Curcumin supplementation in sports

Curcumin for sports

I regularly use four supplements:

  • Creatine for muscle development
  • Beta-alanine for endurance and training volume
  • Collagen for my joints
  • Beetroot juice seasonally for endurance

A few months ago, I started drinking curcumin supplements. I’ve noticed that curcumin speeds up my wound healing. Moreover, I had common warts on my knee, and they disappeared after I drank supplements with curcumin for three months.

I was skeptical about turmeric and its compound – curcumin – thinking it could be a scam. The disappearance of the common warts made me think otherwise, so I dug into scientific publications to learn more about curcumin. In 2020, researchers reviewed 346 articles [1] and selected 11 papers (very harsh criteria!) for further analysis. The findings show that curcumin supplementation:

Curcumin reduces inflammation, descreases muscle pain, improves muscle recovery and reduces oxidative stress.
  • Significantly reduce inflammation derived from physical exercise.
  • Potentially decreases muscle pain.
  • It improves some aspects of muscle recovery, such as range of movement, and less muscle power is lost after training.
  • It reduces oxidative stress.
  • It is probably beneficial for psychological parameters and gastrointestinal functions.
  • It had no side effects (with curcumin concentrations and dosing used in the studies). According to the studies, doses up to 12g/day are safe for human consumption for a 3-month period [2, 3].

[1] Suhett, L. G., de Miranda Monteiro Santos, R., Silveira, B. K. S., Leal, A. C. G., de Brito, A. D. M., de Novaes, J. F., & Lucia, C. M. D. (2020). Effects of curcumin supplementation on sport and physical exercise: a systematic review. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 61(6), 946–958. https://doi.org/10.1080/10408398.2020.1749025

[2] Gupta, S. C., S. Patchva, and B. B. Aggarwal. 2013. Therapeutic roles of curcumin: Lessons learned from clinical trials. The AAPS Journal 15 (1):195–218. doi: 10.1208/s12248-012-9432-8.

[3] Lao, C. D., M. T. Ruffin, D. Normolle, D. D. Heath, S. I. Murray, J. M. Bailey, M. E. Boggs, J. Crowell, C. L. Rock, and D. E. Brenner. 2006. Dose escalation of a curcuminoid formulation. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 6 (1):10. doi: 10.1186/1472-6882-6-10.

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