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Branded Curcumin Matches Effects of Prozac on Depression
WholeFoods Magazine ^ | 7/24/13 | NA

Posted on 07/28/2013 11:19:21 AM PDT by neverdem

Chester, NJ—A recent clinical trial published in Phytotherapy Research indicated that a high-absorption curcumin (BCM-95 from Dolcas Biotech, based here) had similar effects as a generic form of Prozac (fluoxetine) on depression, sans the adverse effects.

“It is a novel and surprising application for this natural medicine,” said Ajay Goel, Ph.D., Baylor Research Institute and Charles A Sammons Cancer Center, Baylor University Medical Center and study co-author. “People with depression have higher levels of inflammation in the brain. Also, people with depression have lower levels of neurogenesis in the brain, meaning they make fewer new brain cells than people with no history of depression. Curcumin is both a potent anti-inflammatory agent and a powerful stimulator for neurogenesis.”

The three-pronged study included 60 volunteers diagnosed with major depressive disorder, with 20 people taking either BCM-95 Curcumin (500 mg capsules twice daily); 20 people taking fluoxetine 20 mg daily; or 20 people taking a combination of BCM-95 Curcumin twice daily with fluoxetine once daily. Their level of depression was assessed using the clinically validated Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAM-D17), which is used to evaluate one’s mood, feelings of guilt, feelings of suicide and other symptoms.

After six weeks, the research showed that curcumin was well tolerated by all of the subjects. The proportion of responders with improved depression symptoms was higher in the combination group (77.8%) than in the fluoxetine (64.7%) and the curcumin (62.5%) groups. However, the data also showed that BCM-95 Curcumin worked as well as fluoxetine in terms of changes in the HAM-D17 score from baseline through six weeks of treatment.

The study was the first human clinical indication that Curcumin can be used as an effective and safe treatment for patients with depression, though it cannot be considered a medical treatment at this time.

Published in WholeFoods Magazine, October 2013 (online 7/24/13)


TOPICS: Health/Medicine
KEYWORDS: alzheimers; antiinflammatory; bcm95; braininflammation; curcumin; depression; inflammation; osteoporosis; prozac; same; tumeric; turmeric
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To: ozzymandus

Baylor University study, author is director of epigenetics. Not exactly fruits and nuts.


21 posted on 07/28/2013 1:20:22 PM PDT by heartwood
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To: neverdem

Whole Foods Magazine? Give me The Journal of the American Medical Association or The New England Journal of Medicine for medical advice any day.


22 posted on 07/28/2013 1:29:35 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (If Obama Had A City It Would Look Like Detroit.)
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To: AtlasStalled

Is one better than the other?


23 posted on 07/28/2013 1:34:38 PM PDT by CaptainK (...please make it stop. Shake a can of pennies at it.)
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To: neverdem

I take Organic India turmeric, about half the “recommended” dose. It has a very noticeable positive effect on my mental processes. Don’t have depression, so cannot comment on that.

Historically, extremely low doses of meds work for me. Higher doses are dangerous.


24 posted on 07/28/2013 1:36:20 PM PDT by Veto! (Opinions freely expressed as advice)
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To: AtlasStalled
I have taken it for chronic pain.

It not only works, but one doesn't risk becoming addicted to other pain-blocking narcotics.

25 posted on 07/28/2013 1:39:59 PM PDT by zerosix (Native Sunflower)
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To: AtlasStalled

It is said to help clear arteries .


26 posted on 07/28/2013 1:43:36 PM PDT by Big Horn (Rebuild the GOP to a conservative party)
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To: RegulatorCountry

As I recall, the patient put curcumin in their mouths, but I can’t remember if the article stated exactly the method. But my impression that it was topically applied to the tissue in the mouth.


27 posted on 07/28/2013 1:51:38 PM PDT by ChildOfThe60s (If you can remember the 60s.....you weren't really there)
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To: neverdem

Heal the sick. Raise the dead. Make little girls talk out of their head....I guess there is no depression in India.


28 posted on 07/28/2013 1:59:22 PM PDT by csmusaret (Will remove Obama-Biden bumperstickers for $10)
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To: ozzymandus

the more exotic the placebo the better... i think there is a faith effect here


29 posted on 07/28/2013 2:00:41 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Whatever promise that God has made, in Jesus it is yes. See my page.)
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To: heartwood

well, talking about depression is like talking about fevers. it’s a catch all for what is probably many different things leading to the same distressing symptom.


30 posted on 07/28/2013 2:01:59 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Whatever promise that God has made, in Jesus it is yes. See my page.)
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To: neverdem
1. God created us with the possibility of having debilitating mental disorders that would cause us to behave in what our religions would declare to be sinful ways.
2. These debilitating conditions include alcoholism, depression leading to self-inflicted wounds or even suicide, anxiety disorders leading to perceived cowardice, epileptic seizures, schizophrenia, etc.
3. We're only now discovering the antidotes to these mental disorders.
4. For centuries people were shunned, excommunicated, burned at the stake, etc. because they were believed to be possessed or demonic or inveterate sinners.
5. Now people have the choice of medicating (rather than praying) their "sins" away or being declared sinful.

This requires some pause for reflection.

31 posted on 07/28/2013 2:05:16 PM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: BipolarBob
I can't wait until unscrupulous businessmen start packaging all manner of dangerous substances and labeling it curcumin in order to provide a good living for themselves and their families.

Please no one talk about regulating curcumin. The FDA is a bureaucratic hell hole. Businesses have shown time and time again that they can regulate themselves.

Please don't prevent those people who label rat poison as curcumin from giving their sons and daughters the Ferraris they crave.

32 posted on 07/28/2013 2:08:15 PM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: who_would_fardels_bear
"This requires some pause for reflection. "

Or at least a drink. Or both.

33 posted on 07/28/2013 2:10:20 PM PDT by BipolarBob
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

This sure sounds like a keyhole-viewed, cynical understanding of both medicine and spirituality.

Depression does have a powerful spiritual side. It is a type of self focused hatred. It also is found in many cases to be susceptible to influence (to the worse or to the better) through physical and chemical means.

Talking about depressions as though they were all one illness is like talking about fevers as though they were all one illness.

Yes I plug for a specific faith asserting it identifies a true God. I also know a lot of spiritual rackets or cults make claims about this same God which are palpably false.


34 posted on 07/28/2013 2:11:13 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Whatever promise that God has made, in Jesus it is yes. See my page.)
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

How about cutting out the cutesy hints and evasive barbs and actually stating what you believe is the salient wrong. You add about zero information here.


35 posted on 07/28/2013 2:12:46 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Whatever promise that God has made, in Jesus it is yes. See my page.)
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To: HiTech RedNeck
I don't have the answers, just questions.

I didn't say that all depressions were the same. I made a statement that various mental conditions were viewed for centuries as sinful failures of character or demonic possession.

Do you disagree with that statement?

Do you believe that everyone is capable of overcoming their mental disorders? Even epileptics?

Do you believe that only sinners are the ones that fail to overcome their mental problems and deserve their fate?

Do you believe that everything is right with a world that includes many people that seem unable to deal with their mental conditions?

Certainly people are over-medicating themselves. Certainly there is the possibility that some mental conditions are the result of toxins in the environment, prenatal poisoning from mothers who smoked/drank/took drugs, etc.

But there seem to be many cases where otherwise good and normal people behave in horrible ways until they start taking the appropriate medication.

What do you make of all this? Do you just sing "Onward Christian Soldier" in a louder voice?

36 posted on 07/28/2013 2:34:13 PM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

1) God created a physical universe.

2) God created Adam with free will and put all things physical under his authority.

3) Adam abdicated that authority to Satan and Satan corrupted everything.

Q.E.D. You can’t blame the existence of cancer, tornadoes, bot flies, and entropy on God unless you’re thereby affirming a preference for having been created without a will of your own.


37 posted on 07/28/2013 3:02:35 PM PDT by Eepsy
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To: who_would_fardels_bear
Oh, thank you for these questions.

I could write all night.

Demonic possession, when it was thought to have happened, was not considered a fault of the, ah, possessee — unless s/he had called on the demon.

For around 500 years the normal Catholic official wisdom about possession was that one should only conclude that when medical reasons had been ruled out. The failures were in the undeveloped natural philosophies. The theoretical/theological side was pretty much in order.

However, it IS true that there remain some superstitious jerks among Christians.

I would not say that ALL “defects of will” can be medicated away. For example, you're the second person I've encountered today who has based some negative opinions about the Church on ignorance of what the Church officially teaches and prescribes. I don't think there is yet a medicine to address basing judgments on what amounts to poorly substantiated or unsubstantiated rumor.

I WILL say this about the generosity and compassion of the modern scientists dubious about theism generally and Christians specifically:

When my kid was 15 months old, I was told she would die a slow and lingering death as a destructive epilepsy trashed her brain. (At least some of the scientists were wrong on that one. She turns 30 this November.)

At the time I was an Episcopal priest. (I am now a Catholic lay-D00d.) We had recourse to the local pediatric neurology gods, among whom was a certain Dr. Dreyfus. The usual routine was that he would schedule an appointment right slap in the middle of nap time. Then he would be 45 minutes late. Then, when my kid cried as he examined her, he would call her “spoiled.”

So,one day I showed up with my kid, and I had come from “work” so I was wearing my “clericals” (black suit and shirt, backwards collar.) This meant that I got to listen to how Christians in the middle ages thought epilepsy was demonic and were just SEW superstitious and all.

While my kid was, according to him, dying.

I'm sure there is some good, scientific, anti-church explanation about why, when a father's only child is dying it is good to call him a jerk.

38 posted on 07/28/2013 5:27:12 PM PDT by Mad Dawg (In te, Domine, speravi: non confundar in aeternum.)
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To: Gay State Conservative

Yeah, those journals, bought and paid for by Big Pharma, are really helpful....if all you do for your health is continue courses of Big Pharma drugs! You know, the kind with the list of side effects 3-4 pages long?


39 posted on 07/28/2013 7:37:09 PM PDT by EarlT357
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

Hey, the Luke who wrote the gospel and Acts was also a physician and did not stop being one when he became a believer in Jesus. Folks who say doctors have no place in Christian ministry are just being silly.

Well, how about looking at my own freep page. I don’t think you will read that as just a louder version of “Onward Christian Soldiers” (as helpful as that hymn can be in the appropriate circumstance, it is not a comprehensive gospel message).


40 posted on 07/28/2013 8:10:40 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Whatever promise that God has made, in Jesus it is yes. See my page.)
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