If I have said it once, I have said it multiple times: everyone should be taking Vitamin D3 and Vitamin K2. These two nutrients alone can protect you against the two major causes of disease and death- cancer and cardiovascular disease.
Today I am adding a third nutrient that provides even more protection to Vitamins D and K. This nutrient comes from the spice TURMERIC and is called CURCUMIN.
Inflammation is the mechanism by which most diseases injure us. The link between obesity and diabetes, the world’s greatest epidemic disorders, is inflammation. Fat cells generate inflammatory cytokines which trigger a pathologic cascade that affects our bodies’ ability to metabolize sugars, fats and proteins. Curcumin is a powerful anti-inflammatory substance capable of blocking diabetes and its myriad sequelae.
CURCUMIN:
1) Enhances control of your blood sugar
2) Increases insulin sensitivity
3) Reduces inflammation at the cellular level
4) Restores balance to the multiple systems of the body ravaged by diabetes
5) Reduces blood pressure and restores endothelial function to blood vessels injured by diabetes
6) Increases insulin receptors on cell membranes- thereby improving insulin binding capacity and restoring both to normal levels in diabetics
7) Blocks the formation of advanced glycation end-products (AGE’s) which have tissue-damaging effects such as diabetic retinopathy, blindness and cataracts
8) Normalizes out-of-control lipid profiles- in diabetics, it lowered total cholesterol by 21%, LDL by 43%, but increased the good HDL cholesterol by 50%
9) Inhibits platelet clumping that can cause heart attacks and strokes
10) Prevents diet-induced fatty liver
11) Prevents and reverses diabetic neuropathy and also encephalopathy which effects memory and cognition
12) Prevents obesity by reducing the blood supply of fat cells, thus inhibiting their growth
13) Reverses cancer
Seeing all these actions of curcumin makes it obvious why I consider this natural product of spice the third essential nutrient we should all be taking.
Reference: Goepp, J. “Combating the “Diabesity” Epidemic” in Life Extension, August 2010, pp.39-48.
Curcumin is poorly absorbed unless it is enhanced. A good source is Cardiovascular Research’s C3 Complex, the brand we use at the Center.
Email orders@coem.com if you would like to order it.
To your health,
Allan Lieberman, M.D., F.A.A.E.M.
Medical Director,
The Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine