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09.01.2018

Curcumin enhances the effect of running on muscle cells

Intensive exercise makes your muscle cells function at a higher level. They will repair themselves better and protect themselves better against damage, generate more energy and absorb more glucose from the blood. Supplementation with a large dose of curcumin enhances these effects, researchers at the University of Firat in Turkey discovered. The researchers experimented with rats, not with people.

Study
The researchers experimented with 4 groups of rats for 6 weeks. Rats in the control-control group did nothing and received standard feed, rats in the curcumin group received the curcumin-application CurcuWin every day for 6 weeks. The human equivalent of the dose used by the researchers is about 1000-1250 milligrams per day.

The rats in the exercise group ran 45 minutes a week on a treadmill at a spicy pace, and received standard feed. The rats in the exercise + curcumin group ran on a treadmill, and were given curcumin.

Sponsor
CurcuWin is made by OmniActive Health Technologies. [omniactives.com] That company paid the research.

Results
After 6 weeks, the researchers had the rats running on a treadmill after 6 weeks until exhaustion. They discovered that the animals in the exercise + curcumin group had the greatest stamina.

Supplementation with curcumin reduced the concentration of glucose and lactic acid in the blood, the researchers discovered. This already gives an indication of how curcumin might work, but the researchers found more precise information when they looked at molecular changes in rats' muscle cells. Curcumin had increased the production of a number of signaling molecules that play a prominent role in adaptation processes in active muscle tissue.

In trained muscle tissue, muscle cells produce less of the inflammatory factor NF-kappaB. As a result of this decrease, muscle cells break down less quickly and are more sensitive to insuline. Curcumin enlarged this decrease.

SIRT1 makes cells to repair themselves, PGC-1-alpha pushes cells to produce more mitochondria, allowing them to convert more nutrients into energy. Because of the supplementation with curcumin, the trained rats started to produce an extra large amount of both molecules.

GLUT4 is a molecule that enables cells to take up glucose. Once again the trained rats had started to produce an extra large amount of that molecule through supplementation with curcumin.

Conclusion
"In summary, the combination of exercise and curcumin with a unique water-soluble formulation may accelerate mitochondrial biogenesis in the skeletal muscle and regulate the NF-kappaB, Nrf2, SIRT1, and PGC-1-alpha pathways", the researchers wrote. "Curcumin's protective effects are significant for cholesterol metabolism, improved antioxidant status, and reduction of oxidative stress metabolites."

Source:
J Inflamm Res. 2016 Aug 29;9:147-54.

More:
Hefty dose of curcumin boosts effect of training on muscles 14.01.2016
Curcumin supplementation: more glycogen, less lactic acid, more stamina, more strength 14.05.2015
Curcumin boosts testosterone level 27.03.2014

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