Curcumin

[Hepatitis Researcher]

Curcumin is an available substance that has serious potential to prevent or treat liver fibrosis. Oral administration in humans suffer from the limited bioavailibility of regular curcumin preparations. Combinations with biopterin have been shown to enhance curcumin absorption, but only to a limited degree. New curcumin formulations have appeared on the supplement market that claim a very substantially enhanced absorption/bioavailibility. I have not yet found proof of these claims in the peer reviiewed literature, which however does not necessarily mean that this claims have no merit.
Curcumin is a substance that is worth discussing with your treating hepatologist. Not during tx, since it has a clear antiinflammatory effectiveness/mechanism that is likely to counteract some of the immunestimulating effects of IFN. Below are two examples of recent abstracts re its antifibrotic potential.

[Hepatitis Researcher]

That " liver warning" does not sound too dangerous. I am carefully monitoring the literature and meeting posters/presentations not only for effectiveness, but also potential toxicity. Studies in human volunteeers with extremely high doses of curcumin have to date not shown any toxicity within the parameters examined. Two aspects should be kept  in mind:
1. Turmeric might have some more toxic compounds in them than purified curcumin, a chemically well defined substance. While the plant might have additional positive effects from the combined use of its ingredients, it might also contain hidden/limiting  toxicities.
2. All relevant studies have been done with the purified compound.

3. One should start the use of it slowly increasing  and follow the LFTs. This would give early warning re potential neg effects. The end dose should probably be in the range of 1000mg for the new bioavailable formulations, but that is just an educated guess.

[Hepatitis Researcher]

What you have is the older version , where biopterin is used to improve availibility. This yields about 1.5 times the absorption compared to  regular curcumin. This has been published. The latest version however claims to have 6 times better bioavailibility ( GI absorption) and some data of actual studies ( not published  thus far, to my knowledge) were shown to confirm this claim. If true, the effectiveness would be greatly enhanced.

evangelin : The NAC/VitC and ALA will provide/ensure production of      plenty of glutathione.

[CockSparrow]

I didnt think it sounded that bad either, but it must have been included for a reason.
Go easy with the Tumeric it is then.

The follow LFTs seems like a good idea when taking anything, apart from that gives me an excuse to do a little more of the monitor thing, which I am a bit slack on lately

Thanks
CS

[copyman]

hey thanks for continuing to share your knowledge. so would this be something to add to the other sups that you suggested on an earlier post? if you were stage 1 on bx and had to pick just a few of the sups to take what would you suggest?  i'm not into taking a bunch of pills but would like to take just a few with the most benefit. thanks again

[CockSparrow]

One other thing.
Is there any evidence for improved SVR rates when taking AntiOxidents/AntiFibrotics (or anything else for that matter) before TX.

CS

[Hepatitis Researcher]

The PPC is the only hepatoprotective/antifibrotic  substance which has been evaluated together with IFN and it has interestingly  improved SVR rates, as posted earlier. It is impossible to predict how strong acting antiinflammatory substances like Curcumin and Resveratrol would impact SVR rates. We have to assume that activation of the innate/adaptive system during SOC depends partly on ancient primitive proinflammatory pathways.

Taking these before Tx should not influence SVRs either way, but there is no way to be sure about that.

Copy: Curcumin and Resveratrol are like the top of the antifibrotic pyramid. I have described the base before. It is a combination of reduced injury, improved hepatocellular response/defense to injury, and then the multiple deactivation of the stellate cell activation pathway that underlies almost all fibrosis production. All that can be done with safe measures and carefully selected GRAS substances, that is the strength of it.