Turmeric and Curcumin: Real but Modest, Barely Absorbed, and Not Harmless

Summary

Curcumin (the active compound in turmeric) has a genuine anti-inflammatory mechanism and modest-but-real trial evidence — most credibly for knee osteoarthritis pain, where it beats placebo and runs roughly comparable to NSAIDs in some head-to-head trials with fewer gut side effects — but the "miracle anti-inflammatory cure-all" framing massively overshoots the data: raw curcumin is barely absorbed (you need piperine or an enhanced-absorption formulation for anything to reach the blood), most trials are small and industry-linked, the broad "improves everything" claims rest on low-certainty evid