There could be something about turmeric thats beneficial, but its not curcumin, she says. Plus, if turmeric is cooked as part of a meal, she says, its added alongside other foods, and heated up, so its chemical components change.
There might be something else in turmeric worth looking at, but not curcumin, and it might not be one thing. It might need to be chemically modified or added to something to be beneficial.
She says consuming lots of turmeric isnt harmful, but she wouldnt advise using it as self-medication.
Correlation vs causation
Chilli and turmeric have been widely studied, but most trials have only compared data on consumption and different health outcomes, which doesnt separate cause from effect. And research done in labs doesnt necessarily translate to the human body.
And as is true for so many nutritional studies, its difficult to tease out correlation versus causation.
Take the 2019 Italian study finding that there was a lower risk of death associated with chilli consumption. It was observational, so its impossible to know whether eating chilli made people live longer, whether already healthy people tend to consume more chilli, or if something else is at work.
One clue could, however, lie in how chillies are consumed by Italians and other Mediterranean cultures, says the studys author Marialaura Bonaccio, epidemiologist at Italy's Mediterranean Neurological Institute.
Chilli is common in Mediterranean countries, says Bonaccio. Its mostly eaten with pasta and legumes or vegetables.
Excerpt from:
Are there benefits to eating turmeric and other spices? - BBC News
