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Turmeric and the right dose

I am often asked this question and its always a hard question to answer. Turmeric can be person and or condition specific, one answer I always give is the natural spice is by far the best way to go, including in in or with your food in its natural form or powder insures that all the components of this spice are included.

When asked about capsules and mainly the extracted 95% curcumin varieties, my answer is, while these may have a use there is so much left behind when you use the 95% extracted versions you could be wasting your time or money as some of the important compounds have been left behind.

And really, there is no one answer to this one question about the best way to take turmeric/curcumin. The question nearly always comes from an individual with a particular need, someone who may already be suffering and so, recommendations must be individualized.

For instance, if you have colonic inflammation or polyps, and you are trying to use turmeric to reduce inflammation there or regress precancerous growths, then using the whole plant is best versus a highly bioavailable form of curcumin in 95% capsule form, which will be absorbed by the small intestine and mostly pass through the liver never getting enough quantities to the large intestine. In this person's case taking a teaspoon of  difficult to absorb turmeric may result in painting the diseased surfaces of that person's intestinal or colon in exactly the form needed to reverse disease.

But what if you have someone who wants to use turmeric to help an effect of say, arthritis or for brain cancer? In these instances, getting turmeric compounds such as curcumin through the  barrier in the liver with an addition of another spice black pepper (piperine) combination could be ideal. There is certainly a place for the this model when properly applied, especially when provided as an addition to the pharmaceutical model within a medical setting.

So that was the whys, what about how.
Ideally I would love it if people came to me who were healthy. A healthy individual wants to stay that way, including Turmeric in your diet and daily routine could go a long way to keeping some of those diseases and afflictions away, the easiest way to do this is in your cooking, this is not always convenient and in these cases I would suggest using turmeric in capsule form, these are easy to carry with you at all times, I mean how often are we away from home at meal times.

There are many face book groups on the subject of Turmeric and some are quite defensive to the extent of bullying that their way is the best way, even to the extent of banning people who speak out against their way this is sad because invariably they are wrong and they are doing people a great miss service by suggesting our way is the only way.

I am now going to try my best to cover the best way to take turmeric for every individual.

Turmeric, natural root or powder.

Include at least one daily dose of turmeric on its own.

Turmeric on its own travels its way through your gastric tract largely undisturbed slowly being absorbed on its journey to your bowel, and here it sits working away until your body decides to remove it along with the rest of your waste material, the turmeric has done its work during its travels. But it did not get very far into your body and while your colon and gastric tract is sitting there happy its had its dose the rest of your body is saying "hey wheres mine"

Turmeric the whole body experience.
Turmeric is not easily absorbed by the stomach and needs help to get to all those other bits of the body that may require attention, for this the addition of a small amount of black pepper will greatly assist the turmeric on its way through your body, this needs to be done maybe twice a day but at a different time to the turmeric on its own.

Turmeric and oils.

Again the addition of an olive or coconut cold pressed oil can assist the bodies rate of absorption. If you are taking turmeric with food adding extra oil is not always necessary.

Mix and match.

There are no turmeric police and there is no hard line, you can mix and match to suit your particular needs, your lifestyle and what you feel will be best for you.

A Dose.
Ideally a dose for a human should be not less then 400mg, for animals you will need to adjust weight for weight using a human weight of 80K as an average. Although there is no upper dose and turmeric as a food is declared safe, you do not want to be taking anymore then 12g a day.

To maintain or prevent you should be looking at 3 doses spread throughout the day at the minimum of 400mg per dose.

If you are unfortunate to be trying to use turmeric to assist a particular problem you will need to increase the dose size until relief is achieved.

Medical advice.
I am not a doctor and in all instances professional medical advice should be sought.