Background

Curcumin is the main active ingredient in the turmeric plant and is extracted from the root of the plant.
Curcumin belongs to the curcumonoid family, which are pigments from the polyphenol family that give turmeric its characteristic orange and yellow hues.
Curcumin is the most important antioxidant in the turmeric plant and thousands of scientific studies have shown its effectiveness for a variety of different health conditions.
It is known to the general public mainly as a powerful anti-inflammatory, but many studies have also found a beneficial effect on blood lipid levels, anti-cancer activity, reducing the risk of heart disease, and more as described below.

 

Curcumin Consumption - Prime Issues To Consider 

There are three prime issues to consider if you want to enjoy the many health benefits of curcumin:

1. The concentration of curcumin in the turmeric plant is very low, only about 5%.

2. The absorption of curcumin through the intestine is very limited and therefore its bioavailability is very low.

3. The "incentive" of the curcumin manufacturers and the sub-suppliers of the raw materials, to fake and dilute the original raw material with other cheap materials.

 

Low Concentration of curcumin in the turmeric plant
In some of the studies done on animals, it even turned out that only 1% of the curcumin was absorbed from the digestive system into the bloodstream and the rest was excreted in the feces.
For these reasons it is not possible to consume proper amounts of curcumin by using turmeric spice or fresh turmeric root which is found in almost every home today.
This problem led to the development of technological methods that make it possible to extract from the turmeric root a very high concentration of 95% curcumin instead of the aforementioned 5%. This raw material is called curcumin 95% and it is the one found in most of the various curcumin supplements.

 

Limited absorption of curcumin through the intestine
Various technologies have been developed to improve the low absorption. Simplest and most popular is the addition of Piperine. "Concomitant administration of piperine 20 mg produced much higher concentrations from 0.25 to 1 h post drug (P < 0.01 at 0.25 and 0.5 h; P < 0.001 at 1 h), the increase in bioavailability was 2000%".

Considering that "Black pepper (P. nigrum L.) contained a piperine concentration range of 2,531–8,073 mg/100 g, with a mean concentration of 4,418 ± 946 mg/100 g", you will need about 1-2 g of black pepper to get your 20+ mg of piperine to improve the bioavailability of your curcumin intake.

 

Faking/diluting the original raw material
The most sophisticated and common forgery is the addition of synthetic curcumin produced from the remains of petrochemical fuels.
The use of synthetic curcumin was documented for the first time starting in 2010 when the global demand for curcumin increased at once by hundreds and even thousands of percent and there was a great shortage in the supply of natural curcumin.
Synthetic curcumin is significantly cheaper to produce, compared to extracting natural curcumin from the root itself, and is therefore a source of economic attraction for counterfeiters.
To illustrate: in 2017, the raw material price of natural curcumin was about $150 per kg, while synthetic curcumin was sold at a price of about $50 per kg. 3x profit for producers.
It is important to explain:
The regulation and standards do not differentiate between natural curcumin and synthetic curcumin, therefore there is no reporting obligation or obligation to indicate on the label whether the curcumin is of natural or synthetic origin.
The fraud is when a manufacturer or consumer is supplied with a curcumin supplement when the customer is sure that he is consuming the natural molecule extracted from the turmeric root and does not imagine that his curcumin was extracted from oil and there was never a connection between his curcumin and the turmeric plant.
Is synthetic curcumin dangerous?
The American FDA issued a statement that there is no similarity between synthetic curcumin and natural curcumin (which is extracted from the turmeric root) and that there is no information regarding its safety and effectiveness of the synthetic curcumin.
A guiding document published by the FDA in 2016, says that a synthetic copy of a molecule found in the plant world is prohibited for use as part of nutritional supplements.
The FDA also writes (see on page 38) that a synthetic molecule produced in a laboratory, even if its structure is the same as a natural molecule, but it was never part of any plant or fungus, cannot be considered a nutritional ingredient. 

Bottomline for this herbal purity issue - buy your curcumin 95 from trusted sources that provide some evidence to the source of their product.