I don't want to leave a too pessimistic impression from my previous post about the poor absorption of curcumin in spite of the fact that one pharmacologist has come up with dire caculations on bioavailability (
http://scienceblogs.com/terrasig/200...part_two_1.php)
On the optimistic side is the decision of MD Anderson Cancer Center to undertake clinical trials, although they use the high dosage route to try overcome the lousy absorption. I think they believe that long term supplementation with high doses will cause a small accumulation in the body.It remains to be seen if this will be enough to be therapeutic.
But I assume that they must have made some assessment on the merits of curcumin before starting trials
An other possible positive aspect is a remark by an experimenter trying to reconcile the observed benefits of curcumin for various ailments with the poor bioavailability: he speculated that there maybe some effective curcumin metabolites not yet identified or studied whose absorption might be better that that of curcumin.
On the caution side: curcumin is counterindicated by some oncs in the case of patients taking the Cytoxan (cyclophosphamide) chemo.
An other even less well defined point is the experimental observation that curcumin operates as an antioxidant at low doses (& as an oxidant at high doses). Since absorption is poor this may mean that curcumin may decrease the efficacy of those chemo drugs (such as Cytoxan) which use oxidation as a mode of action.
Hybrid Mode
