[ExI] Turmeric health claims fraudulent

[Stuart LaForge]

Quoting Bill Wallace:

> All I know is that I took naproxen and turmeric for osteoarthritis, and got
> alarmed at the data on heart attacks and naproxen, so I stopped it.  I take
> two turmerics a day and have no hip or shoulder pain.  (I have seen my
> osteoarthritis on Xray, so it's no placebo).  My daughter takes it for knee
> pain and it works for her.  I don't think all the good data comes from one
> source.
>
> The People's Pharmacy recommends it and they have a long history of good
> calls.  A druggist and a person with a doctorate in physiology run it.
>
> Big Pharm won't mess with it because they can't make any money from it.  Of
> course they are going to disparage it.

Turmeric is still non-toxic so if it is working for you, then keep  
using it. Drug companies have their own sets of biases, and what is  
profitable for them is not always what is best for you. Curcumin does  
seem to work with cells in a petri dish, it just has trouble getting  
out of the digestive tract and getting to where it needs to be in the  
body without getting completely messed up by the liver when eaten.  
Perhaps turmeric works better when used as an ingredient in food than  
when taken in pill form due to the potentiation effects of other  
ingredients.

Stuart LaForge