The study investigated whether curcumin could be allosterically used to modulate HIV-1 (HIV-1P) and HIV-2 protease (HIV-2P) activity and (in vitro). They say that curcumin is a “modest inhibitor” of HIV protease but that complexing boron with curcumin increases inhibition by almost 10 fold.
Curcumin was complexed with boron in a variety of ways (see diagram) and each complex’s inhibitory activity was monitored. The researchers also investigated whether boron effects HIV-1P independently from curcumin and the results show that HIV-1P activity was not modulated.
So the article that we read in class last week advocated curcumin because it is all- natural. In the study that I just described the researchers acknowledge that curcumin’s activity is “modest” yet the “Spicing” study makes it seem as if curcumin in its natural form is a significant inhibitor. Clearly, in the study above curcumin is modified so the “spicing” authors (I think) poorly explicated the cited results and should have mentioned synthetic modifications of curcumin that may yield potential therapeutic benefits.
So, I would agree that Spicing up authors may have overhyped curcumin in some cases but I do think that curcumin consumption is a great herb that has a variety of useful purposes.
Sui, Z., Salto, R., Li, J., Craik, C., & Ortiz, . M. P. R. (January 01, 1993). Inhibition of the HIV-1 and HIV-2 proteases by curcumin and curcumin boron complexes. Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry, 1, 6, 415-22
I also found an interesting study conducted by UCLA on the benefits of taking curcumin will decrease the amyloid pathology in patients with AD. Also, this paper shows anti inflammatory responses in patients with AD. However, this was conducted using an animal study, but the paper does say they are currently testing the effectiveness on patients with AD. Will be interesting to see how effective curcumin will be overall in terms of an effective anti inflammatory.
ReplyDeletehttp://alzheimer.neurology.ucla.edu/pubs/RingmanCurc2005MedChem.pdf
Dustin that's interesting! I hope that in addition to doing human trials, researchers should be mindful of what dosages yield said results. It was made abundantly clear during our discussion of the spicing up article that curcumin can yield different outcomes.
ReplyDeleteCurcumin and other tumeric components so far seem to have the potential to act as potential positive types of therapies, but until we find out what dosages yield desired results, I think we should hold off on thinking of it as a primary type of therapy.