Comment · Thu, February 27, 2020
Question for MYASD
Original post in this thread
Ballam86 · 33 points
First off, I want to thank you for the time you've given me in the past when I had asked you questions via PM.
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I finally bit the bullet back in December and ordered myself a large box of products from your company as a christmas gift to myself. I have been super impressed with my experimentation thus far.
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After doing lots of lurking and seeing your posts here and in the nootropics reddit, I have also been impressed with your candid and open responses to others questions.
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I am curious however, what is your own stack or go to products? I get the impression you've probably used a lot of the products you sell for yourself. What do you use and why? What are your favorite products?
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Thanks!
What they were answering
throwawayy913 · 1 points
I know curcumin wasn't one of your suggestions/current stack but I've read some concerning interpretations of the data...
"To our knowledge, [curcumin] has never been shown to be conclusively effective in a randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial for any indication. Curcumin is best typified, therefore, as a missile that continually blows up on the launch pad, never reaching the atmosphere or its intended target(s)…While these failures would normally end further research on its use as a therapeutic, they apparently have not deterred researchers interested in its development."
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5346970/
From your understanding/reading ... Is there any reason to believe curcumin is actually effective given this study and it's conclusions?
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb
LOL, what the hell is that paper on about?!? It's never been shown to be effective in a double-blind placebo controlled trial? That's rubbish. I guess they do say "to our knowledge." Perhaps they just don't have enough knowledge to use Google Scholar.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032714003620
From baseline to week 4, both curcumin and placebo were associated with improvements in IDS-SR30 total score and most secondary outcome measures. From weeks 4 to 8, curcumin was significantly more effective than placebo in improving several mood-related symptoms, demonstrated by a significant group x time interaction for IDS-SR30 total score (F1, 53=4.22, p=.045) and IDS-SR30 mood score (F1, 53=6.51, p=.014), and a non-significant trend for STAI trait score (F1, 48=2.86, p=.097). Greater efficacy from curcumin treatment was identified in a subgroup of individuals with atypical depression.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1542356506008007
Recurrence rates evaluated on the basis of intention to treat showed significant difference between curcumin and placebo (P = .049). Furthermore, curcumin improved both CAI (P = .038) and EI (P = .0001), thus suppressing the morbidity associated with UC. A 6-month follow-up was done during which patients in both groups were on SZ or mesalamine. Eight additional patients in the curcumin group and 6 patients in the placebo group relapsed.
Conclusions: Curcumin seems to be a promising and safe medication for maintaining remission in patients with quiescent UC. Further studies on curcumin should strengthen our findings.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0949265815301913
At 8 weeks after treatment initiation, knee pain VAS scores were significantly lower in the Theracurmin group than in the placebo group, except in the patients with initial VAS scores of 0.15 or less. Theracurmin lowered the celecoxib dependence significantly more than placebo. No major side effects were observed with Theracurmin treatment.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032716310217
The active drug treatments (combined) were associated with significantly greater improvements in depressive symptoms compared to placebo (p=.031), and superior improvements in STAI-state (p<.001) and STAI-trait scores (p=.001). Active drug treatments also had greater efficacy in people with atypical depression compared to the remainder of patients (response rates of 65% versus 35% respectively, p=.012). No differences were found between the differing doses of curcumin or the curcumin/saffron combination.
Or for Longvida specifically...
https://academic.oup.com/cdn/article/3/Supplement_1/nzz052.OR32-05-19/5518060
Compared with placebo, there were a number of improvements in the curcumin group. The curcumin group had significantly better working memory performance at 12 weeks, as measured by Serial Threes, Serial Sevens and performance on a virtual Morris Water Maze. Curcumin was also associated with better performance on a pattern separation task. Curcumin was also associated with significantly lower fatigue scores on the Profile of Mood States (POMS) at both 4 and 12 weeks, and of tension, anger, confusion and total mood disturbance at 4 weeks only. There were no group differences in biomarker levels.
These results confirm that Longvida™ improves aspects of mood and working memory in a healthy older cohort. The pattern of results is consistent with improvements in hippocampal function and may hold promise for alleviating cognitive decline in some populations.
If you read the full paper that you linked, they are not even saying what it appears they are saying in the abstract.
Unfortunately, no form of curcumin, or its closely related analogues, appears to possess the properties required for a good drug candidate (chemical stability, high water solubility, potent and selective target activity, high bioavailability, broad tissue distribution, stable metabolism, and low toxicity).
That's true, it's solubility and bioavailability is not ideal for a drug candidate. That's why we have solutions like Longvida that solves those issues. It's not a drug, though.
Thus far, there is limited evidence to support this hypothesis, which will also limit the utility of this delivery method. Delivery systems such as lipid vesicles, nanoparticles, and nanofibers might be able to boost the bioavailability of 1, but this could also conceivably narrow its therapeutic window and lead to off-target toxicity by aforementioned processes.
Speculation at best....
Of course, we do not rule out the possibility that an extract of crude turmeric might have beneficial effects on human health. The large RC of NP extracts, and even of refined NP preparations, makes the identification of the active constituent(s) and evaluation of their efficacy in humans very difficult
So quality of products on the market is an issue. Sure, that's very true. That's just a reason for better quality control processes.
While the concepts of static and dynamic RC apply equally to synthetically prepared compounds, the development of leads sourced from metabolomic (natural) sources is intrinsically more prone to the impact of purity (and unknown impurities).
So test for the impurities! They are acting like this is an unsolvable problem...
In some ways, the oversimplification of this complexity has led to complicatedness that makes it difficult to interpret results of curcumin-based studies.142,143 In addition, there is increasing evidence that TxM agents cannot be adequately described with reductionist pharmacology models but require consideration of polypharmacology and synergy.163 The recent recognition of IMPS4 adds to the uniqueness of natural products by identifying panacea-type substances that establish a new dimension of biological signatures generated by bioactive molecules.
So the complexity of the natural variation and possible impurities means we should write off all the results as oversimplified? Okay, this study is oversimplified, so we can write it off! Curcumin is back on the menu, boys!
I think if you dig though all the BS, their main point does have some merit. Curcumin itself may not be an ideal target for a therapeutic DRUG. If they stuck to that main point, I would agree with them. However, they seem to have a larger issue with dietary supplements in general that comes across in the tone of their paper. Their position definitely seems to come from a place of drug development and research. There are a few authors on it that deal with phytochemistry, but I would bet they are coming at it from the position of using nature to discover possible new synthetic drugs rather than using supplements in a holistic sense. I don't think anyone here is trying to say that you should use curcumin to treat something like pancreatic cancer. Sometimes I do think that people like to take a position to extremes. Either something is the best, or it is garbage. There is no in-between. Most things live in the in-between, though. I do think that curcumin is NOT the holy grail that some make it out to be, but it is also not useless.