and “mucosal healing” (when a patient’s total activity index score dropped by at least 3 points):

CurcuminPlacebop - value
Response0.929
(13/14 subjects)		0.5
(8/16)		0.01
Remission0.714
(10/14)		0.313
(5/16)		0.03
Mucosal healing0.857
(12/14)		0.5
(8/16)		0.04

When suggesting how curcumin is able to elicit these healthful effects, the researchers pointed to animal studies in which curcumin is able to inhibit the activity of NF-kB (10, 11), the inflammatory protein that controls the cytokine proteins that are at the heart of ulcerative colitis (5).

For the researchers, “we found some evidence that use of curcumin enema may tend to result in greater improvements in disease activity compared to placebo in patients with mild-to-moderate distal ulcerative colitis” and that “The role of curcumin as a novel therapy for ulcerative colitis should be investigated further.”

Greg Arnold is a Chiropractic Physician practicing in Hauppauge, NY.  You can contact Dr. Arnold directly by emailing him at PitchingDoc@msn.com or visiting his web site at www.PitchingDoc.com

Source: Singla, Vikas, Venigalla Pratap Mouli, Sushil Kumar Garg, Tarun Rai, Bikash Narayan Choudhury, Prashant Verma, Rachana Deb et al. “Induction with NCB-02 (curcumin) enema for mild-to-moderate distal ulcerative colitis—A randomized, placebo-controlled, pilot study.” Journal of Crohn’s and Colitis 8, no. 3 (2014): 208-214.

© 2013 European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

References:

  1. “Ulcerative Colitis” posted on the Mayo Clinic website
  2. Sartor RB. Microbial influences in inflammatory bowel diseases. Gastroenterology 2008;134:577–94
  3. Elson CO, Sartor RB, Tennyson GS, Riddell RH. Experimental models of inflammatory bowel disease. Gastroenterology 1995;109:1344–67
  4. Rogler G, Andus T. Cytokines in inflammatory bowel disease. World J Surg 1998;22:382–9
  5. Schreiber S, Nikolaus S, Hampe J. Activation of nuclear factor êB in inflammatory bowel disease. Gut 1998;42:477–84
  6. Ardite E, Panes J, Miranda M, Salas A, Elizalde JI, Sans M, et al. Effects of steroid treatment on activation of nuclear factor kappaB in patients with inflammatory bowel disease. Br J Pharmacol 1998;124:431–3
  7. Kaiser GC, Yan F, Polk DB. Mesalamine blocks tumor necrosis factor growth inhibition and nuclear factor kappaB activation in mouse colonocytes. Gastroenterology 1999;116:602–9
  8. Singla V. Induction with NCB-02 (curcumin) enema for mild-to-moderate distal ulcerative colitis – a randomized, placebo-controlled, pilot study. J Crohns Colitis 2014 Mar;8(3):208-14. doi: 10.1016/j.crohns.2013.08.006. Epub 2013 Sep 5
  9. Baumgart DC, Sandborn WJ. Inflammatory bowel disease: clinical aspects and established and evolving therapies. Lancet 2007;369: 1641–57.
  10. Jagetia GC, Aggarwal BB. “Spicing up” of the immune system by curcumin. J Clin Immunol 2007;27:19–35
  11. Ukil A, Maity S, Karmakar S, Datta N, Vedasiromoni JR, Das PK. Curcumin, the major component of food flavour turmeric, reduces mucosal injury in trinitrobenzene sulphonic acid-induced colitis. Br J Pharmacol 2003;139:209–18