Questions about Bioavailable Turmeric
What questions should I ask when choosing the right turmeric supplement? There are several important questions to ask when evaluating the best supplement:
1. Does it reach efficacious concentrations in target tissues such as the brain? You may know that curcumin must get into the bloodstream in order to do anything. But getting into blood is not enough. It must reach a concentration high enough in order to penetrate target tissues, such as the brain. Longvida® is a pioneer in the field of reaching target curcumin concentrations in the blood and target tissues.*(5,13)
2. Is the supplement standardized for activity? It is well established that it is not how much curcumin you consume, it is about how much you absorb. An intricate standardization system, including micro-visualization of the SLCP™, along with an array of physical and chemical analyses using High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), Tandem Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (LC/MS/MS), Nuclear Magnetic Resonance imaging (NMR), Ultraviolet Spectrometry, Inductively-Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP/MS) and other instrumentation are used to standardize and ensure the activity, potency, and consistency of Longvida®.
3. Was the product primarily developed by a prestigious university, or by a company in the dietary supplement industry? It may be no surprise that university researchers are most often motivated to find what truly works, while industry researchers are most often motivated by what they can sell at the highest margins with little real scientific investment. Longvida® Optimized Curcumin is the result of years of trial and error, guided by not what is easy to make but by what works in the lab and in people.
4. What was the analytical methodology used to detect curcumin in biological samples such as blood? Analyzing curcumin in blood or biological specimens is not as easy as it sounds. There are often ‘false peaks’ that are assumed to be curcumin which appear when rigorous validation is not performed. Curcumin is a sticky compound and can have what they call ‘carryover effects’, which falsely inflate values. Curcumin and its glucuronide are also unstable in blood after it is taken from the body to be tested. Further, interindividual variability of curcumin metabolism is high, therefore several subjects (instead of just one or two subjects) should be tested in any study, and applicable statistics applied to the data. Therefore, only the most experienced scientists with the most up-to-date instrumentation can reliably measure curcumin in blood. In fact, LC/MS/MS is the preferred instrumentation of university scientists who determined the bioavailability of Longvida®, compared to the inferior analytical instruments often used for unoptimized curcumin.(13)
5. In bioavailability studies, was curcumin counted as curcumin glucuronide? The body metabolizes curcumin into mainly its glucuronide form, which has very low brain permeability and biological activity compared to curcumin in its free form (free curcumin). Often, a curcumin value in blood or plasma includes glucuronidated curcumin, so it can appear to be a very high number. But this number does not represent how much curcumin is truly free and active in the bloodstream. Longvida® bioavailability is determined by free curcumin, not glucuronidated curcumin.
6. Is it made using a gentle process and all generally recognized as safe (GRAS) food additive ingredients? Longvida® is not extracted with ethylene dichloride (EDC), which is often used to cheaply extract curcumin from turmeric root. Longvida® contains no piperine, a glucuronidation inhibitor that enhances the bioavailability of both nutrients as well as potential toxins. Longvida® also contains no unstable volatile oils from turmeric root, since these components have not been evaluated for safety or efficacy, and currently do not have accurate testing methodology available for their quantitative measurement. Further, Longvida® is not processed in a way that may create new molecules or chemical bonds which are foreign to the food chain or our bodies. A strong safety profile is partially what makes Longvida™ the premier choice of clinicians and universities worldwide.
Since 1997, Verdure Sciences has manufactured the highest-quality, clinically researched ingredients for supplement manufacturers. Significant investment has been made to ensure you are getting truly Optimized Curcumin, and our mission is to make sure no corners are cut in our mission to enhance the health of our customers.
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
Please consult your healthcare practitioner before taking any medication or health supplements.
