The case for using turmeric to ease IBS symptoms
Turmeric is packed full of goodness and has great potential to improve many health complaints, including IBS. Our formula is around 40 times more absorbable than standard turmeric extracts. Read on to find out how you can harness its healing powers.
If you enjoy cooking and eating tasty food, we’d be willing to bet turmeric is a staple of your spice rack. Especially if you love a curry — you won’t find many Indian kitchens that don’t have a healthy stock of turmeric!
Turmeric also signifies health and good fortune in India. So strong is this association that – in some regions – when a family member dies, they omit turmeric from their dishes for 10 days to mark the loss.
With its pungent earthy flavour and distinctive yellow colour, turmeric brings depth to any dish. But as well as enhancing the taste and colour of food, turmeric has major health-boosting potential. Its use in traditional Indian and Chinese medicine goes back centuries, and it has gained traction in the west in recent years too.
Turmeric contains a polyphenol called curcumin. When teamed with the right ingredients to aid absorption, curcumin offers many health benefits, from reducing cholesterol, to relieving pain, to preventing heart disease.
More recently, there has been some interesting work done linking the use of turmeric as a natural remedy for IBS.
What is IBS?
IBS is a life-limiting illness that effects a significant chunk of the world’s population.
IBS sufferers often need to make lifestyle changes and choices depending on the frequency and nature of their attacks.
Symptoms range from frequent abdominal pain, trapped gas and constipation to embarrassing bouts of diarrhoea. Historically, IBS has been challenging to treat, due to the varying nature of symptoms and triggers from person to person. There is still no cure for IBS.
Research has shown that IBS sufferers experience a cycle of chronic low-grade inflammation, and it is thought that turmeric’s anti-inflammatory properties could help with this.
What is turmeric?
Turmeric belongs to the ginger family and is native to tropical Southeast Asia. The rhizomes – or roots – of the plant have long been used in cooking, and in Asian and Chinese medicine.
Its active ingredient, curcumin, is a natural anti-inflammatory, a powerful antioxidant with antimicrobial properties.
It is a popular treatment for conditions such as heartburn, kidney problems, arthritis, high cholesterol, joint pain, and IBS.
What are the benefits of taking turmeric?
There are many known health benefits of turmeric – and more specifically – curcumin. The research is wide-ranging and shows that curcumin has properties that could have a significant beneficial impact on:
- Heart disease
- Alzheimer’s
- Cancer prevention
- Arthritis
- Depression
- Age-related chronic illness
- IBS
The anti-inflammatory properties of curcumin are particularly interesting, given that inflammation plays a role in most common health complaints — including IBS.
Can taking turmeric help your IBS?
Studies have shown that turmeric can ease symptoms of IBS. In one study, participants took turmeric extract every day for eight weeks. At the end of the period, they reported a reduction in IBS pain and discomfort. They also reported a boost in perceived quality of life.
Another study saw a reduced length of small intestine after taking curcumin, suggesting that taking turmeric might reduce abnormal intestinal contractions.
The potential healing properties of turmeric and curcumin have been studied widely. More recently, there have been promising indications that curcumin could have a positive effect on IBS symptoms and related mental health problems.
However, simply eating turmeric or taking turmeric extract on its own is not going to be enough to unlock all the health benefits of curcumin.
Curcumin is notoriously hard to absorb. It has what is known as a ‘low bioavailability’. This means that the body can’t access all of its healing potential from food or with an ordinary turmeric supplement.
The reason for this is that curcumin is fat-soluble rather than water-soluble. And as the digestive system is a particularly watery environment, this does little to help the IBS sufferer.
The result is that most of the curcumin ends up being excreted as a waste product rather than absorbed. The small amounts that are absorbed are then very quickly broken down by the body. The available curcumin left in the body is far too low to make any real difference.
In order to be effective, a turmeric IBS supplement must first address this absorption problem.
So, how do we do this?
How can our IBS Advanced Formula + help?
The answer lies in an ingredient known as Cavacurmin complex. Cavacurmin contains a formula that makes curcumin around 40 times more absorbable than standard turmeric extracts.
We’ve added 300mg of Cavacurmin to our IBS Advanced Formula +, so with this increased absorption, you can be confident you are getting all the potential benefits that curcumin has to offer.
Our IBS supplement also contains quercetin to help balance mast cells — key in improving symptoms of IBS — and theanine, which helps to alleviate some of the mental health issues that we know can exacerbate IBS symptoms.
The result? A unique formula containing all the components you need to give you the best chance of improving your IBS symptoms, boosting your mood, and enhancing your quality of life.
Imagine a day when you don’t have to stress about going out, for fear of an embarrassing public attack?
Try our IBS supplement today. If you have any questions at all about your symptoms and about how our products can help you, just get in touch.